Mysterious Adventure Magazine

MAM goes DIGITAL!!!

2011-02-03T23:43:00.001-08:00

That's right folks!

The book that looks like it's from the Golden Age is finally jumping into the Digital Age! We've got issues 2, 3, and 4 available for $2 downloads. Please check out these books-- there are SO many talented guys that have contributed.

Scott Godlewski (Boom Studios' Codebreakers & Dracula: Company of Monsters), Joshua Covey (Nobody Likes Jimmy), Ben Perkins (NeoTrash Comix), Ryan Cody (Icarus from Super75Comics & Villains from Viper Comics), Joe Dellagatta (Egg & Atomic Robo: the Getaway), Mikey Babinski (Wonder Woman & She Hulk), Matt Kaufenberg (Shrek), not to mention Michael Kasinger, Dan McDaid, Andy Kuhn, Dan Schkade, Evan Shaner, Dave Flora, Simone Guglielmini, Anthony Schiavino, Michael Powell, Guy LeMay, Sean Hartter, and still to be seen grace the pages of MAM, Lee Gaston, Derrick West, Andy Poole, Claudio Muñoz, Shawn Ullom, and many more!!

Just jump over to your right hand side, scroll down, and click on the "Add to Cart" button below the issue(s) that you'd like to purchase digitally. We understand that times are tough and the cost of a physical book plus shipping plus whatever else is just outrageous these days. We figure if your average 32 page (24 pages of story w/ about 7 pages of ads) comes to $.99 or more for a download. There's over 40 pages in each of these issues (about 4 or 5 of which are ads) hopefully you'll agree that the book is worth the little bit of extra coin.

We're still plugging along on the 2011 MAM Annual. We've gotta a ton of great stories from many of our MAM veterans, so keep an eye out for that.

Thanks for looking
-Matt

Issue THREE available online NOW!!

2010-11-01T14:02:00.000-07:00

Mysterious Adventure's Issue 3 is finally available online. Thanks a lot for your patience...hopefully we haven't completely lost your interest in our long absence.

This thing is packed with stories by Joshua Covey, Anthony Schiavino, Dave Flora, Ryan Cody, Ben Perkins, and of course Scott Godlewski, and Matt Bennett.

ISSUE THREE...GET IT FROM ME!!

2010-08-23T13:33:00.000-07:00

Heya folks, we can't apologize enough for all of the delays of availability with issues 3 and 4. They've been done for months and it's just impossible to get them into anybody's hands for some reason.

Kablam/Indyplant's site got hacked and so neither of the new issues are available yet. Both Issue 1 and 2 are still up there but the addresses are changing almost daily. Every time I post a link, it's dead in a day or two.

So in the meantime this is what I'm doing to rectify that...for a limited time you can order Mysterious Adventure Magazine Fall 09 (Issue 3) directly from me for $6.00. I'll be throwing in some MAM postcards and the shipping's included. I only have a handful right now, so ORDER NOW!!

This issue boasts an all-star cast of creative titans. Josh Covey, Simone Guglielmini, Anthony Schiavino, Ben Perkins, Mike Babinski, Dave Flora, Ryan Cody, Scott Godlewski, and Andy Kuhn.

Comment on this blog with your email address and I'll get right back to you.

Here's a little preview of a story that I worked on with Josh Covey called "Dust to Dust."

Bulletproof Beetle PREVIEW

2010-07-24T22:14:00.000-07:00

Here's a little preview of something that should be showing up soon.

art by Claudio Muñoz
written and junk by me

-matt

PHOENIX COMIC CON!!

2010-05-26T15:41:00.001-07:00

Scotty and I will be attending this year's Phoenix Comic Con on May 27th-30th. We'll be way in back at table T129.

I'm really excited to see all the Arizona guys again and check out the awesome that is Phoenix Comic Con. We'll have a TON of great stuff with us: We'll have all four issues of Mysterious Adventure Magazine (two of which haven't been available yet) and an all ages off-shoot starring the Bulletproof Beetle, called Adventure Into The Mysterious- this is a Phoenix Con EXCLUSIVE! We'll have prints, some freebies, a giant poster raffle, and be sketching for a modest stipend.

