Take a look at our current offerings and what’s planned for the months ahead.

• Now Online! Click the above cover title to read Legacy Comics 1991 Black and White 32 page Independent Comic: Project: New Man #1! Dave Davison is the subject of Project: New Man, a partly secret joint venture of the U.S. Government and the Fortress Foundation, a private sector non-profit philanthropic organization dedicated to public defense and scientific research. Dave has the dual role of being part of the research project and at the same time being groomed by the Government as a public protector in the Five Lakes Megalopolis area. Dave has a dark past which he hoped was dead and buried but in his first public adventure he confronts his past and an old partner head on in “The Mall Massacres”. Written by Freazie White, Jr. with art  by Mark Poe, Thomas O’Conner, Nathan Massengill, and Alan Baker also lettering by Billy Leavell. To be followed next month by his back up series originally published in the Humants book.

• Now Online! Click the above cover title to read Legacy Comics 1991 Black and White 64 page Independent Comic: Humants! The Five Lakes Megalopolis residents are use to such things as high crime rates and garbage strikes, but the recent unnatural storms as well as the appearance of unusual individuals wielding supernatural powers has them rattled. Krystal McCliston is an investigative reporter looking into the mystery behind the strange happenings when she learns there are “Humants Among Us!” Written & Drawn by Freazie White, Jr. with inks  by Mark Poe and Alan Lewis also lettering by Billy Leavell. Including in the months to come never before published material!

• Coming Soon! More short features from Legacy Comics, Magi Graphics (our small press label) and more! Solo adventures of The Cricket, The Herald, Bearcat, Capt. Testament and more! Including more never before published material!

• Coming Soon! A four issue mini-series featuring something totally different! Mega Mascots! We’re keeping this one under wraps for a bit longer but you’re going to love it! We hope. 🙂

• Coming Soon! Last but not least in 2009 thrill to the adventures of The Quantum Mechanics! Stay tuned to this site for updated info!

WOW! I just got a package from my pal Freazie! Look what it has in it! These are pages from the Project: New Man story that would have been published in Humants #3. That’s right these have never been published before! I think you will agree these are way to good too let gather dust any more! So here’s the very first publishing of two dynamic pages penciled by a great talent named Christopher Torres.

I never had any personal contact with the fella but I got the honor to ink these pages! It was a real blast putting ink to graphite lines! Chris penciled really tight so it was a breeze and a joy to ink these pages! This again was the early 1990’s. The likes of Jim Lee and Rob Liefield were taking the industry by storm at Marvel and Image Comics was but a mere shade of a concept somewhere in their collective consciousness! A lot of guys started imitating those young talents and Chris was one of them and better at it than most. But maybe I’m bias. What do you think? You’ll see Mr. Torres pages in about 50 days! Chris’s work begins with Chapter 6 of the Project: New Man storyline entitled The Haunted Man.

Hope to see you there!

Back in the day, Nathan Massengill did a couple preliminary cover sketches, one for New Man and one for Humants. I don’t remember which issue these were done for. I had forgotten about them until I ran across them while scanning story pages.  I keep running across items I’ve forgotten! Seems we did a lot more than I remember doing! 😀

Nathan and a lot of others folks were excited about what we were trying to do with Legacy Comics and their enthusiasm showed in the work they did. Neither Freazie nor I will ever be able to show how thankful we are for the help and passion all these fine folks put into our characters and stories.

Hey! It’s Wednesday! Halfway there! 😉

Here’s something else I had forgotten. Freazie found these and sent them along with the pages to Humants #3. These pages were pencils of New Man for a subplot in Humants #5. Freazie is looking around for the rest of that issue now, the last we worked on before disbanding Legacy Comics.

Memory is foggy at best but I think this was a tie in for the new Project: New Man title we were planning to release. Yes, we were planning on splitting the books up again. At this point we had tried just about everything. We did free previews for retailers, comic strips for Comics Buyers Guide, re-designing the cover logos, and even trying to imitate Jim Lee and Rob Liefield, as you can see here. But in the end the money ran out and we had no where to turn. As hard as it was we had to move on. Freazie tried briefly after I had to stop but he couldn’t go much further either. But it seems we’re not finished yet, eh? 😉

Maybe I can show you the other two pages from this sub-plot tomorrow. Gotta do some other work now! See ya!

Have a pleasant Tuesday!

Nathan Massengill helped us out a lot in those early days! I think he was just out of Joe Kuburt’s School or maybe he was still in there. Hey! Some of this stuff he did for Legacy Comics could have been his homework for all I know! This one was going in either the New Project: New Man series or maybe Humants # 3 I’m not sure. Since it stands on it’s own and one of my favorites I thought I’d show it off here. Don’t forget, you can click on the image to see a larger view of the art.

Enjoy your Thursday!

My wife, 9 year old son and I just got back from a mini-vacation. We set out from the ol’ homestead Friday morning heading for The Great Smokey Mountains and just got back Sunday afternoon.

One cool thing about WordPress is you can schedule your posts as far in advance as you need to so readers get a post every day. I could have blogged from our motel room but Friday I did not know where we would stay and if they would have Internet. We just ventured out and figured we would find the best rate when we got there. We picked up few brochures and Travel Coupon books at the Tennessee Visitor Center along the interstate and selected a few places we thought we’d like to stay. I used my cell phone and called 3 or 4 places then made a reservation at one. We got there about 1:45 pm and checked in. We got the SUV unloaded and I did find out they had High Speed Wi-Fi internet so I could have blogged remotely if I had chosen to. I did do a couple edits on the blogs I had scheduled.

