rich and matt and johnny raygun

okay...

as i said, rich (woodall) is making things easy for me as he continues to send cool, creepy stories that i just hafta copy up here. here's another one he sent the other day. enjoy!

I have to believe some of it was just my childhood
> imagination. My dad was really big into letting me
> watch horror movies and telling me scary stories.
> One Halloween night my dad took my brother and I to
> a friends house (again, we lived in Arkansas, so
> it's all backwoods Evil Dead looking places) and he
> had a really old truck, and the gas gauge didn't
> work, so he's tellin' us about Ghouls and Zombies
> and how they only come out on Halloween night and
> they eat the flesh of the living... he knows he has
> us scared to death. So he starts pumping the gas...
> "uh oh guys, we're running out of gas" my brother
> and I aren't that concerned at this point, but when
> he rolls to a stop right in front of a grave yard we
> start to panic. He tells us to calm down and he's
> going to go up the road and get some gas from
> someone, but he wants us to be quiet and sit in the
> floorboard of the truck. So we do. We peek over the
> dashboard and watch him walk around the corner and
> out of site. So here we are, I'm 5 or 6 and my
> brother's 2 years younger. We are scared to death
> that if we talk a zombie's going to come and eat us.
> About 10 minutes pass and all of the sudden
> something jumps in the bed of the truck and starts
> pounding on the roof of the truck... I piss myself
> and we scream like crazy. Then we hear my dad
> laughing his ass off. He had doubled around in the
> woods and jumped in the truck to scare us... it
> worked. He loved doing that stuff. I have many more
> stories about my dad scaring my brother and I... I
> won't bore you with them right now, but it helped
> mold who I am today that's for sure.
>
> -Rich

and here, making it even easier than that, is the BEAUTIFUL perhapanauts pin-up rich and matt (talbot) did for the upcoming perhapanauts trade, due out in august! as i mentioned in the last blog, rich and matt do this wonderfully fun comic called JOHNNY RAYGUN that, if ya haven't already, you should check out. thanks for the pic, you guys it's AWESOME!
oh, and the colors on this bad boy were done by rockin' ray dillon of golden goat studio! thanks to you too, ray!
todd

3 tales from rich

okay...

a couple years ago i had the pleasure of meeting these two friends of craigs, rich woodall and matt talbot, at a small comics show in boston.. rich and matt, artists both, write and draw this fun little book called JOHNNY RAYGUN. i don't say "little" to be condescending in any way, only in the sense of its small press, indy, low-profile standing. JOHNNY is published sporadically by jetpack press (our pal ralph dibernardo) and while the print and distribution may be small, the scope of this book is anything but! johnny's enthralling intergalactic adventures--as well as his intergalactic friends--are what comics should be all about! fun! fun! and fun! these are the kindsa tales i used to thrill to when i was a kid trying to fill my head with as much wonder as i could find! if you get a chance--pick up an issue and check it out! i guarantee, you'll want the rest!

so, anyway, i know these guys. we chat. (they are, by the way, doing a gorgeous pin-up for us in the upcoming perhapanauts trade. actually, it's done. i'll post it here in a few days--it's incredible...!)

so after my loss of momentum on this blog--which i spoke about last time--rich goes back and checks it out and sends me some waaaaay cool/weird/unexplained stories of his own. which i told him i'm gonna post right now.

here they are.

I just read that you liked Communion, my parents
> live up in Laconia and my Mom swears she saw
> a UFO up there. I've always loved this stuff too...
> I've got 3 creepy stories...
> when I was a kid (around
> 8-9ish) during a walk w/ my parents around our
> neighborhood. I have no idea what it was, but it was
> night, really dark out, and we're walkin' by a house
> and behind the house standing next to a tree was
> something, I don't know what, but I could see a
> shadow in the darkness... you don't think black
> could get any blacker, but it was there, big, black
> thing... looked like it was watching us. I was so
> scared...
>
> And then there was the time(again as a kid in
> Arkansas) I was at a friends house and we were
> playing in his room and I went to open his closet
> door and it was locked, so I asked him why it was
> locked and he said it was a door to hell (now I'm a
> Baptist, so I take hell very serious) so in the
> middle of the night, I'm sleeping in the living
> room, and my friend is in his room, I wake up and I
> see his f$%#in' closet door open. That was it...
> very scary...
>
> The last one happened when I was 20 living in an
> apartment in Nashua. I had 2 roommates, I was the
> only one that had a job, so I had to go to bed at a
> reasonable hour. So it's like 11 or so and I hit the
> sack. Like 10 minutes pass and I hear my roommates
> fighting like crazy in the living room, so I yell at
> them to shut up. they shut up and I start to fall a
> sleep... then I can feel my blanket being pulled off
> of me, and I can't move, I was frozen, really
> freaking out, I could look around, but I couldn't
> move my body... then I fell asleep... woke up in the
> morning w/ no covers very strange.. so I ask my room
> mates about them fighting and they tell me that they
> took off right after I went to bed and they didn't
> have a fight... then about 2 weeks later my room
> mate asks me if I came into his room in the middle
> of the night and sat on his bed. I told him I didn't
> and then told him my story, and he said that he
> swears that someone came in and sat on his bed and
> touched his leg. Freaked me out!
>
> Anyway, thought I'd share my little creepy bits...
> also living in Arkansas, I lived near Boggy Creek,
> my dad would tell me stories about the swamp and
> witches that lived in them... no wonder I'm so
> screwed up now :)

man!
cool!
thanks, rich!
as i was posting this, he sent me another one...
i'll post that on friday.

take care~~
todd

nothin'...

well, mostly 'cause i just haven't had anything to say...

that's the answer i've given to my friends and family (you know who you are...) when they ask me why i haven't put anything up on the blog in, what, a week? and for those who know me (and you know who you are...) hear that, they just laugh their asses off. because, if you know me...and i think you do...i ALWAYS have something to say. i am always talking, always asking questions, always telling stories--you can't shut me up. many have tried. can't be done.

