Canister X – A.P. Fuchs: Zombie, Paranormal Romance and Superhero Novelist, Blogger, Artist, Publisher

Canister X Newsletter Vol. 1 No. 6

September 2010

This month has been absolutely insane in terms of workload, which is why this edition of the newsletter is coming to you on the last possible day.

Aside from being busy personally with weddings, birthday parties, family stuff and Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions (yeah, yeah, I know), professionally I’ve been working like a madman to get Possession of the Dead done on time so I can launch it at Central Canada Comic Con at the end of October.

So many days were spent logging in 4,000 words or more into the book, never mind rewrites, edits, formatting, and all the rest. As of this writing, I still have to piece together the cover, wait for my wife to finish reading it as first reader, and get the sucker off to press.

This is whirlwind publishing at its finest. However, despite the late nights, stressful days and all-round craziness, I’ve learned to really push myself creatively on a daily basis and have discovered what I’m capable of in terms of work production. This knowledge has now opened up doors for me, these newly-learned skills now something I can take forward into future projects.

I hope you celebrate this crazy workload with me next month when Possession of the Dead is released by buying either a paperback or eBook edition of the book. Thanks in advance.

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This month also brought around a foreign rights interest in Coscom Entertainment’s titles. Nothing is in stone yet so I can’t say who or what. I’ve been down this road before so I know not to go cracking open the champagne until ink is on the page. Just a heads up, however.

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As mentioned above, I spent a lot of time playing Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, the newest Spider-Man game out there. (I play on a PS3.)

I usually play a game on easy mode first, just so I can get deep into it, explore and learn more about it without constantly getting stuck, so finishing Spider-Man only took a few days. However, there are additional challenges per level you need to do aside from just beating the bad guy, and every time you beat a challenge, you get points (spider essence) plus you unlock new combat moves, and character features like health and costumes. There are 180 challenges in total and I’m sitting at 173 completed (I think). You’re able to go back and replay levels to complete them. When I hit 180, then I’m going to do the game again in normal mode, which in turn unlocks behind-the-scenes stuff like wallpaper art. The hard mode unlocks other things as well.

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If you’ve been watching my Twitter feed, you’ll know I heard from Hughes Capital Entertainment in LA just the other day. I’m waiting to connect with them either by phone or email to see what’s going on. Let’s hope the news is good.

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It’s a new season of Smallville, the final one, and the premiere was on the 24th. The premiere had us off to a promising start, planting seeds for future episodes, and a few twist moments. I’m particularly interested in when Clark becomes Superman, especially now that we’ve seen the suit, and also when he gets his glasses because right now, the whole secret identity thing doesn’t make sense as, because he’s working at the Daily Planet, people there know what he looks like without his glasses.

I’m sure this season’s story arc involving Darkseid will play into–maybe–some kind of time alteration or memory wipe or whatnot.

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The Canister X comic book project is still a go. I’m still at 11 pages because all of September was spent writing. There’s still a chance the first issue will be out by the end of October. We’ll see, but, yes, the comic is coming and once one issue is out, then more will follow and in a timely manner.

Speaking of art, I uploaded some of my old artwork to DeviantArt as a kind of showcase. It’s a work-in-progress in that more will be added as time goes on, especially once the Canister X comic is out. In the meantime, you can check it out here.

Lastly, in regards to comics, my wife, Roxanne, finished her comic book and is now in the inking stage. We’ll be releasing it at the comic con at the end of October. The book is called Fuzz Society and has a fan group on Facebook here. Please join and show her support. I read the comic and it’s really good and I’m not just saying that because I’m her husband. It’s coming out through Coscom Entertainment and I wouldn’t publish it unless it was publish-worthy. Really excited and happy for her.

Thanks again for tuning in. See you in October.

