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Spotlight on Fantasy Webcomics: Thistil Mistil Kistil‘s spin on Loki

Spotlight on Fantasy Webcomics: Thistil Mistil Kistil‘s spin on Loki

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It’s the official release date for Marvel’s Thor: The Dark World, and posts on Norse Mythology, the Thunder God, and the Trickster Loki are cropping up all over the Internet. (Fantasy author Max Gladstone’s post on “The Real Loki” at Think Progress is one of my favorites.) I’m grateful to Marvel for drawing attention to Asgard, especially because it gives me the excuse to write about one of my very favorite webcomics, Thistil Mistil Kistil (TMK) by Sarah Schanze. It’s a unique spin on Norse mythology that features Loki as one of the major protagonists — and while he’s still a trickster with a distinct tendency toward chaos (and probably ADHD), he’s not the villain that the stories so often make him out to be.

An early page from Sarah Schanze's Thistil, Mistil, Kistil, featuring hero Coal and trickster god Loki.
An early page from Sarah Schanze’s Thistil, Mistil, Kistil, featuring hero Coal and trickster god Loki.

The story begins with Coal, a young Viking warrior who ought to be on his way to Valhalla. But despite his heroic death, he’s brought to Odin and the All Father (with the help of an irritable Thor) explains that Loki has stolen the weapons of the gods and it’s up to Coal to get them back. Since Loki once saved Coal’s life, Coal believes he might just be able to accomplish the task — but Loki being Loki, it’s not going to be simple. Set during the Viking Era, with plenty of detail about the world in which the historical (rather than mythical) Vikings explored, TMK combines fantasy, history, and mythology in one big quest tale. And as Coal and Loki search for the missing weapons (because of course Loki doesn’t have them any more — that would be too easy!), new non-Viking characters–including shy Hedda, the former thrall, and Ibrahim, a Moor scholar–get pulled into the adventure.

I discovered TMK in 2010, through Comic Creators for Freedom, a group that does a fundraiser every year to promote awareness of and fight against human trafficking. That was where I first met Hedda, who doesn’t appear until Chapter 5 of the story (so I had to wait a while to actually see her appear). For people unfamiliar with CCF’s fundraiser, the comic creators collaborate on a desktop wallpaper featuring characters from each of their comics, which donors to the fundraiser receive. All of the donations go to the charity Love146. I’ve found several of my favorite webcomics through the fundraiser, and I feel good about supporting artists who are involved with the charity.

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Goth Chick News: Max Brooks Takes on Walking Dead with Extinction Parade (Maybe…)

Goth Chick News: Max Brooks Takes on Walking Dead with Extinction Parade (Maybe…)

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The Extinction Parade-smallAnyone who thinks the whole zombie thing is at risk for falling out of pop-culture-vogue is underestimating the undead super powers of Max Brooks.

The World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War writer continues his current reign as king of the reanimated by reportedly signing his latest comic Extinction Parade to a TV deal, offering up what may be the first real, small-screen competition to The Walking Dead.

Bleeding Cool reports Brooks is in talks with “one of the most successful production companies in Hollywood,” though no one is even hinting at who that could be yet. But to really get our attention, Extinction Parade is going to need the no-holds-barred approach of someone like HBO rather than a network treatment.

NBC is resurrecting the made-for-CBS undead series Babylon Fields and The Sundance Channel is currently airing The Returned, both of which take a less violent look at zombies. But now with vampires in the mix, Brooks’s story definitely needs the creative freedom to back up the tanker of fake blood.

As explained in Extinction Parade’s first issue:

As humans wage their loosing fight versus the hoards of the subdead, a frightening realization sets in with the secretive Vampire race: our food is dying off. This is the story of Vampires’ decent into all-out war with the mindless hungry hordes of the zombie outbreak as humanity tries to survive them all. Three species in mortal conflict. This is how a species dies.

Oh yes please.

