Grave of the Crickets
Grave of the Crickets is probably my most ambitious project to date, spanning 5 volumes, 450 pages and 2 days in the life of a little boy named Jimmy. His first day of junior high is a pretty rotten one. Picked on by school bullies, he goes home to cry. But after a visit to the dentist, he finds his body completely numb to pain and returns to school the next day to exact sweet revenge.

Grave of the Crickets #5 ends with 50 pages of unrelenting slaughter. Using his bare hands, our hero punches, tears and squeezes his way towards a bloody catharsis. Although my drawing style was still a bit rough at this point, the sheer enthusiasm and glee which fills these panels more than makes up for it. The last panel is a splash page featuring Jimmy jumping up and down on a massive pile of corpses.

Issue number 6 was to be a 125 page continuation of the carnage. But there never was an issue #6. In retrospect, Grave of the Crickets was probably my most personal comic.

Grave of the Crickets was actually created in response to a machine that had suddenly become available to me. My friend had gotten a job at Parker Press which is the company that makes the glue binding machines. Bindings normally cost $2 but my friend could bind my books for free. I knew that this was my once in a lifetime chance to work on a big project and actually have a reasonable print run. Each comic would be tape bound. This would mean each issue had to be at least 75 pages. I immediately set to work on Grave of the Crickets, completing five issues (450 pages) in five monthes. Unfortunately, my friend quit his job right before Grave of the Crickets #6 came out.