The Rioteer: Champion of Freedom!

So...this actually started as a gag, a few months ago. The comic book shop that I frequented was looking for a comic strip to run in their newsletter. Some of the people who worked there actually read The Path, so they asked me if I'd be interested: the pay was free comics. How could I refuse? I'm a big fan of the old Republic Captain America serial (Cap is responsible for thousands of deaths in that serial...it was great), and of "pulp" heroes like The Spirit, The Shadow, and Mignola's Lobster Johnson...so I said, "How about a guy fighting Nazis in New York?" I had been working on a design for "retro" Mr.Riot for DDCW, and decided that it could double as filler for DDCW until Zac and I got off our asses and started updating again: so, "The Rioteer: Champion of Freedom!" was born.

I did three stories of The Rioteer, each one roughly 5-7 pages long...and they were ridiculous. I mean, really. The Nazis had won WWII, New York was now the Third Reich's playground for mad scientists...and out of the chaos, an ex beat-cop named (get this) Shamus MacRiot becomes The Rioteer to try and fight back. Complete with a Captain America-esque shield and Mobster partners (the Mob wasn't any happier about the Germans taking over NY than The Rioteer was), The Rioteer fought Nazi Vampires, robot zombies, primordial monsters and the terrible Dr. Zeitkrieg! The last page of The Rioteer run in the last newsletter showed Freedom's Favorite Son being hurled from the top of the Empire State Building by a giant iguana. Apparently, the readers of the newsletter (all 32 of them) demand to know what happens next...so I'm going to keep doing it. It's fun.

I'm going to have the first Rioteer story at WWTX printed (through Kinkos, because I'm poor). Above is the cover.