Wildcard Thursday: Back to Mars

It's Wildcard Day.  Time to check back with our rather unfortunate Martians and their nefarious captors.

HFSAC Wildcard:  Mars Page 2.

Well now, that's a color scheme.  I gotta say, no other comic anywhere looks like this one.  Not sure that's a good thing, mind you.  Anyway, one of the problems with spreading out these Wildcard Pages is that I can't remember what I Ranted about on the previous page.  So hopefully this isn't too redundant.  The Crimson Empire were originally a Secret Nation on Earth that appeared in several issues of my series "Cosmic Love".  The "citizens" of the Crimson Empire were all Criminals, Thieves, Murderers, and Assassins.  Not exactly nice people to say the least.  The leader of the Crimson Empire is called the Crimson Robe.  If you read "Cosmic Love" #4, then you know the identity of the Crimson Robe, and you know how powerful and dangerous he is.  If you haven't read that classic TORC Press Comic, then you'll just have to wait until Page 8.  Regardless, when it was obvious that Ortex was about to completely take the Earth, the Crimson Empire fled into Space and eventually ended up on Mars, where they've pretty much taken over.  Now the Native Martians serve as slave labor, harvesting their own planets resources to fuel the ever growing Crimson Empire War Machine.  It's a sad state of affairs to say the least.

The Monster King

The Countdown to Free Comic Book Day continues.

The Hot Fudge Sundae Adventure Club (v.2) #1 Page 18.

I love making monsters.  I mean, seriously, there are few things in life quite as fun as Monster Making.  So I gave the Clown this power, cause, y'know, if I can make monsters, then it makes sense that he can make monsters, right?

Monster King was a series I did a few years ago.  The title was a reference to the Clown, but I never really made that clear.

This is a very Kirby Monster.  He designed a lot of Monsters (and Robots) with utterly bizarre heads.  I love a good utterly bizarre head.

Lastly, "Bang-Bang!" is a reference to Cactus Joe's namesake, legendary wrestler Cactus Jack.

Swirling Brawl

Once again, Free Comic Book Day is this weekend.  Seriously.  Free Comics.  Go get em.  I'll be at the Best Darn Comic Shop on the Planet selling comics, so be there or be square, Daddio.

The Hot Fudge Sundae Adventure Club (vol. 2) #1 Page 17.

If you're gonna do Kirby-style (and by golly, I'm-a doing Kirby style right now), then you gotta do the Big Crazy Brawl.  The Big Crazy Brawl is a staple of any good action comic, and I would like to make sure there's at least one of these per issue (or a Space Battle or a Giant Monster Battle... if I fail to put at least one of these in an issue of HFSAC then I'll have wasted everyone's time).  I need to keep working on these, because they expose my weak points pretty badly (so... much... perspective.  Seriously, look at how much bigger the guys stepping out of the Elevator are than that guy shooting the gun who's almost even with them.  Like I said, gotta keep working on it).

Anyway, if you read HFSAC vol. 1 #24, then you saw Mister Halloween using his "Negato Puppetmaster" Technique.  It's a Mind Control Technique, but it's kind of different, in that Mister Halloween uses his Negato Energy to Erase the Mental Energy of the target, essentially burning out the victim's mind.  Mr. H then uses residual Negato Energy to control the body like a puppet.  It's a creepy, cool attack.

We'll talk more about Cactus Joe's Power tomorrow.  I will say that I have no idea what Primordial Ooze looks like.  I intentionally designed it to look like Butterfly Wings, which is a continuing theme of the series.

Oh, don't feel bad for the Ortex Soldiers.  Yes, they're all dieing horrible deaths, but, y'know, they're responsible for blowing up an entire village of innocent blue-monkey-people.  So, don't feel bad for them.

Face Punching and Death Ray Eyes

Alrighty, Cats n' Kittens, this weekend is Geek Christmas, cause it's Free Comic Book Daaaaaay!  That's right, this Saturday I'll be at the Best Darn Comic Shop on the Planet, Comic Quest in Evansville, IN, doing my thing.  I'll have comics and prints for sale, and me and my partner in crime, Scott "Boolah" Bayler will be yammering at anyone that gets near our table.  It's gonna be a good ole time.

