Comic 705 -- Does It Ever Go Smooth?

Since I'm going to be traveling and probably pretty busy, here's the comic a day early!

This strip posed a choice between aesthetics and accuracy. In reality, NFL teams do not practice in their home stadiums--they have big practice facilities located somewhere else. But aesthetically, the practice facility is dull to look at and unrecognizable to anyone. There are no giant walls to scale or anything fun like that.

In the end, I chose to ignore accuracy this time and go with the more interesting setting.

Comic 704 -- The Hunters and the Hunted

It's like the old saying goes: No battle plan survives first contact with a majestic moose.

We're now one year into the return of Thunderstruck! 2014 has been an interesting year, and I haven't been able to share all the developments on the writing front. But I should have some interesting news in 2015. Hope you all enjoy the final day of the year, and I look forward to keeping the momentum (slow but steady) going in the upcoming year.

Comic 703 -- Vampires of the Mile High City

And for our next installment:

Still getting used to making color comics. A crowd scene like this one presented all sorts of new challenges... I expect I'll get the hang of it more as I go along.

I've got the next due date marked as Dec. 31st, but due to the hectic nature of the holidays, travel, and so forth I may not quite bullseye that one. With any luck I can deliver early, but I shouldn't be more than a couple of days off the mark one way or another.

Comic 702 -- Jude and Bella

And here we are with the next update...

In terms of story chronology, this segment picks up quite closely on the heels of the last bit of story from Gail's side of the tale. In real time, though, I recognize it's been a few years since we checked in on everyone here. So there's been a bit of recapping in the last couple of strips, but we're about to hit the pedal for some drama and action soon...

Comic 701 -- Back Up to Speed

New chapter underway! Here's the first installment of "String Theory..."

Okay... it's kind of an exposition-heavy installment, but I figure that chronologically it's been a while since we've checked in with Gail and her crew.

Comic 700 -- Restoration

With this installment, we bring the current chapter to a close:

And this is the 700th comic! Not counting outtakes, extras, cover pages, and the odd erroneous farewell message. We've come a long way... and there's much more to go. Next up, we check in with Gail, Sax, and Hayaka. Looks like trouble already.

So I may have some good news about another writing project soon. Nothing definite yet, but there are some positive developments that I hope to be able to announce soon. I mention it just to make you aware that I'm still hard at work with other projects -- normal prose fiction rather than webcomics. I think that this once-a-month schedule is working for keeping Thunderstruck going while balancing my other efforts.

Comic 699 -- Mjolnir the Crusher

Action! Violence! Special effects! In the spirit of the summer blockbuster season, here we go...

This is the penultimate strip of the current chapter. One more installment with Sharon in the world of exiles, and then it's time to check in and see how Gail, Sax, and Hayaka are doing.

See you there...

Comic 698 -- Oath to the Thunder God

The new strip is here...

Yep, that was the God of Thunder all right... or at least what's left of him.

Mjolnir, the hammer of Thor, has received many different fictional depictions. I went with one that echoed the design of many of the classic Mjolnir pendants from ancient times (here's a sample of how they look.)

Turns out someone else had the same idea. This coming month, Marvel is putting out the first a limited series called "Ragnarok," a comic adaptation of the old myths. I'm looking forward to it because it's written by Walt Simonson, whose run on The Mighty Thor is one of my favorite mainstream comics of all time. Nice to see him coming back to Asgard again.

Anyway, if you go to that page above, you'll see a sketch of Thor with a Mjolnir that was also clearly modeled off the old pendants. Kind of cool.

Comic 697 -- Lots of Explosions

The new strip is up: action sequence!

This turned out pretty long... probably as long as a single strip is going to get, but you never know.

Next month: isn't that the God of Thunder?

Animated Recap for Interlude 2

In my ongoing quest to animate "The Story So Far..." section, here's the latest entry for Interlude 2: New Perspective Triad!



Yeah, I'm still fairly far behind the story with this project, but eventually I'll have it caught up. Enjoy!