Jason, Micah, and I have been working on Rapid City for more than a year now. We all put in the time that we can, and we all agree that we want a quality comic book, and not a rush job.

Things are moving along, but occasionally, things from our daily lives do gum up the works. For example…

Right now, Micah is on a bus going from Indianapolis to Detroit. Jason is going to pick him up at the bus station and they are going to go over last-minute preparations and things. Tomorrow, my girlfriend and I are flying to Detroit from Boston. We’ll land in just enough time to make it to the rehearsal dinner.

And then on Friday, Micah is going to marry Jason!

A few years ago, Micah also married his own sister (they are from Indiana).

Yeah, Micah is an internet certified holy-man who is licensed to perform weddings. And Jason will be marrying his joy and inspiration, the lovely Mandy.

I am sincerely and truly happy for my dear friend Jason and his beautiful bride. I’m wishing them a bright and joyful wedding day followed by years and years of more joy and happiness.

Plus (I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t mention) this means less time spent wedding planning and designing, and more time drawing Rapid City!

Congratlations and good luck.

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(Josh and Bekah at the 2007 ZombieWalk Boston.)

From what I hear, Josh felt worse this morning than a lot of the people looked all day yesterday. I suppose a “diet” of pizza, chips and beer and walking all day will do that to you.

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Well it’s been one year since we “officially” started working on MONOLITH and Rapid City. It’s been a lot of fun and it’s safe to say we’ve learned a lot — what’s changed and what hasn’t changed since we last worked on a project. For me it’s been invigorating to be drawing again and to be working with two good friends. I’ve met a lot of people over the year at conventions and thank every last one of them for their interest in our work.

MONOLITH has grown quite a bit for us too. We’ve had over 20,000 visits to the site in one year (granted some of you came to our site to check out the “weirdo” that stalked Warren Ellis) and the numbers keep growing. You’ve given us feedback and we’ve listened and hopefully made things for the better.

So here we are, almost on the eve of a new year. We have a lot planned for 2007. For starters, getting Rapid City out the door and hopefully on a bi-monthly schedule. There is also some other little things planned, but you’ll see that stuff soon enough. So I’d like to say a big thanks to all of you and I hope to see you come back again and again, there will be plenty to see. Trust me.

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Rapid City is a fictional version of Kalamazoo, Michigan, where I lived for about ten years. While I was there, I attended Western Michigan University.

For a short time, I drew a weekly comic strip called “Josho Adventures” for the Western Herald. It was poorly drawn, and mainly featured lame inside jokes and references. Some people liked it, and the amazingly talented Paul Sizer once described it using the word “intelligent”.

Anyway, last week, the Herald ran a column about us and our comic book. It was pretty cool, but they got the web address wrong.

They were cool enough, however, to run a correction. So, welcome to all of my K-zoo homies who heard about us through the Herald and are checking us out for the first time.

Please, enjoy. And if you happen by The Rocketstar, tell Evil Bill that I said “hi”.

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This is my favorite time of year. The month of October is probably the best month in my opinion. The AMC channel has their annual Monsterfest, the weather really starts to change, the leaves change color and there is just a creepy feeling to it all. I just love it.

Well here is a quick sketch I did with my daughter Emma. I hope to do some more sketches, to show the “horror side” (it’s not just a super-hero story) of Rapid City.

Enjoy.
Jason + Emma

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Rapid City is a comic about music.

It’s about super heroes, and werewolves, and robots and stuff, but it is really about music.

What I am saying about super powers in the comic, I am really saying about music. Music gave me a way to think about super powers, and super powers gave me a way to write about music.

One of my biggest inspirations has been the band Rancid. Their music has inspired me, and their progression and development as a band has helped me to plot out the arcs of the major characters in Rapid City.

This comic is really important to me, and this band is really important to the comic book.

So, when I saw that they were booked to play two nights in Boston, I got a ticket and headed down there.

Before the show I saw guitarist and singer Lars Fredrickson outside. I spoke to him briefly and gave him a copy of our teaser comic. He seemed to like it.

The show that night was amazing.

Wednesday, I bought my weekly comic books and headed back down to the show venue. I was hanging around reading my comics when I noticed a small commotion among the other…ummm…among the other stalkers.

Frontman Tim Armstrong was talking to the fans. Cool! I tried to play it cool. I tried to not be a grinning fan boy. But this was the guy who wrote my favorite songs.

I played it as cool as I could.

I showed him the comic and told him about it as best as I could mutter through. He seemed impressed and asked me about it. And I told him more.

Then he asked “You hooked up for tonight?”

He was asking if I had tickets for that night’s show. I didn’t. And I played it cool.

“Not yet.”

And then he turns to the woman who has been filming him and says “Put him on the list.”

Yeah, that was cool.

The show was great. I spent the train ride home scribbling notes in my Rapid City notebook.

What will come of it? Who cares? I just think it’s neat that they were flattered by the comic they inspired me to write.

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This past weekend I finally got to see “Superman Returns”. It was great. The first time you see Superman in costume flying in to save the day, you honestly (well I did at least) feel like a kid again. You feel like that first time you saw the first Superman movie (if you were a kid when it originally came out or maybe even if you weren’t). This is what it should be like when you see a big blockbuster comic book movie. Don’t get me wrong, X3 was great, but it lacked something, that special feeling you get the first time you see that great hero (or villain) on the big screen. I felt it seeing “Batman Returns” and I felt it during the “Spider-Man movies” too. It’s that feeling you got when you picked up your first X-Men comic or your first Superman comic or maybe even a copy of some indie book. The list could go on. For each of us there is/was that special book we bought that introduced us to the world of comics.

That is what we are striving for here with “Rapid City”. To make something that makes you feel good about reading comics. Especially our comic.

What am I getting at here (besides the fact I really like Superman Returns)?

Well I’m saying that we are hard at work here. I’m hard at work here. I’m taking everyones comments from the “Rapid City: PREVIEW” and trying to build upon them. I emailed a few of you directly from the comments you left and asked for more information on what you meant in your remarks. So I’ve been taking your critiques and applying them to what I do and I’m trying to refine my work and hopefully make it better. Make it so when you are reading it, you’ll get that feeling of like the first time you picked up that special book and you’ll want more.

So for those waiting for more, don’t worry it’s coming. Just a little bit longer. And for your patience, I’ll have an offer that will surely make the wait worth it. In the meantime, keep your eyes peeled, I’m going to be starting weekly “Sketchbook” posts here. Maybe even a few times a week.

And here’s to the countdown to WizardWorld Chicago…let it begin!

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