but lately, i just really haven't thought that i've had anything that anyone else would really want to hear. every time i sat down to write about something i was interested in or saw on tv or found funny, i've allowed that little editor in the back of my brain talk me out of it. "bor-ring!" "who cares!" "don't waste their time!"

so i got nothin'.

well, maybe not nothing. i notice that on everybody's blogs they list the stuff they're reading, watching, listening to. and maybe that's it. everything i'm reading, watching, listening to is old stuff--good stuff--but stuff i've already read, watched, and heard. i've been re-reading the dc comics/paradox press big books--all of 'em--in order. cool, fascinating stuff, but been there, read that. this past week i watched saving private ryan (for the, like, 5th time!), kill bill vol.s I and II (for the 3rd time!) and the green mile (prob'ly the 4th time). last night it was my name is earl, the office, and ER--so that was kinda new. and i haven't been listening to a lot of music 'cause i've been listening to "harry potter and the half-blood prince" in the car. (for the second time! but while we're on this; if you haven't heard any of the harry potter books on audio, you're missing a real treat! jim dale is just INCREDIBLE! there is no one--hands down!--more gifted at reading and lending voices to characters as this guy! he's won a slew of awards for it and deserves even more!) don't miss out! they're--and he's--great!(okay, so i can get excited about that...)

so anyway, here's what i'm seeing. winter, cold, i become withdrawn, curl up and watch and read things that are comfortable, familiar, soothing. that's okay, but now, obviously, i'm kinda lethargic. i'm not challenging myself with new information, new stimuli, new adventures. i'm totally zoned out. and all because i'm not exercising my brain.

i gotta get out. go hiking with jake.
get a new book.
or two!
or three!
rent some new movies!
or buy 'em!
interact with some people and have some stimulating conversation!
what am i wasting my time writing this for!
i'm outta here!

and i suggest you do the same.
(and you know who you are...)

todd

so--what's everybody watching, reading, listening to.
i need some suggestions.

is mercury in retrograde...?

man!!

i have been having the absolute worst luck with anything technology based these past few days. the blog won't load, i can't return e-mails ("delivery failure" notices from yahoo--sorry, kojee, sorry josh--i'll get 'em out to ya when i can...), and the other night i melted my butter dish when i put it down on the burner on my stove. okay, so that last one is just me being an idiot...

but things just aren't running smoothly.

and mercury might just be the answer. my best friend/ex-girlfriend, dani, used to let me know when this was going to happen because, apparently, in the celestial alignment of things (planets) when the other planets get too far behind mercury in their movements around the sun, communication (of all types; verbal, electronic, tech, emotional) get totally "f___ed" up. i originally dismissed it as a loada hooey, but over the years...it's true, it's TRUE!

now this usually happens two or three times a year and lasts for about 7 to 10 days. sometimes dani would tell me ahead of time and i'd just say, "well, i'm noticing it 'cause i'm looking for it." but it was the times she'd tell me AFTER the fact, when i'd look back at all the chaos of the previous week or so that made me believe. "oh, yeah, "she'd say, "mercury was in retrograde."
crazy.

so i'm guessing it must be now, 'cause things are goin' blooey. i apologize for not being able to get back to you josh. i'll keep trying and hope the stars don't get in my way.

actually, i hope this loads.

take care.
later
todd

the fail-safe

okay....
apparently, if you don't post for, like, a week or so, this blog shuts down and denies access to everybody. not a bad motivator, actually, for a deadbeat like me. hafta remember that.

and apologies to everyone who tried and found themselves locked out. i was locked out too as a matter of fact. i was both busy and uninspired--not much of an excuse, sorry--and everyday would try to think of yet another way that i could write something that not only YOU, but I would be excited about. news on the perhapanauts front is good--we're going to be moving ahead and the next 4 issue series is in production as we speak (type), but, well...it's the state of the industry that's kinda got me guessing. not only are sales fairly low on the perhapanauts, but in this current market, it's just so hard to even get noticed. i dunno, i don't mean to brag or anything, but i think we have a fun little book here. but with marvel and dc glutting the shelves with this new wave of crossover madness (isn't that what killed us last time?!), little books like ours are just getting trampled. maybe that fact got me down a little and made me fall away from my blog requirements. for that i am truly sorry.

(also, i thought that the only person reading this was kojee and he and i had drifted into a more e-mail correspondence...)

anyway, i am sorry all. if you're reading this, please don't hesitate to comment and let me know you're there. or if you're shy, drop me an 'e' at todd@perhapanauts.com.

so my apologies again! thanks to brian for 'e'ing me and letting me know that the blog was down.
hopefully this got it back up and running. here's a cool picture by craig!
see ya soon!
todd

the rule of 3

okay...

seems i'm always apologizing for being away for too long, but it's been a long week.
and a sad one too.
isn't it weird that celebrities go in 3's? i was sad to hear that long time red sox announcer (and for me the voice of the american sportsman) curt gowdy passed away last weekend, remembering sunday afternoons when i was a very little kid watching the american sportsman with my father. but i wasn't sure if he was well-known enough to be part of one of these celebrity trifectas.
still not sure...
then i heard that don knotts died on saturday whom i will always remember more as bumbling, bug-eyed barney fyfe than as the comically suspicious mr. furley. i grew up on a steady diet of andy griffith (and i love lucy, and the flintstones, and...) re-runs and so he was just another guy i knew from my childhood.
but what hurt more (emotions are odd things, huh?) was when, on sunday, i read of the passing of darrin mcgavin. certainly an idol for me as the cunning, conning kolchak on tv's night stalker, hunting down the mysterious and the macabre. but more for his turn as the furnace-fighting, award-winning, quietly compassionate dad in 1984's a christmas story. one of my absolute favorite movies, mostly 'cause, though i didn't grow up in the 40's, THAT is my family and THAT was my childhood.
and that is my dad.
sad losses all.
gentlemen, rest in peace.

but here's the thing. when celebrities go in 3's, it's usually 3 from the same list, or at least close. A-list, B-list, D-list, whatever, but i don't know if curt was on or near the same list as don knotts and darrin mcgavin. and it's only been a day or two. not to sound cold or insensitive, but on the celebrity playing field, does curt count?
i hope so.

