A Special Mega Tales Update!

Yes! It’s Official!

Mega Tales #1, the 32 page full color, printed addition is available online at IndyPlanet.com and for Comic Shops at ComicsMonkey.com! Also we have copies available from ComiXpress.com! If you enjoyed this 10 page preview of the book certainly you’ll want the printed addition, right? Well,  here’s your chance to get your own printed copy!

Here’s a  little Tess recap. If you are  just joining us and for those of us  who need a little reminder, we present this brief synopsis of our story:

This first story does not start at the beginning. We join an established cast with Tess, Theo, Nostradamus, the 4D Cocker Spaniel, Anamanda, General Bohannon and many more we’ll clue you in about as we go along. There is a lot of mystery surrounding these characters and how they all came to be friends and what the is mission which they share with Tess and Nosey. Some of the answers will be in this first 32 page story. Tess lives on her 4D Star Ship which orbits and monitors the earth for any extraterrestrial and extra dimensional activity. As we join the story another star ship bursts into earth orbit which begins this adventure. Tess and her friends encounter a threat, which is at first glace is very disarming, however before the end of this issue we will see how very dangerous these aliens can be.

Tess, is short for tesseract. If you don’t know what a tesseract is Wikipedia defines it as: In four dimensional geometry, the tesseract, also called an 8-cell or regular octachoron, is the four-dimensional analog of the cube, which is in turn the three dimensional analog of the square. Tess is a young lady who is a living tesseract. She comes from another dimension and in our dimension she can teleport herself or just about anything else just about any where. She manifests the power in a number of ways other than teleportation and she has a cute little 4th dimensional dog with a very high I.Q. named Nostradamus. In short: we are 3D beings, Tess and Nostradamus are 4D beings.

Mega Tales #1 TM and © Greg Legat, Mark Poe, J. Adam Walters, Mega Graphics, LLC . All rights reserved.

But wait, there’s more! With this page we have over 300 comic book pages on this site. 320 to be precise. That doesn’t include all our pin-ups, sketches and other assorted artwork nor does it include all the art we’ve previewed of other publishers. Neither does it include an even larger amount of blogs! So, as slow as we might be we’ve actually posted a lot in a one and a half years! And we’re not stopping here.  As we have said before we still have the conclusion to Tess to do which will be Mega Tales #2, as well as the soon to begin Epoch 2012 A.D. And also the, as yet titled, Golden Age Project we’ve been plugging lately which will get us back to posting a t least 1 comic page a day, 5 days a week. So never fear Mega Maniacs! The best is yet to come! Hey! We have not even gotten to our new work yet! We’ve just been showcasing our old stuff to whet your appetite! So hang around, effendi, and see what we pull out of our collective hats next!

Well, today’s a special day. It’s the bosses birthday. No, not Springstein. It’s the day some 48 years ago that our Publisher In  Training and middle-aged cartoonist at large, Mark Poe was born. It’s not something we make a big deal out of because he doesn’t and seldom even remembers it at his age, until someone reminds him. This year is his second year on Facebook and there was no way he was going to forget it this year! If you are on Facebook you know what we mean. Birthdays are not forgotten there! Mark has really been touched by all his Facebook friends that stopped by and posted a Happy Birthday comment on his FB Wall. He asked us to convey his “Thanks!” to everyone.

Have a good weekend! Cheer your team on to victory, rest, relax and re-charge. You deserve it!

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.

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.

As we have revealed previously  99% of the material on Mega Comics Group’s site is from previous work done several years ago. In the case of this Tess story it was done 22 years ago! We have only this year updated the lettering, corrected some of the art and added the color digitally. Some of the work we’ve done on the Tess material we could not have done when the original art was created. The technology we used on it this year was just in it’s infancy then.

The conclusion to this tale was plotted and breakdowns of the action from panel to panel and page to page was done 22 years ago also, but the script, pencils and inks were not. So there will be a little break between Mega Tales # 1 and # 2 while we get the all new art and script  ready for the conclusion of the Tess story. We’re excited to be able to revisit this and do the second issue with all the experience, knowledge and technology we’ve gained in that 22 year span. So stay tuned! The best is yet to come!

We can’t tell you what a thrill it has been to finally get Tess published on the World Wide Web. Soon we’ll have the Print On Demand (POD) version ready for release. We would like to invite you to go back to page one, re-read the story and give us your feedback. We’d like to know what you think.

The Yankees won! No real big shock there, we suppose, since this is only the 27th time they have won the World Series. But last years champions, the Phillies, gave them a run for their money. The Yankees will get a ticker tape parade today in New York City.

