New Regular JCV Column

In addition to the weekly installments of ANTIQUES: THE COMIC STRIP and various feature articles, I'll be contributing a new monthly column to ANTIQUE TRADER. Details soon!

JCV & MLH at GEM 1/13/06

In advance of the new season of 24, which starts January 14 - 15, 2007 with the two-night premiere, Mark Haynes and I will be appearing at Geppi's Entertainment Museum on Saturday, January 13. I'll post the hours soon.

We'll be talking about the upcoming season of the show, and our mini-series, 24: Nightfall.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY Loves the EC ARCHIVES!

I'm very happy to be associated with just about every project we undertake at Gemstone, but I'm really happy to be Executive Editor/Associate Publisher of The EC Archives. The first two volumes, Weird Science - Volume 1 and Shock SuspenStories - Volume 1, sold very well on initial orders, but the real surprise has been the re-order activity. It's been amazing.

We started with great material, got forewords by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, respectively, and produced some seriously cool collecitons. The reviews, in places like USA Today, have been wonderful.

And now we've made Entertainment Weekly's "Must List." How cool is that?
Check it out!

24 NIGHTFALL #2 on sale this Week

24: NIGHTFALL #2, the second issue of our five-issue mini-series, is scheduled to go on sale this week!

24 Signing a Success

Our signing at Cards, Comics & Collectibles was great. We heard those magic words, "I've never been in a comic shop before, but..."

Anytime you get even one of them it's a success.

Thanks to Marc Nathan for having us in and for arranging the TV coverage!

24 & JCV at CARDS, COMICS & COLLECTIBLES

Update: Mark and I are scheduled to be on Fox 45, WBFF TV in Baltimore, at 7:55 AM, Friday, December 1, to promote the signing and the comic. If you're in the area, tune in!


24: NIGHTFALL #1 went on sale 11/22/06.

On Saturday, December 2, from 2 PM until 5 PM, I'll be signing at Cards, Comics & Collectibles in Reisterstown, Maryland. If you haven't ever been there, Marc Nathan, the store's owner, is also the same man behind the Baltimore Comic-Con.

Cards, Comics & Collectibles is located at 100-A Chartley Drive, Reistesrtown, MD 21136. Call (410) 526-7410 for more information, or email cardscomicscollectibles@yahoo.com.

ZOMBIE-PROOF in BUSTED KNUCKLES

Beau Smith, often spoken of in hushed tones as "the last real man in comics," turns his attention in this week's edition of his "Busted Knuckles" column to Zombie-Proof. We gave Beau a sneek peak at Zombie-Proof #1 and he let everyone in on it.

Check out what he had to say!

NON SPORT UPDATE

Non Sport Update (Volume 17, #6) features a great look at the 24 Season Four trading cards from Artbox Entertainment. I wrote these cards (and just completed the expansion set that will follow them) and they're going to be great.

Wizard #182

Wizard magazine covered 24: Nightfall in issue 182 (December 2006 cover date). Mark and I had a nice interview with them, since we're not Michael Turner or Brian Michael Bendis we didn't imagine they'd give us a whole page... but they did!

Check out the issue at your local comic book shop. We're on Page 56.

Thanks to Wizard's TJ Dietsch for writing the article!

TUCCI INTERVIEWS VAUGHN on Newsarama

Billy Tucci, creator of Shi and artist on Marvel's Heroes For Hire, interviewed J.C. Vaughn for his column "Hellion for Hire," which runs most weeks on www.Newsarama.com.

Click here to read the interview!

24 MAGAZINE Special Feature

From Scoop:

With the new season not due on the air until January, fans of the highly-rated, critically acclaimed Fox TV series 24 have to get the fixes from other sources. One of the best is 24 Magazine, which this issue teases Season Six, covers the Emmy awards the show received, offers readers a test of their Jack Bauer knowledge, features an interview with Louis Lombardi (who played Edgar), and much more.

Our favorite piece in this issue (and hey, we're biased) is the spotlight on IDW Publishing's new mini-series, 24: Nightfall, and its writers, our own J.C. Vaughn and Mark Haynes. The duo first teamed up for a series of three 24 one-shot graphic novels before IDW unveiled their new six-issue mini-series, the first issue of which is due in comic shops in November.