anyway, that's a weird entry.

and apparently it's entry 18.

see ya in a day or 2.
todd

nope. i was wrong.
there goes dennis weaver.

back!

okay...

well, i got back from craig's yesterday after an absolutely GREAT weekend with him and his family--as well as a really nice show over in boston! saw a lot of old friends--dave tata, mike oeming, neil vokes, matt talbot--and met a bunch of new ones! also had the pleasure of taping an interview with jim, a huge spider-man fan i met last year, although this year it seems that a new light is being shed on the x-men's age of apocalypse storyline from a few years back. eh, jim?
anyway, it was a great time and i was even able to pick up a few old books for my collection; some really gorgeous nick cardy teen titans! if you wanna see some really beautiful artwork, pick up the teen titans archives--the original series from the 60's-70's--and just have some fun! nick is my hero!

i only got through half of stephen king's cell on cd; a chilling story (so far!) and a great way to make the trip zoom by. (also i was doin', like, 85 the whole way...)

one of the things we worked on while i was at craig's--besides the windows in his new addition--was the trade paperback of this perhapanauts first series (which we are calling "first blood".) (you'll see why after next issue.) (as if there wasn't enough blood in the first issue!) anyway, we're tweaking a few things here and there--not really george lucasing it, but making a few changes that we weren't able to do on the originals due to looming deadlines. we're also including some earlier stuff (stories from the perhapanauts: dossier) and an expanded, colored bios/bedlam files section that includes a few creatures/characters that we haven't even seen yet!
but here's the best part--and i can't even tell ya who--but we're lining up some really great pin-ups for the trade that are gonna make it worth the price just for them! stay tuned to this perhapablog for more details as it becomes okay for us to name names...

and that's it. hope everybody's well and that if you're reading this, you won't be too shy to drop a comment at the bottom so that we know you're there. i mean, we can hear ya breathing...

peace out!
todd

see ya in boston!!

okay...

short and sweet. i'm leaving bright and early tomorrow morning for craig's and from there we'll on to boston for the show on sunday! i've got a full tanka gas, a bag of pepperidge farms goldfish, stephen king's "cell" (read by campbell scott) on cd, and a map so i can make a much anticipated detour up into the town of dover, just to see...

...prob'ly nothing. but maybe just to get "the feel"...

we'll see. my dad says it's s'posed to rain like crazy (60-70 mph winds!)

anyway, that's why this is so short!
i hope to see a lot of you there. if not, i'll see ya back here on monday!
have a great weekend!

here's a picture from my partner.



todd

the goin' to boston jam!

okay...
this'll be quick as i have a few things to throw out here today.
first and foremost is a reminder that craig and i (along with such fan faves as michael avon oeming, neil vokes, and dave tata!) will be attending the PRIMATE PROMOTIONS COMIC CONVENTION in BOSTON this sunday, febrruary 19th! if you're in the area and you have nothing much to do, come on down! it's lots of fun and, truthfully, we get sick of each other after awhile and would really appreciate some new faces to talk to!

next, our pal scott w. (and really, when i say pal i'm not covering it--scott is a great friend and we're looking forward to hanging out with him at the new york show the following weekend!) (you too, kojee!) anyway, after sending me his guest blog about the ghosts of williamsburg last week, he followed up with some cool information about a religious/christian variant called the druze that, among other things, interjects a great deal of reincarnation belief into their daily lives. check this out:


These stories are from my buddy David. They take
place in Lebanon in the early 1900s. His family is
Druze.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druze
This is a sect of Christianity. The main thing to
know about them for these stories is that they believe
in reincarnation. So, here they are as told by David:

A little girl refuses to go see any doctor until she
hears my uncle's (a pediatrician) name mentioned. She
agrees to go see my uncle. During the Doctor visit,
she tells him that she was a patient of his in her
previous life. She had been accidentally shot to
death by her brother at a family picnic. She
remembers being shot, the trip to the hospital, and
then everything went black (she had died shortly after
arriving at the hospital.)

another one:

My grandfather, as a child in the early 1900s,
insisted he had another family in another town. The
family doctor, not knowing what to do, told his
parents to let him take them where he wanted to go.
He led them, by donkey or carriage or whatever they
had 100 years ago, on a several-day trip to the other
village. Once there, he went straight to his old
house and identified every member of this family that
he had never seen before -- by name. The handwriting
of the dead guy and my grandfather's are identical.



fascinating stuff, scott--but then it always is! thanks!

and finally, i've gotten a couple of letters complaining that i didn't continue posting some of craig's early sketches of the team waaaay before we really knew who they were. so here's a couple of an early choopie and an early big. more next week!






thanks, everybody!
see ya in beantown!
todd

outta sites

okay...

the other day i said that i'd list a few of the books and websites that i've happened upon in my continuing search for stories and info about strange stuff...and then totally skipped the websites.

here, then, are a few of those;

www.unexplained-mysteries.com
the site seems endless. not only does it provide up-to-the-minute daily updates on all things paranormal, scientific, and conspiratorial, one could get lost for months on end in their vast archives section! it's huge! a veritable cornucopia of information! wanna read about the recent chupacabra flap in chile? the bigfoot expedition being mounted in malaysia? a glowing pig? this is the place.

http://paranormal.about.com/
while this site also provides daily updated reports on the paranormal and supernatural, it's the amazing true paranormal stories section (updated each month) that i like to check out. but even more than that, readers' actual personal accounts of encounters with all KINDS of weird stuff--in the weird creatures/monsters section--has given me the creeps on many late nights! check out the creature from the dump or click on some of the bigfoot confrontations. that these are stories have been submitted by regular readers make them all the more chilling. to me anyway. i guess they COULD be makin' some of these up (i like to think that i can tell by the way it's written), but i'm fox mulder. i WANT to believe.

www.xprojectmagazine.com
just found this a short while ago and haven't really explored it to it's fullest, but this is a really nice site with some constantly expanding section on ufos and extraterrestrials, cryptozoology, ghosts and vampires, and another nice reader submitted section.