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Insanity in Pictures

Insanity in Pictures

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culbard-coverThough I can’t be completely certain, I think the first time I encountered the name of H.P. Lovecraft was sometime during the course of 1980, not long after I’d discovered Dungeons & Dragons. The thin blue rulebook contained inside the Basic Set included a single reference to “Cthulhu” as a deity alongside Crom and Zeus (two names I already knew). Back in those days, hobby shops were ground zero for the burgeoning roleplaying hobby. Bearded wargamers, nerdy college kids, heavy metal-loving teens, and fantasy fans of all sorts rubbed shoulders in these peculiar little stores, swapping stories of their characters and campaigns, as well as holding forth on a variety of topics. To a young person such as myself, hobby shops were amazing places filled with amazing people, whose company I sought out as often as I could.

There was a strange camaraderie among the hobby shops’ patrons – or so it seemed to me anyway. We were all a little strange by the standards of the time, taking interest in things that were still many years from mainstream recognition, let alone acceptance. Consequently, the usual distinctions of age didn’t matter much and I regularly found myself chatting with people years older than myself about gaming and fantasy and science fiction. I can’t begin to convey what a big deal this was to me. I was a shy, bookish sort and didn’t make friends easily, yet here I was gabbing with teenagers and university students as if we were old comrades.

That’s when I heard someone mention Cthulhu again and, callow youth that I was, asked just who (or what) Cthulhu was. Little did I know that that innocent question would lead to a lifelong interest in the life and works of H.P. Lovecraft.

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Blogging Dark Horse Comics’ The Curse of Dracula

Blogging Dark Horse Comics’ The Curse of Dracula

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dark-horse-the-curse-of-dracula-tpb-122289Marvel Comics’ long-running Tomb of Dracula series by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan was a landmark in the medium. The award-winning series set a standard in the industry that is still felt four decades on. Marvel shamefully squandered their efforts to turn the controversial monthly title into an adult-oriented comic magazine free from the strictures of the Comics Code Authority. A dozen years later, the duo reunited to revive the series for Marvel’s Epic Comics line, but this highly underrated four-part limited series was not granted the accolades or the follow-up it deserved. Flash forward to 1998 and Dark Horse Comics offered Wolfman and Colan a three-part limited series to reinvent the property for the up and coming rival in the field.

The only tragedy is that The Curse of Dracula ended up being another one-shot limited series, despite the storyline’s potential to be expanded further. Much of the Dark Horse series recalls the story and artwork in the Epic Comics limited series from earlier in the decade. The plot is equally complex and adult and the art pushes the boundaries to the edge yet again. Once again, Marv Wolfman is crafting a new set of vampire hunters and has Dracula rooted in the world of politics.

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Miracles Happen

Miracles Happen

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Miracleman 23A little while ago, I put up a post here about Miracleman, or, as it was originally known, Marvelman.

One of the great ‘lost’ works of the comics medium, written first by Alan Moore and then by Neil Gaiman, for twenty years a confused copyright situation has kept old Miracleman material from being reprinted and kept publishers leery of the legal mess from taking a chance on publishing new material. This, even though Gaiman had plotted out a conclusion to the saga and one further issue had actually been fully drawn.

A bit more than a week ago, that all changed. Marvel Comics, who had been working with Gaiman to unriddle the complexities of the case, announced that in January of 2014, they’d begin reprinting Miracleman as a monthly comics series.

These issues will reprint all the material previously published in the United States as Miracleman and will also include new supplementary material, as well as some work previously only published in England. After the old issues are all reprinted, the series will continue with new work by Gaiman and artist Mark Buckingham.

This is big news.

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Get Graphic Classics Volume 23: Halloween Classics for only $10 in October

Get Graphic Classics Volume 23: Halloween Classics for only $10 in October

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Graphic Classics Halloween Classics-smallI’m a big fan of Tom Pomplun’s Graphic Classics comic anthologies. I’ve lost track of exactly how many he’s published so far, but it’s a lot — including volumes showcasing Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, Arthur Conan Doyle, Jack London, Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain, R.L. Stevenson, O. Henry, Rafael Sabatini, Oscar Wilde, and my favorite, H.P. Lovecraft.

Each book is 144 pages in graphic novel format, collecting some the best stories from each of the featured authors, illustrated by a stellar line-up of artists. And seriously, that Lovecraft release is the bee’s knees.

