Comic Book Industry Ambitions

Talking with my wife…

Jenny has been burning the candle at both ends lately, and has been going to sleep early to try to make up for it. The other night, I tucked her into bed, with the intention to then go play Skyrim for a few hours.

Jenny: “This is nice. It feels like you’re tucking me into bed in your house in Whiterun, and then you’re going to go out and slay dragons and have adventures.”

Me: “You would HATE that, because it would mean my housecarl was sitting in the corner, watching you sleep. That’s creepy.“

Jenny: “It’s cool. I’d be like, ‘BITCH! Get me a sweet roll!’”

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Been busy this month, and not just because I have been swapping out all of the time I normally reserve for sleep and food intake for hours logged in Skyrim. (I have been considering marrying my housecarl in Solitude, not because I love her, but because she has been sleeping on a pile of hay in my basement, and it makes me feel really guilty.) I’m doing research for a couple projects, and realizing that my research skills have totally atrophied since I was in college. I keep mentioning that I need to go to the library, and people look at me like I am out of my mind. “Uh, haven’t you ever heard of the INTERNET?” The truth is that I don’t quite TRUST the internet. You can always tell when someone has done all their research on Wikipedia. They end up writing a WWII epic where Captain America fights Chip Hitler.

(And now I kind of want to write a comic about Hitler’s slacker younger brother, Chip. He’s just as horrible as Adolf, but because he’s so lazy and unmotivated, nobody really cares.)

Anyway, if you’re a librarian, and there’s a fat guy wandering around you screaming “WHERE’S THE FUCKING MICROFICHE?”, that’s me. Sorry for the noise.

The next three months or so will see a bunch of new stuff from me. GrayHaven Comics will be releasing the Sci-Fi, Fairy Tale, and Silver Age themed issues of The Gathering, and I have stories in each of those volumes. Please check them out. I’m insanely proud of all three of those stories, and super-impressed with the artwork turned out by Chris Page, Leonardo Gonzalez, and Edward Whatley, respectively.

Also, I got the word that I will be anchoring GrayHaven’s table at this year’s MoCCA Fest with Gathering editors Doug Hahner and Erica Heflin. So come visit!

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Comic Book Industry Ambitions

Not the obvious ones. Not “I want to write Spider-Man someday.”, or “Hey, DC, I have a killer idea for a Creeper mini.” (Although both of those are true.) I mean the less obvious stuff. The little things that let me know I’ve “made it”.

When I first formed a punk band, just after college, I set a handful of goals for myself. None of them were “Get a record deal and become a rich and famous rock star”. That was on my mind, of course, but that was the forest, and I wanted to focus on the trees. I wanted to make sure I didn’t get so obsessed with the big picture goal of “making it” that I didn’t enjoy what I had while I had it. On the list were things like;

·        Play a show at Toad’s Place.

·        Open for my favorite local band, Big Mistake.

·        Open for my OTHER favorite local band, Spring Heeled Jack, USA.

·        Play a show out of state.

·        Go on tour.

·        Get a hug from the lead singer of NYC ska band Metro Stylee.

·        Rock out in front of that girl I had a crush on in high school. (The one who would go on to date Chris Carabba.)

And you know what? I did all of those things. I never became a rich and famous rock star, but I did get to do all of those cool things that, to me, were part of the process of someday BECOMING a rich and famous rock star. And they were all AWESOME.

So with that in mind, I have, recently been composing a list of my Comic Book Industry Ambitions. The little stuff. The fun stuff. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to write Spider-Man. But maybe I can get some of these other things done.

COMIC BOOK INDUSTRY AMBITION #17: Ride a roller-coaster with Dan Slott.

I love Dan Slott. He just seems like the sweetest, most fun guy. And he’s kicking so much ass on Amazing Spider-Man that it’s on my pull list again after a five plus year absence. He also does the best impression of The Thing I have ever heard. Every time we see Dan Slott at a convention, my wife is overcome by the urge to give him a hug. That’s the kind of guy he is.

(On a side note, Dan Slott was the ONE guy from Marvel I saw in the audienceat last year’s stellar “Women Of Marvel” panel at NYCC. He’s a really good dude.)

I think it would be fun to ride a roller coaster with Dan Slott. Especially if, as we crest that first rise, he looks at me and says, “Uh-oh, Stretch-o! I think it’s Clobbering Time!”

COMIC BOOK INDUSTRY AMBITION #38: Touch Jason Aaron’s beard.

Everybody talks about Alan Moore’s beard. And yeah, it’s pretty great. The standard by which all comic book beards are judged. But Jason Aaron’s beard is special. I think it’s full of secrets and wonders. Also, I should mention that Wolverine and the X-Men is my favorite X-title in forever, and I say that as a huge X-geek, so that should tell you something.

