Well, as I always threatened to do, I have taken steps to put some of my artwork online.

A word of warning: I did these at work, on yellow lined paper. At the end of the day we shred our notes, so these were torn from those notes (hence the rough edges). Also, the pics were taken with our digital camera, in a rush… hence the non-scanner quality. And some wouldn’t re-size too well, so you have to click the link to see them. Excuses, excuses…

And now, for your viewing (dis)pleasure:

First, some illustrations of my pulp character projects-

The Black Wing.

An early attempt to illustrate my characters The Cipher and Challenger Storm (note the pre-hood version of The Cipher).

Another early pic of The Cipher (pre-hood again) and Clifton “Challenger” Storm, in action this time.

A “title card” of sorts, illustrating the opening prologue from “Isle of Blood”

Next up, some horror stuff-

Foul Lich Priest (see it here.)

Robert W. Chambers’ “The King In Yellow”

Lovecraft’s Egg- a tattoo design (I’m proud of this one… see it here.)

HPL’s Mythos Babies. They’ll steal your soul… and warm your heart! (See ‘em here.)

And finally, something wistful-

“Dream”

“Dream” (detail)

3,432 miles…

3,432 miles from Miami to La Isla de Sangre… a zigzag pattern from Florida to Cuba; from Cuba to Honduras; from Honduras to Panama; Panama to Colombia; Colombia to Ecuador; Ecuador to the Galapagos Islands; and from the Galapagos Islands to…

The Isle Of Blood.

The Retropolitan has sent me his comments regarding the cast of The Cipher (read the original transmission here):

Okay, finally getting around to the Cipher, I have to say that I found it incredibly difficult to give feedback on him — because I just kept trying to make him more like the Shadow. And while he certainly seems to be a homage in his own manner, making him more Shadow-like seems to defeat the point of writing your own pulps in the first place.

- You probably saw this coming: I STILL think you should consolidate at least one of the characters. I don’t know how you’ll be plotting the stories yet, but it seems like you have four highly-skilled combatants wearing the cloak — and it’s sort of hard to imagine that the combined efforts of not just the four, but also the lady, would ever possibly be thwarted by any criminals without having needlessly complicated plots or whole platoons of thugs. It seems like these are ALL main characters in the story, and it’s got to be hard to keep that many plausible plot strands going at once, giving them all reasonable obstacles and actions and making each character distinct from each other. Personally, I think you could combine Frank and Ray without much trouble; say he rejected the mafia part of his family, and then his wife and kids were murdered as some offshoot of that decision.

-Every time I read Sydney’s name, I think: Sidney Poitier.

-You need an awesome supervillain.

Otherwise, it all sounds pretty perfect so far. Keep writin’!

He makes some interesting observations about mechanics, how the number of people on The Cipher team would possibly lead to complications.

My reply:

I agree as far as the whole Shadow-similarity thing… I’ve been trying for YEARS to come up with a character who would be my own homage to the character and still be original… I *MIGHT* have finally done it.

-Yes, I saw it coming… and I think it’s a valid point. As it stands now, I see the core operatives as Joseph, Frank, and Ray. Sydney would be more of an undercover agent… she’s not as trained as her husband and the rest of the Hand of God unit, but she would wear the costume on occasion… just not regularly. As far as Paul Ramsey goes, he’s a bit of a tech-guru, more of a gadget-man (like Bond’s Q) than anything else. I’m not planning on him seeing a whole lot of action in the books. (And here’s a secret told only to you at this point: I might kill him off one day, leaving the other members of the team to fend for themselves. That’d certainly pare down the character count.) But, I may just combine those 2 characters you mentioned. It’s not a bad thought… Plenty of time for a decision before I start writing the first Cipher.

-LOL… Not who I pictured as the widow of Steven Pelatier… but he is a great actor, so who knows.

-Supervillain… there IS one in the works… a kinda scary masked arms-dealer known as “The War Merchant”. He will be the focus of the next “transmission”, I think.

Even though it jumps the gun a bit, I think that The War Merchant will be the next topic here. It’s a bit early, as he won’t show up until the second Cipher story, but he’s mysterious and cool and deadly. It’s gonna be a blast writing him. Stay tuned…