Director Eric Ramos is adapting Jeff McComsey‘s graphic novel, American Terror: Confession of a Human Smart Bomb, for a short film release. They launched a Kickstarter in February that’s set to expire on March 30th, 2013 at 11:30 PM. The film is completed, but the group needs your help to fund post-production work such as color correction, sound design, an animated intro, and the musical score.
The short film will closely follow Volume 1 of Jeff McComsey’s graphic novel series. Victor Shepard, now an old man at the end of his life, lives in obscurity under a false identity. In his lonely solitude, he counts the days before he draws his last. The Rooster, the last of his comrades has passed. En route to his funeral, he is visited by the ghosts of his past, his memories of a life long gone. We then learn of his beginnings, before he became the father of a revolution that would forever alter the world.
Dude, straight up, this comic is pretty awesome. The pitch: A la The X-Men, every one in a million people will be blessed and cursed with a power that will develop in their awkward, pubescent teen years, but rather then popping claws or mastering magnetism or whatever-the-hell-it-is-Cable-does these kids get one specific power – to bring anything they imagine come to life through drawing. And just like that, you got a lovely set up for a meta story about comic book storytelling, the process of making comics itself, and disgruntled youth.
More to the point, The Creators inaugural issue focuses on Maya, a typical 16-year-old whose into fairy tales, art class, and whose begun showing signs that she’ll be gifted with this power and her parents as they react, quite reasonably, to balancing their new obligations of registering their daughter to the government which will ship her off to their Creator Academy and being loving parents.
FUBAR #2, Empire of the Rising Dead Stories by Jeff McComsey, Benjamin Truman, Shawn Aldridge, Rafer Roberts, Kevin Johnson, Steve Becker, Stephen Lindsay, Jennie Wood, Dominic Vivona, Mark Bertolini, Lonny Chant, Phil McClorey, Matt Kendzior, Kyle Kaczmarczyk, Michael Isenberg, Oliver Mertz, Michael McDermott, Jorge Vega, Timothy Zaprala, Jeff McClelland, Richard Meyers, Helaine Crawford, Eric Spohn, Ronald Montgomery, Mike Imboden
Art by Jonathan Moore, Jeff McComsey, Joe Dunn, Rafer Roberts, Kurt Belcher, Michael Bracco, Daniel Thollin, Jim McMunn, Dominic Vivona, Carl Yonder, Lonny Chant, Jason Copland, Steve Willhite, Rob Croonenborghs, Steve Becker, Jeremy Massie, Aluisio Cervelle Santos, Aluisio Cervelle Santos, Mario Wytch, Richard Meyers, Helaine Crawford, Eric Spohn, James Giar, Shamus McGuigan, Leonardo Pietro, Danilo Beyruth
Letters by Jeff McComsey, Shawn Aldridge, Michael Bracco, Jeff McClelland, Jason Meadows, Chris Horan, Phil McClorey, Rob Croonenborghs, Julie Shelton, Jason Arthur
FUBAR #2, Empire of the Rising Dead is a 200+ page, World War II with zombies, short story extravaganza. Whereas the first issue took place in the European theater, this issue takes place solely in the Pacific theater. It’s all here: Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, island hopping warfare, geishas, evil Japanese scientific experiments, shark attacks on stranded sailors, and Tuskegee. But, you know, with zombies.
Adam Wreck Written by Michael S. Bracco
Art by Michael S. Bracco Alterna Comics
Release Date: October 1, 2009
Cover Price: $9.99
Poor Adam Wreck. He is trapped on his parents’ spaceship on a so-called adventure in the cold, black, absolute nothingness of intergalactic space. His parents are the first Earthlings to invent a spacecraft capable of intergalactic travel. They’re on a mission to seek out new life and…yeah, yeah, we know the premise. Unfortunately for the space-faring nuclear family, their search has discovered no sign of alien life for two years — two long, dull, agonizing years. Just when young Adam is about to snap, his parents happen upon a Kalosian space pirate ship and are swept up into swashbuckling adventure filled with giant tentacle monsters, squishy planets, fishy spaceships, and invaluable treasure.
In Adam Wreck, Adam has no superpowers or special talents unless you consider amazingly fortunate luck to be a power “” and I do. He just stumbles his way through life-threatening situations and somehow lives to tell the tale. Just when Adam’s reservoir of good luck seems to run dry, he meets a treasure-hunting alien named Voric. The opportunistic ship captain, who was obviously inspired by Captain Jack Sparrow, has the means to help Adam rescue his parents from becoming a human-grade sashimi snack. Adam, in-turn, has information that Captain Voric desperately desires. An alliance, perhaps?
Hello, Do YOU Work Here? Compiled/Designed by Peter Simeti
Story by Various Submissions
Illustrations by Michael Oppenheimer, Kelly Williams, Michael nelson, John Shaver, John Bulmer, Tom Kelly, J. Rozen, Daniel Thollin, Brian Beardsley, John Bulmer, Jeff McComsey, Kelly Williams, Dave Arhar, Kevin Christensen, Bret M. Herholz, Chad Storhl, Steve Black, Michael S. Bracco, Oliver Kirby, Michael Czerniawski, Gary Goodrich, Dave Arhah, Jeremy Massie, Andi Papelitzky, Douglas Draper Jr.
Introduction by Alex Robinson Alterna Comics
Cover Price: $7.99
I spent the summer of 2002 working alone at a local 24-hour convenient store doing the 4pm to midnight shift. On one particularly brutal night my manager got in to relieve me about 10 minutes early.
“Just give me a minute,” she informed me, as she took out her cellphone, “I’m going to check in on my daughter.”
Maggie, my manager’s daughter, was maybe 16, 17 years old and went by the name, I’m not kidding: Magical. This is the side of the conversation that I heard:
Students of the Unusual™ comic cover used with permission of 3BoysProductions
The Mercuri Bros.™ comic cover used with permission of Prodigal Son Press