Cuppacafe

When I was a High School teenager, I met my science teacher who later became my Judo Instructor. During the course of High School (and after) I came to realize that he also had a love for flying, and sky diving. It was this love of his that led him to learn about Gustave Whitehead, a German immigrant who settled in Bridgeport, CT, which was one town over from where I went to High School.

Well, Gustave is important to this story because not only did he he actually fly before the Wright Brothers flew at Kittyhawk, but he sold them a couple of his engines. My teacher met and interviewed some guy (who was in his ‘80s or ‘90s at the time of the interview), who, as a young boy, worked with Gustave on the plane. My teacher made a documentary about the subject I believe. He also went on to build and fly a replica of Gustave’s plane. He also established a small museum dedicated to Gustave, and operated it for many years at the Marina at Captain’s Cove in Bridgeport.

As I got older, and seriously into comics, my teacher and I often spoke about developing a comicbook that would tell the story of Gustave, that we could then distribute to schools in Bridgeport. As it turns out, we never did that.

Flash forward several years later and I, while working with the Comicbook Artists Guild, had the opportunity to participate in the creation of a graphic album which revolved around new/different stories told about historic/mythic, and/or fictional characters. I had originally pitched an updated retelling of Jack the Ripper, which was accepted, and then deemed possibly too violent for the all-ages-themed book, and was asked to pitch a new story. (Don’t worry, the Jack story wound up having a nice home and will also be published later this year.)

I chose to pitch the Gustave Whitehead story, which was accepted and then beautifully illustrated by Rick Lundeen, an artist out of Chicago that I was introduced to over this project,and have gone on to with on the third installment of my on-going Wülf Girlz storyline (now being published under the Atlas Unleashed banner — more on that as it happens). So now, I’m happy to announce that that Graphic Album, titled Iconic, is now available.

In addition to my story, Iconic contains short stories about Prometheus, Talos, Cuchulainn, Ebeneezer Scrooge, Sherlock Holmes, Robin Hood, John Henry, Mark Twain, St. George, and (of course) Gustave Whitehead. Some 30 writers, artists, letterers, and others worked together to develop 10 short stories revolving around these mythological fictional, and historical characters. The resulting 120-page tome (with an introduction by renown comicbook scribe Gary Cohn) retails for $9.99, and is currently available.

Hopefully you will all rush right out (well, figuratively as I just gave you the link), and purchase your own copy. We are intending this book to find it's place in libraries, schools, and book stores around the country. Hopefully it will, and you will all know just a little bit more about the characters,and individuals about whom we've written.

The Perfessor.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 28th, 2009 at 3:42 pm and is filed under Books, Funny Book City. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.