Last week we began a series of blogs spotlighting the talents behind Mega Comics Group starting with our fearless leader, El Marko. This week we hoped to bring you a bio on Freazie White, Jr. BUT ye ol’ Mega Minions did not manage to get all the data on Mr. White in time. However, be not afraid! We will get Freazie’s story in here soon. Even if we have to make it all up! ULP! Did we say that out loud!? NAH! We wouldn’t do that!  Regardless of the trend of Fake News these days, we here at Mega Comics Group will just give you cold, hard facts! Since most everyone running this gig is bigger than us that’s a lot safer! 😉

But wait! In the meanwhile, we have a few words on the Amateur Press Association known as Alpha Omega which is where this all began for Mark Poe and Freazie White Jr. So really we are indirectly continuing our series spotlighting the talents behind Mega Comics Group. So there! Nee-yah! 😛

Alpha-Omega

He can’t remember…
That’s what Mark Poe told us. He can’t remember where he heard about Alpha-Omega. But we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves. We should tell you what Alpha-Omega is. As we teased in our little introduction, AO is an amateur press association. What’s that? An APA is a group of people who produce individual pages or magazines that are sent to a Central Mailer for collation and distribution to all members of the group. 

APAs were a way for widely distributed groups of people to discuss a common interest together in a singleforum before the advent of electronic bulletin boards or the Internet. Many were founded in the 1930s andlater by fans of science fiction, comics, music, cinema and other topics as a way to develop writing, designand illustration skills. Many professional journalists, creative writers and artists practised in APA groupsand email mailing lists.

A Central Mailer (CM) (sometimes called a Distribution Manager or Official Editor) is the coordinator of anAPA. The heart of the role is the distribution of the association’s publication to its members. The CM manages the subscription lists and the deadlines to which the association works. The CM is usuallyresponsible for chasing members to ensure maximum participation although some APAs simplyaccumulate contributions between deadlines and mail out whatever is available at the mailing deadline.

Where the APA requires the submission of multiple copies by contributors, the CM merely collates the contributions. Some APAs involve the submission of camera ready copy; in such cases the CM arrangesthe reproduction of the material. Most APAs require the members to submit a minimum amount ofmaterial in a specified format to a specified number of mailings. This minimum activity (abbreviated to “minac“) is usually specified as something in the form of (for example): “at least two A4 pages to at least two out of every three mailings”. Most APAs also require each member to maintain a credit balance in a central funds account to cover common reproduction costs and postage.

In most APAs the CM provides an administrative report listing the contents of each mailing and any business information associated with the association. This can include financial accounts, membershipinformation and some news items. Although most APAs have predetermined deadlines at regular intervals it is normal practice for the CM to specify the next mailing deadlines explicitly in each mailing.

Although some APAs are autocratic, most run on a democratic basis and the CM usually chairs any discussions and arranges any management meetings.

Last week we gave you the low-down on Alpha-Omega and Comics APA’s in general. This is a follow up to that info. 

Alpha-Omega # 200

It began back in the 1980’s…

March 1985 to be exact.  Some of the initial members had been in other APA’s, buy many like Mark Poe, our resident publisher in training, had never been part of such a group. He had read lots of fanzines some of which gave the background of APAs, Amateur Press Associations. He says he can’t remember where he heard about Alpha-Omega but, most likely, it was either an article or ad in one of those fanzines. That was 33 years ago! Now with the next  A-O, due out in may, the APA celebrates it’s 200th Mailing Issue! A lot of APA’s only make it a few years or in some cases a few months before ceasing distribution for one reason or another. A few like Kappa-Alpha, which we told you about last week, go on for years. Alpha-Omega is in that class.

Following is a post by current Central Mailer Kevin Yong:

“Alpha-Omega #200: Calling All Former Members!

• Posted by Kevin Yong on February 14, 2018 at 3:00pm
• View Blog

Hi! As some of you may know, I’m not posting here online that often because so much of my time is involved offline with Alpha-Omega, the Christian Comic Arts Society’s long-running Christian comics APA (which stands for Amateur Press Association.) 

