Perils on Planet X by Mills and Gonzales
Lady Sabre by Rucka & Burchett
Ace Kilroy by Kelly & O'Connor
Simone & Ajax by Andrew Pepoy
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If any GRAVEDIGGER readers are attending HeroesCon in Charlotte, NC this weekend, stop by co-creator/artist Rick Burchett‘s table and say “hi!”
Let him know how much you’re enjoying Gravedigger!
- Chris
Greg Rucka gave a nice shout-out to me and my webcomics this weekend over on the LADY SABRE Kickstarter page, which led to a whole bunch of new visitors to this site on Sunday. I hope that if you came here based on Greg’s kind recommendation, that you “dig” what Rick and I are doing here and will make a habit of reading our comic every Monday.
And if you haven’t pledged to LADY SABRE yet, I think there’s still a little time left to get in on it…
- Chris
So, you’re enjoying Gravedigger here every Monday, and you’ve found your appetite for kick-ass crime comics whetted. But finding more high-powered, hardboiled webcomics out there in the vast Internet is slow, frustrating work, right?
Well, here’s a simple, one-shot solution: the Crime Webcomics Directory.
Yeah. You’re welcome.
- Chris
As you all probably know, Gravedigger co-creator/artist Rick Burchett is also one of the creative forces behind another prominent webcomic, Lady Sabre And The Pirates Of the Ineffable Aether, which is written by best-selling novelist and famed comic scribe, Greg Rucka.
Well, they’ve been producing their bi-weekly, swashbuckling steampunk aerial adventures for a year and a half or so, and are now planning the first hardcover trade collection. In order to put together the best possible print edition, they’ve just launched a Kickstarter campaign. If you click on that link, you’ll see exactly what they have planned, and what they’re asking, along with the rewards they’re offering to contributors.
If you love action-adventure comics, you owe it to yourself to check out Lady Sabre. You already know what an accomplished artist and storyteller Rick is, and in Lady Sabre he’s really cutting loose with some of the finest work of his career. I’ll be kicking in to the campaign, and suggest you consider doing so, as well.
It’s a great comic… and you can never have too many of those.
- Chris
There are days when I wish I hadn’t suggested to Rick that we model “Digger” McCrae visually on the actor Lee Marvin.
It all started because I didn’t want McCrae to look like a clichéd comic book hardcase: a massive, muscled brute with an inhumanly square jaw, shadowed eyes, a scar or stubble for “tough guy” texture…. I suggested that he be hard, but a little offbeat looking, like Marvin, and Rick obliged.
But every time I read a Facebook or Twitter post that reads: “Hey, it looks just like Lee Marvin!” as if we didn’t know that, or when the resemblance seems to distract people from actually recognizing that we’ve tried to create a character here – one that Marvin could have played, maybe, but not one based specifically on the actor or any of his roles… I roll my eyes, sigh, and momentarily regret that decision.
But honestly, I can’t imagine “Digger” looking any other way. Rick and I are both big fans of the late actor – the tall, slender, white-haired ex-Marine with the gravel-over-broken glass voice, sly, dry humor and quick wit, who passed away in 1987. We both love his tough guy movie roles (which should be evident to anyone who reads this strip), from Point Blank and The Killers to Prime Cut and The Professionals to The Dirty Dozen and, yeah, even The Delta Force. They simply don’t make screen actors like Lee Marvin today, and that’s a shame.
I don’t know as much about the man as I’d like, but there’s a new biography that came out this week, Lee Marvin: Point Blank, by Dwayne Epstein, that’s been garnering some good reviews, so I’m hoping to pick the book up and find out more.
If anyone else is interested, here’s the Amazon listing: Lee Marvin: Point Blank
So, today the Gravedigger team remembers and pays tribute to our model and inspiration on the anniversary of his birth… happy birthday, sir – wherever you may be!
- Chris
