Feb09
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Jan20
Would you play Cosmic Hellcats the Role Playing Game?
on January 20, 2012 at 6:30 pmPosted In: Announcements
Image via Wikipedia
I had this idea a while back to make a Cosmic Hellcats RPG, probably based on the d20 system. I worked on some basics for like one night and then never touched it again, but for some strange reason today I just feel the urge to do it again. I don’t even know if people would want such a thing. But it’s just totally stuck in my head. Maybe a lot of it is just me wanting to flesh out the mechanics of the Hellcats Universe a little farther. Or maybe I’m just feeling particularly geeky. I dunno. I’m in into it.
You know, because like the other 1 million things I’m working on aren’t sucking up enough of my life.
Anyway, the question is, would other people actually be interested in such a thing? And if I were to do it, how involved would it need to be. Does a roll-your-own RPG need to be complete and full featured (meaning would I have to have a big huge thing like d20 Modern or Dungeons and Dragons), or do people get the basic concept of d20 and having a small pamphlet like my favorite role playing game, the original Macho Women With Guns (which frankly might be good enough to be a Hellcats game in and of itself). How detailed would people want it to be? What types of characters and mechanics should be covered? Would anyone ever actually even play such a game?
Does it need to be a print book or would it be cool to be a digital book for Kindles and iPads? (maybe the whole iPad iBooks stuff that came out yesterday is what has me thinking about this in the first place).
And of course, are you willing to wait around for years til I actually get around to finishing such a thing? (Like Katt and Dawg, which I posted about earlier, and which I swear, I’ll have done soon… really… I totally will… honest engine!)
What do you think?
-Mav
∑8x)
So quite a while ago, I made a post in the blog about how I’d be working on a companion book to Hellcats that I was calling Katt and Dawg. I actually wrote and pencilled it during 24 hour comic day in 2010. But that’s as far as I got. Didn’t have time to ink it or work on it much at all. Sometime later, the main two characters from that book ended up showing up in the main strip here and I started thinking I really really really really wanted to finish that book. So I started working on it in my spare time. I’m actually pretty closed to finished now.
When it’s done, Katt and Dawg will be a 24 page standalone paper comic. It’s going to be a lot more adult oriented than what you see in the main Hellcats strip, meaning Katt and Dawg get to be themselves. In other words, there are lots of naughty words, nudity and gratuitous killing… but you know… in a fun way. Kind of what you saw in the Raining Katt and Dawg mini-arc I did a little while ago, but more so. I don’t intend to publish it to the web (we like to try to keep things PG-13 here), but I figured I’d sell it at the comic conventions that Max and I go to and maybe make it available for order on the website here just like our other books in the Hellcats bookstore (which you should totally check out and order copies if you don’t have them).
A sample of one of the pages is below. Just to give you a taste. So, anyway, what do people think. Would you be interested in the uncensored adventures of Katt and Dawg?
-Mav
∑8x)
a work-in-progress sample page from Katt and Dawg,
Delilah
You know what we haven’t done in a while? We haven’t posted a picture of one of the Real Life Hellcats. Well, let’s fix that.
She hasn’t had a whole lot to do in this storyline, but you have probably seen Delilah on board the CH-99 fighting against Junior and Jessi. She’s the redhead with the killer tattoo on her arm. She was also at Pittsburgh Comicon with us earlier this year when Riley couldn’t make it. So hopefully we might be seeing more of her sometime soon. Anyway, here’s her official Hellcat’s poster for you to enjoy. Hope you like it.
-Mav
∑8x)
Day 1 of the new era.
First of all, I want to wish everyone a Happy New Years. I hope you’re still enjoying Cosmic Hellcats (and I guess if you weren’t you wouldn’t be reading this). Thank you for sticking with us all this time, especially with our substitute Hellcats Cosmoses we’ve been having to do more often during the holidays.
Once upon a time, way before there was a Cosmic Hellcats, I did a little project online that I called 365 Days. One photo, a self-portrait, every day for a year. It was a lot of fun and I even wrote a book about it.
I eventually walked away from the whole thing. But lately I’ve been wanting to explore the idea again. If you follow me on twitter, @chrismaverick (and if you’re not, you should be. And you should also follow our official feed, @cosmichellcats), then maybe you saw me talk about the fact that I was thinking of jumping back in. So I’m going to attempt it. I don’t think I’ll be posting them all here. But if you want to follow it, I’m posting them on flickr and probably my personal website until I figure it out.
-Mav
∑8x)
Image via Wikipedia
So the Washington Post has this contest for favorite webcomic of the year. We want to win it. You know, because we’re all egotistical and stuff. And also, because we love doing Hellcats and want people to love reading it.
