Wolf’s Head Volume 9 in trade paperback format Worldwide (first-time ever)!

Now available in trade paperback around the world is WOLF’S HEAD Volume 9! I’m so happy to have this volume published. Part of that is simple: I love sharing my work and having it in physical form is always cool. Plus this volume pays a lot of stuff off. In some ways much of what was set up early on in the series comes to a head here. What do I mean? Well, you’ll have to read it, of course. Something, I hasten to add, you can always do for free on the Internet Archive! And if you are brand new to the series, please visit the dedicated landing page that hopefully has all the information you might need!

As I previously noted, the first eight WOLF’S HEAD trade paperbacks are back in print in new editions, but with today’s release of Volume 9 (collecting issues 17 and 18 of the ongoing digital series) we are on brand new ground! As always, this is a full colour edition and is 60 pages in length. Desperate and on the run with a newborn AI as well as her dog, Lauren Greene must risk everything by trusting a dubious ally to escape relentless pursuers. In a snowy ghost town, Lauren’s daring plan brings her, her unlikely friends, and a ruthless ARPC agent into a final showdown — where one gamble could end the pursuit forever.

Volume 9, as well as all of the other volumes in this series, are available in better bookstores and comic shops worldwide (and for why I say “better,” please read this commentary). Volume 9’s ISBN is 978-1-989885-31-4. If you don’t see it at your local store, then you can easily order it using that ISBN. Additionally, it is already starting to show up at various online retailers, too. For example:

• Amazon.com
• Amazon.ca
• Canadian Independent Bookstores (via BookManager)
• Amazon.co.uk
• Barnes & Noble
• Bookshop.org (and IndieBound)
• And on and on! Germany? You bet! What about Waterstones? Definitely! Again, you may need to ask your local bookstore and comic shop, but it is easily available everywhere!

As always, remember that I can’t control exactly when and where this volume will become available, but hopefully the above links are a good start. Be patient and don’t be afraid to ask your retailer for help! Volume 10 will be released later on this year.

There is a dedicated website for WOLF’S HEAD at https://wolfs-head.vonallan.com/p/wolfs-head-landing-page.html with all kinds of additional information!

The Elevator Pitch

Desperate and on the run, Lauren Greene knows she can’t outrun the villains hunting her forever. With her loyal dog and a young, sentient AI in tow, Lauren faces an impossible choice: risk her friends’ safety by asking for help, or face her relentless pursuers alone. As danger closes in, she’s forced to trust a dubious ally — setting in motion a daring plan that could end the chase once and for all.

Meanwhile, Jeremy Hamilton, the brilliant yet tormented CEO of ARPC, is haunted by the secret that he somehow created the AI now in Lauren’s care — though even he doesn’t fully understand how. Desperate to regain control of his mysterious creation, Jeremy commands his most trusted enforcer, Richard Blairstone, whose fractured mind and ruthless determination make him a relentless force on the ground. Super Bob Sanchez, caught between the law and a truckload of stolen cargo, is drawn into Lauren’s desperate gambit as the stakes skyrocket.

In a snowy ghost town, Lauren and her unlikely allies face off against Richard and ARPC’s relentless pursuit. With Jeremy pulling strings from afar, Lauren must outwit her powerful enemies to survive. As the clock ticks down, her gamble will decide not only her future, but the fate of the extraordinary being she’s sworn to protect. Will her plan succeed, or will darkness claim them all?

The WOLF'S HEAD Trade Paperback Series

Below is a listing of all the volumes of the series so far! If you click on the cover, it will bring you to a dedicated page for that volume on the WOLF’S HEAD subdomain. Again, most online retailers regularly stock and carry WOLF'S HEAD. However, occassionaly there are hiccups with this from time to time (typically because the retailer has had a little rush on sales!). So, if you were shopping on Amazon (for example) and discovered that a particular volume is out of stock, there are many alternatives. These include Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, Indigo, McNally Robinson, The American Book Center, Waterstones, and so on.

