But not if I see you first!

Swing by the Baltimore Convention Center starting October 17th to see myself and my manager Stella in Artist Alley, Table I10! We’re selling physical copies of What Divine Anguish for ten buckazoids! That’s technically a price hike, of $0.01, but I don’t think people want to deal with change. Oh, we’ll be selling up a storm! These books are FLYING off the table!

Be on the lookout for this banner, which I forgot to save in RGB mode, so it looks a bit pink. It’s redder in real life, like the color of BLOOD.

PRESS RELEASE: For fans of anthologies like The Twilight Zone and Black Mirror comes What Divine Anguish, a collection of short sci-fi/horror comics originally published on Martian Sun. Within these grisly pages, the advent of sex robots puts two men’s perverted fantasies at odds, a jealous ex-boyfriend swaps body parts to win back the girl, and practitioners of a blood sacrifice are confronted by a familiar, vengeful face. If you like your science fiction bloody, and warped by the darkness of the human heart, What Divine Anguish awaits!

Creative Team

Written and Edited by Kim Jung-ho
Cover Art by Naiara Rodriguez

“Other Fish”
Illustrated by Cezar Oliveira
Colors by Jarred Cramer
Lettering by Nikki Powers

“The Biography of Charles King”
Illustrated by Christian Peña
Colors by Brandon Cable
Lettering by Stella Elisa Cassinese

“Profane Worship”
Illustrated by Mano Ardal
Colors by Ichsan Ansori
Flats by Alif Putra, M Ridwan, Revan Zildan
Lettering by Nikki Powers

“The Worldwife”
Illustrated by Alex Guenther
Colors by Jarred Cramer
Lettering and Logo Design by Leland Bjerg

“My Devil”
Illustrated by Sté Cavalcanti
Colors by Karla Aguilar
Flats by Apreality
Lettering by Reinhard Buhisan

“The Protocol”
Illustrated by Sérgio Juncom
Colors by Giulia Pezzuoli
Lettering by Mattia Gentili

“Attack of the Snake Men”
Illustrated by Iacopo Calisti
Colors by Doni Cahyono
Lettering by Stella Elisa Cassinese

“Revenant Lane”
Illustrated by Alex Guenther
Colors and Lettering by Stella Elisa Cassinese

“They’re Watching Us”
Illustrated, Colored and Lettered by Naiara Rodriguez
Mechanical Design by Muh Dipo

Or review, rather.

So, I’d been holding off on attempting to market Martian Sun for any number of reasons, but chiefly, I don’t have much of a product to show. Most comic reviewers online, whether on major sites or blogs or YouTube, work with discrete, published editions — physical or digital — and Martian Sun is a website. I figured I’d at least wait until I had enough titles to collect in such an edition, with the aim of ten.

This had the unintended effect of giving weight to the final title, which should serve as some kind of closure to what’s now a series, despite that there was never an intended through-line. Still, I had the ideal ending in mind, a story entitled “The Invention of Adam.” If there is a thematic or narrative through-line in Martian Sun so far, it’s something to do with murder — entirely incidental — and “Adam” would center on a murder trial. Specifically, it’s about the world’s first murder trial of an android victim, and that’s proven way too complicated for me to write, or even properly begin.

Instead, I’m going with “They’re Watching Us,” which I’d originally tried to illustrate myself back in 2021. I recently commissioned an extremely talented artist for mechanical designs, and I’ll be reaching out to an actual, factual professional artist soon (fully expecting a polite rejection). This one’s about actors trapped in a sitcom produced by evil machines. Note that I’m only spewing these loglines at you with respect to the last post on this blog, about being scooped on sci-fi story ideas.

While in the throes of this decision, I suddenly thought, “Fuck it?” Why not just try anyway? So what if it’s only a website? I’ll just explain that in the email and the worst they can say is “No,” which I’ll be getting plenty of regardless. I reached out to Celia at her horror site Let’s Talk Terror, and to my great surprise, she said “Yes”! The review went live yesterday, and I’m relieved it’s positive and grateful generally. Martian Sun isn’t pulling in any traffic for her, so I’m left with the conclusion that she took the time to read these comics and write about them because she found them worthwhile. That doesn’t compute with modern algorithm-based Internet decision-making.