For those who don’t know what an APA is, there’s a Wikipedia article on the history of the concept. It’s basically a short-run, members-only fanzine that works sort of like a pre-internet equivalent of a private discussion forum, bulletin board and blog, printed out and shipped back and forth through regular postal mail. Each member of the APA produces their own mini-zine (called “contributions”, or “tribs” for short), mails their ‘trib to the group’s “Central Mailer”, who then collates and combines the individual ‘tribs into complete photocopied/stapled issues of the APA-zine which is then mailed back out to all participating members, who then are generally expected to review/critique/comment on each other’s work in the following issue. It’s a much slower paced (and given the cost of photocopies and postage, much more expensive) alternative to the free and instantaneous fellowship available through modern online forums and social media, but it tends to provide an outlet for a different set of creative muscles and provides a different style of feedback and fellowship.

So, if you’ve never heard of an APA before and would be interested in joining, you can talk to Ralph Miley (the current “Editor” of our APA, who coordinates stuff between members) or myself (the current “Central Mailer”, who physically assembles and mails each issue) to find out more.

However! This blog post isn’t specifically about recruiting new members. What I’m trying to do is spread the word to former alumni members of our group and let them know that the Alpha-Omega APAzine will be celebrating its 200th issue this year! Ralph and I are trying to contact and invite all our many alumni members to participate in this upcoming special anniversary issue!

(Additional Note: I originally wrote this post with former Alpha-Omega members in mind, but the invitation to participate is open to other friends and supporters of the Christian comics movement as well. Contact us if you’re interested!) – Kevin

And so, I hereby present: The official AO#200 participation Q&A!

Who are we looking for? If you’ve been a member of the Alpha-Omega APA at any point during our past 30+ years, we’d love to see you back in our pages for this anniversary special. We have been trying to reach out and contact former members via our last known contact info from back issues of A-O, but many of us have moved and/or changed email providers in the years since we first joined. That’s why I’m making a more public announcement here on the CCAS site, to get the word out more easily. (This invitation is also open to any other friends and supporters in the Christian comics movement who want to celebrate with us.)

Who to contact?  Ralph Miley is our main coordinator for this project. Kevin Yong is the Central Mailer who is compiling all the ‘tribs and will be formatting the book for print. If you don’t have our contact info already, drop me an email and we’ll follow up!

What’s the plan? Alpha-Omega #200 will be a special issue featuring content from our past and current members, as well as from friends and supporters within the Christian comics movement. We envision the book as a “best of” tribute to our past 33+ years of APAzine fellowship, and a celebration of both Christian comics and Christian comics fandom.

The book will be printed as a squarebound trade paperback using print-on-demand, and in addition to copies being printed for participants, the book will later be available for sale at Amazon.com to the general public. (Any money eventually raised from sales of the book will go back towards funding Alpha-Omega and the CCAS.)

Deadline? The 200th issue will be dated May/June 2018. The deadline for contributing for the issue will be May 7th, and the printed issue will be sent out (Lord willing) by late May.

Costs? As an all-volunteer APAzine, the costs of printing this issue will be paid for out of pocket by the participants. We estimate a printed copy will cost somewhere around $5, plus postage, depending on the final page count.

For those alumni who want to be a part of AO #200 but who don’t want to purchase a physical copy, we’ll work on creating a free digital PDF version to be available for all participants.

What we’re looking for. The length of your ‘trib is up to you. You can submit anything from a full length ‘trib to a single page of congratulatory artwork in the tradition of those Comic-Con “Souvenir Books”. Our theme for this issue is “Celebrating Christian Comics Fandom”.

Ideas for ‘tribs

• A “Best of” collection of your past Alpha-Omega content. Do you have essays, reviews, artwork or writing from your past time in A-O that you would like to see reprinted? Also, If you previously wrote content for the CCAS 25th Anniversary book, we can reprint your essays/memoirs from there as well!
• You can share your own personal memories or experiences with the Christian comics movement, or updates on what you have been involved with since you were last in AO. (But don’t forget that this book will have a wider audience than normal, so don’t go into more personal detail than you would be comfortable sharing on a public forum.)
• Feel free to share and promote your own work. Members of our group has produced a lot of content over the years, but much of it was in the form of small-press indie comics from the pre-internet era and so many of our comics may still be largely unknown to wider audiences. Let people know what you’ve worked on, and how to find it!
• Artwork in the “Congratulations on 200 issues!” tradition of those ubiquitous Comic-Con Souvenir Books. Artwork can feature your own characters, or if you want a “mascot” character for AO, you can do a tribute using The Golden Protector — a Christian superhero created by Don Ensign, the co-founder of A-O & the CCAS who passed away a few years ago. (Reference art available if needed.)

