Relative Importance

Beneath the sky - a tree.
Beneath its leaves - the earth.
Beneath the earth - roots winding down.
Beneath the roots - a body festers.
Maggot riddled, pulped, and forgotten.

The body had a name once. It had a family, and friends.
It loved and laughed, schemed and plotted.

It had at least one enemy.

But the maggots and worms do not care.
The body is a new kind of temple now;
a haven for the denizens that live in the earth 
beneath the roots of the tree whose rusting leaves 
wave cryptic warnings at the darkening sky.

Its tale and history - inconsequential.
 

© Benedict Durbin 2013

The Price of Virtue & Honour

I wake, and bathe, and put on my dress. Then I sit and wait in my chamber as I have been told to do. But the waiting tires me and soon I realise there is a dull pain in my stomach. So I rise to call a maid.

That’s when they arrive – the tall men with the tall hats and long jackets with tails that reach down to their knees. There are two of them, one young, one old. They scare me, but I do not show my fear. Fear is a weak, womanly vice and I have been taught not to give into vices for I am virtuous.

The tall men escort me from my chambers, down through the echoing stone halls and stairways of the ancient house, to the waiting carriage. It is a nice carriage; black with silver trim, pulled by dark stallions with feathered head-dresses that whiney and neigh in protest against the chill morning air.

As I descend the entrance steps, I look out across the gardens and see the thin veil of dawn mist beginning to rise, leaving tiny droplets of dew hanging from the foxglove bells in its wake, like tears. The sight makes me shiver and I pull my silken shawl tight around my shoulders. I will be warm soon.

As I approach the carriage, the older of the men unties the rope securing the horses to the balustrade next to the stairs and climbs up into the driver’s seat. The younger man opens the door and helps me ascend the narrow step into the warm interior of the cab before following me inside. He locks the door and takes a seat opposite me. We do not speak.

I am nervous as the carriage starts to move and my breath comes in fits and starts, fogging the air intermittently. The man sits silent and watches me, his face impassive as stone. Though I cannot see his eyes beneath the brim of his hat I can feel them on my skin and my breath quickens involuntarily.

After a short while his gaze begins to disturb me. No man has ever looked at me in such a way before. In truth, no man has ever looked at me. The cab suddenly feels smaller and I close my eyes to focus, desperately trying to quell my rising anxiety. I try to distract myself by studying my hands. I note the short lines that lace across my palms and I count the points at which they intersect, watching how they change as I manipulate my fingers. But I can still feel him watching me and my anxiety refuses to subside.

Eventually, despite the cold, I begin to fan myself with my hand, and that’s when I hear the crowds cheering; my simple gesture mistaken for a wave. Surprised, I realise that we have reached the town already. The journey has been much shorter than in my dreams of this moment.

I look out at the townsfolk lining the road and reality diverges yet further from my imaginings. They look wretched and drawn – drained of their colour. Haggard husks clad in drab garments and heavy shawls. Yet they seethe with a fraught energy the like of which I have never seen before. I feel another pang in my stomach, but I swallow and block it out. Our journey is almost done.

We progress slowly down the rest of the main street, flanked the entire way by men, women, and children, all straining to touch the cab. Finally, we pull into the town square and the driver reins the horses to a standstill. The tall man unlocks the door and raises a hand as he descends to ward off the surge of the assembled throng. He then offers me his other hand to help me down and I emerge into the sweat and stench of the massed bodies clamouring to catch a glimpse of me in my finery. I am humbled by their devotion.

We push forward. Hands grope and grasp from the crowd desperately trying to reach me, but my escort deftly fends of such gestures and I reach the scaffold unmolested.

Once I am in position, an official in carmine robes says a few words that rouse further cheers from the assembled townsfolk. I smile with beatific grace as they raise their sigils to the Mother in thanks and I understand, in that moment, this is my purpose. This is my part to play and I will not fail these people – my people. Though some small part of my soul yearns to run and be free, their faith must be rewarded.

Now, the warmth is rising around me. It flits between my skirts and dances up my sleeves and hair caressing my neck with cinder kisses. Briefly, my stomach aches again. Oh, how it aches. But I do not complain. No. I do not complain.

Quick Update & A Book Recommendation

Hello amazing internet denizens!

I haven’t disappeared completely, honest.

