Heavy Static

When I first started this blog, I decided that I would keep it as clean, concise, and as focused on my fiction work as possible. That meant no editorializing about nonsense topics, talking about myself, or posting anything on the blog that wasn't either a free fiction story, or some kind of notice about a piece of my writing that was about to be released elsewhere.

Well, this is sort of all of those things wrapped into one post...sort of. And it should be the last time I do this kind of post.

I've recently been exploring the deeper connections between creative inspiration, process, and the finished artistic product, and have started a sort of sister-blog to work in tandem with the free fiction blog here.

This new blog is Heavy Static.

On Heavy Static you'll be able to find a madhouse collection of articles, links, pictures, and musings on all of the things that inspire me creatively across a wide host of artistic disciplines - everything from authors, artists, comics, film and television, gaming, crime, horror, occult, grimdark, and creative and productivity processes of all types.

I want to gather together all of the things that I love, mash them all up in one spot, and see what kind of projects I can synthesize out of them. Heavy Static will be my R&D department where I can experiment with all sorts of creative...things, and see what works before taking it out to the showroom floor here on on this blog, or out into the wider world for publication.

I hope you'll check it out, and I hope you'll get as much enjoyment out of it as I will.

Ghost Town

This is a favorite comic project that I did a while back, but sadly, despite interest from publishers it never got off the ground for multiple reasons.

Art by Riley Rossmo.

I may end up novelizing this before too long.

Click the link below to read the full first issue.

Hell Dorado: Inferno - Demons

This is the introductory story I wrote for the Demons Faction, originally published in the Hell Dorado: Inferno expansion rulebook for the Hell Dorado miniatures skirmish game by Cipher Studios.

From the Memoirs of Brother Francois Gillmartin

Brother of the Order of Shining Light, Excommunicated

Discovered in the ruins of the garrison at Forsworn Pass, Outer Circle of Hell

To whoever may find these words, may they shed light on the horrors that have happened here, and may that light guide you to safer pastures.

It has been five years since the Earthly world Above discovered the gates to Hell.  I say “Discovered”, but in truth that may not be the right word, for in my estimation the gates had always been there.  They were simply waiting for some unknown signal to reveal themselves to mankind.

Where it is rumored that the Saracen cracked the gates wide by design, it is my belief that for the West, it was the blood of battle shed between brothers that allowed the Gate to Hell to yaw open before our people.  Perhaps we had to become not unlike demons ourselves, to be deemed worthy of free passage into the Inferno.

Pavlov's God

Art by Steven Sanders

Pests

Art by Engin Deniz Erbas

Disgruntled

Art by Juan Moreno

Letters During Wartime: Cola Wars

One of the greatest resources an historian can use to gain insight into any given time period is the first person account of its citizens on the world around them. This has proven especially true during times of war, since, when a nation's populace is thrown into disarray by conflict, often times the only surviving historical records are those written and kept by partisan officials, who by their nature will be biased as to the health and stability of their political charge. Surprisingly, it has proven time and again, that the most reliable and numerous accounts during times of military action come not from those at home, but from the correspondence of the soldiers themselves, who would send regular letters to loved ones in an attempt to alleviate and assuage their fears of the dangers at the front line.

Those letters recovered and preserved from the Cola Wars, remain as some of history's greatest social document resources to date. Here are excerpts from some of the most revealing letters kept on record.

- Dudley P. Ackleman Ph.D., Professor of Refreshment Studies