Hello, Internet! How are you all?

If you haven’t heard, we at Ideal Comics, along with the Monument Mall, are hosting the High Plains Mini-Con. We have invited a number of local and regional indie comic creators to participate, and it is going to be a real fun time!

The High Plains Mini-Con will be taking place on October 6th and 7th. The meat of the Con is happening on Saturday, with panel discussions, Q&A sessions, live music, and a CosPlay contest. The mall open at 10A, and the Con will run until 5:30P or so. On Friday night we will he having a special preview with some of the local creators starting about 3P.

As part of the Mini-Con, we are hosting a 24-Hr Comic event, starting 3-4 on Friday, October 6th, and running until close, and picking up again at 8 AM!

Another highlight of the Mini-Con is a special talk by comics stalwart Ron Fortier. A 30+ year veteran of the comics scene, Fortier has written such characters as Terminator, Popeye, and pulp heroes like the Black Bat and Domino Lady. Plus, Ron was the architect of NOW Comics 1990’s relaunch of the Green Hornet, turning the Radio star into a multi-generational superhero epic! He will be presenting on Super-Heroes in American Fiction!

Here is a full list of guest vendors and exhibtors follows:

Ideal Comics, (Featuring Barry Tetz and Rhys)
Ron Fortier
Todd Jones of Wicked Awesome Tales
Z-Bites writer/creator Chris Lore
J.p. Biernacki and crew
Ensemble Comics‘ artist and co-owner Jon Bonjour
Angry Kitten Juice
Ronald Shaw Art

We are also going to be featuring content from:

A Geek Out of Place, Vann and Chip, Brandan Stolen, Gabriel Tyce Bruton (Gabriel the Brute), and Darby Ellis Lewis Wilson of Super University for College Kids!

You can click on the links below to download a bevy of .pdf information:

2017 cosplay contest        2017 public Schedule       24hr rules

So, come on down and dig nerd culture in your own backyard!

Has it really been a year?

And what a year it has been! We finished and then re-finished Zing#2, released a special edition of Zing #1, taught a comics class, launched a massive cross-over on “Forces of Good and Evil”, published a handful of mini-comics and attended several comic-cons! Man, you’d think with all that activity we would find some time to write a little about it on or humble ‘blog, right?

Don’t you judge me!

But in all seriousness, we haven’t, just haven’t, gotten this blog together. So, for whatever reason, today we return to the ‘blog to talk, randomly about things IC related.

First, we are excited to return to the Monument Mall, Scottsbluff NE, for another Coins, Cards, and Collectables Show. It is happening on September , from 10A until we 5P. Last year was fun as we shared a table with “Forces” artist Rolf Gerdau. Not sure if Rolf is joining us on the 23rd or not, but time will tell!

Speaking of Rolf, he has been knocking them out of the park, whether on mini-comics or coloring books, or on “Forces”. In case you don’t follow, we are still telling our Chad opus–outlining summer vacation and Chad’s search for his mother’s mysterious past! The current chapter, Plain History, is part travelogue, part cyber-fantasy, and features guest star, cameos, and crossovers with five other contemporaneous webcomics: “Cortland”, “Netrek”, “Super University”, and “The Adventures of Seth and Murphy “(and a brief cameo from “Elf Only Inn“) This story is a kick and a half to write and great to see drawn.

For those of you in vista-ready Colorado, we will also be making an appearance at the Rocky Mountain Con out by the airport. The Con is the last weekend in September, and we are pretty stoked! we hope to have two new products ready for this outing, too: a long form coloring book adventure starring “Forces” darling Rapunzel; and and Expositioner mini-comic with art by Barry Tetz!  And all that event is going down the weekend of 9/30?
That following weekend we will be back in the home stomping grounds! We are co-hosting Scottsbluff’s first ever nerd fest and Mini-Con. The High Plains Mini-Con will feature a handfull of local indie comics and nerd-content creators, and will be located at center court of the Monument mall. We are also hosting a handful of panels and live music! The highligjht of the day, aside from supporting indie comics, will be a talk by comics legend Ron Fortier about the history of the superhero in American literature!

