Jason Franks's Blog, page 14

The Sixsmiths Volume 2 #2 on ComiXology!

And now, the second installment of Sixsmiths volume 2, service piping hot from the inferno that men call ComiXology.

Cop an eyeful right here:

https://www.comixology.com/The-Sixsmiths-Vol-2-2/digital-comic/293299

The church has burned down and Albert Hills Satanic Congregation is in crisis. Is some hidden enemy responsible? Is the Dark Lord punishing them for their weakness? To make matters worse, there’s a problem with the insurance the treasurer appears to have fled the country. Can Ralf step up and sort out the financial mess? Meanwhile, the Croquet Club has come up with their own plan to save the community, Jezabel hatches her own nefarious plans, and Dennis continues his quest to find post-conversion cool.

Also: Doctor Darklight, the world’s greatest Satanic Superhero, tangles with the bizarre menace of the Freak Jesus!

This is a ginormous 57 page issue containing the middle seven chapters of the book. They are illustrated by Baleful Bruce Mutard, Amorous Anton McKay, Torturous Tim McEwen, Spiteful Sarah Howell, Egregrious Ed Siemienkowicz, Brutal Bobby N and Sordid Jan Scherpenhuizen, who has also provided the cover.

Big thanks to Caliber Comics for making this all happen.

 

Hail Satan!

— JF

The Sixsmiths Volume 2 #1 on ComiXology!

Here we go, folks, the first issue of the brand new Sixsmiths graphic novel, served piping hot and reeking of sulfur to the device of your infernal preference!

Cop an eyeful right here:

https://www.comixology.com/The-Sixsmiths-Vol-2-1/digital-comic/293294

Set a few months after the climactic events of volume 1, Annie has returned from Sri Lanka with Jezabelle, who is now confined to a wheelchair by her injuries. Jezabelle has come back to Satanism with renewed zeal. When she interrupts one of the vicar’s sermons to with a fundamentalist rant it becomes clear that she’s been badly disturbed by the accident.

This is a fat 53 page issue containing the first six chapters of the book. They are illustrated by Diabolical Dean Rankine, Hideous Jase Harper, Terrible Trev Wood, Awful Alysyn Faye, Shocking Jan Scherpenhuizen, Lugubgrious Luke Pickett and by me, Ginormous Jason Franks (with much assistance from Jan (inks) and Simon Wright (greytones)).

Big thanks to Caliber Comics for making this all happen.

 

Hail Satan!

— JF

AND THEN…

So, earlier this year the magnificent Lindy Cameron of Clan Destine Press invited me to pitch her a short story or novella for a project she was putting together called AND THEN…

The parameters were simple: thrilling adventure stories featuring two protagonists in any genre. I went and wrote an SF novelette called “Exli and the Dragon”, which is my most recently finished piece of work and perhaps my last for 2015.

Meanwhile, at the Hall of Justice, the project mushroomed and… well, now it’s going to be two books. There’s a pretty incredible array of writers involved, including Alan Baxter, Mary Borsellino, Jack Dann, Narrelle Harris, Sophie Masson, Jason Nahrung, Amanda Pillar, Dan Rabarts, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Tor Roxburgh and heaps of others. Fine company to be in. The book will be lavishly illustrated by Vicky Pratt.

I will write a bit more about Exli and the Dragon soon, but in the meantime, if you’d like a copy, Clan Destine are holding a crowdfunder to get this massive project up and running. Please check it out, right here:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/and-then-the-great-big-book-of-awesome–2#/.

Cheers!

— JF

The Sixsmiths Volume 1 #4 on ComiXology

Here it is! The final installment of Sixsmiths volume 1, now available for your digital viewing pleasure. Please feel free to use this in whatever diabolical rituals you have planned for the weekend. I have been wanting to see this book digitally available for a very long time now so I am incredibly gratified to see it finally available. Big thanks to Caliber Comics for making it happen.

https://www.comixology.com/The-Sixsmiths-Vol-1-4/digital-comic/293289

Julius dumps Lilith. Ralf goes into a job interview with a a positive new attitude–only to discover that Vicky is one of the interviewers. Everything comes to a head at the Albert Hills SC Junior Social, when injury leads to a last minute lineup change for Wicked Generation. Meanwhile, Jezabelle is in Sri Lanka, far beyond the devil’s baleful influence… or so she believes. Written by Jason Franks, illustrated by J. Marc Schmidt, cover by Bruce Mutard. Three bucks for 47 pages of diabolical hijinx.

With any luck volume 2 will begin serialization shortly. You can be sure I will keep ring the bells when it happens, so keep your ears tuned and your crucifixes upside down.

Hail Satan!

— JF

DIABOLUS IBI EST: THE SIXSMITHS HAVE ARISEN

Hey sinners, the time you have been waiting for is NOW UPON US.

The new volume of the Sixsmiths is now available on amazon, thanks to the most excellent Caliber Comics.

