By Greg Pak

I told you last month how proud I am of "Red Skull Incarnate," a historically accurate comic book miniseries that tells the story of a boy who becomes a monster as Weimar Germany collapses and the Nazis seize power.

I also intimated I'd promote the book shamelessly. Well, the collected trade paperback came out today, and I've come up with a crazy idea to get this book into the hands of some more people and maybe raise some money for charity at the same time.

Cover artist David Aja, interior artist Mirko Colak, colorist Matt Wilson, letterer Clayton Cowles, and editor Alejandro Arbona did incredibly amazing work on this book, and I'd love for them to have a shot at various upcoming comics industry awards.

So if you're a comics professional who hasn't read the book but plans to vote for awards like the Harveys and Eagles, please email me at vm at pakbuzz dot com . I will send a bunch of trade paperbacks of "Red Skull Incarnate" out into the world (alas, US mailing addresses only), each with a bundle of stamped envelopes. So you can read the book, then use one of the envelopes to mail it to another industry friend you think might enjoy it. And so on and so on.

Finally, I'll include a blank comic book backing board in the packet. Everyone who reads the book is encouraged to sign the backing board -- and do a quick sketch, if you're so inclined. The last envelope will be addressed to me. When I get the book and signed card back, I'll auction them off on eBay with the proceeds going to a charity like Doctors Without Borders.

Sounds crazy, huh? That's because it is! Let's see if it works!

Looking forward to hearing from you.

"... great writing and fantastic art. Will Sam make it out of Hell? I have no idea, but I’m hooked on this book until I find out and that's why its so damn good."
-- Comic Bastards

"Dead Man's Run" #1, a jailbreak from Hell story written by Greg Pak with art by Tony Parker, hit stores Wednesday and has scored a slew of rave reviews. A few excerpts:

"'Dead Man’s Run' is a strangely fun comic. It’s easy to be swept up and away in the rushing narrative of a hellbound heist looking to change direction."
-- Ryan Lindsay, Comic Book Resources

"It's a clever concept and the series opens with quite a bang."
-- Brian Cronin, Comics Should Be Good

"That's what I call a great start!"
-- Chuck's Comic of the Day

"Pak has pictured the land of eternal damnation as a giant prison, which is a brilliant idea. That in and of itself would make this comic worth reading. But Pak adds to the idea, by showing that it's a prison rife with corruption and problems, where anyone who gets there can use their evil nature to survive, and perhaps even thrive."
-- Panel Patter

"I would very much enjoy seeing the property eventually hit the screen."
-- Ain't It Cool News

"I have to say that I really find the idea of Hell - or at least the tip of that particular flaming iceberg - as a processing facility for the dead and guilty to be a very interesting concept and it allows Pak to play with and warp the general tropes associated with prison thrillers to fit the themes of judgement and punishment that are associated with the underworld. There are the threatening grins, the concealed shivs and knives associated with many works of fiction surrounding incarceration but also the involvement of demon-like guards and the feeding upon souls that you’ll find in horror works and Pak brings it all together brilliantly."
-- Paradox Comics Group

"Greg Pak does a great job of creating an atmosphere full of danger and violence without ever depleting the mystery of where the story is going. Tony Parker’s artwork is sweet on the eyes, vibrant and edgy."
-- Nerds in Babeland

"I am so excited to see where Pak is going with this."
-- Alternative Mindz

The graphic novel also includes historical notes and pointers, even adding a section to use the story as a text book. It's more than just a comic book, I should say. It allows us to see the monstrous side of humanity by using something familiar to us.

Read on for the next chunk of Chapter Three, written last night, followed by some notes-to-self. WARNING: Some adult language!

CHAPTER THREE (continued)

When Rima awoke, night had fallen and the cat was sitting on her chest, purring and kneading with its eyes nearly shut and its fat cheeks pulled up into something as close to a smile as she'd ever seen on an actual flesh-and-blood feline.

Rima felt great. Rested and refreshed and utterly alert. She put her arms around the cat and sat up, stroking its chin as she looked around.

The man in the wheelchair turned to gaze at Rima. "Thank you," he said.

"It's all right," said Rima. "I don't think those birds would have done anything to you."

"You didn't know that then," said the man. He extended a hand. "I'm Hector."

