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What is Amazing Montage?

In designing a website to promote MURDER BY CROWQUILL, I realized it was about time I pulled together all my web activity into one coherent package. So while 'Amazing Montage' originally refers to the montage of pictures that make up a comic book, I'm extending it to refer to all the various comics-related stuff I've been working with the past few years.

This site is about the comics I publish, but also about comics theory, the independent comics movement, and the Connect Sales Market. And it features an online comic strip I write and draw.

It's not just about comics, either. It's about the mystery genre; and it's about the new possibilities of the internet, such as the interactive story.

The art of the internet web page-- multimedia art, I call it-- has boundless possibilities that we're just beginning to realize. By being dynamic, flexible, and idiosyncratic, I hope Amazing Montage will realize some of those possibilities.

Amazing Montage Press/ About the Artist/ A. M. Magazine
Indypreviews/ Online Comics/ Comics Theory
Interactive Noir/ The Mystery Genre/ Online Ordering

Amazing Montage Press

This painting commemorates the first meeting of Ray and Finn, aka, The Trespassers. Amazing Montage Press is the only comic book company dedicated to the modern mystery genre. We believe that the modern mystery genre, with its nail-biting suspense, offbeat characters, and events torn from today's headlines, can play a vital role in re-invigorating the comics medium.

Amazing Montage Press has published 11 books, listed below in chronological order by publication date:

BULLETPROOF-- May, 1995
WOLF RUN-- August, 1995
THE GREEN SKULL-- November, 1995
RUNAWAY -- February, 1996
THE TRESPASSERS #1 -- May, 1996
THE TRESPASSERS #2 -- August, 1996
THE TRESPASSERS #3 -- November, 1996
THE TRESPASSERS #4 -- February, 1997
THE TRESPASSERS #5 -- July, 1997
ORACLE A TRESPASSERS MYSTERY -- JULY, 1998
MURDER BY CROWQUILL -- MAY, 1999
Descriptions and sample art can be found on our order page. Upcoming projects for the press include the graphic novel RAPID EYE MOVEMENT (hopefully completed for the year 2000.)

About the Artist

More than most of my recent work, this picture shows what a big influence Richard Corben was on my work. Your humble webmaster is best known as an artist on Harvey Pekar's American Splendor (below). I've worked on a number of other books, including Real Stuff and Duplex Planet Illustrated for Fantagraphics. The painting at left was for a well-loved fantasy anthology titled MYTHOGRAPHY. Typical of American Splendor, this scene shows people reacting to a run-of-the-mill inconvenience like it was an earth-shattering disaster!

I'm the artist and writer of BULLETPROOF, ORACLE, and THE TRESPASSERS series for Amazing Montage. Gary Dumm served as the inker for these books up until THE TRESPASSERS #4, when I began doing my own inking.

I've also been a comics reviewer since 1994, working for Subliminal Tattoos, indy magazine, and Steve Conley's ICOMICS.COM.

A. M. Magazine

Amazing Montage Magazine is a zine about comics, with reviews, interviews, and articles. I'm quite open to having other writers contribute to the zine, although since I can't pay anything, I'll probably have to write most of it myself!

Indypreviews

I started Indypreviews on a whim last December, after reading a comment that indy comics activists should not help a book until after it's published-- I thought to myself, it's before a book's published that it most needs help, since that's when most of the orders come in!

(For the uninitiated, comics distributors circulate a catalog two months before a book ships. Comics shops order from this catalog. Most publishers wait until they know how many orders they get before they tell the printer how many copies to print, and books with low orders are sometimes cancelled.)

Indypreviews is a way of encouraging people to pre-order the books they want from their local comics shop. Most comics shops will gladly accept pre-orders, as long as the customer promises to actually buy the book when it arrives. If your local store doesn't accept preorders, Indypreviews has a link to an online retailer, Top Secret Comics, which does accept preorders (with pre-payment.) Note that we have no direct affiliation with Top Secret Comics-- we just want to help get more independent comic books sold by any means.

Online Comics

The online comic strip of THE TRESPASSERS reprints some of the adventures from the books in a serialized form 6 days a week. The online publisher is Bebe Williams' www.artcomic.com.

Comics Theory

Most of the comics theory articles here were originally printed as discussion board posts at www.comicon.com. I also wrote some of them as a column, 'the Craft of Storytelling' for Steve Conley's ICOMICS website.

Interactive Noir

The possibilities and problems of alternate-path storytelling (an old artform made much more viable by the new internet technologies) are an exciting challenge to the next generation of storytellers. I've done a little dabbling in the field, which I plan to have on display here.

The Mystery Genre

My writings on the mystery genre are mainly concerned with how it intersects with the comics medium. Essays on that and other mystery-related topics will be presented here.

Online Ordering

The Connect Sales Market has arrived, and Amazing Montage has got it, with the technically-sophisticated user-friendly credit card processing package CCNOW. More information our order page on how you can use it to order swell titles like the one below!.
Click on this image to be taken to the book on our order page!  How convenient!