Volume 1, the story of a family of suburban Satanists fallen prey to the Global Financial Crisis, is a remastered edition of the original graphic novel, written by me and illustrated by J.Marc Schmidt.

http://www.amazon.com/Sixsmiths-One-Jason-Franks/dp/1942351186

Volume 2  contains brand new material. The story picks up a month after volume 1 and continues the story while broadening the scope of the project from the family to the community as they deal with a new, larger crisis. Volume 2 is illustrated by a team of heroes including Dean Rankine, Bruce Mutard, Jase Harper, Sacha Bryning, Sarah Howell, Anton McKay, Aly Faye, Gregory MacKay, Trevor Wood, Luke Pickett, Jan Scherpenhuizen, Tim McEwen, Bobby N and Ed Siemienkowicz.

http://www.amazon.com/Sixsmiths-Two-Jason-Franks/dp/1942351194

Right now the books are only available from amazon.com. I know this is a very expensive option for Australian readers, so please bear with us: we are still waiting to confirm Direct Market distribution. In the meantime, the books are being serialized on ComiXology, so you can get a gander at them on any of your devices.

https://www.comixology.com/The-Sixsmiths/comics-series/53640

 

 

The Sixsmiths Volume 1 #3 on ComiXology

Hey, we suffered a bit of a scheduling delay, but we’re now back on track and Volume 1 issue #3 is now up on ComiXology thanks to the wickedness of Caliber

Comics and I expect we’ll be weekly for the next four weeks.

https://www.comixology.com/The-Sixsmiths-Vol-1-3/digital-comic/293284

It’s Shelly’s birthday party, but Lilith has to go to the stupid Feast of Mammon instead. Cain reconnects with some friends from his old school, Asmodeus Grammar, and Furfur connects with a roasted goat that does not belong to him. Meanwhile, Julius, alone at Shelly’s party, makes a new connection of his own. When Lilith finds out it might just be the End of Days.

Written by Jason Franks, illustrated by J. Marc Schmidt, cover by Aly Faye. Three bucks for 33 pages of devilicious wackiness.

Hail Satan!

— JF

Metempsychosis: Author’s Notes (SPOILERS)

I want to talk a little about Metempsychosis. If you haven’t read it, you can go read it here, for free:

http://www.jasonfranks.com/2014/06/metempsychosis-live-on-sq-mag/

Some spoilers in the following discussion, so if you were too lazy to click the link, or you’re waiting for the Ticonderoga collection (pre-orderable here), you might want to hold off. Consider yourselves warned.

Okay, then.

Spoilers, I say.

Metempsychosis is a fairly traditional horror story. A scholar finds an old manuscript and it leads to the awakening of an ancient evil and/or madness. This is a trope employed most famously by Robert Chambers, HP Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Bloch, Henry Kuttner and Robert E Howard, but here are no shortage of others. The only thing I haven’t done to match the trope is to give the manuscript a cool-sounding name.

The story was directly inspired by the song “Return to Nod”, written by the mighty stoner-doom band High on Fire for their album DEATH IS THIS COMMUNION*. It contains the following lyric:

Speaking the words of the sorcerer’s tongue

No one can stop what’s already begun

Follow the footsteps and unlock the door

The giant you face has awakened

Yeah, I know. Doesn’t even rhyme. But the line about the sorcerer’s tongue got me thinking about magic, language and cognition.

Magic is often referred to as supernatural–as something beyond nature. A way for symbols to transcend the material objects they denote. A path to a place of enhanced meaning. Magic is metaphor.

But in our world, most demonstrable magic works by sleight-of-hand: by confusing us, by taking advantage of glitches in our cognitive processes. If magic is metaphor, it is something that is literally impossible. Magic breaks the laws of nature–but does that mean it has transcended them, or that it is something much baser?

What if the capacity for sorcery is something that exists beneath our ability to reason, rather than above it?

I’m not a scientist, but my degree is in cognitive science and cognition remains an abiding interest of mine. At university I took a gamut of related subjects: the expected psychology subjects, but also philosophy of language, epistemology, logic and artificial intelligence. After three years learning to build expert systems and rules engines my neural network computing was a bit mindblowing.

Computer science is built on the basis of formal logic–higher reasoning–but neural networks are designed to mimic biological brains. A neural network is not just programmed with a set of logical axioms in the same was as a production system: a neural network must be trained to reason. A neural network is a sub-logical engine for calculation that can be taught to make inferences which are difficult to model with Boolean logic or statistics–but which may also be unable to make simple calculations that a digital system would.

This is the kind of magic that Laine, protagonist of the story, has foisted upon him. The language of magic is difficult to learn because it is without meaning or music. The act of studying it causes him neurological damage… but that doesn’t mean he’s not able to absorb it. As a result, Laine starts trying to appease a pantheon of gods he knows nothing about. He looks for them in the sun and the moon… but here’s the thing with the Celtic gods: they live below the earth or beneath the waves. In Metempsychosis the gods are not manifestations of the Super-Ego–they’re 100% Id.

