ArmorQuest

One of the current projects I'm involved with is been working behind the scenes with the fine folks at Rising Star Studios on their property, ArmorQuest. We’ve been kicking various things around with ArmorQuest for a while and we’re now at a point to start getting this material out there. We've recently launched the website, ArmorQuest.com, and have just released our first digital graphic novel, ArmorQuest: Genesis.

ArmorQuest tells the story of a young man named Timothy who finds himself on a quest to join the ranks of the Emperor’s elite force, the Knights of the Way. He sets out with nothing but a sword, a pair of allies, and a hope to one day return home as a hero and save his friends and family from the threat of the dragons. He faces many challenges and dangers on his journey, but through it all, he learns to rely on the tools of the Emperor, the armor of the Knights of the Way.

The story begins with ArmorQuest: Genesis – a graphic novel now available for digital download through Amazon and iTunes. Written by Ben Avery with fantastic art by Sherwin Schwartzrock.

ArmorQuest ebook Trailer from Rising Star Studios on Vimeo.

For more information on ArmorQuest: Genesis and to read a preview head on over to: ArmorQuest: Genesis

Mascot Art

Last year, my youngest daughter, Brenna, was asked to be part of the leadership for her Middle School’s chapter of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes – and consequently, I was volunteered to come up with a Mascot/T-Shirt design for them. Working with their school’s mascot, the 'Gator, and going with a typical Middle School athletic activity (Track & Field, since everyone has to run laps), I came up with this guy:

Campbell Middle School FCA art



Z Graphic Novels

The project that has consumed most of my time and creative energies for the past six years has reached completion -- the final volumes of the Z Graphic Novels are now available!

It’s been my pleasure to serve as Managing Editor over this line of six 8-volume, manga-sized graphic novels. Adding up to over 7,200 pages material, this is most likely the largest amount of faith-based comic material produced in America under one brand. But as impressive as that may sound, what really counts are the stories themselves. Each series in the line has a unique look and voice, and they are all geared to slightly different audiences, yet each one touches on many crucial aspects of the Christian life such as faith, family, forgiveness and redemption. The creative teams poured their hearts into these books and it really shows through.

Here’s a brief rundown of each series:

Hand of the Morningstar

With dynamic characters and pulse-pounding action, Hand of the Morningstar puts a twist to the concept of the typical super-hero story by tackling the nature of hero worship in today’s media-saturated, relativistic culture.

Kingdoms

A generational saga that traces one family’s account through Israel’s exile into Babylon and their return home. Kingdoms draws upon the rich history of Israel and masterfully places many of the leaders and prophets from the Old Testament in historical context.

Manga Bible

Adapted from the Korean Manhwa series. A little silly at times, but always reverent, The Manga Bible presents the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, in an engaging format for young readers.

Son of Samson

Son of Samson takes a look at one of the most famous Judges of Israel as this fictional “son” of his struggles to grasp with the seeming inconsistencies in Samson’s life. Son of Samson features lively action and art that draws the reader into ancient Israel.

TimeFlyz

Exploring the nature of self-identity and family, TimeFlyz is a high-energy adventure as the TimeFlyz and their human friend, Laurel, try to put a stop to who – or what – is kidnapping history’s leading scientists.

Tomo

Putting new found faith to the test, Tomo presents the story of a young girl and her destiny to bring restoration to a kingdom crippled by deception. With fun characters and a fantastic setting, Tomo appeals to readers of all ages.

These books are available at your more discerning bookstores and online retailers, as well as through my Amazon Store: Bud's Bookshelf.

ArmorQuest Online

Im glad to see that Ben Avery has just placed ArmorQuest online over at WebComics.CC.

ArmorQuest is a fantasy story about a boy named Timothy who decides he wants to join the Knights of the Way to fight off the dragons that threaten the land. WebComics.CC is presenting ArmorQuest in it’s full page glory and in black and white as originally drawn by the incredibly gifted Sherwin Schwartzrock.

Ben, Sherwin and I worked on this story over five years ago and it's always been one of my favorites. It's a story of discovery, determination and faith, and it contains a fantastic mixture of high adventure and spiritual teaching.

