I've mentioned this a couple of times already, but it bears repeating so I don't confuse anyone this month:

This month's story has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with KISS 4K.

Instead, this month's story is about KISS themselves. It takes place in a (before now unrealized) great moment in Kisstory: December of 1977.

Kiss had just put out ALIVE II and Love Gun. The year after, they'd each record a solo record and film the infamous (yet entertaining) “Kiss Meets The Phantom Of The Park”. A little later (in 1979) they would release “Dynasty”–which my friend Troy calls “The Disco Album”. I kind of like it, myself.

If you can't tell by page one's art, it's gonna be a little cartoony. It's gonna be a little silly.

Most of all, it'll be fun. Even my wife digs the story this month, and she usually doesn't pay real close attention to the stuff I'm doing here.

I love her anyway.

This month is gonna be cool. I don't care if it has nothing to do with 4k, it will be a nice change of pace to keep things interesting.

Well, I certainly hope so!

There will be at least two in-jokes that won't make much sense unless you're familiar with Kiss history in 1977 and 1978, but even if you're not, they're easy to research.

This is really going to be my “take a break and goof off a little” month. I've been kicking out 3 pages a week since the beginning of May, and I thought it would be a fun change of pace.

Quick note:

The “bloodsuckers get coal! No exceptions!” in today's page is from an old comic I put together about ten years ago as a submission to Image comics.

See, there were these Image trading cards put out around then, and a friend of mine showed me one by Rob Liefeld called “Santa the Barbarian”. I decided to draw up a little five- or six-page story based around this character to send to them in hopes of getting a job. In it, Santa gets attacked by vampires who are tired of getting coal in their stockings, so he turns into Santa the Barbarian and he and the elves take the vampire hordes head-on. It was pretty stupid, but fun.

I never did send that off. My life was crazy at that time, and I decided I would quit the comic industry and try to get a job in IT. What a mistake that was. :)

However, the “bloodsuckers get coal” idea stuck with me. I've been meaning to work it into a story ever since.