and though I did mention loren coleman's site at www.lorencoleman.com, i'll mention it again because it's the place to go for anything cryptid related. this man is THE authority when it comes to mysterious creatures!


and, before i go, back onto the books again. i recently have become hooked on the "weird" books, available exclusively at barnes and noble and put out by mark sceurman and mark moran, the guys who put out the weird nj magazine. originally these guys complied some of the more interesting and bizarre articles from their new jersey focused periodical and published what became the first in a series, "weird nj". soon all the other states got jealous and people began sending in reports/accounts/articles from all over the country and the boys just couldn't keep up. i've read weird nj, new england, new york, u.s., and ohio now and i guess there's about 6 or 7 more (pennsylvania, wisconsin, illinois--the list goes on!) each book is packed with ghost stories, strange creatures, urban legends, bizarre people, abandoned theme parks, etc. check 'em out--there's prob'ly one about YOUR state.

and that's it from me. what about you? what are you reading?
and what have you seen? let me know.

later!
todd

our theme for today is "creepy"

okay...

a few weeks ago i professed that, although i had already been cultivating an (un)healthy interest in the weird and unknown, it was doug moench's big book of the unexplained that reinvigorated my interest in all things paranormal/cryptozoological/supernatural. since then i've searched, scanned, and gooogled through countless sites, countless books, and countless obscure magazines to find any and every bit of info on any and all bizarre creatures and strange occurrences. most of the time i'm totally transfixed by stories and personal accounts of such encounters, although there has been occasion where i've been less than impressed by either the tale or the telling. or both.

as far as fun stories and good information go, though, i thought i'd pony up a few of the books and websites where I'VE found some interesting, astounding, and yes even chilling, posts. especially if you're reading them late at night, in the dark, with the wind howling through the eves and a pack of coyotes howling in the back yard. (no, i am not kidding...)

so, for your amusement, enjoyment, and edification, here are a few books/sites that i recommend;


the mothman prophecies by john keel
if you saw the movie, okay. it was fun, kinda creepy, and contains one of the best "jumps" of the past 10, maybe 20 years. but if you really want a scare, you've gotta read this book, the true accounting of what all went down in the west virginia town of point pleasant back in the mid-to late 60's. the movie did what it could to make a story (with some kind of through-line) out of these events, but having them related by an actual journalist makes this more real than a fictionalization could.

the interrupted journey by john g. fuller
actually, i like the 1975 made for tv movie of this much better than the book if only for the incredible performances by james earl jones and estelle parsons. the two play barney and betty hill, the first recorded alien abductees in the ufo incident. this movie terrified me as a kid mostly due to jones' recounting of his encounter with the visitors while under hypnosis. chilling. if you ever get a chance to see this, do yourself a favor. and turn the lights out. (bet you'll have 'em back on before it's over.) oh yeah, and read the book first. the facts are fascinating.

communion by whitley strieber
gave me nightmares. the movie's kinda creepy too. or maybe that's just walken.

and rather than list all the books by loren coleman, the unrivaled king of cryptozoology, i'll just send you over to his site at www.lorencoleman.com. everything you might ever need to know about crazy creatures and weird events is here and cross referenced with just about every other site on the subject. we all bow to the king. i especially recommend his books mothman and other curious encounters and bigfoot: the true story of apes in america.
just for starters.

more on this subject later. i'm sure we'll be talking about mr. coleman more...

remember, send in tales of your own encounters and experiences. it's nice to share.

see ya saturday.
todd

this is entry 13.

gettin' spooky

hey, everybody!
originally, when craig told me that he'd put a blog up for us here on perhapanauts-dot-com, i thought it was a great idea and that we could use it to let everyone know about new issues of the 'haps coming out, conventions to attend, and most especially, stories and links that i've come across in researching the weird and unexplained for our team of weird and unexplained agents. i said that i would try to post something, at the very least, every other day.
but that hasn't been happening.
granted things have been a bit chaotic around here lately, but no excuse, time to resolve to post something new (and hopefully interesting, thought-provoking, and/or creepy) on a much more regular basis. so i promise.
but i could use your help...
i've had a bunch of people sending in their accounts of strange things that have happened to them and can't tell you how much i appreciate them--please, keep 'em coming! as i've said before, this is your blog as much as it is ours. join in! it's fun!
and so, here, with a really eerie)and historical) account, is our own scott w.--

These ghost stories didn't happen to me. But, they
are some of my favorites. During my brief stay at the
College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia,
I took a ghost tour of Colonial Williamsburg. The
tour was given by a History PhD student, whose name
I've since forgotten. There have been plenty of books
written on the ghosts in the area, but for a personal
project, he had researched the stories. Stripping
away the urban myths that have evolved around the
tales, and getting back to the original stories. One
of the most memorable parts of the tour was the Peyton
Randolph House. The place he called "the source of
all evil in Colonial Williamsburg."

http://www.history.org/Almanack/places/hb/hbran.cfm

In the 1930s, the city of Williamsburg was in
shambles. It was mostly poor, run-down and forgotten.
That is until John D. Rockefeller took it upon
himself and his millions and millions of untaxed
dollars to restore the historic part of town. Most of
the city's residents were happy to sell off their
homes. However, there were some homes that were owned
by still wealthy families, who didn't want to leave.
A deal was struck where they would get to stay, and
could pass the buildings on to their children, but the
houses could never be sold to anyone else. And when
the families left, these homes, they would become the
property of Colonial Williamsburg. The Peyton
Randolph house was one of these. It was a private
residence for many years. And throughout those years,
guests who stayed in the house's second-floor
oak-paneled room, would awaken in the middle of the
night to see the image of a woman at the foot of their
bed. This woman would anxiously point to the corner
of the room. Eventually she would fade away. And
most of these guests would come down for breakfast the
next morning complaining of the woman. However, no
one really knew what she was agitated about. Years
later, restoration work was being done on the house.
And to their surprise the contractors discovered a
stair-case in the corner of the oak-paneled room.
Apparently, the woman had been trying to get the
guests to leave the house, to escape some kind of
danger.

