Z'Isle: the Montreal-Based Zombie Apocalypse Comic Book Series

About once a week I browse Indiegogo and Kickstarter for new comic book projects.  Last week, I came across one that I thought looked pretty damn cool.  After a little Twitter and e-mail back and forth with creator Lateef Martin, I was sent the information below. 

My name is Lateef Martin, founder and Studio Director of Miscellaneum Studios, a start-up transmedia company.

One of our first projects is called Z'Isle: a comic set in Montreal seven years after a zombie infestation. Z'Isle follows the lives of various characters from different corners of the city and explore how they've balanced morally with survival, some with the hope of rebuilding Montreal to its former glory.  We also plan to dodge many of the clichéd tropes of the zombie genre and go beyond the expected.

Z'Isle is distinctly 'Montreal' and unlike any other zombie story out there. Here are a few reasons why:

• most stories deal with trying to get away from the problem. Our story is set seven years after the zombie apocalypse and shows how people have built their lives around the problem of a zombie infestation.
• bullets have run out a long time ago.  As Montreal is a city of bikes all weapons are made from bike parts.
• societies have been built around zombies. Therefore there is a new generation who to consider zombies as just a regular thing. This give us a lot to play with in terms of conflicting world views, especially with those who lived I. The 'Old World'.
• fans actively participate in expanding the world of Z'Isle.

This leads to our Indiegogo campaign where fans can actively contribute to the world! We create a character based on them and a short paragraph that could be an origin story, or just details about the character.  We then incorporate that into our overall story.

We also have other great rewards including printed copies of the comic, a soundtrack, t-shirts, stickers, buttons, posters, prop weapons from the story, and other gear characters use in the world of Z'Isle. The goal of our Indiegogo campaign is to create the first 6 issues: Volume 1of a trilogy.

Sounds and looks pretty wild.  The interactive part of it interesting; you can have your personal survival story recounted on the $25 perk level, and appear in the book as part of the $50 version.

Hmmm...I like the thought of being referred to as a "Nature Ninja"...

Here are the various ways by which to track their progress.

Facebook: Facebook.com/zisleseries
Tumblr: Z'Isle.tumblr.com
Twitter: @zisleseries
Instagram: Zisle

Final Week of the True Patriot 2 Campaign!

The fundraising campaign geared towards bringing the second volume of True Patriot to life is in its final seven days and well within reach of being successful.  In order to get themselves over the proverbial hump, the team has made a new perk available.  Feast your eyes:

The above image, featuring the vast majority of True Patriot characters, is available as a 13"X19" giclee print.  It is by Tom Fowler with colours by Jim Charalampidis.

For those who missed out on the first volume earlier this year, there are options by which you can obtain both books either in hardcover format and/or as pdf files.

I'm keeping a close eye on this one.  I'm not too terribly worried about the team's ability to meet their goal, but it's not going to happen on its own.  But even if they do, I would love to see them meet their stretch goal, because they add content.

If we hit our main goal of $20,000, we humbly submit the following stretch goals.

$22,000 - To add 8 pages to the book upping the page count to 112

$24,000 - To add 8 more pages upping the page count to 120

$27,000 - We print a TPB of Volume 1 for wider distribution

But the original goal has to be met first, so let's make that happen.

The New Adventures of the Human Fly!

I guess I totally whiffed on this as it happened.

It was announced last year that the rights to the Human Fly character were acquired so that a movie based on the person who wore the suit as a daredevil could be produced. What I did not know at the time is that a comic book was also in production.  The poster above is in reference to the book's release at the San Diego Comic Con this past August.

You can order the 52 page book from Amazon.  I've included the solicitation below with both the front and back covers.  You can get larger versions of each by opening them in a new tab.

The Human Fly, Canada's stuntman superhero extraordinaire, returns to comics for the first time in nearly 35 years.

