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FAITH STAR PRESS RELEASE

Ephesians 6: 11-12.

Put on the whole amour God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Long Island, NY - Faith Star, LLC. Proudly announced today their attendance at the 2010 East Coast Black Age Comic-Con. This year’s East Coast Black Age Comic-Con will be held on the weekend of the 15th of May at the Crowne Plaza Hotel (Philadelphia-Center City 1800 Market ST. Philadelphia, PA 19103). The ECBACC Comic-Con will be open to the public Saturday from 10 A.M. to 7 P.M.

Fans are encourage to stop by to meet Co-Founders and Creators Rick Madison and Joseph Regis (Ghost Ram, Redeemer: The Watchman of Humanity, Shadow Dove: Guardian of the Faithful). Madison and Regis will be available to sign autographs and answer fan questions about the upcoming concepts for Ghost Ram, Shadow Dove: Guardian of the Faithful and Redeemer: The Watchman of Humanity.

Also fans will be introduced to the Footsteps of Matthew Cross: Faith Walker from creator Clint D. Johnson of Open Sky Studios/New Creation Entertainment www.faithwalkerhero.com

Contact: Rick Madison

Email: rick@faithstarnation.com

www.faithstarnation.com

Here's the hot new image we'll be using for our Unknown God Tour promotional poster.

Based on my original cover design, painter supreme David Rodriguez created a very moody and desolate re-envisioning.

To get your copy, just hook up with me at one of my many comic convention appearances in 2010 and early

2011...which I'll be posting here soon!

DarkNature

What if you found out that you weren't who you thought you were, and that your true existence was to bring about the end of mankind.This is the premise for “Dark Nature” which is an apocalyptic werewolf taleabout a scientist, named Titus Pannell, who discovers the dark truth about hisdestiny.

The epic begins when a mysterious scientist named Titus Pannell is captured and imprisoned in a top secret government facility, becausehe is found out to be a werewolf. The scientists there discover that Titus isharboring a new werewolf virus in his blood, which acts the opposite from theold. Instead of turning humans into wolves it transforms wolves into men, suchas the mysterious case with Titus. By the time the government realizes thisthere is a security breach. Both the blood samples and Titus are gone. The secretagency then sends out soldiers, known as “Hunters”, along with a transforming robotictank, called “The Dog Catcher”, to retrieve Titus. The team is led by a womannamed Hope Nevaeh. What ensues is an epic that will lead to the end of theworld.

As Titus tries to elude the government he is constantly haunted by the memories of his dead fiancée, who he murdered afterhis first transformation. Titus tries to find a cure for his disease, but hefails at every turn. Titus is eventually found by the government and he isalmost captured until a mysterious group known as Fenrir saves him. It turnsout that they were the ones who orchestrated Titus’ escape, as well as stealhis blood samples. Their captain is a woman named Helen Kaufmann, who lookssimilar to Titus’ dead fiancée. It is her boss, who is currently stationed inthe Middle East, who has the answers to Titus’ werewolf origins. As both Titusand the organization try to evade the soldiers a civilian captures Titus’transformation on video tape. The footage is aired on national news stations,and the government tries to cover up the existence of werewolves by calling ita hoax.

Once Titus is able to make it overseas he meets with Fenrir’s leader, who reveals that the organization was originally a Nazi werewolf groupthat began in W.W.2. After the war the allied nations banded together to wipeout the werewolf threat from the face of the planet. The leader goes on to tellthat Titus’ origins involved an inhuman experiment conducted in Africa, andthat his blood is the catalyst to a new developing virus that will once againtransform humans into wolves. The goal for the virus is to bring about a biologicalwar, and cause a global pandemic. Titus tries to stop the Nazis but fails, and Israelbecomes ground zero for the virus.

The 2^nd half of the epic picks up 7 years into the future, during “The Great Pandemic”, when the age of man is eclipsedby the dawning of the werewolf era. 2/4 of the world is infected, 1/4 is dead,and the last remnants are barely holding on. The governments of the world issuemartial law. Fear and paranoia sweep across the planet, as people turn on eachother and kill one another on suspicion of being werewolves in disguise. Atthis time, the role of the main character is switched to Hope Neveah, theformer leader of “The Hunters”. Her mission is 2 fold. 1^st she issearching for Titus to obtain a pure sample of his blood, so that a scientistshe is working with can find a cure. Then 2^nd Hope wants to seekrevenge on Titus, because she blames him for what the pandemic did to her lovedones.