She shifted the cat to her shoulder and took Hector's hand. "Rima," she said. The young man with the cat carrier waved, still smiling. "Omar."

"The pollen's starting to wear off," said Hector. "And as soon as it does, we're all probably going to freak the fuck out. So maybe we should use the time to talk this out. Try to figure out where we are, what's going on, what we should do next."

"Good," said Rima. "You were talking about the stars. You know the constellations?"

"Hobby of mine as a kid," said Hector. "I don't recognize anything up there. And all those shooting stars -- those are meteoroids entering the atmosphere. I've never heard of any meteor shower that constant and broad... on Earth."

The young man laughed. A mellow chuckle. Rima found herself smiling in response.

"So the big fucking metal bird took us to another planet," said Omar. Then burst into laughter. Then stopped laughing and gazed at them with a surprised look so serious Rima grinned. "Where the hell did that metal bird go, anyway?" Omar asked.

"Hey," said Rima, "where's your bandage?" Omar held out the hand Rima had treated in the subway car. His cut was healed -- just a thin, pale scar remained on his palm. Rima knelt down by the old woman and gently pulled back the bandages on her head. Her would had healed as well.

The old woman blinked and smiled as her eyes focused on Rima's face. "Hello, Rima," she said. Rima blinked back at her, surprised.

"I didn't... tell you my name," Rima said.

"Really?" said the old woman, sitting up and fixing the bobby pins in her hair. "That's a funny thing." She laughed, a high, tinkling laugh, like a small child. "I always said I could read minds. First time I actually have."

Rima stood in the middle of the little clearing, looking around at the others. "Hector," she said slowly. "Can you stand up for me, please?"

Hector stared at her. Then stood. He beamed at her. Then pitched forward. Rima lunged towards him, catching him before he hit the ground.

They flomped into the leaf litter, holding each other tight and laughing as if they had known each other for a hundred years. And then Hector was weeping.

"I can't... I can't feel my legs," he said. "I saw what you were thinking. And god damn I wanted it. But..."

Hector went silent and limp. Rima helped him back into his wheelchair.

"Pollen's wearing off," he said, his face pale and grim.

"Spinal cord?" asked Rima. Hector nodded.

Rima touched his cheek, tilted his head so she could gaze into her eyes. She laughed at herself -- she never touched anyone's cheek, never tilted people's chins to gaze into their eyes. She was, in fact, notorious at her hospital for her almost pathologically unhelpful beside manner. And yet here she was, intimate, warm, and full of truth and hope.

"You never should have been able to stand, Hector. Something's happening here, to all of us."

The cat, whom she'd dropped while catching Hector, returned to rub against her leg, purring madly.

"We're being... fixed," said Rima.

"By who?" said Omar.

"Whom," said Hector.

"Hush," said the old woman, turning to gaze into the deep forest. The cat at Rima's feet stopped purring.

"They're coming," whispered the old woman. From the deep wood came faint crinkling sounds.

"Who?" asked Rima.

"You know," said the old woman. "The Forgotten Gods."

NOTES TO SELF

1. Realized I've been using a lot of sentence fragments. Twitter seems to encourage it. Kind of like it -- it's fast and efficient. But might need to clean all that up in the revisions.

2. Finally named the characters, so good for me. But any scene in which characters are introducing each other to each other always feels like a bit of wasted space. Working in the moment, I jumped over one of the intros by letting the old woman actually be psychic. Kind of fun stumbling across that moment. Helped to clarify what's going on there, which I have Rima actually saying out loud. It can be a bit much for characters to verbally put a marker on plot points like that, but I think it works relatively all right in this case.

3. Boy, am I going to have to work on the dialogue in revisions (and everything else, natch). Need to better define different voices for the different characters. It's partly there, but there's so much more that could be done.

Read on for the first chunk of Chapter Three, written last night, followed by some notes-to-self.

CHAPTER THREE

Rima always knew she was strong. Once or twice a year since she was fourteen she'd challenge Chris to an arm wrestle. And she'd always win.

But until today she didn't know she was strong enough to push a 150 pound man in a wheelchair 200 yards up a 15 degree incline through two foot tall grass in less than three minutes.

