Welcome back to another installment of Indie Comics Showcase! This week we’re pressed for time and want to get these timely selections on your radar immediately! Some of them end in very, very soon, and one just launched today! This is going to be a fairly quick & dirty version of the Indie Comics Showcase since Mr. Lemus was overwhelmed with other commitments this week, but still and as always, our mission remains the same: Support Indie Comics!
Now let’s dive in! Our first offering ends today!!
Chaotic Flux #1: Aliens vs Monsters
by Scott Payne
A dark Sci-Fi saga
Here’s the story: In the year 2179 an epic journey unfolds. Zithara, an alien hybrid, has hollow bones and the ability to form red crystal structures at will into various forms of weaponry, thus allowing her to become an acrobatic blade of death. She comes face to face with a pack of horrible mutant abominations, awful life devouring beasts dubbed as Dreadfiends.
As she fights for her life to escape from being eaten alive by them, she remembers her past horrors, a dark childhood bathed in pure hatred and prejudice simply for being what she is. She is hunted down by the technologically advanced and militant trained hate group known as The Order of the Purging Hand. This hate causes her to embark on a journey that unlocks her true potential…
And leads her to join a ragtag super team called The Crimson Flame. These Dreadfiends have grown and spread at such a rapid rate that they have become a plague that threatens the very existence of humankind and most of all other life on earth. The Crimson Flame is humanity’s last hope, but a genocidal dark entity that calls himself Malakar is determined to make any hope impossible.
Creator Scott Payne has been a huge comic book fanatic for most of his life and wanted to be a comic book creator ever since he can remember. He decided that if he was ever going to do it, he’d have to do it BIG, so he’s been building on this story and world for 20 years now and he’s finally ready to share it with comic book fans all over. Chaotic Flux is a passion project for Scott. He wants nothing more than to get it into reader’s hands.
Visit SharpEdgeComics.com, Scott’s production company, for even more on the series including a full 10 page preview. Meanwhile, check out the Indiegogo page right now and consider backing this project before the deadline arrives in 12 hours!
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Joe King Vs The World’s Greatest Average Hero!
by George Peter Gatsis
Next up, we’re talking with George Peter Gatsis about his current Indiegogo project, JOE KING. This is a family friendly humor adventure comic that makes fun of Star Wars, Star Trek, The Orville, and more with a superhero twist and a whole lot of Chuck Jones inspiration sprinkled throughout. I was able to ask George a few questions about this unique project.
CB: George, thanks for joining us for this week’s Indie Comics Showcase. Tell us about your Joe King comic (‘joking,’ get it?).
GG: Joe and his pals take on trivial missions that may jeopardize life, the universe and everything else. The entire universe of story combines all genres. The JOE KING cast of characters and story are a combination of DOCTOR WHO, STAR TREK and CHUCK JONES smashed together with a pocket-sized collider, which occasionally creates singularities with hilarity… 🙂
CB: Sounds like quite a witty combination. What made you decide to produce this project?
GG: Well, I’ve actually been independently producing my own comic books since around 1990. I think I was first inspired by innovation and by creator Joe Kubert when many years ago, I picked up 1,000,000 BC off of a variety store shelf and later in 2011 I had the chance to meet Mr. Kubert in person. I shook his hand and told him through my tears that he had inspired me into the world of comic books!
CB: Joe Kubert is definitely a comics legend. What a story! Who is your creative team on JOE KING?
GG: Just me, no one else… I do everything myself and I’m completely self-taught!
CB: That’s amazing, George! Tell us about your creative process and production process.
GG: I’ve been 100% vector ever since 1990. I consider it the world’s first TRUE 100% computer generated comic book and first 100% computer production going directly to digital plate. There’s no film exposure involved. I actually began distributing my comic books on 700k and 1.4meg floppies in the 90s, then moved to PDF delivery in the 2000’s, eventually to the Apple store in the 2010’s and now, 30 years later, I’ve moved back to print.
CB: What stage is the project in currently?
GG: All of the 3D models for the figurines are ready to be produced. All 96 pages for the campaign books are done. I think the only thing that may slow me down are the 5 additional ORIGINAL illustrations I’m including for each and every backer, but I believe I’ve given myself enough time to deliver everything with some time to spare before the due date.
CB: What else can you share about the project and what you’re planning?
GG: My works are first and foremost humor based. I’m a genre omnivore! I have many script formatted works on my website also. I currently have 40 minute JOE KING animated film on my Youtube channel! Check it out by clicking here, along with LOTs of other videos showing off technique and resume. Check it out and please consider backing my Indiegogo for Joe King Vs. World’s Greatest Average Hero!
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Bad Dreams & Other Stories!
by George Alexopoulos
“Bad Dreams” is a collection featuring dozens of ink drawings; many accompanied by uncanny, nebulous, sometimes disquieting stories. Words and pictures are the way our species communicate dreams and visions. Many of these illustrations were executed without premeditation, as if the artist’s hand moved on its own. What does each one mean?