Stop on by, say Hi, buy some stuff! Hope to see you out there!

-matt

MAM sallutes a LEGEND!

2010-05-10T14:19:00.000-07:00

We lost Frank Frazetta today.

I'm sure he's okay with it, he's back with his wife (who was his whole world). He'd done it all- the only thing left would be to start painting with his feet...which he could probably do.

I will ALWAYS list Frank as one of my top influences (not that I have anything approaching his work or style even) but he ignited my imagination like no other. I would spend hours in the "quite room" at my library (when I was a kid) pawing through his art books. Copying, tracing, and just plain ogling his stuff to no end.

The bite of fantasy, folklore, and mythology that my stuff may have, comes from him and the material that his art inspired me to seek out.

I'll miss knowing that he's still out there.

-matt

Mysteriously Adventurous COLORING CONTEST!

2010-04-16T19:20:00.001-07:00

Hey folks!

SOOoooOOOooo, I guess this will double as the official (second) announcement of our Over-sized Full Color Mysterious Adventure Magazine Annual 2010!! We've been talking about incorporating some colored stories for a while and we've already got some of the best guys out there working on material for it as we speak!

One of the features will be a reprint of the story that started it all, "Ambush at the End of the World" starring the Phantom Ace, one of MAM's flagship characters. This won't be you're grandfather's reprint thought, we're giving the story a FULL COLOR OVERHAUL!

Not only do we already have stories underway by a bevy of talented gentlemen, but we also have one HUMONGOUS special treat. The cover for our annual (as you may have read) has been done by none other than Mr. Charlie Adlard, the artist from Image Comics "WALKING DEAD" written by Robert Kirkman.

This brings me to our contest: Scotty and I have decided to throw two uncolored pages out there so that anyone who wants to give it a shot at coloring them, can do so. We're not going to give out a bunch of restrictions and provisions. There's no house style we're looking for- simple cell shade? crazy over rendering? Do whatever you do best...Do whatever services the line work best...because that's how we're going to pick our winner! Keep things in mind like setting and scene transition, atmosphere, and all the other things that make a truly gifted colorist good at what they do.

So what's this contest for? To put it quite plainly...if you really kick butt on these two pages, you win the unpaid gig of coloring the full 21 pages for us. Isn't that nice of us? But seriously, you'd be a member of the team and if history has served, just about everyone who has participated in MAM related content so far has had doors open for them out there because of it.

The only thing that we ask is this: if you are chosen, please be willing and able to finish those 21 pages in a timely and efficient fashion to be discussed later.Instead of bugging all of our colorist friends, we wanted to do bit of a talent search. Worst case scenario, a bunch of different people see your work.

We're still talking prizes and bonus participant stuff, so hopefully a little mystery is incentive as well.

Shoot me a note if you have any questions and send me the links to your colored pages (feel free to post them publicly as well) or you can email them to me directly if you'd like, at epicallyuninventive@msn.com

Thanks alot, and have fun!

-matt

CHARLIE ADLARD covers Mysterious Adventure!

2010-04-16T19:15:00.001-07:00

Charlie Adlard, artist of the zombie comic, "THE WALKING DEAD" that you might see coming out from Image Comics every month written by Robert Kirkman, has been awesome enough to supply the cover art for our Over-sized Full Color Mysterious Adventure Magazine Annual 2010!

We'll be auctioning off Charlie's original artwork shortly- more details on that later.

-matt

CODEBREAKERS #1 OUT TODAY!!

2010-04-07T12:49:00.001-07:00

Go out today (now if possible) and pick up the first issue of this book. Scotty's been busting his britches on this thing for months, so it's awesome to see some tangible payoff for all his hard work.

I had the pleasure of taking the last one off of the shelf at my local shop and saw that it was sold out at Impulse Comics online as well. Not bad, fellas.

So having the thing in hand is cool enough, but the big bonus is this...it's really good! Now I'm usually the guy who will say that about a book that doesn't have superpowers or horror movie rejects in it. But this is like watching a spy-thriller movie in comic book form. The dialogue and pacing is pithy enough and moves along to keep you interested and the artwork is amazing. The line work and colors perfectly compliment each other, working together instead of against each other, like so many books today.