We are still working out details, but watch this space for news! So mark down October 7th, 10A-5P on your calendar, and swing by the Monument Mall, for the best in comicbooking in the Panhandle and beyond! And don’t forget, the event is free!

Hello, Internet! Things have been wild and reeling around the old IC offices! Two weekends ago we had a great time selling comics and meeting folks at the Fort Collins Comics Convention! Between running into folks we met in Cheyenne, or meeting new folks from the Front Range Comics scene, to connecting with fans (who might even turn into fans of ours!), it was a good time.

One highlight for me was the chance to meet Dan Conner and Patricia Krmpotich of My Gal the Zombie, a web and print comic I recently discovered and that you all ought to be reading. Dan has a real DIY ethic and a natural sense of comic book history, creating something classic and modern at the same time. Patricia has been writing the last few printed comics, and her instant grasp of the emotional core of the characters has been more than impressive!

We, of course, had copies of our anthology titles for sale, and after a eight years of limbo, it was good to get paper comics into the hands of folks!

Which brings us to the news for the weekend. Barry and I are going to be hosting a booth at our home stomping grounds in Scottsbluff NE. This Saturday, starting at 9:00 AM, The Monument mall is hosing a Coins, Cards, and Collectibles Show; and Ideal Comics will be there with bells on. Strike that–but we will have our booth and banner and a table full of comics. So get ready, Scottsbluff, because it is an Ideal Comics world now! Sorta. Just give me this, folks! (BTW, the illustration above is taken from Zing #2, art by Levi Irwin, with edits by me. Thanks, Levi!)

Also, ICYMI, we have a brand new Encyclopedia entry for you all the check out! More to come, too!

On another track, now that things are wrapped with all the Zing 2 craziness, we are trying to get back into the ‘Forces’ swing, with two updates a week. Rolf has been giving us some great art, and we are very excited to share it with you!

Well that is about all the news. Until next time, Happy Reading!

It was the year 1939, and war had again come to Europe as Germany flexed it’s muscles and Hitler lead his people into his increasingly totalitarian and racist dream. Across the World, much of America stood on the knife’s edge between a fragile recovery and poverty, between law and crime, between peace and violence.

Into such an America came a man from the sky. Out in distant space sat the planet Aquarius, and it’s amphibious leaders had watched and studied our planet. They had seed the colonial era and westward expansion. They had witnessed slavery and violence and war; and they now saw that the human race had again set itself on a road to cataclysm. Into this maelstrom of ideas, the Aquarians sent a messenger of peace and of voluntary cooperation—a champion possessed of un-paralleled speed—a man named Mar Yam-Llyr.

In a golden rocket, he blasted through space and through time, Mar Yam-Llyr landed in Presidio, CA, and quickly found himself numbered among the first ranks of mystery men under the code name The Golden Rapid. Along with his compatriots in the Foreign Legion, the Rapid defended the shores of America before joining the fray of WWII.

After the end of the war, the Golden Rapid and the rest of the Legion traveled the world, using alien technology to heal the land ravaged by the war, teaching the people to live all the better off the land. When he was not abroad, The Rapid made his home in Presidio, California where he trained local boy Gil Henderson as a side-kick.

In 1951, Yam-Llyr received a panicked communication from Aquarius, stating that the planet was in danger. Boarding his rocket, he left earth behind…

Credits:
Created by: Mathew D. Rhys; Christopher David Lawton
Designed by: Richard Depew; Matthew D. Rhys
Image by: Richard Depew; Matthew D. Rhys (colors)

It is another Throwback Thursday, and we at Ideal Comics want to share another new cover for an old story. This, our 22nd story, is a novella-sized, Greg-centric epic; and follows Nerd-and-friends on a cross-country trip to the  Fremont City, CO where all manner of chaos erupts! Ideal Comics is proud to re-present “National Villainy!”

