The Weekly Sketchbook

Each week during my 9-5 job's morning meetings, I like to doodle on the service report I print out.  Sometimes the sketches are geometric or nonsensical (at one point I went through a maze faze) and sometimes they give birth to new Heroics or Deviants.

A while back I had come up with this idea of a WWII graphic novel about a bunch of Deviants sent into Germany to fight the Nazis.  I have always been a big WWII fan and movies like the Dirty Dozen, Das Boot, Force 10 and even more recently Band of Brothers or Inglorious Bastards.  Why not then do a mashup of these and Suicide Squad?  It was a fun idea that I rolled around the noodle for a bit but ultimately was never excited enough about to take any further.

Last week, riding the Blue Line in to town, I thought of one of my favorite WWII movies, Kelly's Heroes.  It's a fun romp starring Clint Eastwood and Donald Sutherland about a group of soldiers who want to rob Hitler of some gold.  Hollywood did an update of this a while back starring Clooney called We Three Kings, but Kelly's Heroes did it best.  This got me thinking again about the WWII Deviant idea and what it would look like if they weren't sent in to Germany, but went on their own to rob the Nazis!  Now I was excited.

The morning meeting went on for a while and my pen worked furiously, sketching out the bottom dwelling madmen crazy enough to want to go into a warzone for some gold and glory.

The lineup from left to right are: Mr. Ghastly, a half-zombie; Snowfall, an aging stage magician who can freeze things with a touch; The Ugly Archer; Golden Back, a doctor who made a formula that could turn him into a golden backed gorilla for one hour at a time; Professor Perfect, the most evil genius alive; Blue Dragon, a mystic who can fly and shoot blue flames; Crimson Dame, a mob assassin and the Eyeball, a hypnotist with a flair for the dramatic.

I named them the Filthy Few and the basic idea of the adventure is that the three core members, Ugly Archer, Prof. Perfect and Snowfall all are tired of being beaten up trying to rob banks in Centropolis.  It just so happens that the Archer knows a guy who's brother is over in France and keeps talking about all of the swag they are taking back from the Nazis when they liberate a town.  One bad decision leads to another and off they go.

I won't say much more now, as I'd like to develop this idea further, but keep an eye out for more!

KEB!

Character Profile: Fireballer

Character Profile: Fireballer

The Fireballer isn't the flagship character by any means, to me that is The Grin (Seen above on the blog's title card.) but he has always been my first superhero creation.  First created back in the neon days of 1985, he was a sort of hybrid of Human Torch, Green Lantern and Spider-Man.  An odd combination, to be sure, but my adolescent mind thought it was the coolest idea ever.  Here was a fiery hero who was also part of a galactic army and worked as a photographer on Earth.  [Nebcron Note: When you're a kid, originality can sometimes be a relative concept.]

In those days I would randomly draw my hero on a sheet of paper, fighting against some unnamed galactic villain.  They would shoot beams at each other until the piece of paper was covered in incoherent scribbles and I would throw it away.  It wasn't until '87 that I sat down and made a "comic book" for the Fireballer.  [Nebcron Note: That year I also released the widely popular Teenage Mutant Psycho Ninja Ducks.  Yes, they were ducks and they were psycho, so totally different than the Turtles.  *Sigh*  Also, widely popular meant that five kids in my class read it and wanted a second issue.]

The first and only issue.  Published June 1987.

As you can see, the first iteration of the Fireballer was something of a scribbled man-shaped blob and the story within is a riveting tale of him flying around lighting muggers on fire.  To differentiate him from the Human Torch, I gave him a He Man style cross guard on his chest.  Good times.  Fortunately, as time has gone on, my ability to draw has gotten marginally better.  Another fun fact about the first Fireballer was that he didn't have a name.  He was just the Fireballer; poor fiery sap.  Leafing through the rudimentary pages, which I have purposely not shared here due to overwhelming embarassment, I found that the whole idea of Fireballer being a photographer was never even mentioned or explored.  Alter-egos weren't my thing back then, that's the story I'm going with anyway.

I spent a lot of time drawing during High School in the 90's and even though I created a large number of characters and drew even more for Orvis, I would always come back to Fireballer.

