Beginning 100

With Death Moth #2 completed (available now at www.torcpress.com), it's time for me to move on to my 100th comic, the appropriately titled "Truth or Consequences 100".

I actually had a plot outline for this comic ready to go months ago.  Originally, the comic was going to serve a handful of purposes:  1) It was going to be an homage to my very first comic "Pulp Horrorshow" (vol. 1) #1, which would mean that it would have three stories and a 1 page Walt n' Sped back-up strip.  2) It would be a nice comic to introduce people to my comix world.  3) It would set me up for some future story-lines.  In the original draft there was a story featuring Clown & Penguin teaming up with Octopus Jones and the Chupacabra, a story featuring Dr. Dream teaming up with Electric Cherry, and a story about Death Moth teaming up with Renee K-9.  And yes, that's a lotta team-ups.  Eventually, I decided to introduce a brand new character, so I scrapped the Dr. Dream/Electric Cherry story and replaced with a story introducing this new character.  And that was that.  I was set up.  Good to go.  Nothing to do but start drawing.

There was only one problem.

The whole thing was boring as hell.

The more I thought about this comic, the less it seemed like a killer comic designed to celebrate a personal comix milestone, and more like something a Modern Marvel Writer would write.  And for those of you that don't know this, there is nothing lamer in this world than a comic that seems like it was written by someone from Modern Marvel.

So, I did the only logical thing I could think of.  I scrapped the whole damn thing and rewrote it at lunch one day.

(And yes, I am implying that I can write a better, more exciting story on the back of a post-it-note at work over lunch break than an entire team of Marvel "Architects" can over the course of years of planning.  And the really sad part is:  I'm not wrong.)

The new story is ridiculous.  It's too fast paced, too busy, too confusing, too weird, has too many characters crammed into too little space, features Way too much Action, and doesn't make a damn lick of sense.

In other words, it's the Perfect TORC Press Comic.

I'm really excited about it, and over the next few weeks, I'll be talking more about the process behind this Landmark Issue.  So there you go.