More Lost Squad minatures.

As promised, more Lost Squad minatures from Chris Jachimowicz.

Sgt. Lymangood.

"Bazooka" Jose'.

The Nazi leader Kessler looking particularly evil.

The biker Nazis from issue #1.

Once again, thanks Chris for sharing!

Alan's Newest Gig

Alan is definitely movin' on up!

I got word from him last week that he's been signed on to provide one issue of fill-in artwork on Dark Horse's Star Wars Legacy book. He's slated for issue #22 which is already solicited and set to arrive in your local comic shop on April 8.

Anyone who knows Alan knows that he is a MAJOR Star Wars fan and this is a dream project for him.

Check out his Darth!

We've put our projects on the backburner for now, but for the record, I couldn't be happier for him!

His artwork keeps getting better and his career, in my opinion, is starting to take off. He's got his foot in the door now at Dark Horse and I predict big things from him.

Now, if Dark Horse could just use a writer, on say, their revivals of my old faves EERIE and CREEPY, they could pair the two of us up once again.

Lost Sqaud Minatures.

Uber-fan Chris Jachimowicz is back with more cool Lost Squad stuff.

This time he's painted and modified some 28mm pewter minatures into our beloved ragtag team of soldiers.

Here's Captain Boudreau.

Here's the email I received from Chris: "I’ve attached several pictures of the Lost Squad figures that I have painted up for 28mm play. They are from Artizan Designs, Bolt Action Miniatures, Brigade Games miniatures and West Wind.

I did a little sculpting, such as glasses on the Corporal, hair on Kessler, and the ribbon on Lymangood’s arm to make them more LS-like. I also added built-in MG-42’s to the front of the motorcycle sidecar and a point to the driver’s helmet. All in all I think they came out rather good!"

Damn! So do I!

Major Smithenry and Corporal Berg

The "Chicago Boys": Tinker, Evers and Chance

Nazi Demon Soldier

You can check Chris's earlier creative efforts here. I'll post the rest soon.

Strike over.

Good to see the strike finally come to an end. From the reading I've done and the people I've talked to I get the impression that they believe that they got as good of a deal as they could get. There are a few quibbles (17 days of residual free streaming before the writer sees a dime?), but that it was good to get everyone back to work.

We're waiting on a second draft of the Lost Squad screenplay. Hopefully once that's turned in Rogue will give it a greenlight.

Still working on the hosting issues. My provider is not forwarding the domain properly and I'm thinking about installing a blogging tool to get around this, although I'd rather just stick with Blogger for now.

I got caught up on some TV and will post some reviews shortly.

More to come.

Switching hosts.

We're switching hosts and having a few issues with forwarding the domain to blogger.

Email has been spotty, but is now back in full effect.

We'll have everything fixed soon and will be backing posting soon.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

*Side note: I've noticed a few Hollywood industry types browsing the site. If you work in the biz and are inclined, drop me a note at mailcall {at} lost-squad [dot] com. I'd love to pick your brain.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Looking forward to 2008!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!!

I wanted to wish everyone a terrific Holiday season!

Looking forward to a fantastic 2008!!

Advice from Neil Gaiman

A month since my last post. Apologies for the dearth of posting. With the WGA strike shutting down Hollywood (and thus no movement on the Lost Squad movie) and my real job sucking most of my time (and thus not a lot of movement on new projects), there hasn't been much news or tidbits to post.

So, allow me to ramble a bit...

I was talking with a friend a week or so ago and he asked me when it was I knew that I could write. When had I received validation that my stuff was good or entertaining (or, at least, didn't suck)? I'm my own worst critic when it comes to my stuff and I have HUGE bouts of self-doubt every time I sit at the keyboard. Writing is hard for me and when I first started noodling with short stories and short comic scripts I found the self-doubt to be almost crippling.

Back in 2001 I had a hard drive filled with unfinished stories that I had abandoned after my inner critic's whispering voice would become a shriek. I would quit writing rather than produce something I thought sucked.