Throughout the years that families lived in the house,
children also had the habit of jumping from the second
story window. Most of them claiming that they were
urged by "something" to do it.

In fact some of this is documented in a lawsuit. In
the 1980s (don't quote me on the time frame) a woman
who worked for Colonial Williamsburg, sued the
organization. Every year around Christmas time,
Williamsburg has the Grand Illumination, where a torch
is lit in front of each of the historic homes. In
addition, each house has electric candles in each
window. Well, this woman worked in the Peyton
Randolph house. At the end of the day, she closed
everything up and turned on all the lights. As she
was leaving, her boss said, "You forgot the light in
that window (the oak-paneled room.)" The woman had
not forgotten, but went up to turn it back on. She
came back down and her boss got mad at her for not
doing what he had asked. She went up again, turned on
the light and as she was going down the stairs said,
"It must have been that damned ghost." She was then
pushed from behind and fell down the stairs, breaking
her arm. After that she sued. I don't recall the
outcome, but I believe she lost.

There are a number of other stories associated with
the house. And I vaguely recall something about the
house being built on an Indian burial ground. (As all
good haunted houses are.) A lot of these stories, can
be found in a book by L. B. Taylor called "The Ghosts
of Virginia."
http://www.vaghosts.com/main.html
He's written a whole series of them. I highly
recommend them if you're interested in Colonial and
Civil War history.

yeah, i gotta learn to include links and reference stuff more...
great stories, scott--thanks a lot, dude!

and i'm outta here! see you guys on thursday.
i promise.
todd

this is entry #12

perhapanauts 3 is OUT! plus, a note about the letters

hey, perhapapals!

not that you needed ME to tell you the good news but perhapanauts 3 hit the stands yesterday and the reviews are already in!
it's a hit! a great big, in-your-face, stop-the-presses, smash hit! we're getting calls from people all over the country--nay, the WORLD!--poised at the edge of their seats, desperately demanding the next issue! now that both issues one and two have totally sold out, and orders for the trade are already streaming in, we just can't get this book out fast enough! as the cartoon network and kids wb battle for which branch of warner animation will win the cartoon rights to the perhapanauts (at the time of this writing a compromise appears to be in the offing with kids wb producing kid friendly shows while cartoon network creates more suspense/horror-themed episodes for their adult swim format), dark horse has struck a deal with lucasfilms and paramount to handle the live action film scheduled for summer 2007! and mezco is working around the clock on the perhapanauts action figures! this is true! it's all happening!

i'm sure.

in some other dimension.

somewhere.

perhapa-mania is sweeping the globe.

but here in our world we still need some help. i don't wanna sound like i'm complaining here, but it is so hard for a small title to make it in this current comics market. with corporate cross-overs leading the way (with tie-ins to every other book they publish), and frank miller's heavy-handed slap in the face STILL not getting through (don'tcha get it? he's screaming at you to stop being sheep.), a little book like the perhapanauts gets washed away.
so tell your friends, post some messages, shout it from the rooftops; the perhapanauts ain't so bad.

right?

anyway, here's the other thing; we are getting countless letters and e-mails about the letters pages in the backs of the comics. no, they are not real. the issues and stories that those letters refer to have not yet been published.

in this dimension, anyway.

enjoy them and imagine what those comics look like.
and, if you're feeling creative, please feel free to send me some of your own.
that'd be fun.

so go buy the perhapanauts #3. for me. for craig. for the sake of the small title.

and if you're in the boston/new england area, craig and i will be appearing at the
primate promotions/monkeyhouse show in boston at the radisson on sunday, february 19th!
for more info, check out:

http://www.primatepromotions.com/_sgg/m3_1.htm

hope to see ya there!

take care~~
todd

a ghost story from sharon

finally!
people are finally starting to send in their stories of
the strange and unexplained! todays special guest
blog is a pretty creepy ghost story from sharon b.--

here it is;

Todd,

I have to say I love the Perhapanauts. Especially Choopie. He’s endearing, in a creepy kind of way. I’ve no tales of Chupacabra, but if you are interested in a good old fashioned ghost story I believe I’ve got one.

It was the fall of 90 and the spring of 91. It was my first year away at college. I was living on the 10th floor of Indian Tower. Rumor had it that years ago a girl who lived in my room, on my side of the room, had died suddenly. No details were given, but the fact of her death was confirmed by the floor RA. The room was rectangular. My bed was on the short wall with my desk, my roommate’s dresser and her desk on the long wall. The only window was above the head of my roommate’s bed which rested lengthwise on the other short wall. A double closet, my dresser and the door were the last wall. Little things, strange things started happening. The lights would be on when I came home. The chair would be pushed away from the desk. Items on the desk were moved from one side to the other. At first I thought my roommate was absent minded. Then it occurred to me that only my desk was rearranged and only my lamp was on. Why would she be using my desk and my lamp? She insisted otherwise. When the lamp began turning on in the middle of the night, we were both concerned. I started unplugging it before bed, it made no difference. Two or three times a week we would wake up blinded by the light. For the next four months my roommate slept with a pillow over her head. Then it was the radio, my radio. Did I leave it on? Maybe. But not every Thursday in the months of November and December and definitely not on the 60s station. Again I accused my roommate of playing tricks. She laughed saying she would have picked a better station. Then pointed out that on Thursdays she left before me and did not return until after soccer practice, long after my last class.