 I should note that I would never TRY to touch Mr. Aaron's beard without prior, clearly expressed, non-equivocal permission. Because he looks like one of the dudes from Sons of Anarchy, and I have no doubt he could beat me up pretty badly.

Plus, there could be a leprechaun with a machinegun in there. Or a bear trap. Just too much potential for mayhem.  

COMIC BOOK INDUSTRY AMBITION #54: Do something good enough that Laura Hudson calls me “A Good Egg”

Laura Hudson is the very sharp, very cool Editor-in-Chief for Comics Alliance. She writes articles that make me think, and she takes an inordinate amount of shit from the fanboy community at large. I wrote a blog a while back about one of her more controversial articles, and how the end result for me was a reminder to be more careful when I was writing, and to try to do justice to the women in my life with the characters I create and portray. (Also, when I’m writing women, I try to imagine that if I do something creepy or fanboyish, Kelly Sue DeConnick will swat me on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper.)

I really want, someday, to write a comic that makes Laura Hudson give me a thumbs-up. That’ll definitely tell me I’m doing something right.  

COMIC BOOK INDUSTRY AMBITION #73: Write, Direct, and Co-Produce "Indie Comics Roadtrip"I had the Comedians of Comedy documentary on as background noise while I worked the other day. And I started thinking how much fun it would be to get a posse of my favorite indie comics friends together and spend a year hitting every major con. Just get in a van with Pat Loika, Jef UK, Len Wallace, Amanda Rachels, Chris Page, and any other indie comic folks I could get to join in and make a documentary on the fucking thing.

It would mostly be hours of footage of us being stuck in traffic while I scream obscenities at other drivers, me trying to get Pat Loika to do his Lars Ulrich impression, and Chris Page and me doing our impressions of Amanda Rachels when she's not around to hear us and take revenge on our flabby, weak bodies with her hammer-like fists.

I'd watch that.

COMIC BOOK INDUSTRY AMBITION #85: Continue to grow the "Indie Comics Poop Text" mailing list

Over the past year or two, a bunch of my friends have invented, and participated, on-and-off, in the "poop text" game. Fairly simple rules. When you're making twosies, you text everyone on the list and let them know. My list has a bunch of my bestest buddies in the field of woefully obscure comics talent on it. Not mentioning any names, of course.

I'd like to see this list grow, and really get some bigger name creators on this. Jamie Rich WANTS to let me know when he's pooping. He's just afraid to admit it.


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Follow me on Twitter @travisholyfield and look for the tag #comicindustryambitions for more of these, as they occur to me.

 

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My poor mother saw that AMC was going to have a show called “Comic Book Men”. She also saw that it had something to do with Kevin Smith. And because she loves me more than I probably deserve, she called me up, all excited to tell me about it.

(Let me say this in no uncertain terms – My mom is AWESOME for things like this, and has been my entire life. She doesn’t share my interests, but she has always made a point of knowing enough about them to tune me into things she sees that relate. The poor woman went through the 80s knowing the secret identity of every single member of the X-Men. If there’s an Eisner award for awesome mothers to geeky children, I’d like to nominate her.)

I watched the first episode and… Yikes. Really guys? You couldn’t make it through the first episode without talking about which superheroine you’d most like to bang? Way to not perpetuate any stereotypes. I was left just feeling thoroughly “meh”. Not for me, sadly. But thanks for trying, mom.

(Also, the show is called “Comic Book Men”, but really should be called “Let’s Be Horrible to the Asian Kid”.)

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I WROTE SOME THINGS THAT PEOPLE LIKED!

There have been a handful of reviews for Volume 6 (Further Into the Abyss) of GrayHaven Comics’ Gathering anthology. And people have been really positive in their evaluations of the book in general, and my story, “Jack, Unblinking” in specific.

“…it is end story Jack, Unblinking by Travis M. Holyfield and Chris Page that leaves a lasting impression. A creepy and sad tale that is quite the twist on a well loved children's toy.”

You can check out some reviews here:

http://therottingzombie.blogspot.com/2012/01/gathering-comic-anthology-issue-4-and-6.html

http://girlsreadcomics.com/2012/01/20/review-further-into-the-abyss-the-gathering-vol-6/

http://artbyarion.blogspot.com/2012/01/arcadio-bolanos-gathering-vol-6-further.html

Hugs and kisses,

(The)Travis

Awesome Toys from my Childhood

I spent most of this week writing a script for a one-shot superhero comic that will, if all goes according to plan, hopefully be published late 2012 to early 2013. Cross your fingers. I spent what remained pitching stories to GrayHaven comics for the first batch of Gathering anthologies due out in 2013.