The last month and a half has flown by for a whole array of conflicting reasons, and I realise I haven’t been updating even semi-regularly. But that will change soon as there are a lot of things that I,

a) Want to write about, and,

b) Have already committed to an obscene amount of notepad entries currently littering my desktop.

These will all start to materialise soon.

In the meantime I have been using my twitter feed to stay in contact with the wider world whilst I’ve been getting myself organised.

Now, before I disappear again, I would just like to recommend that you go and take a gander at *this story right here* by Lee ‘Budgie’ Barnett. Here’s the synopsis for You’ll Never Believe A Man Can Fly, ripped right off the man’s very own blog:

“What’s the story about?

The world outside your window has never known super-powered beings until now. The first is a man named Ian Davies, an ordinary man who’s about to face some extra-ordinary events in his life. But what if, instead of giving an interview to The Daily Planet, he gives an interview to The Guardian, a newspaper with a reputation for typos?

He wanted to be known as The Public Defender. But someone at the Grauniad forgot the word Public has an ‘L’ in it…“

Mr Barnett posted the whole thing up over the course of four or five weeks so you can read it all, gratis. However, I strongly suggest that if you like it, you buy it. This can be achieved by clicking on the pay link at the bottom of any of the chapter entries. The story is consistently funny and brilliantly written; it certainly helped to brighten up my lunch breaks at work. (Yes, I bought the e-pub and then still read it as it was posted).

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a whole lot of writing to organise and catch up on whilst you get acquainted with Mr Davies and his new found headache/gift.

Kickstart the Week, Preview: Peter Pan Comic

Renae De Liz is the illustrator of many gorgeous books, including The Last Unicorn and Anne Rice’s Servant of the Bones. She was also the driving force behind the gloriously ambitious Womanthology. So you can imagine my excitement when I stumbled across her new gem of a project thanks to a random follower (@PeterPanComic) suddenly appearing on my twitter feed. (This is why I love twitter).

Renae has already begun the preliminary groundwork (and more) required to adapt the stories of J.M. Barrie’s enduring character, Peter Pan, into a full graphic novel. She has enlisted her husband, the similarly, fantastically talented Ray Dillon, on colouring/inking/lettering and design duties; and together they plan to rule the world! Or at least make a damn fine graphic novel worthy of your support.

You can find their official project blog, replete with sketches and character tags, HERE. And if you like what you see (why wouldn’t you?) you will want to bookmark it and keep a very close eye out for their impending Kickstarter project.

Naturally, I will be hyping this to the high heavens, but not just due to the talent involved. The initial character sketches and full colour images look wonderful. As a father, I would love to have a graphic novel of this quality to share with my kids. Still, even if I didn’t have my son and daughter to read this with, it promises to be a visually sumptuous adaptation of a timeless classic, and good art made with passion is always worth supporting.

Please, go and take a look for yourself. This won’t be the last time you’ll hear me mention it.

Halloween Eve

This finally arrived today!

Halloween Eve, comic and print.

This is a very fun one-shot, for Halloween(!), written by Brandon Montclare with full art duties, (and lettering,) by Amy Reeder. At its core this is a, through-the-looking-glass, tale for Halloween.

Eve is a, somewhat cynical, store clerk in a fancy dress shop, and she hates Halloween. Needless to say, she is less than impressed when she learns that she will have to wear a costume for the dread day and the resulting fireworks lead to her ‘volunteering’ to do over-time, in preparation for the last-minute rush on costumes. Whilst working later that night, strange things begin to happen in the shop, and it’s not long before Eve’s world is turned upside down.

You can order a print copy from Image Comics, or buy a digital copy through Comixology.

The Demon Cold & Dissassociative Thoughts

As mentioned above, I have a thoroughly horrific flu-type cold at the minute. Therefore, this will be relatively brief since looking at a screen of any size is causing my retinas to feel as though they’re catching fire.