The alien birds lunged at them. But the old woman running at Rima's side snarled and swung her umbrella. And the young man with the cat swung his cat, who shrieked and yowled within its soft carrying case.

The birds fluttered away and returned to the dead bodies alongside the wreckage of the subway car.

"Scavengers, not predators," thought Rima. "Good," she said aloud. With eerie calm, she took note of her eerie calm.

She also noticed her failure to collapse into tears at Chris's disappearance. And then she noted to herself that perhaps she was merely being rational and hopeful -- better for Chris to be absent than among the dead currently being liquefied and guzzled by the birds.

Once she cleared the hill, Rima headed for the edge of the forest adjoining the savanna. Chances were excellent that something horrible and sharp lurked among the orange trees. Hell, the trees themselves would probably eat them.

But we evolved from arboreal simians, thought Rima. Can't fight that instinct. Gotta head for the trees.

The trees did not eat them. But as they passed under the first branches, pollen pods exploded all around them and a soft mist of sweet smelling nectar filled the air. Rima felt an immediate surge of tremendous well-being. We've been drugged, she thought.

And then she burst out laughing. The old woman, the young man, and the man in the wheelchair all stared at each other, panting and smiling.

"Not funny," said the young man, grinning. "The trees. The pollen's an opiate," said Rima. The old woman sat down on a fallen trunk and let out a deeply satisfied sigh. "At least we'll die happy," she said. The cat began to purr.

Rima sat down. Stared through the tree trunks at the birds lazily flapping away from the dessicated corpses by the subway car.

She lay her head down on the soft leaf litter and fell asleep.

NOTES TO SELF

1. Found myself finally cutting loose a bit with wordplay. Might be over the top here and there, but I can revise later if that's the case. Nice to be relaxing a bit, having a bit more fun with the language. The interesting thing is that I didn't realize I wasn't relaxing until I started relaxing.

2. Still haven't named those supporting characters. Come on, Pak. Get on that!

3. Made Rima a doctor a couple of days ago without thinking about it too much -- very happy with the decision now. Gives her the professional background to react coolly and analytically under such extreme circumstances. Makes her interesting and helps with explaining/exploring the world. Also reminds me of an improv maxim, which is to play every character off the top of your audience. Rima's SMART. She'll be right there with us or a beat ahead of us in figuring out what's going on in this new world, which will (I hope) help the story and mystery constantly move forward and get more interesting.

(Special thanks to the awesome Chad Bonin, who kindly compiled some of these tweets.)

CHAPTER TWO (01.11.2012)

Rima never saw the bird; she just saw its three foot metal talons shattering the windows and puncturing the roof of the subway car. And then the entire car lifted from the tracks. Sparks and fire erupted as the car broke away from the rest of the train, which careened off the elevated tracks and slammed into the line of apartments and shops below.

Rima saw at least a dozen dead bodies, and a stunned, bleeding, burning woman staggering down the sidewalk. And the next instant they had swooped past. As the subway car turned in midair, the setting sun blazed through the windows, blinding Rima. She heard Chris gasp in surprise and pain, and then the subway car ripped in half and Chris was gone.

Great winds buffeted Rima. She clung to the pole, clawing blindly at the air, screaming Chris's name. And then the car hit the ground.

Rima pitched forward, slamming into a hillock covered with high grass. She lay stunned, blinking as her eyesight returned. The scent of flowers nearly overwhelmed her. Somewhere a small animal trilled brightly. The sky overhead was blue and filled with twinkling stars.

Rima slowly sat up. None of this made sense. There are no grassy hillocks along Flushing's elevated tracks. Stars do not twinkle in the daytime. And of course great metal birds do not--

Suddenly she remembered Chris. Tears of shame welled in her eyes as she stood, screaming his name. How could she forget him, even for an instant, in a moment like this? How could she--

And then her mind fell silent as she gazed over the landscape.

She stood at the edge of a great savanna of rolling hills and strange, twisted rock formations. Shadowy silhouettes of huge grazing animals of some kind moved through the high grass in the distance. Shooting stars streaked across the bright sky. Butterfly-like insects fluttered past, singing bright, inquisitive songs.

Rima took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the sharp, clean air. The scent of flowers was so strong and fine she felt she was taking a bite of the crispest, sweetest apple she had ever had with each breath.

