I'm saying right now that "Storm Jonas" is only a good name because it's exactly like the Jonas Brothers: it's terrible, it's everywhere, and it makes me not want to leave the house. Beyond that, it's a terrible name for a storm. So, much like the last big snowstorm I had to deal with, I'm calling it Snowzilla. The upside to Snowzilla is that I've been at home with the family and having a merry time of it. The downside is that I've been home with my family and have gotten very little accomplished.

Book 6 was sent back to the editor for the last round. I'm lettering a new comic that will make an appearance in the Planetscape anthology sometime later this year. I believe before July, but I'm not sure. Dom has been a little slow going, but that's having to do with the structure of the piece. Once I get comfortable with the writing style/vocabulary, it'll go a lot faster. I think it'll be a great book to add to the collection, and the first in the horror genre.

Ted the Demon is officially done. At least, the short of it is. I can't give you a timeline on the full comic because there's something big, nay, monumental in the works. If that actually comes to fruition, then Ted as a full comic will be delays slightly, but a whole new avenue will be opened up. At this point I don't want to say any more than that simply because I don't want to cause a ruckus when it's not needed. Anyhoo, I need to get back to writing Dom before the mighty midget wakes up and requires breakfast.

CoM #5 has been approved for paperback! In the next day or so it should start showing up on Amazon. As always, I tried to keep it as cheap is possible, which is to say it still costs more than I'd like it do. But, at least it'll be out soon and those of you not down with the e-book craze will have that new book smell to look forward to, and perhaps the story within its pages.

Book 6 just came from the editor a few minutes ago. I'll go through it tonight, over the next couple of days, and then send it back to her for one more sweep. I'm betting it'll be a few more weeks before that's published. This time around I'll get on the paperback wagon right away.

Another random comic update: I'm apparently lettering comics now (adding word bubbles, text, etc). This one is written by Lou Frontier, and forgive me, I've forgotten who has done the artwork. Either way, this is the first page to "The Grave Digger", this will be published in The Fear Collective along side the comics I've written and showed off on here in the past few weeks.

One of my stories is "Michael", based off of a possible timeline for M down the road. Another is Ted the Demon - just think Indiana Jones, but a demon, and a lot crazier. The last one, which is still needing an artist, is...well I'll show it when the time comes.

By the way, there's no monkey, let alone named Tiger. I tricked you. BWHHAHAHAHAHA

​

As of yesterday I have started work on the next book, Domitianus. As of right now, that's the working title. It's the character's name, which is roughly based on a Roman Emperor whose reign only lasted a few weeks. If you are unfamiliar with the CoM series as a whole, this might be a cool place to start. It will be a standalone book, it'll most definitely be horror, and it'll introduce the concept of zombie that I use throughout the series. If you're rolling your eyes at this point, straighten them out and understand that this isn't a typical zombie concept. It starts out that way, but it gets far more complicated than that slow moving, must eat brains zombie that you're use to seeing. If you're thinking of something closer to that iZombie show, then you're more on the right track, except that he doesn't gain anyone's memories, he doesn't wake up in control of his zombiness, and I developed this idea long before that show came about. 

I also have in my possession one of the short comic stories I wrote for The Fear Collective. The art is done, so now I'm going in and lettering it (adding the words). Once I'm happy with the first page I'll post it. That anthology will be out "soon". Once I have a better date I'll let you know.

Planetscape, the other anthology I wrote for is getting ready to pitch its Kickstarter to the public. I've been told there will be a pdf version, as well as the paperback. I only mention this because I know a number of you are not in the US and shipping is insane. So, you can always purchase a digital copy. If you're wondering how much is insane, I looked into shipping one of my paperbacks to Scotland and it was $30. So, yeah, insane.

Not really, but it did get your attention. Okay...they might be, I don't know, I'm not a doctor. What I do know is that Book #6 in the CoM series is with the editor, so it won't be much longer before that's out and ready for consumption. I also ordered a paperback proof of book #5. Once that shows up and hopefully looks good, that will be available as well.

I'm debating how to go about doing an audio book. On one hand, to do it the way I'd want to (as in, an old time radio show) I'll end up having to do it myself. The issue there is cost. A good mic, along with possibly hiring a couple other people to do voices is not cheap. The alternative is to use Amazon's ACX website, and lose some of the royalties to a professional. I'm entirely fine with making less money. I know I'm not paying off my school loans with this, but I also know I'm going to get one guy, or one girl, reading the book with little to no emotion and there won't be any sense of what character is talking - which is exactly why I don't listen to audio books. So, for now, it's merely a thought in the works.