This book is the first 15 minutes of a movie that you really want to see...I urge you to give it a shot.

-matt

Guess Who?!?

2010-02-06T13:26:00.000-08:00

Here's a little sneak peak at our celebrity flip cover art for the FALL issue.

Free sketch to whomever can guess who drew this awesome piece!

-matt
(don't get too excited people the sketch is from me)

My oh my, what could this be?!?

2010-02-03T22:04:00.000-08:00

As always- the behind-the-scenes action as promised. The inking progress over Scotty's amazing pencils.

-matt

Scottygod's got ink!

2010-02-01T15:08:00.000-08:00

Go over to CBR and check out the press release for BOOM! Studio's new book CODEBREAKERS. You might recognize our very own Scott Godlewski, co-founder of Mysterious Adventure Magazine, as the series' artist.

-matt

Life's a beach...or at the very least she is!

2010-01-26T09:09:00.000-08:00

Here's a peak at page 6 of the featured story in our WINTER issue by Evan 'Doc' Shaner.

Scott Wegener and the Battle of Kind Words

2010-01-20T10:48:00.000-08:00

Scott Wegener lathered on the love over at Atomic Robo.com Brian and Scott consistently put together solid, fun books and are an actual joy to read. There's only a few comics these days that I even bother picking up and Robo is one of the ones that I get the most excited about. So it's a real treat to have Scott give MAM some kind words.

Thanks Scott...the check's in the mail!!
-matt

Monster page-in-progress

2010-01-18T04:03:00.000-08:00

Another page of Scotty's layouts and my finishes. This page has since been completed and lettered and tone and all finished up.

We've only gotta few more things to wrap up before the FALL issue is already for you guys. Thanks for your patience.

Mystery page-in-progress

2010-01-13T21:57:00.000-08:00

Here's a page-in-progress from the NEAR FINISHED upcoming issue of Mysterious Adventure Magazine. The only real question (other than what story this page is for) is whether we call the issue FALL '09 issue or not...cause I don't know if YOU noticed, but it's 2010.

These are my inks destroying Scotty's pencils.

-matt

Mysteriously Adventurous Christmas to all!

2009-12-13T20:00:00.001-08:00

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from us at Mysterious Adventure Magazine. Thanks for all your support and have a great season.

-Matt & Scotty

Rayguns & Sixshooters

2009-11-11T08:09:00.000-08:00

The fellas over at Rayguns & Sixshooters mentioned MAM in their Indyplanet pull-list article and also did a little write-up on the Summer issue.

Rayguns & Sixshooters is made up of Marc Fletcher, Barri Lang, Patrick Goodwin, Eric Dotson, and Anthony D. Lee who are all plugging away at comic booking themselves. We got paired up with quite a few great books, almost all done by friends of ours.

Thanks for the shout guys.

-matt

Gelatometti- Scott & Matt LBCC video...kinda

2009-11-03T16:20:00.000-08:00

Check out a little video that Scotty and I make a VERY brief appearance in over on the Gelatometti Blog. If i remember correctly that kid was asking for Deadpool...but I don't know.

You can kinda see Ryan behind my fat head, but his books got some primo screen time...so that makes up for it.

MAM caught a beat down...a Bish's Beat!

2009-10-28T20:32:00.000-07:00

MAM got another mention on Bish'sBeat. Paul Bishop did a nice little write-up of our first issue way back when and it was super cool to stumble upon this today.

Bish reviews everything records and pulp mags to CDs and comics. Check out his blog here.

thanks alot, Paul

-matt

ComicBookCollector'sBlog REVIEW!

2009-10-20T07:39:00.000-07:00

We had the pleasure of meeting Michael Hamersky and his wife at the Long Beach convention. He was very engaging and asked alot of questions about the book and our process. It was refreshing to have people ask us about the book and not just scour the table for something free.

Michael did up a great review for both issues- and when I say great, I mean honest. When we get "It's awesome!" or "I really liked it!" that's always great to hear, but when somebody gives and in-depth opinion of what they felt worked and what they felt didn't- it gives us a better barometer for making the book better. A good review validates some things that you thought too (but didn't change) or makes you acknowledge a gut feeling that you had yourself because you're seeing it on paper.