Thought Cycle #1 – Cyber Force #1

The first issue of Top Cow’s C.F. Kickstarter arrived in my inbox this week. Look at how pretty it is:

Below are my initial impressions after my first full read-through:

Positives

• As shown above, the artwork and coloring in this is absolutely gorgeous,
• One of the central characters is a teenage girl, but – unlike a lot of independent comics out there – this wasn’t used by the artists as an excuse to draw perky young breasts bouncing all over the place as she ran. Even when the panel view was looking top-down on the characters. In fact, there seemed to be a concerted effort not to over-exaggerate any of the female characters in this way. I wasn’t overly surprised by this as the example art on the project page hadn’t shown any leaning toward, what I refer to as, the Zenescope style. But it was still heartening to see the female characters being used as fully rounded characters; rather than eye-candy/exposition tools.
• As noted above, the team working on this have absolutely delivered on the visuals. Each panel is crammed with detail, and it’s a non-stop ride from start to finish.

Minor Gripes

• Because this is a relaunch, of sorts, a lot of information had to be crammed into this issue for those readers unfamiliar with the original series. This is obviously to ensure that everything is set-up for the rest of the ride but, at times, the jumps in narrative were slightly disorienting. However, I believe that this will flow a lot better once the next couple of issues have expanded on the information packed into this first issue. This is a five-part series after all.
• This really is a minor gripe, though I’m sure that some people will agree with me here. In the opening sequence several in-world tech words are used, eg. Blinders and Mole. Given the context within which they are used (a chase sequence) these are obviously fairly standard bits of kit that the Shoc soldiers use. Therefore, the decision to put these words in “inverted commas” aka “quotation marks” every time they were mentioned by a character was entirely unnecessary. Personally, I felt that their use served only to detach the reader from full immersion into the C.F. world. At least it did for me. Like I said, this is a minor, and very person specific, gripe.

Overall, this was an excellent start to the series and, minor gripes aside, I’m very much looking forward to issue 2. You can order your copy, and read a bit more background on the C.F. universe, over at Top Cow’s official page.

Thought Cycle #2 – Arrow

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t that interested when this was first announced. In fact, I was so disinterested that I didn’t even follow the multiple production updates, set pics and poster releases for it. Justin Hartley did a fine (if somewhat sanitised) job of bringing Oliver Queen to the small screen in Smallville. But, Smallville aside, I’ve never really been that interested in the Green Arrow as a character. Being more of a Marvel fan, Clint Barton and, laterly, Kate Bishop have been my go to characters when it comes to archery grounded superheroes. Still, I decided to give it a go and I’m glad I did.

The pilot was an excellent introduction to the character, played here by Stephen Amell. From the raw opening, which had Oliver racing, bare-foot, through woods and over cliffs to signal a passing ship to rescue him from the island he had been stranded on for five years. To his solo assault on a heavily fortified high-rise office back in the city; the frenetic action associated with this character was conveyed perfectly. Some reviewers have complained that there has not been a clear enough explanation as to why Oliver feels compelled to go down the vigilante route once he gets home, but I disagree.

Whilst it wasn’t overly explained, there was enough alluded to in the flashbacks to suggest that Oliver’s dad imparted quite a bit of information to him before he was stranded. Oh yes, that’s right, he was stranded – FOR FIVE YEARS. One would assume that, as well as using those five years to teach himself Russian and become a self-taught archery expert, he probably had the time to figure out quite a bit from his father’s notebook. The same notebook that he keeps in the case with the bow. The bow that doesn’t look like it was fashioned on an island in the middle of nowhere.

The character’s previous playboy lifestyle is also on display, even more-so than it was in Smallville, which rarely shied away from showing Mr Queen as a hedonisitic, womaniser on par with Marvel’s, Tony Stark.

Ultimately, this was a great pilot. The supporting cast were played well, though the inclusion of Oliver’s best friend, Tommy, did at times feel rather stilted. The stand-outs from the extended cast were, Paul Blackthorne, as DT Quentin Laurel, and Susanna Thompson, as Oliver’s mother, Moira Queen. Again, some reviewers were dissappointed by Katie Cassidy’s portrayal of Laurel Lance, Oliver’s ex-girlfriend. But in all honesty she wasn’t given a fantastic amount to do here, and I was left with the impression that she will become a lot more important as the series progresses.

As pilots go, this one worked. I’m looking forward to catching up on the second episode, just as soon as this vile cold has been exorcised from my system by the fire behind my eyes.

The Demise of Horatio Lovemuscle

It’s finally here!

TDoHL is a two-page comic I wrote, a couple of months ago, to be illustrated by the highly talented, Donya Todd.

You can now find it in the third issue of The Curiosity Cabinet.