Anyway, Web Comix time.  Today's a good one, I think.

The Hot Fudge Sundae Adventure Club (v.2) #1 Page 16.

If you've been keeping up with HFSAC, then you should know that @byss is tough as nails.  In HFSAC 20-22, @byss is the only member of HFSAC to withstand Null Vizor's Energy Blast Attack.  He also goes toe to toe with Null Vizor (well, a Null Vizor Robot Duplicate).  During the "Bad Rapture" Event, @byss is only one of three Heroes left standing when the Vertionce does his Death From Above Attack (and he was closer to Ground Zero than the other two).  Anyway, the reason why @byss is so tough is because he is made of an extremely dense concentration of gravity.  Since getting a cosmic upgrade in HFSAC (v1) #24, @byss can now break off parts of himself, essentially creating clones of himself.  He can then puppetmaster those clones with his Gravito power.  He's a one man army (but not a wussy one man army like Multiple Man (cool character, but way too much of a lightweight to actually be effective)).

I like how casual Sphynx is.  It's like, welp, gonna Vaporize some Bad Guys now.  I'm a-just gonna stand here and get my Death Ray on.  Don't mind me.

Other than that, I felt it was necessary for Team Face Punch to actually Punch some Faces.  So that was a goal of this page.  Mission Accomplished. 

Credits

I'm not gonna lie, I practically slept through today's pages.  Thanks to Boolah for giving me a gimme.  A two page gimme at that.

SDF v.2 #1 Pages 4 & 5.

Wonder if Boolah's got anything for today's page...

The list of heroes, the title page. Jonathon Hickman seemed to set
the tone for the graphic designs in comic books today that you see
everywhere, from the Big Two to even independent books.

That being said, I hope Joseph isnt too too annoyed at this. I know he
included framed shots of the characters in the front cover to Bad
Rapture and the tops of his pages in his first HFSAC run.

The title I debated for maybe a week before I decided on this one. I won't
give induvidual books titles, but rather story arcs. (I still plan to do
 one-shot books in SDF as well.

Wildcard Thursday: Mercury

It's Thursday, so that means it's time for a Wildcard Page.  I wanted to put this page up last week, because this is the last of the Wildcard stories I'll be running, but unfortunately, I ran out of time.  Anyway, let's see what's happening in another planet in our Solar System.

HFSAC Wildcard:  Mercury (Z...)

We covered Mercury pretty thoroughly when we were doing the rundown for HFSAC #0.  It is an Ortex Controlled Planet, but unlike Earth, Ortex hasn't been there very long, so the planet hasn't been converted into a Factory Planet... yet. 

The Purple Bug/Squid Spaceships don't belong to the Ortex Corporation.  That's right, Ortex ain't the only Bad Guys out there.  Anyway, I know where the Alien Ships come from, but we'll reveal that later.  I do like the designs on the spaceships though.  Very Alien, Very Creepy.

Negato

Here we go.

The Hot Fudge Sundae Adventure Club v.2 #1 Page 15.

When I was coming up with the Cosmi-Force Powers for HFSAC, I knew that I wanted Mr. Halloween to be the Team's Monkey Wrench.  So, I needed a power that would be good for disruption, but was cosmic in nature (as opposed to say, Magical).  Reality Warping and Illusion was already covered by Phantasmo Rex's Abstracto Power, so I needed something else.  Which brings us to Negato, a form of energy that disrupts and negates other forms of energy.  So, a Forcefield isn't much of a concern for our heroes, since Mr. Halloween can just punch straight through.

Other than that, Cactus Joe the Clown, @byss, Mister Halloween, and Sphynx are Team Face Punch.  If Team Star Destroyer are the Heavy Artillery of HFSAC, then Team Face Punch are the Commando Squad.  They're the four most suited to Close Combat Brawls with large groups of opponents.

BIG GUN

Oh, today's page.  Heh.

The Hot Fudge Sundae Adventure Club (v2) #1 Page 14.

Y'see, sometimes, when you start a comic, you're not really sure how the book is gonna turn out.  Is it fun enough?  Is it cool enough?  Does enough interesting stuff happen?  Do I have any skill at all or am I just a huge old ridiculous hack with no business making comics?  All of these go through a person's head as they barrel madly through a new comic.