When Hope finds Titus things don’t go as she planned. Titus has already found the cure to the disease by using Lamb’s blood. He doesn’t usethe antidote on himself, because it will permanently transform him back intohis original state of a wolf. After Titus explains what really happened withthe virus, and how Fenrir was responsible, Hope and Titus team up to try andsave mankind. Their crusade leads them to their final battle against Fenrir,who are all now super deformed werewolves. As the battle intensifies Hope isbrutally attacked. Titus, believing Hope is dead, mentally snaps and transformsinto a werewolf, slaughtering everyone in his path. The bloodlust becomes toointense for him, and his mind goes into a psychological showdown with his innerbeast. The beast is on the verge of victory until Hope wakes up and shootsTitus with the cure. This turns Titus back into his original state of a wolf,but the antidote has some abnormal effects on him. Instead of acting as an animal,Titus has retained his entire human characteristics, and he is able to verballycommunicate with humans. The ending closes with Titus and Hope walking off intothe sunset together with the antidote.

Folks, a lot been happening. I've been getting blessed and Satan been going on the offensive then I go on the defensive and offensive and so forth. Recently, my computer went out during a storm though it was on a power surge. I hadn't saved my web comic pages yet, so I'm redoing them now. A delay, but so be it. A few days later I was in a car accident, my fault, but thank God my car is still running. Been a lot of drama. Feel like Satan doesn't want my web comic out and he's been trying to hinder the marketing and distribution of my graphic novel. But I want to praise God that I know the devil won't succeed, we are the victors! Also, I praise God that I am now with google adsense! I can make extra cash. Redesigning my website paid off!

The date for my web comic Allegories of the Way: The Open Doors may be the 15th or this Saturday. I'll keep everyone informed.

But let me tell ya, God is good and I'm happy the way God made me. Now I write and draw drama like nothing at all. Very serious subjects I deal with, but the Lord also gave me a strange sense of humor I guess to balance me out. So with that check out the 1st Part to the Leroy Jackson:Live at the Birthday party Part 1 video on this site and youtube. Part 2 is on youtube too and I'll have it here soon. Be blessed and stay funky!

We just posted a hanful of pages from Eye Witness Unknown God...enjoy!

I know I haven't been doing a very good job of regularly posting here, but I had been working my tail off for months to get the fourth book in the Eye Witness series...Unknown God...finished and ready for press.

But I'm happy to announce that the book has basically been completed and we are now in the final stages of editing and proofing. So now I have a bit more time to share what we have coming up over the rest of 2010. First things first.



UNKNOWN GOD COMETH

Unknown God is the final chapter of the Eye Witness series, which has been eight years in the making. People will ask me, "why has it taken so long between books (on average, 2 years)?" The answer is simple! Since I do most of the work involved in the books myself (writing, illustration, inking, coloring and production) there is no way I can rush the process on these books, that run from 96 to 120 pages each. The artwork for each book is what consumes about 14 months for each book and I'm pretty consistent that I can pencil or ink 1-2 pages each day I work. I just feel blessed that God has allowed me physically to complete this project, which took close to a decade of my life to complete.

CHANGE IN DISTRIBUTION TO COMIC SHOPS

Like a number of small and indy press publishers, we learned this spring that we have become a causualty of the more restrictive Diamond Distribution order thresholds. These new minimum order levels (established in 2009) have resulted in lots of wonderful indy comic titles to virtually disappear from many comic store shelves over night. Despite the fact that Diamond had filled orders for more than $10,000 of books in the Eye Witness series, it was not enough and now Head Press Publishing has formally severed our distribution with Diamond, ending a 15 year business relationship.

I'll put my prophet cap on for a moment here...when I owed a pair of comic shops back in the 90's, I became concerned when Diamond started signing exclusive deals with publishers (as a way to combat Marvel's move to self distribution at the time) because you could see it immediately started to put a strain on their competition. This trend continued, even after Marvel returned to their ranks, until almost all the major large to medium sized publishers had become exclusive publishers with Diamond.

Now, there is virtually no competition for Diamond and they are pretty much free to do whatever they like where distribution is concerned and we have situations like you see today... that they now determine what publishers and creators are made available to the retailers (hence the readers). And that's not right! I said it 15 years ago...as I sold my shops, because I didn't like how the business landscape for stores was changing....and I continue to say it today, as a publisher effected by their monopoly. Where's Teddy Rosevelt when you really need him?