In working on one of the pitches, a superhero story geared towards younger readers, I spent some time thinking about my own childhood, and the adventures of my young imagination. I had a sudden flashback to a villain from my youth, a nightmarish creature of metal and hatred, who terrorized my toys in a reign of terror even Darth Vader would have found tasteless and unnecessarily extreme. That villain… CLAWTRON

Doesn’t look like much, does he? Clawtron was one of Fisher Price’s attempts to cash in on the Star Wars craze. It’s funny now to see how innocuous he looks, because in my memory, he is the baddest of the bad-asses. His name alone made G.I. Joe soldiers hide under their cots and caused Luke Skywalker to just back slowly into his X-Wing Fighter and fly away.

Of course thinking about old Clawtron also reminded me of some of my other favorite childhood toys. Not the ones you’d automatically think of. I was an only child, and never wanted for much of anything. So I had just about every Star Wars and G.I. Joe toy ever made, not to mention a good smattering of Masters of the Universe, MASK, and more super-heroes than you could shake a stick at. But what I’m talking about here are those random toys that come from seemingly nowhere and get incorporated into a kid’s play pattern. The toys that were never intended to rub shoulders with the Han Solos and Cobra Commanders of the toy world, but somehow still did.  Here are a couple of mine.

THE FISHER-PRICE LITTLE PEOPLE PLAY FAMILY ACTION GARAGE

Yeah, this is another Fisher-Price toy. On its own, independently, it was completely awesome. It had an elevator into which you inserted the little cars. Then you’d crank the elevator to the top, and the cars would come shooting out, sliding down the ramp. Pretty slick. But this toy found a second life with me as a playset for my Star Wars figures. In my childhood imaginings, Luke Skywalker and Co. were EVER finding themselves landing on earth, and once here, they apparently had nothing better to do than to take their intergalactic civil war to an urban parking structure. More Stormtroopers met their ends being tossed off of that roof by Chewbacca than by Rebel laser fire, let me tell you.

MEMBROS

An Alien from the Micronauts series of toys, Membros was… weird. The fact that he had a glowing brain pretty much automatically meant he was a villain. But he was so odd looking that even amongst the Galactic Empire he was a bit of an outcast. Membros did have one huge advantage over other bad guys, though; His weapons all plugged directly into his arms. So Han Solo or the Princess could literally never disarm him. I remember that Membros eventually became Clawtron’s right-hand (right-claw?) man, and the butt of much of the master villain’s abuse. The Beast-Man to Clawtron’s Skeletor, if you will.

FISHER PRICE FAMILY SAFARI

Yeah, apparently I had a lot of Fisher Price toys. The gorilla in this one fascinated me. He looked like one of the monsters from the Herculoids, so I always made him an ally of the heroes. The family in the set mattered little to me. They usually filled the roll of “innocent civilians” that the G.I. Joe team had to rescue. Although I do remember the dad’s Burt Reynolds moustache was so macho that I usually gave him a Stormtrooper blaster and had him join in on the ass-kicking. The lion and tiger were often deployed as threats to our heroes in jungle environments. (Spoiler Alert: Snake-eyes from G.I. Joe can totally beat up a lion.) Probably the best parts of this set were the cages and the net. I cannot possibly tell you how often those were used to imprison captured heroes while the villains monologued about their plans to harness all of the world’s energy crystals. (The part of the world’s energy crystals was, of course, played by a bunch of Lite-Brite pegs).

THE JAWS BOARD GAME

The game itself was basically a version of Operation. But the shark of course, was a huge threat to any nautical adventure. Like Clawtron, this has achieved a more mythic status in my memory than the actual toy merits. Until I looked up images of this, I remembered a sinisterly realistic shark with dangerous rows of razor-sharp teeth. I remember being AFRAID of this toy. This poor guy has these huge beady eyes of surprise, as if he’s being force-fed to death. He looks more like Jabberjaw than the megalodon of my childhood memories.

Ah, to be young again.

Anyway, if you someday read a comic I wrote where the heroes are fighting a sinister ebony robot with claws for hands, you know that it’s really the three year old version of me who’s doing the writing.  Even more so than usual.

Hugs and kisses,

(The)Travis

2012: The Year In Review in Advance

Happy 2012, everyone! Hope the New Year is finding you well so far. My holiday season was appropriately joyous and wonderful. I had a lovely birthday, a fantastic Christmas, and rang in the New Year with Jenny at our friends Mike and Sarah’s house. It was a great evening, and I would describe it in greater detail, but it has been pointed out to me that the sense of humor possessed by my inner circle of friends would, if shared with the outside world, make us all look like psychopaths.

I watched the proliferation of “Best of 2011” lists last month with a sort of looming dread. Was this the sort of thing that was required of one who blogged? If so, I’m ill equipped to deliver. My attention span is similar to that of a small, nervous dog who has managed to consume a large triple espresso. I sometimes forget things that are happening WHILE they are happening.