Best,

A.P. Fuchs
Winnipeg, MB
September 30, 2010

With Coscom Entertainment work out of the way, today’s straight forward:

- Type up edits to draft two of Possession of the Dead
- Print new draft
- Write tomorrow’s Zomtropolis chapter

Very simple. As a reward for getting it all done, I’m going to play Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions. Bought it yesterday, but my wife had first go at it and I was just a spectator. Today I become the webslinger.

One week to go.

Showed at the San Diego Comic Con this past weekend. The fourth and final dimension was also revealed: the Ultimate Dimension.

I really love how this game as that 2D-coloring using 3D graphics.

Here you go:

Also, the Juggernaut Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions Trailer:

Canister X Newsletter Vol. 1 No. 3

June 2010

About mid May CanisterX.com switched hosting packages and in turn allowed me to install WordPress onto my hosting platform instead of running the freebie version from WordPress.com. As a result, it has made the site more powerful and more capable than its predecessor, paving the way to a more interactive website and one to soon carry much more free media for you, the reader.

I’m really excited about the stuff I have planned for the new site. All I need now is the time to implement it which, as anyone thickly immersed in the publishing business will tell you, is sometimes hard to come by. However, my schedule this year as compared to last year should allow the extra hours required to take things to the next level in my career and also for my press, Coscom Entertainment.

Speaking of Coscom, I want to thank those of you reading this that have purchased our books for doing so. Your support makes it possible for Coscom Entertainment to keep putting out books for you and to keep bringing you stories. I do ask that, if you haven’t read any of my books or those of my colleagues, I kindly request that you consider it. As much as we love our craft, we, like everybody, have bills to pay and families to feed. We do that by providing you with entertainment, and really hope to keep doing so in the years to come.

Thank you in advance for your continued support.

As of this writing, the contracts for the Simon and Schuster deal went out this past Friday (May 14) and the first book, The War of the Worlds Plus Blood, Guts and Zombies by H.G. Wells and Eric S. Brown, is due out in December. The second book, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Zombie Jim by Mark Twain and W. Bill Czolgosz, is due out in April 2011.

Also as of this writing, Coscom Entertainment agreed to a mass market deal for another mashup. A publishing date for this one has yet to be set. More details will be revealed when I’m allowed to inform you.

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In other publishing news, things are going well for Coscom Entertainment. This year, after last year’s whirlwind, I’m slowing things down a touch and not publishing as many works by other people. Time is needed to finish up some stuff of mine that has been put on the backburner.

So far, 2010 looks to be a 3-book year for me. April saw the release of Zombie Fight Night: Battles of the Dead. July will see the release of my first-ever horror short story collection called Magic Man Plus 14 Tales of Terror. September, if all goes to plan, will see the release of the second book in the Undead World Trilogy, Possession of the Dead. I’m writing that last one now and it’s coming along quite well, the scenes easily unfolding before my mind’s eye, transferring quite readily to my fingertips. It carries the same flavor as Blood of the Dead, but the story itself has a different feel as Joe and the gang go up against more than just zombies in this installment.

There is the possibility of a fourth book from me late this year, and that is the print edition of Zomtropolis. As of now, I still plan on maintaining the weekly schedule and leaving the chapters up for free even when the print and eBook editions come out. For those not yet reading Zomtropolis, it’s a zombie-meets-love-story-meets-futuristic tale following a guy who’s blogging about the experience of living in Zomtropolis after the city’s been pretty much wiped out by the undead, and his surviving therein along with dealing with the crushing heartbreak from an ex-girlfriend named Selena. New chapters are posted every Friday. The book can be accessed at www.CanisterX.com right here.

I’m giving some careful and serious consideration to doing a lot of anthologies coming up shortly, most of them zombie ones. More news on how this develops. I enjoy editing anthologies and reception for Dead Science and Vicious Verses and Reanimated Rhymes: Zany Zombie Poetry for the Undead Head has been positive overall.

