First, I’d like to thank a whole stack of people, some of whom you’ll have heard of before and probably a lot you haven’t.  I won’t list them here.  Half of them are either dead or have never heard of me anyway.  Influences you understand.  Writers and Artists and Film makers and that sort. 

Second, about the comic. . . 

This is a black & white comic.  It’s like that because the kind of colors this story should be done in are watercolors, which I don’t have the time to do on a publishing schedule, and which I couldn’t afford to print anyway. 

Third, about the story. . . 

Thieves & Kings is a story with a beginning and an end, between which should be about 16 years worth of work.  Though, it might take longer; if I get seduced down one of the side paths.  There are a number of those. 

You see, what I did was spend a huge chunk of time writing history for a world that doesn’t actually exist.  Genesis to Apocalypse kind of stuff.  Huge wars and Monsters and Sorcerers here and there.  That kind of thing.  Quite a lot of it. 

Parts of it read like really bad fiction, (mostly the bits during which I was learning how to compose stories), and the rest rather like a big instruction manual.  I don’t recommend any of it for the casual reader, and none of it for entertainment purposes.  And anyway, there’s only one copy, and that copy is spread randomly across files and computer disks and a big stack of note papers which aren’t exactly in a stack anymore.  And across another big stack of papers filled with pictures and doodles and paintings and what have you, none of which are very well organized either.  Mostly, it’s all in my head, so I’m not much different from any regular creator.  I just happen to be able to look things up if I feel like digging. 

Since first deciding that I wanted to put some of this material in a comic book, a lot of weird things have happened to me.  Weird jobs.  Weird journeys.  Weird relationships.  Standard stuff, I suppose, for most people.  (Life is just weird, I guess).  But through it all I’ve managed to stay on course.  (Mainly because story creation is about the only thing I seem to be able to do for any length of time without going bugshit).  So here I am in my very own comic book, telling the story of Rubel the Thief.  —Just a little tiny story picked out from a bunch of much larger and more important ones.  Though ones I’ll likely never get around to telling.  I find I’m never really very interested in stories about big things.  I prefer stories about small things, like people.  And I particularly like Rubel’s story.  Despite its relative insignificance in the grand scheme of things, it can sit on its own and be all cozy-like and content.  Which is appropriate for a thief. 

Anyway, this is it, and it’ll be coming out bi-monthly with 20 pages of story each time.  (This one has 32, but only because it’s the big inaugural issue). 

Hope you enjoy the comic.