Comic 727 -- Battle with the Serpent

Something rarely seen... a war dirigible vs. a giant sea monster!

Whew! This page was huge and took more time than I expected. I'm still pretty awkward with coloring... oh well.

Owing to vacation, next month's installment will be considerably shorter. Still... enjoy the epic showdown!

Comic 726 -- Guardians of Annwn

Time for mythology and danger!

I have to say, I've been looking forward to Sharon's adventures in the Exile World for a very long time. One of the big joys about coming back to Thunderstruck has been the chance to write and draw all the weird monsters, gods, and mythical lands Sharon encounters in her travels. Plus her airship.

Hope you enjoy these sequences as much as I do!

Comic 725 -- Next Destinations

Time to talk to the head...

I try not to think too hard about what Bella's existence would be like, but every time my nose itches, I kind of feel sorry for her.

Comic 724 -- Message from Dad

It's been a while since we've seen Aaron...

Apologies for the brief delay... it's been a very busy month with the book launch!

Slight Delay for Next Comic

Apologies... it'll be up Friday.

Comic 723 -- An Unexpected Tern

And we're live!

Pardon the title of this strip.

Busy, busy, busy! The official launch of The Dragon Waking is today, though as I posted below the book sort of jumped the starting gun already. More announcements to come!

The Dragon Waking is Here!

It arrived early!

So the launch date was August 1st, but things happened and now the book is here and available!

("Things happened" is about as much as I know regarding the series of events that led to an early arrival.)

It's a little stunning. Imagine you're an astronaut, and you're in the capsule on the launch pad. You're all psyched to go into space. NASA starts the countdown: "20... 19... 18..."And then FWOOSH! Up you go! I guess you get into space a little earlier, huh?

Anyway, this is how I feel about it all:

Comic 722 -- The Good Ship Agnir

And here we are into Chapter 15:

How'd she get that airship built? We'll get into the details more next time, including what turns those propellers. For now, enjoy your first look at the new thing in the comic that's going to give me the most headaches to draw...

Announcing THE DRAGON WAKING -- Coming August 1, 2016

Well... the time has finally arrived! It's my first book, now becoming an actual thing-in-print reality.

So what's it about? This is a middle-grade fantasy, and you might have already made an educated guess that it's about dragons. It starts with a 13-year old girl named Rose living contemporary Boulder City, NV meeting and befriending a dragon named Jade. What's a dragon doing in modern-day Nevada? Getting ready to start a whole lot of trouble, it turns out.

For Thunderstruck readers, this is definitely a story with a lighter tone than you may be accustomed to from me... and nowhere near as much outright heresy. But I think you'll recognize some of the same themes.


It's been a long trip through the process of publishing, and of course in many ways this is really the starting point. I've learned a whole lot of lessons, but patience is probably the biggest takeaway.

The Dragon Waking is published by Albert Whitman & Company. If you're keen, you can even pre-order:

• On Amazon
• On Barnes & Noble
• On GoodReads

 ... or wherever else you prefer to shop. And if they aren't carrying it yet, maybe you can suggest they get in on the action? If you like.

Comic 721 -- Factions

New comic!

As we come to the close of this interlude, we get one more revelation: it seems not everybody in Vigil is so keen on ending the current status quo. These guys... always so duplicitous!

Hosting finally sorted!

Geez! That took a while. Okay new hosting setup, which hopefully will take care of the errors. The new page is now updated on the website.

Almost time for next month's strip...

Hosting Stuff

Well, the hosting issue is becoming trickier than I thought. I'm working on getting migrated over to a new host, but for now I'm not able to predict when that'll happen.

Sorry for the delay, everyone...

Comic 720 -- Witness

Hmm. More hosting problems. Well, here's a link to the page on DeviantArt, anyway:

Hopefully I can get this sorted out early next week and update the website proper.

Comic 719 -- The Big Question

More revelations from the Timeless Sepulchre...

Playing fast and loose with scriptural interpretation is just how we roll around these parts.

Comic 718 -- The Vigil

A big secret deserves a big panel...

Shemira is a real Hebrew tradition in which the body of the deceased is watched over until it's ready for burial. In this case, of course, it's taking on a somewhat altered meaning. The rules are a little different when you're dealing with gods and archangels.

Grandma Stella, forever sharp, picked up the clue the first time she heard the name.

Comic 717 -- Introductions

Next comic is up and ready...

Here we get the complete introduction to Vigil's top seven--now featuring one Stella Wincott. We also get their corresponding Archangel pairings.

Now, if you're going to write a story with Archangels, you're going to run into different rosters in different religious texts. I didn't go with any one tradition's version, but rather chose a kind of all-star list to fill out my own lineup. Keep in mind that there were originally ten archangels, and we do know the identity of the non-Vigil survivor.

Anyway, I don't claim to be an expert on angelic lore, but I do find it pretty interesting, as you can probably tell. Fortunately, Thunderstruck isn't a scholarly treatise--so when I run into contradictory source material or something that doesn't square with my version of things, I get to make the call of what works best in the story.

In other news... whoo! Busy time with The Dragon Waking. I'll scrape together a post at some point and tell you all about it.