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Comics

New Comic Day: Late to the Party – The Nice House on the Lake

Just in time for the series to have ended on issue 12 over the winter holiday and the release of the second and final trade paperback, I finally decided to dig in to the first volume of The Nice House on the Lake, another character driven supernatural horror/thriller from James Tynion IV (Something is Killing the Children, Department of Truth, w0rldtr33.)

*Mild plot based spoilers* The story revolves around a group of 10 friends/acquaintances who are invited out to a luxurious lake house by their mutual friend Walter. Shortly after arriving in, in short, the world basically ends, while the house, lake, and surrounding area appear unaffected by the chaos witnessed through various social media. Also, Walter doesn’t appear to be what he seemed and then essentially abandons the group.

The structure of each issue is wholly unique. Each issue (of the 4 I’ve read thus far, each volume collects 6 issues) centers on one of the ten characters, with a “post apocalyptic” narration and subsequent flashback from each in the first 4 pages before delving into the events following the outside world apocalypse. Each character has an occupation (The Reporter, The Comedian, The Artist, etc.) and attached “icon.” At first the mass of characters seemed a bit daunting, but there is a nice key to each on the back page, so it’s a bit easier to keep track of them before the story starts rolling along.

So far 10/10 would recommend, will be finishing đź‘Ť

Comics, Projects, works in progress

Big Things on the Horizon

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So let’s sum up the last three years. Starting in late February 2020: GalaxyCon (yay!!) Covid (boo) Unemployment (boo) Art Commissions (yay!) Mid Covid Restaurant Reopening and job promotion (yay?) Rinse, repeat for a year and a half. Various work and personal ups and downs and we arrive at summer 2022. After being burnt out by the restaurant industry and falling off on my artwork, I was approached by a couple friends in the Richmond, VA area about a new project. A comic book project!

It’s been a good decade and a half since I’ve done sequential artwork in a narrative capacity. I’d worked on a partial outline for a potential series in 2010 which, due to my work schedule and return to higher education, took a back burner. Though, taking part in larger community projects like “Inktober” over the years, I’d managed to prevent getting too rusty.

Issue #1 Cover, completed inks

My artist friend Ally Slawson approached me alongside her writer friend Joshua Eadie about a comic book project he’d conceived of several years back. The idea was for Joshua to write, I’d do the principle artwork with Ally finishing the images with color and lettering. The comic is called “Southtown” and will be set in a futurist cyber-punk world. All tech-mods, tattoos and corporate terrorism! After spending the summer meeting every few weeks, mocking up character designs and defining roll-out plans, the actual comic is starting to take shape. Several pages are already completed (pre-color) and the crew and I have set up a website (still under construction) with a Kickstarter campaign soon to follow. More (frequent!) updates as these details and dates are solidified. I’ll be dropping art teases on Instagram and Facebook as more progress is made. If all goes well enough in the coming months, we may see you at GalaxyCon 2023 in March!

Until next time,
Cheers, friends!