Another "Neverland" Sneak Peek....

So, I know I haven't been around, but I have been working very hard on Neverland: The Untold...which should be coming to you very soon. Katie Coats is, as we speak, drawing her ass off, working on Issue 1, so you'll know as soon as we're ready to go. Until then, here's another sneak peek at what we're up to.

I definitely wanted to create a Captain Hook that sort of has a signature look and feel all his own. Hook being one of my favorite films, I definitely loved the idea of him being this gentleman pirate who is sort of a learned man leading an army of brutes and cutthroats. The original idea for his look was inspired by Freddie Mercury. This will be much more apparent in other scenes when he's not wearing his wig (Yes, that's a wig). There are also times when he invokes Prince and Michael Jackson in his attitude and swagger. The script often plays him straight while the look is definitely that of an extravagant rock star. Expect even more twists and new takes on old characters. I'm working on the website as we speak so keep a look out.

In the meantime, as always, you can still find my comic reviews for the week on Black Nerd Problems. This week, I took a look at Batman Eternal and All New X-Men.

Sneak Peek of Awesome Shit

Okay, so those of you that don't already know (which, apparently, is several of you) deserve to know what I've been up to that has taken me away from writing as much content as I used to. Well...aside from writing for Black Nerd Problems. Here's a sneak peek of my upcoming webcomic, Neverland: The Untold. The art comes compliments of none other than Katie Coats, who is a dear friend and an incredible talent. She approached me with these old sketches she'd done in college of Peter Pan and the Darling family. I was immediately smitten with her vision and unearthed some old notes I'd jotted down ages ago. I pitched her for the hell of it and we decided we had something here.

Basically, it's reimagining of Peter Pan that offers some modern sensibilities to some time honored characters. I've always been in love with the Neverland mythos, but one thing that has always bothered me is how racially problematic some aspects are. I mean, there were whooping, hollering, feather-wearing savage "indians" in the stories. Aside from that, the stories are extremely white. I wanted to tell THIS story, but if I was going to tell it, I wanted brown faces to look at while I do.

Anyway, Katie posted the initial pencils for the first couple of pages on Twitter so I figured I'd share them here with you guys. The official website will be up soon, but until then bare with me since I probably won't be as consistent with content as I've previously been. Looking forward to you all seeing what we have coming.

.....About the Ninja Turtles Trailer

Friend: Have you watched the new Ninja Turtles trailer?

Me: Nope.

Friend: You wanna see it?

Me: The trailer? Not particularly.

Friend: Oh....

Me: You want me to watch it right now, don't you?

Friend: What makes you say that?

Me: You JUST sent the link to my inbox, man.

Friend: Well, I'm just curious about your take on it.

Me: You mean "I'm the only person you know who's nerdy enough to talk to you about this shit."

Friend: Pretty much.

Me: I need new friends. **clicks link**




Friend: It's sort of destructive for a Ninja Turtles movie.

Me: Right. Because any self respecting Ninja Turtles movie should always maintain a baseline destruction level of just crashing a Vanilla Ice concert.

Friend: Do you think they'll try that again? What would be the relevant equivalent of a Vanilla Ice concert?

Me: Probably a Justin Bieber concert. I sort of hope that happens in the movie.

Friend: I never had you pegged as a victim of Bieber Fever.

Me: I'm not. I just think if he shows up in this movie, it might speed up the countdown clock until he jumps the shark.

Friend: Good point.

Me: Wait...is that William Fichtner?

Friend: As the Shredder. Michael Bay wasted no time whitewashing this shit, did he?

Me: Well, let's see...an evil Japanese ninja overlord dressed in ginsu knives trying to destroy New York City? Oh, I'm sure the Asian community would just love that shit.

Friend: But then it's a white guy dressing up like someone we KNOW is an evil Japanese overlord trying to destroy New York City.

Me: Right, but it's William Fichtner, so he'll probably kill it regardless. And we don't exactly know how all that's been retconned since....and I can't stress this enough....this is a trailer and NOT THE MOVIE. I feel I have to remind you this trailer isn't the actual movie because the nerd rage about this trailer is in overflow as if this trailer were the movie. It's not the movie. I've now reminded you three times.

Friend: It's scenes from the movie we're going to see. We're seeing this, by the way.

Me: That door swings both ways. Remember the trailer for Jumper? That looked awesome. The end result was that movie being extremely non-awesome.

Friend: That doesn't count. Hayden Christensen was in it, so it was destined to fail.

Me: This movie has Megan Fox in it. Doesn't that make it sort of starcrossed?

Friend: Point taken.

Me: Thank you. I want expedited shipping for my trophy, please.

Friend: Those turtles sure seem REALLY superhuman.

Me: First off, they weren't human to begin with.

Friend: So, you're saying Michelangelo didn't start out as Corey Feldman?

Me: Well, as far as I know, the Turtles weren't mutated by cocaine so I'm going to say no. Second of all, they're MUTANT Ninja Turtles, so the rules of nature don't apply hardcore to them anymore than they do to Spider-Man.

Friend: I'm not so sure about the design of their faces. They're funny looking.

Me: Remind me how the old Turtles all looked like Ryan Gosling.

Friend: Well....

Me: That's sarcasm, by the way. They didn't. It's a little silly to complain that MUTANT anything is supposed to be pretty.

Friend: Sure, but do they have to look like Shrek?

Me: You're asking a lot from a movie with Megan Fox in it about Mutant turtles who are all basically Daredevil.

Friend: Well, what kind of nerds would we be if we didn't ask a lot from decent properties with ridiculous premises?

Me: Logical ones.

Friend: Okay...but who the fuck wants that?

Me: You have a point there.

Friend: Do I?

Me: No, not really.