In June of that year Neil Gaiman came to town promoting the release of AMERICAN GODS. I'm a huge fan of his work (SANDMAN is brilliant) and it's always a treat to hear him read his work aloud. At the signing I asked him if he had any advice for someone struggling to write and find their voice. He wrote an inscription to me in my copy of his short story collection SMOKE AND MIRRORS which read, simply: "FINISH THINGS".

He explained that much can be learned from writing a story which is bad. It was better to have a completed story that was lacking than a terrific unfinished tale. I know it sounds simple and obvious, but it was this blunt bit of wisdom that actually helped me break through. It was just the medicine that I needed.

I believe that the reading took place on a Wednesday night and the next day I decided to put the advice to good use and enter the ETC magazine short fiction contest. Problem was, the deadline was Friday. I came up with a story about an engaged couple who visit a psychic to have a reading about their future and the message the bride-to-be receives on the sly from the medium. It was called SONDRA'S PSYCHIC READINGS. I wrote it quickly all the while pushing that inner critic to the back of my mind and revised it in haste. I just managed to deliver it in person under the 4:00PM Friday deadline.

You probably see where I'm going so I'll cut to the chase: I won second place. Not bad for a 2000 word story that I dashed off just to prove a point. I learned that maybe I could write and that I needed to let my mind go and just get the story out of my head and onto the paper. That's when the real writing can take place.

I continued to write short prose and took a shot at writing short comic stories that eventually found their way into Digital Webbing Presents.

So, thank Neil Gaiman for the Lost Squad. He had a hand in it as well.

Thanks, Neil.

L' ESCADRON PERDU

The Lost Squad invades France!

French publisher Akileos are publishing the adventures of the Lost Squad in Europe.

Here's a shot of the cover.

The Akileos representatives approached Devil's Due and myself about the foreign reprint rights at Comicon in 2006. They were very enthusiastic about the project and at that time, wanted to have the black and white artwork colored.

While they didn't opt for color, they have put together a terrific looking volume for the European market.

And, I can add the title of "Scenariste" to my resume.
Check out the squad speaking French.

Anyone interested in purchasing the Akileos volume can find it available from Amazon.fr , FNAC.com, or Sceneario.com

Indie Pulp interview

The fine folks over at the Indie Pulp blog turned their gaze on little ol' me for their Sketchbook Spotlight interview. It's 20 questions where I ramble about myself.

The site went live last June and contains a ton of cool commentary about Comics and DVD's. Give it a gander.

BIG thanks to Bernie Gonzalez for the exposure.

Check out Bernie's artwork over at the Element X Studios site. SHARP stuff!

Lost Squad on your phone.

I missed this announcement last month.

Devil's Due is really making an effort to put their comics in people's hands in different media. Whether it's Pullbox Online or this particular deal with uclick.

I am all for pushing Lost Squad onto different platforms (any videogame developers out there?) and finding new markets. Hopefully, slowly, more people will give comics and graphic novels a chance. Anything that can potentially bring in more eyeballs is fine with me.

And, I really dig that they used the LS #1 cover as well. That rocks.

Peering into darkness

Back in 2005, I was asked to write a quick essay for the horror blog Dark, But Shining by Newsarama 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.

With the Halloween approaching I thought I'd dust the essay off and share again.

Update: Language Warning. I get a bit potty mouth in this one.

Here's 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

First appearance of the Lost Squad

The trade is in stores today and it contains a reprint of the first appearance of the boys from Digital Webbing Presents #7. What it DOES NOT contain is the short introduction I wrote for that eight page story. Readers will no doubt be VERY confused so I thought I'd toss it up here for all to read.
-----------------------------------------------

FIRST APPEARANCE OF THE LOST SQUAD

I originally hooked up with artist Alan Robinson in 2002 when I’d caught his artwork posted on the Digital Webbing message boards. A cross between Mike Mignola and Travis Charest, his style drew me in instantly and I wanted to write something tailored specifically for him.

I had already published two short stories in Digital Webbing Presents, the terrific anthology comic and training ground for comic creators, and had another accepted for print when I dropped Alan an email with the offer to write a short story for him. I wanted to create something that was a self-contained story but also had the opportunity as on ongoing for DWP.

