Should have posted this quite a while ago as this was published about two weeks back.
Check it out the video here.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Tony Lee talks Dr. WHO
Check it out the video here.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Movie stuff
Got a few emails in the past couple of weeks from friends asking about the status of the Lost Squad property in Hollywood. Thought I'd do a quick update.
Most of you probably know that Rogue Pictures had let their option lapse as of last January. In the interim, things have moved along the development track albeit at a leisurely walking pace.
Here's what I can say - there are behind the camera creative people who have attached themselves to Lost Squad. I love their take on the story and could not be more thrilled. Honestly, they really get the book and have crafted a terrific pitch to get us on the screen.
The next step is to take it out to people familiar with the book and have interest in a Lost Squad movie. Things are slow usually around this time of year in the movie biz, but we have a number of friendly ears who will listen to the new pitch.
So there we go. Like I always say about things Hollywood related, "It's all vapor."
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
One more time -- the Halloween essay
This will be the last year I toss this up on the site. It's a favorite, but it's probably time to retire the essay.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Language Warning. I get a bit potty mouth in this one.
Back in 2005, I was asked to write a quick essay for the horror blog Dark, But Shining byNewsarama blogger and all-around good guy Kevin Melrose. The piece was to be included in a series of essays by different authors describing what REALLY scares them.
Last year I jetted out to Hollywood and did a round of meet-and-greets with a few movie types and I told this story in one of the meetings. When I finished, the veep in charge of story told me, "Go home and write that one. That's fucking creepy." I've got the bones of the story down, just need to find the time to write it.
Here it is -- PEERING INTO DARKNESS:
When was the last time you were really scared?
I mean really fucking scared.
Not the quick adrenaline shock that comes when you slam on the brakes and narrowly avoid rear-ending the car in front of you, but that sick-to-your stomach, creeping feeling where you are absolutely certain that something awful and vile is going to happen.
True story –
In the year after college I worked for an apartment management company renting units and dealing with tenants. An older woman, the mother of one of the tenants, came in late one dreary September day and needed to get into her son’s apartment. We hadn’t received a rent payment in almost two months and we were fairly certain the guy had just disappeared and abandoned his apartment. The mother was there to pay the balance, remove some of his belongings, and sublet the apartment.
My boss, Steve, wanted me to go over and unlock the door and stay on site until the woman had finished and lock up behind her.
“Go now, man. You gotta see this guy’s apartment,” Steve said. The mother had to fill out some paperwork and I would have a good ten or fifteen minutes at the guy’s apartment by myself.
The guy – I’ll call him “Max,” as I’ve long since forgotten his real name – lived in a basement studio apartment right across from the laundry room of a small, older building with nine units.
Max was a LARGE guy. By large I mean HUGE – easily 6’6” or 6’7” and a flabby 250 lbs. Max was also a very odd guy. He liked to pace between the parked cars in the small lot behind the building for hours, and had taken to sticking his head out his door and glaring at each tenant as they tried to do their laundry. One tenant was certain Max was holding a hammer as he watched her sort her whites from her colors. Most tenants in the building began frequenting Laundromats.
Max’s studio apartment was the only one in the building located below ground, and it had no windows. None. No source of natural light. So, when I pushed open the door to Apartment A, the room was completely dark except for the light spilling in from the hall. The switch by the door failed to produce light of any kind, but I could make out a standing lamp next to a mattress resting on the floor. I stepped over some scattered magazines or newspapers and turned on the light.
And there I was, standing in a room covered from floor to ceiling in images of bondage, S&M and gruesome torture.
Neat stacks of cheap leather-fetish porn mags were against one wall, each about two and a half feet high. More magazines were scattered across the floor along with hundreds of pages torn from other issues and tossed casually around the room, and in piles so deep you couldn’t tell the color of the carpet.
Scotch-taped to every inch of wall was Max’s original artwork, his twisted creativity on display, where he could really amp up the action from the magazine photos and manipulate and control his sadistic fantasies.
A pencil-and-charcoal drawing of a blindfolded woman lashed across a bed of nails.
A woman nailed to a cross and hung upside down, done in marker.