Check out the review at Comic Book Collector's Blog!

-matt

Long Beach Comic Con 2009

2009-10-19T21:16:00.000-07:00

Some pics from the first annual Long Beach Comic Con.

Mysterious Adventure Magazine creators Matt Bennett and I.

Matt at the Mysterious Adventure Magazine table. We were in between Old Dying Kitty Comics and Taco Comics. At the top left corner you will see a wrestling ring. Yes, an actual wrestling ring where dorks actually wrestled throughout the weekend.

On Sunday Matt and I joined the folks at the Atomic Apple booth and did free sketches for the kiddies. Here are Matt and Ryan Cody hard at work.

Matt and Ryan joined by Jim Hanna.

- Scott

Lines for Stranded Print

2009-10-17T18:23:00.000-07:00

Inks for the Stranded print available at LBCC. Matt threw down some slick colors that can be seen below.

- Scott

LBCC poster print for "Stranded"

2009-10-17T01:42:00.000-07:00

"Stranded" is a sci-fi spectacular that will be showing up in MAM eventually. It was written and laid out by me with Scotty plotting and laying out as well. We've got Derrick West supplying some awesome pencils & inks while Andy Poole is taking care of the colors (that's right you heard me...colors!)

Scotty and I did this up (Scotty lines w/ me on colors) so that we had another awesome poster/print for LongBeach.

-matt

Letters are important

2009-10-14T09:35:00.000-07:00

So here's a couple in-the-works pages from our next issue. These pencils are by Bratty Ben Perkins and on their way to being inked by the Marauding Mike Babinksi. It's another chapter in the Denver Dockry serials.

Whenever possible, I'll start blocking out the letters as soon as possible. More often than not, multiple issues will arise with balloon placement and dramatic flow of dialogue. In this story I got to do alot of fun back and forth quippy dialogue with the detective and his weasely sidekick. So in that spirit of fun, multiple issues arose with how to interweave the balloons so the reader still gets that sense that the exchange is quickly bouncing back and forth. If you look at Ken Bruzenak's stuff, in POWERS specifically, that guy is a genius at that kind of thing.

Doing this will also give me an idea of what (if any) changes need to be made to the script, now that I have glorious pictures to help tell the story. More often than not, I'll re-script quite a bit (not just for space issues) but also for need.

Thanks for taking a peak behind the curtain.

AtomicRobo LOVES Mysterious Adventure Magazine

2009-10-09T08:43:00.000-07:00

So Scott Wegener supported us in our recent issue, but did you know that AtomicRobo does too?

Yep, that's right...I know he looks alot taller in his book.

LONG BEACH COMIC CON

2009-09-29T06:40:00.000-07:00

We'll be at booth #96 at our first annual Mysterious Adventure Table at the First Annual Long Beach Comic Con .

Stop on by

-matt

Summer Issue AVAILABLE NOW!

2009-09-14T14:55:00.000-07:00

MYSTERIOUS ADVENTURE MAGAZINE's second installment is now available for purchase from the fine folks over at Indyplanet!

If you've gotta few extra bucks on ya, throw it down for some seriously great looking pages. Scotty and I will have them available the booth at Long Beach Comic Con as well.

Thanks for the support!
-matt

OMG! MAM @ LBCC! TTYL!

2009-09-10T06:49:00.001-07:00

I'm trying out that texting language that all the kids are so fond of.

So Scotty and I will be in attendance at the first annual Long Beach Comic Convention. We'll be in Artist's Alley at booth #96. Eventhough we're DEAD last in the listing, we gotta pretty decent spot right on the corner off one of the mail aisles. It looks like it's kind of a hike from the entrance, but hey- it'll work.

We'll keep you updated on what kinda goodies we'll have with us. Thanks for looking.

-matt

Schiavino and Flora show some LOVE!

