Dogtown "US vs them"

I have remained relatively silent on the subject of the recent civil unrest involving the lack of grand jury indictments against killer police officers and the racial tensions that have fallen out of that.  Anyone who knows me, of course, knows that I am outraged by these recent events.  I have not said much about any of the specific events for various reasons, the biggest being I'm just not much of an outspoken social media person.  Instead, I prefer to put my opinions in my comics.

For the last two years, I have been running a series called Dogtown in my self published science fiction anthology book, Science Hero.  Last Spring, we put out the third issue containing a Dogtown story titled "US vs them".  I'll spare you my retrospective and self deprecating personal criticisms I have for my own work, and just say that it sums up my feelings on the state of law enforcement in America today.  (And of course, Chris McJunkin, who does 100% of the art for Dogtown, delivers stunning work as always).

I've also been hesitant to post this comic because I don't want to appear to be capitalizing on other people's misery, but in the end, I think these media stories are becoming all too common, which is why I try to write about them in fiction.

Here is the complete 9 page "US vs them" story.  You can download full copies of Science Hero at my website, newhavencomics.com.  Chris and I are currently working on the fourth installment of Dogtown, titled "For Your Own Good" and should have it ready next Spring.

DOGTOWN

Illustrated by Chris McJunkin

Dogtown is a second series I'm working on with Chris McJunkin and will appear in my upcoming anthology Science Hero.  I've been really focused on structure with this series.  Each chapter will be 8 pages and focus on a different character and situation in the city neighborhood of Dogtown.  Through this series of vignettes, I hope to create a pastiche of crime, social, and political drama.  As you might notice from looking at these pages, each chapter will also be represented by a predominant color, the first chapter being blue.

I really like writing Dogtown because it allows me to reach for different influences than the superhero stuff.  Dogtown is more verbose than Zero's Heroes because it's primarily inspired by my two favorite novelists, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. and Robert Heinlein. 

Chris completely illustrates the pages by himself, and he really brings his A game.  Everything from the pencils, to the colors, to the letters is all his work.  He's got a great eye for design and often times improves the layouts of the page from how they were originally written.  The man's a true talent and I'm lucky to have him creating this book with me.

Here are the first three pages of Dogtown:  The Cold Goodbye.

Night of the Bearcat

Right now, I'm running a Kickstarter to raise funds to print the first volume of Zero's Heroes.  One of the rewards we're giving away to people who pledge is the Zero's Heroes Convention Special.  This is a 28 page comic book that collects the first chapter of Zero's Heroes by Sergio and myself as well as an exclusive 10 page story titled, Night of the Bearcat, drawn by Chris McJunkin.

Night of the Bearcat is one of the first comics Chris drew for me.  I had initially hired Chris to draw a 2 page back up story staring the character Ghost for big Zero's Heroes volume.  I liked his work so much, I then had him draw Night of the Bearcat.  I liked THAT so much, I had him take over the regular Zero's Heroes book when Sergio left.

I really like Night of the Bearcat.  Chris really knows how to play to both sides of the comedy and the action.  As a result, I think it's a very balanced story.  Night of the Bearcat will always be a print exclusive story and never appear on the website.  Here is a preview.