He’d saved the most graphic of the images for the wall and ceiling above his bed. These were the last images Max would see when he went to sleep and the first thing he’d gaze upon when he woke up.
A crayon drawing of a woman with hundreds of small cuts across her back tied to a rack and suspended above a pit of fire.
Women with spikes through their breasts and with flesh pierced by dozens of hooks.
This isn’t what freaked me out. The explicit stuff didn’t really get to me. It was two other things, really.
One was the hammer lying next to the door, sitting there, waiting for Max to take it in hand to defend against perceived threats outside in the hallway.
The other was the small, child-like handwriting underneath the most prominently displayed and most violent series of pictures.
The writing on each picture read, simply: “SARAH.”
That really fucking got to me.
Sarah was someone’s daughter. Maybe someone’s sister or girlfriend. Someone’s mother, perhaps.
Max had decided that she suited his taste.
He knew exactly with whom he wanted to dance. These weren’t random, sick thoughts on paper. The pictures were simply a blueprint for what he really wanted to do to Sarah. She probably had no idea that Max was watching and plotting. I knew damn well that she had no idea her naked image was plastered on Max’s wall, or she would have run to the cops as fast as she could.
At that point, I could feel Max there in the room with me. His presence filled the small space. A door closed loudly somewhere upstairs and I got the fuck out of there, barely remembering to lock up behind me.
I ran into Max’s mother coming down the stairs and had to descend to the basement once again to open the door for her. Before going inside she turned, smiled, and said, “I’ll be just a minute. I only need to get some clothes. I don’t like to be in there.” She knew about her son. She understood when I told her I’d wait out in the hall.
As it turned out, Max had been committed to an institution and she was taking him some of his things. I hope he’s still there rotting, frankly, and that Sarah is far away.
The apartment was soon cleaned of the filth and closed up never to be rented again.
As for Sarah, I never did find out who she was exactly. I checked the tenant list for the building and didn’t find a Sarah listed. She’ll never know how close she came to, what I believe, was a monster.
When it comes to movies that really creep me out, it’s not the flicks with demons or monsters or undead stalkers in hockey masks that get to me. It’s always the film where the human mind is the real villain that scares me. Give me a well-done and cliché-free serial killer movie, like The Silence of the Lambs or Seven. I think it’s because of my short time in Max’s apartment, where I peeked into the window of a really dark and twisted psyche. I found that, for myself, the scariest of monsters lives inside the disturbed mind
I do need to sit down and write this out and expand it as a new project (a screenplay or novella, perhaps). I'd love to get inside the mind of "Max" our creepy tenant and expand the story.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Language Warning. I get a bit potty mouth in this one.
Back in 2005, I was asked to write a quick essay for the horror blog Dark, But Shining byNewsarama blogger and all-around good guy Kevin Melrose. The piece was to be included in a series of essays by different authors describing what REALLY scares them.
Last year I jetted out to Hollywood and did a round of meet-and-greets with a few movie types and I told this story in one of the meetings. When I finished, the veep in charge of story told me, "Go home and write that one. That's fucking creepy." I've got the bones of the story down, just need to find the time to write it.
Here it is -- PEERING INTO DARKNESS:
When was the last time you were really scared?
I mean really fucking scared.
Not the quick adrenaline shock that comes when you slam on the brakes and narrowly avoid rear-ending the car in front of you, but that sick-to-your stomach, creeping feeling where you are absolutely certain that something awful and vile is going to happen.
True story –
In the year after college I worked for an apartment management company renting units and dealing with tenants. An older woman, the mother of one of the tenants, came in late one dreary September day and needed to get into her son’s apartment. We hadn’t received a rent payment in almost two months and we were fairly certain the guy had just disappeared and abandoned his apartment. The mother was there to pay the balance, remove some of his belongings, and sublet the apartment.
My boss, Steve, wanted me to go over and unlock the door and stay on site until the woman had finished and lock up behind her.
“Go now, man. You gotta see this guy’s apartment,” Steve said. The mother had to fill out some paperwork and I would have a good ten or fifteen minutes at the guy’s apartment by myself.
The guy – I’ll call him “Max,” as I’ve long since forgotten his real name – lived in a basement studio apartment right across from the laundry room of a small, older building with nine units.
