Our blog is even shorter and sweeter this week due to the Alpha-Omega #200 deadline!  The deadline to contribute to A-O #200 is May 7th.

The Game of Life – Chapter 1

Autumn of 1987 in A-O # 16 we had the first chapter of the Game of Life

Last week we promised to share the first chapter of The Game of Life with you. So here we have it.

Again this was the brain child of Billy Leavell, whom sharp eyed fans will recognize as Legacy Comics ace letterer. However, Billy was far more than just a letterer, if such a thing exists. Billy wrote, drew and inked as well as did the lettering on a barrel full of comics for no telling how many years. A lot of folks don’t know, but Billy has been deaf all his life.

Billy was born deaf in Montgomery, Alabama and was educated at hearing schools in Montgomery and Birmingham. After he graduated from high school, he went to David Lipscomb College (now University) where he received his B.A. degree in 1961.

Immediately after this, he became full-time minister to the deaf at Central Church of Christ in Nashville, Tennessee, where he served for 13 years. In 1975 he and his family moved to Memphis, Tennessee where he became minister to the deaf at East Frayser Church of Christ for 23 years. In 1998 he and the deaf group relocated to White Station Church of Christ, where they continue today.

Billy is married to the former Marilyn Allgood, who is an interpreter for the deaf. From this union three children were born, and later, five grandchildren and three step-grandchildren.

Billy has traveled across the United States holding gospel meetings, conferences, and seminars. He also has traveled to foreign mission fields to work with the deaf, including the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, the Czech Republic, Belize (Central America), and three countries in Africa (Kenya, Uganda and Ghana).

Billy is currently a board member of DeafConnect, the agency in Memphis that serves the deaf. So he is well known by many Memphis deaf.

Billy also has established a publication for the deaf which has been read the world round. He is a gifted artist converting Bible stories into pictures and cartoon characters. He displays his many talents on his web site and publication by the same name Light for the Deaf.

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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.