Meet The Shadow Legion Part One: Rose Red

I'm presently finishing up the final polish/rewrite to The Shadow Legion: New Roads To Hell before handing it over to Captain Ron Fortier at Airship 27 (and also working on 'The Tick Tock Men,' a short story featuring The Nightbreaker that will serve as a linking story between this novel and the next one, The Shadow Legion: The Devil's Toybox). As I'm doing this, I'm going to start sharing with you some of the excellent character designs my partner on this project, Michelle Scuito, came up with. It'll also be an excuse to tell you a little about the people you're about to meet...

Yep, it's teaser time.

We're going to begin with Michelle's favorite character...who happens to be the biggest, baddest (she) wolf in this woods....Rose Red.

And the fairy tale references is very much intended. After all, our sexy lil' Red Killing Hood wished upon an evil star--and got her wish. Unfortunately, her wish was to rise above her terminal illness and live forever as a princess who can draw the eyes of every man in the room. And the inhuman creature who grants her wish does so by giving her a mystical incentive to murder.

Our little Rose lives on the blood of others. She feeds on death, converting her victim's life force into her own...and not only can she use it to exist forever, she can channel it to enhance her own phyiscal abilities. Utilizing that surplus energy makes her faster, or stronger, or nigh invulnerable. Is it any wonder that Rose Red thirsts for the kind of grand gesture of gore that will turn the streets of Nocturne crimson?

Why with that sort of massive event, a girl could live forever, couldn't she?

Rose is front and center in New Roads To Hell, as we follow her rise from a sickly, wallflower wasting away from the inside to the leader of a veritable army, ready to tear apart Nocturne's underworld in an effort to make The City That Lives By Night her own private slaughterhouse.

It's fortunate that Nocturne its own band of protectors to stop her...and we'll learn about them in the coming months.

Be sure to check out more of Michelle's art at her deviant art page!

Article On The Wild Pig Super Show

I mentioned in an earlier post that Michelle and I were interviewed by journalist Don Smith at The Wild Pig Super Show.  The article has been posted and can be checked out here
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Thanks!

I just wanted to take a moment to thank all the people who swung by Michelle's booth at The Wild Pig Super Show this Saturday to say hello, buy some of her art, check out the character designs for The Nightbreaker, Dreamcatcher, Rose Red and pick up the first promotional advert for The Shadow Legion.

Perhaps the biggest surprises were the visits we got from legendary peciller of E-Man and Green Lantern Joe Staton and equally legendary 70's horror artist Rudy Nebres (who gave Michelle a great compliment!), and the interview we gave for an upcoming article on the show--we even got our picture taken!

If you're visiting the Travel Agency for the first time thanks to meeting us on Saturday, welcome!  I hope you enjoy learning about Nocturne and The Chimera Falls Universe in general.

There's a chance some new goodies will be springing up thanks to some of the people we've met, and we'll begin showing the above-referenced character designs right here starting next week.

This Must Be The Place You Were Meant To Be

Okay, today I'm going to start letting you in on some of the differences between The Chimera Falls Universe and the average fictitious universe.

When you get your hands on the more recent stories tied into this world, you'll notice that there are no 'real' cities (I put the real in quotes because even when a fictitious universe utilizes a real city like New York or L.A., the presence of fictional characters--in the case of a pulp or super hero story like most of the CF Universe stories are, fictional characters with abilities above and beyond the norm--removes them from being realistic settings) here. I like to think that a reader who pays attention will be able to figure out which of these CF cities is analogous to which real life cities in the United States. Hell, I'll freely admit that Nocturne, the city where The Shadow Legion operates, is analogous to New Orleans...even if the place was built over the swamplands of Florida.

The reason for this may be a little odd, but I like to think it's logical. Since the history of the heroes and heroines of the Chimera Falls Universe are supposed to be a reflection of the history of comic books, it stands to reason all the cities they operate in are fictional ones. In the Golden Age (the first book in the Shadow Legion series takes place in the fall of 1941, a month or two before Pearl Harbor prompts America to enter World War Two),it was standard for super-heroes to operate in fictional cities based on real ones. Hell, both Gotham and Metropolis are just reflections of two aspects of my home town--Gotham being the dark, dangerous New York, while Metropolis was New York as the bright burning beacon of hope and opportunity.

Thus, early on the writing of New Roads To Hell, I decided to acknowledge something I had played around with ever since I wrote the first story in the cycle and made all the cities ones that exist only on that universe's maps. Looking back on everything I've written about the denizens of the Chimera Falls Universe, real cities are mentioned only in passing. Elsa Dawn is from Chicago, and a flashback explaining her origin is set there in Onyx Revolver. Doc Thunder makes a very vague reference to Tulsa in 'Thunder Pursued.' But other than that, the stories in the CFU take place in unknown places like Hunter's Notch, Vahalla, the Falls itself...and now Nocturne.

The reason I enjoy fictional cities is because you can pretty much tailor them to your needs. In the case of Nocturne, I wanted something akin to New Orleans (you'll find out why at a later date), but with a central business district that would grow and evolve as we wander down the decades of its history, and a history of being amenable to tech firms so I could play off of the interface between magic and science at times, most particularly in what is going to be the second book in The Shadow Legion series, The Devil's Toybox. For some reason, I had a gut feeling that this new city would have been built over Florida swampland, partially by recently freed slaves. I already had in my mind that there would be a sharp economic and racial demarcation in the city's population--and the history I had in mind fused with this desire to create some of the neighborhoods that in turn influenced the origins and backgrounds of my characters. The Nightbreaker, in particular, changed as I developed the neighborhood of Lincoln that plays a major role in New Roads To Hell.