What not to include

• Personal contact info. If you’re a creator who wants to promote your website, social media or email, great! Go for it! But it’s probably not a good idea to share your home address and phone number, since extra copies of this “best of” book will eventually be available for sale to the general public.
• Mailing comments. These are usually the lifeblood of an APA, but this issue will have many new one-time readers, so mailing comments referencing any specific back issue content will be needlessly confusing. Save it for next time, regulars!
• Serialized stories. Like above, don’t share “Chapter 2 of 5” or start a teaser cliffhanger that will never be resolved for our guest readers. Let’s stick to standalone stories this issue.
• Copyrighted material. Feel free to share any of your own art and writing, but avoid photocopying articles or artwork from elsewhere.
• All our usual AO content restrictions apply: no graphic sex/violence/objectionable content, no personal insults, no inter-denominational arguments, no political flame-wars.

Copyrights You will retain all copyright ownership of your individual content. By submitting your work for this issue, you are granting Alpha-Omega/CCAS a nonexclusive right to publish it as part of this 200th issue compilation anthology.

This standard disclaimer will be included in the front page of the book: “The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual creators, and do not necessarily reflect the Christian Comic Arts Society or the Alpha-Omega Amateur Press Association as a whole. The copyright for all contents of this anthology are the property of their respective creators, and are printed here with permission.”

How to send your ‘trib: The book will be 8.5” x 11”, B&W. Try to design your pages accordingly.

• Clearly label your pages with your name, and your ‘trib’s title too, if applicable.
• Also please include your own copyright notices if you want to be more specific than our generic AO disclaimer listed above.
• If you can send your ‘trib digitally, send it to Kevin via email or by using a file sharing upload site like Dropbox. PDF is the preferred file format (Word Documents can be used if absolutely necessary, but we can make no guarantees that the formatting will remain consistent.)
• If you prefer to create your ‘trib in hardcopy form, you can mail us one clean set of B&W pages for your ‘trib, and we will scan it as needed for the final book. You can mail your hardcopy pages to:
•    Kevin Yong
•    P.O. Box 254
•    Temple City, CA 91780

Contact Ralph and Kevin to RSVP if you’re interested. If you don’t already have our contact info, you can send us an email and one of us will follow-up. God bless!”

So there you have it! If you are interested go the Alpha Omega Facebook page or the Christian Comic Arts Society website. You will find the email addresses listed there.

We didn’t talk a lot about the Christian Comic Arts Society. But we included some stunning art from their website. The CCAS is the mother organization which ushered A-O into the world. We’re out of space so we can’t tell you any more about the CCAS but here you have the link if you want to check out their web site.

We have to keep it short and sweet this week due to the approaching, Alpha-Omega #200, dreaded, deadline doom! As an A-O Alum, Mark has been digging through old APAzine tribs putting together his trip for the 200th Issue. So of course all ye ol’ Mega Minons have pitched in and everything is on semi-hold until that task is complete. The deadline to contribute to A-O 200 is May 7th.

The Game of Life & the Avengers

In the summer of 1987 A-O # 15 was in the mail…

Billy Leavell was the outgoing Central Mailer and Steve Shipley had just started his term as CM with #13. We had been an APA for  2.5 years. Several members were chafing at the bit to do some actual comics! Billy came up with the idea of tag team writers and artists taking up where the previous team left off with each new chapter and take the story anywhere there imaginations would take them based only on what had gone before. Billy started it with the script, pencils and lettering for the first chapter which was 4 or 5 pages. Mark Poe was invited to ink those pages. He was working another idea for a strip when he got the pages from Billy to embellish. The story had similarities to the strip Mark wanted to do. He had two pages done and decided to make it the Prologue. He checked with Billy and it was agreed, so he ran that first installment of The Game of Life in A-O 15. It was just 2 pages. We have the scanned art pages here to share with you. Bear in mind these scans are from photo copies, not the original art, which Mark no longer has in his possession. So these are a little rougher than what we would like to share. We cleaned them up as much as possible.