Since we only had a day and a half we headed out on the streets of Gatlinburg, Tennessee and promptly made out like tourists along with several thousand folks! Actually it was not as crowded as we have seen it in the past. We visited a few shops, then grabbed a late lunch, and played 18 holes of Miniature Golf, shopped some more, watched some street performers, walked a lot and had supper at Shoney’s downtown. We then made our way back to the motel to settle in for the night and watch Monk on USA Network, one of our favorite shows. Then it was lights out, we were tired!

The next day it was raining and the forecast was calling for 60% chance of rain for the day. The Radar showed it would break up later so we headed out in the SUV to do a few indoor activities first. We rode over to the Log Cabin Pancakes and had breakfast. Then we went over to Cooter’s Place, the Dukes of Hazzard TV Show museum. We got to meet Deputy Enos, Sonny Shroyer from the original cast of the show. What a treat! The cast members of the show pop in every now and then and we lucked up to happen by at that time. Mr. and Mrs. Shroyer were both very nice and gracious. He’s a bit taller than I thought, 6 foot 2 inches to be exact. TV makes people look shorter I guess.

The rain had let up some but was still falling so we hit a few more souvenir shops this time, in the Mountain Mall on the corner of Parkway and River Road. After that we headed up to Ober Gatlinburg to let my son ride the rides and see the Bear Habitat. I got few photos with my phone which I forgot to adjust for the lighting so they are not that great in quality. Sorry. After that we headed out to the Crafts Community and visited with craftsmen and artists in their studios and shops. We then headed over to Ripley’s Davy Crockett Mini-Golf for 18 holes. Yeah we’re, mini-golf nuts! We were not alone. The place was packed with families.

After that it was supper time than back to the motel. This time we didn’t watch TV, but watched  an old episode of The Time Tunnel I had downloaded a few days earlier from iTunes to my laptop. We conked out after that. Sunday it was up, ready and to the Log Cabin Pancakes again for breakfast, back and packed and on the road again. We had a nice scenic drive out and stopped by the creek so my son could see how cold mountain creek water is by sticking his hand in from the bank. My son wanted to play one more round of Mini-Golf but all the courses are in Gatlinburg or Pigeon Forge and we we’re going out through Townsend. We didn’t find another Mini-Golf course until we got to Chatanooga. So we did that, ate lunch at Blimpies, then got back on the road for the last 2 hours of our journey home.

Whew! We had a great time but little rest! How was your weekend?

What’s this got to do with comics? Not a darned thing! Check out the new Project: New Man and Humants‘ posts. Those are up to date!

Have a nice Monday!

We are finishing up the first Humants story from issue #1 today so it is appropriate to show you this ad flier we sent out to distributors back in 1991 for Issue # 2. It shows the cover and some teaser info for that issue. Again Project: New Man was the back up feature and you can see what was originally to be the back cover in the lower right corner. We changed that cover for one by Thomas O’Conner before it went to press. I’m not sure where that original cover is but I’m trying to locate it. This was a re-solicitation, we missed our deadline for the first one and had to reschedule. That’s always a big mistake with Diamond Distributors and the others that were still around then.

On another subject: I would just like to thank everyone out there for visiting and supporting this site and our two regular comic features. We have been promoting MCG.com through ads with Project Wonderful and in just a little less than 2 months we’ve gotten about 10,000 visitors. I don’t know if that’s great as for as other web comics go but it really warms our hearts! We plan to keep adding content, doing our best to entertain you with our comics and earn your time to keep coming back! We’ve heard from some of you but we’d love to hear from more! Some don’t want to leave comments on pages but had rather use an eform or email, so we are going to set that up very soon. We’ll be adding to the promised Character Guides and lots more so stay tuned. Again…THANKS!

Don’t forget to click the image to see a larger view.

Be sure to check out Sunday’s comic book posts for Project: New Man and Humants’! Have a great day!

This ad flyer was sent out to distributors back in 1992 for Issue # 3 & 4. It shows the cover and the teaser info for those issues. This too was a re-solicitation, but not because we missed our deadline, but because the order numbers were so low for #3 that we had to reschedule. #4 was the last issue of Humants with Project: New Man as the back up feature. #4 was to be our new 24 page format. Project: New Man would once again have his own title which I believe was to come out at the same time issue #5 of Humants would have. If we had had the operating capital to float these books just a little longer we might have broken through, but such was not the case.

Thinking back now, I’m not sure if we were all that late with number 2 or if we had low order numbers there too. Getting the books to the public back then was a huge hurdle and one the so called Direct Market Distributors couldn’t care less about. They were more interested in the mainstream Marvel and DC, as well as independents that had made it like Image Comics and Darkhorse Comics, because there was more money there. Can’t blame them for that, but it is ironic had it not been for the Direct Market as it originally was set up Image, Darkhorse and a few others like say Mirage Studios with it’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles very likely might not have made it. So maybe it’s not whether a book is well received by it’s audience, it’s more did it ever get to it’s audience. Faulty distribution is the main reason titles failed and were canceled which explains why some of the big names like Jack Kirby, Neal Adams and John Byrne had failed titles in their otherwise stellar careers.  I’m certainly not saying our books would rank anywhere near theirs, I’m merely using these comparisons to show the flaws in the system as it became institutionalized. From what I understand it’s far worse today than what it was in 1992. The Direct Market was created to deal with the faulty Newsstand Distribution system but now has become worse than it’s predecessor. Here’s the bottom line, if you want to know why the Old Comics Industry is failing, just look to the distributors. It’s that simple.

