6-Commando

Alas, we’ve had a little hiccup here.  Tazio Bettin, who was to draw this week’s page, has had to bail, unfortunately.  I’m disappointed, I admit, since I’m a huge fan of his work, but we all have lives to live and I wish him the best – maybe we’ll yet collaborate on something else in the future.

But not to worry!  In one of those sublime coincidences which, as I say, happen only in real life and great fiction, I had, this week, an offer of guest work from someone else, pretty much out of the blue.  Héctor Rodriguez, known also as “Héc,” writes and illustrates the unconventional comic “El Peso Hero,” a unique superhero comic set on  the US-Mexico border, and deals with issues confronting the inhabitants of this difficult and often volatile region.  Being a kindred spirit in confronting the geopolitics of the twentieth and twenty-first century world, the issues our comics deal with have intersected on more than one occasion, and I was thrilled to have had his offer, just in the nick of time!  El Peso Hero has come to the rescue!

Héc’s page will go up next week, – I can’t wait to see it!

In the meantime, I have a few things to tantalize you with.  First, above, you see the cover to Part 1 of 6-Commando, or at least, a less-conventional design I’m considering.  If you don’t know or haven’t put it together yet, I’m enormously inspired by the work of Japanese modeller and sculptor Kow Yokoyama, whose series “S.F.3.D. Original,” later retitled “Maschinen Kreiger Zb.V 3000” is where I first found my early fascination for retro science fiction.  If you haven’t seen any of Yokoyama’s work, look it up – it’s one of the most interesting pieces of art and world-building out there, ripe for comics and animation but existing only in a continuum of model-builders and enthusiasts.  Really cool stuff, though.  So I patterned this cover on one of the old model kit boxes from S.F.3.D. Original, as an homage to Yokoyama’s series.

Second, I am very pleased to announce that Christopher Wrann, who wrote the little interlude we’re all enjoying here on 6-Commando, has released his first book.  Aquarium Drinking, Chris’ comic, is now in print, available at Amazon.com, and with a foreword by yours truly, to boot!  So swing on over and pick up a copy, and take a moment, if you have it, to send your congratulations to Chris on his achievement.  It’s no small feat, let me tell you!

And finally, I’m putting in this little graphic, and I’ll leave it to your imagination to figure out what THIS is all about.  I’ll say no more. 🙂

So there we are!  Sorry for the little interruption, but we’ll be back on track next week!  See you then!