I am very pleased to announce a major new science fiction graphic novel, STALAG-X, a project I’ve developed with Steven L Sears, Co-Executive Producer and scriptwriter of XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS (among many, many other things).  Gestalt Comics, the largest comics publisher in Australia, will be publishing the graphic novel.

STALAG-X is a gritty story of human soldiers trying to survive in an alien concentration camp, and one mysterious prisoner who calls himself “Joe Human.” He cannot allow the vicious aliens to win . . . but because of his own dark past, he doesn’t dare allow himself to be rescued either.

I’ve known Steven Sears for most of my professional career, and we’ve wanted to work together for a long time.  We developed ideas over the years as pitches for TV shows, but when we hit on STALAG-X, we knew this was The One. Steven’s background is in writing and producing film and television, which meshed very well with my background in writing comics.  We have already completed the first three (of six) scripts, and are working on developing STALAG-X as a television or film property as well.

Enter Gestalt.  Steven and I had the idea developed for STALAG-X, but last year when I was one of the guests of Supanova touring Australia, I got to know Wolfgang Bylsma, publisher of Gestalt Comics.  In fact, I got to know him as a friend before I knew what he did for a living.  As I looked at the Gestalt publications, I grew more and more excited: these were high-quality books, not cookie-cutter comics, and even eclectic.  Gestalt seemed like it might be a good home for STALAG-X.

Later, at San Diego Comic Con, I showed Steven some of Gestalt’s books, and he was equally impressed.  We both agreed that we wanted to talk with Wolfgang about this project, so we met with him, let him look at the material. As we had hoped, Wolfgang was hooked, and soon thereafter we all decided we wanted to work together.

Since we were at San Diego Comic Con, I suggested the legendary Dave Dorman as our cover artist.  Dave did all the covers for the Young Jedi Knights series, as well as my short story collection DOGGED PERSISTENCE, and we have been friends for a long time.  I talked with Dave, told him the idea behind STALAG-X, and he also agreed to hop aboard.

We had already worked with comic artist Mike Ratera to do concept sketches, and Gestalt has just signed Mike as the interior artist. As you can see from the samples below, his work is incredible and powerful.

We don’t have a release date yet for the first issue, probably sometime in late fall.  I’ll keep you up to date, and I hope you’ll follow the series.  STALAG-X is one of our best ideas.