Okay, not really, but I do a poor job of cataloging things in an efficient chronology. It’s a side effect of being tragically behind on the cultural bell curve.  Any “Best of the Year” lists I generate would, by my nature, be filled with materials that are decades old which I have JUST discovered, and have decided are the very height of French cool.

It’s easier for me to do a list of what I’m looking forward to in the coming year. I can always handle recognizing things that haven’t happened YET. So that’s a safer, and more pleasurable activity for me. Always looking forward, friends!

THINGS I AM EXCITED ABOUT IN 2012

1) THE WORLD PROBABLY, HOPEFULLY, NOT ENDING

When I was much younger, I watched a documentary on Nostradamus which ended, as so many things from the 80s, with images of nuclear missiles flying through the night, and the world ending in a massive mushroom cloud. I tried to hide under my bed for a week. Something about that trauma stuck with me. I’m phobic about the apocalypse. So the Mayan calendar debate bullshit regarding the end of the year has made me twitchy. I know it’s stupid. I know YOU know that it’s stupid. But, like most phobias, there’s nothing that rational thought or discussion can do to really break the tension. So I’m looking forward to barreling right up to, and past, December 21, 2012. Then I can breathe a huge sigh of relief and wait for the next opportunity for crazy people to promise me I’m going to die.

Best rebuttal I have heard for the Mayan doomsday comes from my buddy Joe Porto who pointed out that he has had a calendar every year that ended on that year, and so far, nothing has come of it. “Calendars are stupid” was his conclusion.

2) MOVIES! MOVIES! MOVIES!

Even if the world does end, I won’t care that much, because I will have seen The Hobbit the previous week. We’ve got The Avengers this summer, a new Nolan-directed Batman movie, the Ridley Scott is-it-or-isn’t-it-an-Alien-prequel Prometheus, and many more. I’ll be blowing a lot of my allowance in the movie theater this year.

3) COMICS!

This year: Avengers vs X-Men. Are you excited? If not, you don’t really like comics, and we can’t be friends anymore.

4) COMICS! (That I made)

Got a lot coming up in 2012.

- I will have stories appearing in Greyhaven Comics “The Gathering” five times this year, each exploring a different genre (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Super-Heroes, Western, and Romance).  
- Chris Hopkins continues to grind away at the pitch art for Wacky Zack Must Die, and hopefully we will be pitching it to publishers this Spring.
- I’m writing a one-shot for Greyhaven Comics I should have done in the next two weeks.  If the artists’ schedule allows you may be seeing it in late 2012 or early 2013.
- I will be developing a horror/super-hero pitch for Shadowline Comics with artist Leonardo Gonzalez.
- At least two new graphic novels are getting written before the end of the year. One is an historical comedy/romance. The other is a sci-fi sex farce.

All this, and my ongoing attempts to get Chris Page to co-write “THE ADVENTURES OF RAPTOR-GUN”, the heartwarming tale of an urban vigilante whose gun shoots velociraptors.

Comics. Rules. Everything. Around. Me.

5) MY FIVE-YEAR ANNIVERSARY!

This October marks five years of marriage to the gorgeous, the brilliant, the hysterically funny, the ridiculously talented Jenny Langin. We have tentative plans to revisit the site of our honeymoon, that is to say, spend a week in Disneyworld. It’s going to be awesome.

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I promise that I will try to blog as much as time allows. If my blog updates are fewer and farther between, I promise that it’s because I am hard at work on some awesome freelance comics stuff. And not at all because Jenny bought me Skyrim for Christmas.

Hugs and kisses,

(The)Travis

Comic Book Origin Stories - Thanks, Andy Darna!

The other day Karen Mahoney - author of the Iron Witch trilogy of Young Adult novels, classy British lady, and all-around quality human being – posed an interesting question on the Kelly Sue DeConnick forums; what’s the first superhero comic you ever read? Among the responses in the thread, I found a link to Matt Fraction’s wonderful presentation, “Batman Dreams of Hieronymus Machines”, which I cannot recommend highly enough. All this nostalgia made me think a bit about my comic book origin story, and I thought I’d share some of my earliest comic memories with you this week.

Super heroes and comics have been part of my life for just about as long as I have been alive. I taught myself to read when I was three years old through the Electric Company TV show, in particular, the segments with Spider-Man. I was fascinated by Spidey, and my parents, wanting to encourage me to read, tried to track down Spider-Man books and comics.  I would demand my dad read to me every night before I went to bed. My mother says she knew I had taught myself to read one night when my father, tired from a long day of work, tried to skip a large section of dialogue. I called him on his mistake and told him what he had missed.

My comic book collection REALLY started, though, with Andy Darna.

My dad was a cop throughout my childhood until he retired with cardiac problems in the 90s. In the late 70s, he and two other cops became co-owners of a gymnasium in our home town of Manchester, CT, as a way of bringing in extra cash. This is “gym” in the old school. Arnold Schwarzenegger, “Pumping Iron” sense. No spin classes here, just big guys and gals lifting big pieces of metal. I remember the place always smelled like sweat, rust, and Gatorade.  

