Ten Notes on Page 266

by on March 22, 2019
Posted In: Uncategorized

Page 266 has made its debut here on the prime material plane. Make sure you’ve read it, and then read on, for notes!


1. Another killer page from Josh Burnett! Josh said that he didn’t have any thoughts to share on this page–other than the fact that he enjoys drawing people punching Nazis–but he probably will about next week’s page.

2. Josh is currently running a successful Kickstarter campaign for an RPG zine called Draugr & Draculas.

On the site, Josh describes it thus:

Draugr & Draculas is a one-off zine for old-stye/OSR roleplaying adventure games. Dr&Dr focuses on vampires, undead, and spooky horror magic for use in your own fantasy RPG campaigns. The zine will be entirely written and illustrated by me, Josh Burnett. In accordance with the Zine Quest guidelines, Draugr & Draculas will be a 5.5” x 8.5” zine, staple-bound and printed in black-and-white. I estimate it should clock in at around 24-32 pages.

You can get a digital copy for $5, and a print copy for $10. I backed it–maybe you should, too!

3. I’m eager to get this story moving, but I still thought it was important to throw in this flashback. This is a story about Beowulf & Chrysanthemum, that’s appearing on the Electric Team website, so I thought it would be good if the Electric Team made an appearance, even if it’s just for a panel. I also really liked the idea of seeing Josh draw Leeta and Zarko, which he’s never done before.

4. When Josh first colored this page, I was like, “Oh, he made Leeta’s armor the wrong color,” and then I realized, “This is a comic with a limited and constantly changing color palette, most people probably don’t know what colors the characters’ outfits are, do they?” And then when I looked at it, I realized you could only see the “official” colors in a few places. I should probably do something about that. Anyway, I sent Josh a full-color picture of Leeta, and he corrected the armor.

5. The other reason I wanted to include the flashback was to make the sequence of events explicit–the scene from The Electric Team #8 where they fought the Nazis is now clearly identified as happening yesterday. This story is continuing the fight-the-Nazis storyline, just without the Electric Team.

6. Again, Abi wrote most of Chrysanthemum’s dialogue. She also named the Minixo.   

7. “God’s teeth!” is an Elizabethan swear, so it’s about 600 years too recent for Beowulf. Still, it sounds old-timey, Beowulf is old-timey, and no one claimed this comic was historically accurate . . .

8. Like Swann Castle, the Fairy Fountain is based on a toy. Actually, two toys . . .


9. The Queen Cadence toy is visible in that second picture. Queen Cadence is named after one of Abi’s friends, just like Queen Caroline. Abi’s very generous with making her friends into royalty.

10. I had imagined that we’d spend a little more time at the Fairy Fountain, but when I looked at the number of pages we have, and the amount of story we want to tell, I couldn’t justify it. Sorry, Queen Cadence! So this is all we’ll see of the fairies for now, as the next page picks up with Beowulf and Chrysanthemum hot on the trail of the Nazis.  

Ten Notes on Page 265

by on March 13, 2019
Posted In: Uncategorized

Page 265 is out, so make sure you’ve read it, then read the notes below!

1. I like big titles, like this one, that takes up the top third of the page. Totally worth it! Especially since this is a story that doesn’t focus on the Electric Team, it’s important to be clear about what’s going on. There was also a big title at the top of “Time Troubles,” my previous collaboration with Josh Burnett.

2. Josh is the only artist other than Sam and Abi who has drawn Electric Team stories. He previously drew “Swords & Serpents” and “Time Troubles.”

(That version of “Time Troubles” is black and white; if you want to read the color version, you need to order a copy of The Electric Team #5!)

3. But really, the question on everyone’s mind is, “Why Beowulf and Chrysanthemum?” I’ve always liked the idea of doing short stories with different artists. My original plan to do a bunch of solo adventures fell apart for various reasons, and we only did solo stories with Plant Man and Mr. Amazing (they’re both in issue #5).

In recent times we did the Bart Hill story, though, and that went well, and I’ve always wanted to do more. Earlier this year Abi and I sat down to make some Electric Team plans, and I asked her what character she’d most like to see in a solo story. I gave her several options, and was pleasantly surprised when she said Beowulf.

4. In The Electric Team #8, the Nazis have captured Findlay and his daughter Chrysanthemum because they want Findlay to tell them the location of the Fairy Fountain. This is mentioned in the dialogue–the head Nazi asks Findlay where to find the fountain. It’s written in German, though, so this is not immediately obvious. And now that I plug the German back into Google Translate, it looks like it doesn’t say what I wanted it to say?

Anyway, the Nazis were looking for the Fairy Fountain. The Electric Team beat up those Nazis, but then in the “Time Troubles” story, Bart Hill tells Mr. Amazing, “Findlay says they’ve got a lead on another hidden Nazi lair.”  Which tells us that there are more Nazis out there, hiding. So I wanted to do one more story where we saw the last of the Nazis making their big play, and I wanted Beowulf and/or Bart Hill to deal with them.