Now that we are in The New, Real Direct Market we’ll see what we can do. The World Wide Web levels the playing field and gives everyone a fair shot at a much larger audience. It’s a cheaper avenue of distribution and it gives comic creators an advantage to practice their trade as they perfect it. There are now several Web Comics which do well enough to support their creators full time. Just look at the likes of Evil Inc. by Brad J. Guigar, Sheldon by Dave Kellett, PVP by Scott Kurtz, and Starslip Crisis by Kris Straub. These are products of The New, Real Direct Market! These guys even put out a book together called How To  Make Web Comics. They have succeeded without the old distribution systems. They do distribute books through the old system now, but it did not make them and it will not break them! So if MCG.com were to fail, at least we will know it’s our fault, not because of some quasi-political institution which is no longer what it claims to be. Okay, I’ll climb down off my soapbox now.

Don’t forget to click the image to see a larger view.

Be sure to check out Monday’s comic book posts for Project: New Man and Humants’! Hope your day goes better than expected! 😉

Welcome to Thursday’s ‘toon talking, trailblazing, tour guiding, Daily Mega Comics Group Updates! 

The end is near! 😉 That’s right, web wayfarer, Mega Comics Group is almost done! No, we’re not calling it quits, but Phase 1 of our grand adventure into where no Mega Maniac has gone before is almost over.

What is phase one? Glad you asked! Phase 1 of our mission has been to publish our previous work from the 1980’s and 1990’s some of which first saw print as black and white independent comics which were available nationwide in comic specialty shops. So far we have put up the Legacy Comics body of work we did in the early ’90’s. We’ve got 9 issues of 32 pages each on the respective web sites of Project: New Man and the Humants. Actually we are posting the 9th issue now. When we finish posting Humants # 5 we will have 288 pages of comics up on our web server. That does not include all the other art we’ve posted like sketches, promos, concept drawings, etc. which have accompanied the MCG Daily Blog right here on this site. We’ve published 157 blogs here. That’s not a bad offering for 6 months work, eh?

Phase 2 is coming in full color! Yes, even though our critics might wish we would stop there and just fade away we just can’t oblige them. We ain’t getting any younger ya know! There is still a lot to do. First we have to finish Phase 1 with the Dimension Graphics body of work which will be in the forthcoming Mega Tales title. Tess by Greg Legat and Mark Poe are one of those tales which we’ll be doing in full 21st century color. A little of the old will be mixed with the new.

Then we will begin to publish the new concepts we’ve had in mind and been talking about for some time now. Currently on the drawing board are also new versions of Project: New Man and the Humants. In addition to those we have Miracle Comics, the Mega Mascots and The Quantum Mechanics still in the planning stages. We’ll clue you in more on these as we go. Yes, things will be mighty fine in 2009! We hope you will come along with us!

Now let’s check in on that 5th issue of Legacy Comics’ Humants!

Humants # 5:

Chaosta as you recall from Humants #2 is from the wealthy, and socially prominent Rosebud family. She has always been well taken care of as far as not lacking for any material thing she wanted. But the feelings of family love and camaraderie was never there for her. She is feeling like she belongs with this ragtag band of misfits heroes.

Scamp is also feeling like he belongs. Having lived a lot on the street, working what jobs he could secure, taking advantage of any opportunity that came along legal or not, and scamming as much as he could get away with to make a buck, always kept him on the run. Now he feels like he can relax in a real, secure job, and not have to always look over his shoulder. Of course if a super baddie blows up the warehouse tomorrow, he might be back on the streets or worse…but he doesn’t like to think that far ahead. 😉

As you can see Freazie has done some character development with this issue. He and Anthony have done a great job. Billy has done pretty good too! 😉

Any questions or comments? All are welcome.

Click the images for today’s web comics updates.

Check out Thursday‘s posts for Humants’! CU2morrow!

Welcome to Friday’s fearlessly, faithfully, moving forward Daily Mega Comics Group Updates!

We talked about it some yesterday: What’s to come for Mega Comics Group.com? We clued you in on our plans to re-launch the Humants title picking up the story almost 20 years after the end of issue #5. We told you how this time around Freazie won’t be writing or penciling it. Freazie has turned the Legacy Universe over to Mark but will still have editorial oversight since he created most of it. We told you there is no set date for the return yet. Mark is working on the story and art along with Project: New Man to be re-launched sometime later this year. The two titles will remain separate but intertwined more than ever using the latest techniques available in full color specifically for the web. All that is coming later this year.

Monday we will have our full color back cover for Humants #5 which wraps up that issue! Don’t miss out on that!

We have a bit of space between the old Humants series ending, and the Mega Tales series beginning. So up first: We will be doing some upgrades to our site for the rest of February. There are a lot of things that needs ye ol’ Mega Webmaster’s attention that have been put off because of daily comics for the past 6 months have kept us busy! So postings may not be daily and they may only be brief 1 or 2 paragraphs at times just to alert you to upgrades, updates, or new features. So please be patient and remember, March will be here before you know it!

In March we’ll start Mega Tales # 1. Mega Tales #1 will feature the debut of Tess by Greg Legat, Mark Poe and J. Adam Walters.

New Merchandise is on the way! We are going to have new products for our Cafe Press store! New t-shirt designs, new mugs, those long overdue bumper stickers and lots more. We are also going to begin the process of packaging our Legacy Comics work for Trade Paperback releases. More detials on that soon.

New Site Features: Our writers and artists bios and contact information pages are in the works already, so watch for those soon.

Here’s something totally unrelated to entertain you courtesy of You Tube. This ad ran with the Super Bowl from 2 or 3 years ago. One of our favorites.

Here’s the last black and white art for Humants # 5.