And then, then, you have a page, where a New Wave Spacegod Robotman floats around in space with a Humongous Gun that he made from an enemy Spaceship, using his super cosmic robot powers.

And you realize that you've made something Beautiful and that all is right in the Universe.  I love comix.

Chain Lightning

I've got a busy week ahead of me (I'm doing a talk on Comics at the Olney Public Library tonight.  Say what?). but I'm moving and grooving and have most of this week's work done already.  Anyway, it's HFSAC time, so let's get back to the Space Battle...

The Hot Fudge Sundae Adventure Club (v2) #1 Page 13.

My favorite part of this page is Electric Cherry's Draw Back the Bow Pose on Panel 2.  I feel like I got that one pretty right.

Other than that, I tend to avoid Pop Culture Injokes in my comics because... well, they're kinda overdone nowadays.  Still, I couldn't help myself from doing the "Get Over Here!" line with Tea Cup.  Scorpion was always Bro's favorite Mortal Kombat character.  Dang Harpoon.

Jumping Splash Page!

It's Friday, so it's time for a new page of SDF.  As usual, today's page was Written and Designed by Scott "Boolah" Bayler.  Today's Commentary Track is by the Boolah as well.  Other than that, I forgot to draw in the Speed Lines on this page (I know, how can I not draw Speed Lines), so sorry about that one Boolah.

SDF v2 #1 Page 4.

PAGE FOUR

Splash page! Action shot! Mango Habanero Time!

I put this page in to hook the reader right before the title spread page.
I'm a big fan of Joseph's art with the old action anime lines he used to
 draw (again, sorry.  I'll need to fix that before the Print Edition--JEM)
so hopefully they're in there to make the characters pop out of
the book.

Crash Landing Wildcard

It's Thursday.  I think it's Thursday anyway.  Pft.  I'm all turned around.  Anyway, it's Wildcard Day.  Let's Roll.

HFSAC Wildcard Page:  Jupiter (Tsao's Story) Page 1.

This guy is Tsao.  He's a very minor character who has had only one brief appearance to date.  In Pulp Horrorshow v. 4 Special (currently available in the online store at http://www.torcpress.com/store/), he appears as a member of Mad Fox's Crew of Geeks.  Obviously, something bad has happened to him.  I suppose there are worse planets to crash land on.

I had plans of putting up another Wildcard Page this week, but I don't think I'm gonna have enough time for it.  If I don't get the page up this week, I'll put it up next week.  Hint:  The final Wildcard Page takes place on the Planet Mercury.

Barrage of Exploding Cosmic Star Death

I was talking with a friend recently, and he was talking about how obvious it is that I love my comics.  This is very true.  I loves my comix.  But today's page... well, if I wasn't already engaged, I would marry today's page.  Seriously, I wanna elope to Vegas with today's page.

(I'm just kidding Darlin.)

Ahem, today's beautiful exploding page.

The Hot Fudge Sundae Adventure Club (vol. 2) #1 Page 12.

This page has a guy, in space, shooting a barrage of energy blasts.  And his two space dogs shooting super energy beams out of their mouths.  And a Spacecatman creating cartoony-spacedrones which shoot purple lazers.  If this isn't the best thing ever, I'm not entirely sure what is.  I want this page etched into my tombstone.

Side Note:  In early drafts, a different character had the Abstracto Power.  In this version, the character with Abstracto (FunFact: It was Mad Fox who originally had the Abstracto power) could only really use it to create Interdimensional Portals, and he could create an arm out of abstract shapes and whatnot.  When the power ended up with Phantasmo Rex, it became something of a Green Lantern thing.  It's funny, if you think about it, Green Lantern's power is an extremely unique power, which is probably why it's been ripped off by everyone so much over the years.  Add me to that list.  Ching.

Launch All Star Fighters!

Hey, we're back in space...

The Hot Fudge Sundae Adventure Club (v.2) #1 Page 11.

