Mark G. Heike and Stephanie S. Heike, comic book creators!
News and Updates from Steph'
June 06, 2008 Updating site around work--new 21st stuff soon!
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June 2, 2008 We'll be in Chicago for Wizard World
which will going on the very same weekend in Rosemont as Flashback Weekend
which is the horror fest with Romero and Coscarelli
and a hour and a half or so away we have the Milwaukee Summerfest!!
Arrgh! Too...much...geeky...coolness!
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May 28, 2008 Still in the middle of site update. worked all Memorial day weekend
because we have stuff to ship by end of month. Did cookout and eat for hour though.
Got finished w/ghost job last night--bleah--all templates.
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May 22, 2008 In the middle of a site update right now. so things aren't as pretty as they should be yet.
The main page is updated and the comics are now on the 21st Centurions page rather than the front page.
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May 21, 2008, 2008
Back to work on the website updates and 21st Centurions. Finished roughs for FF story.
Another volume of the Italian FF reprints is on the way--emailed a page Mark accidentally left out of the scans.
I wantto go see Indiana Jones--but hate, hate, HATE Shia LaBeouf--it's like some
gawdawful lab-created hybrid of the most annoying aspects of Wil Wheaton and Martin Short.
Do his parents like bribe producers by helping finance the budget on all his movies or what?
La Boof was one of the worst things about the Transformers movie--which, if you don't know anythingabout TF like me,
was otherwise pretty enjoyable in a cheezy bad 50's SF movie sort of way, as if you were watching a jacked-up remake
of "It Came from Outer Space" or "Invisible Invaders".
Though, being a geek who's
seen way too many properties she likes and does care about done
badly that I doknow about, I can sympathise with the geeks who said it was done wrong.
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May 19, 2008, 2008
Yup! I updated the front page with a new design!
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May 6, 2008, 2008
As a side note/commentary to the Iron Man film,
to those film/comic geeks who always complain about noisy kids at movies--
let me just say that the knee-high kid watching the movie way behind us was polite--he went off into the
side entrance to blow his nose once and went quietly back to his seat. The annoying adult geek seated in the middle of our row,
however, rudely (ie noise, bumping, obscuring screen) left and returned three times
during the movie (four, if you count he left for good before the end credits and the bonus scene) and was
the only one in the theatre to leave his/her seat during the movie
other than the kid behind us. If ya gotta get up that much during a movie, dude, get an aisle seat for the sake of people around you.
There were several available, even at the premiere.
Thank you, geek parents for raising your kids better than the last generation.
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May 2, 2008, 2008
Yes, we saw it @ 8 on Thursday and it was good.
With all the postive clamor about this film, I don't think you need another person telling you that the Iron Man
movie didn't stink, do you? Mark, who's the biggest IM fan I've ever met and a card-carrying member of the MMMS, loved it.
(I had a few quibbles like the director fanboy casting himself as a scrawny, wussy Happy Hogan
(who in the comics continuity, is supposed to be an ex-boxer)--but he's
just onscreen for a few seconds and RDJ's prominent eyes bug out at me in deviating
from the classic "Tony Stark" squinty look. Hey, I go to the movies, I'm gonna look at the guys
and pick apart their appearance.
Huh, I thought Da Q outlawed smoking in Marvel properties?! Dropped the ball here, Joey!)
But, yes, other than a bare handful of nitpicks, the overall movie itself is solid.
No excruciatingly horrible "cringe moments" that make you embarrassed to be a comic fan--
(okay, there's the "stewardesses dancing on Stark's personal plane like it's a club" bit
--that's just so many ways of wrong--but it did fit the character, played up what a bad boy he was and it was funny.)
Yeah, Free Comic Book Day is at all your local comic shops this Saturday.
We'll be wandering around some shops between working.
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May 1, 2008, 2008
Yes, it's a new month, yes, we're still busy and yes, we're going to take a few hours off to see Iron Man.
Mark is still looking for new comic artists at our day job at AC, pencillers and inkers.
Yes, you must be able to draw pretty girls doing super heroics--that's a must!
Email the office
if you're interested.
We already have several good guys
and gals already writing
who are familar with our comics and characters.(Eric & Eric, dis means youse! Hope youse be in Chi-Town dis year!)
Here's an example of very bad writers unfamilar with our characters:
Three-four years ago, we had a writer submit a a rewritten Synn and She-cat script based on
a GGAQ Synn and She-cat story Mark had written back in the mid-90's
with just a few minor story changes and tried to pass off as "his" work. I know Wizard Comics magazine sez
"just sending in stories previously published by the company" as "comic writing advice" in their Wizard magazine,
This may fly at the bigger "blind as a bat" corporate companies,
but it won't work when the editor who's reading your hack work-- is very likely the writer of that
10 year old story!
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April 16, 2008
We're still here, just working. "All-you-can-eat" pie day and the classic car show is this weekend.
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March 31, 2008
We finished Femforce last week and wouldn't ya know it, we got sick.
Mark and I are fighting colds. At least it's pretty outside.
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March 30, 2008
You know, we get tired of explaining the rights of Golden Age characters,
how so many have unusual, individual legal status, why we use some,
don't use others, how AC indeed owns the legal right to some, why there's characters legally owned by others,
why there are some we wouldn't want to touch with a ten foot pole, why there's others that the creators or heirs would
be entitled to make big money off them, especially if they were spun off into other media,
...blah blah. There's been a lot of ignorant misconception about these
characters (mostly from certain foriegn nationals who don't "believe" in American copyright and trademark law--much like they
don't "believe" in the Treaty of Lisbon)
Well, the
Superman ruling decreeing that the Siegel heirs
get some financial recompensation of their grief at
the exploitation of this Golden Age superhero character
might help shed some light as to why this is so dicey.