Edited by Michael Aushenker (El Gato, Crime Mangler), this crazy mix of action, humor, sci-fi and horror features stories by Aushenker, Tony Babinski and Steve Kriozere ("Femme Fatale") and art by original '70s Human Fly artists Bob Layton ("Iron Man"), Steve Leialoha ("Fables"), Don Perlin (co-creator of "Moon Knight"), Al Milgrom ("ROM: Spaceknight") as well as art by Gerry Talaoc ("The Unknown Soldier"), John Heebink ("Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D."), Jim Rugg ("Afrodisiac"), Steve Butler ("Web of Spider-Man"), Rafael Navarro ("Sonambulo"), Javier Hernandez ("El Muerto, Aztec Zombie"), famed letterer Janice Chiang ("Ghost Rider") and more!

Featured stories: "The Human Fly's Back," "Fly vs. Fly," "Other Worlds, Other Dimensions," and more! Join the exploits of the Human Fly as he tackles monsters, robots, time-travelling mad scientists, luchadors, psychotic computerworlds, and, of course, the greatest death-defying stunts ever attempted.... ....All while pursuing his side career as a rock guitar god. Metal!

Sounds like a hell of a lot of fun.

ICYMI Art: The Incredible Conduit by Tony Gray

I was never able to get my hands on a copy of the first issue of The Incredible Conduit.  If my memory is sound, it sold out before I was even aware it existed.

The character was supposed to be rebooted this past summer, but that I know of, that has yet to come to pass.  It might still be simmering though, based on the image below (and the accompanying description by artist Tony Gray).

Finished art from Tales of the Incredible Conduit #1. This page shows the radical transformation of the Conduit into a cosmic level hero from his earlier incarnation. This is an upgrade to the character in his first story arc published under the GlassMonkey Studios comic book line.

Click the image above to be taken to the originating page on the Comic Art Fans website and view the rest of Mr Gray's portfolio.

Johnny Canuck reinvented, part two

Epic Canadiana is finally out!

You could be excused if the name didn't ring a bell.  I first posted about it in May of 2012 at which time it was known as All-Canadian comics.  In February of this year, the anthology's publisher, Cloudscape Comics, sent out a call for character submissions for what was then called Canadiana Comics.

That was the last I heard of this project until Friday night when I stumbled on the online launch announcement event on Facebook.  The Epic Canadiana anthology became available for download on the Cloudscape online store that night.

Art by Chenoa Gao

This thing weighs in at about 170 pages for all of $3.  It is not available in print format, at least for the moment.

As you may have determined by now, that's Johnny Canuck waiving the leaf.  He is featured in the first and last stories in this book.  Since the story takes place in present, this is apparently the original Johnny, making him 90-something years old.  He is a recluse, but being recruited to serve as a uniting symbol for the superpowered individuals who are suddenly emerging onto the scene.

Most of Johnny's "face time" is spent reviewing his history and detailing what his mission is expected to be but he does not see action as such.  The "words from the editor" at the beginning of the book pretty well state point blank that there are plans for future volumes, but you would get that sense from the book's contents anyway.

As far as the other stories in the anthology are concerned, there's a good blend of reimagined / updated versions of other World War Two characters and new creations.  Now that we've been formally introduced, I'm curious to see whether they will actually form a team, or if future stories will be based on Canuck's influence on the individual characters.  It sounds like the former, but they could play it both ways. Either way, I look forward to more volumes of Epic Canadiana (hopefully in print as well as digital).

Johnny Canuck reinvented, part one

After a couple of months of having nothing to add to the "Solicitations" page, I recently removed it and created the "$1 Box" at the top right of the blog, just under the banner.  Its goal should be rather obvious; I wanted to display books that I knew were being sold for only a dollar and thereby direct readers to an inexpensive method by which they can support Canadian talent and/or creators.

While preparing that page, one of the books I tried to locate was Legion Unleashed by (at the time) Raven Entertainment.  I remembered buying the two issues at the time for a dollar each but couldn't recall if that was a temporary special price, if I'd bought from creator/writer Richard Evans, and so on.

To some surprise, I found the first issue on Comixology under a publisher called "Round Two Comics".  The name was entirely unfamiliar to me so, as I seem to do frequently nowadays, I asked Evans about it on Twitter. He confirmed that it was indeed a return to the comics medium (Evans had announced last year that he was no longer producing comics) and that the second issue would be added soon.