In February I displayed Valentines on top of my dresser. From an admirer I received one of those jumbo cards, at least two feet tall. This one I placed in the back as not to block the view of the other cards. I can’t count the number of times I found that card and that card alone on the floor. Some would say it was the wind. But anyone who has ever lived in Albany, in February, knows it is much too cold to have the windows open. I experimented with opening the door quickly and slamming it shut. My best attempt at creating wind managed to knock down the little cards, but the big one never budged. The following Saturday I came home early from a party two floors up. When I say early I mean I was among the first to leave. It was about 1am. I’ll admit to having a little buzz, but mostly I was just tired. I was lying in bed just about to drift off to sleep, when I got an overwhelming sensation that I was not alone. But I was alone. My roommate had gone home for the weekend, some family event. So I opened my eyes and glanced around the room which was dimly lit by a full moon. I saw a shadow by my dresser and then the giant Valentine lifted up. It rose slowly, almost cautiously. The card hovered above the dresser until it cleared all the other items. Then as if it had been thrown, the card crashed to the floor & skidded under the bed. At that moment I was very awake and frankly a little annoyed. I had been picking up that card every day, several times a day, for at least a week. I remember speaking out loud. “I understand that you were here first, but I was assigned to this room. And I don’t mind if you want to share this space, but I’d appreciate if you stopped touching my stuff. If you hate the card so much, I’d be happy to put it away.” I picked the card off the floor, placed it in the closet and went back to bed. When I woke in the morning, the card was displayed prominently on my dresser.

The last incident occurred in late May. My roommate & I were both studying for finals. Each of us sat on our beds buried in books & notebooks. Besides the rustling of pages turning the room was still. Suddenly the chair at my desk began rocking. The base was made of aluminum and shaped like a three sided square. It made loud clanking sounds as it moved against the cement floor pushing away from the desk. Then the door creaked as it opened a little wider. My roommate meekly asked if I had kicked the chair. From her view point it was clear that no matter how I stretched my feet could not reach. After a long moment of silence I said “maybe she went to get a drink or to use the restroom”. Two days later my tests were over & I went home. I attended that school for another year & a half, living with the same girls, but in a different dorm. Nothing weird ever happened again.

Hope you enjoyed my tale!
Sharon

thanks so much sharon, great story!!

anybody else?

send your letters, stories,
complaints, whatever to
todd@perhapanauts.com

my brother, mike!

okay...

if you haven't already, rush right over to www.mikewieringo.com and check out mike's blog section for the mad love he gives to his boyz, not to mention the truly stunning (no, really--you'll be stunned! mesmerized! deer-in-the-headlights stupid!) sketch he posted of everybody's favorite perhapanauts!

hey! i wasn't kidding--i said GO! NOW! do it. we'll wait...

okay, ya back? good.

well, if you haven't been checking out mike's website as part of your daily/weekly routine, now you have an idea of whatcha been missin'. several times a week mike posts samples of his really wonderful artwork along with some recommendations, insights, and praise for various comics and creators both in and out of the current mainstream. in both his drawings and his words, mike's passion for the art and the language of comics comes through in every line.

and if by chance you don't know who mike wieringo IS, well, friend, we need to get you out from under that rock you've been livin' under for the past 10 years or so. mike is, as we constantly tease him about, one of the "premiere artists working in comics today." his lush and "bouncy" figure-work, his inspired design, and fluid storytelling have infused a new life into the pages of books like the flash, robin, superman, the fantastic four, and currently on the new spider-man title, friendly neighborhood.

his best work by far, however, has been his work on the widely popular sensational spider-man and the award-winning, creator-owned, fantasy/adventure, tellos (because i wrote them...)

(also i gave us the award.)

i once heard mark waid refer to mike as "the nicest guy in comics", and though i'm pretty sure i also heard mark say that about one or two other guys (sorry, mark--it's true...although i think one of those times was at the gorilla party so you're kinda off the hook), i'd have to say that fits mike to a 't'.

more than anything though, mike is my friend--one of my very closest, my brother. as i said over on his blog, our work together on spider-man and tellos aren't just highlights of my career, but of my life. and i consider myself very, very lucky to both work with and know him.

oh, and this isn't just my blog. craig likes mike too!

actually, the three of us are pretty tight friends and if you see us hanging out at a convention together, we're probably laughing. and probably at you.

anyway, thanks, mike.



mike, craig, and me, like 4 years ago.

the ufo story

so, okay...

special guest blogger today is our good pal kojee, late of the old tellos message boards and valiant champion of the perhapanauts. and a really nice guy!
in my attempt to badger readers into sharing their tales of the weird and wonderful, jared is the first one i managed to force a story out of. he was a little shy at first, but, man, read what he gave us below! thanks for the story, kojee. i love this stuff!


In the late seventies my parents lived in a very old farm
house in rural New Hampshire. The house was so old that
it still had "Indian shutters", in case of an attack. The
neighbors consisted of a man who was a ward of the state
due to his mental condition and a farm family down the
road.

My parents planned to travel to Vermont one Christmas, and
fearing a brake-in, they asked the farmer down the road to
keep an eye on the house. He agreed and my parents gave
them the number where they'd be staying in case of
emergency.

On Christmas Eve, while in Vermont, my parents received a
phone call from the farmer. He told them that something
strange was going on at the house and that they should
probably come back. When asked why, he just gave vague
responses. My parents dismissed the call, and went on with
the holiday.

A few days later my parents returned home. The house
looked fine from the outside. It was still standing, no
broken windows, and the front door was secure. As they
entered the house though, they noticed the kitchen table
and chairs turned upside down. Their first thought was
that someone had broken in, robbed, and trashed the place.
They continued into the living room. Same thing. Couch and
chairs turned upside down. TV as well. Kind of odd that a
robber would leave the TV though. When my parents checked
the upstairs, they discovered the same thing. Beds,
furniture, boxes all turned upside down. Amazingly enough,
nothing seemed to be missing. No valuables were taken. As
my parent's search went on, they found everything in the
house upside down. Including jars in the cupboard and
items in the refrigerator. Their only guess was that
someone found a way to get in and just played a prank.
Though, my Dad checked every window and they had not been
tampered with. There were no signs of a brake-in anywhere.

The following day, as my Dad was shoveling the driveway,
he was approached by the mentally disabled neighbor down
the road, an older man who had drowned his own sister in
the early 1900's. Due to his condition, and the fact that
he could not comprehend his own actions, the man was made
a ward of the state. On a daily basis the man would just
walk the dirt roads and murmur meaningless phrases.

