"SHAMELESSLY PROMOTE" YOUR OWN STUFF!

Might as well promote my blog here again-- In The Future There Is No Future-- it's a bit inane (maybe I'm posting this in the wrong thread?) but it's full of prose you wouldn't see on the DC2, some film reviews, and some Batman stuff. Because like I've said before... Batman is awesome.

Batman!!

Here are excerpts from this month's issues of Birds of Prey and Seven Soldiers of Victory, with mere hints of the thrills and twists hidden in each one!



The repetitive clicking and tapping echoed down the tile hall of the university building, as Amy sat fiddling with the tab on her empty can of coke. Professor Winston’s lecture had been fun, the sort of thing that Amy had grown up loving to learn about. But that was already an hour ago, and her father had been in a meeting since lunch began, and he was just going to give the same lecture to his afternoon class. Until then, she was stuck here on the bench outside his office almost wishing she was at school after all.

“Surprise!” Amy looked up to see her father holding out a treat for her, the last donut in the box that one of his colleagues had brought to the meeting. “I saved you a powdered one.”

“Thanks, Dad.” She smiled, although that dreamy, far-away look that all of her friends had grown so used to was in her eye.

He sat down next to his daughter and playfully patted her nose with a powdery finger. “So come on, I’ve got a little time. How’s school going?”

“Fine.”

“Friends?”

“Fine.”

“Boyfriends?”

“Dad!” Amy giggled.

“What, I’m not allowed to know when my little girl is growing up and ready to be given away?”

She touched the necklace at her throat and shook her head. “Tommy Merlott wanted to go out this weekend but he knows I can’t do that. I only have eyes for Topaz.” Amy’s earnest voice betrayed no hint of the insanity or delusion that her words always did. She didn’t remember until she saw the look on her father’s face how he and Mom had reacted the last time she mentioned her future prince.

“Am I ever gonna get to meet this Topaz of yours?”

At least Dad tried to listen, but in the last year, Amy had learned to tell when she was being humored. “Maybe. I hope so.”

“Well,” The professor hugged his arm around her shoulders, “maybe until then you should give Tommy a chance. He’s a nice boy. Who knows, you might like him better.”

“I don’t think so,” Amy said quietly, and shrugged away.

Herb watched her smile fade, and he hugged his daughter tighter. “You want to stay for the second class?”

“Not really.” Amy had been thinking the whole day about her vision, and an idea had come to her while she sat daydreaming. “Can I go to the library?”

“Sure, I don’t see why not,” Herb smiled gently. “Long as you behave yourself. Go get a visitor’s pass, and I’ll pick you up there when my lecture is over.”

“Thanksdad!” Amy bounced up and kissed his cheek, and ran off down the hallway, only slowing down when she heard another teacher yelling after her.

The Hudson U library was bigger than any for miles and miles around. She had come here once before, when she had first found her way to the Gemworld, hoping for proof that she could show everyone else that it existed. She’d found nothing, but that didn’t discourage her now. In all those hundreds, thousands of books, there had to be something that could help her. Something about the sleeping sickness that must have overtaken her other body; something about travel between planes; something about the magic that Princess Amethyst wielded. There was so much magic in the world, so many people with so many powers that there HAD to be something Amy could use.

When she got to the library building, there was already a group of four people at the security window, arguing with each other and the guard about whether their visiting IDs were still valid. Amy bit her lip and rocked back and forth on her toes and heels. There was only the one guard on duty, though the library bustled with students and professors and staff. No one would notice if she just...slipped inside? The Gemworld was counting on her. She couldn’t wait for the angry visitors to clear away in order to get her own pass.

She waited until a new student entered the library and swiped his ID card through the door, and Amy ran in behind him with nobody any the wiser. She found a staircase and started to climb, heart bursting in her throat. The books about magic should be nearby. She’d stay all night if she had to.





La Garra sprinted into the shop's storage area and up the narrow stairs to the apartment above. There she found Ringo in his bed, soaked in his own blood that had poured out from the gap where his head had once rested. Yolanda paused at the sight and growled. Her nails instinctively extended when she read the note jabbed into his chest with a long needle. “Keepin' his mouth shut for him.” With a snarl she dashed back out to the alley.