Below: Writers Mark Haynes and J.C. Vaughn

ANTIQUES Sneak Peak

Here's a peak at Antiques: The Comic Strip in the pencil stage. This particular installment is Week 21, illustrated as usual by Brendon and Brian Fraim.

You can find in Antique Trader each week, and you can generally find AT in finer antique stores, top booksellers, and other locations.

You can easily subscribe to AT if a store near you doesn't carry it. It's only $19.99 for half a year, 26 weekly issues, or $38 a year.

New Email Address

The new email for Well-Defined Productions is WellDefinedProductions@gmail.com.

If you'd like to sign up for the JCV mailing list or just ask a question, fire away!

24: NIGHTFALL #1 Order Deadline!

24: NIGHTFALL #1 -- Mark Haynes, J.C. Vaughn (w); Jean Diaz (a); Diaz, Joe Corroney (covers) Presenting a special six-part 24 Season One prequel! In 24: Nightfall, future CTU agent Jack Bauer heads an elite Special Forces team sent to take down the mass murderer, Victor Drazen. But events in the war-torn former Yugoslavia quickly spiral out of control as the hunters become the hunted. The secrets behind Bauers pivotal Operation: Nightfall mission are revealed here! Joe Corroney (Spike vs. Dracula) provides a special variant cover, too. Featured Item in the September 2006 PREVIEWS.

*Covers will be shipped in a 1-to-1 ratio.

*Retailers: See your order form for a special incentive

FC, $3.99, 32 pages

See below for an 11-page preview. Just click on the art to see the images larger.

24: NIGHTFALL #1 Extended Preview

Click images to see at larger size

24: NIGHTFALL Featured on CBR

Writer Arune Singh did a great interview with Mark Haynes and me and the results are on ComicBookRescources in a really nicely written feature.

Check it out!

GREAT MONTH For Fans of 24!

Following a great Emmy night for 24, it's a great time to check out two new products based on the show:

24: NIGHTFALL #1 - Presenting a special six-part 24 Season One prequel! In 24: Nightfall, future CTU agent Jack Bauer heads an elite Special Forces team sent to take down the mass murderer, Victor Drazen. But events in the war-torn former Yugoslavia quickly spiral out of control as the hunters become the hunted. The secrets behind Bauer’s pivotal Operation: Nightfall mission are revealed here! 32pg, FC..........$3.99

It's on Page 299 of the September 2006 edition of PREVIEWS from Diamond Comic Distributors and received a "Featured Item" nod. Published by IDW Publishing!

Attention Retailers: There are also special retailer incentives at the 25, 50 and 75 copy levels. These include a Jean Diaz sketch variant cover, a Joe Corroney sketch variant cover, and a photo cover, respectively.


24 SEASON FOUR TRADING CARDS
The 24 trading cards have an exciting new home, and it's Artbox Entertainment. These guys produce some awesome cards, and they're going to do a great job with them. They're written by regular 24 comic book scribe J.C. Vaughn (that's me). They're on Page 408 of the September 2006 edition of PREVIEWS from Diamond Comic Distributors

INTERVIEWS
IDWords (interview with JCV & Mark Haynes) - http://www.idwpublishing.com/idwords/oct2006.shtml
The Pulse Interview (another interview with JCV & MLH) - http://www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=36;t=005470

24 Wins Emmys

ZOMBIE-PROOF Pages

ZOMBIE-PROOF by yours truly and Vincent Spencer (future superstar in the making, mark my words) is coming together really nicely.

This preview is Page 1 through Page 5.

Once you get to know the characters, you'll see he's totally captured them, including Billy Bob Driwahl, Dave, Rob, blood brothers John Firewalkwithme and Vjay Gupta-Patel, and the rest of the gang way out in far west Texas.

And the man is a machine. Each day brings a new page or a newly colored page. I can't say enough about him or his work.

I probably won't show a lot more of the book in progress -- I think it wastes the energy you should be using on being creative -- but I couldn't help it in this case.

