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Friday, August 26, 2011

"The League of Obscure Historical Figures" with Jeff McComsey!


Fresh from the Baltimore Comic-Con, FUBAR head honcho Jeff McComsey and I have completed a new mini project for the third issue of DC Conspiracy's The Magic Bullet.  Jeff and I worked on a story for the second issue as well, and you can read it by clicking here.

This new story is titled "The League of Obscure Historical Figures", and in a very, very loose sense it's a parody of Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, in that instead of well known fictional characters, our story features real people of whom history has relegated footnotes (though honestly, we should all be so lucky) banding together for...well, for whatever reason.

This particular story came about in a roundabout fashion - as the deadline for Magic Bullet stories drew closer, Jeff suggested doing a story that told the history of an obscure figure.  I liked the idea (and still do), but for the life of me I couldn't come up with just one person to highlight, and I couldn't think of a way to write a biography of that person that would even be remotely interesting.  If the characters all came together, though...then there'd be a story...and that's how the LOOHF was born.

You'll notice that this story features an almost obscene number of panels, but there were even two more in the original draft, which would have been nearly impossible to include in this oversized page.  At the beginning of the story, Catharine Sedgwick has a difficult time getting past the doorman into the meeting room, as the doorman has never heard of her before in his life, thus setting the stage for everything else to come.  I'll admit that those two panels were the right ones to take out, though Ms. Sedgwick does seem to be a bit underrepresented in this final draft.  Oh well...I guess she's obscure for a reason.

And, of course, I had to sneak in an appearance of George McClellan - no group of obscure characters would be complete without him.  I do take some small pride in the fact that he might be the most recognizable of any in this story, a point that makes it into the end of the story.  All in all, I'm very happy with how this short tale turned out, and I think everyone will agree that Jeff McComsey brought everything together in a visually pleasing way.

If everything I've heard is correct, this issue of the Magic Bullet will be out very soon - the weekend of September 10th and 11th at the Small Press Expo in Baltimore.  I'll probably get my hands on some copies a little while after and will do my best to distribute them at shops around the Pittsburgh area.  The MB seems to really be catching on, as this issue will have more pages than previous issues.  That's great news, because it's a really fun publication!

Here's the cover to issue #3:


Find out more about the Magic Bullet here: http://www.magicbulletcomics.com/

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