As this latest installment of The Vanguard and the last one should imply, the ship Milect (Machine Intellect) or the ship, same thing, is the leader of this particular Vanguard team.

This arrangement is actually quite common on ships in the Vanguard universe in general, and ships of the Galactic Union and the Vanguard in particular. Since the Milects are highly advanced and powerful intellects, and have proven themselves over the millenia of the Union's existence to be dedicated to the safety, comfort and happiness of the biological intellects (or bionts for short) under their care, AND are better at providing that care than ANY biont government has EVER been, the bionts on most Union ships worlds and space habitats just let the Milects run things.

Yep, the Galactic Union is run by machines. Highly advanced, extremely intelligent and powerful machines of course. Sure, there are representative councils and whatnot on various worlds (although they're rather redundant since every GU citizen has a direct link to their local Milect by various means), but it's the Milects that make and implement the final decisions regarding such governmental duties as foriegn policy, resource allocation, and security of its citizens, subject to direct vote by each citizen.

This is of course, not my direct idea-my inspiration for it comes from Iain M. Bank's Culture novels. I liked the idea of a civilization run by highly intelligent, powerful, but benevolent AI-I figure they'd do a far better job of running that civilization than any human government ever has or will.

Thanks to the show organizer's generous offer of free table space, I'll be back at  the Philadelphia Comic Con this coming Sunday, Jan 11th with all 4 issues of The Vanguard books for sale at a special "con discount" of up to 25% off. So if you're in the area that day and are free, then come on out, say hi and buy a book (or four).

I had a really great encounter at the Philadelphia Comic Con with Ron Wilson. You may know him as the artist on the first run of The Thing during the mid-to-late 70s through the mid-80s, as well as some of Marvel Two-in-One Featuring The Thing and other Marvel books as well during that time up to the early 90s.

He was a really cool, down-to-earth guy who give great advice about progressing in a comic art career ("keep knocking on doors" was one of the more important pieces). He also had good things to say about my comics (he liked the way I colored the books) and even bought the first two issues! What a guy.

So if a pro who's worked in the industry for years can like my comics, I think the rest of you who haven't checked out my books yet really should-they're right here at IndyPlanet.

I'll be at thePhiladelphia Comic Con on Sunday, December 14th. I'll have all four issues of The Vanguard with me, and I'll be selling them for a significant discount only at the show. So if you're in the Philadelphia/South Jersey area that day, come on down!

If you can't make it to the show, but still want print copies of the comic, they are all available online for ordering.

Those of you who've been paying attention will know that I recently finished Chapter 4 of my sci-fi superhero webcomic The Vanguard. Since then, I've been working to get it to print, and have been plotting out Chapter 5.

Part of that effort has now born fruit-Issue 4 of The Vanguard is now in print and available for sale online right here. The story of Chapter 4 is told in 24 full-color pages, with some extra artwork not seen online.

As for Chapter 5, I'm still plotting out the story, and haven't started drawing any of the pages yet. I can tell you it will be a change of pace from the rest of the comic so far, showing the team resting and recovering form the battles of the last few chapters. There will be some character development, and the cliffhanger of the end of chapter 4 will be dealt with. I'm looking to start putting up pages again within the next week or so.

Meanwhile, feel free to have another read of the first four chapters, and get yourself print copies of them for offline reading-they're all available for order now.

Here's part of the first panel of Page 17 of Chapter 4 of the Vanguard, showing the ongoing battle between our heroes and the buglike Vesparion.



What are those blurry things anyway? Hint: they're part of a new member to be introduced. Go check out the rest of the page to see who and what!

Issue 3 of my sci-fi superhero adventure comic The Vanguard was reviewed over at Comic Book Noise, a podcast about Indie comics.  It marks the first time, to my knowledge anyway, that my comic work has been reviewed anywhere outside the webcomic community-and I'm happy that it turned out to be mostly positive.

So go on over there, take a listen, and then buy the book if you like what you hear (and the other two as well, if you haven't already).

Don't you hate it when giant bugs get in your face and drool on you? Well, it looks like this guy doesn't like it much either:



If you like this panel, then go check out the rest of the page. Enjoy!

I'm going to be at the Lehigh Valley Comic Con in Schnecksville, PA, near Bethlehem today, Saturday, Apr 12th. If you're near that area, stop by and say hello, and maybe buy a book or three (I'll have all three issues of my books there).

It's kind of short notice, I know, but I was just offered free table space at the con and couldn't pass up the opportunity. Now the only problem is I'll be going there directly after work on my graveyard shift job-nearly an hour's drive, and it's gonna be more than an hour's drive home afterwards. So if any of you do come by and see me yawning-or snoring, please excuse me-it's gonna be a looonnnng day for me.