So anyway, if you love us as much as we love you, then you’ll do us a favor and go over to the Post’s Comic Riff’s blog and nominate CosmicHellcats.com as your favorite webcomic. And if you don’t love us? Well, then I’m coming to your house and drowning your puppy.
So take a moment and nominate us. We get recognition and you get to keep your dog. It’s totally win-win!
And while you’re at it, if your friends aren’t reading Hellcats, don’t you think they should be? And if they refuse? Well, then are they really the kind of people who you want to be friends with anyway? And are they kind of people that deserve to have puppies? I’m not encouraging you to do anything to their puppies of course. I’m just sayin’ is all. *wink-wink*
Max and I were at Wizard World‘s Mid Ohio Comicon last weekend and of course I took lots of photos. And for a crazy change of pace I thought I’d actually post them right away instead of being lame and waiting for weeks or months to go by. Yeah, crazy, I know. Don’t get used to it.
We had a lot of fun, as always and look forward to the next time we get to go to a show.
-Mav
∑8x)
Our friend Nick over at Audioshocker is running another round of Project Basement and I jumped in yet again. This season’s theme is “Good guys doing bad things” and “Bad guys doing good things.” I took a little bit of a different direction than what Nick had in mind. So go on over there and check it out.
Spidey and Mary Jane
Oct20
Max and Mav at Mid-Ohio Comic Con this weekend
on October 20, 2011 at 8:36 pmPosted In: Announcements
If you’re a comic fan and you live in the Columbus, Ohio area or anywhere close to that, then you should certainly come out to Mid-Ohio Comic Con (by Wizard World) this weekend. Max and I will be there set up, selling and signing books. We certainly hope to see you there.
Oct14
Interview with Mav, Max and Sarah at Baltimore Comicon
on October 14, 2011 at 5:42 pmPosted In: Announcements
A few weeks ago when we attended Baltimore Comicon, Max, Sarah and I were interviewed by Sorgotron Media‘s podcast. I didn’t see it was online til today. But check it out!
Starfire from the DC New 52 title: Red Hood and the Outlaws
(fair warning, herein be SPOILERS for the last month of DC Comics. You have been warned).
So, back in June, I talked about my feelings on the (then) impending reboot of the DC Universe. Now, as of last week, the entire line has debuted as we’re beginning the second month of the storylines, so I’ve had some time to read and reflect on what’s been going on there and so i figured I, like every other comic book geek out there with access to a blog, might as well share some of my thoughts.
Given the fact that I was pretty vocally against the entire revamp, it might be surprising for some to know that I actually went into this with as much of an open mind as I could muster. As a general rule I am against the very concept of retconning. One of my favorite things about serialized storytelling is that each storyline builds upon the previously established continuity. In fact, the thing I love best about the big two (Marvel and DC Comics) is the collaborative nature in which this occurs. While I find a greatly appreciate in an ongoing serial written by one person or team (in fact I write one), it’s always fascinating to see how a new writer builds upon the previously established mythos of the sum total of their predecessors.
My biggest problem with the whole New 52 thing was really that it removes that concept. While DC publicly announced that this was a “soft reboot” and that some of the old stories would remain in continuity, that essentially removed my favorite thing about collaborative storytelling. One of the most fundamental rules about stage improv performances is that anything goes. No matter what one performer says, other performers aren’t allowed to contradict it. They can build upon it, but everything that happens is canon. Retcons ignore this, and as such I hate them. I consider them lazy storytelling.
Death of Supergirl from Crisis on Infinitie Earths
The fascinating thing about Crisis on Infinite Earths is that it wasn’t really a retcon. It was a reboot, yes, but Crisis firmly establishes that everything that had happened up until that point “still happened.” No one could remember it, but there were ramifications of the story that affected the ongoing Universe. Honestly, I could still have done without it, but what made it mostly acceptable was that the stories that came after it were GOOD! And the story of Crisis itself was GOOD. Eventually, we as readers were able to accept the Crisis because if nothing else, good storytelling came out of it.
So anyway, because of this, I decided that I’d give the New 52 a fair chance. I’d read everything with an open mind. Maybe it would surprise me. So starting with Flashpoint, the story that launched the line (much like Crisis before it)… well, it didn’t leave me very optimistic. Honestly, I didn’t even read the entire thing. Everytime I picked it up, I just found that I really didn’t care. And I didn’t care about the crossovers. Oh well, they can’t all be winners. Crisis was one of the greatest miniseries ever. That doesn’t mean the new line can’t be good.
And that’s what I get for getting my hopes up.
