Author: Ethan Nicolle

Today, Axe Cop solves the problem of homelessness.  I did my best as a big brother to try to explain the complexities to him in the few minutes we had.  I think he took a pretty centrist position.  He doesn't want to just hand out free food, but he does just want to hand out free jobs. 

Anyway, Comic Con is upon us!  io9 listed the Axe Cop panel as one of the coolest events you can't miss at Comic Con 2011.  I agree with them.

See you next Tuesday with part 2 of 3 of the Funny Episode.

Ethan

It may turn out that I loved the conversation that spawned this episode even more than the episode itself, but this may end up being one of Malachai's favorite episodes because it involves one of his favorite things: pranks.  Now, he doesn't play pranks of people much, if ever, as far as I know.  But when we play he LOVES pretending to play pranks.  We actually have an alternate play time from Axe Cop where we pretend to be two little chinchilla creatures with fist-tails who literally do nothing but prank their sister while she is trying to sleep.  Malachai gets a real kick out of it, but so far it has not yielded anything worthy of an actual story.  He will be excited to finally see some of our prank play times drawn out.  Of course since this is Axe Cop playing pranks, the pranks are generally murdering bad guys.

As I mentioned, Hot Topic has decided to carry this Axe Cop shirt design.  It's very pretty:

People say “you've made it!  You're at Hot Topic!”  not exactly.  This is Hot Topic taking a chance to see how Axe Cop sells.  So if this shirt does well, then maybe you can say that.  For those of you who complain about the kind of stuff that HT sells, well, all I can say is buy only Axe Cop stuff from them.  I'm sure if they sell enough Axe Cop merch they'll change their name to CHOP TOPIC.

It's been announced that the AXE COP PANEL at San Diego Comic Con is going to be on Sunday, July 24 at 10:00am.  Kevin Murphy of MST3K (Tom Servo) and Riff Trax will be moderating the panel.  We will have guests from Steve Jackson games there to give some sneak peaks of the Axe Cop munchkin game and I'll be giving you some looks at other upcoming Axe Cop stuff.  Malachai will be there and we will do a Q&A which is always fun.  I will also be on a panel on Thursday called Join the 2D Animation Revolution with Doug TenNapel, Dave Gibbons & Skottie Young.

Comic Con will be crazy.  Malachai will be signing for specific blocks of time.  I'll post more information on that as the con gets closer. 

Ethan

Finally Axe Cop teaches us how to party and it's, well… very morbid.  When we were making this, Malachai had me google party games and he made Axe Cop versions.  I like that a pie eating contest became a dead bad guy leg eating contest.  I don't know how they manage to do that without turning bad, but I assume Axe Cop has some sort of antedote.

Well, the other big thing today is that this new tee shirt design is now for sale at Hot Topic!  You can buy it at a Hot Topic store, or online.  It is similar to a design we had in the Topatoco shop, but this one is much better quality print, with gray tones rather than pure white on black.  It's a good looking shirt if I do say so myself.

Of course, if you haven't been to our own online store recently, please stop in.  Lots of cool shirts, prints and fun stuff. 

See you next week with AXE COP:  THE FUNNY EPISODE.

Ethan

If it is not obvious, Malachai came up with this story back around the same time he was coming up with the Bat Warthog Man Story ending.  He was on a real “get in a brain and fight” kick.  This Jack and John story was all a play time that I wrote down as we played.  You wouldn't know from the comic, but the bulk of the play time took place when Jack and John were drilling to the secret state.  Malachai was really into the drilling through the earth.  He even had us torching the earth, digging through hard spots, using pick axes… it was a long, long way to the Secret State.  I trimmed that down a bit because, well, we get the point.  They drilled really far.

Something else I love about this story is the fact that every bad guy is asleep.  Malachai really likes the idea of killing bad guys while they slumber, though in this story it did not seem planned, like when Axe Cop goes out on night missions… it just seemed that whenever ever Jack and John found bad guys they happened to be asleep.

Since this one had so many similarities (mainly with the brain) to the Bat Warthog Man story, I saved it until after the Bat Warthog Man story was finished posting.  Next week:  Axe Cop, the Funny Episode begins!  Thanks for reading.

Ethan

Malachai finally gives us the details of how to tell a good front kick from a bad front kick, and we aren't just talking technique, we are talking innate moral disposition.  The thing at the end of this epiosde with the super hero costume was actually from another answer he gave I never could fit anywhere… the full version is this:  Every night before you go to bed, you have to take off your super hero suit and shoot it in the heart.  If you fall asleep in it, it will turn evil in the morning and you will have to shoot it in the heart and you will die.  I have no idea where he got that but I found it kind of fascinating and it has all the makings of a good, tragic fairy tale or fable of some sort.

