Cursed Pirate Girl chapter 4

I know a lot of people probably didn't think this would ever happen but, I have a new issue of Cursed Pirate Girl coming out in Oct.

I'd like to say thank you for everyone who has waited so very patiently.  Chapter 4, which Archaia/BOOM! has labeled Cursed Pirate Girl Annual no. 1 will be out 
in stores Oct. 14th. Here's a look at the cover-

This is a 54 page issue that answers some of the questions of Cursed Pirate Girl's history, introduces new characters and puts CPG on a treasure hunt.  There will be 2 more chapters and then a collected vol. 2 hardcover.  If you've seen me at a comic con you will have heard my spiel or sales pitch but if you haven't, here you go :) 

Cursed Pirate Girl is the story of an orphan girl who calls herself the Cursed Pirate Girl and the search for her father.  She knows he's a Pirate Captain of the mythical waters known as the Omerta Seas.  She finds her way to the Omertas guided by a talking parrot named PepperDice where she meets the Swordfish Brothers- Sir Haftu and Sir Halek who decide to chaperone her on the quest to find her father.  Together they go from pirate ship to pirate ship trying to figure out which one is her father's and why she was abandoned in the first place.  The book is drawn at actual print size, so when you open it up what you see is exactly the same size as the original art.  It is not reduced.  I pencil it out pretty thoroughly and then I ink it with a size 00 brush.


I wrote the story of Cursed Pirate Girl as a 6 chapter story.  The blue book that Archaia published collects the first 3 chapters that were published individually through Olympian Publishing.  Chapter 1 was self published in 2006 and then reprinted through Olympian in April of 2009.

  Olympian then went on to publish chapter 2 in June of 2009 and chapter 3 in October of 2009. 

 Then we raised printing costs for a soft cover trade collection on Kickstarter.  Here is the link for that video and the campaign.  It was pretty successful.  Tom Negovan, the man behind Olympian Publishing and Century Guild, wanted to concentrate on furthering my art career and wanted to pass on the book publishing end to another company.  We discussed all the indie publishers and ultimately I decided on Archaia.  I was very impressed with their artistic direction, they go an extra mile or two in making something that is more of an art piece than just a book. 

I was actually originally signed with Archaia pre-Olympian publishing.  Before I even met Tom and shortly after I self published that first issue I talked with Mark Smylie at Archaia and he said he would like to publish CPG.  At the time though Mark only wanted to publish full color books.  So I went back and colored the first two chapters in photoshop.  It was difficult for me because 1- I'm not a great colorist, and 2- I really wanted it to be black and white.  I met Tom and he made me an offer I couldn't refuse, a chance to publish the book the way I wanted to and a way to sustain myself financially that I could afford to put the time into the book it really deserved.  Unfortunately for my audience it means you have to wait a couple of years in between chapters because I have gotten used to a certain personal standard in my work that is impossible to adjust.  But hey, in like another 10 years the complete story will be done and hopefully have been out there for a couple of years :)