Humants # 5 Inside Back Cover:

Next Issue? What will happen to Vic Torrent and Moniel Khonte? What’s the Humants next move now that they are settled into their renovated warehouse H.Q.? How does the government tie into all this? These are a few of the questions left unanswered at this point in the Humants saga. But such is the state of a continuous serial comic magazine. 😉

When we do resume the story we will be coming full forward from 1993 to the present. Almost 20 years have passed and change has come! It will be interesting, suspenseful, action packed and in full color this go around. So stay tuned to the announcements on the MCG Daily Blog for the relaunch date!

Any questions or comments? All are welcome.

Click the images for today’s web comics updates.

Check out Friday‘s posts for Humants’! CUMonday!

Have a good weekend!

Welcome to Thursday’s Daily Mega Comics Group Updates!

WebComics.CC Announcements: First week of March 2009

We have three new titles added to our list! Reverend Fun, Tracy and Tristan, and Dog Eat Doug will join the ranks of our family friendly comics! See “FRIENDS OF WEBCOMICS.CC” below!

SPOTLIGHT!:

Every week, we will spotlight a special webcomic in this section. Recently, it’s been the Zondervan online graphic novels. Today, it’s the Ash the Time Traveling Kitty series from Cow and Buffalo. But I’m a sucker for time travel stories . . . and this one is a doozy. It lasted for five strips, and spans the ends of time . . .

WEBCOMICS.CC LIBRARY NEWS:

The WebComics.cc Library was recently split into three separate sections instead of being a single section with three parts. The three sections can be found here: Bookshelf, Magazine Rack, and The Funny Pages.

There’s a LOT of additions to the Bookshelf, and more are coming. It’s not really ready for prime time yet . . . but if you are curious and want to find something fun and new to read, check it out. We’ll announce more when it’s ready for you.

WEBCOMICS.CC TITLES:

Hero TV

Presenting Hero TV #0 — Capes Live on Location. This section was drawn by Kneon Transitt (of Music of the Spheres fame!) and Jeremy Zehr. Next week will wrap up this three page section . . . and answer the question: what happens to the boy with the ball? Well, what happens? Find out next week!

To read the story from the beginning, START HERE. Also, check out Bud Rogers’ comments about his memories of pulling the Hero TV project together!

Previous stories: Hero TV: The Mark (The Director’s Cut).

Hero TV updates every Monday.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chosen Mortals

The final page of Korah’s Rebellion went up last week. This coming week, we will be starting a new story. To read Korah’s Rebellion from the beginning START HERE.

Previous stories:

Chosen Mortals: Good News.

Chosen Mortals updates every Wednesday.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ArmorQuest

Last week’s two pages picked up with Timothy telling his fellow villagers about the dragon. How did they respond? Check out page 23 and page 24. Poor Timothy. If you are new to ArmorQuest, you can start from the beginning:

ArmorQuest: Genesis — Prologue.

ArmorQuest updates every Tuesday and Friday.

No post for Friday! We will be putting the finishing touches on Monday’s debut of Mega Tales and double checking everything. Lots of little details to tend to to make sure the new comic’s site works smoothly. Keep your fingers crossed! 😉

Any questions or comments? All are welcome.

Click the images to go to the site or for a larger image view.

CU Monday!

Welcome to Monday’s Mega Comics Group Updates!

We hope you had a great Independence Day weekend. 🙂 We all got an extra day off and got a few things that had been lagging caught up. Mark Poe, publisher in training, creator of Project: New Man and various other properties, with his wife Rhonda, and son Alex enjoyed a great family cook out Saturday, some swimming and a game or two horse shoes. It was great seeing cousins, aunts, uncles and various other extended family and the weather was perfect, not too hot with a nice breeze and plenty of sunshine.

Afterward, Stephen Greg Legat, creator and writer of Tess, and his two boys, Ian and Joey got together with the Poe’s to visit Cathedral Caverns. See the photos to the left and below. A touring cave located at Grant, Alabama. It’s one of the coolest place to be outdoors in July with a constant temperature of 67 degrees year round. 😉

Later Mark and 10 year old Alex shot some fireworks. Fortunately nothing was burned down or blown up in the process. Whew! 😀

So that’s the news for Monday! We hope you found it as interesting as we did. Only one person in the office dozed off as we were preparing this for the web, but we woke him up so he could finish typing the riveting details! 😉

We’re working on the next page of Tess featured in Mega Tales #1. This one won’t be as difficult as the last one but we won’t commit to a Wednesday release yet. With the rest of our summer schedule it could be Friday. We’ll blog Wednesday and let you know then. So be here Wednesday or Friday for page 19! Yes, this is the Mega Age of Non-commitment. 😉

Any questions or comments? All are welcome.

Check out Friday‘s posts for Mega Tales! CU Wednesday!

Welcome to Friday’s Mega Comics Group Updates!

WOW! Are we slammed! 😀 This is the time of the year we do Football Program Books and School Handbooks for several schools. The books are from 60-160 pages and 5 of them have a deadline in 2 weeks! It’s our busiest time of year! So for the next 3-4 weeks we may be a bit late on updates.

In addition to that: We have the FBCC Summer Gala next week. So we are pushing it to the max. But we will not be discouraged! We’ll keep going until all obligations are met! That’s how we roll! That’s our character! And if we don’t the boss will fire us! 😉

The big news today is the NEW Tess Gear! That’s right, we now have some Tess  Merchandise in our online Cafe Press store.  Notice the new ad to the right. We have re-organized a bit to make it easier to find what you want. We also updated a little bit. To the left is the new Tess design for shirts and a host of other items. More is to come very soon. In addition to the new t-shirts, posters, mouse pads and would you believe a Tess Calendar, we’ve got new POD comics in the works. The first ones, Project: New Man and the Humants are almost ready to upload to the printer. Tess will follow soon as well. Stay tuned! 🙂

Have a good weekend!

