"A Question Of Theories" Novel News

Feast your eyes on the E-Serial Corner's FIRST published work. The long-awaited "A Question Of Theories novel finally went LIVE today, available from Lulu.com.

The work itself can be bought direct from my lulu.com storefront, or you can use this direct link to the book itself.

A printed version is available for $US 9.75, or you can download the e-book version for $US 2.50.

This is the first of the Corner's e-serials to go to print. The story has recently been revised and rewritten, totally, and is a polished, fun read.

BEGIN THE BUZZ!

Bloodgard 1989

After REVERIE closed, I still wanted to continue doing Bloodgard, so I kept an eye on the Australian comic scene.

REVERIE had managed an interesting record, being the first Australian comice of the eighties to go PAST a four-issue barrier, making it to seven full issues. But that record was to be beaten by a bunch of comic creators in Sydney.

Cyclone Comics were THE Australian comics of the LATE eighties, publishing the Southern Squadron and The Dark Nebula, amongst other titles. And last I remember, they got up to 12 or 14 issues of the Southern Squadron...four issues of which were reprinted by an American publisher in the nineties.

In 1989, I prepared a character submission of the Bloodgard concept, which used THIS graphic (although, the original version of it also had Southern Squadron characters in it, too) and sent it TO Sydney.

I eventually travelled up there and met Gary Chaloner and David de Vries, although we weren't able to do much more. I forget exactly why Bloodgard didn't make it into the Cyclone line-up, but it was a good attempt anyway. And it was quite a night out with the crew. Anyway, the Cyclone crew ended up doing quite well for themselves, with Gary Chaloner doing, most recently, Will Eisner's John Law...and David de Vries and Glen Lumsden doing a very nice updated, futuristic batch of Phantom stories for Marvel Comics. I'd still like to know what happened to The Dark Nebula, which was a comic I'd always enjoyed for years before it became a Cyclone Comics staple.

There was one last attempt in 1989 to try to publish Bloodgard myself, but personal circumstances halted anything further. Still...that's not the end of the story.

Bloodgard Episode 1 Page 1

Reverie 4, 1984...and the first ever full Bloodgard episode...with an intriguing origin story...and a twist in the second part of the story. In this episode, I still covered the art chores. One SPECIAL treat here is that the ORIGINAL REVERIE episode was black-and-white. Both these episodes were computer-colored last year. The way the two episodes are presented here in the blog has to do with getting correct placement; I tried putting them in a single page, tried even using a table, but in the end, they show up neater as seperate posts.

Copyright 1984 and 2006 George Hall

Bloodgard Episode 1 Page 2

Copyright 1984 and 2006 George Hall

Bloodgard Episode 1 Page 3

Copyright 1984 and 2006 George Hall

Bloodgard Episode 1 Page 4

Copyright 1984 and 2006 George Hall

Bloodgard Episode 2 Page 1

With REVERIE 5, young artist Mark Ryan took over the art chores on Bloodgard. His artwork, considering he was only 14 at the time, was phenomenal...and you should have seen how much more he improved over the next two episodes.

Copyright 1984 and 2006 George Hall

Bloodgard Episode 2 page 2

Copyright 1984 and 2006 George Hall

Bloodgard Episode 2 Page 3

Copyright 1984 and 2006 George Hall

Bloodgard Episode 2 Page 4

Copyright 1884 and 2006 George Hall

Terragard/Terrorgard Origins

This graphic copyright Gary Dellar and the respective Reverie Artists. Used with permission.

The year was 1984. The place was Melbourne Australia. And the strip I was originally doing for REVERIE Comics was hitting a snag. My first published work was a strip called "Sandy Star: Rebel Force", a futuristic story set a thousand years in Melbourne's future, at a time when the place was ruled by the Science Lords.

Unfortunately, when I first started working for REVERIE, I'd let my now-EX-wife co-plot the story, and she'd effectively plotted me into a corner. There was also the fact even I was having a hard time relating to my own concept. But in the third Sandy Star episode, I introduced a time-travelling character from the 20th century, a super-character...and actually the SECOND Bloodgard, appearing out of sequence.

One slight snag again...I let my ex-wife name that character. She dubbed him "Bloodgard". Years later, I finally figured out where she got the name from. Which meant re-naming him over later years.

During 1984, I drew the first episode for a Bloodgard strip. At the top of its first page, we tied it in to Sandy Star, having her narrate an intro. However, it was Sandy Star's last appearance.

The first story detailed how a lone, young man found a suit of mystical armor in the Buchan Caves of East Gippsland, armor so ancient it existed before the Earth. There were two demi-gods monitoring it an providing comedy relief, while watching it from some other dimension. There was also some ambiguity over whether this super-being would be good or evil.