This is where I'm supposed to ask if I'm dreaming, she thought. Or maybe I've died and gone to heaven.

But Rima felt the aches in her bruised body, the scrapes on her forehead and every sharp little scratch in her arms and legs. She knew she wasn't dead. She hurt too much. But at the same time, every second she stood in this field, breathing this air, made her feel stronger, sharper, smarter. Better. She laughed out loud, surprising herself. Then wiped away the tears that suddenly sprang from her eyes.

"Goddammit," she whispered. "This is where I belong."

CHAPTER TWO (continued) (01.12.2012)

And then Rima turned around.

The twisted wreckage of half of a subway car lay in pieces behind her. Five mangled, unmoving bodies half-hidden in the grass. Some also in pieces. Rima's training took over; she assessed the scene instantly, wrote off the dead or obviously dying, and moved towards the groaning sounds that emanated from the biggest chunk of wreckage. She poked her head through the door to see three people.

An older woman bleeding from the forehead. A young man with a lacerated hand and a wide-eyed cat in a soft traveling case. And an unscathed busker in a wheelchair holding an accordion.

"The lady," said the busker, pointing to the bleeding woman.

"It's all right," said Rima. "I'm a doctor."

Rima scanned the inside of the subway as she walked towards the old woman and smiled tightly as her eyes lit on a bag of someone's clean laundry among the debris. She pulled out a few t-shirts and began to rip strips to use as bandages.

"What the hell just happened?" asked the old woman, her eyes calm and flat and stunned.

"I don't know," said Rima.

"There was there was there was there was a big fucking robot EAGLE or some shit," said the young man.

"Put the cat down and apply direct pressure to that wound," said Rima to the young man. "Hold your hand over your head. I'll be with you in a minute."

The young man set the cat down. The cat let out a low, plaintive meow.

"Didn't you see it?" asked the young man, holding his hand over his head. "Big fucking robot bird."

"Watch your language," said the old woman.

The young man stared at her. The man in the wheelchair let out a short laugh.

"Give me your hand," said Rima, turning from the old woman and walking towards the young man. The cat growled at her as she passed it.

The young man peered out the window as Rima bandaged his hand. His eyes widened with fear and wonder. "This is this is this is..." he said.

"I know," said Rima. "I know I know I know."

But she didn't mean it.

The young man was terrified. Rima was just pretending to share his reaction, because terror was the completely expected emotion any normally socialized human being might be expected to have under the circumstances. But Rima wasn't scared; she was thrilled. She was working quietly and professionally with these accident victims because she'd spent years of her life training herself to react with calm precision under emergency situations. But as she worked, she stepped outside of herself, used that calm rationality to puzzle out what was really going on in her heart. And she realized all she wanted to do was tear off her clothes and run roaring through the savanna. Maybe run down one of those shadowy herbivores. Sink her teeth into its neck.

"This isn't Flushing," murmured the man in the wheelchair, gazing through window. His eyes angled upwards. "This isn't even... Earth."

"What the fuck?" said the young man. But the old woman peered up through the window at the sky and pointed. "He's right," she said. "Those aren't our constellations."

"How do you know that?" asked the young man.

"Astrology," said the old woman.

"And those aren't seagulls," said the man in the wheelchair.

Everyone craned their necks to peer up as a few bird-like creatures flew overhead. They were white, about the same size as seagulls, but the shape and angle of their wings was off, and instead of beaks, they had long, skinny, pointed proboscises. The birds descended, settled down among the corpses in the debris, and began to feed.

Rima stared, fascinated. The birds weren't tearing or chewing. Instead they inserted their proboscises into the corpses and, after a moment, began to suck. Rima thought of spiders injecting venom that liquified the insides of their victims. But that process took hours; this was happening in seconds.

When Rima was fifteen, she had a chemistry teacher whose favorite pet peeve was movies in which villains dissolved in vats of acid. "There is no such acid," Mr. Chavez would say. And then he'd briefly dip his hand into a beaker of hydrochloric acid to make his point. So Rima knew. There is no chemical on Earth that can liquefy a human body instantaneously. And yet--

The old woman yelled, the cat hissed, and the young man screamed simultaneously. Two of the birds were poking their heads into the door of the subway car, staring at them with sharp interest, and making little chirps that sounded like a two year old's happy chuckles. Rima and the man in the wheelchair locked eyes. She felt the hair on the back of her neck rise. He saw right into her. And he gave her a mournful smile.