Any questions or comments? All are welcome.

Click the images for today’s web comics updates.

Check out Last Friday‘s posts for Mega Tales! CUMonday!

Welcome to Friday’s Mega Comics Group Updates!

Yay! It’s Friday!

What a week we’ve had! First Mark has to go for jury duty, but fortunately for his work load was struck on the first case. They settled the next case out of court and another group was in line for the third case so he did not have to serve more than that first day. What’s amazing is when he got the notice they had 29 cases on the docket! After Mark di his civic duty, we had about 3 t-shirt designs to do for a couple different schools. These are usually not hard to do, but when we are on a deadline, one the school sets,  we make the deadline with the proof only to have them drag their feet to make change requests until 1 day before the job needs to go to press, well that really puts us and the screen printer in a bind. That kind of thing is why we don’t do as many shirt designs for schools any more because this kind of response has become far too common a practice.

Freazie’s been drawing again! Yep, the veteran artist of more pages than we can remember on the Legacy Comics’ titles Humants and even part of the Project: New Man , Freazie White, Jr. has dusted off that ol’ drawing board and whipped out a couple new pin-up pieces! He’s even starting a third. These first 2 offerings included the likes of the Incredible Hulk, the Mighty Thor, the Punisher and Deadpool. Next up Freazie plans on drawing up Supergirl in a grand battle with… well, he doesn’t know yet. But this third one he plans to send to Mark Poe, who also logged a few pages on the previous mentioned titles. It will be the first time since the early ’90’s Mark has inked Freazie’s pencils. Both are “geeked” at the prospects as Freazie likes to say. Check out the sneak previews of Freazies new art here. If you are interested click on each image to go to his eBay web site and purchase the original art. What’s next? Who knows? Maybe we can convince Mark and Freazie to draw some pin-ups of there own characters! Wouldn’t that be a novel concept! 😉

Mega Tales # 1, Page 25:

Page 25! Tess continues to confront the alien bears but with her 4-D powers neutralized by their force screens it would seem she has few options for stopping them. She resorts to using a makeshift weapon never before seen used in a super-hero fight, at least not like this! 😉 Well, at least she doesn’t have any ego! She will use whatever means necessary to deal with the enemy. HA! What a woman! 😉

The production on this page was much like the last one. It was not really that difficult and really did not take that long to do, but interruptions made it take 4 times as long! Mark reported really enjoying doing the color and special effects on this one. He said the lettering was very easy. He does the lettering on separate layers in PhotoShop just like the color. Each page may have as many as 25 layers and be 30-45 megabytes in size. But on these modern computers that’s nothing to deal with! We certainly could not have done it like this  back in the ’90’s even if we had the latest tech offerings of that day. Yep! Once we get to doing these comics on a full time basis we’ll be whipping these pages out right and left! 😉

Any questions or comments? All are welcome.

Click the images for today’s web comics updates.

Check out Friday‘s posts for Mega Tales! CUMonday!

Welcome to Friday’s Mega Comics Group Updates!

Time for our weekly comics update!

Mega Tales # 1, Page 26:

Page 26 is a transition page. We are transitioning from one scene to another.  As the initial confrontation between Tess and the Alien Bears draws to a close in a stalemate, we see Nosy doesn’t give up so easy. He has a plan, one which it would seem, by Theo’s reaction, may not be all that unusual for our resident 4-D canine. The question now is: Can Nostradamus make good on his plan? We’ll see in the pages to follow.

This page was one of the easier ones to color and letter we’ve had in a while. There was little action and no need for many special effects as on the preceding action pages. Only 6 more pages to go in this story for issue one.

Plans for our POD (Print On Demand) books are coming into focus. The first one up will be the Trade Paperback collection of the 4 issues of Project: New Man. Plans for a new cover for the book are in the works as well as additional pages which will be included that are not on the web site. Plans for a Humants’ Trade Paperback are in the works also which would collect the 5 issues of Humants. Both books will feature black and white interiors with full color covers. We’ll give you the full details as they develop.

Have a good weekend! Lots of college and NFL action to be had this weekend and of course the baseball games as well. The World Series is not too far off!

Any questions or comments? All are welcome.

Click the images for today’s web comics updates.

Check out Friday‘s posts for Mega Tales! CUMonday!

Welcome to Friday’s Mega Comics Group Updates!

YIKES! It’s Friday the 13th! So we’re taking it slow and easy today, watching every corner and movement cautiously. Mark, already broke his favorite Mega Comics Group coffee mug, so he’s even more wary now! Those mugs are available in our Online Store, by the way. Hint, hint! 😉 We have to go order Mark another one now so he’ll quit grumbling.

Nah, we’re not superstitious in the traditional sense of thinking some outside forces are lurking to spring upon us at any turn. No, it’s far worse than that! Some of us believe the danger comes from within ourselves, our minds, our hearts, which are programed intentionally and unintentionally to react unconsciously to certain stimuli like Pavlov’s dogs.  Don’t think so? Ad Agencies and Politicians make millions, even billions, off folks who don’t believe the concept. Something to think about. 😉

Have a good weekend! Cheer your team on to victory! See you Monday. 😀

Mega Tales # 1, Inside Back Cover:

What we have today is the Inside Back Cover for Mega Tales # 1. That’s Dr. Quillin‘s daughter Alicia and Nostradamus, who is affectionately known as Nosy, looking at some coming attraction posters as if standing outside a movie theater. Mark Poe, who penciled this story, originally did this art for the back cover of the proposed Tess #1 to show the other projects he and Greg Legat, who wrote this story, were working on. Most of these never got beyond the concept and premise. Razors Edge and Thunder Hawks did appear as cameos and supporting cast a few years later in Project: New Man, which are available in our Mega Comics Group archives right here on this web site! Unabashed plug directed at the Mega Newbies! 😉 Maybe someday the other 2 concepts, Cat and Necromancer will see publication as well. We just thought we’d show off this art as it was originally intended.