Why the Celtic gods? Why druids? Well, because the Druids forbade any of their lore to be written down. It is thought, they maintained their learning with mnemonic techniques. Through memory tricks and cognitive feats, which fits nicely with the ideas discussed. Also, there’s very little record of the druids or their practices, so I was able to make up a lot of stuff.

Now let me talk about Laine, the protagonist.

My intention was to write the sort of character you’d find in a William Gibson character: a bohemian type who owns few material possessions and is in many ways adrift in society. These are characters that I personally find it very easy to identify with. One of the things I like best about the Blue Ant trilogy is that I feel like I myself could be a minor character in those stories. Say, Hollis Henry suddenly finds herself in need of a software engineer who can write comics and who knows his way around Ueno Station in Tokyo. Hey presto! Here’s Jason!

So Laine’s a darker and more abject version of a Gibson character: a guy with a peculiar skillset but not the initiative or motivation to really make anything of it. He needs to be directed by someone like Hubertus Bigend, or Professor Trimby, or Eddy the Druid.

Or, you know, me. Hey, somebody has to write the damn story.

 

 

Left Hand Path #1 reviewed at the Australian Comics Journal

Ben Kooyman at the Australian Comics Journal has just published a Creature Comics review, featuring Left Hand Path #1 by me, Paul Abstruse and Eddie Swan, and the excellent Karnak #1 by Christian Read and Michael Maier.

Kooyman compares the work to Garth Ennis’ Avatar books and to Larry Cohen’s lo-fi horror-comedyish movies. I’m a huge fan of both those creators so that left a big smile on my face.

The body of the review is here:

http://australiancomicsjournal.com/?p=2714

Kooyman does mention that he’d like to see more stories set in Australia. I will say that this was originally going to be set in Sydney, but Paul persuaded me that LA would suit the story better and he was quite right. When you see issue #2 (Paul is halfway through drawing it) I think you’ll really see why. I do set a lot of my work in Australia (Metempsychosis is set in Dublin and Melbourne, and the Sixsmiths is practically set it my back yard), but I’ve traveled fairly widely and I’ve lived and worked in a number of countries. I am in fact an immigrant to Australia, so, you know.

I’m not a believer in “the city is a character” but I do try to choose settings for my stories that will add to the flavour.

By the by, Christina and Mike’s book, Karnak, reviewed in the same article, is a fantastic read and you should most certainly get your hands on it if you haven’t already.

Metempsychosis in Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2014

I don’t write a lot of short stories these days. I wish I could, but for many years now my shorter works have mostly been in the comics medium. Short stories are, pound for pound, much more difficult to write than novels or comics, because there are no shortcuts. Character, plot, ideas, setting: in a short story you have a limited amount of space to deliver a piece that is unique and satisfying. You can’t rely on story momentum or artwork. And because it’s short there’s a lot of attention on your prose. Short stories have to be stylish as well as economical.

Selling a short story is incredibly competitive. The top markets accept only a fraction of a percent of submissions. That’s the other cost of writing short stories: you get a lot of rejections.

Last year I sold my story Metempsychosis to SQ Mag. Metempsychosis is, to my mind, the best short story I have in print. Want to know how difficult it was to get the piece published? Here are some numbers:

First draft written June 2009

Final draft completed  January 2014

Publication Date: June 2014

Number of drafts: 17

Number of rounds of edits between acceptance and publication: 3

Number of Rejections: 8

That’s right. It took five years and countless hours of editing to get a 6000 word short story ready for publication. In that time I received eight rejections before SQ Mag took the story. While I know that a sale is contingent on a lot of factors besides the quality  of the work, I promise you every one of those rejections hurt.

Writing is a bruising business and especially so than when it comes to short stories, so it’s nice to have a win every now and again.

http://ticonderogapublications.com/web/index.php/years-best-australian-fantasy-and-horror/volume-5-2014/387-year-s-best-for-2014-contents-announced

I will blog a bit more about the actual story in weeks to come. In the meantime, though, I’m thinking about writing new short stories to celebrate.

The Sixsmiths vol.01 #2 on ComiXology

Alright now!

Volume 1 issue #2 is up already, thanks to the the most excellent Caliber Comics:

https://www.comixology.com/The-Sixsmiths-2/digital-comic/255590

The trials and tribulations of Albert Hills’ favourite Satanic family continue. Cain joins the jazz club. Ralf signs up for unemployment benefits. Annie goes to Vicar Melmoth for some sultry, Satanic-style counselling. Lilith’s date is interrupted by a chance encounter with her black sheep sister–who has given up the devil in order to become a Buddhist nun.

Written by Jason Franks, illustrated by J. Marc Schmidt, cover by Jan Scherpenhuizen. Three bucks for 45 pages of diabolist hijinks.

Remember: Lucifer only loves you when you’re buying.

— JF