In launching ArmorQuest online, the "Sneak Preivew" Prequel pages are being posted every weekday. Starting with “Chapter 1″,  pages will be posted every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

You can start “Chapter 0″ by clicking here: AQ Genesis: Chapter 0

Action Figures

Last week I mentioned Clash Creative and their production/representation of several properties they’ll be submitting to publishers in the near future, but I didn’t know that they had announced a project I had a hand in developing several years ago.

Some time after our work together on HeroTV and before working on ArmorQuest, Ben Avery and I were batting around a couple of different ideas and one of those was this story about a group of kids that were able to turn into real-life versions of their favorite action figures. We wanted to hit a wide range of genres with this so we honed in on a 40s-era Cliffhanger Action Hero (Nash Raider), a Silver-Age Superhero (The Cowled Owl), a Sword & Sorcery Barbarian character (Grun-Tar), a Futuristic Techno-Ninja (Red Zero), and a Barbie-type character who was also a Master of Disguises and highly skilled in a wide variety of disciplines (Modelin’ Madeline). With the character types and eras in mind, I set myself to designing the characters while Ben fleshed out the concept and drafted a preliminary script. We had our friend Jonathan Koelsch illustrate a couple of pages of art to get a tidy proposal in place.

We moved on to other projects once the preliminary work was completed on the concept, but Ben recently dusted it off and placed it with Clash Creative to give it a fresh set of legs. As a bonus, Clash hired Jonathan Koelsch to complete one of his original pages and to jazz up my designs with colors.

So with Action Figures making it’s debut of sorts, I figured now’s a good time to run these character designs.

Nash Radier and the Cowled Owl

Grun-Tar and Red Zero

Modelin' Madeline

(Sport Madeline, Kung-Fu Madeline, Scuba Madeline, and Tomb Raider Madeline)

The Kids

Action Figures, Nash Raider, Cowled Owl, Grun-Tar, Red Zero and Modelin' Madeline are © & TM 2009 Ben Avery

Art © 2009 Bud Rogers

Colors by Jonathan Koelsch

Back from…?

I’m back to pay attention to my poor little old neglected blog again. It’s been a busy time, but then again, when is it not.

Just to get people up to speed on my projects, almost four years ago I was hired by Zondervan to be Managing Editor of their new line of Graphic Novels. The line consists of six separate series running eight 150-page volumes each – so forty-eight books in all. To date, we’re about 80% through. I’ll be writing about the books here over the next couple of weeks. But if you’re interested in checking them out, you can use my handy Amazon storefront to the right to order a book or two (or three, or …)

But enough about me, there have seen some other people that have been busy too, and I’d like to highlight some of their work:

Crash Land Studio

Some friends of mine (Josh Alves, Jamie Cosley, Tommy Flick and Eric Merced) have banded together to form a virtual studio with a sharp focus on producing all-ages comic entertainment. They’re young, talented and really excited about pushing themselves and their work in this direction. They’ve got a running blog where they challenge each other to sketch-offs and they’re also presenting a couple of ongoing webcomics. Check ‘em out: Crash Land Studio

Clash Creative

Ken Raney has just launched Clash Creative as an outlet for producing high-quality spiritually-based comics and graphic novels. They’ve assembled a pretty interesting and diverse collection of properties to pitch to publishers. Check out their portfolio page: Clash Creative Portfolio

Rabbi Encounters

It looks like Rob Woodrum is bringing his excellent webcomic, Rabbi Encounters, to a close. I’m not very keen on stories that update the Bible or try to stage the events of the Gospel into modern (much less futuristic) settings, but Rob’s careful, sensitive and well conceived presentation of these stories shows that it can be done very effectively. If you haven’t taken the opportunity to check out his wonderful webcomic, do so. You’ll be blessed through it. The story begins here: Rabbi Encounters

WebComics.CC All-Ages Comic Round-Up

My partner in crime, Ben Avery, scours the internet and divides the wheat from the chaff in compiling a list of some of the best, all-ages/family-friendly webcomics out there. He runs his list on Wednesdays and highlights a particular site or strip on Sundays. Check back for regular updates: WebComics.CC

Ace of Diamonds

And speaking of Ben, he is also having a blast with one of his latest projects, re-writing dialog to some old public domain western comics and presenting it to us as Ace of Diamonds. Ben is challenging himself to spin a new narrative over existing art and he’s doing a bang-up job of it. Check it out here: Ace of Diamonds

Excelsior! 'Nuff Said?

