Dagger Bike

One of Missile Mouse's simple pleasures is the Kraxzon DB2. Now considered a classic speeder, it can still stand it's ground against it's modern equivalent: the DB7. This is in part due to MM's obsessive drive to keep in top condition. He's also upgraded a few components to increase performance giving it a top airspeed of 600mph. Which makes it the obvious ride choice when you've overslept your alarm and are late to your mission briefing.



Artist's note: I had an extra long skinny piece of bristol, so I wanted to design something to fit the paper. Fun experiment. Try it some time. Get a odd shaped clipping and design an object that fits that space.

Ideology of Madness Interview

I was recently contacted by Paul from Ideology of Madness, a fine blog about all things cool. Paul had the mad, mad I tell you, idea of "Mice With Weapons Week" and asked if I wouldn't mind doing a little Missile Mouse interview for it. You can read the interview here: Mice With Weapons Week AFTERMATH: Interview with Missle Mouse Creator Jake Parker. Go check it out, and along with the interview is a little sneaky peak of some of the pages from the book.

Missile Mouse: The Star Crusher is FINISHED!

Missile Mouse: The Star Crusher is finished! What an adventure this has been. I feel like Frodo returning to the shire. I actually went to bed at 10:30 last night! Below is a screen grab of all 172 pages colored and finished. In the coming weeks I'll post a few of these pages bigger so you can see them better. I'm really happy with how it all came out. This is by far the biggest project I've ever tackled and though it was brutal at times I enjoyed every step of the journey. Star Crusher will be out in January of '10 so put that on your calendar. I wish it was sooner, but such is the world of publishing.

Also, I just bought my plane tickets to San Diego so that means I'm officially going to Comic-Con this year. If you want to meet up or say hi I'll be at the Flight booth probably. I'll have more details as we approach the convention.

Major props go out to all those who helped me on this book. Specifically, Anthony Wu, and Jason Caffoe who assisted me on coloring the thing and Katie Smith who corrected all my spelling errors. Also, Tom Saville, and Mike Lee who lent their helping hands on coloring chores as well. Dave Strick who did a little spaceship modeling for me (more on that later). And Kohl Glass with general story advice. Thanks guys!

And of course, I could not have done this book with out the tremendous help and support of my wife, friend, and the goddess of our home, Alison. She's basically gone without a husband for the past year and wants you all to buy this book so it will have been worth it!

Ok, I'm going to live life a little this weekend and then it's on to book 2!

Character Profile - Agent Hyde

This next character profile introduces a key player in the Missile Mouse universe: Agent Hyde.

Agent Hyde is a Junior Agent in the Galactic Security Agency. As I mentioned in the Missile Mouse Profile, GSA rank is signified by space suit color. Missile Mouse being a Senior agent with a special "Solo" status is given the colors yellow and red. Junior Agents wear orange and blue. This coloring system may have to do with my countless hours of playing with Lego Spacemen. As a Junior agent Hyde is not authorized to go on any mission alone and must be paired with another agent.

Agent Hyde was born into an upper class family of galactic politicians. Hyde was the last son of a powerful Galactic Union Senator. Overshadowed by zealous brothers all vying for power as future galactic officials Hyde realized early on he could never achieve what they could. He became disenchanted with politics and decided that if he was truly going to make a difference in the galaxy he had to get down to work with his own hands.

My first couple of design passes left him looking too young, and too cute. I decided to scratch these and went ahead and designed the drawing at top.

Big Gun

Here Missile Mouse is holding the Krengrack-8 a high impact laser rifle made by Krengtronic. The Krengrack-8 (or the "Big Gun" as MM affectionately calls it) has an effective range of 8 light-minutes at it's highest setting. However, at that setting the generator only has enough energy for 10 to 12 shots. Missile Mouse is perfectly content using it at half power in close combat where the Big Gun has more than enough firepower to take out even the most fortified battle tanks. The Krengrack-8 is heavy, so Krengtronic outfitted the gun with a mini antigrav disc that reduces it's weight by a good 90% making the gun much easier to maneuver with. Now if only they could figure out a way to make the generator smaller.



This was another MM commission piece. I'm glad I set this up because it forces me to come up with new MM stuff that I otherwise wouldn't have thought of. Here's a scan of the sketch before inking it:

Scuba Suit

Missile Mouse encounters a beaked snap-eel. If the bite doesn't kill him it's poison barbed tongue will paralyze him in seconds. Luckily, MM's blaster works under water. MM's space suit also works well underwater. He puts the hood up, attaches a rebreather and is good to go. His hydro-electric flippers create a current through the water greatly enhancing the effectiveness of each kick, increasing his speed by a good 150-200%.

Again this was another commission piece. Order your own here.

Thognart

Because of it's adaptability to extreme environments the thognart has been a favorite mode of transportation for several races on several planets for thousands of years. Originally from Nodgun 3, it spread to hundreds of planets by space colonizers and galactic merchants. It's particularly high stance gives the rider an improved vantage point resulting in superior situational awareness. The large hump on it's back stores energy for weeks at a time making the thognart effective in environments where food is scarce. Still, the care and feeding of a herd of thognarts is an art, and was ultimately an enterprise that proved inefficient for the needs of the GSA. After initially trying to use thognarts for scouting missions the GSA replaced them with a mechanical alternative. Here Missile Mouse wonders how the thing feeds itself.