ISSUE #1 - SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES      (click HERE to start reading)

After a whirlwind courtship and grand wedding ceremony attended by Hollywood stars and a who's who of New York high society, billionaire entrepreneur, Kyle Raines, and his architect wife, Lori, break ground on the future site of the Phoenix Building, Kyle's massive new world headquarters on Central Park South. The celebrity couple's brand new life together soon takes an unexpected turn, however, when Lori discovers she's pregnant with their first child.

WARNING: this issue contains mature content which many parents may find unsuitable for children under age 13


STORY BY
Kelly J. Compeau

WRITTEN BY
Kelly J. Compeau
Jeff Mariotte

ILLUSTRATED BY
Donald Jackson

COLOURED BY
Kelly J. Compeau

LETTERED BY
Michael Thomas

COVER BY
Jason Badower


ROLE MODELS (people who served as models for various characters in this issue)
Cliff Simon (actor, Stargate: SG1) in the role of Kyle Raines


THANKS, CREDITS & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Gosh, where do I start? How about at the very beginning.

A lot of people have asked me about the origin of The Black Tower. Well, I was somewhat influenced by Buffy, Charmed, Witchblade and other female oriented sci-fi/fantasy TV shows, but the main idea, the true backbone of the series, comes from my own upbringing, interests and lifestyle. I'm fascinated by the occult and have studied witchcraft, demonology, ancient mythology and parapsychology, among other things. After a brush with breast cancer at age 18 I restricted myself to a vegetarian diet and eventually became a firm believer in the power of plants, essential oils and self-healing through spiritual meditation.

Another major inspiration for The Black Tower was Disney's Gargoyles (1994). I was hooked right from the first episode of this rather mature animated series, and was especially impressed by the top-notch writing and voice-work. The show, created by Greg Weisman, had a profound effect on me. So much so that I spent several years researching and writing what I'd hoped would be the first in a series of Gargoyles novels, published by Disney's literary division. That was not to be, however, as my introductory correspondence requesting to send them my manuscript was sent back with a letter saying they had no interest in producing a series of books based on the now cancelled series.

Naturally, I was crushed. But a few days after I'd received Disney's heartbreaking letter, I had supper with multi-award winning Ottawa filmmaker, Lois Siegel. After I told her about what had happened, she suggested that I turn the unusable manuscript into a TV movie or pilot script for a television series. I would have to make some drastic changes, of course, removing all references to Disney's trademark properties (i.e. character names). It was a great idea but it would require that I spend several more years not only learning how to write a screenplay but learning the business end of making industry contacts, pitching and producing the series. At that time I had just been dancing around the edges of showbiz, working as a voice-over artist, production assistant and background performer. A screenwriting career had never even crossed my mind.

In January 2005, after receiving a lot of input from industry friends, including writer/producer Jon Cooksey (The Collector, So Weird ), The Black Tower TV Series Proposal was complete. I spent the next three years pitching the project to dozens of production companies across North America. Many turned me down flat, but others were very excited about the project's potential. However, there were two major obstacles. The first being money, as the budget for this TV series was estimated at 1.2 to 1.3 million dollars per episode. Far more than any Canadian production company had to spend, or an American one wanted to on what was essentially a Canadian show created by an inexperienced showrunner/executive producer. The next hurdle was human resources. The Black Tower was designed to have a strong online presence, with an official website and message board, YouTube webisodes, blogs, MySpace pages, an online-only talk show and an interactive webcomic companion series. Again, we just don't have the money for that here in Canada -- and as for the U.S., well, see above about footing the bill for a sci-fi/fantasy show created by someone who isn't Joss Whedon, J.J. Abrams or Ron Moore. So, while the project got shuffled around a lot by executives in the upper ranks of the TV industry for three solid years, it ultimately went nowhere.

That's when I decided to just give up on the TV series altogether and concentrate solely on publishing the interactive webcomic. I spent many months immersing myself in the comics industry, studying the works of writers, artists, colorists and letterers going back 50 years, researching publishing companies and learning how comics are put together artistically (how one assembles a team), physically (how they're printed and bound), and financially (it ain't cheap, lemme tell ya!). During this sometimes frustrating learning process I befriended some amazing people in the comics industry, most notably artist phenom, Jason Badower (Heroes, Zero G), and multi-award winning writer, Jeff Mariotte (Buffy, Angel, Supernatural ), both of whom played a huge part in helping me get The Black Tower graphic novel series off the ground. Thanks, guys!

Another big thank you goes out to actor Cliff Simon, everyone's favourite sexy, bad-ass Goa-uld, Ba'al, on Stargate: SG1. My first choice for the role of Kyle Raines on the now-defunct TV series, Cliff very kindly agreed to allow the use of his image for the same character in the comics and, in doing so, increased the expected fan-base for the comics series ten-fold.

It's been a long, hard road, getting the first issue of The Black Tower out to the masses, and after everything I've gone through, all I can say is I really, really hope y'all like it.

-- KJC