Crimebuster

I've got another comic live on Kickstarter right now, my epic fantasy comic Quest #3. I just can't stop making comics! 😄

I drew a couple homage covers this time around. 

The first is a bit unusual -- obviously the trade dress is a shout out to Bronze Age Conan from Marvel. The actual art is also a partial homage -- the creatures are based off renaissance paintings of angels being cast out of Heaven, mostly from Peter Paul Rubens, though I did the main figure and the background on my own. Colors by a guy I know named Adriel Dalla Vecchia. 

The second is a much more direct homage, of David Sutherland III's "A Paladin in Hell" drawing from the old D&D books. That was in black and white, so since I didn't have Adriel's help with this one, I had to make up the color scheme myself, always tricky as I am color blind. 

The Kickstarter for my new comic The Crimebusters #6 ends tomorrow, and I spent the week working on the back cover.

This issue has a guest appearance by Joe and Frank Hardy. The Hardy Boys entered the public domain last year, though I haven't seen anyone else use them yet. 

The name "The Hardy Boys" is still trademarked, so I can't use that on the cover. But I wanted to capture the feel, so I did an homage to the cover of their first book, which was drawn by Walter S. Rogers. That art is also in the public domain, but I wanted to redo it in my own style rather than use the original. 

My newest comic is now live on Kickstarter!

Usually in addition to the writing (and lettering and finishing the colors) I do multiple variant covers, but this time I ended up only doing one. Per usual, it's an homage cover, in this case homaging Nick Cardy's classic cover for Teen Titans #14. 

The Crimebusters #6 (legacy #125 carrying over from Boy Comics)

I'd love to see some more Boy Comics back issues!

I sometime think I'm the only one collecting this series!

I'm definitely the only one addled enough to keep making my own new issues. 😜

So while I'm waiting for people to post their old Boy Comics, here's my latest new one - Boy Comics #125 (also known as The Crimebusters #6) will hopefully be hitting Kickstarter in January. You can check out the pre-launch page here to make sure you don't miss out on a copy of the limited edition Boy Comics #125 variant cover, with art by fellow Golden Age fan Jay Piscopo:

There are a few sites reporting that Pedro Pascal has been cast as Reed Richards.

https://www.slashfilm.com/1000765/marvels-fantastic-four-movie-casts-pedro-pascal-reed-richards/

It's hard to say how I would feel about this show if I wasn't such a big fan of the books.

As a big fan of the books, though, now that I've watched the show I can say that the show is a horrible adaptation of the source material! 🤣

I got about halfway through the show before it turned to hate watching. And I've pretty much been fast forwarding through any scene that Dervel isn't in. 

I'm glad other people are liking it, though. Maybe it will get better if it gets a second season. And I'm glad for Cornwell and this series of books to get more attention. 🤷‍♂️

On 10/23/2023 at 1:56 PM, CJ Design said:

Very Nice...even though I know nothing about D&D

Thanks!

These are some of my favorite books ever. I'll have to check out the show. 

For those who may not know, author Bernard Cornwell also wrote the Sharpe series which was adapted by the BBC back in the 90s with Sean Bean. 

This series for me is the best thing he's written, definitely better than Last Kingdom. 

I just wanted to mention that Quest #2 is coming to Kickstarter on October 23, and again, money from this sales thread has helped me make this comic. 

I'll be doing a new sales thread in a couple months to raise more money to make more comics, so thank you all for the support! I really appreciate it!

On 9/25/2023 at 6:12 PM, piper said:

Is it better than Season 1?  I was not a fan...

I thought season 1 was pretty bad. 

Season 2 has been dramatically better. The show has gone from bad to something I look forward to every week. 

On 9/15/2023 at 1:17 PM, CJ Design said:

Great work!

Thank you!

Well, five years after I started working on my revival and continuation of Boy Comics, I'm excited to say that the first trade collection is now live on Kickstarter! 

