Larry Blake and Hawaii's own Gerry Lee have re-teamed to continue their collaboration on Gerry's comic book, The New Sons of Thunder, after two years apart. This results in two current projects: 1) Gerry is putting out a trade paperback collecting the first three issues written by Gerry and drawn by Larry, with a full-color cover by Larry. 2) Gerry and Larry are also working on a fourth issue which promises to be just as much fun as the others.
The Sons of Thunder are Tempest and Maelstrom, two would-be adventurers from Gokuraku island, "a place halfway between heaven and earth" where "anything can happen, and any place and any time is a simple boat ride away." These two sword-wielding princes, who can call down thunder and lightning, are on "a mission from God" as "heralds of the Messiah," a task they pursue with more enthusiasm than knowledge.
Gerry composes his fun and funny stories with their very appealing extended cast as roughly drawn manga-style pages, which Larry then translates into finished art in his own cartoony style, sometimes using Gerry's layouts, sometimes not. Like Larry's work with James Rubino, this blend achieves a quality beyond any Larry and Gerry could achieve alone. There's never been a comic quite like The New Sons of Thunder. It's an all-ages fun-blast that isn't tied to any one time or place!
Larry loves collaborating with other cartoonists, as these past couple of entries show. He claims he learns something new from every team-up. Just recently, he completed a year-long project doing inks and finishes on a dozen stories of a character called Silverwolf, written by Kevin Yong and roughed out by artist Eric Jansen. Kevin and Eric have created a unique superhero who is fun and appealing to all ages. The stories tie together in an overall science-fiction-tinged way while covering a wide-surface look and feel of everything from science fiction, superheroics, fantasy, and horror. The Silverwolf stories are slated for release in a trade-paperback collection. Most have been previewed in rough form in the Alpha-Omega APAzine, issued by the Christian Comic Arts Society. Click here for their website.
Larry Blake is a busy artist, and he has another collaboration in the works for Five Star Comics #2. It is the second story in the saga of Larry's new superheroine, Missile. This time out, the story is ten pages and is scripted by Terence Hanley. Penciled and lettered by Larry, the newest Missile story will be inked by Larry's longtime collaborator, that living legend of small press, Tim Corrigan!
Art copyright 2012 Larry Blake
Text copyright 2012 Five Star Comics