Evans then dangled a bit of news in front of me that I totally misunderstood.  Here's how it was worded:

TOP SECRET: I plan on doing my first Kickstarter soon, reinventing a Canadian icon. :)

Because we were specifically talking about Legion, I believed his intention was to create a fundraising campaign to complete that series.  His plan is actually a new take on Johnny Canuck.

Art by Emilio Martinez Epigmenio

A little jarring, eh?  You were probably expecting something more like the stamp version at right.

There's an aspect to that character that Evans rejects.  Here's a portion of an entry on his own blog that provides a simple explanation.

“Johnny Canuck is linked to a tradition of stalwart, honest, upstanding Canadian heroes.”

See this is where me and the old ways have to part ways. Why do Canadians have to be one-dimensional?? Why can’t we have a badass, scary hero who takes no prisoners??

Fair enough, and not at all surprising considering the source.  My favourite character in the Legion series is beyond the shadow of a doubt Black Flag, who is the very type that Evans describes. 

And I find the lumberjack look an interesting direction in which to take the character.  Google "Johnny Canuck" and most of the image results you'll get involve the Vancouver Canuck's logo.  I don't watch the NHL, but I would think a strong case could be made that their image of "Johnny Canuck" is more recognized than the WW2 version.  The notion of a lumberjack type named Johnny Canuck shouldn't appear unusual to the general public.

While Evans' blog posts about Johnny debate whether to proceed with the Kickstarter campaign, it sounds like he ultimately will go ahead with it.  To be frank, I'm worn out on Indiegogo and Kickstarter, but this is one I look forward to supporting.

Jeff Lemire's "Barbalien" to appear in True Patriot 2

The Kickstarter Campaign for the second volume of True Patriot, launched earlier today, revealed a couple of surprises.

Most of "Crew Patriot" are returnees, for which I'm grateful because I was hoping that the adventures of the characters if the first volume would continue.  But there have been a couple of additions to the roster.

New patriots joining us this time around include Paul Rivoche (Mister X) and Jeff Lemire (Sweet Tooth)!

That cracks me up a bit.  Lemire is working on that Justice League of America book, too (soon to be Justice League Canada, at least for a while).

No knock though; I know the people responsible for the campaign can't very well list every single credit for each creator.  It must have been hard to pick a single one for each individual.  Here is Paul Rivoche's line-up and Lemire's is right here.

This project is getting some good buzz early (and is already about 25% funded in less than a day, as I write this).  Comic Book Resources interviewed Lemire and J. Torres (Family Dynamic.  Huh...And a bunch other stuff.  It really IS hard to pick just one) about the project and Lemire revealed some details about his plans for both True Patriot and JLC.  Read that after the boss Grey Owl image below.

Jeff, why did you agree to be part of "True Patriot 2," and what will your contribution be?

Jeff Lemire: I loved the first volume, and I'm a huge fan of all the cartoonists and creators involved. Also, anyone who reads my work knows I'm a proud Canadian boy, so I couldn't resist.

My contribution will involve a new superhero I'm creating called Barbalien. He's -- well, he's an alien barbarian. He crash landed on Earth in the '60s and posed as an RCMP officer by day, fighting crime in the north by night -- sort of a mash up between Dudley Do-Right, Martian Manhunter and Conan.

You write a lot of superhero stories already for DC, and when you take over JLA next spring it will be (temporarily) retitled "Justice League of Canada" due to some roster additions from the Great White North. Why is it important to include Canadian characters in this lineup, and what makes them special?

Lemire: Well, like I said, I'm a proud Canadian. I love my country. It's a complex, diverse and beautiful place. And I love to reflect our identity in my work whenever I can. Adam Strange will be re-imagined as a Canadian, but I will also be creating a new teenaged superhero from Northern Ontario who is Cree.

I really wanted to create a character that reflects our First Nations, an often-overlooked part of the Canadian identity. And I wanted to create a character that wasn't just a stereotypical First Nations character as well.

I'll be going up to two remote Northern Ontario communities, Moose Factory and Attawapiskak, later this month to visit the local schools and talk to the kids about comics and drawing. I'll also be involving the kids in the creation of this new character. Details on that should be coming soon...

Read the full interview here.