One of the regulars was a young guy named Andy. I don’t remember a LOT about him. I do remember his sister babysat me when I was young. And I remember that when I was about four or so, Andy decided he was going to join the Navy. He cleared out most of the possessions tying him down, and gave me all of his comic books.

I have no idea where that guy is today. He probably has no idea what a major impact on my life he made with such a simple, casual gesture. “Here, kid,” he said, handing me a cardboard box filled with dreams and destiny, “These are yours for keeps. But you’re not getting my Superman versus Muhammad Ali.”

I’m honestly not sure what the first comic I ever read was. It was something published around 1977 or 1978, I’m sure. But I CAN remember some of those comics I got from Andy.  So to complete this walk down memory lane, here are a couple of my oldest comic book memories.

Batman #308

Mister Freeze is up to his old tricks! He’s trying to perfect a way of making his girlfriend, Hildy, immortal. But so far his experiments have failed, leaving him with an army of frozen zombie goons. Batman is overtaken by the bad guys, and for a moment, we’re led to believe he’s been turned into a frozen Bat-zombie! (Bat-frozen-zombie? I’m not actually sure how the language works there.) But huzzah! It’s all a ruse, and Batman foils Mister Freeze’s schemes, although Hildy manages to kill herself trying to shoot Mister Freeze and Batman with a faulty freeze gun.

This one genuinely scared me. I was convinced that Batman had REALLY been turned into an ice zombie. I was oddly untraumatized by Hildy’s death, though. She got what she had coming to her.

 

Green Lantern #114

Green Lantern, Green Arrow, and Black Canary take on the new super-villain, THE CRUMBLER! It says a lot about the powers of imagination possessed by a 4-year-old that I thought the Crumbler was a credible threat. (Doing some research, it seems like this guy was a major pain in the ass for GL and GA through 1979, and then nobody ever heard from him again.)

 

Incredible Hulk #234

Hulk versus hippies! (Basically, anyway.) Hulk hides out in a commune with his friends Fred and Trish. The bad guy gasses the house and kidnaps Trish while disguised as Machine Man!   This is one of the rare instances where I had not only this issue, but the follow-up issue, where the Hulk goes after Machine Man in the classic comic book trope of mistaken identity leading to heroes battling heroes.

Machine Man is still one of my favorite characters. I love that guy. I remember a really great Spider-Man comic where MM and Spidey team up to fight Baron Brimstone. Good stuff.

 

Iron Man #122

One of those great issues they used to have in comics where they just retell the hero’s origin again. It’s the comic book version of a clip show.

 

Justice League of America #168

The conclusion of a story where the Secret Society of Super Villains had switched bodies with the JLA.  Years later, this would turn out to be the basis for the Identity Crisis miniseries. So… way to fuck up my childhood memories, Brad Meltzer.

This JLA lineup, by the way, will always be THE JLA lineup for me. It doesn’t get any better than this.

 

Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #253

This comic started a love affair with the Legion that I still sort of nurture. And it introduces 5 new villains who stalk through the story killing a bunch of Legionnaires before setting their sights on Superboy.

Pretty heady stuff for a 4-year-old. The bad guys plow through Colossal Boy, Ultra Boy, Timber Wolf, Light Lass and Phantom Girl. At the time, I had no way of knowing that the heroes weren’t really dead. To this day, by the way, Ultra Boy and Timber Wolf are still my two favorite Legionnaires.

 

Thor #281

Thor finds himself stuck in Limbo, where he encounters the Space Phantom, who tricks him into a shaft where time has split down the middle, trapping Thor half in and half-out of his Don Blake form.

This is one of those great Marvel Comics that really show what comics do best. Big action, super melodrama, and insanely bizarre visual effects and sci-fi lunacy.

And last but not least…

Marvel Two-In-One #51

The Thing organizes a late night poker game in Avengers mansion, but the game gets interrupted by reports of an attack on the SHIELD Hellicarrier.

Again, this is a comic that introduced me to some of my all-time favorite characters -  Ms Marvel, the Beast, Nick Fury, and of course, the Ever-Loving Blue-Eyed Thing. Plus, Wonder Man. I know Wonder Man is something of a joke now, and his leisure suit look didn’t age very well, but to 4-year-old me, he was fucking awesome. HOMEBOY HAD GLOWWING EYES! And he freaked out the Thing! And the captions told me he was as tough as Thor! How could you NOT love that guy?

I love that the Floating Super-Hero Poker Game is still a thing in the Marvel Universe. Dan Slott cracked it out again in a recent issue of Amazing Spider-Man, and I nearly crapped my pants in glee.

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Thanks to Karen for the idea for the blog. Everybody go read her books. And tell her I sent you.