My friends at New Creation Now are serializing a comic that’s been quite a while in the making. The comic is titled Ragged Capes and it takes a look at the motivations of several super-hero archetypes and how even their most righteous acts can only be considered dirty rags – or in their terms – ragged capes.

I was asked to write one of the chapters and so I took the opportunity to flesh out one of the characters I’d been playing around with called Excelsior. I formed Excelsior in the Bruce Wayne/Batman or Tony Stark/Iron Man mold -- that is, a very wealthy, intelligent and powerful man who was driven to go that extra step to help people out (well, to help people out in a super-powered suit, that is). In the process, he’s become my Solomon character, someone who has it all but has drifted away in a spiritual sense. Anyway, that’s my background for the character and I tried to work it in as much as I could within the seven pages I had available. Maybe one of these days I'll be able to devote more attention to him, for now however, this story will have to suffice. This story is titled "Breakdowns" and focuses on an encounter between Excelsior, my symbol of order and propriety, and the anarchist, Rave.

Excelsior is (c) 2009 Bud Rogers - art is (c) 2009 Bill Maus

The story was written by yours truly and it was drawn by Bill Maus with colors by Lisa Hutchinson. The first page is up now and new page will become available every week.

Caught in the act

Gary Martin and Sergio Cariello, the creative team on Son of Samson, were gracious enough to include me (the humble editor) in the creator bios at the end of their books. The bonus for this was that Sergio Cariello would be producing a caricature for my presentation. It took me awhile, but I finally got a photo to him and in no time at all, he turned this image around.

One of my favorite things about it is the notes included on some of the rejected tablets (yep, my words coming back to haunt me). Anyway, I hope you all get a kick out of this.

Art (c) 2009 Sergio Cariello

If you haven’t yet, you’ve got to check out the Son of Samson series from Zondervan. It’s a rip-roarin’ action packed series packed with spiritual truth.

WebComics.CC

It’s been quite a while since I last posted here. What with overseeing the production of roughly 2,000 pages of graphic novel content this past year, I haven’t had much time for keeping up with other blogs, much less posting here. But with so much going on, I need this centralized place to discuss my upcoming projects and talk about some of the cool things others are doing.

With that being said, let me highlight our latest endeavor from Community Comics – WebComics.CC

WebComics.CC is pretty much everything the name implies web comics from Community Comics (CC). With WebComics.CC we are providing a hub of sorts for some worthwhile, all ages/family friendly comics material. We are presenting some of our existing material such as HeroTV, ArmorQuest and Chosen Mortals, along with some newly created properties such as Music of the Spheres. We are also partnering with other web comics that share our sensibilities.

WebComics.CC went live late in 2008 and it’s taken a while to build up pages, but by now we have new content going up almost every weekday. So come on over and check it out. With the variety we have, I’m sure you’ll find something to follow along with.

HeroTV: CAPES

The comic that really got me going on this stuff is now online for free over at WOWIO. I had been working on various things for a good ten years prior to HeroTV, but this was my first time wearing the editor’s hat and managing two writers and ten different artists under the framework of a single story clicked for me. This was also the project that gelled things between me, Ben Avery and Sherwin Schwartzrock and led to the formalization of Community Comics as an actual business entity.



HeroTV is a superhero satire/adventure that examines the concept of a hero in today’s media-crazed culture.

Is it by might? Is it by power? What makes a hero?

In HeroTV: CAPES we travel alongside a team of reality-show camera operators as they document the day-to-day activities of Metro City’s superheroes. But events of the day take an interesting, and quite telling, turn when Professor Graviton arrives and holds the entire city hostage.

HeroTV: CAPES features the creative talents of Ben Avery, Darren Brady, Sherwin Schwartzrock, Bud Rogers, Jeremy Zehr, Kneon Transitt, Jesse Hamm, Brian Proctor, Bill Webb, Joey Endres, Eric Jansen, Don Kelly and Jonathan Koelsch.


