What's New Pussycat!

Greetings Warrior Innkeepers!

Last month was a difficult month as you may have read in the previous blog. I lost my first boss in this biz, my mentor, my friend, my brother (figuratively speaking) but Ty will never be forgotten nor will the lessons I learned from him. The most important of which, Never give up.

So here we are, it's May already and W.I.C. is on BACK online that is. The Less Than Historical Adventures of Li'l Lincoln has been updated as well as our new-to-the-web comic The Magnanimous Invention of Ben & Mike! Both webcomics will be updated every Wednesday so be sure to bookmark them or watch our FB page for weekly reminders.

"What about the books your Myspace page mentions," you may ask?

Well, this summer we will be releasing our first Annual magazine Warrior's Inn! Named after our blog it will contain Interviews with all your favorite Indie creators and a couple pro's I'll be announcing in about month, a few journalistic articles related to making comics and... ... well I'm not going to give away all my eggs in one basket but the next time I talk about Warrior's Inn Magazine you'll want to listen (or in this case read!)

Super Vampire Bunny - you've read this on myspace but what is it? Though the project is pretty hush, hush right now I will tell you this. The book follows a teenage boy... who happens to be a anamorphic bunny in a human world... who also happens to be... ya you guessed it, a vampire! Created by my niece Kyra with my brother Josh handling the story and art and me at the helm of the script this book is going to be a can't miss for every vampire and bunny lover out there! We are very excited about this one and are putting all our effort into making it the best book it possibly can be. Friend us on FB if you haven't already for updates on this project and sneak peaks at SVB - Super Vampire Bunny!

As for the growing Less Than Historical Universe we have no release dates yet for the second issue of Li'l Lincoln or the first issue of Ben & Mike. All I can say is Paul Johnson is drawing/inking/coloring every page of both books and they are going to be EPIC!

Before I go I wish to thank everyone for their continued support and fandom. It has been one heck of a ride and I have no plans of getting off this roller coaster any time soon! Thank you all!

So, that's all folks!

-Benjamin J. Kreger

Publisher

Warrior Innkeeper Comics

Keep your Inn doors open and your Warrior's on guard. Goodnight!

Goodbye My Brother: Captain Cure Creator Ty Wakefield

Ty Wakefield wasn’t the next big thing in comics, though the way he talked you’d think otherwise. He was an illustrator and storyteller with big dreams and even bigger ambitions but the big “K” would see that those dreams and ambitions might never come to fruition.* Today, my friend lost his battle with cancer. All those who love him are mourning yet feel a sense of relief. The battle is at an end, he is finally free of the pain and suffering after 4 years of an exhausting, endless battle with Osteosarcoma, Ty will finally be able to rest in peace.

I was introduced to Ty through his wife, we worked together at the bullet factory in town. When she found out I was a struggling writer, she offered to show some of my work to her husband who had recently started his own comic book publishing business. My first reaction was, “this guy is insane but what balls he has for pursuing his dream!”

A day or so after submitting some of my work to Ty I got a very excited call from him.

“I love your script. I want to turn it into a comic. I know I should have asked you for permission first but I already started drawing stuff up. It just unleashed all these images…

Ty was always full of praise and a talented salesman, he sold me on the idea of entering into comics within minutes. The next thing I know I’m showing up in the local newspaper with him. It was a whirlwind of excitement and a thrilling time in my life I’ll never forget. But it wouldn’t be all fun and games.

The big “K” was knocking on the back door.

I found out Ty was a cancer survivor shortly after joining the ranks of his creative team. And before my first comic with him was to be published the cancer was back. For him it always came back... The first time it motivated him to pursue a crazy dream of drawing and publishing his own comics. The second time it inspired something more, something called CAPTIAN CURE!

Ty always swore he would never do a superhero comic; he was a fan of comics like CREEPY, TALES FROM THE CRYPT and his fave, MAD MAGAZINE. However, the Captain wouldn’t be dismissed so easily. As he tells it, Captain Cure was born one day as Ty lay in his chemo bed letting the drugs do their thing as his mind wandered from one random thought to the next. The Captain kept popping up.

It wasn’t until he told the mother of another cancer survivor about Captain Cure that the character would begin to take shape and with her persistence, he got his butt home and started working on it.

Ty went to work on the first issue, putting everything else aside.

“I feel I was meant for this. Every time I am working on this comic, things always seemed to get better,” Ty was fond of saying. Captain Cure was to be his legacy, his mark on the world, his chance to make a difference.

And a difference it did make.

November 30^th 2008, Captain Cure Comics #1 debuted at a huge celebration in Lewiston, Idaho to a crowd of 500 people of all ages. He took his comic on tour to Children’s Hospitals and was interviewed on Portland, OR morning television on KATU AM Northwest.

Ty continued his charitable work with the comic and fought cancer both as a guest speaker at conventions and cancer support groups. In 2009, he released Captain Cure Comics #2 and with no delay started the third part in his trilogy detailing in a fictional format his own struggle with cancer.

But unlike many of his readers, Ty did not survive his cancer. The hard reality of it refuses to sink in… In our eyes, Ty Wakefield is Captain Cure and the Captain can’t die… or rather won’t die because Ty has touched our hearts and souls with his creation and he will always live in our memories.

Ty, we love you man and we thank you for everything you’ve done. Goodnight my friend, my brother, sleep in peace.

-Benjamin J. Kreger

*For those not familiar with the animated show Metalocalypse, the "Big K" is in reference to cancer.