As the man stood in front of my Dad in the driveway he
plainly asked my Dad: "You ever seen a UFO?" My dad just
laughed and said no. The man continued: "Well I did." My
Dad asked when, The man's response: "Flyin' right over
your house on Christmas eve,.. blinkin' lights." The man
then continued his walk down the road. My Dad was shocked.

Of course, when I hear the story today, I immediately
suspect that the mentally disabled man was somehow
responsible. Though, according to my Dad, the man was in
no way capable of even conceiving a prank. My dad believes
that the man was just describing what he saw on Christmas
Eve. Some kind of craft over the house with lights. UFO or
not, it makes a pretty fun story!


thanks again, kojee! for being a pal and for being the first!
great story! (really--first time i read it it creeped me out.)

so there you have it! it's that easy. send in YOUR tales of the unexplained and the unknown to me at todd@perhapanauts.com
and read the perhapanauts! it's good for you!

crypto-revelations: part III--"what goes around..."

so, okay...

cut to a few years later.
though late to it (i'm technologically retarded) i am finally hooked up to the internet and using it to it's full advantage; mostly looking for stupid stuff and old comics on ebay and doing searches for all manner of cryptid/paranormal/extra-dimensional info. i'm being bombarded with tales of the unknown, stories of strange creatures, and reports of some really weird stuff.
and loving it.

every two weeks or so, i jump onto ebay and type in my regulars--chupacabra(s), mothman, loch ness monster, jersey devil. i skip bigfoot because it's just too huge an entry, but i will search sasquatch every now and then to mix it up. at one point, fairly recently, someone was auctioning off a chupacabra embryo, really cool looking special effects prop. i woulda bid if it hadn't gone for, like, a ka-billion dollars.
anyway, very early on in this game, i found that there was a company in hong kong or china that put out several series of small (3 to 4 inches tall) plastic figures of all our favorite cryptozoological pals as well as a couple of unexplained artifacts! bigfoot! mothman! the flatwoods creature! and, dude...a chupacabra! it looked so cool, so vicious, so alien! man, i gotta get the chupacabra! i gotta!

so i bid.
and i bid.
and i bid.
and i won! i got it for like $3.00--shipping included!
man, i could not WAIT for it to get here!
i'm pretty obsessive when it comes to stuff like this and i remember this little chunk of plastic was, truly, my main source of excitement for about a week and a half. really. simple minds, i guess...
so it shows up in the mail one afternoon and i'm not only thrilled about how cool it looks on my desk, but that inside there's a brief history of the chupacabra (in chinese so i have no idea what the #^@% it says...) and a reproduction of the original eyewitness sketch of the chupacabra by jorge martin during the '95 flap in puerto rico. awesome!
and so after i've put the tiny figure on my desk where it can watch me write spider-man or tellos or whatever, and i'm putting the fold out insert back into the box...

...there on the side of the box is a picture of exactly the thing i saw float over my jeep on that february night 4 years before.
exactly.

it's called a skyfish and that's not the cool part.
here's the cool part.
so i go online and immediately start my search for the skyfish. it's a bit of a disappointment at first 'cause if you check it (and maybe you will) it seems that, in the past three or four years, 'skyfish' has also been commandeered as the name for another bizarre phenomena down in the jungles of brazil; small, darting, not-as-cool-as-the-thing-i-saw, little insects being caught on film but, because of their incredible speed, invisible to the naked eye. big deal. dude, mine was, like, 12 feet long!
anyway, desperate to find a connection to what i saw, i continued to search throughout the listings for the skyfish and finally found reference to something a little bit bigger than a few inches.
skyfish: first reported and named sometime in the late seventies. list of some names and dates of folks who've purportedly seen it. but--here's the cool part--last reports of skyfish sightings: 17 sightings in the mid-hudson valley in the winter/spring of 1995 between the towns of staatsburg and pawling.

i was stunned.
there is no cooler thing than getting confirmation, even on such a tenuous level, about something that most people you tell are skeptical about. i don't need anyone to believe me. i know what i saw. but it's cool just the same.

18.

so that's MY story.
tell us yours.
if you've got a story of the bizarre or the strange, the scary--or even funny--thing that happened to you, send it in!
and who knows--if it's weird enough maybe the perhapanauts will go and check it out...
ya never know...

take care--
todd

crypto-revelations: part II--the big book of the unexplained

so, okay...

about a year or so later, i was living with my then-girlfriend, now best friend, dani, as well as my dogs and my rabbit (the kids) and pretty much obsessed with the latest offering in dc comics' factoid book series, the big book of the unexplained. editors andy helfer and jim higgins were doing a kick-ass job on these books, all of them great reads and, to me anyway, truly fascinating. i had loved the big book of urban legends, the big book of conspiracies, death, hoaxes, scandals, but my favorite by far was doug moench's foray into the unknown. (i'll be listing a bunch of websites and books on the weird and paranormal in an upcoming blog, but if you're reading this, then read that. it's full of great tales and great information and it felt as if mr. moench probably could've easily penned a sequel. or two!)

i had, of course, always been drawn to stories of bigfoot and the loch ness monster, and through my friendship with inking legend terry austin, had learned everything there was to know about the mothman and the events surrounding that flap. but the big book opened up so many new doors to me in the shadowy realm of the bizarre and i was consumed to learn all i could about the kelly goblins, the flatwoods creature, and most importantly, the chupacabras. (i even passed that particular curiosity onto impulse in jla: world without grown-ups. check it out!)

anyway, i was on about the big book for weeks and i'm sure dani was sick of it (but was too kind to say so) by the time her mother came to visit from wisconsin. we had gone out to dinner and were back home, sitting by the fire with glasses of wine and chatting, when i started to tell barbara about my newly revived interest in the unexplained and especially the cryptozoological. i related to her my tale of the floating thing i saw in the field the year or so earlier, and she countered that story with one of her own...

she said that it had been some 4 or 5 years before, that she was driving home from a long weekend conference or something on some windy back roads in wisconsin. it was very late and she was a bit miffed because her then boyfriend, a quasi-loser named chuck, had said that he'd drive back but was now passed out in the passenger seat and she, exhausted herself, had been left with the driving chores.
she made it a point to repeat; she was very tired.