Originally Published in June 2003 by Community Comics
HeroTV is (c) and TM 2008 Ben Avery

Cool stuff online!

Sorry that I’ve been neglecting my blog lately, but I’ll make amends with that over the next couple of weeks with what’s been keeping my away. For now, however, I want to mention a couple of new projects that have caught my eye.

The Plague Doctor’s Sanctuary

The Plague Doctor is a new story concept that’s being developed by my friend and frequent collaborator Ben Avery and Tim Baron. Ben’s told me a bit of the background for this project and I was instantly hooked.

Here’s an excerpt from Ben’s welcome to The Plague Doctor’s Sanctuary:

This is the home of the Plague Doctor, one of the sole survivors of the world-wide Lotus Plague. Here you will find images, notes, manuscript fragments, and other information about this enigmatic man who changed the course of history for an entire world in the face of absolute devastation. The archaeologists for The Plague Doctor Project are constantly unearthing new artifacts about this man and his world. It must be some sort of elaborate hoax, for these events never happened. And yet, the glimpses into his terrifying world are fascinating. And the evidence seems so authentic . . .

It’s interesting to see how this world is developing and how the story is taking shape.

The Plague Doctor is (c) 2008 Ben Avery artwork is (c) 2008 Tim Baron

Prayer Pups
by Jeffrey Smith

Click on Image or HERE to see a larger version of the comic

Prayer Pups is (c) 2008 Jeffry Smith

According to its website Prayer Pups is an exclusive comic strip aimed at churches and Christian organizations to provide a fun and exciting new way to spread the word of our Lord Jesus Christ. Each episode of the comic strip leads our four-legged friends to a lesson in God’s ways, to a study of Scripture or to a conclusion based on Christian principles. And it’s always done with humor.

I stumbled across this charming and clever strip a few months ago and quickly added it to my daily list of sites to check out. It reminds me of classic Peanuts in tone. The fact that one of the lead characters is a Pug doesn’t hurt either - those little critters are my weakness.

7 Seconds and a Dead Fish

I’m happy to announce that we’ve been able to post Jesse Hamm’s inspirational indy comic, 7 Seconds and a Dead Fish, at WOWIO -- and it’s available for FREE!

7 Seconds and a Dead Fish
Story and art by Jesse Hamm



7 Seconds and a Dead Fish tells the story of a young man as he tenaciously clings to his faith when the religious system he has been brought up in has turned its message to merely speak to the tenets of the government. Jesse’s excellent black and white artwork captures the bleak landscape and atmosphere of the story, while his expressive style imbues the protagonist with strength and hope. It’s a small press classic that exemplifies intelligent inspirational comics.

Some new webcomics worth checking out

Here are a couple of new webcomics that deserve some attention:

Araknid Kid
by Josh Alves

Zuda is a webcomics initiative from DC Comics, and through it they are holding an American Idol type of competition. They set up rounds of competitions between webcomics where the readers vote on their favorites. The winner will win a 1-year contract to produce their webcomic exclusively for Zuda.

Araknid Kid has made it through the first screening and is now in competition with 10 other webcomics for the coveted position of an ongoing title through Zuda. Arakinid Kid is a fun comic with a bit of action, a bit of mystery and a whole lot of fun. I've been following Josh's work for several years now and he has really honed his art and storytelling to a professional level. It's some good stuff, so stop by Zuda, sign up and vote for the Araknid Kid and my pal Josh!

And for some inside info on Arakind Kid, check out the Arakind Kid: A Look Behind the Scenes blog.

Shelter of Wings Christmas
by Lisa Hutchinson

I've never made any secret about how much I enjoy and admire Lisa Hutchinson's work, so I was more than thrilled to see that she has decided to do a specific Christmas webcomic.

Lisa's got a sensitive voice and pours a lot of heart into her work. It's always been a blessing to me and I'm sure it will be to you as well.

Free Comics!!!

We at Community Comics have recently entered into an agreement with WOWIO to present our material on their site for free downloading. WOWIO books are free because sponsors pay authors and publishers on your behalf. It’s a win-win scenario. You do need to register with WOWIO before downloading any material, but the process is very easy.