Max was a LARGE guy. By large I mean HUGE – easily 6’6” or 6’7” and a flabby 250 lbs. Max was also a very odd guy. He liked to pace between the parked cars in the small lot behind the building for hours, and had taken to sticking his head out his door and glaring at each tenant as they tried to do their laundry. One tenant was certain Max was holding a hammer as he watched her sort her whites from her colors. Most tenants in the building began frequenting Laundromats.
Max’s studio apartment was the only one in the building located below ground, and it had no windows. None. No source of natural light. So, when I pushed open the door to Apartment A, the room was completely dark except for the light spilling in from the hall. The switch by the door failed to produce light of any kind, but I could make out a standing lamp next to a mattress resting on the floor. I stepped over some scattered magazines or newspapers and turned on the light.
And there I was, standing in a room covered from floor to ceiling in images of bondage, S&M and gruesome torture.
Neat stacks of cheap leather-fetish porn mags were against one wall, each about two and a half feet high. More magazines were scattered across the floor along with hundreds of pages torn from other issues and tossed casually around the room, and in piles so deep you couldn’t tell the color of the carpet.
Scotch-taped to every inch of wall was Max’s original artwork, his twisted creativity on display, where he could really amp up the action from the magazine photos and manipulate and control his sadistic fantasies.
A pencil-and-charcoal drawing of a blindfolded woman lashed across a bed of nails.
A woman nailed to a cross and hung upside down, done in marker.
He’d saved the most graphic of the images for the wall and ceiling above his bed. These were the last images Max would see when he went to sleep and the first thing he’d gaze upon when he woke up.
A crayon drawing of a woman with hundreds of small cuts across her back tied to a rack and suspended above a pit of fire.
Women with spikes through their breasts and with flesh pierced by dozens of hooks.
This isn’t what freaked me out. The explicit stuff didn’t really get to me. It was two other things, really.
One was the hammer lying next to the door, sitting there, waiting for Max to take it in hand to defend against perceived threats outside in the hallway.
The other was the small, child-like handwriting underneath the most prominently displayed and most violent series of pictures.
The writing on each picture read, simply: “SARAH.”
That really fucking got to me.
Sarah was someone’s daughter. Maybe someone’s sister or girlfriend. Someone’s mother, perhaps.
Max had decided that she suited his taste.
He knew exactly with whom he wanted to dance. These weren’t random, sick thoughts on paper. The pictures were simply a blueprint for what he really wanted to do to Sarah. She probably had no idea that Max was watching and plotting. I knew damn well that she had no idea her naked image was plastered on Max’s wall, or she would have run to the cops as fast as she could.
At that point, I could feel Max there in the room with me. His presence filled the small space. A door closed loudly somewhere upstairs and I got the fuck out of there, barely remembering to lock up behind me.
I ran into Max’s mother coming down the stairs and had to descend to the basement once again to open the door for her. Before going inside she turned, smiled, and said, “I’ll be just a minute. I only need to get some clothes. I don’t like to be in there.” She knew about her son. She understood when I told her I’d wait out in the hall.
As it turned out, Max had been committed to an institution and she was taking him some of his things. I hope he’s still there rotting, frankly, and that Sarah is far away.
The apartment was soon cleaned of the filth and closed up never to be rented again.
As for Sarah, I never did find out who she was exactly. I checked the tenant list for the building and didn’t find a Sarah listed. She’ll never know how close she came to, what I believe, was a monster.
When it comes to movies that really creep me out, it’s not the flicks with demons or monsters or undead stalkers in hockey masks that get to me. It’s always the film where the human mind is the real villain that scares me. Give me a well-done and cliché-free serial killer movie, like The Silence of the Lambs or Seven. I think it’s because of my short time in Max’s apartment, where I peeked into the window of a really dark and twisted psyche. I found that, for myself, the scariest of monsters lives inside the disturbed mind
Monday, August 16, 2010
Chicago Comicon
This weekend marks my triumphant return to Wizard World Chicago Comicon or whatever it's being called this year.
After missing it last year for my sister's wedding, I'm looking forward to being on the floor and slinging comics on Thursday.
