I’m excited to post about my next comics work hitting later this year from Pixie Trix Comix. They are the 56-page graphic novella Zii and the Troublemakers, which picks up where the webseries Ménage à 3 leaves off, and a one-shot titled Eerie Cuties: Sisters, which features three new stories set in the world of Eerie Cuties. These comics were funded in the latest Pixie Trix Comix Kickstarter, which you can check out here.
My talent writer/artist pal, Gisèle Lagacé of Pixie Trix Comix, invited me to participate in her latest Kickstarter, and without hesitation, I jumped at the opportunity.
Gisèle and I first met through work at Archie Comics. My dream project I was trying to get off the ground was a Josie and the Pussycats series with Gisèle as the artist. It was not meant to be, however, what came out of it I’m even more excited about.
Knowing that I was itching to tell a story about a band on the road, she thought maybe I’d be interested in telling the story of Zii going on tour with her band, the Troublemakers, and she was right! She asked for 24-28 pages and I gave her 56 to draw, so I guess you could say it was a terrible itch and I scratched it real hard!
From the pages of Gisele’s recently concluded web comic Ménage à 3 co-written with David Lumsdon, one of the lead characters, Zii, has spun-off into her own one-shot, Zii and the Troublemakers, to pick up where her story leads while she’s out on the road with her band.
Newcomers are more than welcome, as this story draws on the history of the characters, but won’t be confusing for first-time readers. All you need to know is a rock trio and their manager are three months into their cross-Canada tour and tensions come to a head at their latest stop in Vancouver. That is a city that I’ve grown to know and love over the years and I wanted the band to be out of their familiar surroundings of Montreal, but to be in a place I knew well so that the city itself would feel like another character in the story. I can promise, there will be sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll, in this special one-shot starring Zii and co-starring more fan-favorite Ma3 characters.
In addition to getting the opportunity to dip my toe into the world of Ménage à 3 and play with those characters, I did the same with the cast of Eerie Cuties, another web series from Pixie Trix Comix starring a couple of teenaged vampire sisters.
In fact, this one-shot titled Eerie Cuties: Sisters focuses on Layla and Nina and explores a few of the things that bond these sisters like addictive gaming, family reunions, and dating, as well as what drives each other crazy about the other. I love vampire stories and want to tell more of them, so this was a really fun way to play with familiar horror tropes while putting it through the Eerie Cuties filter. I love Layla and Nina’s dynamic and so when Gisele said she wanted stories that put a spotlight on the sisters, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I drew a little inspiration from the relationship of Raina Telgemeier in her graphic novel Sisters, hence the subtitle, so it should appeal to that audience, but with a Hotel Transylvania bent to it.
This was a lot of fun for me to work on, and I’m excited to work with Gisèle again on more Pixie Trix Comix in the future! We already have another one-shot planned out for 2021, so stay tuned…