2009-09-09T11:40:00.000-07:00

Anthony Schiavano (SergeantZero) did up an in-depth review of our Spring issue on PULPTONE.

check it out, folks
-matt

Dave Flora (GHOST ZERO) sporting his copy of MAM

http://www.ghostzero.com/

Summer 2009 Cover

2009-08-19T20:58:00.000-07:00

A little rescheduling results in a new cover! Lines by myself and Dan Schkade (The Fowl). Colors and design by Matt Kaufenberg.

We like to do behind-the-scenes stuff here, so I've also put up my reference pic and original line art. Don't laugh, it's really helpful.

-Scott

Our new MAMber Josh Covey

2009-08-04T10:44:00.000-07:00

Josh and I are working on "The Broken Heart Of Ogopogo" (well Josh is done, so now it's my turn)

One of the first things we did was reattack how i had originally laid out the story. I always wanted that first panel to be a splash page, but in the interests of speed, I incorporated into the first page. Josh brought some of that back. He slowed the pace and let the script breathe more and really crafted it into a more solid story.

This is the layout split that happened when Josh got ahold of it. He really opened up the whole idea, i think you guys will enjoy it.

-matt

Raging Sea sneak peak

2009-08-01T11:52:00.000-07:00

Well folks, we neglected the ba-jeezus out of July, in terms of updating the blog. I don't wanna make excuses, but we gotta whole lot done...so i forgive us.

I'll post the big old "state of the union" schpeel tommorow! Here's a little Shaner goodness to hold you over. Evan Shaner is working on the continuation of the "Fisherman's Wife" story from our first issue.

Down to Zero Tease

2009-06-23T23:29:00.000-07:00

Another preview from the Summer '09 issue, this is a panel from "Down to Zero". Story and pencils by me, inks by Michael Babinski, and tones by Matt Bennett.

-Scott

Joe's got crabs!

2009-05-29T08:20:00.000-07:00

Veteran MAM'mer jammer, Joe Dellagatta hooked us up with this smokin' hot pinup for the Summer issue. This is the HOLY DIVER, a character of Joe's own creation, that we'll hopefully be seeing more of real soon. Joe's guy is the first non-Scotty or non-Matt created character to appear in MAM.

Scotty and I also have another surprise creator contributing to the new issue as well. The mystery man in question has got himself a fan-favorite original character making an appearance in sequential form.

stay tuned for more folks

-matt

Coming Attractions

2009-05-12T16:29:00.000-07:00

Bill Thom over at the pulptastic Coming Attractions was nice enough to give Mysterious Adventure a little shout out on his site. Go check it out and take a look through all of the other pulp goodies.

Denver's a bit sketchy

2009-05-12T06:27:00.001-07:00

Denver Dockry that is! He's the lead character in "Saying Goodbye With Bullets," which appears in MAM's Summer issue. This is a prelim sketch Ben Perkins did for a pinup that will accompany the story by Kasinger and Babinski.

Expect more gritty streets and grizzled detectives in the demon-themed pulp story. Just the kind of thing that you've come to expect from Mysterious Adventure Magazine.

ALSO...our very own Scott Godlewski popped up over on MAJOR SPOILERS ! That's pretty cool.

-matt

OTRCAT.com

2009-05-07T21:29:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you, but I love me some old time radio. There's nothing else like it. It's especially good for listening to while drawing. Maybe I have such an affinity for it because it's totally dependant upon the mastery of sound. Much like comics only need to be seen to be enjoyed. Single sense entertainment is where it's at! And I know exactly where you can get some of that old time radio goodness. OTRCat.com! There are thousands of episodes of the greatest radio plays ever produced. Jon will take care of all your old time radio needs. Tell 'im Scott sent ya.

Things that go Ka-POW in the night!

2009-04-25T12:05:00.000-07:00

***SPOLIER ALERT***
***SPOLIER ALERT***

The Cloak punches the crap outta this guy in the MAM Summer issue. So I spoiled that for you...a superhero vigilante guy punching a two-bit thug. So maybe that's not really a "spolier" as much as an expected plot device. But anyway.

I hope Scotty doesn't mind that I'm giving you guys a sneak peak at this panel. It's just one of many that you'll get to enjoy in the story entitled "Night Shift."

-matt

Summer Issue COVER is DONE!!