"Go ahead," he said. "You're the only one of us who stands a chance."

"Run."

NOTES TO SELF

1. The writing-on-Twitter experiment continues to work in terms of getting me to actually write. I'm conditioned to tweet quickly without over-thinking things. Not a bad reflex to harness for hammering out a first draft of a novel.

2. Not too pleased with my failure to name any of the other characters just yet. I won't lie -- it's a stalling technique. I'm still figuring out just who these characters are and am just delaying making the choices until I have a chance to play with 'em a bit. Will need to get more specific earlier when I revise -- leaving them nameless marks them as types rather than real people, which isn't good.

3. I'm having fun with slowing down time and exploring Rima's intellectual and emotional reactions in the middle of big action sequences. That's something I haven't done much in comics or film -- novel writing really lends itself to it. Will have to check to see how the pacing is working when I revise, but for the moment, it's fun to flex some different muscles.

4. Having fun learning more about Rima -- here she says she's a doctor. Might need to define that earlier when I revise. Or it might be a fun thing for us all to discover at this point in the story.

The rumors are true -- I'm writing a novel on Twitter. You can watch me write it in real time at twitter.com/gregsnovel. And from time to time, I'll post compiled chapters here, along with my notes for what's working and what isn't and what I might do in the next draft.

So here's Chapter One, in which we meet our heroine Rima, who's trying to kill her husband with her eyes. (And special thanks to the awesome Chad Bonin, who kindly compiled these tweets.)

CHAPTER ONE

Rima stared at her husband and killed him with her eyes. He just sat there, stupidly, reading a comic book, as the 7 train clang clanged up out of the tunnel and over Flushing into the dusky orange shafts of late afternoon sunlight. He looked up as the light hit his face, then turned to her and smiled, oblivious to her stare. The light was in his eyes; he couldn't see. But she'd given him the same look a dozen times before, just to see if he noticed. And even in the softest light, in the clearest conditions, he always gave her the same calm, sweet look.

"Headache?" he said.

She kept killing him with her eyes. He just reached into his satchel and pulled out a bottle of Advil.

Teachers viewed them with alarm. Their parents fretted, aching to speak up but wary of driving the kids even closer together. In truth, there wasn't that much to worry about. On three separate occasions, Rima and Chris had made out in the back of the bus, publicly. But when they were alone, they mostly just listened to records and read comic books.

Chris was an mystery to Rima. So beautiful, so confident. He seemed to walk among the other kids in perpetual, backlit slow motion. And when they sat on the bus together, holding hands, surrounding by laughing, screaming kids, his eyes would light up strange and wild. They were the king and queen of the tribe. The back seat was their throne. Anything they commanded, the other kids would do.

Once Chris pushed on the back of the seat before him. And the old metal frame of the seat groaned. Rima and Chris grinned at each other. Then pushed and pulled the back of the seat until the metal shrieked and snapped. The other kids screamed. The bus driver just grinned and drove. He wore reflective sunglasses like the boss man in "Cool Hand Luke." He didn't give a hot damn.

The kids destroyed the back of the bus, pushing back all the seat backs to create a giant bed. And when they came to that stretch of bumpy road, where the city had never repaired the asphalt broken apart by the ice of the previous winter, the bus driver cut loose.

The kids screamed for him to drive faster. And he did, cackling. They laughed. And he drove even faster. And then they stopped laughing.

Kids began to leave their seats, moving forward in the bus as it careened toward the bumps. Rima's older sister, who always sat in the fourth seat from the front on the right, turned around and screamed "RIMA!" with a look of naked terror. Rima stared back at her, smiling. Rima locked her hands under the back of that very back seat, the bus hit the first of the bumps, her sister screamed her name again, and as the broken seat backs took flight around her, Rima realized that her sister actually loved her.

But she wasn't her sister's sister right now. She was the Queen of the Tribe, flying through time and space with her King, who let out a whoop of such unbridled joy she thought they would never touch down again.

But now, as the sun set over Flushing, grown-up Rima sat on the 7 train, staring at her husband, grown-up Chris who squeezed her knee with his left hand while he turned the page of his comic book with his right.