We currently have 2 titles available:

Legends -- Story and art by Sherwin Schwartzrock.

Legends presents the story of “Korah’s Rebellion” from Numbers 16 in a very dynamic manner. Witness the mighty power of God in action when tensions arise in the wilderness as Moses is openly confronted by opposing clans.

This is the comic that took the Christian comics community by storm when it debuted back in 2000. From out of nowhere, a new talent burst upon the scene, and his name was Schwartzrock! Sherwin Schwartzrock had been working as a designer for about 15 years before his attention was turned towards comics and he produced Legends in his spare time. Since then he has been a major contributor to the Christian comics community, helping out numerous publishers and building Community Comics along with Ben Avery, Darren Brady and myself.

Legends also includes the back-up story “Good News” by Ben Avery and Sherwin Schwartzrock.

The Thieves -- Story by Ben Avery with art by Paolo Libunao

The Thieves is a look at the greatest story ever told, but told with a twist, focusing on the men who were hung on either side of Jesus.

Three bandits find themselves in over their heads when a robbery turns into the murder of an important Roman citizen. Suddenly, everything spins out of control as one faces losing his family, another faces losing his freedom, and all three face losing their lives at the hands of the Romans. It's a story of love and hate, revenge and redemption, hopelessness and hope.


Please feel free to bookmark our Publisher’s Page so you can check back from time to time. We will be adding more of our Community Comics titles as well as some very exiting titles from other Christian creators.

Art by Bud!

I usually work behind the scenes on the various projects I’m involved in, but between my editing, emails, and phone calls -- not to mention my regular, full-time job -- I’m able to squeeze in a little bit of freelance cartooning and comic art.

One of my clients is a marketing firm and they’ve brought me on to provide a handful of cartoons and humorous illustrations for one of their newsletters. Every month they send me about 3 pages worth of jokes and I pick 4 of them to draw. They also throw in a zinger for me in the form of a two word phrase for me to illustrate.

A good amount of my training in this field centered around magazine cartooning. I like the simple and direct style of communicating ideas. And since my art veers more toward the cartoony than realistic, I really enjoy having this opportunity to get some India ink all over my fingers again.

Here are some of the cartoons I did for October. I’ll try to get November’s up during November.

Click on each cartoon if you'd like to pull up a larger version to read.

TOMO takes the Bronze!

Tomo Volume 1: I Was an Eighth-Grade Ninja has just been awarded the Bronze Award in the Comics and Graphic Novel category of the Moonbeam Children's Books Awards.

The Moonbeam Awards are designed to honor the year's best children’s books, authors and illustrators, and to bring increased recognition to exemplary children’s books and their creators. Their ambition is to support children's book publishing and to promote childhood literacy and life-long reading.

One of the more significant aspects of Tomo's placement is that these awards are not CBA related, but draw from the large pool of mainstream material. There is a separate category for Religious works, but the Comics and Graphic Novels category is completely open.

Congratulations go to Andrew Simmons, Ariel Padilla, Tom Bancroft and Rob Corley of Funnypages Productions for producing such an excellent book. It's a pleasure to work with them.

Read more about Tomo here: www.zgraphicnovels.com/series/tomo.php

Silly Daddy Online

Joe Chiappetta (or Joey Chips as he is sometimes called) has been drawing his Silly Daddy comic sine 1991, the year he became a father. It’s gone through several incarnations since then, beginning as a photocopied and hand stapled zine and moving all the way through to trade paperback collections of his comics. He even won the Xeric Award in 1998 for his for his graphic novel, Silly Daddy: A Death in the Family. One of the most amazing things about following Silly Daddy through the years and the formats is tracing Joe’s life, not only as a father, but as he came to Christ. He has now made the internet Silly Daddy’s home as a daily webcomic at: http://joechiappetta.blogspot.com/.

Silly Daddy is at times absurd and at times touching, but always fascinating. Joe present’s life as he sees it or imagines it to be (or sometimes should be), and his cartoons provide a remarkable insight into contemporary times.