she said that she was focussed on nothing but the headlights on the road, when she spotted a pale shape at the side of the highway ahead. as she came closer the shape began to cross the road in front of her and she slowed down, trying to make out what it actually was. she said that as she got closer, her mind was trying hard to identify what she was seeing, to make some kind of sense of it, but it just wasn't coming together. it was short, maybe 2 and a half to 3 feet tall, and it looked like a cross between a chicken and a monkey--chicken legs and a monkey's upper body. she said that, as the creature was caught in her headlights, it turned to look at the slowing car, and that, where most animals have a look in their eyes of fear or disorientation when confronted by a vehicle, this creature's eyes conveyed a different message, a sentience and a knowledge that it had been caught and that it was not supposed to be seen.
she said that she had brought the car almost to a complete stop, just inching along slowly by the time the creature turned away and bounded off into the darkness. barb continued on, a bit spooked. chuck never woke up.

when barb described the creature to us, dani and i exchanged glances, but didn't interrupt. but when the story was done, dani told me to go get the book and show her the picture. i flipped the book open to the story of the chupacabras and when i put it in front of her, barb simply pointed to and announced rather plainly, "that's it. that's the thing i saw."

a chupacabras. in wisconsin. this would've been around 1993-94. i've checked and can't find any other reports (but then, barbara never reported hers...), but there was a long series of cattle mutilations in that area...

barb went on to offer her theory, one i'd heard before but, that it may very well be that sleepy state of mind that makes it possible for us to see things we wouldn't otherwise see. that maybe they're there all around us all the time, invisible to us on this plane, but that our tired minds are able to see past what we're supposed to see. she was tired when she saw her chupacabra. i was tired when i saw that thing float over my jeep.

i dunno.

crypto-revelations: part I--what i saw...

okay, here's what happened to me...

in the winter of 94/95 i was cast in a play at marist college. (a really great play called "noises off" and probably the finest production i've ever had the pleasure to be involved in.) at the time i was living alone way out in the country with my then 2 dogs and 1 rabbit and driving my jeep the thirty miles (each way) back and forth. the play is a really funny farce and required a LOT of physical comedy as well as a lot of rehearsal time to work out the very intricate staging/blocking so we would rehearse some nights 'til 1 or 2 in the morning. no problem for them, they lived on campus. i'm telling you all this 'cause i think it's important to know my frame of mind and that i was particularly tired when all this happened.

so anyway, it's about 12:45 this one night. it's february but it's warm, what they call a 'strawberry spring', a kinda winter version of 'indian summer' with an early, false thaw and some really nice weather for about a week. i'm heading home on the pretty much deserted roads and i can remember that the moon was full, making the surrounding woods and farms fairly visible beyond my headlights. and i'm tired. at one point on rt. 9G in the town of east park, the town police have made a small building on a curve their new headquarters and park their cop cars out front at night, a trend that makes many nighttime travellers slow down thinking that the cars are manned and ready to catch them speeding. by that time i was used to it, but because i was so tired that night, it caught me by surprise and i slowed way down, mostly 'cause i was loggy.

so coming around this slight curve, i was going slow enough to notice some movement in the muddy field off to my left, a long stretch of ruts and puddles usually put up in corn and/or pumpkins. way off in the north-west corner of the field i saw what looked to me like the canvas tarp off of someone's woodpile rise up off the ground and levitate some 15 feet in the air. not really such an unusual sight; the wind catching hold of someone's not-too-well-tied-down firewood cover and playing the devil with it across an empty field.

except there was no wind.

and it wasn't a tarp.

i stopped the jeep. right there in the middle of the road. i hadn't been going that fast anyway, what with the driverless cop cars slowing me down. what this thing looked like to me as it continued to float a little higher in the air and then float toward me was still a large brownish gray canvas sheet, about 7 feet across the front and about 12 feet long. it looked thicker in the middle, down the length of it and, still keeping the idea that it was a wind-blown tarp, it looked to have a few feet of rope trailing behind it like a...tail.
and it undulated as it glided, it's sides continuously rippling, rising and falling, fluttering in the same way that a manta does as it skates across the ocean floor. it slid gracefully beneath some suspended phone/power lines, between the bare trees at the edge of the field, and then it was above me as i twisted my neck and craned my head to watch it pass some six or seven feet above my own canvas topped jeep. i was in awe. no fear, no creepy feeling. just awe.
i watched it pass behind me and then into another group of trees and then it was gone. i sat there for a few seconds and then continued on home, knowing that i hadn't been dreaming, but...man, that was weird.

the next day, of course, i described the whole thing to my friends and castmates, all of us getting excited and creeped out about what bizarre stuff there is out there. i did a slew of internet searches to see if anyone had seen or heard of anything like what i had seen, but google hadn't been invented yet and my keywords brought up zero results.

so that was it. that's what i saw. i had no name for it or anything, just the story and the feeling that i'd seen something 'not from here'. as far as i knew i was the only one who had ever seen it...

...until a few years later...

hey, everybody! it's the perhapanauts #2!!

hey, gang!
the new issue of the perhapanauts is here! and if you're like most people (and who ISN'T?!*) you love an exciting preview of your favorite comics as much as the next guy...as long as they don't give away too much. well, we here at "plays well with otters" productions don't like giving away too much either, but, for your enjoyment, over on the main page of perhapanauts.com, we've posted the first few pages of the latest issue (ON SALE NOW!) to taunt and tantalize you!
in the weeks, months, whatever ahead, we'll be posting preview pages, some of craig's awesome cool character concept sketches, and tales of some really weird, creepy stuff! we'll also be posting some of YOUR stories of strange sightings, bizarre occurances, and unexplained phenomena! (um, well, only if you send 'em in...)

send your tales of the unknown and unexplained to todd@perhapanauts.com so we can put 'em up!

in the meantime, here's some original 'haps sketches for you to enjoy...


an early arisa...



here's mg, before i told craig all his secrets...
we didn't even have a name for him at this point.



molly, always cute.