Baseball may be over but Football is just starting to get competitive! 4 more regular season games remain for College Football then the Championship games begin! Some of the MCG crew are Crimson Tide fans. If you don’t know Alabama is the number 2 team in the nation. If they can beat LSU tomorrow  they will be on track to face #1 Florida in an SEC Championship game which will most likely determine one of the players in the National Championship game this January. If LSU wins they will face Florida in the SEC Championship game. Of course there will still be 3 more regular games after tomorrow so anything could happen. But needless to say the game on CBS at 2:30 Central Saturday is a very big game for both teams. Whew! All we can say is, ROLL TIDE ROLL!

Nice, eh? What did we ever do to these guys? Maybe they were offended at our Teddy Bear marking success of the past 100 years. It probably gave them some sort of deep, traumatic, psychological complex. Maybe Tess should call in Dr. Phil or Oprah.

Mark reports this page was a little more complicated on the color end of it but fun to do nonetheless. Be with us next Friday for page 31 and the fate of Nosy.

Well, we made it to another weekend! It’s Halloween! Fall is in full swing and the leaves are changing. Don’t forget to set your clocks back an hour Saturday night as Daylight Savings Time ends.

The World Series is under way and the Phillies are tied with the Yankees two games into it. The next game is Saturday night. We are 2 thirds through the College Football season and the NFL‘s winners and losers this year are coming into focus. Only 3 undefeated teams now, Denver, New Orleans, and Indianapolis. Lot’s of fun right now on the weekends! Enjoy!

There’s more color to this page than it appears, but the black star fields of space dominate the page.

Hope your weekend goes well. Plenty of Football to be had. Cheer your team on to victory, have fun and get some rest. In baseball: the Phillies go back to the World Series but we still don’t know if it will be the Angels or the Yankees that meet them there. Gosh! Can you believe October is almost over. Halloween is next week!

Production on this page was about like the last but it required a little more time. Only because Mark Poe had a bad back all week. Never fear, our friendly net- neighborhood publisher in training and colorist at large, went to the Doctor and got some help. He reports much improvement but he does have to go back for some tests and another visit for the results.

We made some progress on the findings of whether the Original Captain Marvel’s copyright is actually in the Public Domain. We found records where there was an attempt by Fawcett Publishing to renew the copyrights for a few of these Golden Age books. There is still some question about the trademark. It is our understanding once a copyright falls into Public Domain there is no reversing it. We don’t know if that also applies to trademarks. It’s unclear how Marvel Comics secured the trademark. The other big question is: How can the Captain Marvel comics from the 40′s and 50′s be in the Public Domain and not the characters themselves? Our research continues and we have contacted some copyright and trademark attorneys for help. Once we have more facts we’ll fill you in.

Another big weekend of football is here! Cheer for your favorite team and have fun. Hope your team wins, unless they happen to be playing our team.

Notice Nosy, in disguise as one of the bears, in panel 1 and what the science officer is beginning to say in the last panel. What’s that about? Page 29 will tell.

We kinda like these little guys. They are fun to work with as comic characters. They have great story potential too. They display all those great comic book story elements. They appeal to several audiences, have many story paths in which a writer and artist could lead them down while exhibiting humor, drama, adventure and science fiction themes. Hmmmm….

This was a fun page to do. The colors were not that complicated nor the special effects. And the lettering was not that bad either. Or are we just getting in  a good routine and it’s getting easier because we are getting use to it?

We are sitting on some big news right now. It’s not all worked out but we may be having a big announcement in the next few days if everything goes as expected. What is it? Well, here’s a hint: If you liked comics Golden Age, you will love this announcement! Enticed? Stay tuned!

Have a good weekend and watch a little OR a lot of football! We’re almost half way through the collegiate  season and things are heating up. We have 3 SEC teams in the top 5! Anybody have any doubts about which conference is the toughest in the land? Need another clue? Which Conference has won the last 3 National Championships? Hmmm… Yep, that’s right, the SEC again. But who knows what will happen the rest of the season! Stay tuned.

Stephen Greg Legat, who most of us call “Greg” around here, has done a really nice job with the script. Greg does not like to use a lot of narration, but instead allow the characters dialog to give the exposition. He has a knack and passion for using natural dialect for his characters and that really shows in his scripting on the Bears in particular.

Even though Tess and her friends are the stars of this title, the Pirate Bears have just about stolen the show! They seem to appeal to several different groups across the board. Guys like the Pirate aspect of their character and speech, while the ladies seem to think they are cute and the kids think they are cool for both reasons plus they are kid size! How can you lose with that combo? No one around here seems to recall where the idea for the Bears came from. The idea was probably inspired by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in part and the flood of imitators they had in the late ’80′s. Could the Bears spin off in a title by themselves? Who knows? If the demand is there…

This page was fairly easy to do. Nothing too hard about the lettering, coloring or art corrections. The original panel 1 did show Theo and Nosy’s Auto Gyro but it seemed to take away from the main action of that panel so Mark thought it better just to remove it.

Lots of football action this weekend both Collegiate and Pro! Watch and cheer for your favorites and we hope your team wins, unless of course they are playing our team! Have a good weekend and meet us back here Monday!

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!