Tag: Black Label Comics

#3. Dark Skies

Dark Skies


Dark Skies

Since time immemorial, Fenris the Great Wolf has loomed, his existence more a reminder than a threat of the inevitability of Ragnarok. The Gods know how the world ends.

Fenris is a god in the form of the wolf, a wolf as large as a mountain. Some say he was the progenitor of the werewolves– if such creatures truly exist.

In a way, they do… because known to few, Fenris the Destroyer has six sons. Like him, they can appear as mere wolves, or as giant dire wolves, but they exceed him in their ability to appear much like gods or men as well.

Perhaps most fearsome among his children is Dark Skies. Like his father, he’s a bringer of chaos, and an under-miner of best intentions. He is the Great Wolf of foul weather and ill portents. It is simply not possible for Dark Skies to appear without a terrible storm arising, wild enough to make day look like night.

He is a great grey wolf, almost as large as his mountainous father– or merely twice the size of a normal wolf. His dark grey fur is wet, and messy, always drenches with rain and blown by fierce winds.

He is a great, grey man, a mountain of strength, with long shaggy grey hair, and dressed in grey clothes that mock the upper class but tousled and dingy. In our era, he’d wear a suit, but it would be faded and wrinkled. His hair would be curly black, with some grey, covering much of his face messily.

He is a rising storm. The low rumble of thunder in the distance.

From the series Huginn & Muninn by Black Label Comics. Created by Ian Struckhoff. Art by Jonathan Wyke.

#2 Temperence “T.T.” Thompson

T.T. Thompson

The Jazz Police

On January 16th, 1919, the 18th Amendment to the Unites States constitution was ratified by the Congress and 36 states. It took effect a year and a day later, outlawing the manufacture, sale, or transportation of “intoxicating liquors”.

A lesser-known fact is that Prohibition was at the same time an effort by elements in the government to stifle the culture of jazz, licentiousness, and certain supernatural practices and entities that had begun to run wild in the United States. Raids on “speak-easies” and underground stills served as a perfect cover for work to extinguish supernatural threats to our way of life.

At the forefront of this effort, the elite and secretive Federal Bureau of Vice and Taboo Management, known due to their lack of a snappy acronym simply as the “Jazz Police”. They have badges, they have guns, and they have (probationary) special dispensation to make use of supernatural means and intoxicating liquors.

Among them is munitions expert Temperance “T.T.” Thompson, daughter of John T. Thompson, famous general and inventor of the “Thompson” sub-machine gun.

Born in 1900, T.T. was about 20 years old at the beginning of prohibition. Despite her youth, her government connections and early enlistment technically make her the senior agent on the team.

Created by Ian Struckhoff. Design artwork by Juri Hayasaka. A Black Label Comics production.

30 Characters Challenger: Ian Struckhoff (Black Label Comics)

Cover to The Deathlings #1, by Reuben Negron

Before I start posting my entries, I wanted to get in a quick introduction, to explain how I’m doing things. (Apologies for this coming midstream, as it were.)

As a writer, I always have to rely on talented artists to bring my characters to life. It’s no different during the 30 Characters challenge. All of the characters I’ll be posting are created by yours truly, and designed and illustrated by some of my artist collaborators and friends. Together, we’ve created the titles under my Black Label Comics imprint, including series The Deathlings, Huginn & Muninn, and The Dark Age, plus the anthology Black Label Comics.

Now back to the Characters– including, shortly, some from me and my friends.