Could I have done a similar story by setting it in the actual New Orleans? Sure. Would it have been the same story? Well....no. I don't think I could have enacted my main villain's plan without creating that specific neighborhood that, in turn, inspired some of the background of one of my main characters.

Now sharp readers who pick up New Roads To Hell when it becomes available some months from now might speculate whether some of the cities namechecked within are stand-ins for actual cities. Yes, they are...and I promise anyone who asks me privately about those cities will get my confirmation or denial.

I'll continue pulling back the curtain on the CFU soon...and will also start revealing some secrets about the quartet in that promotional image as well!

It's Coming!

This is the first promotional image for the Shadow Legion!  More to come....

Mark Down This Date...

This is a Neo-Victorian portrait of Wonder Man
and Bloodstone I commissioned from Michelle.

Namely May 5th.

If you're in the Piscataway, NJ area--or if you like traveling around and visiting comic book shows--you might want to visit The Wild Pig Super Show on that date.

Why?

I didn't commission this piece of Cassandra Cain,
sometimes known as Batgirl and presently known
as Black Bat dressed up as Ravager--but I
inspired it, so here it is!

My publisher for The Shadow Legion: New Roads To Hell likes to include illustrations in all their publications. The woman who is going to be providing those illustrations, and has been designing all the characters in the book, is Michelle Sciuto, who'll be a guest at the Super Show on that day. Michelle's a great artist whose work excels at infusing her characters with personality--she's also a great friend. Not only should you go to the Super Show to buy some commissions for her (I especially recommend her Neo-Victorian portraits, where she takes modern super-heroes and re-cast them in Neo-V style--I'll include one of the two portraits I commissioned from her so you can see what she's capable of!), but you should go if you're interested in this new phase of the Chimera Falls Universe because she'll be showing in public for the first time some of the character work she's been doing. Plus, there'll be a lil' teaser flyer featuring all four of our heroes, giving you a glimpse of the protectors of Nocturne, The City That Lives By Night!

I am going to be there--this'll be the first time I'll be meeting Michelle face-to-face--but please be sure to come by and check out here work. If you can't wait to see what she's capable of, go to her Deviant Art Page...and maybe you can plan what you want to pay her to draw!

I am so excited to have Michelle on board with The Shadow Legion Project, and I really hope you guys come by her table at The Wild Pig Super Show to check out her amazing work! I'll see you there.

For Those Just Joining Us....

Here are the links to already extant stories set in the Chimera Falls Universe...

Onyx Revolver

This serial was originally conceived as part of Frontier Publishing, the pulpish concern which ultimately evolved into Pulpwork Press. It's the first thing of mine to be set in Chimera Falls and introduces both El Vengedore de Sangre and Elsa Dawn, both of whom I intend to have pop up again in some form. However, the version of the Falls you read about in this story is very different than the one you will see in later iterations of the world, so take what you read with a grain of salt.

If you're curious about the original version of this story, you can find it here.  Later on, I made an attempt to rewrite and rework it. Dino Pollard was kind enough to host my attempt on DC Omega during its orginal incarnation. Neither version, of course, was completed.

Gawain Knight and The Ungentlemanly Caller

A story featuring one of the Protectors of Chimera Falls, it's noteworthy for sketching out some of the neighborhoods of this New England city and establishing it as a major fishing center. Knight is a Rogue-With-A-Code-Of-Honor that I intended to be my tribute to one of my favorite heroic character, Leslie Charteris' Simon Templar. You can find the tale here.

Don Cuevo's Curative

This story introduced the possibly ageless, disturbingly quiet frontier exorcist Don Cuevo and his assistant Dolores. The interesting thing about Cuevo is that he originated elsewhere. A version of the character, sans Dolores and the semi-Lovecraftian motivations, showed up in my fanfic version of Birds of Prey, originally written for Bill K'Tepi's DC Year Two, and then rewritten for Vertigo: Subculture. You can still find the V:S version here if you're curious to see where Don Cuevo sprung from.

If you want to read the actual story that introduced Don Cuevo, you'll have to go to Pulpwork Press and plunk down your coin for a copy of How The West Was Weird. You also have to go to Pulpwork Press to purchase the debut of...

Doc Thunder Pursued

The steampunky inventor/secret agenty crime fighter, Doc Elias Thunder came to me literally in a dream, when I woke up one morning with the idea of a chase between cowboys astride motorcycles in my head. This was written in a rush of inspiration, and opens up a whole new world of fantastic thrills in this universe. The story within How The West Was Weird Volume Two is the character's origin, and I've already got a second adventure cooking in my brain, waiting for me to finesse it into an actual story. As with Don Cuevo, go to Pulpwork Press to purchase the book and enjoy the tale.

That's the whole extant Chimera Falls Universe at this time. You'll be learning more about the characters who make up The Shadow Legion and their city, Nocturne, here as we move closer to the release of the first book, New Roads of Hell, through Airship 27 sometime in the near future.

So go, read the stories. Have fun. Then come back here and we'll hang out some more!