Originally appearing briefly in the 100 Covers series, I decided I wanted to expand on the character. An assassin that’s rather unemotional and likes killing with his hands. He tends to snap necks but in the end, whatever gets the job done in any given situation.
Initially, the first issue is more of a straight nod to the late, great Darwin Cooke, may he Rest In Peace. Specifically the one color palette to give the story a distinct look. In the first book, we see the Swede in three different scenarios, where the actual kill is usually in an enclosed space or out in the open against great odds.
Book two: Sugo, which just came out, throws the Swede a bit of a curve ball when another assassin intrudes in his business and costs him money. This is not good for anyone. Meet Sugo. He also has a very distinct way of killing people. Side note: Book Two changes the color scheme a bit too for each scene.
The Swede Book One is available at Amazon HERE.
And The Swede Book Two – Sugo is also available on Amazon HERE.
Most people reading this know all about Mickey & Maj but for those who don’t, it’s the story of a seven year old boy who meets an ancient, wise-cracking sentient Magic Carpet that can take him anywhere is time, space or different dimensions.
The book’s future is up in the air. It’s also dependent on sales as usual. I believe the concept has real legs to it but I’m just me. I can only spread the word just so much.
Action Lab was nice enough to combine Books One and Two into one collection and put it out via print and as a digital release. The collection is available on ComiXology and Amazon. The particular process in this case took over a year due to delays but it came out this past January. I figured that it would be an additional year before Book Three was put out of at all but they surprised me and it was released digitally on ComiXology on March 18th. So, the trilogy is out there. We’ll see if the response warrants more stories. Mickey & Maj: The Selfies is still available on Amazon as well.
Sequential Tart is a website that’s been very kind to M&M, with glowing reviews for the combined collection, as well as the release of the latest book. Thanks again to them. I did an interview with them about M&M that was featured in their April edition.
As to what comes next for Michael James Hawthorne and Majestic — I’m in the early stages of Book Four. Books One and Two were 40 pages each. Book Three was 56 pages. No telling on this one. I had a story in mind but I’m adding a few things as I go. Had a brainstorm or two during the break in the action.
Of course the pandemic has slow things up and killed a lot of momentum with Action Lab, so everything’s tentative there as well.
So we’ll see where the Magic Carpet takes us next time, or whether they’ll head into a black hole, because the thing IS.
I had such a good time creating 100 Covers, I decided to go back in for another round to play with different stories. As time passed, some members departed, and new ones joined up, as “The Second 100 Covers” takes us through Covers #101 thru 200.
The great sea god Neptune attacks but when he’s defeated and reduced in age to a preteen, his attitude is much happier and his power is added to the team when “Kid Neptune” joins.
A few members take off on an adventure in time, only to come back much later than the reader thinks, as shape-shifting aliens took their place.
Granite, the son of Rockefeller takes his dad’s place when it’s believed he dies.
The Obsidian Pride, alien lion beings from a different dimension, invade earth. One of their own turns against the pride, saving the Battalion and the planet. Zaphir then joins the team and eventually falls in love with Svea, who is eventually killed.
But her soul rests in Valhalla, and Zaphir decides to invade the realm of the dead and bring her back! They succeed, and bring back Elof as well.
An alien healer named Vanir claims he can safely separate Mala from the Tor symbiote. We assume that she goes off to see the world once she’s free but in reality, Vanir merely imprisoned her while he took on the symbiote and became Vavator.
Matunaaga, son of Mataak, also joins the team.
A subplot runs through the entire set of covers, where an arms organization is plotting with Vanator to take over and a disillusioned Granite temporarily falls in with them.
When all’s said and done, there are enough heroes for two teams and we end on a happy note, with cover 200.
I have ruminated about a third volume called “The Last 100 Covers” which would be a big time jump going to the next generation and Covers #901 through 1,000. Sometimes it comes down to how badly the audience wants more and how big that audience is that creates the demand. Unfortunately, the different nature of the projects I do have not created a large enough fanbase to justify continuing them.
I wanted to try a more serialized story like you’d find in comic strips. A sci fi adventure story about two young idiots, who like all of us at that age, think we’re immortal. Still a bit drunk from the night before, they stowaway on an experimental test rocket. Said test rocket is due to be unmanned for said experiment. The two young idiots merely being on the ship disrupts the experiment, causing a change in trajectory and navigation. The ship hurtles through a wormhole and ends up in our neighboring galaxy.
One of the idiots is killed on impact. The other is not so lucky. He wanders around the alien planet and although he manages to survive, he comes out a very different person in the end.
The screaming Zebra men of Alpha Centauri are the initial antagonists and they end up being used in the second Mickey & Maj story a few years later. I’m actually not sure if I was ever able to print a sample of these up. The horizontal format makes for fine web viewing but not so much for a standard printed book. And I went black and white simply to enhance the sci fi feel.
I had them all posted in an online book site which was very nice, where you could leaf through the pages on screen. But the site eventually went belly up. I’ll have to see if I can cobble together the collection and put it up on Amazon some day.
There was a point several years ago when I thought I might go in a different direction, style-wise. Maybe humorous, absurd, content, an almost completely new identity. Satire, social commentary, oddities, something that I hoped would pass for “wit” in some cases. Mostly, just bizarre stuff that would make me laugh.
Thus was born Emil Farful.
I did a fair number of these and eventually collected them in a book and put it up on Amazon.
I made a couple contributions to an anthology mag, the Hamtrack Idea Men somewhere around 2009. One of which was “What would you do for Love?”, a black and white eight pager about a man who’s lost all sense of reality after losing a loved one. That’s when a doll starts talking to him, telling him that it can bring his love back to him– If he does what it says, including murdering the cable repair guy. Each issue of the anthology had a running theme each time and this one was “love”, so I twisted things around into a dark twilight zone chapter. Each page had gray tones until things got extremely intense, at which point I shifted to stark black and white. All in all, I think it worked well.
The second story I did was a short four page affair called “3 Minutes”. I don’t remember the specifics or the theme as I type this but seeing as how it was only four pages, let’s just take a look at the whole thing:
This one has been on the back burner for quite some time– ever since 100 Covers, when the tale of the Blue Bomber was told across 8 of the project. A long forgotten hero, who’s story began decades earlier, brought back into action to face off against his old foe who had once again resurfaced, Emperor Zoh.
This was one of three epic length storylines that ran during that first 100 Covers and I think I was able to hit all the major beats well enough to tell the over all tale.
The thought had since crossed my mind several times to go back and tell the whole story of how The Bomber and Zoh both came to be and to finish their stories in grand fashion. There are still things I would need to get straight, the narrative still percolating in my head. We’ll see if it all makes it through to the art stage.
If it were to be done properly, I think it would have to be four 20 page issues, or one large graphic novel, around 80 pages total. We’ll see.
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