Comics UK

Thanks Muffy, glad you're enjoying this thread's world of weird. UK comics buffs may disagree on all sorts, but I figure we've got to stick together, we're a dying breed. Maybe one day they'll have us all stuffed, mounted and displayed to Angry Birds-playing visitors of virtual reality-museums, who instead of being asked to make a small donation, are required to 'like' or 'give the finger' via their cranial 'Snapchat' implants...

...not as far in the future as we might expect, either- but hopefully far enough.

Sometimes, as I'm working on the script for this thing, I wonder if I should include a moment when someone says something like 'Now... you must take this... I am dying... the Lifestar™® is all that matters now!'

If I succumb, feel free to have me taken out and shot, by the way- just make it quick (there's nothing in Gods called a Lifestar, by the way- so any buzzards circling out there, knock yourselves out).

Mountain Fortress - recessed meridian staging city



"Two inbound on the south wall, Lord Nargun. "
"Then they're running out of ideas."

Wraith Queen.

Ryzar, ancientmost of the Elder gods, has been long in bed with forces steeped deeper yet in darkest prehistory.... a pact whose nature the being should have perhaps scrutinized more closely before undertaking a war dependent on their unquestioning obedience.

"Heed them raise their peaceful hand.... now I take my knife... fill the night with scare..."

I have to say Michael i am enjoying your art as well you are very talented keep it up

Thank you Bri! Whether they're rough and ready sketches or sometimes slightly more finished numbers, I do enjoy sharing my development process with you guys and girls. It'd be nice to display broader portions of non-illustrated script also, to see if people feel any affinity for the actual storyline of this thing and to get their advice- but there's only so much patience I can presume upon from you all!

Some of you may have noticed a bit of a horror vibe from a few of the images, but I figure the Mundar yaks are- unintentionally- the most disconcerting of this thread's menagerie of characters.

Rayken Shorde head studies.



"Cyger- I need you to put that... fruit... down."

"Ray, I'm starting to think I'll never remember when I last ate. These things may look like they came out the back end of a bullrat but they smell like the best thing to come off a tree since frikkin' Eden."

"'That's 'cause they are from Eden. Specifically, Lorn- first rock ever lumbered with the snot smears that ended up as you and me. Well you, anyway. Yam down one those things and inside a minute you'll curl up so bad, death by gut shot'll seem like the best Christmas you ever had."

"Figures- feels like I followed the scent here all the way from the ravine. Looks like whoever owns this boat's hauling enough to honeytrap half a planet-

"Well it's sure not for his own amusement. This spread doesn't exactly scream Evil Genius. Am I boring you?"

"'Rad counter's going AWOL that direction- buck gets ten whatever was stored at far end of this hold lately's what the guy took as payment."

"Cyger, I assumed that oak leaf didn't come out of a cracker. You... do know what AWOL means, right?"

"Mm? Uh, yeah. Sure. Sure..."

"Nothin' like a good shoot, huh, sarge?"
"Shuddup, Nichols!"

GDR (Global Defense Restitution) Shocktrooper

The Global Defense Restitution governing the planet Aldar fail to get the ragtag pockets superhuman Slayers on message over plans to tackle the Great Incursion.

With swathes of the population already scoured or Turned by the enemy, the claims of the 'battlefield'-suited renegades that the enemy's defenses include an all-destroying, impassable failsafe go unheard.

Not to be outdone, the GDR troops dig up a slew of old heavy plant long consigned to history for a reason.

Busted-down Grenadier Sgt Vance Hillbrandt fancies himself as the venerable leader-in-all-but-name of infantryman Major Cade Cyger's rowdy band of Slayers, and something of a surrogate father to the man himself.

While he's not exactly deluded, both the Lightlord High Priestess known as the Scryer and Defence Vice Secretary Amber Weststar soon prove themselves higher up the chain of command.

Conversely, Cyger possessed only the most threadbare handle on his own work-life balance to begin with. When the enemy take his own son hostage at the commencement of the invasion, he soon becomes anything but anyone's blue-eye boy.



"Hell’re you all still skulkin’ around for? Hustle!"

Though spared the rigours of physical combat and free to ruminate in her garden temples within the Fortress, Battlelord Commander Cyviah bears the responsibility of warding off the telepathic 'attacks' (ie negotiation entreaties to her Lordmaster Ryzar) from the Scryer.



"No, seriously, Kate- Fenn may be Captain frikkin' Cro-mag but his baby is just too frickin' cute- I'm probably gonna have to have it for dinner."

Unsuprisingly Aldar's populations take exception to Mt Fortress's Gaunt troopers Turning to them to beef up their already considerable numbers. However the sight of one training an 'Iron Crucix' on you from the rafters can work wonders to convince of the upside of conscription.

Some early FX-test sequentials, undialogued. All a little testosterADD, but didn't turn out as far off from the kaleidoscopic grandeur I was aiming for as I expected.