Hey, gang! Big news! Caliber Comics, publisher of my graphic novel MYTHOS: LOVECRAFT'S WORLDS, is making some digital issues (with digital-exclusive covers by artist Jason Westlake) available while the graphic novel is available to order and the first just went live on Comixology!

Check it out!

In this issue two stories:

"Pickman's Model" - Richard Pickman, an artist of notoriously-ghastly works so horrifying that he's been ostracized from Boston's artistic society, knows the anatomy of fear better than anyone else alive - but how?

and

"The Strange High House in the Mist" - Thomas Olney, a jaded philosopher, has a obsession: the strange, mist-shrouded house on the cliffs above Kingsport. When he can stand his curiosity no longer, he sets out to visit the house.

Head over to Comixology and get yourself a copy!

Just a quick share today, regarding the manga re: ZERO - STARTING LIFE IN ANOTHER WORLD, an adaptation, with art by Daichi Matsuse, of the light novel series by Tappei Nagatsuki (with character designs by Shinichirou Otsuka).

I'm a big fan of the Japanese fantasy genre "player stuck in a game", going back to the first true series of the genre - .HACK (dating myself here) about fifteen years ago. The way .HACK was handled, as a multi-media franchise simultaneously publishing video games, anime, novels and manga that all told different aspects of the same story (many of the individual works could stand on their own, but you got a much, much richer experience playing/watching/reading them all; it really was handled brilliantly) hooked me immediately and made me love the concept, which has inspired/been followed by such other series as SWORD ART ONLINE, LOG HORIZON, etc.

Add to the top of the list re: ZERO - STARTING LIFE IN ANOTHER WORLD.

Like anything popular, the player-trapped-in-game genre has been diluted as it's expanded, becoming glutted with a host of people trying to cash in on the trend. And, honestly, when I first saw this book, I figured it would be another one of those, but the interior art was gorgeous so I gave it a shot, not really knowing anything about it.

I'm glad I did, because while it is another player-in-game fantasy, it's very tongue in cheek about it. Neither the series nor the main character takes it too seriously because, as a citizen of modern-day Japan, he's fully aware of the genre and that touch of humor is welcome. In addition to that, the series has something of an original twist of the genre--one that gives the series its name--the main character, Subaru, is disappointed to find he doesn't have any special powers or skills (as most otherworldly heroes) do - until he's in a situation where they'd most come in handy... and he's killed. No special fighting skills after all. Instead, he wakes up as if nothing has happened - and indeed, nothing has, for it turns out the entire world is reset to the point where he first entered it when he dies, leaving him with the knowledge he's gained in his previous run-through so he can continue on and try again.

The first volume of the manga doesn't get very far into the world--my understanding is that only two volumes were published before the series changed publishers and that this first series only adapts part of the original novel--but I'm looking forward to the next one and I sincerely hope Yen Press continues to adapt the Square-Enix-published manga after finishing with the one Idea Factory-published.

Toying with the idea of a doing an as-I-feel-like-updating webcomic that would just be photoshop-created representations of whatever weirdness pops into my head.

This is the first, just titled "Ham Smell."