Hollywood Heroes Update #1

For the past few years, I've had the pleasure of working with some really great and talented people in the indie comic book scene who've helped me sharpen my skills as an artist and visual storyteller. During that time, I've been wanting to work on my own projects as well, but aside from painting, so far that hasn't really happened, not that I'm complaining. While trying to come up with an idea that I could stick with, I came up with a helluva lot of 'em that just went nowhere. Through them all, though, there seemed to be a few prevailing themes. I wanted to do a period piece, something with old-fashioned pulp-style heroes and Martians. That's right, I said Martians. Finally, something jelled and "The Hollywood Heroes" was born (No relation to Robert "Hollywood" Swinton).

So far, I've plotted out over half of the book, which will be a self-contained story with no current page count in mind. When it's done, it'll be done. The story revolves around the dark days of World War II, a morale-boosting photo opportunity gone terribly awry with a handful of Saturday morning serial heroes and, you guessed it...Martians.

Anyone who knows me knows about my love for the Saturday morning serials of the 1930s & 1940s, so when it came time to create architypes of those heroes of yesterday, it wasn't an easy task. I would like to thank my long-lost good friend Ken Holewczynski for letting me use his character Tasma the Congo Queen (pictured below), and Mike Indovina for letting me use a version of his character The Chimera. Mike, who knows more about the serials than I do, is also responsible, in part for Nightflyer, having coaxed me into using a jetpack-wearing character, which actually brought the story together in a weird way. I'm happy to announce that Mike has also agreed to letter the book, something I definately wasn't looking foreward to.In the future, I'll be posting updates regarding the status of the project, including character sketches like the ones you've seen above and, eventually, actual pages, so keep it here, boppers.