This little 2 page prologue introduced a character Mark dubbed the Archangel. It was about 6 months BEFORE Marvel would revamp their character the avenging Angel from the X-Men into a different Archangel. This was not the first time a mainstream comics company would snap up a character name Mark or Freazie White, Jr. were using. Image Comics published a book entitled New Man with a character of the same name after Mark and Freazie began Project: NewMan. The same thing happened a few years later when DC introduced a character called Mageddon. It was like someone was reading our mail! Is it possible? Well, it could be, or it could be a coincidence. Things like that have happened in the comic book business before. Remember when Marvel introduced Man-Thing and DC brought out Swamp Thing at almost the same time? Anything is possible, but one thing is certain, Mark and Freazie created Archangel, NewMan and Mageddon FIRST. So there! 😉

Next week we’ll share that first chapter of The Game of Life with you. Also we’ll share the second chapter the week after that which Mark scripted, penciled and lettered. Steve Shipley supplied the inks on that chapter, but more on all that later.

Here’s the Avengers: Infinity War, YouTube trailer # 2!

Avengers: Infinity War from  Marvel Studios and  Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures starts today! It is the sequel to 2012’s Marvel’s The Avengers and 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron and the nineteenth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The cast includes Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Don Cheadle, Tom Holland, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Danai Gurira, Letitia Wright, Dave Bautista, Zoe Saldana, Josh Brolin, and Chris Pratt, reprising their roles from previous MCU films.

In Avengers: Infinity War, the Avengers join forces with the Guardians of the Galaxy to stop Thanos, who is trying to collect the Infinity Stones.

Above is the Avengers: Infinity War trailer # 2. We voted this one better than the first. Check it out!

The Game of Life – Chapter 4

The next tag team up for Chapter 4 of The Game of Life was John G. Pierce, Steven Shipley and Eric Robertson. Freazie had teased the readers with a title for the next chapter. Now the introductions were at last over and The First Move would be played. This was also the first time this team worked together. To Mark Poe’s recollection  it was the first script John had submitted to Alpha-Omega. John was a teacher and he limited most of his contributions in the form of critiques and articles on comics history. John turned in a great script  and came up with a unique idea of using actual chess moves and counter moves for the Game of Life. He left a tease at the end of the chapter for the next writer to pick up and run with. One of the Game of Life living game pieces had been captured by the enemy. Everyone was eager to see where this went next!

Steven Shipley was no stranger to penciling comics. He was the founder of Pizzaz Comics a Small Press Publisher. Pizzaz was relatively new  in the Small Press world but Steve had done many small press comics before he started his own company. He was possibly best know for creating the PeaceMakers, a quasi sci-fi/super-hero husband and wife team. Mark had worked with Steven on some of the PeaceMaker stories. He penciled some for Steve to ink and he also inked some of Steves pencils. Steve had a very versatile style which varied form serious to humorous.

Eric Robertson had only been an A-O member for a few issues but had already demonstrated a unique and versatile art style as well. He had an unusual inking style which would lend itself toward pen & ink etchings as well as comic art. What he managed was a hybrid of both styles more or less.

Unfortunately chapter 4 was the last installment of The Game of Life. So much was going on at this point in Alpha-Omega, The Game of Life just got lost in the shuffle. Don Ensign, Ralph Miley and others were about to come out with he first issue of Valiant Efforts. Ralph was working on Street Fury and a few other projects as well. Mark  and Freazie White, Jr. were going full tilt on Magi Graphics, there small press endeavor but were also starting to put together characters and concept which would become Legacy Comics. Billy Leavell had served projects going on both with other members of A-O, his Light For The Deaf publication, ministry camps and mission trips to places like Africa. Steve was working on Pizzaz Comics and a score of other projects. So it’s safe to assume that apparently everyone was too buy to work on another chapter of The Game of Life. Other than a few covers with some of The Game of Life characters, the story was not mentioned again in any future plans.

