Five Star Creators at the River City Comic Con

This was the week for the second annual River City Comic Con, and Larry Blake and Terence Hanley were on hand to sell their books and original art. Jordan Lowe was there as well, and it's a good thing because he was the man in charge. Attendance was good and the convention hall was a big change over last year. Everyone remembers the sweltering heat at the fairgrounds in Marietta last year. Despite the weather, everyone stuck it out and had fun. This year's show took place across town in the ballroom of the Lafayette Hotel, right next to the Ohio River. There was a river boat out front at the start of the show. The boat was so big it looked like someone had laid a building sideways on the water--a reminder of days gone by and why Marietta is called the River City. There's plenty of foot traffic in Marietta on weekends. Some of those people must have found their way into the Lafayette Hotel and its room full of art, artists, and comic books because attendance was excellent (and so was the atmosphere). There was even a celebrity guest, Ian Petrella, who played Randy, the little brother, in The Christmas Story (1983). And guess what--he had a leg lamp with him!

Text copyright 2012 Five Star Comics

Secret Origins

Flip Falcon in the Fourth Dimension!
Part 2

The secret origin of Flip Falcon continues . . .

Comic book writer and store owner Jordan Lowe wrote the first script for the comic book that would eventually become Five Star Comics. Jordan enlisted Gary Gibeaut, creator of The Guard Dawgs, as artist, and after many months of labor, Gary drew his Flip Falcon story to a close. By then, Larry Blake, Tim Corrigan, Terence Hanley, and Matt Marshall were on board and the first issue of Five Star Comics was in the works. Our comic book made its debut at the Mothman Festival in 2011 and has since received great reviews.

So just who is this character Flip Falcon and where did he come from? As I said in Part 1, Flip Falcon was drawn by the artist Don Rico (1912-1985) for the first issue of Fantastic Comics, a title published by Fox Publications. Then in his late twenties, Rico had gotten his start as an artist by engraving woodblocks under the tutelage of Hendrik J. Glintenkamp. In 1939, Rico began working in comic books. His pencils and inks for the first Flip Falcon story must have been one of his earliest efforts in the new art form.

You wouldn't know it to look at the black-and-white version in Five Star Comics, but Flip Falcon was originally a redhead. Unlike Superman and hundreds of other superheroes, he didn't sport a fancy costume, just a white shirt, regular pants, and, as Gary Gibeaut says, "sensible shoes." The thing that set him apart was his fantastic Fourth Dimension Machine. Red hair . . . ordinary clothing . . . a super-science gadget . . . that sounds an awful lot like another character from the 1930s and '40s, a character who was very popular in his day but is seldom remembered now: William Ritt and Clarence Gray's Brick Bradford.

To be concluded . . .

Jordan Lowe's and Gary Gibeaut's "Flip Falcon in the Fourth Dimension" from Five Star Comics #1.

Flip Falcon script copyright 2012 Jordan Lowe.
Flip Falcon artwork copyright 2012 Gary Gibeaut
Text copyright 2012 Five Star Comics

Secret Origins

Flip Falcon in the Fourth Dimension!
Part 1

Flip Falcon, traveler across time and space, is back after seven decades in suspended animation. Created by writer and artist Don Rico (1912-1985), Flip Falcon appeared in twenty-one issues of Fantastic Comics, from the first issue in December 1939 until the twenty-first issue in August 1941. Using his Fourth Dimension Machine, Flip traveled at will across the space-time continuum, frequently doing battle with a creature known as Chongo and his devilish Demi-Things, inhabitants of another, nightmarish dimension. Now Flip Falcon lives again in the pages of Five Star Comics #1. In an adventure scripted by Jordan Lowe and drawn by Gary Gibeaut, Flip once again goes up against the Demi-Things, aided by his girlfriend, the always able Adele, and defeats them with the help of one of the most powerful forces ever known: American popular music!