Here's a look at the cover for the trade, which is also an homage to Jim Steranko's classic Captain America poster:

As you can see, this collects issues #120-124 (aka The Crimebusters #1-5). The continuity picks up right where the original left off when it was cancelled with #119, with Chuck Chandler at Curtiss Tech. But I have added a supernatural tint to some of his adventures, plus I have brought in some other Golden Age public domain characters both from Boy Comics itself (like Yankee Longago) and from other publishers (such as Granny Gumshoe from Quality Comics).

Anyway, I've loved making these, and I love Boy Comics (obivously! 😁) so I thought I'd share. Thanks for all the support through the years!

Here's the link again if anyone is interested:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thecrimebusters/crimebusters-vol-1/

I'm going to be in the Ronkonkoma, Long Island area next week and I see there are a number of comic shops in the region. Anyone know which might have the best dollar bins? I want to do some diving, hopefully at a place that has some 80s or earlier stuff and not just reams of over ordered moderns.

Thanks for the recommendations!

While I was watching this documentary, I told my wife, "the worst thing about this is the fact that now I'm going to have to listen to a bunch of 60 year old fanboys continue the same incredibly tedious Stan vs. Jack argument they've been having for the last half century."

On 6/17/2023 at 12:05 AM, Oat Willy1 said:

The most curious thing is happening now with publishers that sell their comics mainly on Kickstarter. They price the 'standard' version of the comic at around $30, which is crazy enough. $30 for a $4 or $5 comic. But then they have a bajillion alternates selling anywhere from $50 to over $100 for a 'metal' or foil cover variant. Or a 'nude' cover, which you can't even just buy normally if you want it...it comes in a set of 2 with the non-nude version, for like $75-$100 lol. Or you have to buy the 'mega-lot' of like 7 books to get the one 'mega-lot' exclusive limited to just that lot.

How long will the market sustain this BS? It has to collapse at some point right?

As a indie creator who self-publishes through Kickstarter, I'm in contact with a lot of other Kickstarter publishers, and I can say that the vast majority of comics being funded through Kickstarter are personal passion projects that aren't making a dime. What you're describing only applies to a small percentage of the comics on Kickstarter, mostly ones being published either by large established companies, or books in the T&A market. Yes, those people often put out 35 variants with nude and normal versions and super high end, high priced variants. Most projects don't, or only have a few of those options for the handful of backers who want them. 

That's the key to your question: this market only exists because the backers want it. Kickstarters are only funded if the buyers want it to. It will continue as long as that's what the backers want. If they didn't want it, the projects would fail. 

But there are dozens and dozens of great indie comics on Kickstarter that don't remotely resemble what you're describing. If you try scrolling past all the T&A you should see that. 

On 4/15/2023 at 1:55 PM, CJ Design said:

Very Nice...best of luck!

Thank you!

Hello, comic friends!

I just wanted to give an update for those of you who bought stuff from this thread. 

As you know, I was selling off part of my collection to raise money to make a new comic, the first issue of my new epic fantasy series Quest. 

I'm excited to say that Quest #1 is nearly done, and the pre-launch page is now live on Kickstarter!

Without your purchases, I couldn't have made this new comic, so thank you!

Here's a look at one of interior pages, just missing the lettering:

And here are the covers -- some of the variant cover art wasn't cheap! So some of the money raised here went right to that.

You can check out the pre-launch page here. Thanks again for buying my stuff, it's been a huge help in making this dream project a relaity!

I already shared one of the homage covers I drew for the first issue my new comic book series Quest, but I wanted to share one more.

Dungeons & Dragons is one of the big influences for Quest, so I wanted to do a D&D homage cover. 

This version isn't just a variant cover, though. I'm working with a dungeon master I know, and we're going to add 8 bonus pages of game supplement material so people who buy this version will be able to play the story from this issue in their own home game if they want. 

Here's the variant I drew, which is based on the cover for the 1982 module "The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth" by Erol Otus. I tweaked it by changing the ratio of the art firstly, then swapping in my characters and monster, and fiddling with the color scheme. 

The "CCG" on the cover is short for Crimebuster Comics Group. Nothing to do with slabbing! 😁

I'm hoping to bring the first issue to Kickstarter next month, though the pre-launch page is already live. Thanks for looking! 🤗