And so The Haunted Man storyline comes to an end, finally after 16 years in the making! What a way to wrap it all up! After reorganizing all the previous published and unpublished pages we had enough for 9 pages of this 4th issue, so we only had to finish up the other 23 pages! No problem if you can do it full time! But when the writer and artist also have full-time and part time jobs too boot 23 pages can be somewhat of an undertaking!

Freazie White, Jr. and Mark Poe plotted this one on the phone 16 years ago but did not have it down on paper until this year when Mark did breakdowns on letter size paper folded in half to simulate comic book pages only smaller. Once roughed out he scanned the sketches and emailed those to Freazie who started scripting. Freazie emailed the pages as he finished while Mark worked on the art. Mark had to pencil, ink and letter these. The plan was to try to stay with the Image Comics style which Christopher Torres and Mark had begun with in issue 3 and which was carried over in the opening chapters of issue 4. Those pages that were completed 16 years ago. It became apparent there was no way Mark could do 5 pages of complete art and lettering a week with his other commitments as well, so we settled on 3 a week.

Now it’s done. The art is a bit rough in places and we’ll probably touch it up some before we go to press but the story is there. Hope you all enjoyed it.

So where does Project: New Man go from here. Well, tune in Monday for our inside back cover to find out. We’ll wrap up the issue with the color back cover on Wednesday, Christmas Eve!

WOW! Now that’s the way to take care of a super villain! Don’t beat him up just get him to be introspective for a moment so he’s focused on how he really see’s himself and use Quantum Physics to revert him to his former state! When has that ever been done in super-hero comics? I can’t remember once! Notice Dave’s attitude, he has clearly made a leap to a new level not only in his powers but in his though processes. This is truly a new day for…uhh… New Man, eh?

As we approach the end of The Haunted Man storyline we have wrapped up all the lose ends for this storyline. The series, however, still has some unanswered questions and some subplots which have yet to be resolved.

I remembered what this page Nathan Massengill did for us was for. I think, in 1992, it may have been planned for a later slot in the storyline in the forthcoming re-launch of Project: New Man under the Legacy Comics banner. But since we  are reformatting the pages for this New Project: New Man web comic anyway I put it here where it should be.

Originally the telling of New Man’s origin in chapters 2 and 3 of The Haunted Man storyline was to be what he was dreaming while asleep in his chair that night after the initial confrontation with Ebenezer Baal. Freazie had a better idea for the dream sequence. So while we told his origin, New Man was dreaming the above. Confused? Me too, but if we keep reading I’m sure we’ll see how the origin as well as the dream all tie into the The Haunted Man storyline. At least that’s what Freazie told me. Enjoy!

You’ve never seen anyone like… Bearcat! And you sure didn’t see much of him in this issue either! But that will change in the upcoming pages so stay tuned, reader! But he did make for a good back cover pin-up, didn’t he!

The Adventures Continue… This inside back cover gives more insght into where we were back in 1991.

Mark’s Remarks: Still very green in the business, we canceled Project: New Man™ #2 and rescheduled Humants #1 as well as increased it’s size to accomodate both the Humants story and the second story of Project: New Man™.

This did not endear us to the distributors as we and many other independents were to find out. Canceling and rescheduling was a mistake which played a key role in Distributors further cutting back promoting Independents. At the time we felt we had no choice because of the low order numbers for P:NM #1. We had little operating capital and a double size single issue saved us a lot of money at the printers.

In the long run it did not matter anyway, the so called Direct Market became a bigger joke than the old Newstand Market. Even for the bigger companies it did not work all the time. If you ever wondered why a title by a giant in the industry like Jack Kirby or Neal Adams got canceled it’s real simple, LIMITED OR NO DISTRIBUTION. That’s right, the books never made it to a lot of stands and did not get into the hands of the fans. It still happens today. The World Wide Web is a much better Direct Market for comic books.

Any questions or comments? All are welcome.

The Adventures Continue… This inside back cover gives more insght into where we were back in 1991. Still very green in the business, we canceled Project: New Man #2 and rescheduled Humants #1 as well as increased it’s size to accomidate both the Humants story and the second story of Project: New Man.

This did not endear us to the distributors as we and many other independents were to find out. Canceling and rescheduling was a mistake which played a key role in Distributors further cutting back promoting Independents. At the time we felt we had no choice because of the low order numbers for P:NM #1. We had little operating capital and a double size single issue saved us a lot of money at the printers.

In the long run it did not matter anyway, the so called Direct Market became a bigger joke than the old Newstand Market. Even for the bigger companies it did not work all the time. If you ever wondered why a title by a giant in the industry like Jack Kirby or Neal Adams got canceled it’s real simple, LIMITED OR NO DISTRIBUTION. That’s right, the books never made it to a lot of stands and did not get into the hands of the fans. It still happens today. The World Wide Web is a much better Direct Market for comic books.

Almost done! We have an inside back cover and back cover to go and then we will start the second story of Project: New Man entitled The Haunted Man! Hope you will join us in that one as well.

Mark’s Remarks: And so we have come to the last page of Project: New Man # 1. Hope you enjoyed it. I enjoyed seeing it all again after nearly 20 years. Part of it, art wise, was great, some of it not so good. If I had to do it again, and had a choice, I would do it different and hope I could have the help of the talented fellows who did the inking on this one. I could not have asked for a better writer than Freazie who I think really had a rough idea, supplied by me, and turned it into a much better story than it would have been had I written it. He’s always had that knack!

Any questions or comments? All are welcome.

Here we have the set up for the next installment in the Project: New Man storyline. The second story is longer than the first and features the Thunder Hawks, Bearcat, the rest of the supporting cast we saw in this issue and a couple mystery villians.

This is actually the Prologue to what would have been the second issue of Project: New Man but ended up being the second story in Humants #1. The second story is titled “The Haunted Man” but it has no relation to what Abraham Moses Maxwell said in the last panel on page 28.

Everyone had a hand inking these last 3 pages.

It’s not all about hyper speed action and knock down, drag out fights. Storytelling involves moments like these. Sometimes in adventure comics, now days, that is forgotten.

So ends this chapter, but wait…there’s more…in our next installment.

Mark’s Remarks: As you can see, the primary roll Max fills is that of personal councilor for Dave. His was not a role which the Project Administrators envisioned at the outset. Had they have thought of it, they would have probably brought in a highly qualified psychologist. It was at Dave’s request that Max was brought on board. In issue two, we see just how the two met and eventually became friends.

Any questions or comments? All are welcome.

Shhhh. Listen to the conversation.;-)

Mark’s Remarks: Dave analyzes his real first adventure since becoming New Man. Max adds his years of experience as guidance for our hero. Just how Max got involved in the project will be revealed in the next issue which we’ll roll out in just a few more days at the conclusion of this landmark publication.

Any questions or comments? All are welcome.