Special Note to sharp eyed Comics Art Historians and Enthusiasts: Mark did the pencils and inks on this piece back in 1987.  During this period of his development as an cartoonist he was heavily influenced by the work of John Byrne and Terry Austin, most notably their work on The Uncanny X-Men for Marvel Comics. Just an FYI. 😉

Production Notes: No lettering on this page. All text is from the original. Yes, some of those logos are a bit rough but that was as it was done originally, all by hand. Mark added the digital color 22 years after the line art was completed! The color was a bit complicated due to the number of characters, so it did take a little longer to do even without the need for lettering.

Any questions or comments? All are welcome.

Click the images for today’s web comics updates.

Check out Friday‘s posts for Mega Tales! CUMonday!

Welcome to Monday’s Mega Comics Group Updates!

Quoted from www.pdsh.wikia.com:

Public Domain Super Heroes is a collaborative website about comic book characters in the Public Domain. The wiki format allows anyone to create or edit any article, so we can all work together to create the site. Check out the Help FAQ to help you get started! We now have 707 articles. We want to reach 750 articles.

For info on what constitutes “public domain”, check out the Public Domain FAQ.

After Action Comics #1 gave the world Superman in 1938, there was an explosion of costumed heroes in comics. New publishers and characters sprang up everywhere. After World War II, these type of characters fell out of favor with readers. This caused many publishers to go out of business and many characters were lost. Those comics and their stars have since fallen into the public domain. This enables anyone to use those characters and those classic stories any way they wish. Over the years many publishers have taken advantage of this, including AC Comics (FemForce, Men of Mystery), Malibu (The Protectors), America’s Best (Terra Obscura), and – most recently – Dynamite (Project Superpowers), and Image Comics (Next Issue Project) among others. Read more…

So what does this have to do with Mega Comics Group? Glad you asked! 😉 In just a few days we’ll be premiering our first title re-presenting some of the Golden Age Greats which are now in the Public Domain. We’ll be using our established format similar to Project: New Man, Humants and Mega Tales in a one page a day format, 5 days a week! So stay tuned!

Florida and Alabama may meet unbeaten! WOW! The Gators and the Crimson Tide seem destined to meet unbeaten in the SEC Championship Game on December 5th! 😀 Barring a total collapse of both teams in the final 2 weeks of the regular season one of these teams will also play in the National Championship Game this coming January! Most likely it will be against the Texas Longhorns if they remain unbeaten. The Top 10 in the BCS goes like this: 1. Florida, 2. Alabama, 3. Texas, 4. TCU, 5. Cincinnati, 6. Boise State, 7. Georgia Tech, 8. LSU, 9. Pittsburgh, 10. Ohio State. The BCS picture has not shifted as much this year as in years past, especially at the very top, but there are still 2 weeks to go in the regular season and then the Conference Championship Games, so anything could happen.

New Orleans and Indianapolis are the only 2 unbeaten teams left in the NFL! Did you see the Colts comeback to beat the Patriots by 1 point on Sunday Night Football? WHEW! After stumbling and bumbling through the first half, the Colts came out with all guns firing in the the 2nd half but still it looked like they would get their first loss of the season up until the last few seconds of the game! The final was 35-34! Earlier Sunday the unbeaten New Orleans Saints held off a feisty St. Louis Rams team to remain a perfect 9-0 with that final score of 28-23! The pressure is mounting! Could these 2 be in the Super Bowl this February? Time will tell.

The Back cover for Mega Tales #1 debuts Friday. Yep, we wrap up the first full color issue of Mega Comics Group’s Flagship Title and the debut appearance of Tess, the Living Tesseract this Friday. Miss it not, web wayfarer! Have a great week! See you Wednesday. 😉

Any questions or comments? All are welcome.

Check out Friday‘s posts for Mega Tales! CU Wednesday!

Welcome to Friday’s Mega Comics Group Updates!

TGIF! Hoo boy! Talk about Legendary Personalities! We’re loaded today!

The first vid up is Drawing Super Heroes Parts 1-3! 😀 John Romita starts it off drawing Spider-Man! Then we see the likes of some more well known comic book artists drawing: Joe Kubert, with his rendition of another Batman, John Buscema breathes life into Captain America, Bill Sienkiewicz renders Electra, Dave Gibbons, does a Dr. Manhattan style Green Lantern, and Travis Charest, wraps it all up with Superman! Whether fan, artist or both it’s a big kick getting to see these guys in action. From an artist’s stand point these clips serve as a tutorial for techniques and tools to use in doing comic art. Ever wonder how they do what they do? Wonder no more! Just check it out on the YouTube video!

Next up a great little trailer for John Buscema. A Suspended Animation video review, produced by Mark Allen showing highlights and milestones of Big John’s stellar career in the comics Industry! Mr. Buscema was second only to Jack Kirby in his volume of work during the Marvel Age and became one of two artists, the other being John Romita, which Stan Lee went to first with any project after Jack left for DC Comics in ’71. To see more of Mark Allen’s musings check out his blogsite: www.fourcolorcommentary.blogspot.com.

Did you hear about the first issue of Action Comics selling for $1,000,000? Yep! Too bad your mom sold all your old comics in a yard sale, eh? 😉 Take a look:

On the Mega Comics Home Front: Mark has been working on the Mega Spectacular title story which acts as a frame for reprinting some of the great super heroes stories now the Public Domain. But don’t let that fool you! This story is much more than just a frame for filling pages. This project has taken on a life of it’s own and we’ll be showing you some previews of that soon. So hang in there, Mega Maniacs! We’ve had some delays but really even with more than 300 pages of comics on this site already with Project: New Man, Humants and Mega Tales/Tess we’ve not gotten started yet! You’ll see why soon!