If things go according to plan, space battles are gonna be a big part of the new volume of HFSAC.  In the previous volume we had some Sky Battles, but this time we are going Full Tilt in space.  Of course, we've got a lot of ground to cover in this issue, so this won't be a particularly long space battle, but still, it's gonna be fun.  I think it's weird that none of the Ortex Ships look the same.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, one of the joys of having a massive team is that you can break the team up into smaller teams.  We'll talk about "Team Face Punch" later, for now we'll cover "Team Star Destroyer".  While "Team De La Soul" consisted of the Healing, Support, and Defensive members of HFSAC, "Team Star Destroyer" obviously consists of the Fudgeheads best suited towards outer space based combat against enemy Star Ships.  Jester Kidd is raw, devastating firepower (he's essentially a one man warship).  Phantasmo Rex has the maneuverability and is quite powerful in his own right.  Electric Cherry is living lightning, so that works pretty good.  And Tea Cup... well, just wait a couple more pages.

Star Children

This week will be a little more lightweight.  The plan is to post my 3 pages of HFSAC (Mon-Wed), my 1 page of SDF (Fri), and I wanna put up 2 Wildcard Pages this week, because I have two more Back-up Stories that I haven't revealed yet (one is set on Mercury, and the other is a different story set on Jupiter (hey, Jupiter's the biggest planet in our Solar System, so there's probably a wealth of stories on such a big planet).  I'm not sure which days those Wildcard Pages will go up, it'll depend on how much time I've got to work this week.  Regardless, at least one Wildcard will go up on its usual day, Thursday.

Anyway, today is HFSAC Day, so let's get moving.

The Hot Fudge Sundae Adventure Club (vol. 2) #1 Page 10.

I don't really read Marvel and DC anymore.  I got pretty excited about DC's Ambitious "New 52", but DC not only refused to have the guts to follow through with their new books (the cancellation of OMAC in less than a year was rough), but they also did too many crossovers with too many of their books.  If the whole point of the New 52 was to make things easier for new readers, then why would they feel the need to have a freaking Multi-book crossover early month?

But at least I only find DC kinda annoying.  I detest Marvel.  Marvel has dragged the Superhero through the mud.  They lost me with "Civil War", and I never came back, mostly because they've never given me a good reason to (multiple crappy (and short-lived) Silver Surfer series don't help).  The whole point of Superheroes is that they are Heroes who are Superhuman (even if they're just superhuman in skill) in some way.  That means 1) they're good guys and 2) they save the day.  But man oh man, at Marvel they don't do that, do they.  Marvel heroes fight each other over and over and over again.  They don't fight back guys.  They fail.  Constantly.  Sometimes, they get replaced by villains, and the villains do a better job of being a hero than they ever did.  I honestly don't know how guys like Mr. Fantastic, Spider-Man, Iron Man, and Hank Pym can sleep at night, given how many terrible things they've done and how incredibly they've failed as heroes.

As I've said before, this isn't really a Superhero comic, it's a book about Mythology and Gods and Demi-Gods and Legendary Heroes.  And Gods... well, if you really go back and look at your Old Mythology, the Gods can be a pretty awful lot.  They're childish, capricious, and sometimes flat out evil.  They toy with the lives of mortals, and bring death and destruction on little more than a whim.  So, from a moral perspective, I approach this more from the perspective of a Superhero Comic.

HFSAC are New Wave Space Gods that do everything in their power to Save the Day.  Sometimes, they fail in this endeavor, as they have with the tiny village full of Blue-Monkey-People.  But even in their failure, they try to find a way to make things right and bring Kharmic Balance.  Which is what we have on this page, as HFSAC perform a Miracle and convert the dead villagers into brilliant, shiny Star Children.  Which I think is neato, and also serves as a tip of the hat to our Base Mythology, namely Kirby's take on "2001".

Mango Habenero

Welp, that's the end of my week.  Don't forget, all of Bad Rapture, all of the Bad Rapture Epilogues, and both of the Zero Bridge Issues are now available in the Online Store at:  http://www.torcpress.com/store/.

Today's page is a new Page of SDF, written by Scott Bayler, so without further ado, take it away Boolah:

SDF (vol. 2) #1 Page 3.

I love when I can write funny Doom Eagle dialogue. The one thing in
 my re-read of the script is I hope I can do Octopus Jones justice
post-Cheryl, post Community. This is a dude that still is suffering from
 the loss but knows that the show must go on. He has a glimmer of hope
for the future but doesn't really show it right now.