Today I'm going to share the first page of Ted the Demon (working title). This is one of the projects I've been working on, and for now I know I can show this. This will be published in an Anthology sometime in the next few months (more details as I get them) and then the artist, Kristophor Harris and I are going to continue this into a full sized, color comic. Probably a series as well. As I said, Kris is handling the art; I am writing and lettering. Lettering, for those of you tilting your heads, is adding the actions words, dialogue and narration to the pages. Although, in this case, Kris did the lightning SFX text.

​Today until the end of Saturday, Hitori is free to the masses. You can find it here: http://mybook.to/hitori 

That is a universal link for Amazon. It'll redirect you to whatever Amazon is in your area. It's plain easier than trying to list all of them for you, and you having to go through that list. Trust me, you aren't going to get viruses or anything off that link. I also provided a button at the top of this blog, if you don't feel like copy/pasting.

In other news, I've been struggling the last couple of days with what book to work on next. I have about 4 solid ideas I want to work on, but none of them are really more interesting that the last. Here they are:

1. Essentially book 7 of the main series, but it would be a standalone. I probably won't even label as book 7, but something more like "the further adventures of M" or something possibly less cheesy. 
2. Backstory of Thomas from some early age all the way to the meeting of M (1920s) - also a standalone
3. Backstory for Domitianus - Starting with his very short reign as Roman Emperor and then his life as a mass murdering zombie (if this seems redundant, then you need to go read book 1)
4. A "Choose your own Murder Mystery". If you're old enough to remember the choose your own adventure books, then you know exactly what I'm getting at - except this is an adult version. The idea is that you're a detective on a homicide case, every so often you are given a list of choices: what clues to follow, what people to question, what will you ask them, etc. Those choices dictate which direction the story goes and eventually how it ends. Will you die in the story? Possibly? For sure, there will be a number of outcomes based on what info you've gathered. Maybe you talked to the wrong suspects and the real killer got away, maybe you didn't gather enough evidence so the murderer was set free, who knows.

For the next couple of weeks, I'm going to let you decide my fate. I'm pretty okay with any of them, but I might as well let the people who are going to buy it make the decision what they want to read next. So, let me know what you think. Comment here, or message me, tweet me, Facebook, I don't care. It's all good to me.

In case anyone is wondering, "Hey, where's book 6 at already?" well, it's done. It's just not with the editor yet. Funds have been the leading issue. However, that should change soon, I'll keep you posted.

If you're asking yourself where all this other work is at? That stuff is done, at least on my end. The deadlines for the two anthologies are something like Jan 12th and Feb 1st. I don't know exactly because I'm not one to put something off until the very end. However, being anthologies there are several other hands involved in this, and everyone needs time to create their parts. That all being said, I believe the hopeful dates those will be available to the public should be around March (I think). I'll keep you posted, and give you more details as time approaches.

The comic I did the "art" for is in proof ordering mode. What does this mean? The images, the text, all of it is done, but we are getting drafts of the printed copy and correcting the lighting here, tightening up a word bubble there, etc. Some things just print darker than what you see digitally.That comic is called "Incontinence Man" and all I can say is that it'll be out soon. Also, by "art" I mean I took some photographs and hit them with Photoshop to make them look more cartoony. All the writing, lettering (word bubbles and action words) and story are from the mind of KS Brooks. Again, more info will come as I can give it to you.

One of the short stories is getting expanded into a full comic, and hopefully into a series. The plan is to get this to pitch it to publishers as soon as it's ready. At the moment the artist, Kristophor Harris (if you were following STD you'll recognize the name) is working on the short story version of that, along with a number of other projects. So, there's no real timetable on this one as well. Sorry, I'm full of adventures these days, but with no destinations in sight.

Oh, yes, STD. Well, the 4 artists and I have all gotten stupid busy with all these different projects, so none of us have had the time to keep it up. As soon as it slows down, and I start seeing daily sketches that aren't meant for a project I'll start posting again. Sorry, that's what happens with free content.

The most I can give you right here, right  now is the ad I made for my friend. He's selling Roller Derby panties. Either you're a derby player/fan and you know what that is, or you think that sounds perverted. Either way, here's the ad. If you're into derby, then go check out his shop. It's listed across all the borders of this.  The only part I didn't do was take the photographs.