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In terms of household stuff, my garden is growing very well, and the vegetables are having noticeable gains daily. I have no doubt this is owed to the crazy amount of compost I added to the garden prior to seeding. I took last year’s compost and buried it in the garden before winter. When everything thawed, I took the compost created during the winter season and buried that as well. I let that sit for a few weeks and then topped the garden off with some new soil (containing a special compost blend), raked that in, and then we seeded.

We’re also attempting pumpkins this year and have 8 or 9 shoots coming up. Never grown pumpkins before so this should be an adventure, especially since I had to dig a new patch for them right by the house. The idea here is once the pumpkins themselves begin to show, my boys can pick one or two each to take care of as their own special project. Teaches them responsibility and how to care for your environment.

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Been obsessed with Batman: Arkham Asylum recently and have been playing it religious. I beat the game (on easy mode so far) and am now just doing the side missions and picking up the rest of the Riddler’s riddles and also other tiny challenges that unlock for you as you go along. Once done, I’ll try and beat it again in normal mode.

The sequel is coming out this year last I heard, so my wife and I are eager for that as she is just as hooked on the game as I am. Today, she beat the game in normal mode so she’s got one up on me in that department, I suppose. Then again, she’s always been a hardcore gamer whereas, though I used to play Nintendo and N64 a lot as a kid, I’ve been out of the video game scene for the past dozen years or so. I sound like an old-timer here but, man, yeah, they’ve changed a lot. Almost like controlling real life now instead of blocky 3D items that still looked like cartoons.

Speaking of video games, Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions is also coming out this year so that’s another one that’s on my must-buy list. Comes out September, I think? Somewhere around there.

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Back in book news, since the last issue I’ve done two book signings with my third to be done this Friday (June 18), all of them in an effort to promote Zombie Fight Night. I’ve also tugged along to each outing a giant zombie vs werewolf cut-out, life-sized, where you can step in behind it, stick your head through the holes above each character’s shoulders, and get your picture taken. This thing generates a lot of buzz around the mall, I can tell you that much.

Not sure how many more signings I’ll do for Zombie Fight Night. We’ll see, though I would like to set up another with one or both of my local Chapters stores.

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Lastly, after reading and editing Magic Man Plus 14 Tales of Terror, my eyes were really opened to something about my writing that I knew about but perhaps, on some level, didn’t accept.

See, ever since I began putting words to paper, my work has consisted of a similar theme throughout each story, most of them containing a certain kind of character and situation. For those who have read most of my stuff, it’s probably been apparent to you. For those who haven’t, well, I won’t spoil it, but yesterday I made the decision to make a change in my work, one that’s hopefully for the better. So though that old theme might recur now and then, it certainly won’t be as prominent as it has been for the past 10 or so years.

I do, however, want to thank you all for reading my work. There’s great pleasure in knowing that what a writer creates has made its way into readers’ hands and has been received positively overall. So again, thank you. Truly.

- A.P. Fuchs
Winnipeg, MB
June 17, 2010

Found this on the Net today.

I had a feeling this would be one of the four worlds in Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions. Looks cool beyond all reason.

Wow.

Right now I’m waist-deep (no, really, I’m about halfway through it) in Batman: Arkham Asylum on PS3, which is a stunning game and is something I so badly wish they’d use as the story for Batman 3. Yet, of course, the main baddie is the Joker so it’s not going to happen. Still . . .

But coming up real soon is what looks to be another stunning superhero masterpiece and that is Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions. In short, the premise is some kind of mystical crystal that keeps all known universes/realities separate has been shattered and as a result, you, the fortunate player, get to select between FOUR Spider-Man styles/game-modes to try and right the wrong from a universe of your choosing.

Only two of the Spider-Man dimensions have been revealed so far: the Amazing Spider-Man (the one we all know and love), plus the ultra-cool Spider-Man Noir, which is Spidey in the ’30s in a Sin City sort of environment.

Below is a couple trailers for the game.

I plan on picking this up the day it comes out.

This just looks ridiculously good.

I can’t wait to get my hands on it.