B.L.-BLOG: My Upcoming Creator Owned Comics, etc.

Dear Readers,

        Literal days have gone by since I spoke with iShook Comics CEO, Beni Rachmanov, about making a section on here that would segregate my OPINIONS-PIECES, essentially SUBSTACK posts that I'd be writing as columns on this monetized platform, that people could read for free, rather than start up yet another thing. And believe me, people aer always trying to get me to do "yet another thing." It's exhausting. While the influx of traffic isn't really enough to justify me writing anything that takes too much time, catharsis, passion, and interest drives me to put out things like this for you the reader, or rather to those who care. If that's you, enjoy.

       The long, hard road of producing my creator-owned comic book titles still lies before me. While there has been some back and forth with my discussing it with people across socials, it seemed like an easier and more insightful thing to state it all here. As you may know, I reached out to 20+ publishers in late June through early August of this year about taking on my HELLFIRE series. Prior to that, I'd reached out to a number of publishers about my & Dave Dinsmore's STARCREEP series. To the best of my present knowledge, there is only 1 of those publishers that has not yet left the field. If you don't know, that's not at all weird. A great many people who are bigger in comics talk about how they put out wildly successful books that none of the publishers that they sent them to believed in. I mean, the television studio thought that A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS was going to be a disaster. Shultz was historically right on every single point & they were historically wrong. The Beatles were turned down by a record label. The list goes on and on with people who should have been enthusiastic or said yes when they didn't. As I've afore stated, I'm not remotely shaken by any of this & these comics will be published with or without them. They'll either cause me to rise like the mighty phoenix or crash and burn, 'cause I am going that hard.

        The books that I am speaking of putting out (along with their breakdowns are as follows:

HELLFIRE SERIES (ESSENTIALLY SEASON #1)

• HELLFIRE #1 + SMALLDOG #1

•HELLFIRE #2 + HOLY GHOST EXORCIST #1

• HELLFIRE #3 + SMALLDOG #2

• HELLFIRE #4 + HOLY GHOST EXORCIST #2

• HELLFIRE #5 + SMALLDOG #3

• HELLFIRE ANNUAL #1 + PHUKET MAMA #1

OTHER HELLFIRE PROPERTIES:

• MY FRIEND HELLFIRE #1 + HOLY GHOST EXORCIST 1981 HALLOWEEN SPECIAL

• A TOUCH OF HELLFIRE #1

• A TOUCH OF HELLFIRE #2

       All of the comics within the HELLFIRE UNIVERSE are tied to my larger literary universe. Every one of these comics, with the exclusion of my kid-friendly book MY FRIEND HELLFIRE #1 + HOLY GHOST EXORCIST 1981 HALLOWEEN SPECIAL, are set in the early 1970s, or more specifically 1974. They will all be rated MA due to exceedingly dark, violent themes. They will also have heavy Christian tones as it is a part of who HELLFIRE is. In January 1974, the 20-year-old preacher, Rev. Benny Blue, was brutally murdered at the hands of Orlando Vega, Luca Vega, & Danny Vega under orders by their boss Tommy Dalitz, the owner of Tommy's Market, a local grocery store that's used to launder money for the mob. Not to tell the whole story, the thing is that after 3 days, Rev. Benny Blue rises as something new. He believes that he's been brought back as the vengeance of Almighty God & has the abilities that'd substantiate those claims.

       Systematically, he aims to hunt down and bring to justice (divine justice) all of those people responsible for his murder. Characters from my GOD WALKS THE DARK HILLS Western Horror novel series & short stories who're either mentioned or appear are Peter Grimm (a chthonic idiot god; something of my creation), his son Julian Smith, as well as it's main protagonist, Chike Bancole, a.k.a. Reginald Beauregard Valencia, a.k.a. the Shadowman. Also, yes, the final books have been written for that literary series. I'm really abusive to myself as a writer. Do expect GOD WALKS THE DARK HILLS V-VI to come out within this same late-2026 - early 2027 publishing window. Moreover, the main protagonists of my Southern Gothic novel, which stands as my favorite literary book that I've written, HOLY GHOST EXORCIST, appear in their own eponymous comic, as a crossover is planned between them.

       PHUKET MAMA #1 is a reprint from my pulled flip-book ZORRO KILLS #1 + PHUKET MAMA #1. The main character, Siriporn Awat, is a part of the last of the GOD WALKS THE DARK HILLS books. SPOILER: She is a love interest of Rial Steward & trained by him to fight the things that most people don't know are real. While she'd be long dead before any of the stories within this comic book series take place, you'll find that her fighting tactics & choice of fighting with bayonetted handguns is observable in Special Agent Caleb "Hellhound" Schecter, a holocaust survivor & assassin for the CIA. Essentially, he is my version of a Punisher-type character. He also has some James Bond, Men In Black, Nick Fury,  His first appearance will be in HELLFIRE ANNUAL #1.

        SMALLDOG is about a dirty, racist, self-inflated, semi-literate cop on the Mahoning County Police Department, from Harlan, Kentucky, who thinks he's Dirty Harry. Sometimes he does the right thing, sometimes he does the wrong thing. I will tell you straight out the gate that he does side jobs for the mob, 'cause money, and thus you might be able to imagine he'll crossover into the HELLFIRE comics themselves. Presumably, most readers will like him as a character, but not necessarily a person, but then I don't try to tell people how to feel about the things that I write. I'll just tell you that he loves money enough to justify working for an Ashkenazi Jewish mobster, Tommy Dalitz; incase you don't know that last name is Jewish. FYI: The last name Vega isn't Jewish; Tommy's sister (Goldie Dalitz-Vega) married a well-to-do goy. Orlando is his nephew. Danny & Luca are Orlando's cousins. *Also, you're welcome for me not portraying yet another mobster as only being able to be Italian, though that's a thing too – especially in 1970s Youngstown, Ohio. 

       A TOUCH OF HELLFIRE #1-2 are 2x 10-page stand-alone comics that I was initially promised would be green-lit for a horror anthology comic, but now it has been decided that all submissions are subject to review. So, depending on how things go, they'll either be in anthologies or within the HELLFIRE flipbooks themselves.

OTHER CREATOR OWNED COMICS, ETC. THAT DON'T INVOLVE HELLFIRE

• STARCREEP #1

• STARCREEP #2

• WHITE CHAPEL #1

• THIMS #1

        I've often said that the things that I choose to write as creator-owned material are the kind of stuff that I'd enjoy reading. They're not usually superhero genre. They are either focused on abject violence, vigilante justice, horror, or irreverent humor. Quite literally all of these books, just like my 2024 self-published comics, CAT & MOUSE #1, PROPAGANDA COMICS #1, & LARRY BOGUS: BOWLED OVER, are humor-related.

        STARCREEP is a trashy Adult Swim-type outer space parody comic series. WHITE CHAPEL is a dark/British humor book that has Sherlock Holmes facing off against the Jack the Ripper murders, & THIMS will be my MAD MAGAZINE-esque black & white Newsletter.

       Anyway, all of these has their charms. Reading all of this may also have you asking questions like, "Have you really reached out to the CIA about doing pro-CIA propaganda/marketing?", "Have you really been in conversation with notable people who've worked with MAD MAGAZINE?", "Have you really been in contact with major production/movie studios & they replied to you?", "Have you really had big names within comics writing you back & talking about things privately?", "Are you really talking with an assortment of people about doing more within comic book podcasting?", , and other questions like that. Answering those, in the simplest way that I know how to, "YES."