           

           

Read for Free

As many of you know, I’ve also begun serializing the comic book series for free on the Internet Archive (https://www.archive.org) as part of my “Pirate Von” initiative. As I mentioned above, WOLF’S HEAD Volume 9 consists of issues 17 and 18 of the ongoing series. While you can find the links to both on the Internet Archive as well as the “Pirate Von” section of this very website, to make it easier the links to both issues 17 and 18 are below.

Remember! If you enjoy them and would like a physical copy, you can purchase Volume 9 in stores — both online and off — around the world!

   

   

TEASER FOR WOLF’S HEAD Volume 9

And here’s a little teaser image to help cement the idea. Two digital comics inside one trade paperback volume!

Other Links

• Overview of my Comics: http://www.vonallan.com/p/comics.html

• Wolf’s Head (My Ongoing Comic Book Series): https://wolfs-head.vonallan.com/p/wolfs-head-landing-page.html

• Von Allan Studio Shop Page: http://www.vonallan.com/p/von-allan-studio-shop.html

• RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Von_Allan_Homepage

• An explanation for why you never saw WOLF’S HEAD in Diamond's PREVIEWS: https://www.vonallan.com/2025/01/Diamond-Comic-Distributors-Wolfs-Head-and-Me.html

Sir Andrew and the Flying Bird Monster

This is a little bit different than art I’ve posted before, so I’ll just take a minute to explain it. This is a short story, but a short story I wrote and drew when I was about 9 years old. Now, as I’ve told many an interviewer over the years, I didn’t draw much as a kid. I simply didn’t. But! Like pretty much all kids, I did draw and the story below is a great example of it.

It’s also a bit of a lucky story. Why? Well, I grew up pretty poor and all kinds of things were lost when my mom died when I was twenty years old. All kinds of school books, toys, and whatnot were unceremoniously discarded just after that. I kept what I could, but I had very little space and very little money. That meant that hard decisions had to be made. This little story was something I wanted to keep and I did so, but I can’t really tell you why. I just did.

Now, this story, in its original form, is badly deteriorating. These were drawn and lettered in pencil (for the most part — see below) on what I think is tracing paper. I might be cheap newsprint, though it’s hard to tell. Overall, the paper measures 24 inches by 18 inches. It’s been folded repeatedly, probably right back to when I first carried it to school, and is tattered in places. It also a few weird holes in it; these almost look like burn marks, but I probably spilled something on it and the paper deteriorated in those spots.

I also drew the story on both sides. That’s important, because it means that scanning it is tricky; there’s bleed-through from the other side of the paper that “leaks” into what I’m actually trying to scan. On top of it, at some point I went in and coloured one panel, number 6, with markers. That created all kinds of additional problems, but the main one is that these colours bled right through the paper into panel 2 and even a part of panel 1 on the other side. I simply could not get an accurate scan, which really affected the monster’s head in panel 2. I wound up having to do a bit of creative work, copying part of the head from another panel and digitally pasting it into panel 2.

Since this paper has travelled with me for many decades now, it’s somewhat remarkable that it’s survived at all, even given all of the above caveats. But I was getting worried that eventually the pencils might just disappear, so I finally decided to do the best scans I could given the condition of the paper I had to work with. Scanning was one helluva challenge; I used every trick I could, but I kept coming up against the same main issue: to make the pencils dark enough to see (and read!), too many “artifacts” were coming through. These are folds, tears, rips, smudges, and so on. To try to present it in a readable form, I basically created multiple versions of the scans, finally creating a digital approximation of my original pencils. As a result, the first two panels were very tricky to reconstruct, so apologies for some of the odd shadowing and other artifacts despite my best efforts. Is the whole thing perfect? Nope! Is it about the best approximation I can do of what the panels look like to the eye? Yup!

So why share this at all? This is kid’s art, right? It absolutely is. I’ve never had a problem showing my rough art and I certainly don’t have a problem with showing my “kid art.” I also like the spirit of this little story. While I wasn’t playing Dungeons & Dragons at this point, I do remember that my mom had scrounged up some cash and had purchased for me a copy of THE OFFICIAL ADVANCED DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS COLORING ALBUM (illustrated by Greg Irons and written by Gary Gygax, published by Troubador Press in 1979) as well as a few of those early FIGHTING FANTASY gamebooks that came out beginning in 1982. I can see these books as little influences, mixed in with my own sensibilities, something that hasn’t changed all that much to this day.

