A few years ago I submitted the following pages along with a story proposal (titled “The Impossibles” to a publisher of some renown, but the pitch was sadly rejected. I sat on it for a bit, but I liked it enough that I wound up re-purposing a good chunk the story proposal for what would eventually become my ongoing comic book series “Wolf’s Head.”
While I was prepping for a recent art/craft show, I came across the pages and thought they’d be fun to post here. Sadly it’s not a complete story and ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, but if you don’t mind that you might get a kick out of it. And who knows… maybe one day I’ll revisit “The Impossibles” again. One thing I’ve learned with art: never say never!
Oh! Some of you might recognize page 1. What I just said about re-purposing story and art? Well, I took that page and used a tweaked version of it for the cover of my short story collection “Stories! 2015 to 2019” which you can read for free right here.
I’ve pleased to announce that WOLF’S HEAD 18 is now available worldwide on Amazon’s Kindle platform. Now, if you’re asking yourself if this issue was later than normal, you would be right! The last number of months have been difficult to say the least and a lot of things went on the backburner. The big one was, of course, the death of my oldest friend Dave. In fact, this issue is dedicated to him. He had read quite a bit of WOLF’S HEAD and really enjoyed it. It was actually harder than I thought it would be to complete this issue, mainly because I know that he isn’t around to read it. So it goes and all that, but I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t thinking of him quite a bit while I was working away on this issue.
There have been a number of other events that compounded with Dave’s death to really slow things down. That said, things are back on track now and I’m very pleased to get back to WOLF’S HEAD, a series that I adore. One of the things that I love about serialized storytelling (as opposed to working on a “beginning-middle-end” stand-alone graphic novel) is that the story takes one in unexpected directions. Back when I was working on the early issues of the series, I never thought that Lauren, SankÅ, and their friend the AI would have some of the adventures they’ve wound up having. That some of these events have surprised even me is pretty cool. I think (well, hope, anyway!) that this helps keep you (dear reader!) a little unsure of where things are going, too. That really is part of the fun of doing a series, regardless of its form. Back when I was working on those early issues, did I ever expect Lauren to be in Alaska and have the adventures she had there? Nope! Did I know about her road trip back down south, with her wonderful VW van and all of the rest? Nope! Did I know about the characters she’d meet along the way? Chuck Freight, Foolbert Bong, Fang Ting Him, Maggie Vraic, and all the rest? Nope! And did I know that Richard Blairstone, a bit of a “throwaway flunky” back in those early issues, would become the “heavy” he has? Nope!
Finding joy and being surprised in unexpected turns of events is amazing! It really is! I hope you find that, too, and with that in mind I’ll ask you this: if you enjoy WOLF’S HEAD, if you love it, please help spread the word about it. Review it! Tell your friends and family about it! Talk it up! Write me a letter telling me what you love and — gulp! — what you don’t! If you’re receiving this update via email as a subscriber, forward that to people you think might like the series and my work. Partner with me and help get the word out!
Folks, don’t forget this very handy tip: if you are shopping from somewhere other than the United States, simply replace the amazon.com part of that link with your preferred domain. For example, in Germany the “dot com” becomes “dot de” — therefore, the series can be found at https://www.amazon.de/dp/B08MTGCS49. Nice and easy, eh?!
Before I forget, here’s the trailer I did for the first hardcover edition of the series, collecting the first six issues. This book is beautiful to hold and early reviews have been very positive! This one, for example! There are many ways to engage with the series, but there’s something about holding the physical book in your hands that is pretty special.
Well, this is an unexpected treat! A treat so unexpected that I’m going to take a moment to explain it first.
I first wrote the following short story, titled “Sheba the Great!” back in 2004. Almost twenty years ago… the mind kinda boggles at that. Anyway, at the time — and as I’ve discussed in the past — my drawing skills were not that strong. As a result, I wound up deciding to not draw the story. Instead, I shelved the story and moved on to other projects. Fast forward to the spring of 2015. My drawing skills had really improved and, looking around for something to draw, I stumbled across my old short story from, at that point, a decade before. So I did! It was a fun project and turned out really well. I didn’t colour it, but I did pencil and ink it.
And then something kinda goofy happened. I was in the process of working on a number of short stories (you can see some of those here) and once I finished “Sheba,” I moved on to other things. Shortly after that, I wound up having a pretty spectacular computer crash. Now, I back up everything regularly and I try to keep some of my key art files off-site, too. When I restored everything, “Sheba” had disappeared! I remember being extremely frustrated, but I was faced with a quandary. “Sheba” was seventeen pages long. Did I really feel like re-drawing and re-inking the entire thing? I decided that the answer was a pretty firm “No.” Part of that was my frustration, of course, but I also really didn’t feel like going backwards and re-working something I had felt that I already completed. Moving on felt right. And so I did.
Since the past year was pretty chaotic (to say the least) and as the holiday season was approaching, I wound up going through a couple of old hardrives that I had thought had “given up the ghost.” I was able to partially get into one of them and (drum roll please!), I discovered that I did have a copy of “Sheba” after all! What a pleasant surprise!
Looking over my art and storytelling, I felt that the story and my approach to it held up pretty well, all things considered. I wound up having some spare time over the holidays, though, that gave me the perfect opportunity to finally complete it. I spent a little bit of time tweaking a few things here and there (‘cuz, you know, one never stops growing with art). And, of course, it had never been coloured so I needed to do that from scratch. Plus lettering the whole thing, too. I was able finish the entire thing just before New Year’s Eve. That just left it for my erstwhile editor to give the story a final pass and the official “go ahead.” That has now been done. And so, here we are!
“Sheba the Great!” is a light-hearted sci-fi comedy that was a great deal of fun to write and a blast to draw. And it’s probably the oddest story I’ve ever presented you, dear reader. Written in 2004, drawn in 2015, tweaked in late 2022, and finally coloured, lettered, and edited also in late 2022. In other words, different aspects of me, working together across time. Kinda weird, but kinda wonderful!
“Sheba” also wears its influences on its sleeves. In a way, “Sheba” is a love letter to certain stories that I grew up. It’s the best way I have to say thank you to creators like Pedro Henry, Steve Dillon, Harry Harrison, and so on.
I really hope you enjoy it!
Update! I’m very pleased that people are having fun with this story! To thank everyone and to give a bit of content back to the greater comics community, I’m releasing the story as a free download in .cbz format. Actually, I’m doing it in two versions: a low-resolution version and a high-resolution version and both are available through Dropbox. The low-resolution version is here and is about 20 megs in size. The high-resolution version is here and is about 75 megs in size. Oh, once you have downloaded either version, you’ll need a .cbz reader to actually read it. If you don’t have one, Wikipedia has some suggestions right here. As always, please be careful downloading anything that you’re not sure about. Please do your own research to find the one that best fits your needs.
So, there you have it! I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing and illustrating it! And don’t forget to visit the rest of my archives. There are a number of other short stories that you can read for free right here. And my long-form comics project, “Wolf’s Head,” will also be debuting as an ongoing webcomic very soon! If you’d like to keep up to date with all of my art and comics, you can sign up for my mailing list. Thanks!
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