Apologies to my fans

I have been in a state of a long, long depression which greatly hindered my writing & research. I won't lie. Things have gone downhill since I moved to Albany. Friendships were ruined, feelings hurt and despondency slowly seeped like poison gas. Do NOT move to Albany under any circumstance. I paid the price for it but dearly.

But I will provide a recap of small things that have crossed my mind

• A Rockabilly Samurai pitch to Dynamite Comics. I even found an artist to work on the cover and maybe a few pages.
• I have decided to add Thor Jackson to the list of heroes I will be working on. Thor Jackson, long story short, is an amnesiac brute of a man with an unusual Thompson submachine with a drum barrel. He has odd dreams of vikings, dragons and the like. He sets up a private detective agency in Queens, NY (where in Queens, I don't know yet) taking on mobsters, Nazi agents etc.
  
• The Blue Spider will also be worked on extensively as well. Given my penchant for the Cold War and the 1950s, it's going to be a fun title. We're talking Silver Age here people. He's a super-agent of Interpol who goes after spies and super science villains. In my universe, Interpol recruits super-powered mystery men as well as spies.
• The Red Phantom is not on hiatus. So you needn't worry. I'm busy doing more research on the occult, supernatural, Cryptozoology, ghost stories from all over the world so that way I'll have LOTS of story ideas to expand on.
• The Avenging Skull has evolved from an embittered WW1 veteran who hunts mobsters to one who also hunts vampires and supernatural monsters. While the Red Phantom adopts a mixture of brawling/shooting and spell slinging, the Avenging Skull is more like a mix of Ulysses Bloodstone and Dr. Abraham Van Helsing.
• The Steampunk idea I've been working on has come to fruition. Mind you, it will not be the crap Steampunk you see out there now. No, this is real Romanticism. Adventure on an epic scale.Rook and Nacht is a reality. Dr. Rook is an inventor who has many devices based in science while Dr. Nacht is a Prussian vampire hunter who relies on faith and magic. Think of it as Ghostbusters vs Dr. Strange in that the underlying principle is "which is better? magic or science?"

So keep checking here for new entries!

Red Phantom notes - The Silver Swordsman

I was reading up various articles and essays about Chinese mythology and martial arts flicks of Hong Kong when I found a link to the old video game, "Kung Fu Kid." This was one of my favorite games back in grade school. Zombies, vampires, martial arts, a villain who suspiciously looks like David Lo Pan...

Anyway, as I watching the game being wistful about my childhood and doing the usual Gen-X thing of lamenting what happened, I was so happy in my childhood etc etc, I saw one of the bosses. At the time frame of 7:39 , you'll see a grey faced, blue clad swordsman. Then all of a sudden, the name "Silver Swordsman" popped into my head. The floodgates had opened. He could be the ghost of a long dead swordsman from ancient China, cursed to wander the world of the living. Is he filled with murderous rage? Is he bitter and melancholic? What role would he play in the Red Phantom universe?

The answer is obvious. He would the Ghost's Hand primary henchman, assassin and bodyguard. Out of curiousity I googled "Silver Swordsman" and came across this great image. Great makeup and contacts. Now if that isn't a sign to make the Silver Swordsman, I dunno what is.

Time to read up on more Chinese myths and ghost stories!

Funny thing though. I remember this game being a lot harder when I was 10.

Red Phantom notes - Emei daggers

Recently I've discovered a new vice. Deadliest Warrior is a show in which several men test out the weapons and warrior ethics of certain fighters from history. The matchups have been interesting. Pirate versus knight, US Green Beret versus Russian Spetnaz. Weapons & techniques are compared and using a specialized combat-oriented computer program, the winner is chosen.

Mind you, some of the tests are unfair and absurd. Why not use ballistic gel dummies (complete with imitation viscera and blood AND skeletons) for all weapons? Anyway, last night (May 19th, 2009) the episode on Shaolin monks and Maori warriors (the entire episode can be viewed online) aired and so far, the two sets of weapons have been proven to be the most brutal. Then one weapon caught my eye.

The Emei daggers are absolutely mind blowing. Once you see it in action in the video clip I provided you'll see what I mean. Let's put it this way, if Wolverine didn't have his adamantium claws, he'd use this. This episode was the best so far. The end fight between the monk and the tribal fighter was very entertaining and you will not be disappointed.

Anyway, I gots ta get a movin' with my entry...

The daggers, or judgement pens as I have seen them called on some martial arts forums (apparently the judges of the afterworld used metal pens to sign certain documents), have gotten me thinking. They allow for up-close killings, they're easy hidden and they're fast as hell. Who in the Red Phantom universe would use these? Red himself? No. He's got his fists, his brass knuckles and two Mark IV Webley revolvers. Plus he has his knowledge of things arcane. The Avenging Skull? No, our obsessed vampire hunter has his M1909 Army bayonets. The Blue Spider? Absolutely not. Not only does he use the bow & arrow, he is in a completely different setting (the Cold War during the 1950s).

So who should I give these wickedly deadly weapons? Charon? No, he uses poisons. Sean "Big Misery" Finnegan? No, this giant Irish hulking mob enforcer has his fists and whatever fire hydrant he can uproot. Then it hits me... The Ghost's Hand, the masked sorceror from China who practices various forms of the dark arts. The deceptive nature of the weapons would be perfect for Ghost's Hand. Originally I had planned to have Ghost be reliant on only his magic & henchmen and make him physically weak like most magic users in comics, movies and the like but it doesn't make sense since martial arts in China were practiced for spiritual health. So why not have him use these spikes and be capable of fighting off the Red Phantom?

After reading up on various articles about the weapons and viewing clips on YouTube, I've decided to make it official and make the Ghost's Hand a martial artist. It's great pulp I tell you. After all, many heroes & villains have had some form of Oriental training, be it spiritual, magical or physical.