That initial agreement instilled me with enough confidence to keep the ball rolling. I reached out to, I think, three more sites, more expectant than hopeful — and got nothing back. Not even a “No”!

Now I’m back at square one, where I’ll have to wait for the completion of “They’re Watching Us” before I can try again. In all likelihood, that’ll be next year. But in the meantime, you can read about Martian Sun on Let’s Talk Terror. Celia took a chance on a no-name, and she’ll be the only one for a very long time.

I’ve been hearing about a television show called Sunny, and just read a review on The AV Club. I was horrified to learn its premise, which involves a woman’s relationship with a robot stand-in for her dead husband, because it’s identical to a Martian Sun story in the works, “Revenant Lane.” Not that it can be proven, but I started the first draft of the comic’s script long before I’d ever heard of the show, and I started reaching out to artists back in March. I suppose that can be proven, but as there’s been some difficulties on the art side, I won’t be going into details. (Theoretically, it could’ve been out by now, obviating this entire issue). So this raises the question of how to proceed, anticipating possible charges of plagiarism.

In fact, twice I’ve had to abandon comics in development because I found out they were too similar to — wait for it — episodes of Futurama. One called “Imposters,” about a pop idol hunting her robot dopplegangers (“I Dated a Robot”) and another called “Devotees,” about a vampiric celebrity who fed on her fans (“The Thief of Baghead,” which I don’t believe I’ve seen). Even more embarrassing, one time I realized a story was similar to an episode of SpongeBob! It was about a soldier returning from a space war who couldn’t tell if she was home or still surrounded by aliens — like that time SpongeBob and Patrick went in Sandy’s rocket. That story? It was entitled “Martian Sun.”

To be honest, Sunny is a show on Apple TV, and by the time “Revenant Lane” is published, months from now, I don’t know if it’ll still exist in our cultural consciousness like Futurama or SpongeBob. By that logic, the whole issue is moot anyway, because I haven’t started building the readership to receive “Revenant Lane” in the first place. So, this question is more philosophical in nature, especially since I’ve already invested money in the comic. It’s gonna happen!

More than that, “Revenant Lane” is a work of science fiction, a genre that’s always building on old ideas. We barely even say that every alien invasion story owes a debt to The War of the Worlds, because the idea seems like such a natural result of speculation. And that original novel itself came from an existing literary tradition, borrowing from proto-scifi novella The Battle of Dorking.

Of course, these two stories won’t be separated by decades. That “Revenant Lane” will follow so soon after Sunny premieres, it’s gonna look suspicious. So, this is where my actual argument comes in. As a media critic, I always knew where I stood on the Hunger Games vs. Battle Royale debate. In that case, movie nerds would criticize The Hunger Games (movies or books) for being derivative of the earlier (and usually, by their accounts, superior) Battle Royale. The extreme view is that The Hunger Games shouldn’t exist if it’s just a ripoff.

The counter example is that Vince Gilligan claims he wouldn’t have gone ahead with Breaking Bad if he’d been aware of Weeds. If The Hunger Games can offer anything different, its existence is justified, and we’ll evaluate its merits from there. I still think Battle Royale is better than what I’ve seen of The Hunger Games (the second movie), but what about Squid Game?!

It’s a self-serving argument, for sure, but I still believe in it. I can’t really prove that the upcoming “Revenant Lane” wasn’t swiped from a very recent TV show, and that makes me sad. But hopefully you’ll find it has its own merits, too.

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Announcing two new titles, “Attack of the Snake Men” and “The Biography of Charles King.” I’m really excited to share these two, because they represent very sharp art styles.

