Got a chance to run to Shake Shack today. They had a new burger: The Smoke Shack. A cheeseburger topped with crisp apple-wood smoked bacon, cherry pepper relish and ShackSauce. Of course I got the new burger in the double size and the trusty Double Shack Burger.

I wasn’t too impressed with the Smoke Shack though, the ShackSauce was dampening the taste of the cherry pepper relish. It was an all right burger overall.

Peace!

Marcus Laurent, I didn’t get a chance to talk to you in last few months but God gave me a chance to be around you for the last two years. They were great times, like being back in high school all over again. Whether we were arguing about comic book characters, movies, cartoons music or life in general we always got a good laugh out of it, you always stayed strong and made sure to give me your honesty and advice when needed.

R.I.P. Partnah, you will be missed but never forgotten. Much love and respect.

Kain’s Mother/Mentor, Liana Smith, suited up and ready to kick supernatural ass.

TOOLS: Photoshop CS5 | Cintiq 12WX

Still playing with Kain’s costume design.

TOOLS: Photoshop CS5 | Cintiq 12WX

Yep, it’s official. As of this writing Demon Hunter Kain issue #1 has been collected into pdf format and uploaded to the U.S. Copyright Office. It was a long road getting here but I finally did it.

Of course I wouldn’t have gotten here without help. I’d like to give thanks and shout-outs to God, my parents, the members of the Sequential Salon, to friends and family that encouraged me to keep drawing and writing from Elementary School to College and after (there’s too many of you to name and you all know who you are ).

Also an extra special thanks goes out to my Editor: Lynne Yoshii, it’s thanks to her asking me tough questions about the characters and world of Kain that the comic was able to climb out of my brain and on to the web. And a big shout-out to Carlos Lao for coloring up issue one’s cover for me when I was running low on time.

THANK YOU, ONE AND ALL!

At Mile 81 on the Maine Turnpike is a boarded up rest stop, a place where high school kids drink and get into the kind of trouble high school kids have always gotten into. It’s the place where Pete Simmons goes when his older brother, who’s supposed to be looking out for him, heads off to the gravel pit to play “paratroopers over the side.”

Pete, armed only with the magnifying glass he got for his tenth birthday, finds a discarded bottle of vodka in the boarded up burger shack and drinks enough to pass out.

Not much later, a mud-covered station wagon (which is strange because there hadn’t been any rain in New England for over a week) veers into the Mile 81 rest area, ignoring the sign that says “closed, no services.” The driver’s door opens but nobody gets out.

Doug Clayton, an insurance man from Bangor, is driving his Prius to a conference in Portland. On the backseat are his briefcase and suitcase and in the passenger bucket is a King James Bible, what Doug calls “the ultimate insurance manual,” but it isn’t going to save Doug when he decides to be the Good Samaritan and help the guy in the broken down wagon. He pulls up behind it, puts on his four-ways, and then notices that the wagon has no plates.

Ten minutes later, Julianne Vernon, pulling a horse trailer, spots the Prius and the wagon, and pulls over. Julianne finds Doug Clayton’s cracked cell phone near the wagon door – and gets too close herself. By the time Pete Simmons wakes up from his vodka nap, there are a half a dozen cars at the Mile 81 rest stop. Two kids – Rachel and Blake Lussier –and one horse named Deedee are the only living left. Unless you maybe count the wagon.

It was released today and I’ve finished reading it. Mile 81 is an excellent story, the creepy arrival of the station wagon and the violence that ensues from that point on make it a great read. I won’t give out any spoilers, but I have to say once again Stephen King makes me trust the world a little less for fear that an everyday object may not be what it seems. I highly recommend reading this book.

Peace.