Nothing says Happy New Year like a Tiki Battle Moai Mech

Nothing is more kick-ass than a Moai Battle Mech. Nothing!

It mixes a mean drink, too.

And Warlord of Io (and Max Zing) is the only sci-fi franchise that has them. Take that, George Lucas!

May your new year be happy, prosperous, and kick-ass.

That is all.

If you can forgive THAT guy, you can forgive anyone...

Seriously, Vader murdered little kids, blew up planets with his buddy Moff Skeletor Tarkin, and strangled his co-workers. His redemption made no difference: the Death Star was going to blow up whether he iced the wrinkly old Emperor or not.

Aspects of his character arc are seriously messed up.

Red or blue pill: which is better, reality or the virtual?

The Jupiter Subsystem, realm of Max Zing, Warlord of Io

Can you believe this thing? It's craziness. A map of Jupiter and it's sixty-odd moons, a micro galaxy of adventure for Max Zing to frolic in. Most of the moons are little more than small rocks, but realism is not exactly a feature of the series. 

Who would bother wasting time developing something like this? Me. That's who. Time well wasted, I might add. I could have been watching Jerry Springer.

Surprisingly, Jupiter does have rings, just not as flashy as the ostentatious bling around Saturn. Io itself is connected to Jupiter by an electropole. Fly through it and be fried by radiation. Yep. Lots of amazing stuff to be found around my favourite gas giant god. 

Malls, floating coral, plasma fields, giant monsters, shells, derelicts, ruins, and more pepper the space scape. Lots of places for future books to explore. Well. If there were future books, which there aren't, and likely won't be. 

Still, it was a fun nowhere man exercise, creating my very own cute, miniature, fuzzy retro-future universe (I like thinking it's fuzzy). Learned a few things along the way to boot, which is always a bonus. 

Future cities will be based on…

Pinball machines!

That's right: Nothing says 'futuristic space city' like pinball. It's colourful, has lots of big metal spheres that look super impressive, and wide boulevards so they have somewhere to go in case they fall off their plinths and roll around.

Frank R. Paul knew this was the ultimate direction of urban planning, long ago, when he painted this.

It's freakin' awesome.

Warlord of Io promo video

Did this awhile back. My voice over leaves much to be desired, but the music, Gustav Holst's Mars, Bringer of War (from The Planets) is awesome. John Williams based his Imperial March from Star Wars on it. It's a classic.

You'll never guess what's wrong with this battlestation...

Best laid plans of space mice and ions. Somehow, no one ever thinks of the toilets.

Oh, and the title is in 'linkbait' format.

In the future, all writing will be so.

Including Shakespeare.

Muhahaaa.

The secret Dalek fetish

Dalek Plumber Battalion

My theory is that Davros was actually a frustrated plumber. Or chef. Think about it. They have built in whisks and plungers. 

Warlord of Io made CBR's Top 100 comics of 2010

Delayed yay!

In the future, paperwork will be lethal.

Max Zing and the Dread Lakunadoom

In retro-future black and white, just like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. 

Will Wikipedia turn into evil space marauders hunting for information in the far far future?

Evidently. Yes.

The dread space Wikibipeds are a race of information collecting space raiders, eager to pillage Max Zing's impressive comic book collection.

Also believed to have clandestinely founded Wikipedia here on earth. Or so they say.

You be the judge.

Sunday Poster: The Chronocondo

Another Frank R. Paul original.

I imagine it's some kind of Chronocondo. The building generates a perpetuity node, projecting it throughout simultaneous eternity. This allows residents to exit into any point of time of their choosing. No idea why a condo corporation would do this. It seems expensive and kind of gimmicky. It also spits out spaceships. Moths to a flame? Traffic from other eras?

Only Frank knows.

Who was the Father of the Retro-Future? Frank R. Paul, that's who.

I love Paul's work. So vivid, imaginative, colourful, and exuberant. His design work was a definite point of inspiration for the Warlord of Io and Max Zing series. I just hope I managed to capture of glimmer of what he so breezily accomplished. It informed sci-fi art for decades.

As you can see, this is an image of KFC restaurant franchises on the march, boldly heading into new territory. KFC developed the Mobile Restaurant Platform in response to a constantly changing marketplace. Location, location, location. That's what it's all about.