Fireballer 2.0

Here you can see that the Fireballer took a more human form, sans proboscis, and had a eye wrap mask, fiery hair, a wrestler's onesie combining his shirt and pants, boots, gloves and some Liefeld-esque arm bands.  Fireballer still had no alter-ego or name, but he managed to acquire an arch-villain at this point; Hurricane!  [Nebcron Note: Who has since become Hurrikan.  You'll have to wait for a profile on him for more info!]

I can't pin down the era of this next version, but it was somewhere between High School and Los Angeles.  The cross guard made a (thankfully) brief return and Fireballer was starting to shed clothing like Dr. Manhattan.  The FL on the Depends-style underpants was for Fireballer League.  Fireballer thanks me for not sticking with this design for so many reasons.

Moving along in the 90's, living in Los Angeles gave me more time to draw as I worked in a comic shop.  I created a series of posters for a giant universe spanning series a la Zero Hour.  It was called Angel's Falling and of course, Fireballer was the star of one of the posters.  The clothing is once again gone, replaced by flames.  [Nebcron Note: The streaks in the back are the Mysoni, an alien race of living technology.  This was their first appearance on paper.]

Finally, we get to the current era of the Fireballer.  After the launch of Nebcron Comics in 2004, the Fireballer was relegated to a Silver Age, team of old called the Samaritans.  That team disbanded and the Fireballer took to the stars, never to be seen again.  There he might have remained if I hadn't come up with two origin stories for a character named White Star.  I loved both stories so much that I struggled to let one of them go, so I re-worked the idea, changed one to be the Fireballer and ushered the my original superhero into the current era of Nebcron.

Fireballer circa 2016!

For me, this is the final version of the character.  His hero form is human, but glows golden yellow.  The white bands are not set, but instead move along his body.  It might be a little dizzying in live action, if the Fireballer were ever so lucky to make it there, but I like the idea and it adds a little throwback element to that original cross guard design.  [Nebcron Note: The above is a generic human form I found online and edited to meet my needs.]  The age in the picture is probably wrong as the current Fireballer would be about 16.  And he finally has a name, a truly respectable superhero name; Andy Abbott.

I have a rough breakdown of the first Fireballer graphic novel down on paper and hope at some point to give it some life.  I won't give much more info on who Andy is now or what his background is because those are elements that take life through the tale, but I'm pleased with how the idea has grown and evolved over the years.

KEB!  [Keep 'em Burnin!]

The Past is Prologue

Nebcron Comics logo

The idea of Nebcron Comics has been a long time in forming.  I started putting it together in 2004 with a semi-thought out team called The Power Company.  (Yes, I'm aware DC published a limited series with a similar name, but other than name the two are wholly unrelated.)  It was truly the first venture in a long time that hadn't been in some way connected to Orvis's Snowboy Comics Universe.  I spoke with various artists throughout the community and got some fantastic art, but really nothing became of the Power Company in that incarnation.  And truly, other than my own musings, Nebcron Comics itself went into a sort of dormancy.  I've continued creating and commissioning art here and there, but aside from that the universe my heroes existed in only felt half-formed.

Then in July, 2013 I lost my co-creator, my best friend, the guy I had experienced so much of my life with.  It was difficult to know that someone so passionate about comic books, superheroes and their exploits would no longer be around to discuss new developments.  Thankfully, before he passed away, Steve wrote down a guidebook to the Snowboy Universe.  Speaking with Steve's family and his widow, Beth, I gained their blessing to take that Universe and bring it to life.

Logo I created for Steve for
Snowboy Comics

 What followed from there was something akin to Crisis on Infinite Earths where two Universes, who were connected by shared characters yet very different, smashed together.  When the pieces of that almagamation settled, I found that the history I yearned for with Nebcron was provided by Snowboy and the rich tapestry Steve painted.

My goal from here is to lay out the combined Universe and share with you all the various notes, character designs, tidbits and ideas that Steve and I put so much time and love in to.  I'm currently working on what I hope will morph in to graphic novels retelling the history of the world, but until that happens, I at least have this outlet.  Below is the first page from the first graphic novel entitled, Elder Days.  The image is Orvar the Havoc Magus returning to his castle stronghold.

Pg 1 - Elder Days

As Steve loved to say, "Keep 'em burning!"