Angel of Vengeance - Episode 2 Now Available

After something of a hiatus, Chaz recently picked up the thread of the 'Angel of Vengeance' graphic fiction series and has just released episode 2 in downloadable e-book format - recent positive comments for episode 1 having been a main inspiration, and thanks to everyone on the Authonomy website who bothered to read the text and share their views.



"Episode 2 of 3 - the dark tale continues. Expelled from heaven for the sin of lechery, onetime angel Aldaraia finds herself alone in modern-day Hamburg, where she makes the acquaintance of an exiled demon named Bosch. Having rescued the bewildered fallen angel from a psychotic would-be rapist, Bosch's first mission is to find his new companion some suitable clothes. To this end they break into Max Overdrive's Leather Store on the Reeperbahn, only to run into the henchmen of Mr. Skinn - a being of diabolical evil, vomited from the foulest depths of Hell - who has his own abominable plans for Aldaraia. And they do not concern trendy motorcycle clothing, either. Can Bosch, against all the odds, hope to rescue his damsel in distress from Skinn's sick clutches? Graphic adult fantasy with a dark and twisted edge. Note: Strictly mature readers only (18+). Illustrated with over a dozen b/w drawings."

Episode 2 can be downloaded here.

'Angel of Vengeance': Issue 1 Gets Good Critique

The prose of Issue 1 of Chaz's dark and adult graphic adventure series recently got some remarkably good feedback at www.authonomy.com, despite it being only the first part of the story, and without any of the integral artwork and design. The text was included in an online anthology entitled 'Read With Mother' (Part 2). Chaz has since departed that site, having not enough time, sadly, to do justice to his fellow writers' works, but came away with some great comments for the first part of Bosch and Aldaraia's twisted adventures:

FrancesK wrote:

"Angel of Vengeance - loved it. Though I can't see how it will translate into a graphic novel - will you leave out the descriptions? I'd give this 5 stars for the wing removal scene alone. That really got to me, having been an angel in the school nativity play age 5 and being unaware of anything - the audience, the other actors, the story - because of the intoxicating rustling of my enormous wings. Cool stuff, Chaz!"

Iso Nuys said:

"I can easily see an audience for this kind of novel, Chaz. The very beginning feels a bit of a trek at times. I like the informal interjections, but at the same time they do take you out of the moment. I think it probably gives you a bit of leeway to streamline some of these (the more biblical) first passages and get things moving a little quicker. There’s no doubt it’s nicely written, but the formal tone can feel leaden.

The wry humour works. The introduction of Bosch is wonderfully played out. I would give some consideration to what he is able to narrate and what he clearly can’t have witnessed first-hand. ‘This is where I come in,’ comes after a passage of description, and so the reader thinks, well, how does he know what just happened then? This is a very promising and fun read."

Bunderful said:

"This read like a cross between Danielle Trussoni's "Angelology" - and Terry Pratchett/Neil Gaiman's "Good Omens" - but darker. A combination of graphic yet lyrical description, comedy and sex. I'd like to see where you are going to take this... "

JS Watts said:

"I like the shift from epic, biblical language into chatty everyday demon.. Although written as a graphic story, it worked well as just pure, un-illustrated, and very smooth prose. The story had my attention and the characterization of Bosch worked well and was amusing. Not surprisingly, it is a very visual piece of writing.

Apart from a few nits note below, my only gripe is that it is clearly an extract. I like my short stories to have a beginning, a middle and an end. This has a beginning and a middle but no proper ending. I was left wanting more, which is a good thing, but I missed the satisfaction of a good conclusion. It isn’t really a story in its own right, but it is good writing."

The 'RWM' discussion forum, for those curious enough, is here. You can also sign up to the site for free - Chaz thoroughly recommends the site for those who enjoy reading and critiquing others works, many of which are of an astoundingly high standard. (Be wary of the 'popularity contest' culture therein, however.)

Issue 1 is still avilable for download as a full PDF file right here.

Arf and Mo Arrive on Amazon Kindle

Things have been quiet on the Fenriswulf publishing front lately but for all lovers of lowbrow, underground COMIX, Chaz 'n Frang's dubious animal duo, Arf 'N Mo, have now just made it across to the popular e-book platform.

Here's the link for UK readers:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Arf-and-Mo-ebook/dp/B007P7ZZRE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1333029254&sr=8-1

and for our US-based cousins:

http://www.amazon.com/Arf-and-Mo-ebook/dp/B007P7ZZRE/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1333029481&sr=1-1

"From the broken pen of Frang McHardy and the even more broken imagination of writer Chaz Wood, meet Arf and Mo, British underground comics' best-kept secret of the last ten years...

Follow the adventures of a bloated German Shepherd mutt and a psychotic white lab rat as they belch, break wind and bludgeon each other across an increasingly surreal landscape of early 21st Century British culture.

GASP! as anarchic Arf becomes a police dog, but ends up as Inspector Gadgie's lapdog!
SQUEAL!! as Mo explores the infinite wonders of sexual sado-masochistic vivisection!!
CHOKE!!! as our duo find work in a call centre...but will their peculiar brand of customer service satisfy their demanding manager???
PASS OUT!!!! as everyone else concerned drinks more beer than has ever been consumed in an Amazon Kindle funny-animal comic book before!!!!

All this and much, much more lies within this first sizzling satirical slice of sleazy surreal salami... "

This is Issue 1, a compilation of some of the best strips from over the past 10 years. Not all the best though, as there will be a second issue out sometime in the future...

Ring-a-Ding-Ding

Chaz may not have posted much here on the FWB blog lately but that doesn't mean he's been slacking. Quite the opposite. Not just being kept busy with ongoing client commissions, he's still been working away in his spare time on his new radical retelling of the epic Ring cycle. A recent rib injury his stifled output in the past week or so but he still managed to pull together some digital colouring over the weekend, using a mouse rather than his usual pen tablet.

