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It's done!

It's finally fucking done!

After fourteen years, I've finally published my first novel, Grim October.

Not that I've worked on it consistently all that time—that'd be absurd. I finished the first draft in 2009, then every couple years or so, I'd bust it out and give it a revision.

And now it's done and it's published and you should totally click here and buy it. Because it's awesome.

However, it's awesome in a different way than Satan Ninja 198X is awesome. Naturally, it's set in the 1980s (mostly 1989), but it's not an over-the-top comedy homage like SN8X—it's a full-fledged supernatural horror novel. Think Stephen King meets Richard Laymon (if you haven't heard of Laymon, he specialized in fast-paced and brutal-yet-fun horror filled with sex and violence).

So Grim October definitely has a more serious and realistic tone than SN8X, but it's not without humor, and it has some of the other sensibilities you'd expect from me, such as '80s pop-culture references, sexy babes, and brutal violence. And if you're a little wary after reading "young love" on the cover, don't worry. I assure you that this is a far cry from the sort of sappy young adult fiction that involves sparkling vampires.

So what's my book about? Well, I don't want to give much of the plot away, so I'll just say that its about a seventeen-year-old named Derek who moves to a small town in Michigan around Halloween time, and uncovers some kind of supernatural horror.

It's a little bit like Stranger Things, except it focuses on older teens and, if it were a movie, it'd receive a hard-R rating for sex, violence, strong language, and drug use. If I had to compare it to some '80s movies, I'd say it has some similarities to Trick or Treat, River's Edge, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and The Lost Boys (though it's not about vampires).

Oh, and of course it features awesome illustrations by Jessica Safron. Here's an example:

So now you know why things have been so quiet around here. We've been trying like hell to get this book out during the spooky season. I had planned to release it on October 1st, but I ended up re-writing some of it and Jessica re-worked some of her illustrations. But hey, at least it's made it out just in time for Halloween weekend.

And now that this book is finally done, we can go back to focusing on Satan Ninja 198X. So you can expect more frequent updates.

We've always felt that Satan Ninja 198X should be considered a work in progress until we actually finish it and collect it into physical graphic novel form. So over the course of the past few weeks, we've once again gone back and made some updates to Issue 1 and 2, mostly in preparation for our next print run of those issues.

We didn't make too many changes, and most of the updates to the art are so minor you probably won't even notice them. For instance, a couple background extras at the pool party scene were given slightly more '80s looking hair. Stuff like that.

There be boobs ahead, so don't venture on if you're at work or hangin' with grams or whatever.

Our super-awesome mock '80s commercials for Satan Ninja 198X have been chopped up into separate videos, so if you haven't seen them yet (or you want to watch 'em again, and who could blame you), you can check 'em out here:

Ever wish you could wear a Satan Ninja 198X t-shirt? Well, you can't (yet), but you can wear a shirt featuring some of Jessica's badass art. Check out this shirt she recently designed for Maddox:

You can purchase the shirt in a whole bunch of colors (in standard men's style, or in women's V-neck) through his online store.

Also, Jessica and I got a cool surprise this week when we learned that Satan Ninja 198X was featured on the latest episode of The Awesome Comics Podcast. So go check it out to hear some British chaps talk a bit about our comic (if you're short on time, they start talking about us at the 0:22:29 mark, and it gets brought up again just after an hour into it). We've been approached by several different podcasts at conventions who said they wanted to interview us or feature our comic on their podcast, but none of them ever followed through, so it was awesome to finally get to hear strangers talk about us.

The newest episode of our favorite podcast, The Biggest Problem in the Universe, came out today, and the mega-rad thumbnail image for the episode was drawn by Jessica. It also happens to be one of the best episodes of the podcast, so you should totally give it a listen.

So you might be thinking, "Gee, Adam, that's a neat image and all, but when the hell are we getting new pages of Satan Ninja?"

Don't worry, Jessica's been bustin' her hot ass on Satan Ninja art. Not only are we working on Issue 3, but we've got some other top secret Satan Ninja-related projects in the works, which will be unveiled in the next month or so. I'm also doing one final re-write of my horror novel, which should be ready for me to publish just in time for the spooky season.

I know things have been pretty quiet on this website lately, but that's just because we've been so busy working on all this stuff. Our haitus is almost over, and so new pages will be posted soon. If you want to get notified as soon as a new page goes live, you can click the little mail icon on our site's sidebar and sign up for email notifications. You can also follow the comic on Facebook or Twitter and hope you happen to catch our posts/tweets.

Also, Jessica turns 27 this week. So happy birthday to my favorite blue-haired artist babe. Here's a birthday card she quickly whipped up for herself: