You may have stumbled across this page in hopes of discovering a cool blog dedicated to comic books, graphic novels, movies about comic books and graphic novels, and everything in between. Champion City Comics is a site that will showcase The Champion City Fire, an online comic book written by TonyDoug Wright featuring the artwork and lettering of Joseph Haemmerle.
The Champion City Fire is a cops and robbers tale set in a mythological Midwestern metropolis with a dash of the hardboiled detective novel and a slight dose of science fiction. It's gritty, it's dark, and in my opinion, it's a damn good comic book.
Six years ago, I decided to write a comic book and my wife (who was engaged to me at the time) was very excited about the idea. I'm lucky to have met a woman that loves video games and comic books. I began writing down ideas in a notebook and a few days (or weeks) later, I reviewed what I had written earlier and I thought to myself, "Wow, this really sucks". So I continued writing down ideas and my concept of a comic book improved daily. After a few months of writing ideas down in a notebook I began typing up the first issue and realized that I was no Jim Lee when it came to artwork. I had to find an artist.
I decided to ask my artistically talented cousin, Joseph Haemmerle, if he was interested in working on a comic book. I e-mailed Joseph my ideas and we came up with a basic strategy for The Champion City Fire. I e-mailed him the first issue, and then I scrapped the idea, sent him another version of the first issue, scrapped that idea, and then e-mailed him the final proposal for the first issue.
Six years later, we have taken The Champion City Fire from ideas in a notebook to an online comic book. There are some people that I would like to thank for their support and advice. First, I want to thank my wife Cathie for her wonderful support and her editor's eye. Cathie has been a great supporter and she quickly finds typos in the script or on the draft pages. Secondly, I want to thank John Ira Thomas from Candle Light Press, an Iowa-based graphic novel publisher, for his input. John gave me his honest opinions and I appreciate his honesty which at times was brutally honest. Joseph and I hope to have the first issue completed as soon as possible and posted sometime soon. We will post a few pages at a time and we would appreciate your patience and feedback. We hope you enjoy The Champion City Fire.