Alan signed on for the eight page story and his art samples served as inspiration for the ragtag team of soldiers sent to fight the untold battles against strange beings and fantastic weaponry across the European battlefield. Alan knocked it out of the park with his designs and storytelling and has become a terrific collaborator and also a good friend. Thank you, Alan.

The Squad’s first adventure, UBER-JAEGER was published in early 2003 in Digital Webbing Presents #7. The story actually takes place after Operation: Crystal Ball and during the very real Operation: Market Garden when in September 1944, the Allies dropped behind enemy lines into the Netherlands to capture bridges into Germany. Our story opens as the boys parachute in and move to secure a very different objective from the rest of the Allied forces.

The reaction was strong enough to encourage Alan and I push on with the further adventures of the Lost Squad and expand the ideas. And, thus, here we are.

Thanks to Ed Dukeshire for giving the world the Digital Webbing Presents anthology and for the opportunity to try out our little WWII action-horror-sci-fi concept on readers.

I’ve been asked if this story is “in continuity” and the answer is, “Not yet. Wait and see!” We’ve got more in store for the squad and have outlined their adventures all the way until the end of the war. So stay tuned and thanks for reading.

Chris Kirby
May 2, 2007
----------------------------------------------------------------

So there it is. I hope that clears up any confusion. Anyone with questions can email me at the Mailcall! email address. I'm hoping that future editions of the trade (sales allowing) will include the proper introduction.

Trade is out on Wednesday!

Diamond Distributing just updated their shipping list for October 3rd and the LS trade is listed.

Finally!

UPDATE ON THE TRADE

*UPDATE* *UPDATE* *UPDATE* *UPDATE*

I am told that the Lost Squad trade is indeed at the Diamond Comics warehouse, but due to a snafu on their end, the book didn't make this week's shipments.

I'm hoping that come Monday the LS trade will be on the updated shipping list for October 3rd.

I'll keep everyone posted. That is all.

Super secret strike memo

A bit of LS movie news - Hollywood is gearing up the machine to put into production a large number of movies before all hell breaks loose and the town shuts down due to actors/directors/writers going out on strike.

Comingsoon.net has gotten their hands on a memo that's being circulated around talent agencies that lists the fast-tracked projects. And, wouldn't ya' know it, Lost Squad has made the list.

Click on over to Dave's Movie Corner for some fun commentary and juicy tidbits from the list.

Lost Squad trade street date

Earlier this week I made the trek up to check out the new Devil's Due Publishing digs in Chicago The new office is very sharp.

Had a great time lunching at a local tavern with Sam Wells and Sean Dove. I grabbed a bunch of boxes of Lost Squad comics and got the skinny on the Lost Squad trade.

Looks like the LS trade will be at Diamond in time for release either the Sept. 19th or Sept. 26th.

I will update with more info as I get it.

We've had to update our orders as the price on the book changed. I'm still very pleased with the initial orders.

Quick hit interview with Comics Continuum.

Rob Allstetter has a quick write-up about the Lost Squad movie over on Comics Continuum. Scroll down to the second story.

Just a few quick quotes from me from behind the artist's alley table at WizardWorld Chicago.

There's this cool new thing called myspace. Ever heard of it?

Ok, so I may be the only person in cyberspace without a myspace page. Now the Lost Squad has a page.

Phil Kost has taken it upon himself to create a cool little Lost Sqaud outpost on myspace.

Give it a gander here - http://www.myspace.com/thelostsquad.

Add the Squad as your new friend!

WORDBALLOON podcast up!

John Siuntres, the Chicago based creator of the comic book conversation show Wordballoon, did yeoman's work stalking Artist's Alley at Wizard World this year and got a ton of quick audio interviews right from the floor from a bevy of comic heavies...and me.

The podcast was just posted and you can check it out here at Newsarama (right click and hit SAVE LINK to download) or over at the Wordballon homepage (including an in-browser player) here. The list of guests is very impressive, but if you want to skip to my jibba-jabba about the Lost Squad stuff I come in at around the 44:32 mark.

You can also subscribe to Wordballoon using your iTunes software. Some highlights for me from the Wordballoon library: the Bendis episodes are a riot and the Greg Rucka stuff is terrific as well. Two of my favorite creators.

Thanks for stopping by the table John!