“Attack of the Snake Men” is illustrated by Iacopo Calisti, with colors by Doni Cahyono, and letters by Stella Elisa Cassinese. Set in a fantasy-tinged medieval Europe plagued by deadly Snake Men, one foreign-born warrior is the only one stemming the tide. Or so it seems.

As much as I claim to love science fiction — a forward-thinking genre — I do also appreciate the retro past. With “The Biography of Charles King,” the starting point is the film Destination Moon, set during a space race commandeered by private industry. In this story, circumstances collide to produce the world’s most inconvenient man, and we follow a determined scientist tasked with defending his life.

With art by Christian Peña, I’d especially like to highlight the colors by Brandon Cable. He’s got a clear eye for vintage-style comics, and turned the already old-fashioned line art into a blast from the past.

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This site is currently a work in progress. Martian Sun will launch soon with four titles, beginning with the mission statement “Profane Worship.”

Brought to life with stunning detail by artist Mano Ardal and moody color by Ichsan Ansori, this supernatural tale is inspired by an exchange of dialogue in the original Godzilla movie. The most difficult part (for me) was figuring out what to call it. The working title was “Village of the Damned,” which fit but was, of course, taken. Then it was “Last Sacrifice,” an accurate summary of the plot, but one that doesn’t sound too great.

“Profane Worship” is a story of few words, and the script came together quickly late last year. By contrast, the next story has been whittled down over the course of many years: “The Protocol.”

In the vein of Solaris or even Event Horizon, this is a “haunted spaceship” story, and in its original conception was a far longer saga. Cutting it down to seven pages was identifying the essentials, and it’s been rendered in a surreal style by Sérgio Juncom, with eye-popping colors by Giulia Pezzuoli.

Next, we have “My Devil,” illustrated in a frenzied, aggressive manga style by Sté Cavalcanti, who’s an amazing artist and collaborator. She let me in on every step of the process, showing me rough thumbnails and even character designs. On her Instagram, she mentioned that the look of the female character Hae-in was modeled after Bibi, and that’s so perfect I can’t believe I didn’t think of it.

The story is an homage to Korean revenge movies like Oldboy and I Saw the Devil. Not exactly science fiction, so “My Devil” is why it’s science fiction “and strange tales.” While Korean revenge may or may not be a real genre, its key titles share a few characteristics, including ultraviolence (not super represented here) and a bold visual style. I think the colorist, Karla Aguilar, really captures that look.

Finally, it’s “The Worldwife,” which is a title I did not want to open with because it’s a terrible hello. At the very least, I felt I needed “Profane Worship” to balance it out. Like “The Protocol,” this is another older story, one actually posted in prose in 2018. Having just looked over the first few paragraphs, it isn’t as embarrassing as I thought, but it’s just a more drawn-out version of what’s here.

And what’s here might appear to be some sort of autobiography, given the look of our “hero” — and, well, maybe that isn’t just a funny accident. Of, you know, asking the artist for a “Korean man with glasses” and getting one. I was a little worried about taking on creative collaborators for this weird story, but the artist Alex Guenther was totally professional. In fact, he returned a completed page every day, eight days in a row. I was stunned by the speed of the work, and the results — his throwback style was a great fit for the setting and themes, and Jarred Cramer’s color lends it all a significant texture.

I also warned the letterer, Leland Bjerg, like, “Hey, if this too weird of a story, just let me know,” but he said he liked weird, and even came up with a cool logo that I’ve been trying to use everywhere. I don’t know, maybe my reservations about this title are misplaced, but it is sensitive subject matter.

And I don’t want to talk about my own stories the way I might others’ on a movie blog, but I’d just like to make explicit that “The Worldwife” was written in response to a specific trope in genre storytelling. Take The Revenant, for example, that scene when a Native woman is being sexually assaulted by French fur traders and Leo is sneaking around nearby with a gun. You really, really want Leo to pop out with that gun — and that’s really cheap, man.

So, that’s our preview of what’s ahead! I sure hope you subscribe to the newsletter (when it’s up and running) or send some feedback through the contact form (when that works)!

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