Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, anthromorphic creatures of all ages, BEHOLD! WE HAVE RETURNED! THats right, we refuse to go gently into that good night. Though, I must admit, we do sort of slink off into the shadows for a few months at a time. But let us not dwell on the comings and goings of days come and gone, we've a new day ahead. New strip, new characters, new word ballons, and new puns! Much like the Phoenix we have risen from the ashes to light the world once again. Or maybe it's more like the insatiable hunger of the undead, clawing their way from the soft Earth to terrorize the living until once more destroyed by either a sufficently skilled cleric or shotgun blast to the head. Maybe... maybe we're like an Undead Phoenix, who's putrid dark claws and unholy black flame have the power to restore life to all those around it..... so that it might DEVOUR THEIR FLESH and condemn thier souls that an eternal half life of darkness and torment.

We plan on exploring a bold new horizon with The Journymen, namely a coherent plot and continuity. Well, a plot, anyway. Long story short, welcome back folks, your lives have been far too simple while we've been away.

So, I have no idea of knowing when the seething mass of humanity that you readers constitute will be reading this, but tomorrow is my birthday. Thats Friday, June 25th. I feel the need to clarify because who's to say it will be tomorrow when you read this? Hmm? It could be yesterday, last week, even months ago! Thats the part that really got me thinking, if it took you long enough to stumble across this, I could well be an old, dead, buried man. Corpse. Whatever. Think about it, to the readers who have not yet read this but are now reading it in the far future this is my legacy! I should try and make this good then, so... uhh... I leave these words of wisdom from the far past to those of you in the mighty and incomprehensible future on the day that was, long long ago, my birthday tomorrow. 'It doesn't matter if the glass is half-full or half-empty. What matters is how thirsty you still are.'

There you have it, great reader from the future. Simple words from a simpiler time, before your flying cars, robotic window washers, and the almost certain degeneration of humanity into a 'Road Warrior' style epoch. If the Humongous does in fact rule the wasteland, punch him in the balls for me, Lord knows he will have it coming.

Pardon my French.

The big news in Hollywood this week, apart from Mike Moore waging war, is the smashing success of "Le Spiderman Deux." That, of course, is what the French call....... El Nino. Try and keep up. Anyway, while I've yet to see the movie, I am told that Willem Dafoe makes a rather curious cameo, considering his tragic death in the first Spiderman. I think this is a bold step for a new generation of big ticket blockbusters, bringing back old, dead characters at will. Now, comic strips have been doing this for what the French call, "Le Decades." Or, as the French call it..... El Nino. But in most live action movies, death means death. Apart of course from zombies, flash backs, and evil twins. Or combinations of the three. What the French call a certain..... El Nino. Still, why not? It will serve to confound the ticket purchasing public if nothing else, have old villians show up for no reason, perhaps even in different series all together. Like Kahn walking around in the up coming and soon to be horrible Star Wars 3: The title pending. Why would he be there? Dunno. But it makes sense in a Faustian sort of way, it would add what the French so aptly call a certain.... Je ne sais quoi.

In memory of the late, great Marlon Brando

I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream. That's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight... razor... and surviving.

Care to question that? If you do, I can say only this; Someday - and that day may never come - I'll call upon you to do a service for me. But until that day, accept this justice as gift on my daughter's wedding day.

Those of you that have been following our comic history for the past three years have likely noticed a few trends. More frequent updates (recent,) vertical panel progression (my choice,) and an amazing evolution in backgrounds. Back in what we call the 'Day' when Malice's was new, we had white space. That white space was constant, we thought it was a very free form artistic kinda of way to show the whole nebula concept of the comic. That, and I couldn't draw backgrounds. In Malice's 2.0, we still made use of the white space, but it became home to any manner of props we needed to summon for a panel at will. A good example is in the 'Dante and Dante' strip, where a bar-room door appears, indeed, from thin air.

Today, however, my own artistic ability, while still inconsequential, is augmented by my technical ability. The world of the Journeymen has boundries, be they sickly toupe walls, gaudy blue carpeted floors, or elegant slabs of polished marble. I can safely say my contributions to the comic have gotten better, I have enhanced myself. All without the use of some crazy bovine-growth-mega-protein-muscle-restructuring-God-knows-what-else wang pills. All natural, bitches.

Would you offer your roses to the red wolf with the throat?