Bribe: I give you something
I have trading cards and art for people who pre-order Toxic Avenger Comics #1
Here’s how it started. This is the opening page for my pitch in 2023 to revive the Toxic Avenger as a comic book series.
Now, with the first volume complete and in stores now, The Toxic Avenger will relaunch as an ongoing series on July 9. I pitched a lot in that initial document and, to my eternal shock, Ahoy and Troma are letting me run wild with my plans for this character, which we all hope to be a multi-year run of comics. (See the first page of art down below.)
Monthly comics are not exactly selling like they were in the roaring 90s. Books are routinely cancelled and fewer ongoing comics are greenlit in the first place. Many readers these days wait until a book is collected in trade while shops, because of the newsstand model used to purchase monthly comics, will only stock what they know they can sell. This is where pre-ordering comics with your local shop becomes critically important.
If there is an artist, character, or comic you want to see succeed these days, you have to show up for it. I get the opportunity to launch these books from Ahoy and Troma. I will get the opportunity to finish them from readers who support them.
Here’s my ask: Call or email your local comic shop and pre-order Toxic Avenger Comics #1. Often you can pre-order straight from their website. If you do, I’ll send you something in the mail…
The Bribe
When I attended ComicsPro in February to talk to retailers, my publisher Ahoy printed up a short run of exclusive trading cards that I drew featuring a mutated comic shop owner bearing little to no resemblance to those fine people. I of course absconded with the remainder of the pile and am now in sole possession of the uncirculated copies of this devastatingly rare collector’s item.
If you pre-order the new comic, email me a screenshot of your purchase or your written deposition (to my name at g-mail) along with your address. Not only will I mail each and every one of you a trading card, but you’ll be entered into a raffle to win this original art below. One person, selected by my Bribe-O-Tron Randomizer, will receive this illustration of Toxie I made with ink and screentone on bristol board. Spruce up the house a bit!
There are going to be more comics announced soon, and I’m going to add a bunch of ridiculous giveaways to this offer, so if you want two spots in the raffle, do this first one now!
Toxic Avenger Comics page 1
I’m blessed to work with Fred Harper on the series and a bunch of other talented artists they won’t let me tell you about yet. Fred is drawing issue #1, our Horror issue, and our large-scale political satire that begins in issue #6. When I saw the pages coming in for the Horror issue, I was floored. Fred is leveling-up with every issue.
They want to keep all this art in the back pocket for press and exclusives. I understand, but at the same time I secreted the following page of inks out of the company Dropbox folder because I urgently believe it’s cool and you should see it and pre-order the comic book.
The Crew
There is a lot more to come. While, again, I am under heavy embargo about what I can and cannot share, I will simply post the last page from Toxic Avenger vol 1, which shows a bunch of new mutants. What they might get up to together, who can say.