Oliver Queen had closed with his quarry. The first thug had been pinned to a large wooden pallet and he received a crack in the head with the bow to keep from trying to escape. Ollie moved up to the second, who lay on the ground and clutched his calf, the arrow shot through the leg muscles. “Don't even need to hit you,” Ollie darkly chuckled as he moved up to the third man.

This one he'd chosen to go tricky, to play with the man; he'd aimed up high and arced the arrow so it landed in time to slice through the man's foot and pin him to the ground. Under the bandanna was a mean grin as he reached the victim and grabbed him by the back of the hair to stare into the face. He could hear La Garra leap out from the door. “Okay, now you and I are--”

Ollie froze as he met the eyes that glared back up at him with fury. The face rattled Oliver Queen, and shook up memories, from months back, of the first domino in a chain of events that brought him to this place.

“Fair enough,” he finally replied. “But this is how I’m seeing it. Either way, you ain’t going to kill me. It’s one thing to eliminate the competition or even Feds who are getting to close; however, you take out a bona fide member of the Justice League and you’re going to have a world of hurt coming your way that not even you could deal with. So here’s the plan; you tell me where Juan Sanchez went and I won’t bust your goons heads open and rip this town apart – not to mention shoving that God-awful cigar of yours where the sun don’t shine.”

“We kill him?” One of the men asked.

Three piece suit man just grinned as he took a long drag from the cigar. He waved for his men to put the guns down. “I will give you more than just Sanchez’s destination. I will also give you back your motorcycle, fixed, and some words of advice.”

“We're gonna kill you bad now, Arrow,” the man who had been the bodyguard those months back spat at Ollie.

“Not you!” the enraged archer said as he pulled an arrow out and raised it up to jab into the man.



So come and check it all out, with covers by the stunning Steve Howard and amazing Boris Mihajlovic, written by myself and Samantha Chapman.

Take care
Don

Nice.

Bring it on!

The BIRDS of PREY #6 coming soon, with all-new excitement!



And then The SEVEN SOLDIERS of VICTORY #16 hits the screen with more adventure and intrigue!



Then its the GOTHAM GIRLS #31 with danger and romance!



So tune in to June!

Take care
Don

Time to start plugging early, I think.

I feel naked! Those images arent ready for human eyes!

So to be thoroughly shameless, the last time Gotham Girls got a promotion on here was for issue #31. #35, my giant-sized Finale has been up since February. One final test of strength, friendship, loyalty and love to close out the series with a bang!

(And a chance for someone to draw a missing cover if they so wanted)

(....you can draw girls making out, it'd be okay for this ending)

/retroactive spoilers

If ONLY one such as he existed... wait a second... That's me! I have a fair amount in hand at the moment... but this c really speaks to me so I'm yours if you will have me!!

Shameless promotion at it's finest here!

I run a shared universe fan fiction group called Marvel 2000 (http://marvel2k.weebly.com), which some may have heard of before. We've been around since 1999 and broke away from Marvel 616 continuity around the time of the Magneto War. We've developed our own rich continuity much like DC2 has, with large scale events, unexpected deaths, resurrections, and everything in between.

Since moving the site to a new domain, we're seeing a bit of a resurgence and I wanted to finally extend the offer to the awesome collective here at DC2. We're always looking for new writers, so if you're looking to scratch a Marvel-centric itch, swing by our message board or send me an email (h4hdave@yahoo.com).

Thanks!

I joined the DC2 years years ago and have been just hanging around reading. Nice to see the site still going! Let's see if I can answer some of your questions...

We keep our creative momentum going by constantly bouncing story ideas off one another. We have a group emailing list just for the writers, and we use our own forum for fleshing out concepts or "What If" scenarios. We have had lulls over the years that have lasted a few months at a time, but we always bounce back (it largely depends on leadership and their availability). While we have had writer vanish before, typically our writers stick around for the long haul.

Our reader base is definitely larger than our group of writers. We have about 30 active titles and about 19 prolific writers. Our readership is a few hundred per week according to our site stats.

We keep things accessible in two ways: being transparent in our plotting (meaning we tease stuff on the board/emailing list) and try to give recaps when asked. We've had handbooks produced before, but they are very time consuming. I don't know if we'll go back to that again.

Good luck on keeping things rolling here! Feel free to email be directly with any questions about the site, or maybe even writing a title! I'm available at h4hdave@yahoo.com.