He’s also done a series of special theme volumes, including Western Classics, Fantasy Classics, Gothic Classics, Horror Classics, and Adventure Classics. As an added bonus, the most recent of these (including Science Fiction Classics, Poe’s Tales of Mystery, and Native American Classics) are in full color.

Now Graphic Classics Volume 23: Halloween Classics is just $10 for the entire month of October (reduced from $15 ). This volume features an EC-style introduction, by Mort Castle and Kevin Atkinson, and contains Matt Howarth’s adaptation of the screenplay of the classic silent film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, alongside adaptations of Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Ben Avery and Shepherd Hendrix, H.P. Lovecraft’s “Cool Air” by Rod Lott and Craig Wilson, Mark Twain’s “A Curious Dream’’ by Antonella Caputo and Nick Miller, and Arthur Conan Doyle’s “Lot No. 249” illustrated by Simon Gane.

We covered Halloween Classics when it was first released last September. Get more details or order a copy on their website and see the complete line-up of fabulous Graphic Classics here.

Spotlight on Fantasy Webcomics: The Dirt on Ursula Vernon’s Hugo Award Winner, Digger

Spotlight on Fantasy Webcomics: The Dirt on Ursula Vernon’s Hugo Award Winner, Digger

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Digger Volume 1 Ursula Vernon
Cover of Digger Volume 1 by Ursula Vernon from Sofa Wolf Press

I read a lot of webcomics. Back when I was writing Cowboys and Aliens II for Platinum, I started reading a bunch of the comics that were up on the now-defunct Drunk Duck and I got hooked.

What happens when you start reading webcomics is that you often follow links to other webcomics, until your bookmarks bar is full of comics you’re following on a regular basis and your inbox is full of recommendations from friends of the comics you should be following. That e-mail from a friend is how I discovered Digger by Ursula Vernon, which was the Hugo Award Winner for best graphic story and the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award winner, both in 2012.

It starts with an anthropomorphic wombat named Digger who, by page 6, has met a statue avatar of the god of wisdom Ganesh. Wombats being a race of logically minded architects and engineers, they don’t care much for gods and magic — but Digger is thrust into the middle of a story that has both. Magic has deliberately interfered with her tunnel, something no wombat takes kindly, and her sense of direction is askew, meaning she can’t get home until Ganesh helps her figure out just where home is from where she’s ended up.

While researching a trip home might seem like a harmless endeavor, it’s not as simple as it sounds, and soon Digger is up to her ears in strange characters: a young healer known only as the Hag, a shadow child who might or might not be a demon, an unnamed hyena exile who Digger calls Ed, a female warrior monk who is probably insane, and a whole tribe of hyena people who might want to eat her.

This might sound like a lot of silliness in one webcomic, and Digger has its share of humorous moments. But what happens between the words, the art, and the story is the stuff of magic — quite possibly the kind that Digger herself would approve of.

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Blogging Arak 9: Adventure on the High Seas

Blogging Arak 9: Adventure on the High Seas

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ARAK9CWith the return of Roy Thomas to the scripting helm, Arak issue 9 has our protagonists Arak and Valda resuming their quest to rescue Malagigi from his demonic imprisonment in far-off White Cathay. After having rescued Pope Hadrian and having rid the world of one Black Pope, our stalwart heroes are set for some adventure on the high seas. It’s time for a one-off pirate tale, but one in which Thomas manages to work in Vesuvius and an encounter with the lost souls of Pompeii.

Arak is about fed up with cities: “He-No take me — I’ll be glad when we’re done with the cities of your world, and I can take to the forests again.”

But first they have to pay a visit to Neapel (modern-day Naples) to find Pope Hadrian’s friend Gallio, who can provide them passage to Byzantium.  The Holy Bishop of Rome told them that they would know Gallio by the ring he wears, “which shows two hands grasping but a single cross.”

As with every past arrival at a new city, the first signs are ominous. People are packing up and leaving the port in droves, because “there’s no longer work there for free laborers — or honest seamen!”