A Wildcard on Jupiter

Whoops.  Had a rough day at the Sawmill and almost forgot today's Wildcard Page.   Anyway, let's roll.

HFSAC: Jupiter (Jovio's Story) Page 1.

This is our last Wildcard Page for the week.  Hopefully, if you've been reading the regular HFSAC Strip, you might notice a resemblance between the poor guy in the foreground of today's page and the residents of the village that got nuked.  Our running guy is Jovio, who is just a normal guy caught in a dangerous situation.  Well, normal guy or blue monkey guy or whatever.  Anyway, with all of our stories revolving around Gods and Demons and Mythology, Jovio is just the normal guy stuck in a world of gods.  He's Homer, Kamandi, and Moon Boy (kinda looks like Moon Boy) all rolled into one. 

I love creating monsters.  I've been drawing monsters all my life.  I remember one time when I was a kid, I spent a whole day drawing monsters on a sheet of paper.  I think I drew like a hundred monsters.  Anyway, I like that giant bug thing.  At first, I kinda thought the Antlers were a mistake, but now I like them.  If I saw that thing coming, I'd run like a madman too.

Wildcard: Saturn Story

Iiiiiiiiiiit's Wildcard Day!!!!!  Yep, today is all about the Wildcard Page (a page related to the greater HFSAC Saga without actually being a direct part of the current issue of HFSAC), so let's just get to it.

HFSAC:  Saturn Story (Prometheon) Page 1.

Ah, Saturn.  We haven't been here in awhile.  We've actually been to the planet a couple of different times.  There was a two page story in the original B&W version of SDF (Drifter's Rhapsody, maybe?) called "Saturn Ate My Baby".  It was a very weird story.  We had a brief stopover in Cosmic Love #1, where the Butterfly Mob popped by Saturn where they ended up finding a Fornever Cube (which the HFSAC crew now all have, by the by).  The Professor who is on this page appeared in both of those stories.  I need to dig up that issue of Cosmic Love so I can figure out what the Professor's name is.

Humans hate each other for all sorts of ugly, horrible, stupid reasons.  Perhaps the most moronic reason we hate each other is skin color.  I mean, seriously... "Your skin don't look like my skin, so I hates you."  How frickin' stupid is that?  So, the concept for Saturnian Society came from the idea of what a society would be like if the people didn't even remotely look like each other.  I mean, we do horrible things to each other just because of skin pigmentation, imagine how much worse it would be if one group of people didn't even remotely look like another group of people?  And you know that someone would end up on the bottom of that society.  So, yeah, Saturn is pretty messed up.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, Yes, the Buildings are made of Green Slime.  I have no idea how they maintain their structure.  Internal Sonic Harmonics maybe?

Also, the Crobolons do look like Crabmen with Fetus faces.  I know, I know.  I need help.

SDF #0 Plus Wildcard Page

SDF volume 2 #0 is now available in the Online Store at http://www.torcpress.com/store/.  It's 10 Pages in Full Color for $2.00 plus $1.50 S&H.  It's written and illustrated by Scott Bayler, and was completed as a 24 Hour Comic Day Project.  The story serves as a bridge between the Bad Rapture Epilogue in SDF 10 and the new Volume of SDF.  It brings together the surviving Geek Heroes left on Earth to begin their War with the Ortex Corporation.  Here's the Cover:

The cover's by Boolah too.

Onward to today's Wildcard Page.  Sadly, it's an Ortex Page.  Boo.

HFSAC Wildcard Page:  Ortex Page 1.

So, as you probably know, I hate working with Villains.  They just don't interest me very much.  For me, the purpose of the Bad Guys is to get Punched in the Face by the Good Guys.  Still, I'm trying to grow and evolve both as a Writer and an Artist, so even I have had to accept that I gotta spend some time with the Bad Guys.  So we get today's page. 

Panels One & Two:  I thought it would be funny if the most popular show on the Ortex Television Network (there's only one TeeVee Channel now) was a show called "Captain Ortex" starring a dashingly handsome and charismatic Ortex Super Soldier who stands for Corporate Strength, Money, and the Ortex Way.  Captain Ortex's archenemy is the Evil Clown who is a Communist Terrorist who wants to bring down the Ortex Corporation.  It's a nice little chance to poke fun at myself and my Hero, who at this point would have to be a somewhat legendary figure on Earth (all the more reason to create a TeeVee show where he's a reprehensible villain).