>DIRECT LINK TO THE COMIC, HERE<

For those that prefer the tactile comfort of paper, this issue is also slated for a print release at some point in the near future.

Of course, it goes without saying really, but, you should definitely take a look at everything else on offer in this issue. There’s more cakey goodness from Lucy Zirins (Who also just happens to be an *Amazing* musician – check her out!). There’s fantastic art by Laura Von Burns, and there’s some great photography, poetry and decent film reviews too.

So…

Discombobulation //K.T.W./Announcement/Comics/Other//

I have been neglecting this blog for the last week due to a confluence of events that are far too boring to go into here. Suffice to say, there is no full K.T.W. to speak of. However, you should definitely go and check out, Lust, the new comic project by Ben Templesmith (30 Days of Night, Fell, Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse), Menton3 (MONOCYTE, Silent Hill: Past Life) and Steve Niles (30 Days of Night, Iron Spirit). You also still have time to back the Plume Miniseries for the next four days.

In other news, the short comic I wrote for the wonderfully talented Donya Todd will be available *FOR FREE* in the next twenty-four hours. Links will be made available once it goes live, but I don’t think I’ll be spoiling anything by posting the title:

For the comic lovers among you, I also suggest you pick up the following from the last couple of weeks:

Captain Marvel #4 Kelly Sue DeConnick and Dexter Soy. [If you’ve read this blog before, you know about these guys already.]
Ghost #0 – Kelly Sue DeConnick and Phil Noto (Angel & Faith, X-23).
Happy #1 – Grant Morrison (Wyrd Comics Deity) and Darrick Robertson (Transmetropolitan, The Boys).

You can also find some good, but #SPOILER#-y reviews of Ghost and Happy over on Ariellalphabet’s blog.

For Ghost – go here.
For Happy – go here.

Why am I promoting another blog? Hmmm, well:

1) It’s Good, dammit!
2) The twitter suggestion to pick up Ghost? Yeah, that was me. It’s always nice to see someone actually listen to a suggestion, and it’s even better when they feel compelled to write a review because they enjoyed the thing you suggested.
3) Being nice is pretty awesome.

Anyway, I’ll throw a link up for The Demise of Horatio Lovemuscle when it goes live.

Until then you should probably liven up your day by reading Warren Ellis‘ (Tech-Wyrd Comics Deity) latest column for VICE:

Your God Is Not Strong – which reflects on the abuse of freedom of speech & expression stemming from the provocation of religious hysteria by a certain immoral (and non-religious) political group.

K.T.W. – The List of Three

Ladies and gentlemen, this week’s K.T.W. is – A list of three small projects I rather fancy.

As always, links to the project pages are provided along with a short synopsis of each. But, since I still have a lot to catch up on, I’ve kept the comment to a minimum. There are no favorites here (apart from all of them) so please disregard the numbering, it is for convenience only:

#1 – Batbean: Stories About Superhero Vegetables

Synopsis: A book for young children designed to get them interested in vegetables and healthy eating. The adventures of Batbean follows a winged bean (they actually exist!) in its fight against Mega Corp., which is headed by the evil mastermind Mr Free Radical!

You can read the first book, for free, at www.batbean.com. This kickstarter is to fund the printing of a physical collection of the first three books in the series as well as the e-pub of the third book.

Blog link: Here.

Project Link: Batbean

#2 – PLUME: Help K. Lynn Smith print a 5 issue mini-series

Synopsis: What it says in the title. K. Lynn Smith, creator of the web-comic, Plume [official site, here] has come back to kickstarter, after her previous success to fund a new Plume project. This time she is looking for funding for a new five-part mini-series. Plume is a Western/fantasy comic set in the early 1900’s… but not our early 1900’s. Just go to the official site and take a look for yourself. Rewards vary quite a bit and, if you’re outside the US, remember to read the $10 pledge for details on what you need to add for shipping costs at all levels. Though a digital option is also available at the $15 mark.

Fall in love with the web-comic: Here.

Back the new project: Here.

#3 – Detective Honeybear: An all ages mystery comic.

Synopsis: It’s a noir with a honey-obsessed bear detective. Seriously. Look at the picture if you don’t believe me. Oh, it’s also written by the guy that wrote, Thor and the Warriors Four. He also does a lot of other stuff, but we won’t go into that here. You can find out about him, and the rest of the project, in the video on the project page (link below). As with Plume, Detective Honeybear can already be found online in the eleven page comic: Detective Honeybear and the Case of the Curious Cap. Go and read it!

