Division 18
About a year ago (jeez, has it been that long, already?), I did a post about Division 18, the Union of Costumed Novelty Performers, which is something near and dear to my heart, as I was there at its inception, and have taken great joy watching it grow and mutate over the years into far more than just the sum of its parts.
The short version of the story, if you don’t want to read through the old post, is that me and my friends Jeremy and Matt used to pass around this comic book where we would take turns doing one panel in an ongoing story. The panel could be anything you wanted, so long as it did not contradict the panels preceding it. We did about three 48 page books in this fashion, seen only by us and our friends, and I look back on it as one of the most fun things I’ve ever done and a really bright spot in an otherwise dreary part of my professional life.
We created a huge cast of characters, from the superhero Ken Random, whose powers changed (randomly) every panel, to an irate Scotsman, a French Maid assassin, and a monkey with a diaper full of poo to fling at you if you pissed him off.
Good times.
After I started working on The Painted Man, Matt and Jeremy decided to take some of our characters on road, creating a “real” comic called Division 18. Three issues were created, and the first, now a collector’s item, was published last year from the now-defunct Silent Devil Press. Not to be deterred by their publisher’s sinking ship, Jeremy and Matt created Division 18 Online to publish the completed material and and create new comics. They’re posting a new page every weekday, and are halfway through the second issue. Take a look if you have a chance. It’s some funny shit.
Below is one of my personal favorites of the panels I did for the old jam comic. In the panel, young Billy Random has been kidnapped by the Evil Interstellar frigate captain Lord Flatula, and his amorphous servant, Glopulon. But BIlly Random doesn’t take shit from men in speedos:
Okay, I’m getting back to work on The Desert Spear. I promise I have not forgotten about the Writing to Sell posts, and will be getting back to them soon.
The Painted Man has had some hard days. In addition to having a Creator who is abominably slow at writing and painstakingly anal about revisions, he’s lived a life plauged with demons, both inside and out. He’s given up a lot in his never-ending battle against the corelings, so it’s nice sometimes when the universe gives something back.
My morning google alert has informed me that