But the good news? There are more ways to get your comic/gn novel fix then ever before!

Eye Witness is available to the general bookstrade through STL Distribution North America, which makes our books available through basically any book stores, (whether mainstream or Christian), big-box retailers who carry books and/or websites which sell books (including Amazon of course).

We have entered into a deal with Haven Distribution, which is catagorized as a restock distributor...in other words they do carry product/publishers that Diamond no longer carries, but they do not publisher or market a regular monthy order catalog. Retailers go to their site and see what they are stocking currently. So any comic retailer can now get they Eye Witness books from Haven!

And finally, we make all of our books avaible for direct wholesale purchase to the retail community through our website. To help overcome the additional work from ordering direct, we've even upped our wholesale discounts to put more money in the store owners pockets!

HIGH POWER ENDORSEMENT

I'm excited to announce that over the past few months I developed a friendship with comic legend, Brian Augustyn, and he has agreed to supply the forward for Unknown God! If you're not familiar with Brian's work, he has been involved as a writer and editor for some of the best crafted issues of: Batman, Superman, Wonderwoman, JLA, Flash and the X-Men.

More to come soon....

Welcome to the planet Godderth ! It is a strange and alien world with a fantastic network of highways. Godderthians love the automobile and regularly spend time along these roads engaging in the car culture.

Just about done with the 2nd story of Modern Christians. I mean it this time! I really do wish I was done with it earlier!

I am looking very forward to Modern Christians chapter 3. It's mostly about Randy and what it feels like to be put on the spot as a Christian dealing with athiests who hate Christanity. Especially if we may be weak in our faith. You know that feeling you have when non-believers or other beliefs ask why we believe so and so and we feel like we don't have an anwser at the moment? Theres 1 Peter 3:15 which tells us to be prepared to give an anwser for anyone who asks why we put our faith in Jesus or maybe anything about Christianity.

With Modern Christians Chapter 3 and beyond Iam planning on giving it all big improvements:

Using bigger sheets of paper so I get more space to draw detailed work.

A planned out script; some of it from my head and most of it written down. Modern Christians chapters 1 and 2 were mostly planned out without much planning. But Chapter 3 is pretty much all planned out. Much of the dialog will come from me or influences or even used by people on certain message boards and youtube video comments. Not word by word though. But I want the dialog to look athentic.

Using a typed up font for word balloons so it looks neater and more professional. Not sure what font style to use. But I don't really feel like using the familar font used in nearly all comics.

Characters will be based off of model sheet's so they look consistent. And slight changes to them maybe so they look more like teenagers.

I am trying to change how Christian comics are seen and done. Shake things up a little. Enough to the point where Christian comics get noticed and popular, become icons. And also where our comics won't get mocked. Like this one here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zmqeH34lj0&feature=PlayList&p=516DB6F6936C4866&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=3

Notice the dialog the narriators add to the story? Notice the comments in the comments section? Notice how they mock the comic and what we believe? Watch the other videos by the same user. He even makes fun of Chick tracts. Though sometimes Chick tracts do have unrealistic stories and dialog, still I wish they weren't mocked so much.

Modern Christians is about to get a lot more interesting! :)

I just made my first print (Alice 11x14") available for sale at my on-line store.
"441240e01ca72ae162c2b85c0506764d", event)''>http://evercross.goshopper.net/i/163750/11x14-alice-print.htm

Even though this has been only my second time at WonderCon on the behalf of the CCAS, it is quickly becoming one of my favorite conventions. The dates were April 2 through April 4 at the Mascone Center in San Francisco, California. There is not the media and movie frenzy that has come to dominate the San Diego Con, nor are there the extravagant displays that I’ve grown accustomed to seeing at San Diego. Just comic books fans, vendors, publishers and the like. The crowds are very large, but not claustrophobic where traffic may come to a stand still for minutes at a time. If you want a comic book convention that was like San Diego ten years ago, WonderCon is it. The fans engage you in conversation more frequently because they’re not carried away by the swell of the crowd.