Here’s a small sampling if his cartoons:

All art is © 2007 Joe Chiappetta

Check out more at: Joe Chiappetta is Silly Daddy

Another Recommended Graphic Novel

Good As Lily
Story by Derek Kim Kirk
Art by Jesse Hamm
Published by Minx (An imprint of DC Comics)

I’ve been waiting for this graphic novel ever since I first saw some of Jesse Hamm’s art on it back in the summer of 2006, and it was well worth the wait.

First a disclaimer:
I’ve known Jesse Hamm for well over ten years and fell in love with his work at first sight. He’s a brilliant cartoonist, a master of body language and facial expression, and his layouts are very well thought out and invite the reader into the story. So, yeah, I was sold on the art right away.
I’m also somewhat familiar with Derek Kim Kirk’s writing, having followed several of his other comics online (especially Same Difference), and I'm impressed with his ability to flesh out characters in an appealing and believable nature. With that team attached to the book, it held a lot of promise to me.

The story of Good As Lily centers around Grace Kwon on her eighteenth birthday and what happens as she suddenly comes face to face with herself at three different periods of her life (as a child, as a woman nearing her thirties, and as on older woman). As the four Graces interact, they come to terms with their regrets and other emotional baggage, resulting in a closure that frees the contemporary, 18-year old Grace, to move forward into adulthood. It’s an optimistic story filled with likeable characters, warm humor, and a lot of heart.

Tempest - A Benefit Comic

Being in the midst of hurricane season, I was reminded of the Disaster Relief benefit comic we put together several years ago in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Tempest.



Tempest is the story of an artist, a normal man who writes stories of heroics and tragedy. But surrounded by news of tragedy and disaster, confronted with his own limitations, and facing the lifting veil of innocence, he is forced to ask some difficult questions, starting with, "What can I do ... I'm just one man ..." It’s a story of hope in the face of pain; beauty in the face of evil; strength in the face of solitary weakness.

Tempest was one of the more personal projects that Ben Avery, Sherwin Schwartzrock and I worked on, and we were blessed to work with a phenomenal group of artists who contributed their time and talents to this story such as:
* Randy Green (Witchblade, Emma Frost)
* Javier Saltares (David's Mighty Men, Ghost Rider, Wolverine, GI Joe)
* Sherwin Schwartzrock (ArmorQuest, Deal with the Devil)
* Sergio Cariello (The Lone Ranger, Son of Samson, Sojourn, Batman)
* Mike Worley (Bongo Comics artist, caricaturist)
* Tom Bancroft (Big Idea, Disney, Opposite Forces)
* Phil Hester (Ant Man, Nightwing, Green Arrow, The Wretch)
* Mario Ruiz (Samson, Testament)
* Gary Shipman (Pakkins' Land, Amazing True Life Stories)
* Darren Brady (Handel’s Messiah, HeroTV)
* Tim Kane (Supercrazy TNT Blast)
* Jesse Hamm (Good as Lily, Bitten Apple, Savage Daisies)
* Nate Watson (Blue Water Productions)
* Gary Martin (The Moth, Nexus)

Copies of Tempest are still available - either in printed form or as digital downloads.
* In print from Community Comics for $3.50 plus S & H.
* As free digital download from Wowio.
(Will require signing up with Wowio - but you’ll get access to many free books and comics - it’s a pretty good deal.)

All proceeds from the sale of Tempest or received from the Wowio downloads (and we do receive payments for each download) will be donated to the Disaster Relief efforts of the Salvation Army. The need is always there and so is the Salvation Army.

Rabbi Encounters

I'd like to point everyone over to Rabbi Encounters, an excellent web comic by Rob Woodrum.

Rabbi Encounters (c) 2007 Rob Woodrum


In Rabbi Encounters, Rob Woodrum updates the encounters Jesus had with people throughout the Gospel accounts in a very effective manner. This works so much better than a straight "what if Jesus came today" approach; those tend to raise many more questions than they answer. The main focus in Rabbi Encounters is how the people are affected by their encounters with the Rabbi. In the stories to date, we have seen encounters with an Army commander, a man suffering from AIDS, a woman at the laundromat, and a diminutive thug named Zack. Rob's presentation of these familiar stories is very fresh and unique and provides a springboard for self-reflection as we see modern applications to these encounters.