Any questions or comments? All are welcome.

CUMonday! Have a nice weekend!

Welcome to Friday’s Mega Comics Group Updates!

TGIF! Today we have info & videos of the legendary Doc Savage!

The Man of Bronze! 🙂 Doc Savage was one of the very first Pulp Fiction characters to really make it big. Created by  Henry W. Ralston, publisher and John L. Nanovic, editor of Street and Smith Publications, Doc and his Amazing Five were passed on to writer  Lester Dent who wrote under the pen name Kenneth Robeson, who fleshed out the character and adventures of the Man of Bronze. Doc had an great magazine run with 181 adventures from 1933 until 1949 under Street and Smith then he went into limbo until 1967 when Bantam Books revived the character in the popular paper back format for another spectacular run all the way up to 1990. Doc is credited to have been the inspiration for Superman and several of the early super heroes which began publication 6 years after Doc’s debut.

To the left is the very first cover for Doc Save magazine. Immediately below and to the right is the first cover for the Doc Savage paper back books. Doc has also been in comics, and on the radio and in the movies.

Let’s get the nitty gritty details from Wikipedia:

The Doc Savage Magazine was printed by Street and Smith Publications from March 1933 to the summer of 1949. In all, 181 issues were published.

Doc Savage became known to more contemporary readers when Bantam Books began reprinting the individual magazine novels in 1964, this time with covers by artist James Bama that featured a bronze-haired, bronze-skinned Doc Savage with an exaggerated widows’ peak, usually wearing a torn khaki shirt and under the “by-line “Kenneth Robeson”. The stories were not reprinted in chronological order as originally published, though they did begin with the first adventure, The Man of Bronze. By 1967, Bantam was publishing one a month until 1990, when all 181 original stories (plus an unpublished novel, The Red Spider) had run their course. Author Will Murray produced seven more Doc Savage novels for Bantam Books from Lester Dent’s original outlines. Four more novels were planned, but not published. Bantam also published a novel by Philip José Farmer, Escape From Loki (1991), which told the story of how Doc in World War I met the men who would become his five compatriots.

Read more at Wikipedia...

From YouTube: We have a couple clips showing off the magazine covers and the paperback covers of Doc Savage. Also a little documentary on Lester Dent and a clip from the well done but very campy Doc Savage Movie from the mid ’70’s. Enjoy! 😀

Modern Pulp Fiction! AIRSHIP 27, of which we have mentioned many a time before, are one of a few emerging  pulp action publishers featuring novels and anthologies by today’s new pulp scribes. AIRSHIP 27 is headed up by veteran writer and co-creator of Mr. Jigsaw, Ron Fortier with help from talented writers such as Gregory Bastianelli, B.C. Bell, Aaron Smith and Andrew Salmon. Aided and abetted with cover and spot art supplied by the likes of Rob Davis, Jay Piscopo, Mike Fyles and others they ask their readers to:

“…buckle up tight, cast your eyes to the clouds and get ready for lots of pulse pounding thrills!”

Here’s a few examples from Airship 27 and Cornerstone Book Publishers.

LANCE STAR: Sky Ranger Volume 2 LANCE STAR: Sky Ranger Volume 2 (book) Print: $18.50 – Contains five high flying adventures starring the classic pulp aviation’s heroes of yesterday, The Three Mosquitos, the Griffon and pulpdom’s greatest flying star, the one and only Captain Midnight. Written by Bobby Nash, David Walker, Van Allen Plexico and Aaron Smith and edited by Ron Fortier. Interior illustrations by Rob Davis with an original cover by Shane Evans. Retail Price: $24.95 HANGAR 27 PRICE: $18.50

Dan Fowler G-Man – Vol. One Dan Fowler G-Man – Vol. One (book) Print: $16.50 – Features four new action packed stories starring the greatest manhunter of them all, Dan Fowler of the F.B.I. Penned by Gregory Bastianelli, B.C. Bell, Aaron Smith and Andrew Salmon, these four brand new stories are packed with shootouts, car chases and fisticuffs enough to excited the most jaded reader. Here’s pulp action the way you remember it, slam-bang all the way! Retail Price: $21.95 HANGAR 27 PRICE: $16.50

The Green Lama – Volume One The Green Lama – Volume One (book) Print: $18.50 – The Green Lama, Master of the Mystic Arts. Pulpdom’s most unique and memorable heroes returns in three new adventures. From the peaks of Tibet, to the streets of New York, the Green Lama battles the wicked in defense of the innocent. Features three new adventures by Kevin Noel Olson, Adam Garcia & Peter Miller. With illustrations by Jay Piscopo and a cover by Mike Fyles. Not to be missed. Retail Price: $24.95 HANGAR 27 PRICE: $18.50

See and order more at: www.gopulp.info

Archives Spotlight: on Project: New Man! A lot of aspects of Project: New Man were also inspired by the Doc Savage series. Can you spot them all?

Project: New Man #1 – Page 2 – Dave Davison looks for something to eat while Dr. Dawn Wilfred and Dr. Jonathan (Chief Thnder Thunderstorm discuss Project: New Man. They are somewhat oblivious to Dave’s presence it seems, and soon regret that little lapse of judgment.

This was probably not the best way to start out a first issue. How exciting can breakfast be? Live and learn. Oh well, just 3 more pages until the actions starts!

Any questions or comments? All are welcome.