ACTOR Comics Presents "I Know Everything"

"I Know Everything" is written by yours truly, illustrated and lettered by my Antiques - The Comic Strip collaborators Brendon and Brian Fraim, and edited by our pal Charlie Novinskie.

It appears in the fundraiser anthology ACTOR Comics Presents (see story below).

As always, the guys have knocked themselves out on this one. It's a period piece, set in the '40s, and I tried to do that romantic comedy kind of snappy dialogue from movies in that era. It was a blast!

ACTOR Comics Presents debuts at the Baltimore Comic-Con, September 9-10 at the Baltimore Convention Center. Be there. Aloha.

GEPPI'S ENTERTAINMENT MUSEUM at Camden Yards

Each week, Scoop has an article about our new museum facility in Baltimore's historic Camden Station. Jeff Robinson supplied this one this past Friday.

Here's a couple other articles about it (more to come):

Baltimore Business Journal

Comics Buyer's Guide/CBGXtra

VANISHED Debuts Monday on FOX

I haven't seen much about this show, Vanished, but I know my friend Ming-Na is one of the players and from the preview they ran during the last episode of 24, I think it looks like maybe she has a role see can sink her teeth into...

It's on at 9 PM Eastern Time, starting Monday, August 21, on Fox.

Let me know what you think of it. I'll be watching, too.

ACTOR Comics Presents

ACTOR (A Commitment To Our Roots) is the Federally-chartered charity created with the goal of assisting comic book industry veterans, particularly those many older creators who toiled without benefits such as health insurance over the years. It's a great organization, and I urge you to consider donating to it.

One of their means of fundraising this year is the creation of ACTOR Comics Presents, a 152-page anthology featuring stories from a variety of writers and artists.

Charlie Novinskie, my good friend and ACTOR Secretary, told me of his reaction when Stan Lee asked if he could contribute a story. Joseph Michael Linsner (Dawn) illustrated it.

Dave Sim (Cerebus), "Death of Superman" illustrator Dan Jurgens, Michael Avon Oeming (Powers), Ron Marz (Samurai: Heaven and Earth), Mark Waid (Legion of Superheroes) and many others are featured.

And "many others" includes yours truly. I teamed with my Antiques - The Comic Strip collaborators Brendon and Brian Fraim for a five-pager, "I Know Everything," about a wife who thinks she's found out about her husband's affair.

The top cover is the limited edition that will be available at the Baltimore Comic-Con, September 9-10, 2006. The standard edition will debut at the show and then be available in comic shops on Wednesday, September 13.

Who is SALLY VOLT?

Who is SALLY VOLT?

Find out soon (relatively speaking)!

from Gene Gonzales & J.C.Vaughn!

ANTIQUES Update

Last week's installment of Antiques: The Comic Strip (in the August 16, 2006 cover-dated issue of Antique Trader) was one of my favorites to date.

It is only surpasssed (at this point) by this week's installment, in the August 23, 2006 cover-dated Antique Trader (funny how that works, eh?).

We're continuing to get great reactions, particular from our fellow creators. That's very encouraging!

THE WICKED WEST Returns in the new Graphic Novel THE WICKED WEST 2

THE WICKED WEST 2: ABOMINATION AND OTHER TALES
Published by Image Comics
Last we saw Cotton Coleridge, he'd traded in his six-guns for stakes when he fought a frontier town full of vampires. This time around the lightning rod for the supernatural faces zombies, ghosts, resurrectionists, giant flies, carnivorous slugs, demons and lots o' pure evil!

Anchored by the Todd Livingston, Robert Tinnell & Neil Vokes novella, "Abomination," the book features stories from the likes of Mike Baron, Mike Oeming, David Michael Beck, Mark Ricketts, Mike Hawthorne, Tommy Castillo, and others.

It also features two stories by yours truly (see two additional entries below) along with John K. Snyder III and Gene Gonzales.

And as for the original...