Hugs and kisses,
(The) Travis

FASERIP Forever!

Recently, on the Bendis Board, poster Adam Greenberger started a thread reminiscing about the old Marvel Super Heroes Role Playing Game from TSR. Holy shit, the memories that came flooding back.

I started playing pen and paper RPGs in 6^th Grade. This was in the olden days, of course, so I didn't have the options available to the youth of today. No MMORPGs. It was pen and paper or nothing. At the time, I was enrolled in a parochial school, so expressing an interest in Dungeons and Dragons would have been the equivalent of yelling “HAIL SATAN!” at your homeroom teacher. I was a huge comic book nerd, though, and I kept seeing ads in the back of Marvel comics for this game that would let you take on the role of your favorite super heroes. I NEEDED this game.

Again, this was that murky time before the internet, so my options for securing game materials were limited. I had to patiently save my pennies and then con my parents into driving me an hour away to the one game store I could find; the late, lamented Flock Stock & Barrel.

For the next four years, I would spend Saturday after Saturday unleashing all manner of cosmic comic mayhem in the Merry Marvel Manner on my friends and schoolmates. Once good old Pat Coleman moved away, I was the only hardcore comic book fan in my circle, so there were some fairly hilarious communication breakdowns as I tried to wrap my friends up in the machinations of Marvel’s most nefarious. For example, an ongoing argument as to the origins of Radioactive Man’s powers (“For the thousandth time, he did NOT live on Three Mile Island!”), and a seemingly impenetrable fog of confusion as to the Wrecking Crew (“So it’s like the Village People, but they’re ALL the construction worker?”). Also, I had at least one childhood chum who could not fathom why superheroes didn’t just shoot the bad guys, ala Dirty Harry. He would spend half of his time as Spider-Man trying to buy a handgun.

In the early going I used the pre-written modules TSR produced. My favorite was FAULTLINE, where the heroes had to race against time to thwart a bombing in NYC (Not a scenario that could probably play nowadays). Also, being a huge X-Men fan, I naturally gravitated to any chance to run a mutant-centric module. (Although those game days usually collapsed in arguments as to who would get to be Wolverine. )

Eventually, I started writing my own adventures. I will admit to a certain lack of sophistication to the plots, initially. Although my friends never seemed to catch on to the whole “The Villians Spell Their Name with the Stores They Rob” scheme until it was almost too late. By the time they figured out what was going on, the Wrecking Crew was down to the second “R”.  

My favorite string of adventures came my freshman year of high school. I had purchased the Avengers sourcebook, which contained an adventure in which the players made brand new heroes and then started an “Avengers Experimental Franchise” in their hometown. (I wonder if the brains behind the Avengers: Initiative comics ever played that adventure). My players started AEF-CT, and based their headquarters in what was, at the time, an abandoned Sears department store in Manchester, Connecticut. Over the next year and change, a rotating team of homegrown heroes arrested the Taskmaster, bested Ultron, trounced the Mole Man, and handed the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants their collective asses not once, but twice.

At that point, I started devoting all of my RPG energy to the various iterations of Dungeons & Dragons. 20 years later, I still have a weekly D&D game, and I still love RPGs as much as I did. But I do miss those early innocent days of superheroism, friendship, and Spider-Man with a handgun.

For your entertainment, re-created as faithfully as I could remember, I present two of the founding members of the AEF-CT – Phoenix (originally created by Brian Wiatr), and Nightbird (originally created by Johanna Mead). (Thanks to HeroMachine 3.0 for the images.)

PHOENIX  

Fighting  - Good (10)
Agility – Remarkable (30)  
Strength – Good (10)
Endurance – Incredible (40)
Reason – Remarkable (30)
Intuition – Good (10)
Psyche – Excellent (20)

POWERS:
Fire Generation (Incredible) – Phoenix can generate flames and heat at will.
Fire Control (Amazing) – Phoenix can control existing flames and heat, shaping them, enlarging them, or extinguishing them.
Energy Sheath (Remarkable) – Phoenix can surround his body with an aura of flames, giving him protectiong from energy and physical attacks.
Carrier Wave (Incredible) – By projecting flames behind him, Phoenix can fly through the air.

TALENTS:
Computer Science

NIGHTBIRD  

Fighting  - Amazing (50)
Agility – Excellent (20)  
Strength – Incredible (40)
Endurance – Amazing (50)
Reason – Excellent (20)
Intuition – Good (10)
Psyche – Good (10)

POWERS:
True Invulnerability (Incredible) – Nightbird is highly resistant to physical damage.
Hyper-Leaping (Remarkable) – Nightbird can make leaps of up to 40 feet.

TALENTS:
Espionage; Law enforcement; Martial Arts A,B,C,D,E; Acrobatics  

This blog is for Brian, and Johanna, and Matt, Jason, Benji, Pat, Beth, Heather, Steve, Delio, Kristie, Ben, and any other members of the AEF-CT I may have forgotten.