Like all the other protagonists in Five Star Comics #1, Flip Falcon is a superhero in the public domain. So what does that mean? Well, after Superman made his debut in 1938, comic book companies popped up everywhere attempting to cash in on the superhero craze. Soon newsstands were loaded with ten-cent epics full of superhero adventures. Unfortunately, after World War II, superheroes went into decline and so did a lot of comic book companies. Fortunately for us, those companies and their successors never renewed their copyrights or trademarks and so hundreds of characters and titles fell into the public domain. Today, anyone, anywhere can use public domain characters without permission and without paying a dime in royalties. That's where Five Star Comics began.

To be continued . . . 

Text copyright 2012 Five Star Comics

Five Star Creators in the Parkersburg News and Sentinel

Five Star creators Terence Hanley and Jordan Lowe were at the River City Comic Con in Marietta, Ohio, this past weekend, and both were interviewed by a reporter for a local paper, the Parkersburg News and Sentinel. Jordan, owner of Asylum Comics in Marietta, was the organizer of the event. Terence, creator of two cryptozoological and extraterrestrial coloring books and the comic book Lucky Girl, was one of about twenty vendors at the convention. It was a hot, humid day, but the vendors and the attendees gamely stuck it out for an enjoyable show. Jordan Lowe and Terence Hanley were both featured on the website of the Parkersburg News and Sentinel. You can read all about it in Natalee Seely's article, "River City Comic Con: First in the Area in 10 Years," here.

Copyright 2011 Five Star Comics

Five Star Creators-Jordan Lowe

Keeper of Asylum Comics

Writer Jordan Lowe is a relative newcomer in the indie comics game, but he’s already amassing a resume to be proud of and feels right at home with the gang at Five Star Comics. He opened the store Asylum Comics in his hometown of Marietta, Ohio, in 2005, which he has freely admitted to doing in order to meet fellow comic creators. His first such collaboration was with artist Michael K. Easton on the city-full-of-superheroes tale Paradox City and continues to this day on their web comic Short Pants Romance, about a famous former kid sidekick who’s pushing thirty. Jordan and Michael co-founded OVAL, the Ohio Valley Artists League, where writers and artists gather for collaboration, motivation, and the production of a yearly anthology of their work. Jordan wrote the script for “Flip Falcon in the Fourth Dimension,” drawn by artist Gary Gibeaut for Five Star Comics #1, due out this summer. Jordan is also ready to begin posting the third volume of Short Pants Romance online and is producing an anthology of short, offbeat horror and fantasy stories with artist Z.D. Brooker called Strange Books and Paper. If that wasn’t enough to lose sleep over, he is also hosting the first annual River City Comic Con in Marietta, Ohio, on July 24, 2011. Five Star creators Larry Blake and Terence Hanley will be there, too.

Jordan Lowe's Links:

Asylum Comics

http://www.facebook.com/AsylumComics

Short Pants Romance

http://www.shortpantsromanceonline.com

Ohio Valley Artists League-OVAL

http://mkeaston.com/oval/

River City Comic Con

http://mkeaston.com/rivercity/

Copyright 2011 Jordan Lowe

Five Star Creators-Gary Gibeaut

Guardian of the Guard Dawgs

Gary Gibeaut has drawn comics since he was a kid. Now his artwork is in print--in comic books and coloring books, on t-shirts and stickers. Gary's main title is Guard Dawgs, the story of a supergroup that began shaping in his mind and on his drawing board many years ago. There are three issues of Guard Dawgs in print with more--and maybe even a web comic--on the way. Gary is also the creator of a Mothman coloring book, a "Mothman Rocks!" sticker, and Mothman t-shirt designs sold every year at the Mothman Festival in Gary's hometown of Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Best of all for fans of Golden Age superheroes, Gary has illustrated Jordan Lowe's "Flip Falcon in the Fourth Dimension" for Five Star Comics. In Jordan and Gary's story, Flip Falcon must travel into the fourth dimension to rescue a group of scientists from a circle of demons and their newly crowned king, the evil Doctor Blanc. Look for "Flip Falcon in the Fourth Dimension" in Five Star Comics #1, due out in the summer of 2011!

Flip Falcon in the Fourth Dimension script copyright 2011 Jordan Lowe

Flip Falcon in the Fourth Dimension art copyright 2011 Gary Gibeaut

Text copyright 2011 Five Star Comics