SIXTH GUN CREATORS Paper Figure Set

This week's paper figure set... Sixth Gun creators Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt!

Click HERE TO DOWNLOAD YOUR OWN SET AND THUS HAVE YOUR OWN TINY CULLEN AND BRIAN AROUND, WHICH IS KIND OF WEIRD


Now you may just be asking yourself "who are these guys?  Why didn't Chris put up characters from The Sea Hawk or Scrubs or something?"

To which I say, "how in the world have you read MY comics and not THEIRS?  That's like saying 'Oh, I really dig Alexander Kent" but you've never read Patrick O'Brian or C.S. Forrester.'"  Not that there's any real equation there, just that it'd be surprising if you knew the former but not the others, which is how surprised I'd be if you'd read Crogan and not Sixth Gun.  Read it.  Seriously.  I can't tell you how not disappointed you'll be.

I mean, come on.  The sixth gun has undead cowboy minions attacking a train with a mummy on board, AND it's drawn like this:

Look at those guys holding on as it takes that turn!  Man, I wish I could draw like Brian Hurtt.  And I'm doing my best to move in that direction.  He's been a HUGE influence lately, artistically, and I'm glad of the changes my own stuff has seen as a result of studying his.

And to be perfectly fair, colorist Bill Crabtree has brought a LOT to the book.  His colors are fantastic.  But I've never met him (at least in the context that I knew he colored 6th Gun) and as such don't really know what he looks like; thus no figure.  Sorry, Bill, and I love what you've been doing on the book!x

HARRY POTTER Paper Figure Set

This week's paper figure set is certainly the most grandiose: there are fifty-five figures total.  Presenting, the characters of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, for you to download, print out, and assemble yourself!  Absolutely free, of course.  Click here to download the file.  Depending on your browser, you may need to right click and choose "save link as."  It's big - 66mb, I think - so don't do it on your phone unless you've got a heck of a data plan. I put a new figure set up every Monday.  Feel free to check out the other ones. 

Except in the cases of the Defense Against the Dark Arts professors, each of whom is depicted roughly during their tenure as a teacher, everyone is more or less circa the sixth Harry Potter novel, The Half Blood Prince.  'Cause I wanted all the kids in their school clothes.  It's just more iconic to me.

I tried to stay away from the movie's visuals as much as possible, but was unable to do so in the case of Voldemort.  The book's "red eyes" combined with the green of the Adava Kedavra curse made him look way too Christmasy, and the film design  was so, so good.  I gave him snake lips and longer fingers/toes, but otherwise it's pretty much the movie version.  Likewise, Sirius Black has a mustache rather than a bear, another nod to an excellent film design decision.  Otherwise, though, I think the choices are mostly my interpretations of Rowling's descriptions.

Oh!  There’s an exclusive figures that you can’t get here!  Moaning Myrtle is at School Library Journal’s GOOD COMICS FOR KIDS section.

• EDIT: The file I posted on Monday, October 15th didn’t have Buckbeak… another site was going to run it (I thought), but didn’t, so it’s in the main file now.  If you DIDN’T get Buckbeak before, but downloaded the rest of it already, here’s that file.

• Also, I totally misspelled “Weasley” on the twins and Ginny (though got it right on Ron and the parents).  I’m terrible at spelling names, especially by  hand (no spell check), but luckily these two were on the same sheet.  It’s fixed in the main file, but if you’ve already printed these then here’s a single-sheet replacement.

SIMON FONTHILL Paper Figure Set

Click HERE to download you own paper figure set. This week's paper figure set comes from John Wilcox's FONTHILL novels, a historical adventure series set throughout the British Empire in the late 1870s and 1880s.  I read the first book, Horns of the Buffalo, to get a flavor for the Zulu Wars that would serve as the backdrop for the upcoming Crogan Adventures audio drama "The Kimberly Pit" (coming May 15, 2013) and kept reading because, well, I liked 'em a lot.

There's a Four Feathers-esque narrative arc in the first book in which the protagonist is afraid of being afraid, and the stiffness that this creates (while essential for the longer series development) makes it a little hard to invest oneself fully in his exploits, but the supporting character/sidekick Jenkins 352 is one of the most enjoyable characters to read that I've ever happened across, right up there with Rooster Cogburn and Captain Good, and he gives you reason enough to care about what happens from the get-go.  From the second book onwards, Fonthill himself does a fine job of carrying the narrative, so Jenkins is pure bonus. Anyway, if you've the slightest inclination towards meticulously researched colonial Africa yarns, like I do, I recommend them.  They're also available in audiobook form, so if you've got an audible account, give 'em a go.

As with the other paper figure sets (available to download here, and always free), you simply download the file (on some browsers, you may need to right click and choose "save link as"), print it out, and cut and assemble them to either display or play with.  The characters aren't mine (unless they're from the Crogan Adventures books); they're the intellectual property of their respective authors.  I just make 'em as a hobby, because I like the properties. Click HERE to download you own paper figure set.

Paper Figure Set: MASTER AND COMMANDER

(Click here to download the print file so that you can make these yourself for free)
If you're using Chrome or some other applications, right click and choose "save link location.

This week's set is an admittedly small one, with just two figures: lead-booted physician Stephen Maturin and obese sanguinite Lucky Jack Aubrey, complete with battle-lost ear.

If you haven't read the Aubrey/Maturin books, you should.  They're truly incredible, though in truth I've only read the first four.  Reading them was getting me excited about doing another nautical book, this one putting much more emphasis on getting the rigging right, but my editor told me that it was "too soon to return to the pirate trough" having done the pirate-themed Crogan's Vengeance only a couple of books ago, and so I must wait.  I'm holding off on reading the remainder of the Patrick O'Brian novels until that time.

Just a reminder that I post a new paper figure set each Monday, and that other paper figure sets can be found here.

(Click here to download the Master and Commander print file so that you can make these yourself for free)