The creator, George Alexopoulos says “I love stories illustrated with ink. Each pen stroke feels alive, tangible – a real hand made this on a sheet of paper, just like what I’m holding. I’ve been sketching my own ink drawings for years, and have even tried selling a few. It appeared there wasn’t much interest at the time, so I put them away.”
George is an accomplished artist of several different styles. We’ve featured his work in Indie Comics Showcase before, and he’s even been an occasional contributor to this website.
“Recently, I began migrating my gallery and posted a few old drawings on Twitter for fun. There was a ton of positive feedback and questions about the stories behind many of them! Thus I’ve decided to collect them all into a book, with accompanying text. I will also include various sketches from unpublished or incomplete projects, to create as robust a collection as possible.”
“Every illustration will be reproduced as close to the size and quality of the originals as possible – blemishes and all! Once printed to my satisfaction, each book will be assembled and bound by hand, using traditional techniques. Since many of the illustrations were drawn improvisationally, George plans to include imperfections like torn edges, or asymmetrical hardcover binding. Softcover copies will be perfect bound, while he intends to wrap hardcovers in canvas with a dust jacket.”
Please check out George’s Indiegogo campaign here and consider backing this crowdfunding campaign!
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Flying Sparks Volume 2: Mob Ties
by Jon Del Arroz
Jon Del Arroz is an accomplished author, but he’s recently broken into the field of indie comics, with his recent adaptation of Richard Fox’s Ember Wars, and his own creation, Flying Sparks which is swiftly become a full universe. Hot on the heels of a successful crowdfund for Flying Sparks, Del Arroz produced a prequel that he made available directly on Amazon, and now he is producing the sequel to Flying Sparks, expanding the story and once again crowdfunding it on Kickstarter.
In this volume, Meta-Girl considers calling it quits as a superhero, she answers the call to fight an escalating mob war. Meanwhile, her boyfriend, Johnny Benvinuiti, is caught right in the center of the war as he’s tapped to become a new crime boss. Epic battles and intense character drama fire on all cylinders in volume 2 of the Flying Sparks story. More strange powered beings appear, focused on getting revenge on Buxton Technologies. Both Meta-Girl and Johnny find their friends getting far too close to their secret lives as heroes and villains.
Is their relationship worth holding onto? Will they come head to head in battle with one another?
Variant “Sunkissed Swimsuit Edition” cover by Miss SashiJon is also a frequent contributor to this website, covering many of the double-standards that mainstream press, conventions, and comics pros have demonstrated when it comes to their treatment of right-leaning and libertarian supporting creators and even fans. Jon was also the guy that broke a major #ComicsGate controversy when comic industry professionals, Taylor Esposito and B. Clay Moore, were caught conspiring to have an indie comic creator and critic (Diversity & Comics aka Richard Meyer) violently ejected from a comics convention.
Returning to the Flying Sparks volume 2 project, this book has a pretty impressive creative team. Del Arroz is of course the creator and writer. Jon has done a lot more than comics too. In fact, he’s written at least 10 novels to date. The books interior art is handled once again by Jethro Morales (Hack/Slash, The Green Hornet, and Dejah Thoris), an industry veteran who has worked with Image Comics, Dynamite Comics, and Dark Horse Comics. Morales and Jon have worked several times before. Sanju Nivangune is the book’s colorist, another comics industry veteran who has been working with Zenescope Comics for nearly a decade. Jaymes Reed is handling the lettering and he’s worked for Image Comics, Aspen Comics, and many others. Gary Shipman is handling the main cover with Brett R. Smith (GI Joe, Wolverine, Batman, Justice League, and Harley Quinn) who is handling coloring chores on that cover.
That’s quite a line-up with an impressive pedigree! Check out the crowdfund page here. It kicks off today!
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Tales from the Stacks
by Michael Critzer
The following excerpt was taken from a longer interview conducted by our Editor in Chief, Jamison Ashley, in February when the campaign was kicking off:
Michael Critzer (aka “Professor Geek”) is not only a regular contributor to this website, but he is also a creator of his own. An accomplished writer and long-time Youtube personality, Michael is the author of the book Heroic Inspirations, an exploration of superhero stories and the life lessons we can draw from them. Michael’s short fiction regularly appears in a number of literary magazines and genre anthologies and as a cultural studies scholar, he has presented at academic conferences on the cultural and psychological roles superheroes play in our society. Michael is also the ‘Professor Geek’ behind the so named YouTube channel and one of the hosts of Superman Lives, and a host on the geek-centric podcast Holy Roman Fanboys: The Geek Shall Inherit the Earth.
When he isn’t writing or waxing on about comic books and popular culture, Michael teaches writing, rhetoric and American literature in Central Virginia.
Variant cover by Jon Malin and Kyle Ritter
Variant cover by Keung Lee_________
That’s it for this installment! Thanks for checking out this edition and please remember to support indie comics!!!
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