Panel Three:  We saw this News Anchor Guy back in... Pulp Horrorshow volume 3 #1 or 2 (can't remember which).  I think he's Ortex's only News Anchor, and they pump him full of drugs so he's awake all the time.  I like the Ortex Head Tattoo.  Probably how he got the job.

Panel Four:  We covered Pope Dirge when we did the Commentary for HFSAC #0, so we'll not go into that again.  We also talked about the Church of Ortex.  What we didn't cover were those guys in the red robes.  They're Ortex Elite Guards, and yes, they look like Emperor Palpatine's Honor Guard from Star Wars.  Their job is to protect the VIPs, but much like Palpatine's Honor Guard, they're not even remotely as powerful as the guys they're supposed to protect.  Which I think is hilarious.

Big Panel:  Jack DuPre is the CEO of the Ortex Corporation and Ruler of the Earth, and he's basically a walking Apocalypse.  Literally.  He can wipe out a city with a wave of his hand.  He's not the Ultimate Big Bad in the TORCverse, but he might as well be.  When I draw him, I always try to do two things:  1) Draw him as bulky as possible, and 2) He always looks really, really angry.  I hate this guy.  Oh, in the background you can see DuPre's right hand man, Johny Styles.  When I've been drawing him lately, I try to use as few shadows as possibly and draw him with as few lines as possible.  For some reason, drawing him very delicately seems to suit the nature of his character, in that he seems fragile, but is insanely dangerous (just ask Death Moth, who was killed by Styles a few years back... he got better).

One Hundred Butterflies

As mentioned in yesterday's post, Skull Mob #6 is now available for sale in the online store at http://www.torcpress.com/store/.

Let's see what we've got today.

The Hot Fudge Sundae Adventure Club (v2) #1 Page 9.

As our run of regular HFSAC pages wraps up for the week, we see yet another Miracle, this time, the Miracle of One Hundred Butterflies.

Originally, the Cosmic Fool was a bizarre version of the Silver Surfer.  When I recently brought him back, he somehow, inexplicably, morphed into a bizarre version of campy 70s Batman.  Not sure why that happened.  Anyway, originally, the Cosmic Fool had his own Spaceship, which I called the Manta Emperor (it's a whole Tarot thing, since The Fool is the Zero Card in a Tarot Deck, so I thought naming his vehicle after the Emperor Card made sense.  Or as much sense as anything I do).  The problem with the Cosmic Fool having his own Spaceship was that... well, I was gonna have to draw a big fat Spaceship over and over again.  Woof.  So, maybe on accident, or maybe on purpose, somehow the Cosmic Fool morphed into sorta-Metron, and the Manta Emperor morphed into a flying chair.  Of course, having drawn that big fat chair a few times, I'll freely admit it's not just a huge amount easier to draw.  Still, I like it.  Anyway, if you look closely, the Manta Emperor has the Cosmic Fool's Fornever Cube embedded into it, serving as the Chair's CPU.  The Eyeball on top is the Eye of Konundrum, which not only serves as an extremely powerful Extradimensional Sensory Organ, but also can gather up... well, Spirits apparently.

Shiv's not been around very long, and I'm still trying to figure her out.  When I came up with the idea for her power, Libro, the idea was that it was the power of Kharmic Balance.  It was a neat idea, but trying to figure out what the heck it actually did... well, that was another matter.  When we first see her in action, she can gather up negative energy and aggression and redirect it (with interest) back at the aggressors, with the cost being that Shiv herself takes some damage as well (Kharmic Feedback, y'know?).  The problem was that Shiv's power was very reactive and passive, which is a bit of a problem.  At some point I realized that a Kharmic power could be used in other ways as well, though.  For example, if an entire village full of blue-monkey-people suddenly got vaporized by a Doom Beam from Outer Space, Shiv could right the Kharmic Imbalance by returning the aforementioned blue-monkey-people to life as Butterfly Star Children.  All she needed was their Spirit Essence (gathered up by Cosmic Fool in Panel One), a little bit of their physical remains (gathered up by Tei Harlequin's Earth Control Power), and a touch of Pengy's Awakeno Power to push it over the top.