THE WICKED WEST
Published by Image Comics
Here's how Mssrs. Livingston, Tinnell & Vokes described the original graphic novel prior to its release: Imagine the Outlaw Josey Wales riding into Salem’s Lot – that’ll get you to the core of The Wicked West. 1870 - The Texas frontier town of Javer’s Tanks. Cotton Coleridge is a man running from his past. And being new in town, he’s the one locals blame when folks start dyin’ mysteriously. By the time the truth gets out, half the town has died - and come back. Cotton’s quick with a gun – but guns don’t work on vampires!

It was picked by Scoop as the Best Trade Paperback of 2004.

FASHION IN ACTION Returns in the new graphic novel THE WICKED WEST 2

FASHION IN ACTION, the first all-female action hero team in comics is back! After a 957-year abesence, it's about time!

Actually, FIA first appeared in the pages of Scout as a back-up to Tim Truman's main feature in the first eight issues of the comic. FIA then graduated to two stand-alone specials before disappearing...until now!

Created by artist John K. Snyder III and published by Eclipse, FIA was Danger Girl a full decade before there was Danger Girl.

For more than five years I've been pestering John to bring back these characters. Think about it... cool female action heroes are common today, but JKS3 was doing this before Lara Croft and Danger Girl (but admittedly after Mrs. Thatcher).

I'm happy to report that the first published new Fashion in Action story since the 1980s is ready to rock. It's set to appear in in the new graphic novel The Wicked West 2: Abomination and Other Tales.

At this point, those who think, "Hey, isn't FIA set in the near future, and wasn't the original Wicked West GN set in the past?" are correctly wondering to themselves, "How can J.C. Vaughn possibly make that work?"

Well, along with JKS3, we've done it... . Of course the story might not make much sense if you don't know that Terror Over Texas is the 1930s movie version of the horrifying events in 1870s Javers Tank, Texas in The Wicked West. If for some strange or sad reason you haven't read the work by Todd Livingston, Robert Tinnell and Neil Vokes.

McCANDLESS & COMPANY Returns in the new graphic novel THE WICKED WEST 2

McCandlesss & Company returns in The Wicked West 2: Abomination and Other Tales.

What?

How does our 21st century detective agency tie into vampires in 1870s Texas? Well, believe it or not, it makes sense!

What happens when the 96-year-old screenwriter of the 1932 film Terror Over Texas dies under mysterious circumstances? McCandless & Company finds out! You can, too. Just ask your comic book retailer to carry this book! It's a graphic novel from Image Comics.

Illustrated by my regular McCandless compadre, Gene Gonzales, it was a lot of fun to see if I could make the story fit in both universes (the only vampires in the McCandless stories are Hollywood agents). Everyone who's read it so far thinks we succeeded. You decide for yourself!

ANTIQUES Update

Antiques - The Comic Strip made its T-Shirt debut at the National Auctioneers Association convention, where Antique Trader set up and gave 500 or so of them away (and everyone was wearing them by the end of the convention!).

My partners in this noble enterprise, artists Brendon and Brian Fraim, have a great new page about the strip on their website. Check it out!

Another Great ZOMBIE-PROOF Concept Piece!

More Vincent Spencer magic with another illustration of Billy Bob Driwahl and a couple of zombies.

Cool stuff!

Variant Cover for 24: NIGHTFALL #1

This is the variant cover for 24: Nightfall #1 by Joe Corroney. I wasn't familiar with Joe's work previously, but you can bet I will be in the future! Wow!

ZOMBIE-PROOF Concept Sketch!

Take a look at the first concept work on Zombie-Proof, illustrated by future superstar Vincent Spencer. At Comic-Con, Vince was sent over to see me by Mark Wheatley and Bob Tinnell... and boy, were they right! We've just started working on it, so it's really too early to be showing material from it, but I got this in the email this evening and I just had to post it.

The first piece is the story's central character, Billy Bob Driwahl.

More soon!

Jean Diaz's cover for 24: NIGHTFALL #1

Cool looking stuff, huh?

Samples Pages from 24: NIGHTFALL #1

Samples of Jean Diaz's pages from 24: Nightfall #1, the first issue of our new six-issue mini-series.

More DEAD INSPECTOR Concept Sketches

More of Filip's concept work for Dead Inspector!