They soon discover the reason: Gallio’s ship is now manned mostly by slaves. When they begin inquiring down at the bay, two “lecherous merchants” immediately hone in on Valda, because, as Thomas narrates, “Alas, however, in these unenlightened days, the presence of an attractive woman on the docks usually has but one meaning for the sea-rovers of Neapel…”

Need I tell you how their pawing at her ends? With her knife at the throat of one, of course, and the other one nearly skewered like the pig he is. Their lives are spared, though, in exchange for pointing the way to Gallio’s ship.

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Blogging Arak: Valda Gets Naked on Christmas Eve

Blogging Arak: Valda Gets Naked on Christmas Eve

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Arak_Vol_1_7Happy Labor Day! Here you are, (hopefully) enjoying a well-deserved break from labor to spend some time on the down low at the Black Gate.

For this Labor Day edition of Oz’s ramblings and my (if I’m counting correctly) thirty-first blog post, I’m going to kill two birds with one blog by covering issues seven and eight of DC Comics’ Arak, Son of Thunder. And I’ll keep it brief. My rationale? Series creator Roy Thomas penned neither issue of this two-part story. He provided the plots, but they were written by guest scripters Gerry Conway/Mike W. Barr (7) and Mike W. Barr (8). What I’m wondering is this: Will they be able to channel the sword-and-sorcery vernacular that is old hat for Thomas? Or will their dialogue veer into self-parodic melodrama? Will it fall flat? Will it feel too modern? Let’s find out.

Issue 7: “Behemoth from the World Below!”

The cover of issue 7 boasts the caption “Perhaps the Most Unusual Christmas Story of the Millennium!” Gotta love the hyperbole. Pope dragged into the underworld by a pale giant, then rescued from the Black Pope by a Viking Native American from the unknown New World across the sea? Pretty unusual, but perhaps not the most unusual one of the past thousand years.

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New Treasures: Knights of the Dinner Table #200

New Treasures: Knights of the Dinner Table #200

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Knights of the Dinner Table 200-smallI am thrilled to report that Kenzer & Company, publishers of the fine Hackmaster and Aces & Eights role playing games, have published the 200th issue of the world’s best gaming comic, Knights of the Dinner Table.

Knights of the Dinner Table is written and drawn by my friend Jolly R. Blackburn, with editorial assistance by his talented wife Barbara. If Jolly’s name is familiar, it may be because of last Saturday’s appreciation of his earlier publication, the much-missed role-playing magazine, Shadis, where KoDT first appeared. Or you may remember the last time I shone a spotlight on KoDT, with issue #191 last September. Or maybe you’re a fan of the KoDT spin-off The Java Joint, which appeared in every issue of the print version of Black Gate, and was finally collected (with one new strip) last April. Or perhaps you’re simply a fan of KoDT all on your own, and don’t need me telling you how brilliant it is.

The first issue of Knights of the Dinner Table appeared from AEG in the summer of 1994. With issue five it switched to its current publishers Kenzer & Company, and it has appeared regularly ever since.

I don’t think I need to tell you what an incredible accomplishment it is for a comic to reach the 200 mark in today’s market — especially with the same creator at the helm. It is, in fact, an almost unparalleled achievement (the only comparable example I’ve been able to come up with is Dave Sim’s Cerebus). To reach issue 200 under any circumstances is an amazing achievement for an independent comic.

I wrote a book review column in the back of Knights of the Dinner Table for four years, starting in the late 90s (the incredible series of coincidences that lead to that happy state of affairs are related in my introduction to the collected Java Joint). I got to meet and game with Jolly, Dave Kenzer, Steve Johansson, Brian Jelke, Barbara Blackburn, and the entire KenzerCo gang — and let me tell you, I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything.

But it’s my contributions to and relationship with KoDT that I’m most proud of during that era. KoDT has survived not simply because it occupies a unique niche in the gaming community, but because it is a singularly brilliant work from a uniquely talented creator. If you haven’t tried it yet, the massive issue 200 is a great place to come on board.

KoDT #200 was published July 2013 by Kenzer & Company. It is $8.99 for a 96-page black & white comic. The cover is by Larry Elmore; more details and order instructions are here, or try the free online strips.