Seriously, I really enjoy the complete and utter gibberish I write into these Posts. 

Skull Mob #6 Plus Wildcard Page

Let's just keep doing our Hype Week nonsense. 

Skull Mob #6 is now available in the Online Store at:  http://www.torcpress.com/store/.  It's $4.00 plus $1.50 S&H.  It was written by Scott Bayler with art by, uh, me.  It's the final issue of the series, it's 24 pages in Full Color, and it's got a lot of Dr. Dendull.  You've been warned.  Heck, there's even a lot of Dr. Dendull on the cover.  Speaking of the cover, here's the cover:

It's a dark book where bad things happen.  Enjoy.

Every day this week we've also got a Wildcard Page.  Once again, Wildcard Pages are Backup strips that expand the greater HFSAC Epic without being a part of the actual issue of HFSAC that's going on right now.  Anyway, let's roll:

HFSAC Wildcard Page:  In the Beginning Page 2.

Man, God has got a killer moustache/beard thingie going on.  Anyway, I've had this page in my head for awhile, and it always kinda cracks me up.  Also, when me an Bro do our imitation of Dad, we always start with "Welllll".

Heh.

The Elements Belong to Her

As mentioned last night, HFSAC 24 is now available in the online store at http://www.torcpress.com/store/.

New HFSAC:

The Hot Fudge Sundae Adventure Club (v.2) #1 Page 8.

We've seen Pengy Penguin's "Butterfly Message" Trick on a few different occasions.  It allows Pengy to communicate with OMNICHRONUS, which usually means that something very bad is going to happen to the Bad Guys in another... 5 to 10 Pages.

Tei Harlequin is a very organized person who likes to make plans.  Assessing the situation, her first course of action is to put out the fire before it turns into a raging forest fire.  With the ability to control the Four Elements, even a blazing forest fire can easily be brought under control.  Again, this is a comic about Mythology, and Miracles are a big part of Mythology.  So we get our first Miracle of our New Wave Mythology right here on this page.

HFSAC 24 Now Available Plus WildCard!

HYPE WEEK!

Alrighty, The Hot Fudge Sundae Adventure Club (vol. 1) #24 is now available in the Online Store at http://www.torcpress.com/store/.  It's $4 plus $1.50 S&H for 24 Pages of Full Color Cosmic Craziness.  Here's the Cover:

This is the final issue of the initial volume of The Hot Fudge Sundae Adventure Club.  It's also kinda sorta a Bad Rapture Epilogue.  It's also my 24 Hour Comic from 2014.  The HFSAC team returns from the Bad Rapture Event.  They get some new members, and an emergency happens that sends our heroes off to Impossitropolis to go up against a rampaging Armageddon Titan.  It's a cool book.

Also, since it's Hype Week, it's time for a Brand New WILDCARD PAGE!  Again, Wildcard Pages are brand new back up stories that directly or indirectly relate to the greater HFSAC story.  Here's tonight's page:

HFSAC: Mars Page 1.

Welcome back to Mars.  We haven't been on Mars since...HFSAC 3-4.  It's a pretty basic desert planet with a pretty basic peoples.  Those are those poor Greenish guys in chains.  They're not very good fighters, obviously.  The guys in red, well, we'll get to them in a bit.  Wonder what's in that cage?

Oh, side note, this is the color version of a story I did for the Comic Quest Creators Alliance's upcoming "Saturday Morning Cartoon" book.  The story is kinda my take on Thundarr the Barbarian a little.  That it ties into the HFSAC Epic is just kind of a bonus.

Team De La Soul

Iiiiiiiiiiiiiit's Hype Week!  Now what?  Uh... Head to www.torcpress.com I guess?  We'll work on it.

First off, a big thanks to the fine folks at Tippy Con in Lafayette, IN.  It was a cool show with a good crowd.  I really dug it.

Also, a big thanks go out to Tom Perry for taking me out for tacos after the show.  I have the best readers ever.

Right.  Comix.

The Hot Fudge Sundae Adventure Club (v2) #1 Page 7.