I also thought my “kid art” was a good example of something Betty Edwards mentioned in her legendary book DRAWING ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE BRAIN (pages 62 and 63 of my copy). Namely:

“The majority of adults in the Western World do not progress in art skills much beyond the level of development they reached at age nine or ten. In most mental and physical activities, individuals’ skills change and develop as they grow to adulthood: speech is one example, handwriting another. The development of drawing skills, however, seems to halt unaccountably at an early age for most people. In our culture, children, of course, draw like children, but most adults also draw like children no matter what level they may have achieved in other areas of life…

… If we were to attach a label to this disability in the way that educators have attached the label dyslexia to reading problems, we might call the problem dyspictoria or dysartistica or some such term. But no one has done so because drawing is not a vital skill for survival in our culture, whereas speech and reading are. Therefore, hardly anyone seems to notice that many adults draw childlike drawings and many children give up drawing at age nine or ten. These children grow up to become the adults who say that they never could draw and can’t even draw a straight line. The same adults, however, if questioned, often say that they would have liked to learn to draw well, just for their own satisfaction at solving the drawing problems that plagued them as children. But they feel that they had to stop drawing because they simply couldn’t learn how to draw.”

That, to be clear, was me. I had very little confidence as a kid. Very little self-esteem. And while I can’t remember a specific incident that made me stop drawing, I do remember being frustrated that my drawings weren’t turning out the way I wanted them to. It was immensely discouraging, especially because I loved comics but I couldn’t make my art “look like that.” So I gave it all up and stopped drawing completely. And it would take me over 15 years to find my way back to drawing, speed bumps and all. In a sense, I kinda look at these panels as a bit of a poignant “what if.” But I also look at them with a sense of astonishment: never say never! The 9 year old me would be astounded by what I (he?) can do now. I doubt that “he” would even believe it!

In a sense, that’s one of the wonders of art. It’s never too late for anyone to draw, to write, play music, or whatever. Even if you think you can’t, it’s never too late to try. Never too late to learn new things. Is it hard? Yup, it absolutely is. I’m not gonna lie about that. But it’s also incredibly rewarding and I’ll always be indebted to Betty Edwards for helping me see that.

Von Allan Graphic Novels for the Holiday Season

With the holidays fast approaching, I thought I should do a quick post regarding my comics and graphic novels. If you are looking for a gift for friends and family or even for yourself, my comics and graphic novels do make lovely treats! For those who are relatively new to my work, the following serves as a quick breakdown of my work.

Key Information

As most people reading this know, my main longform comics project is WOLF’S HEAD, an action-adventure comic book series with a dash of sci-fi, crime, and mystery thrown in for good measure.

WOLF’S HEAD is certainly not alone, though, and both my earlier black and white two volume graphic novel series STARGAZER as well as the hardcover short story collection LOVE, LAUGHTER, AND LOSS: A COMICS COLLECTION.

Buying Von Allan’s Graphic Novels

All of my graphic novels are widely available all over the world. That said, I am a small press creator so book shops and comic book stores often don’t stock my work in depth. I wish that wasn’t the case, but it is.¹ In other words, you are almost certainly going to have to ask your local retailer for a copy. If they don’t currently have a copy in, then it’s super easy for them to order a copy for you. It really really is.

Fortunately for a creator like me, the world of online retail has dramatically changed the distribution side of things since the early days of the Direct Market. Back then a creator and/or publisher really needed comic book shops onside to reach an audience. Nowadays, with the rise of the internet, everything has changed.


There are so many online options that I can’t possibly list them all, but here are a few to get started:

• In the United States: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Powell’s Books, Bookshop.org, and so on!
  
  

• In England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales: Amazon.co.uk, Waterstones, The Portobello Bookshop, and so on!
  
  

• In Europe: Amazon.de, Amazon.es, , and so on!
  
  

• In Asia: Amazon.co.jp, DangDang.com, and so! American Book Center
  
  

• Online: AbeBooks, Alibris, Biblio — While many think that these stores only sell used books, that is actually not true. Each of these platforms are actually book marketplaces, so you can find stores that carry new books as well as used.
  