I will be setting up in Artist's Alley at table # 3428 with LOST SQUAD singles and trades along with my little horror anthology FREAKSHOW and BRIDE OF FREAKSHOW for sale.
I have some gorgeous Alan Robinson original art pages available as well.
Stop by and say hey!
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Not in San Diego.
Long time between posts and there's much I'm dying to reveal but sadly can't at the moment.I know, I know. I'm a tease. Guilty as charged.
For the first time in seven years, I'm not in San Diego. Feels weird to be honest. I'll be extremely busy this weekend and my goal is to go into my bunker and ignore the comic news coming out of the left coast. Fat chance, most likely.
I will be at Comicon Chicago FKA WizardWorld Chicago. I'm splitting a table with fellow Digital Webbing Presents alum and all-around good guy, Glenn Jeffers. More on that as we get into August.
I'm asked a lot about the Lost Squad movie and I can't get into to too much detail but there is movement. There are people interested and I'm very encouraged by the progress. The people involved are all VERY talented and have a lot of enthusiasm toward the project. They really seem to get it. More news as I'm allowed.
I've still got a bunch of projects in various holding patterns which seems to be a running theme for this blog in the last few years.
One thing I can confirm is I'm going to have a short story in an upcoming issue of the relaunch of DIGITAL WEBBING PRESENTS. The story is called BARNSTORMING and is a WWII tale about P-51 pilots flying an escort mission near the end of the war. Art by the amazing Juan Moreno who did DARK SIDE OF THE MOON for me in DWP #3 (my first published comic!). He's solid. Check out the sample above.
We're having it colored and it's slated to be in one of the first issues of the new launch.
So everyone have fun in San Diego. Think of me pouting at home and missing the action.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
C2E2 this weekend.
I will be heading up to C2E2 this weekend in Chicago. Looking forward to hanging out with old friends and slinging some comics. I'll be setting up in Artist Alley at table O8 on your bingo card.
I'm sharing space with the incomparable Joe Judt creator of KUNG from Moonstone Books.
I'll have LOST SQUAD trades for sale along with selected single issues. I still have a few FREAKSHOW and BRIDE OF FREAKSHOW issues, so if like the classic EERIE or CREEPY books, then you will enjoy these four story horror anthologies I wrote.
Swing by our table and say hello!
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Lost Squad covers - part II
I had tossed up a slideshow of the cover gallery last week, but some are having trouble viewing the images, so I'm reposting the covers from issues # 1, 3, 4, 5 and the trade. Enjoy!
Click on the pics to view larger images of the covers.
Click on the pics to view larger images of the covers.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Lost Squad covers
Sprucing up the site a bit. I noticed some new people visiting and wanted to upload this slideshow of Lost Squad covers.
Artwork by Alan Robinson.
Here's the pitch -- It's the DIRTY DOZEN by way of the X-FILES - weird war tales created for a new audience! When a mission is too weird for the U.S. Army the brass calls in the Lost Squad. It's 1942 and the seemingly unstoppable Wehrmacht is on the march. AS the Nazis swallow more and more of Europe, Hitler's scientists perfect a mechanism that could guarantee his ultimate victory!
Reviews: 4 out of 5 stars - INDYCOMICREVIEW.COM
"The Lost Squad is three parts high adventure and one part humor" - COMICREADERS.COM
"This series has a lot of character" - SEQUENTIALTART.COM
"An interesting tale, one a bit off the beaten path." - BROKENFRONTIER.COM
Artwork by Alan Robinson.
Here's the pitch -- It's the DIRTY DOZEN by way of the X-FILES - weird war tales created for a new audience! When a mission is too weird for the U.S. Army the brass calls in the Lost Squad. It's 1942 and the seemingly unstoppable Wehrmacht is on the march. AS the Nazis swallow more and more of Europe, Hitler's scientists perfect a mechanism that could guarantee his ultimate victory!
Reviews: 4 out of 5 stars - INDYCOMICREVIEW.COM
"The Lost Squad is three parts high adventure and one part humor" - COMICREADERS.COM
"This series has a lot of character" - SEQUENTIALTART.COM
"An interesting tale, one a bit off the beaten path." - BROKENFRONTIER.COM
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