LEONARDO GONZALEZ IS THE MAN

Leonardo Gonzalez is an insanely talented artist I am lucky enough to be working with on the forthcoming “Fairy Tale” issue of GrayHaven Comics’ “The Gathering” anthology. Everybody needs to go pick up a copy of Haunt #19, where you can see Leo’s art!

To celebrate the new creative team of Joe Casey and Nathan Fox, Image Comics ran a contest for fan art to grace the issue. Leo came in fourth overall, and then his piece was chosen by Joe Casey to appear in the book!

Congratulations to Leo, who is an awesome collaborator, a fantastic artist, and a genuinely good guy.

Here’s a preview of one of Leo’s page from our Gathering story, “The Heartbreak Tree”.

So go! Run and buy Haunt #19! Right now!

Hugs and kisses,

(The)Travis

This Is Me, Giving Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving, y’all!

I love the holidays. I know it’s not the coolest thing to do. I’ve spent most of my life from adolescence on being friends or acquaintances with artistes, alternative lifestyle types, and hipsters, so I know the thing to do is shit all over the holidays. In fact, if I go to Facebook right now, I’m going to be able to play a fun drinking game where I take a shot every time I see someone bitching about Christmas decorations, and then my liver explodes before I can scroll down. But fuck it. I LOVE the holidays. Fourth quarter is my favorite part of the year. You get the start of fall (my favorite season), then Halloween, then Thanksgiving, then my birthday (December 23^rd!) and then Christmas, which is my absolutely favoritest of favorite holidays, and my favorite day of the year.

(The exception to this is New Year’s Eve. I kind of hate New Year’s Eve. Too much pressure.)

Anyway, Thanksgiving has always been a day I really loved. Growing up as an only child, I always kind of gravitated to those occasions when the house would suddenly fill with people. I love having different conversations in every room, and wearing sweaters and flannel shirts, and watching football, and taking tryptophan naps, and all that good stuff.

Being married, I luck out, too. I get to double dip, and do Thanksgiving day with my parents, before going to Jenny’s family thanksgiving over the weekend. Turkey Times Two, for the win.

In the spirit of the season, I have assembled a list of the things I am thankful for at the moment.

I am thankful for my health (such as it is)

As I sit here typing this, I am wearing contact lenses that afford me 20/20 vision in my right eye and 20/40 vision in the left. When you consider that in April, my left eye was ay 20/400, that’s goddamned AMAZING. My retinopathy seems to be in control right now. My vision, knock on wood, has been stable for the last couple months, with no new bleeding or issues. The amazing medical team at the Yale eye Center has taken unbelievable care of me, and I owe them everything.

My eye doctor uses me as his poster child lately. Every time I go see him he brings in a bunch of surgical residents and shows me off. That’s a pretty awesome feeling, to know I’m doing well enough that I can be used as a best-case scenario.

I am thankful for my wife

Jenny’s amazing. She’s my best friend, my favorite person, the love of my life, and the best thing that ever happened to me. I never stop being thankful for her presence in my life.

Everybody should check out Grayhaven Comics’ The Gathering Volume 5 (Love Letters) to read her debut comic book story. It’s fantastic.

I am thankful for my cat

Miss Bad Ass Kitty Fantastico is the first pet that was ever MINE. I had pets growing up. Tons of them. But B.A. is the first critter I ever was solely responsible for. I picked her out. I brought her home. I’ve fed her almost every meal she’s ever eaten. I’ve been responsible for her health and well-being and happiness. And she’s paid me back a million times over. I’ve had her for ten years now, and she still runs to the door when she hears me come home. She still sleeps by my head, and sprawls out across my lap while we watch TV.

We had a bit of a health scare with her this year. It looked like she had kitty cancer for a while, and Jenny and I were convinced we would have to put her down. But fortunately, it turned out to be a much more treatable problem, and today she is just as frisky and piggy and adorable as ever. And I couldn’t be more thankful.

I am thankful for my grandfather

Charles Holyfield is one of my life’s heroes. I’ve learned more from him than I could ever repay about how to live, how to love your family, how to take care of yourself and others, and how to be wise without being arrogant or unwilling to learn. He’s amazing. And I’m indescribably lucky to be able to know him and to be able to spend time with him. I love you, Pop-Pop.

I am thankful for comic books

Since I was 3 years old, Comic books have been a huge part of my life. I never had that moment where I outgrew them. I never stopped reading them. I love comics. Always have and always will.

In the past month, I’ve picked up a couple truly awesome books everyone should check out. Try American Vampire by Scott Snyder and Rafael Albuquerque, and The Sixth Gunn by Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt. Good stuff.