  

• In Canada: For Canadians, it’s a little trickier. Currently I’m having a great deal of difficulty with Amazon.ca as well as Indigo. The former is apparently refusing to regularly stock my work, which is not the case for Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk. I don’t understand why this is, but I know that it is. Indigo is stocking some of my work, but only the first four volumes of WOLF’S HEAD. I have no idea why this is, either, but this is fairly typical for an independent artist like me.

  
  
  So, for Canadians, what to do? The best option is to order through an independent Canadian bookstore. That way you can order Volume 8 and support an indy bookshop at the same time. Most of these indy stores use a Point-of-Sale system called BookManager. That program also doubles as a quasi “Books in Print” database. In other words, they will be able to order it for you very easily. I realize that this is not ideal, but it is what it is right now. Hopefully this will change in the not too distant future.

More About Love, Laughter, and Loss

This is a premium hardcover edition with beautiful printing, collecting nine of my short stories (including the currently out of print WIZARDS FOR HIRE — CHEAP! Collection that you can read online for free here). Please visit https://www.vonallan.com/2021/05/Love-Laughter-Loss-Comics-Collection-by-Von-Allan.html for more information about the book!

More About Stargazer

STARGAZER is a two volume all-ages graphic novel series featuring three young girls who find themselves transported to a completely different planet! There’s a dedicated website at https://stargazer.vonallan.com/. And I also received my favourite piece of fan mail ever for STARGAZER. This from a young girl in Florida who loved the series and wanted to tell me!

More about Wolf’s Head

WHICH VOLUME DO I START WITH?

Since WOLF’S HEAD is a multi-volume graphic novel, it can be a little daunting to start right from the beginning with volume 1. Fortunately, you don’t have to do that if you don’t want to! I strive to ensure that my work is approachable no matter what volume someone starts reading at.

           

           

           

           

STORY ARCS

Even better, the series is organized into so-called “story arcs” to make this even easier. The graphics below explain that clearly:

In other words, you can start reading at any volume or, if you really want to start at the beginning of a new story arc, then volumes 1, 4, 6, or 8 is the way to go! See? Easy!

REVIEWS!

The Slings & Arrows Graphic Novel Guide noted the following on their Facebook page about the series, “We can’t understand how Wolf’s Head by Von Allan Studio slips so low on the public radar. It’s an intelligent, well-drawn character-based crime story with an appealing lead, and a creative touch of quirkiness. Six volumes out to date revealing the strange path Lauren Greene’s life has taken since quitting the police.”

And Frank Plowright, writing on the same website, noted the following about both Volume 6 and the series overall: “Try Wolf’s Head and become captivated.”

That is one of the best things anyone has ever said about my work!

WHAT IF YOU’RE ALREADY A REGULAR READER?

If you’re reading the series in digital format, either in the original ComiXology/Kindle versions or now over on the Internet Archive, and you would like to support me, please do consider purchasing physical copies. That really does help!

The other thing you can do is simple: tell people about the series! Share the love! Do you know someone who likes comics but has never heard of me or my work? TELL them!

ANYTHING ELSE?

Please do consider reviewing any of the volumes you’ve bought. You usually can do that on any online platform (like Amazon), but there are many review sites out there that you can also post reviews to. Sites like GoodReads definitely help. Even a short review, a sentence or two, helps!

Lastly

For those who have read and loved my work as well as those who are trying my work for the first time, thank you!

All my best to you and yours for the holidays!

1  For those wondering, the comic book store side of things has been especially difficult. For some thoughts on why, please read this: https://www.vonallan.com/2025/01/Diamond-Comic-Distributors-Wolfs-Head-and-Me.html. This situation was made worse by Diamond’s bankruptcy and the ongoing changes to the so-called “Direct Market” (the comic book store “channel” when it comes to distribution). It doesn’t help that so much of what counts for comics “journalism” is pretty weak, as recently detailed on the Four Color Sinners blog. In the interest of full disclosure, the blog’s author Mr. Four Color Sinners himself shares excerpts from a conversation we had and then discusses it. That lead to a fairly robust exchange in the comments that are worth a read. Hell, even I pop up there, too!