This cover features a multi-media collaboration between Rolf Gerdau and Mathew D. Rhys; while the interior art was done by Rhys, Chris Lawton, Barry Tetz and Joseph Carradine. It’s an extravaganza, folks!

You might have noticed that things have been a little slow over on Forces of Good and Evil. While there are reasons (and if you were following us there, you’d already know that!),  we at Ideal Comics still want to share as many goodies with you as we can! So on this #ThrowbackThursday, let’s call back to our second Chad-centric story–complete with a brand new cover from young artist “Michael Van Reese”. We are proud to re-present “Gym Class: Hijinks and Hi-jacks!”

In Case You Missed It, as anyone who knows me can attest, I am a huge fan of old things—old music, old stories, old whiskey.

AHEM.

Imagine my glee in finding a classic Star Wars Marvel comic from 1979 made by two giants—Archie Goodwin and Carmine Infantino! Follow me to Gaming Rebellion as I ask the question “Whatever Happened to Jabba the Hutt?”

Hello, Internet! To any of you who may have followed my column over at Ideal Comics, it is no surprise that I have a lot of comics. A lot. Now, I wouldn’t say I have an excessive amount or anything, but I do own several file cabinets whose only purpose is to hold comics–five of them, in fact.

Time was that I had all my books bagged and boarded and sorted by title and publication date; and all the good stuff Gen-X-nerds were supposed to do. In my mid-20’s I got just a little bit prosperous, and signed up for a comic subscription service, then I got busy and then I got poor again; and before you could say “limited edition, foil-embossed cover” I had a problem.

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In Case You Missed It, back in December, I mentioned that I was moving “Quarterbin Follies” off site. I was offered a spot over at Gaming Rebellion, and it seemed like a great venue to rant about the hits and misses of the stacks of comics in my file cabinets.

Now, I am not going any where. You will still find me puttering about the Ideal Comics offices, muttering about continuity and symbolism; it is only that the GR guys offered me a hell of a soapbox. (Though I ought to climb on top more often.) Nevertheless, I didn’t want to leave behind any folks that might watch this space; so without further ado, a live teaser for “Quarterbin Follies #32: It takes a Miracle”

Today’s story begins at the end. The very end.

Ragnorok.

Jack Kirby, when working with Stan the Man on The Mighty Thor, well, Kirby decided to go out with a bang. In a series of back-ups called “Tales of Asgard” Kirby laid out the end of Asgard and the House of Ideas’ Aesir, as he adapted Ragnarok for the 616. This was “prophecy,” a fore-telling from the mind of the King, rather then the direction Marvel editorial would have one of their stars go.

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Hello, Internet!  We here at the Scottsbluff offices of Ideal Comics are fresh from the floor of the Cheyenne Comic Con. It was a real great time as we spent three days talking about comics and handing our free Ideal Comics coloring books. Free, you ask? Yep, super free. Because that is how we roll.

We decided on an experiment: mini-coloring book of eight pages featuring brand-new adventures of our Golden Age stalwarts Al Djinn and Night Terror–complete ‘Golden Age’ style stories in eight pictures.

We had a lot of great feedback on both the coloring books and the company as a whole, and it really made us take a step back and reassess our position. Since we released our first anthology Zing Comics #1 in 2007, a lot of water has passed under the bridge. Life has moved on, and we have just been bobbing along. Well, this summer going to be the Summer of Ideal Comics. We have plans to redouble our efforts to finish the long awaited Zing Comics #2 as well as finish the Special Edition of Zing Comics #1 (and digital editions of both). As things move on with these projects, we have a few more projects to announce in coming months, so stay tuned.

But with every step forward you run the risk of loss. We have decided to change our update schedule for our web-comic Forces of Good and Evil from twice weekly to every Friday. We are super pleased with the relaunch, and love what Rolf Gerdau has been faithfully bringing to the table; but we also don’t want to lose quality as we press toward this mark!

We are greatly excited, and hope you will take this journey with us!