Space Smurf Serfs and The Warlord of Io

At least, I like to think of them as Smurfs. Obviously they aren't for copyright reasons. But you can imagine that if you like, until your imagination becomes limited by copyright laws. The day lawyers can do that, they will. Good idea for a future Max Zing strip. Building up strip ideas for the next volume, if and when I get around to it.

Space Smurfs do appear in Avatar. But that's James Cameron. He can imagine what he likes.

Also note that I've posted two strips today. Just to be problematic and confusing. I've posted these two in chronological order. Yet with a comic strip, you read from first to last. Blogs go from latest to first. This goes the other way. Oh, the suffering I am causing! Well. Life is suffering.

I think the way to deal with the limitations of the blog format is to post strips that are related chronologically, in a single post. Ideally, I should be building a proper page for the strip, but sadly I cannot be bothered. Too much work. This is mostly for archiving purposes, as Drunk Duck is not a reliable host.

But it's a better place to take in the wondrous sedentary adventures of Max Zing, Warlord of Io. 

Adoring Denunciators of Max Zing

Being a despot can be so trying. Nobody likes you except sycophants. It's like being an armed lottery ticket winner. Now that's something Max Zing would say.

Bureaucrats assume their ultimate form in the Warlord of Io

Scary because bureaucrats are real.

Mmmm Chocolate ice cream polyps!

On the moon of Io, there are crystalline based ice cream creatures called Neapolitan. Like jellyfish, they are composed of several polyps (or scoops in this case). They flourish in the low temperatures of the poles, and in an incredible example of convergent evolution, are flavoured vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate.

This makes them highly prized for dessert.

I like the idea here, but I'm not sure about how I've worded it. Like Homer Simpson, I've always had the tendency to dig a little more into the chocolate section of Neapolitan ice cream.

How should it have been worded? The world wonders.

Insidious Schemes: Meetings are a plot.

Oh, truly Machiavellian. When you rule a moon like the Warlord Max Zing of Io, can you trust anyone? Humphrey, the future needs you.

Mmmm Meetings!

Because everyone loves six hour long meetings. Right?

Except Max Zing.

He's more of a sixty second meeting kind of guy.

Fascinating Fungi

Everbody knows fungi are comedy gold. I'm thinking spinoff series: Fungi of Io.

Gilligan's Island of DEATH!

What if Ming the Merciless had Charlie Brown for a son? What if Dilbert ruled a space moon? Why, it'd be just like Max Zing! The hilarious sequel to "Warlord of Io" follows Maximillian Zing, the new Warlord of the Ion Empire, as he continues his "rule" with more attention to his comics, tv, and video games than...well, anything else!

Welcome to Max Zing: The Amazing Sedentary Adventures. It's my little venture into the realm of comic strips. One, two, three, punch line! A difficult and demanding format to be sure, requiring rocket science like expertise.

A collection of the strips is available on Comixology and Amazon, amazingly enough. Yeah, baby! You heard me: it exists in printed format. Check out the links if you don't believe me. Trees died for this. Probably at least two small ones. Just my small way to contribute to the ruination of the environment and end of the world. I have my hockey armour and mohawk all ready.

Max is a spin off from my graphic novel, Warlord of Io, a wantonly silly celebration of sci-fi. Retro-sci-fi, like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers and all of that Frank R. Paul stuff. Wanton in a playful, all ages kind of way that is.

Why do such a project? Why waste what precious little time I have in this world on such an eccentric missive to genre? Well, after school I'd watch things like Star Trek or Doctor Who, between episodes of Gilligan's Island. Ah, such happy, simple minded times. How things have changed. A reboot of Gilligan now would have them hunting and eating each other. 

Gilligan's Island of DEATH. 

Progress!

Hope you enjoy the strips. I'm posting them in order, so you're reading them backwards if you're starting with the latest. As an unwise man once said: 'D'oh!'

How do you make the insanely mundane exciting? Find out...

Contrast it with something infinitely worse.

You're welcome.

Max Zing: The Little Bored Emperor

How can you be bored when you rule a moon? Could it be that imperial conquest is all about the journey, and not the destination? The act of conquest is like sex, but it produces a baby burden: the empire. Imperial Domesticity.

When Moxy Met Zing: How to write dialogue. Not.

Actually, you probably don't want to take lessons on writing dialogue from me either way.

Everyone wants to rule the universe.

That's the problem with it.