2009-04-24T15:27:00.000-07:00

To mirror Scotty's blog entry:

"The great Matt Kaufenberg just sent us the new cover for Mysterious Adventure Magazine Summer 2009. Yeah, that guy's crazy good. I'm sure as we get closer to our release date there will be more preview goodness over on the Mysterious Adventure blog."
----------------------------
Speaking of "over on the Mysterious Adventure blog"...welcome! We will be posting more preview goodness. We've got so much freakin' awesome being packed into this issue, that we might be surpassing the Spring issue in the eye-candy category. It's hard as the dickens to not spoil every bit of art that we get as soon as we get it.

-matt

Back Cover by RYAN CODY!

2009-04-15T19:35:00.000-07:00

Rampaging Ryan Cody (from HurricaneKids & Villains and many others) was awesome enough to treat us to a little pen and ink action of the upcoming flip-cover for MAM Summer '09.

Scotty and Ryan recently hooked up on a super top-secret project. All we know of the project is a single mysterious image they've posted of a lone figure amongst a pile of bodies.

MAM Summer '09 is chuggin along. This thing is looking prettier and prettier with every image that comes in.

-matt

Mysterious Adventure Interview

2009-04-03T14:55:00.000-07:00

The multi-talented Bill Cunningham was nice enough to interview Matt Bennett and myself about Mysterious Adventure Magazine in the inaugural edition of his new "Almost 20Q" feature on his blog. Be sure to take a look around his page - he's got a bunch of neat stuff. Thanks, Bill!

Crap to God to McDaid

2009-04-01T07:45:00.001-07:00

So when we were deciding what MAM would be, both Scotty and I were clear that we wanted to give you, the reader, the most bang for your buck...and what says bang for your buck like 12 different incentive covers . We figured, how 'bout a cover within a cover and this one wouldn't even have that pesky (albeit awesome) logo-text.

The our search began for the perfect guy to do the cover for us. I'd been hounding Danny McDaid to work with me for a couple years at that point and with his ever increasing workload it was looking less and less likely that we'd be able to work on a full project together. The fate smiled and dropped a whopper of a good idea in my lap. Scotty loved Dan's stuff too, so there was very little decisioning to be done at that point.
At the time, Scotty was blazing through "Ambush..." pages and I decided to do a rough design as a framework for Danny's cover. By rough, I mean horrid horrid crap. I told Scotty what I though would look cool and showed him my scribbles, he cleaned up the idea and gave it depth and drama.

So I sent my blathering about a character montage and our images across the pond to Danny and he eventually sent us back this inktastic wonder that adorns the Spring 2009 issue.

-matt

NEW CONTENT!

2009-03-23T13:50:00.000-07:00

With mid-year quickly approaching, we're getting closer to MAM's second issue. We're aiming for a quartely release scheduel, so as long as we keep hooking up with the same kind of insanely talented and punctual guys, that we have so far, then we'll be sittin' pretty.

We've got one story all finished (we're just waiting on me to make up my mind about the lettering) and few others possibly on deck to go into issue two as well.

I wanted to give a good solid tease of some upcoming content.

So these are some layouts by me, pencils by Michael Kasinger, and inks by Michael Babinski. I'll jump in after Michael & Michael and letter it up. This is a little noir heavy love story (of sorts) that follows our character Denver Dockry through a bad break-up. The story's called "Saying Goodbye with Bullets."

-matt

ComicsMonkey

2009-03-18T10:48:00.000-07:00

I thought this was worth mentioning as long as we're talking about IndyPlanet. I don't know how many of you currently publish or are thinking of publishing your own comics, or even use Ka-Blam to do it, but if so, you may want to get in on this. Ka-Blam, an on-demand printer, also runs a site called IndyPlanet which will print and sell your on-demand comic orders online, issuing you the difference in printing price and cover price. And now, in light of Diamond's new solicitation requirements which make it tougher for the little guys (i.e. us) to penetrate the direct market, Ka-Blam is developing a direct market distribution operation called ComicsMonkey. So you now submit your order to Ka-Blam and request that it be added to their ComicMonkey listing, and now retailers can search their catalog for your title to put on their shelves. It's print on demand, so retailers don't have to order a set amount of books. It is an opportunity to get your stuff seen by everyone, at any comic shop in the country. So bug your local retailers and let them know about this.

