I know, I still haven’t followed up on my post about Wizard World Chicago. My life’s been hectic for this entire month, and I’ve had very little time on the computer. I was going to wait until Shooting Star’s online store was ready to go, but I think you’ve all been waiting long enough to hear about my newest comic book, Metro Med #0.

The Ashcan edition of Metro Med debuted at Wizard World Chicago. Artist Phil Meadows and I would like to thank the folks at Shooting Star Comics for helping us get a Metro Med comic in people’s hands this year. I felt that I’d teased folks enough for the last year and we had to get a comic of some sorts out, so artist Phil Meadows knuckled down to meet the deadline and Shooting Star comics went to great lengths to produce this comic in time for Wizard World Chicago. Shooting Star artists Erik Burnham and Robert Bavington helped us with a few additional art pieces. They even footed the bill for an eye-catching color cover, which is going above-and-beyond for a convention ashcan. I want to thank all of them again for making this happen.

“Metro Med #0” contains two 8-page stories. The first one is the story that was submitted to (and won) the Small Press Idol 2004. The second was made just for this book. There’s also a gorgeous two-page spread of our principal cast by Phil Meadows, plus pin-ups of some of our superhero characters by Erik and Robert, and a map and short history of the Tri-Metro area where our story takes place. All of that in a beautiful package for $2.

I do need to stress that this is an inexpensive ashcan edition, and it revealed a few technical glitches that we need to work out. There was some fuzziness to the printing, which is a problem on a few of my biographical text pages which have small print. Due to those flaws, the copies printed for Wizard World are all that will ever be printed of this volume. (The nice part of that is if Metro Med becomes the next Tick or Turtles, the ashcan copies will be collectibles.)

We don’t want to be responsible for anyone’s eyestrain reading the fuzzy small text pages. For this reason, I’ve decided that all of the text pages will become part of the Metro Med web site for everyone to see. (I will, of course, censor some of it so that I don’t reveal surprises from the stories.) I still have to update the Metro Med site; I’m hoping to have some time for that this weekend.

I hesitate to draw attention to the flaws in the printing, but I owe it to Phil and the rest of the art team to stress that their work will look better in the Metro Med book when it debuts in a year. In the meantime, this $2 ashcan is your chance to read Metro Med. Shooting Star Comics will have the book available for purchase shortly, when their online store goes live in a few days. Rest assured, I’ll tell you in this space when it’s possible to get a copy.

UPDATE: I’ve been asked about the stories and whether you need to read them. Without giving anything away…yes, although there’s the possibility that these 8-pagers might be reprinted or collected later, it would be best if you read them before issue #1 debuts.