NOBLE FAILURE #4 (April 2007)
READ! the stunning conclusion to TOPOR: THE THING THAT SLEPT — Can the diminutive Dr. Riley and his sexy, cycloptic, assistant survive the tired trespasser from space?
GUFFAW! at the antics of those mischievous MONKEYS ON AN ELEVATOR!
WONDER! why I can’t do 24 pages in 24 Hours!
(scroll beyond the art for more sly commentary)
(Sincere apologies to the great Jack Kirby for misappropriating some of the artwork from Fantastic Four #1. The King is dead. LONG LIVE THE KING!)
At long last! We are up-to-date with the comics.
As you can see, the page count slipped again this issue, though that wasn’t for a lack of trying.
This time the mindset was, “Do the pages!” so I was prepared to hit all 24, and a cover. The day started at 8AM; MONKEYS ON AN ELEVATOR got knocked-out in just under an hour and speedy progress was made on the cover.
Then the interruptions started: screaming child, barking dogs, a last-minute call from our realtor asking if it was OK for someone to view the house at 1:30 — the list goes on.
Honestly, it’s a surprise so many pages got done. This attempt was such a mess, I almost changed the title to MISERABLE FAILURE. If the current cover hadn’t already been done, I probably would have.
The main push for this issue was to complete TOPOR — which, just so you know, was not plotted in advance. For the most part, each segment of TOPOR was worked-out during production. The only exception was pages 2 and 3 of part III; those carried-over from the March issue. Dr. Riley’s last line was too good to throw away. Everything else though was fresh-ground and made that day, including the ending.
Now I can move on to other, less inking-intensive stories — though there are frequent and insistent requests for more Abraham Lincoln stories. I’ll see what I can do.