In other news… Axe Cop was in Nintendo Power!  NP did a feature on super heroes in video games and they had a side bar with heroes they would like to see have their own games.  At the top of the list was Axe Cop!  To me an Axe Cop video game is a no-brainer.  Let's get on it!!

That's all for now.  Need I remind you to get some of these awesome stickers?  See you next week for part two of Jack and John!

Ethan

You might be a little surprised if you are new to Axe Cop to see an “Axe Cop Presents” story up.  ACP is something we rarely update (this is only the 4th time), but it is short stories from Malachai that are from other characters that are not in the Axe Cop universe.

If you have not read Jack and John part one, you should go ahead and do that now.  If you never saw it, don't feel bad.  Even Malachai missed it.  It was not until we were “writing” this second installment that we realized he had never seen the first one.  We had played together that day, but I took all the notes in my head.  I was trying to give him a break from “writing” so we just played, but it was so comic-worthy I immediately wrote it down later and made it into a comic.  It is a favorite of mine, I really like entering a different world and getting to play.  Though I have to admit my dream is to see Frank Miller do the art on a Jack and John comic.  I'm still a newb at Dark Horse, so that will probably have to wait.

Anyway, enjoy this new Jack and John adventure.  Next week at the same time, the rest of the story will be released. 

In other news, I had an awesome time in Calgary.  Thanks to everyone who came out.  I finally got to meet Chris Hastings of Dr. McNinja and he is even more of a gentleman than I expected.  We had a good talk about how we can approach our next possible cross over.  I also had a blast hanging out with Scott Kurtz of PVP, Kris Straub of ChaisawSuit (and more), Jim Zubkavitch of SkullKickers and many others.

A new Ask Axe Cop will be up on Thursday.  We're back on track!  Thanks for stopping in and keeping the site warm and cozy.

Ethan

Sorry, no new episode today.  I'm still in Calgary and am taking a small break between story lines.  Will pick back up next week.

I am posting this episode the night before I take off for Calgary.  By the time you read it I will be on a plane next Doug TenNapel crammed into a seat and he will probably be saying something embarassing, like making plane crash or terrorism jokes.

I am hoping that today's Ask Axe Cop episode is canon, and not just hypothetical, because I would like to draw robot Axe Cop again some time. 

If you will be in Calgary, come see me.  I will be with the Topatoco crew at booth 1214.  Here's a map made by Chris Hastings (click to enlarge):

Also, Topless Robot named Axe Cop the #1 motion comic in existence!  That is pretty high praise and I hope all the guys who worked so hard on those things get a big warm fuzzy from that article.

Alright, I need to pack and get ready for Calgary.  See you in the great white north!

Ethan

I have never seen Bat Man beat a bad guy by deliberately making him retarded by removing most of his brain.  That could be a good compromise on his no-gun policy (which is really dumb, but if he has to abide my it I say brain scooping is a viable middle ground).  Next time Bat Man is holding the Joker over a ledge, struggling with the moral decision of dropping him to his death or handing him over to Arkham Asylum, he should pull the joker up and remove 87% of his brain, then set him free.  Everyone is happy.

Well, that wraps up the Bat Warthog Man story.  I loved this one, I hope you did too.  It sort of had it's own flavor but I really liked it. 

Plans for the next few weeks include continuous Ask Axe Cop episodes on Thursdays and in a few weeks a new story will begin.  In the mean time I am going to try to release a new AXE COP PRESENTS, featuring Jack and John (remember those guys?) then a special short episode called AXE COP: THE FUNNY EPISODE.  The full length story coming up will most likely be titled “Axe Cop Babysits Uni-Baby”.  The Uni-Family goes on vacation and leaves Uni-Baby with Axe Cop.  Hijinx ensue.

If you live in Calgary I will be at the Calgary Expo on the 17th-19th.  I will have all sorts of books, posters, commisions, sketch books, stickers and whatever else I can fit in my case, so come see me!  I will have a supply of all three Bad Guy Earth issues, which are becoming increasingly hard to find (especially issue #1).

That's all for now.  Another story down, thanks for being a reader!

Ethan

I already acknowledged this on Twitter and Facebook.  Normally I post a new Ask Axe Cop episode on Thursday, but yesterday I sort of had it in mind that it was Thursday and I got the episode done and posted it before I realized it was Wednesday.  So, you got your episode a day early.

Ethan