I arrived on Thursday afternoon. Getting in the convention and setting have become routine. It went smoothly and allowed me enough time in the afternoon to relax, get some dinner at one of the local restaurants and spend the rest of the evening unwinding at the Mosser Hotel. Describing the rooms as small is an understatement. But they’re clean, comfortable, and enough for me. Lord willing, I will stay there again next year. It is only a two block walk from the convention center.

Friday morning started off with a bang. A gentleman asked me how I reconcile where Jesus says turn the other cheek with the God of the Old Testament who wipes out entire cultures, men, women, and children. Fortunately I was able to answer his question, much to his surprise. Then there was the woman who didn’t if she could follow Christianity because of the rules and regulations, and how often she breaks them. The Lord allowed me the privilege to share with her God’s grace and that our walk is one of learning and growing. Eric Jensen brought over tracts produced by the Fourquare Mission Press. We also had Nate Butler's "Betrayed" tract, that was especially popular with the young children. There were at least 1,000 tracts and most of them were gone by mid-Saturday afternoon.

The CCAS reached out to the gay community to see if they would be interested in sharing a panel with the CCAS on how our respective groups are portrayed in comics and how we want to communicate a deeper dimension of who we are. They seemed very interested and we plan to follow-up on this possible open door. The panel could be, “Gays and Christians, What Do They Have in Common?”

And though I thoroughly enjoyed last year’s con, this one was even better because of the Christians that volunteered their time and allowed me some time to enjoy the show. Dan Conner, Peter Gonzalez, Paul Lopez, and Buzz Dixon all manned the table. Peter and Dan manned the table on Friday afternoon for a few hours. Dan broke out the crayons and offered free sketches to anyone interested. Needless to say, that was a hit, especially with the children and their parents. Paul, Buzz and Paul’s friend, help break down table that Sunday. Then Buzz hauled all the merchandise back down to Southern California. Through years of experience, we were able to pack everything in small cars. I am looking forward with great anticipation to what the Lord will do in upcoming years with the CCAS.

For me, this is an exciting time and I am humbled that the Lord would allow me to be a part of it. We are seeing the CCAS expanding to establish a presence at four major conventions in the western United States, San Diego, San Francisco, Phoenix, and Tuscon. We are meeting Christians at every convention who did not know that the CCAS existed. The CCAS is looking to have panels the cons at Phoenix in 2010 and San Francisco in 2011. Continue to pray for the CCAS, because it is your prayers that the Lord has opened these doors to us. Pray for the CCAS, that the Lord would continue to provide avenues for us to share the gospel, in Phoenix and San Diego in 2010 and in the future.

To help you determine if my upcoming book, The Artists' & Designers' Tip Book, will be resource for you or not,

I'll read a good 7 minutes (and 11 seconds) of it to you so you can see for yourself.

The book will help you find time and take actual steps to fulfill your God-given purpose concerning your talent.

TO LISTEN NOW: Click the audio link below to hear:

• 8 Ways to Get New Ideas
• 5 Steps Toward Artists Knowing & Completing the Will of God

TO LISTEN ON THE GO: Download it and check it out in your car, while you excercise, etc:

Download the MP3 by clicking the link below with your right mouse button, then select "Save Target As":

Download the MP3

Hey, this blog is later than I wanted to, but I've been extra busy of late. While I was planning to write this blog, I think I had three long topics go thrpugh my mind that I would post here. But right now my mind is a little blank.

I think mostly, I want to say is praise God, He is so wonderful. Since my first volume came out, I've been going through some ups and downs. Satan has been attacking my finances and my mind. But I know God has given me authority to defeat the enemy and belief that I have all of God's promises. I redesigned my website which was a hard task, but I'm happy with the outcome. I'm almost done with Volume #3 greytoning. About 9 pages left. My family and I got a chihuahua, which is still not house broken, but God used me to heal Chico(the dog) from dying from poison. We should speak to the mountain, not to God. Check out my Weaponpress page on facebook for more about "Chico's resurrection". MY ministry with my comic is more defined(check out my website for that weaponpress.com), and that has brought God to do more healing in my life, since a major aspect of my ministry is healing. That's been hard dealing with some trauma from childhood concerning demonic attacks. Actually, my new webcomic coming out in May first story deals with that topic a bit. So that'll be cathartic for me and hopefully help others who have gone through that as well as entertaining(haha)....Yea, it's been a lot. But it's all good, because God works everything out for the good. Amen.

P.S. I posted some art from Volume #3.