And let them know they need to carry Mysterious Adventure.

-Scott

Indyplanet upping MAM exposure

2009-03-18T07:08:00.000-07:00

This may be of little interest to the lot of you, but I found it pretty cool. Indyplanet http://www.indyplanet.com/catalog/ the folks who list our comic online (where it's available for purchase- if I haven't mentioned that) will put books up into their ad field at random. I've personally been drawn to multiple titles due to this ad tool, so it's really exciting to see that we've been added to the mix.

I hope that this extra exposure gets the book into the hands of folks who might not have really been looking for it.

-matt

Original Back Cover Lines

2009-03-17T21:22:00.000-07:00

Here are the lines for the Cloak piece Matt posted earlier. As you can see, Matt's colors made this piece.

-Scott

EarlyBirdExclusive backcover

2009-03-16T14:13:00.000-07:00

When were putting together the Spring issue of MAM, we (like all first time publishers) ran into our fair share of hiccups. A hiccup being a non-inflamitory way of saying a complete and utter disaster.

We rolled with the punches though.

One of those rolls was to give deals and little perks to our followers/fans and hopefully a little incentive to pick up our funny book. We had a low low introductory price and an exclusive backcover by the Savage Scott Godlewski. The backcover (that was swapped into a pinup once we added our intended backcover) was of theCLOAK. Who gets one of his adventures chronicled in the next issue of Mysterious Adventure Magazine.

For those of who didn't get that early version, here's a peak at it.

"Ambush" Character Designs

2009-03-12T22:17:00.000-07:00

Just some quick character sketches for the main players in "Ambush at the End of the World". I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted for the Dead Baron and Katya. The Flying Phantom took a couple of passes, as did Metzger. Thank goodness I gave that one another shot. That first Metzger is ridiculous.

-Scott

From Layout-to-Page: Just Another Regular Guy

2009-03-11T07:58:00.001-07:00

So I did up this crappy little flash slideshow thing for our "Just Another Regular Guy" story and the blog wouldn't take it. Scotty fixed the stuff that I screwed up and we started fresh. The blog still won't take it. You can check out the slideshow here http://mattcrap.deviantart.com/art/Just-Another-Regular-Guy-FULL-115093872 for now.

Thanks for lookin'
-mattcrap

"Ambush" Page Process

2009-03-07T12:33:00.000-08:00

I think it's cool to see how other artists approach page design and breakdowns, so I threw together a little piece on my page process.

From the script I start beating my head against the wall, sketching out a bunch of panels and multiple angles for scenes and try to work out panel sizes and placement to ensure everything fits naturally and the storytelling is smooth. It's something that kind of just happens, but I almost always work in some variation of the three-tier layout.

Once I've gotten something that works, I draw up a final thumbnail at 50% of the art board size so that I can enlarge it by 200% and lightbox it on to my bristol board.

Once it's lightboxed, I pencil it (the tightness depends on time and detail) and ink. I use a 4H pencil, and sometimes an HB for important details, and a #1 red sable brush with the occasional Micron tech pen.

Then the peerless Mr. Bennett slaps some tones on it and it's ready for printing.

I think this is my favorite page from "Ambush at the End of the World". As usually happens, the script changes from typed page to finished page. Case in point, I decided to end the scene with a staredown between Dr. Metzger and his White Whale, the Corsair.

-Scott

Welcome Fellow Adventurers!

2009-03-07T12:15:00.000-08:00

Hey, all! Welcome to the official Mysterious Adventure Magazine blog!

Our first issue premiered at the Phoenix Comicon in January 2009 and is now available at IndyPlanet.com. The Spring 2009 issue features 4 stories by Scott Godlewski, Matt Bennett, Joe Dellagatta, and Ben Perkins, with a covers by Scott Godlewski, Matt Kaufenberg, and Dan McDaid.

The Summer 2009 issue is under construction and will also be available at IndyPlanet.com. Stay tuned!

-Scott