It's a bit crazy doing a team comic with 12 people on it.  That's a lot of people to wrangle around and deal with.  Thankfully, I'm a Plot Driven Writer, so it doesn't really matter how many people I throw on the team.  It's all about whatever crazy nonsense I throw my guys way, and if I can slip in some Character Stuff here and there, it be a bonus.  Of the many cool things about having a 12 person team, is that you can break your massive team into smaller teams at will.  And thus we get Team De La Soul (which I think was a R&B Group or something maybe).

Team De La Soul are the Four Major "Support" Players on the Team.  The four characters, Tei Harlequin, Pengy Penguin, Shiv, and the Cosmic Fool, all possess a variety of Defensive, Healing, Protective, or Diagnostic based powers.  What are they gonna do about a completely vaporized village?  I dunno.  Maybe we'll find out in a page or two.

Side Note #1:  I really like drawing Jester Kidd's Dogs.  I hate drawing Jester Kidd's feet.  They always look funny to me.

Side Note #2:  I forgot to color in Electric Cherry on this page.  I'll have to fix that for the Print Edition.

Side Note #3:  Yes, Mei does call me "Sweetie".  I'm okay with it since it's a Dr. Who reference.  I'm her Doctor, and she's my River, y'know?

Side Note #4:  Stop puking Bro.

Glancing at the Past

I'm a little slow getting stuff up this morning.  I know, no one's reading this anyway, let alone on a set time schedule, but y'know, I'm crazy.  Anyway, I've got two orders of business this morning before we get to today's strip.

First off, I'll be at Tippy Con in Lafayette, IN this Saturday.  I'll be doing my thing, talking to folks, selling comics, and just generally being me.  Info can be found at:  http://www.tippycon.com/.

Second off, next week is HYPE WEEEEEEK!  As I've mentioned before, I want to work real hard at making TORC Press/The Hot Fudge Sundae Adventure Club into a thing that's a thing, which means I have to promote it.  A lot.  So, from here on out, the first full week of every month, from Monday through Friday (maybe Saturday too) I'll be obnoxiously hyping TORC Press on Facebook and whatnot, adding new stuff to the Online Store, and, best of all, I'll be putting up new WILDCARD PAGES!  Wildcard Pages are the cool new thing.  I like em cause they allow me to explore other corners of the TORCverse and try new stuff.  I skipped my Wildcard Page this week due to time constraints, but next week I wanna post at least three new Wildcard Pages.  Wildcard Pages!!!!

Alright, let's get on to today's page of SDF.  As usual, today's page was written by Scott Bayler, so we'll be turning the Commentary Track over to him.  Take it away Boolah.

SDF (v2) #1 Page 2.

PAGE TWO

More troop rallying with a bit of flashbacks in the fold. I have to admit, I'm writing the commentary tracks without seeing the finished art pages, but I trust my tag team partner did the scenes justice.

Keep in mind: Secret Soldier is not the leader of the group, per se. This is just his way of telling the reader where we've been and where we're going.
Half of these people have been in the World Hero League together (Doom Eagle, Death Moth, and the Soldier) so the mutual trust is there. I hope to explore past WHL stories here in SDF as a plot device to add on to my big omnibus here. That's right! Omnibus!! Heh heh.

Ash & Fire

I type these the night before I post them, and I am a bit fried right now for some reason.  Bleh.

The Hot Fudge Sundae Adventure Club (v2) #1 Page 6.

I'm trying to play HFSAC as an All Ages Book, which to me doesn't mean that it's a Kid's Book or a Book aimed at Kiddies or whatever.  To me, it means that I just don't do Foul Language, Gore, Sex, and that kinda stuff.  Death still happens, but we try not to be too blatant or over the top about it.  I know it's a departure from the stuff I did in the Olden Days, but I'm an Old Man now, and I'm not as drawn to that stuff as I used to be.  Plus, honestly, it's weird trying to sell comics at Conventions and trying to explain what people can and can't buy because of age restrictions and whatnot.

Anyway, instead of a village full of burning bodies like you'd see in your average Marvel comic, here we get flames and smoke and suggestive dialogue.  I dunno, works for me.

Other than that, I kinda like using the Heavy Pencils to suggest the Bounce Gate breaking through the Dimensional Walls.  One of the things I like about TORC Press Comix is that they like being Comics.