Detective Honeybear and the Case of the Curious Cap: Is HERE.

The Project Page: Is HERE.

Finally, here are some images from these projects that I couldn’t fit in above:

Kickstart The Week: Hero Party

I have to be completely honest with you. I had no idea who Marcelo Cassaro and Erica Horito (née Awano) were before I stumbled across their latest project, Hero Party. At least, I thought I didn’t. I have since learned that I am much better at remembering images and projects than I am the names of their creators. However, some quick research not only jogged my memory, but revealed to me a slew of facts to back up my initial, gut-instinct to feature this project as the subject of this installment of KTW.

Still, before we get to the author and artist’s impressive credentials, let’s take a quick look at some sketches:

Hero Party – Promo Sketch In Progress

Hero Party – Promo, Final Sketch

The purpose of the Hero Party kickstarter project is to raise funds for the, 48-page, first issue of a new, on-going, manga-style comic set in a fantasy-adventure world. The world and central premise of the comic itself are fairly typical of traditional, sword and sorcery style RPGs, such as Dungeons & Dragons. There are dragons, fiends, treasure and, of course, the intrepid adventurers. The twist here being that, in this world, in order to go hunting for the Dragon’s treasure (known as, the hoard) all adventurers have to belong to a legally authorised – you guessed it – Hero Party.

What is a Hero Party? Well, essentially, it’s the fantasy-adventure version of the Leverage team. You’ve got to have your Defender, Striker, Healer and Wizard, and if you’re not part of an H.P. you’re not allowed into the vast tunnel complexes where the dragons live to hunt for the hoard.

So sayeth the Law of Dungeons.

The tunnels have even got massive, demon-guarded, doors to prevent unauthorised adventurers from charging to their doom alone:

“You shall not pass!”

So far, so familiar. But, apart from the obvious visual appeal of the artwork, you’re probably still wondering why you should be interested in this particular Manga-RPG comic over the hundreds of others out there.

This is where some quick research pays-off – observe.

The writer of Hero Party is Marcello Cassaro. As I’ve said above, the name wasn’t immediately known to me, until I read his author page and realised I was already familiar with some of his previous work. Mr Cassaro was the creator of, Dragão Brasil, which was an incredibly successful RPG-focused magazine in his native Brazil that also generated quite a buzz over in the US and Europe.

He has also been involved in the creation of several other RPG projects and comics that you can read all about over at the – About Us – page on the Hero Party website. However, Cassaro is probably best known, outside of Brazil, for co-creating the comic series, Holy Avenger, which itself spun out of a short D & D campaign he originally wrote for, and published in, Dragão Brasil.

Holy Avenger – Issues #22 – #24
Cover art by Erica Horita (née Awano)

In fact, Holy Avenger is rather significant when considering the pedigree behind Hero Party as it also features the artwork of Erica Horita, who is illustrating this new project.

Erica has previously provided art for a large variety of RPG books as well as doing a lot of freelance illustration. She also co-founded Kanetsu Press, which published The Iron Maiden a, five issue, mini-series of the, Ethora comic.

Ethora – #4 Cover Image

Having read through both the project and official Hero Party pages, and having looked back at these creator’s previous works, I think that this could be a rather neat prospect. However, it is important to note – as mentioned at the top of the project page – this comic will be printed in black and white. There will be a full-color cover, but the comic itself will be in black and white only. Not that it will bother many Manga fans, but some, more mainstream, comic enthusiasts are prone to getting hot and bothered over these things and may miss this vital information if they are only skim reading.

Additionally, please take careful note of the shipping restrictions on the $20 and $25 reward tiers. Again, anyone seriously considering contributing to this project should be checking these things for themselves. However, as I am highlighting the project for your consideration, I do feel obligated to provide you with as much information as possible.

Hero Party – Full Color Cover

To read more about Hero Party and its creators, please check out the kickstarter project page and official site. I definitely recommend you take a look at the official site if you are still unsure as it features a rather nice Gallery where you will find more sketches and drawings of the Hero Party themselves.

The creators will also be available at New York Comic Con, which runs from October 11th – 14th at the Javits Center, NY.