So here's a rough colour mock-up of the proposed cover for the first book in the 'Ring' series of graphic fiction. The title is rubbish, as this work doesn't even have a proper title yet, but it gives a great idea of how the finished thing should look. This series will be seeing print as wellm as digital release, as all the interior artwork is in stark black and white only, so ought not to cost too much (even at Lulu.com's prices).

A New Look for Fenris...?

For a while I've been considering changing the FWB logo and coming up with a different illustration of the old Viking wolf-god for our visual identity. Not necessarily because I think the old one is lousy - I still really like it after all these years - but the FWB catalogue has branched out a lot since it was first created.

Recently, as part of work I'm doing on my epic Old Norse graphic novel/fantasy cycle, I came up with the following illustration - the goddess Hel and her two brothers, the serpent Jormungand and of course, Fenris (here depicted as a goofy cub who still has a lot of growing up left to do).

I thought about perhaps adapting the portrait of Fen here as a new look corporate ID. What do you folks think?



-Posted by Chaz

"Boys Don't Cry" by Ostragoth Publishing

Fenriswulf Books are always happy to help any fellow writers, creators and artists in the self-published and independent world of books and graphic novels. Herein Chaz is proud to present an offering from some fellow creators which he felt was deserving of a little extra publicity:



Teenage boys aren't known for sharing their fears and emotions, so if you're the father or sister of one, how do you know how he’s coping with his mum's death?

Fifteen year old Hunter isn't entirely sure himself, and even if he could put any of it into words, he no longer knows who to say it to.

"Boys Don't Cry" is the debut 80-page graphic novel from Ostragoth Publishing: Jacqueline Saville, Mark Pexton, Andrew Woods. Jacqueline is a sensitive writer, and Chaz has long been admirer of Mark Pexton's dark and beautifully detailed artworks on the Deviantart.com website. Andrew Woods is responsible for everything else, including layout and design, and has helped to bring together two fine creative talents in this (and other) projects. "Boys Don't Cry" is a well known song by the English goth/rock band The Cure, and the music of that band would make a fitting soundtrack.

Proof, if ever any was needed now, that 'comics', 'graphic novels' and 'illustrated fiction' are no longer the clearly defined genres that many believe them to be, "Boys Don't Cry" is something of a unique and beautifully emotive experience, laced with Mark's delicate yet incredibly naturalistic pencil lineart, and complimented by an exquisitely-wrought text. This is a low-key and intelligent work of art which is as unrelated to the worlds of vapid superheroes and other traditional comic-book trappings as is possible to find, and Chaz thoroughly recommends it to anyone who appreciates good art and writing. Even people who hate comic books.

"Boys Don't Cry" can be downloaded for free here - available under the Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND, where the print version is also available for £6.99. Their latest comic, 'Moon of Endine', can also be purchased from that page.

The free download is also available free from the Ostragoth Wordpress site, right here.

There's also an author's blog post about the book, right here.

A 25th Anniversary

Not content with this January being the 6th year since the conception of 'Maranatha', this month also holds another significant personal writer's anniversary for me - namely 25 years since I started writing my first serious piece of fiction, a truly epic work of adult fantasy (even though I was only 13 and a half when I began it!) inspired by Norse mythology, Wagner's 'Ring' cycle, 'Penthesilea' and many other things.

It's a strange piece of work, something I've deliberately abandoned at various times in the past until I felt I was more mature to be able to handle the material the way I wanted it, and illustrate it the way I felt it ought to be. I would regularly get so far and then decide that I didn't have the talent to pull it all together. First it swung one way, from heroic tragedy to more whimsical traditional fantasy, and back again. Now the pendulum's swung all the way around and the work has evolved into what I reckon will be its final stage, fused from the salient points of all the previous incarnations and the multiple revisions and dramatic evolutions. The writing of it has been an epic drama in itself. By turns frustrating, exhilerating, time-consuming and demanding, it's something that's always been a part of me, and probably always will. This I now attribute to the very powerful symbolic themes and motifs which inspired it, and which I've always regarded in the very highest esteem.

And what has actually helped to pull it all together has not been new writing, but new illustration works, which have taken on a somewhat industrial - even science fantasy - edge, to create something that is new and yet true to its origins, like a post-modern staging of the 'Ring' Cycle itself that delves into the deeper symbolism and meaning with radical set design and costuming, my re-imagining of familiar characters and scenes is throwing up brainstorms of creativity right now. I know this is working well, because it was the exact same process which kicked off my work 'The Wish and the Will' recently, and led to a similar flurry of action (producing three full episodes and dozens of full-colour illustrations in less than six months).

In all the time I've worked on this (still untitled) series I reckon I've barely pulled together half a dozen chapters of finished work that is actually worthy of the name, yet I've filled hundreds of pages and written hundreds of thousands of words, produced dozens of sketches and a stack of finished illustration works since 1989, of varying quality. In this 25th anniversary year (I did say in an earlier post that I'm a sucker for this kind of thing...), to the very month when I began this thing on a cold winter's evening while enjoying a break from school due to the severe weather, I took the executive decision to finally make it happen. Yes, I'm in the middle of half a dozen other writing projects, and have recently just started taking on new illustration commissions again. Yet lately I've been buzzing with a nervous, excitable creative energy whereby I simply want more - more things to do, and the ideas have been surging around with the power of a storm. It's a long time since I've felt this wired creatively, if indeed I ever have at all, even during my blast-through of 'TWatW' this time last year.

And in the meantime, I present one of those new works of visual art which is helping me to focus so clearly on the biggest, sprawling, most chaotic mess of a book I've ever conceived!