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March 26, 2008
Just wrapped up my work on the latest FF--
This weekend, saw a new toyline based on an animated show in Wal-Mart from a toy company we talked
to and the very same animation guys we talked to. The major difference between those characters and our characters getting
the greenlight was the fact that American properties don't qualify for extra cash for animation from Canadian goverment funding.
Oh well...these things happen.
Yeesh, Finally fixed the links below--I'm a comic book writer n'artist, not a web tech, guys, I do the best that I can.
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March 22, 2008
Hey folks, something fun this weekend
--paying homage to those great comic strips of a bygone era...
Look, it's Mandrake the Canuck Magician!
If that wasn't enough for you that Mandrake was real--
Here's Popeye!!
the photo's midway down the page, with further description a little ways down.
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March 20, 2008
Yes, I've been back to lettering FF this week. Got to finish letter and dialoging the She-Cat as well
as letter Mark's Ms.V and Paragon. Yeesh! I don't regularly use the classic "Marvel style" dialoguing post-art,
but it works well for more action oriented comics. For 21st, I have scripts written out in advance
and only a tiny percentage of that overall plot and dialog ends up in the comic,
because I end up writing new dialog to match the art or trim it to fit the pace of the story.
I like writing and reading comics that have action and fight scenes rather than just talking heads. Sure, it's easier to draw people
just talking and whining about all their little problems, that's easy to write and simple to draw--but it makes tedious and boring comic books.
Paraphrasing Dr. Wertham here, literature is two people talking about their innermost little feelings and in a traditional funny book,
you don't have that, because someone always comes along behind them and throws them out a window. We need more window throwing.
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March 13, 2008
Finished a cover for FF, something like three-four days straight doing roughs,
penciling and inking the background & coloring everything. Finally back to 21st for a few days.
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March 5, 2008
Totally geeky and nothing to do with comics...16 PS3s linked together to create black hole sims.
black hole sims.
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March 1, 2008
Quick post(in reply to calls at the office yet again) No, we are NOT at Megacon.
Yes, it is our local show, but no, we will not be there, we are too busy!
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Feb 25, 2008
We're too busy!! Just letting y'all know that the new AC site, email and store are fine,
I think we've got all the bugs out.
Also the second volume of the Italian edition of FF is out
with a vintage cover (FF# 21(?)inked by Mark way back in the 80's.
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Feb 21, 2008
Yes, we're busy! Mark is grouchy and we're busy.
The AC website is still changing over to a new server, don't know yet when
all that's done. You can still email us here at our personal website if our office email stops working.
I need to do an FF script, lost original version of script from last year & rewriting it from scratch,
will probably end up pencilling rough layouts for the story as I did for the She-Cat one.
21st Centurions is still on my board, but as you can tell it's sandwiched between emergencies.
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Feb 7, 2008
True phonecall last Friday: (paraphrased) "Hi, could you guys do
me a big favor? Since you're the only comic
pros I know who won't be going to San Diego, could you guys get me hotel reservations for
SDCC 2008? I'm going to a funeral next week and I won't be able to reserve a room for
myself and nobody else will do it. I'll send you a list of which hotels
in what order and all the info this weekend."
There's something
incredibly sad and funny about this.
I just can't figure out what it is.
I actually did get a room for the guy, took me an unbelievable 45 minutes on the computer
via the "Official" SDCC discount when it opened. Unfortunately, it's a freaking MILE
from the convention center and it wasn't one of his top choices AND he wasn't that excited about
the room costing around $900 for 6 days but I guess I did okay for my first time trying to buy a
hotel room in San Diego. Probably all the other comic pros and fans snapped up his top choices
for hotels:P What do I care? It's not like I'm going this year.
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Jan 29, 2008
Just a note to let you folks know that the try-out for a Gargantarama comic,
separate from FF, will not be happening. Most of the giantess fans,
unfortunately twiddle their thumbs and buy their books several months, if not
years after they come out from us on the online store,
instead of ordering ahead through their local comic shop with Diamond's Previews . I know, I know, that's
not all of you, but it's the same problem when I championed "Garganta's Thrilling Science" which was a comic featuring
all new material with giantess Garganta plus SF reprints and it bombed. It doesn't matter that people
"eventually" buy these books--if there's no sell-through the retailers and distributor,
that makes the distributor very unhappy with us if we can't make their minimum sales. Plus,
we can't make our immediate printing costs. So, we can't publish the solo giantess book,
because not enough people care to buy it "right away". Sorry guys, I'm upset too.
Those stories will "eventually" be published-- salted in over flip book issues of FF.
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Jan 28, 2008
Hi Folks! Well, you'll remember last month, I told
you I was working on a cool project and here it is--
T-shirts! Only a handful of stuff up right now, punk hearts and kitty Kitz, but since my computer was in the
shop for several days, I haven't gone great guns on it, what with my regular gigs and all!
T-shirt shop!
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Jan 14, 2008
A little reminder to support your local retailer rather than buying
direct from us online or bootlegging your funny books :P Without retailers, we don't have comic shops and without comics shops,
we don't have cool stuff. So, please order and buy your AC Comics and Centurion Premiere books
from your local retailers before ordering direct from us. Thanks!
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Jan 7, 2008
Is it a happy new year?! We survived the holidays/work schedule!
A lot of you called/emailed while we were out of town (over more than two weekends worth last month)
plus we were swamped with deadlines, so we were working on the road!
If you haven't heard from us, we're still catching up! Don't panic!
Just wanted to say that we're shipping out contributor copies to
FF#142 this week. (no, I don't have a copy yet either! They go to Diamond first!)
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