5. Abi and I also really wanted to do a story spotlighting Chrysanthemum. She was introduced in issue 8, but only appeared in a couple of panels; she doesn’t show up until the very end. She’s a character we’ve been planning on introducing since before we started the comic, though, and she’s going to be a significant character in the series, so it would be good to let readers get to know her.

6. We wanted to do a Beowulf vs. the Nazis story, and we wanted to do a Chrysanthemum story, and then one day it hit us–they could team up! We already established that Chrysanthemum and her dad know the secret location of the Fairy Fountain, which is what the Nazis are after. So if Beowulf wanted to go warn the fairies about the Nazi threat, Chrysanthemum could volunteer to be his guide . . . and it all fell into place.

Huh, this page doesn’t mention the Nazis, does it? Well, it’s not much of a spoiler, they get brought up on the first panel of page 2.

7. Another reason that I wanted to do a Beowulf vs. Nazis story is that I thought I could get Josh Burnett to draw it. He really likes drawing heroes beating up on Nazis.

8. You should check out Josh’s blog, order a copy of his zine Crepuscular, and back his Kickstarter for Draugr and Draculas. I backed it, and I’m glad I did! I’ll talk more about that stuff next time. Also, the last time Josh was drawing the comic, I got him to contribute to the notes. I forgot to do that this time, but maybe next time we’ll hear what Josh has to say.

9. In our previous collaborations, I wrote the words and Josh drew the pictures. This time, for the first time, Abi is part of the mix. And she is really earning her co-writer credit–she was heavily involved in plotting, and she wrote about half the dialogue. In fact, Abi wrote almost all of Chrysanthemum’s dialogue on this page. Since Abi’s a 10 year old girl, and Chrysanthemum is a 10 year old girl, the voice really seems to fit. Abi also wrote Beowulf’s dialogue in the last panel. I’m so proud!

10. Chrysanthemum doesn’t want to hear Beowulf’s story, about how he was in a swimming contest with Brecca and ended up killing all the monsters in the sea, but if you want to read it, you can. It’s in the epic poem Beowulf,  right around line 500. It’s pretty awesome.

See you next week!

Ten Notes on Page 264

by on March 7, 2019
Posted In: Uncategorized

Page 264 is out, and it looks like this:

Let’s talk about it, shall we? 


1. This will be the last page of The Electric Team issue #9. Every issue of The Electric Team has ended with a splash page (a full-page panel) except for #3 and #5. Number 5 was a collection of short stories, and 3 was the end of the first story arc. I like ending on a splash page. Like so many things in life, I learned that from Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol, which almost always ended on an insane splash page cliffhanger.

2. This is Sam’s last page, at least for the foreseeable future, and obviously we need to talk about that. But I’m . . . I’m not ready, give me a minute.

3. I like the outfit Sam put Jason Occult in here. It looks very comfortable. Long ago, before Jason Occult ever appeared in the comic, Sam designed all three versions–charming young sorcerer Jason, the Ultimage, and the burn victim.

4. Come to think of it, the Doom Patrol might have something to do with my wanting him wrapped in bandages.

5. Bandaged-up Jason Occult first appeared on page 180 in Chapter 7, way back on June 27, 2017. His identity was a mystery. It’s satisfying, over a year and a half later, to clear that up.


6. Even though Sam is leaving us, I’m glad she got to draw most of the stuff we had been planning for a long time, like Swann Castle and Brianna’s backstory. There’s only one lingering mystery that Sam won’t be here to wrap up, and that is, who was that mysterious person talking to Leaf Stone back on page 150?  I know who it is, it’s a character that Sam and I discussed, and she helped to define the concept, but she won’t be drawing that character’s debut.

7. I wanted to end this chapter/issue/story with a dramatic moment, so it seemed like a good idea to go with Jason Occult swearing revenge. We only saw him “die” a couple of pages ago, so I could have waited longer to reveal that he’s still alive, but you knew he would be, right? The comic is called The Electric Team–why spend all that time introducing a villain, if he’s never going to face the Electric Team?

8. Sam did a great job on Jason’s posture here. I didn’t specify if he should be standing or sitting, though I did mention that lounging was a possibility. She did several sketches trying to get just the right attitude across. I like how he looks so arrogant, so imperious, so relaxed and casual.

9. As I’ve mentioned, the fact that this is Sam’s last page made me sad. So I liked ending it with “To Be Continued!”, not just as a standard comic book cliffhanger, but as a reminder that this is not the ending, that even though we grieve the loss of Sam, life will go on, the story will continue, and there’s more adventure to come.

10. Sam has been such an integral part of the team. It’s still hard for me to process the thought of continuing without her. I’ll try to write more about that later. For now, rest assured that there will be a new comic next week! Like I said, life continues. We’ll begin a new short story, drawn by Josh Burnett, who previously drew the Mr. Amazing solo story and the Bart Hill story.