CUMonday!

Welcome to Monday’s Mega Comics Group Updates!

Correction #1! ;-( Yep we made a 2 or 3 mistakes last Friday! As hard as it is to believe we have done that on occasion. 😉 As you can see by our headline, we don’t have Mark Poe‘s review of Mr. Jigsaw #6. Mark asked for space in Wednesdays blog for that, citing he could not do two reviews in one column and be fair to the titles under scrutiny not to mention his lack of time! Oops! We mentioned it didn’t we! Oh, well… But we do have Mark’s thoughts on Haven!

It’s Recap Time! 🙂 As promised our fearless leader has done his homework and  turned in his assignment of a review of the new independent graphic novel Haven by Leonardo Ramirez with art by Davy Fisher! So, we’ll recap a little from what we clued you in about on Friday and correct our mistakes. Rather than a Mini-Series as we reported previously, the four stories will be presented as a Graphic Novel in Trade Paperback form. Pricing has not been determined yet as Markosia Publishing is negotiating with Diamond Distributors at this time.

What we do know is the book will be listed in the Diamond  June Previews for an August release. There is an order form on the Facebook Haven Fan Page that people can download and use to take to their favorite comic shop which is highly recommended. Independent titles depend more on reader and fan demand to the distributor and more importantly the local comic shops. The Independent Publisher does not have the deep pockets of DC and Marvel, so we urge all you Mega Maniacs reading this blog to download that form and let your voice be heard! ’nuff said?

WEBSITES:
www.facebook.com/armyofhaven
www.myspace.com/armyofhaven
www.facebook.com/leonardoramirez

Now for the recap on the plot:

The Dante family line has been in the fires of an ancient war between humanity and the nine circles of hell for generations. As a self-proclaimed “Aristocracy” the circles have now set their sights on the one chosen to fight the raging war …Haven Irena Dante.  But soon after the tragic death of her mother, Haven endures the vile theft of her innocence and disappears….

No one has seen or heard from her in two years.

Until now.

And now without further ado, our peerless Publisher-In Training: Mark Poe

Marks Remarks: I was thrilled when Leonardo Ramirez asked me to review a pre-publication copy of his first 3 books in the Haven Graphic Novel! I had seen the cover a couple times before and I could tell Lenny was really passionate about this project. This is a great reading book with some awesome artwork. Haven was written by Leonardo Ramirez with art by Davy Fisher.

Leonardo, or Lenny as he is best known on Facebook, has plotted out a supernatural thriller here with a very direct style of writing. As I read it, I could not put it down and the mystery and intrigue kept me guessing from page to page and by the end I still wanted more. So I don’t recommend you start reading this book late at night or you’ll be up a while! 😉 The story is easy to follow with clear narration and realistic character dialog.

Mr. Ramirez does not shy away from  controversy as the main character is molested in the first few pages. This is not some cheap skin flick type of  depiction though, rather it deals with the issue in a sensitive manner without candy coating the horror of the event. There is no doubt as to what has occurred. Even though Haven is betrayed apparently by someone well known to her and the family it is also very obvious he is being influenced by her enemies, who choose to launch the first attack personally directed at her. Of course they have chosen the time when she is most vulnerable having just come from attending her mother’s funeral. At this point, the reader might well wonder if the death of her mother was also devised by the Aristocracy.

Many questions remain unanswered at the conclusion of part 3. I will be re-reading it in the days to come to see if maybe I just missed this, but it is my opinion at this time Mr. Ramirez has left enough dangling plot threads to entice readers to come back for more. This could easily spin off into a series if readers demand it.

The art is well executed and reminds me of some of those great Ghost Rider tales by Mark Texeira with maybe a hint of Bill Sienkiewicz. Davy Fisher’s storytelling and pacing is well thought out and easy to follow. The character design and special FX is great! The color is well balanced which is not so common these days in comics. That, by and large, is something which seems to be wanting in most comics whether independent or from the big  two. Some colorists seem to lack the talent of understanding contrast. That is to say, if there is no contrast between the background and foreground the characters tend to get lost in a sea of dinginess. That certainly is not the case with Mr. Fisher’s work.

Not just an amateur attempt at doing comics! This is a quality book. I would put it up against anything the big two or even Darkhorse or Image have to offer.

Independent support. As Mr. Harry Markos, publisher, notes in his introduction on the inside front cover, independent comics are in a constant battle for shelf space in comic shops. As noted elsewhere in this blog there is an order form on the Facebook Haven Fan Page that you can download and use to encourage your favorite comic shop to order. Comic Shop owners have limited budgets to spend on titles they have no idea whether will sell or not. Independent titles need your support just as much as the marketing strategy of the publishers and creators in promotion to make it in this business.

We don’t have permission today but we’ll check with Lenny and Henry to see if we might post a free 8 page preview of the book for you to download.

Archives Spotlight: We continue our look back at our previously posted web comics. We’ll be looking at all that’s come before with this feature and adding new comments as well. This month we are reviewing Project: New Man! Stay tuned to this section Monday, Wednesday and Fridays for more news on our archived titles.

Project: New Man #1 – Page 6 – On the trail of a killer! Dave Davison now in the uniform of his government sanctioned alter ego, New Man, races off to try and intercept the Mall Killer before he can strike again! All he has to go on at this point is the information he gleaned from the newspaper article and a hunch! Will it be enough?

Mark’s Remarks: The guy on the fire escape looks somewhat familiar...

Freazie?

Nah, couldn’t be! He never had a fire escape!

Hang on! The prologue and set up is almost done and the real action is about to be underway. Stay tuned!

Any questions or comments? All are welcome.

Click the comic images to see larger views of the art.

CU Wednesday!