TRIGGER HIPPIE

I'm a sucker for a crime story and I've had this one percolating in my head for a while.

It's called TRIGGER HIPPIE. I nicked the title from a MORCHEEBA song, but it fits.

Here's the idea --

Meet Paul "Trig" Trigger -- lover of women, fish tacos, and a good spliff.

Trig does odd "jobs" for a specific criminal clientele, big time pot farmers, taking care of a laundry list of unpleasant duties. In exchange he gets a little walking around money and enough smoke to make it through the week.

Only problem: Trig is a pacifist.

Where an old school mook would rough up a deadbeat dealer, Trig has to cajole, beg, outsmart, and outhustle people. With his charm and wit, he just manages to keep the peace without anyone resorting to violence.

But, when a hottie with a bag full of cash takes off to spite a small time dealer, Trig and his new Samoan bodyguard Lars go looking for her before she ends up getting hurt - or worse. Things really go south when her body turns up and the money is missing and Trig starts looking good to LA Homicide for the deed. Being firmly in the crosshairs of a murder investigation is enough to turn this peace-lovin' slacker into a bad ass mofo looking for a little payback.

Trig finds that for a pacifist, he's got a mean right cross.

It's two parts Raymond Chandler and one part Cheech and Chong peppered with a little Tarantino humor and an oddball cast.

Artwork is by the man-with-the-skilled-drawing-hand Ulises Carpintero.

Again, this another project we hope to drop in San Diego.

Feedback welcome.

CRESCENT CITY

As promised, here's a glimpse of one of my new projects - CRESCENT CITY.

Here's the quick pitch:

The Musso crime family, kings of New Orleans, is in trouble.

The competition is moving in on their corners, a shipment of uncut product is missing and the new hotshot District Attorney is working the Grand Jury for indictments of the mob’s top people.

But, worst of all, the family shaman has lost his mojo.

Antony Musso is the family voodoo priest and it seems that his spells and rituals may not be as potent as they once were. A terribly superstitious lot, the Musso family has run New Orleans’ crime rackets since the mid 1800’s using intimidation, business savvy, violence and voodoo. From protection spells to calls for good luck to the blackest of arts - voodoo murder - the family has employed the occult to further their fortunes.

Now, someone has whacked Antony’s Uncle Nicky using a bit of the old school juju and the top suspect is someone who’s been at the bottom of the Gulf for 30 years. If Antony can’t protect the family from the forces aligned against them, the family’s karmic debt – years of murder and magic – is going to come due with one hell of a vig on top!

Artwork is by the amazing Damian Couceiro. Here's a preview of the first six penciled pages.

We're buttoning the extended pitch down and polishing the project bible to take this out to publishers. You can see by the artwork if we fail to get a publisher it'll be because the writing stinks. Damian's stuff is fantastic!

Drop me some feedback,

This will be a part of my creative neutron bomb I plan to unleash on San Diego Comicon. Run for the fallout shelters, editors!

More project previews soon.

"So where the hell are you???"

That's from an email I received. I'm touched that people still care.

So where the hell are we?

Here's what I know -- Alan and I have severed our relationship with Devil's Due. We'll no longer be putting out any LOST SQUAD comics through them. All rights have reverted to us going forward.

I want to thank Josh Blaylock and Sam Wells and everyone at Devil's Due for all their support and hard work.

We are looking at other opportunities. That's about all I want to say on that for now.

Rogue Pictures still holds the option for a LOST SQUAD movie until early 2010. At this point, I have no news on that front. The development process has been hampered by the writer's strike and by Universal's sale of the company to Relativity Media. Things could still change and the ball could get rolling, but it's not looking good.

I'm sure we will be shopping the project around if rights revert back to us, but it would be great if things got rolling with Rogue Pictures.

So where the hell are we going?

I have a TON of new projects in the works including a horror idea with Alan Robinson.

Artwork has been steadily coming in and I should have at least FIVE new projects to pitch for San Diego.

In the next week or so I will toss up some sample art for the new projects just to give a taste.

So thanks for hanging with us. There will be more artwork and news to gander at both LOST SQUAD related and info about new projects.

So keep checking back. More posting as time allows.