This was the episode which appeared in the above issue of REVERIE.

And the response from the Melbourne/Australia fan press to the strip was way more positive than it had been for Sandy Star.

Between issues 4 and 5, however, REVERIE publisher Gary Dellar had received submissions from a young artist named Mark Ryan. Mark was only 14 at the time, but boy, could he draw! So we contacted Mark and got him on board for all subsequent Bloodgard stories.

Issue 5 of REVERIE marked Mark's debut, and involved the continuation of the origin story. A certain Australian Prime Minister who was more popular than sliced bread, B*b H*wke was doing a campaign around the Buchan Caves region, and was astounded to see Bloodgard appearing from out of the ground behind him. Spectacular entrance.

The catch was what happened next. A weird coupling of an American agent and a Russian agent close by spelled danger for the beloved Prime Minister. Two miles above, Bloodgard's armor registered the problem. My favorite part was writing a new twist to the "faster than a speeding bullet" routine. "The poor bullet never gets an even break."

But then, the even bigger twist. An ASIO agent comes up, alerting B*b that the Soviets AND Yanks were BOTH firing nuclear missiles and that the world had only minutes to live.

Up into space zooms Bloodgard, locating and destroying all missiles from either side. He tunes into both sets of war rooms...then makes a fateful decision. Being INFINITELY POWERFUL...Bloodgard unleashes amazing energy on BOTH countries.

The final scenes were of our PM, crying over a LOT of beer and reading the next day's papers..."B*b's "Mate" destroys Super Powers." Behind him, a shadowed Bloodgard announces he's taking OVER.

This first set of episodes took place on an alternative TIMELINE. When NEXT we see Bloodgard in issue 6 of REVERIE, we're on ANOTHER timeline, and we find Bloodgard has dumped four versions of his civilian identity, from different timelines, all together.

Issue 7 of REVERIE, the FINAL ever issue, showed the start of the conflict between Bloodgard and these four. Had the series and comic continued, in issue 8, ONE of those versions would be dead.

In addition to the four dopplegangers, we had three of their ladies also taking part in the action.

But, by 1986/87, REVERIE would be cancelled. Which is a real pity, because Bloodgard (NOW Terrorgard, and intermediately TerrAgard) was actually ahead of his time at the point of his creation. He was actually AHEAD of similar trends in DC and Marvel Comics that would crop up a few years later, and during the nineties.

The beauty of the Bloodgard/Terragard/Terrorgard concept is that it was well-thought out, and had a clear direction. The characterisations were understood by me down to the finest detail. Even better, I could relate to the characters myself. This was why Bloodgard turned out so much bettter than "Sandy Star."

But that wasn't the end of the Bloodgard concept. And there was another Australian comic to contact...but that's a story for another time.

"A Question Of Theories" NEW Edition PREVIEW

The first four-to-five chapters of the UPDATED, REVISED version of "A Question Of Theories are NOW available over at the main E-Serial Corner website, as a PREVIEW.

The NEW version WILL be available for sale within a short couple of months. This preview will whet your whistle while you wait.

Go to the E-Serial Corner "A Question Of Theories" page to read.

Change of Weblog Focus to Terragard/Terrorgard Showcase

It's Spring Cleaning Time here in Australia (well, almost Spring) and all my associated sites/blogs are undergoing revamp.

I decided the past few days this blog would be the perfect vehicle for my super-powered character, Terragard/Terrorgard and showcase his prior history and current story potential.

Perhaps the e-serial "Blood Of The Terragard" may continue here and reach its climax and conclusion.

Starting from the next post, I'll recount Terragard/Terrorgard's original published history in the eighties Australian comic REVERIE as "Bloodgard", and show some of the original stories from that time. From there to character designs done as part of a proposal to a Sydney comic group in 1989. And after that...the return of our e-serial

In the meantime, to whet your whistle, here's a few pictures of Terragard/Terrorard done more recently, using technology we didn't have in the eighties, but would have loved to have used.

One of these graphics has been done on a 160x160 palm screen, while two of these have been done using a 320x240 pocketpc. Much more precise than a digitising tablet I have, even with the smaller screen real estate.

I'm waiting till tablet PC's come down in price, anticipating their screens as being even better than pocketpc's to draw on.

We would so have liked to have had such equipment when this character first appeared.

In the meantime, I've trimmed out a lot of old posts which were no longer relevent and left only the best of the originals. And as you can clearly see, installed a nicer template for a decent look-and-feel.

Enjoy.