And for the third time, she killed him with her eyes.

And for the third time, he refused to die.

Years later she would remember this moment. And she would curse him for his calm smile, for his terrible failure to keep alive the moronic, romantic, self-destructive wildness of adolescence, for his ultimate sin of growing up and finding happiness in the real world.

But today, as the gorgeous, horizontal light of the setting sun sent dusty shafts through the clanging train, Rima ran out of time.

A great metallic shriek split the air. Rima and Chris both spun, turning towards the setting sun. Something was wrong with the train, Rima thought. The metal is tearing apart -- the tracks are exploding -- something -- and she found herself gripping Chris's hand with all her strength. She turned to stare at him. And he stared back at her, alert, entirely present, but still so very calm.

"It's all right," he said. And then the sky over the setting sun opened up and the great metal raptor exploded through the breach, sank its huge talons into the back of the train, and wrenched it from the elevated tracks.

END OF CHAPTER ONE

NOTES TO MYSELF

1. The writing on Twitter experiment absolutely worked in terms of getting me to crank out words. Reminds me a bit of doing improv comedy back in the day -- the light hits you and you deliver, whether you've thought it through or not. You trust yourself and you go for it.

2. Of course, as with improv, what comes out isn't always particularly polished or beautiful. This absolutely feels like a first draft. Maybe even more like an outline. But I'm pretty pleased with that -- not a bad way to force myself to rough out a story.

3. Need to give Rima more action in this opening scene. This is novel writing instead of dramatic writing, so I'm indulging a bit in the ability to tell backstory, to rummage through my character's memories. But Rima needs something a bit more specific than just trying to kill her husband with her eyes here. Doesn't have to be huge. But even if it's tiny, we need something visual and visceral she's trying to do that puts us in her skin a bit more.

4. The other people on this subway car are going to play a role in the next chapter. MIght need to introduce them here, even in passing.

5. I have another incident-on-the-school-bus that might work better than the one depicted here. Remember to give that a shot later down the line.

6. Bit more awkward repetition of words here and there than I tend to find even in first drafts. I think the fact that I'm writing in very small chunks makes it more prevalent. Something to watch out for.

7. Does the audience need more explanation of the setting? New Yorkers know the 7 train and Flushing. Others don't.

8. Gonna need to find a way to explore/explain/dramatize Rima's and Chris's current life/work. We get a good glimpse of them as kids; less of them as adults. Don't really know who they are in the here and now just yet. Can that wait until Chapter Two? Don't know. Probably need at least a hint here. Also, Chris's calmness needs more context, more concrete bits of information/dramatization that help us understand where he's coming from and how/why he changed over the years.

9. It's a sci fi story. Eventually I'm going to have to figure out how much I want to tip that off, if at all, in the first few pages.

10. Maybe Rima and Chris should be closer in the opening, in the middle of a good point in their relationship instead of a bad one... TBD.

Follow the next chapter and let me know what you think at twitter.com/GregsNovel!

UPDATE: Click here to read Chapter One!

Over the years, I've had a number of story ideas that I thought would work best as novels. But given my other comics and film deadlines, I've never been able to organize my schedule or section out the brainspace to do something as huge as write a book.

But the other day it occurred to me that I might be able to kick myself in the pants and crank out a first draft of one of these stories by writing it publicly -- on Twitter.

I started last night. You can follow the madness at twitter.com/GregsNovel (the username will probably change once I figure out what the actual title of the book is).

My ground rules for myself:

1. I have a story in mind with a beginning, middle, and end. But I pledge that all of the actual writing of the story will be done only in Twitter, 140 characters at a time. No cheating by drafting stuff ahead of time and cutting and pasting it in. What you see is a genuine, unvarnished first draft, written in real time right before your eyes.

2. Any non-novel-writing on the account will be preceded by an asterisk.

3. I'll post compiled chapters right here on my website, along with notes-to-self about what's working and what isn't and what I'll try to correct when I hit the second draft. But I'm going to do my best to keep moving forward and hammer out the whole story before going back to revise. Revisions will probably happen off of Twitter.

So that's the big plan for this crazy experiment! Again, check out twitter.com/GregsNovel and let me know what you think!

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