Burning on the Flames of Witch Fires...

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What exactly are the peasant-folk above burning on? I'm not certain, but I wish they'd share...

Well, where there's smoke, there's witch fire. 'Jikan: Witch Fires' is the third Jikan script I've written for Paragon Comics. Featuring everybody's favorite inter-dimensional demon-hunting Ronin, 'Witch Fires' has our hero flung from the time-space vortex and into a small English town terrorized by the sadistic Matthew Hopkins, Witchfinder General and Demon-in-Disguise.

Drawn by artist Filip Roncone, 'Witch Fires' is an epic 8-page sword fight which kicks into gear on the rooftop of a burning inn and climaxes amidst the swaying corpses decorating a gallows platform, and features spellbound peasants, reanimated corpses, spectral demons, lots of hacking and slashing, stabbing and gouging, and a whole bunch more violent-type action.

'Jikan: Witch Fires' will appear in an upcoming issue of Paragon Comics, as well as the Collected Jikan Volume 1 this Christmas, along with 'Jikan: Cave of Death' and 'Jikan and the Kappa King'.

Catching a Strontium Dogfish...

'Catch of the Day' tells the story of Mukky Mud Flapper, the perfect character for a Redemption Story if there ever was one - problem is, Mukky's not interested in redemption.

Mukky's only interested in gunning down Strontium Dogs.

Years ago Mukky himself was a young up-and-coming Strontium Dog bounty hunter. But then he got old. Got mean. Got drunk. Got drunker. Killed a few innocent people and then killed a few more. Now he's got a whopper of a bounty on his head and every SD agent is after it - but for Mukky, that's like shooting dogfish in a barrel!

'Catch of the Day' will appear in a future issue of the super-cool Strontium Dog fanzine, Dogbreath. Artist Ryan S. Thomason designed the characters above (that's Mukky in the middle).

Madness of the God-Thing Lugal...

'Feel the warp-fields wash over you. Breathe the electricity, listen to it crackle in your lungs. Allow your body to drift as its particles accelerate, separate. A pleasant sensation, soothing, like dreaming awake. Like dying in your sleep - only to be reborn!' - Sergeant Adelaide describing a 'Jaunt' to her newest combat team member.

Terror and teleportation: the horror of 'Lugal' begins with a frantic distress signal broadcast from a scientific research colony on an alien world. The message, cryptically warning of 'creatures that prey on unwary travelers to the Other Side', terminates in screaming. Immediately, an Intergalactic Expeditionary Corps combat team is sent to planet Gvakin to investigate the call - and discovers that the colony has been laid to waste and the colonists disappeared without a trace. Soon it is revealed that the colonists were the victims of a scientific experiment gone horribly right...

And the Madness of Lugal has been unleashed.

Artist Louis Carter has taken my script and created from it a wonderfully alien landscape full of weird beasties and strange characters (both human and inhuman). Nothing about planet Gvakin is familiar to human eyes: trees wriggle like tentacles, vines slither across the earth like worms, bizarre rock formations rise from the oozing jungle floor like spines.

Letters by HdE.

Next step - finding 'Lugal' a home in print. I'll be sure to update the blog when that happens. Update: 'Lugal' will appear in Temple APA #8.