I am thankful for MY comic books

This has been a great year for me, in terms of my creative output. I wrote a full-length graphic novel, and have made progress on three more. I’ve had two stories published, and have 4 or 5 on track to be published next year. I’ve got proposals for three series cooked up and ready to go, and I’ve started writing first issue scripts for two of them.

I was talking to Pat Loika the other night and telling him that I wanted to find a way to break into the comics industry. Pat told me, “Dude, you ARE in the comics industry.” That made me feel pretty good.

Speaking of Loika…

I am thankful for my collaborators

I’ve had such an amazing run of luck working with insanely talented artists this year. Endless thanks and much love to Chris Hopkins, Chris Page, Leonardo Gonzalez, and Pat Loika. Without you guys, I’d be nowhere.

I am thankful for my friends

I have the best friends in the world. Swear to God.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Go find some stuff you’re thankful for.

Hugs and Kisses,
(The)Travis

P.S. The new Childish Gambino is pretty fucking awesome, right?

HAPPY 25TH BLOG!

Congratulate me people! This is my 25th blog entry here.   

As usual, when faced with deadlines and other real world things that keep me from making truly clever blogs, I go to my friends at the Brian M. Bendis board, and ask them for silly questions that I can answer in a silly fashion. And this is what I got this time.

Q: What is the slope and concavity of the graph of x²y + y⁴ = 4 + 2x at the point (-1, 1)

A: Since y’’ < 0 , the graph is concave down at the point (-1, 1).
I completely admit to cheating on this and looking it up online. But I also suspect that you cheated and looked the question up online, so we’re probably even.

Q:  Axe Cop vs. Dr. McNinja. Who wins?

vs.

I’m going to give this one to Axe Cop. But that’s purely a gut answer based on no real evidence or analysis. The truth is that I won, because I had an excuse to go back and read a bunch of Axe Cop and Dr. McNinja webcomics. So for that, I thank you.

Q: Cyclops vs Rock Brannigan, who's the bigger badass?

A: I’m going to say Cyclops, but that’s because I honestly have no idea who Rock Brannigan is. Also, optic blasts. So there’s that.

Fun fact, though: Despite my love of Scott Summers, I sided with Wolverine in the recent X-Men: Schism miniseries. I’m Team Wolverine, all the way. Although I suspect some of that might have to do with Kitty Pryde being on Team Wolverine. I have had a crush on Kitty Pryde since I was 11 years old.

BLOG BONUS: Here’s a pic of my friend, the lovely and talented Jessie Pridemore, cosplaying as Kitty.

Q: Patrick Warburton's best voice role: Brock Sampson, Rip Riley or Joe Swanson?

A: Joe Swanson, Hands down, no contest. See, as brilliant as Warburton is in everything he does, Family Guy continually lets him scream. And Warburton’s screams of panic/pain/excitement are the best thing ever.

Q: If you could kill someone using one superpower, what would that power be?

A:  Probably Darkseid’s Omega Beam. There are days when I would just love to be able to glare at somebody and then have them be disintegrated where they stand. Because, you know, that’s what they get for fucking with me.

*****

THINGS I HAVE BEEN DOING WHEN I SHOULD HAVE BEEN WRITING DEPARTMENT

I bought Batman: Arkham City. Holy shit that game is fun. Fifteen minutes after typing this up, I finally tracked down the Riddler and punched him in his stupid smug face. If there was a command to shove one of his goddamn question marks up his ass, I would have punched those buttons like I was getting paid for it. But alas, no such luck.

Logic would dictate that having plowed through the story here, I shoould be bat-satisfied for a while. But alas, I also downloaded the Nightwing add-on pack, so stalking bad guys through Wayne Manor and then beating them senseless with escrima sticks is probably going to occupy a lot of my leisure hours for the next few weeks.

***** 

I AM INTERNET FAMOUS

My good and trusted friend Pat Loika recently had me on as guest co-host for his LOIKAMANIA podcast. I got to hang out and talk with Matt Fraction, which made me all giggly and nervous in my pants.

Check out the podcast and enjoy my velvet tones as I ask poor Fraction endless picky nerd questions about The Defenders.

BUY MY COMICS

The Gathering, Vol 2: The Other Side of Despair

Featuring “The Hopester Versus Despairicus” written by yours truly, with Art by Pat Loika.

The Gathering Vol. 6: Further Into The Abyss

The second horor-themed offering from The Gathering, this one features the story “Jack, Unblinking”, written by me, and drawn by Mr. Chris Page.

You’ll be able to catch plenty of me from Grayhaven in 2012. Chris Page and I have our second story together in the Science Fiction volume (due January), and I have a piece in the Fairy Tale (February) and Silver Age (April) issues as well.

Tune in next time, when I embarrass myself by revealing the pitch for Marvel Comics’ Secret Avengers I came up with one morning at 3:30 AM.

Hugs and Kisses,

(TheTravis)