It’s a shame really. It would have been nice to  see some of theater members try their hand at this A-O Challenge. There would be more collaborations between members in the issues and years to come.

Speaking of Alpha-Omega, A-O #200 is assembled and at the printers. Here’s he official word from CM Kevin Young himself:

“Thank you all so much for participating in the big 200th issue of Alpha-Omega! The book was finished this week and is currently at the printer. The final size was 370 pages, with over 30 contributors (and even more if counting the “best of” reprint gallery of past AO cover artwork.) Here’s a preview of thewraparound cover for the trade paperback!

For all current AO members, I’ll be shipping these out as soon as they arrive back from the printers in a week or two. For AO alumni and supporters who would also like a copy at cost for $13, please message me and we can work out the details–just let me know soon, so I can be sure to order enough from the print-on-demand service! (The book will later be available to the public for purchase on Amazon.com, but due to their distributor markup, it will cost $25 there.)”

That’s not bad for that size book! We’ll try to find out more about that next week.

The Mega Tales revisions are done and up on the Mega Tales preview site. Only a few more small productions choses need to be done and the book will be ready to re-uplad to the Ka-Blam site for on demand printing or downloaded as a pdf. As we said before it will now be 28 full color pages for only $3.99 printed or 99 cents for the pdf download, saving you some hard earned cash but adding a lot more to it to make up for losing those 4 extra pages. So keep an eye out for the 2nd printing of Mega Tales by  Greg Legat,  Mark Poe and J. Adam Walters to go on back on sale in June.

Again this week we’ll use our Archives Spotlight to show you some pages from Mega Tales before we hand it off to IndyPlanet and Drive-Thru Comics.

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Archives Spotlight

Archive’s Spotlight is designed to look at all which has come before and add new comments as well. This posting we are reviewing Mega Tales # 1.

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Mega Tales # 1 Cover & Page 10-  To start with we’ve changed the package up a little and streamlined it more in line with our Project: NewMan and Humants 25th Anniversary Re-Issues.  Originally were not going make a lot of changes, just a few necessary ones here and there to justify the 2nd Printing designation. But now we’ve  cleaned up the cover art and all the pages of interior art. These were not major changes but we think we’ll keep you guessing as to what changes were made. More additions than changes actually. You just about have to have a copy of the 1st printing and the 2nd side by side to note the differences.  It will be a few days before the fine folks at IndyPlanet get the 2nd Printing online, but in the meantime the 1st Printing can still be ordered. So who knows, you might have a collectors item if you have one of the few 1st Printings of Mega Tales #1 Use the link below and go get it, pal!

Check back next week for more pages in PNM #3 as we continue updating these books for printing with Ka-Blam Comic Book Printing and digital sales at IndyPlanet as well as DriveThru Comics.

Remember, we have digital editions at IndyPlanet and DriveThru Comics RIGHT NOW! You can still download Project: NewMan #1 and Humants # 1 for absolutely FREE! Project: NewMan # 2 and Humants # 2 can be downloaded now, for immediate gratification, for a mere 99ç each! And if you want actual hard copy prints the Indyplanet will sale those to you for only $2.99 each! And we also have Mega Tales #1 featuring the debut of the other long ago project Mark and Greg Legat did called Tess, The Living Tesseract.

What are you waiting for? Go grab some Mega Comics Group / Legacy Comics  right now! Check out the cover link to the left here which will take you to Indy Planet. Here’s the link if you had rather go to DriveThru Comics.

CU Next Week!

Fair Use reference to intellectual property of other companies are intended for historical and informational accuracy only. Mega Comics Group™ or Mega Graphics, LLC™ does not represent or have any relationship to any other company or entity or their intellectual property unless otherwise clearly noted. Mega Tales™ and © 2010 Mega Graphics LLC, unless otherwise noted herein.  Project: New Man™ and  Humants™ and © 2010 Freazie White, Jr. D.B.A. Legacy Comics. Tess, the Living Tesseract™ and © Stephen Greg Legat and Mark Poe. All rights reserved. Mega Graphics LLC, licensor.