Recommended Reading For Everyone

We are currently hard at work on issue one of The Chronicles of the Tal Nor.  Kelsea has just about finished up the first rounds of thumbnail sketches and we have narrowed it down to two printers.  Once we have selected a printer Kelsea can start turning the thumbnails in to actual pages.  The issue is that every printer uses slightly different specifications and we want to make sure we are doing things right before we start.  I thank you for your patience.  While you wait for the first issue to arrive, here are five great all age books to check out!

1.       Ms. Marvel

This is currently my favorite comic book being published.  The best I can describe is it feels like Spider-Man must have felt in '61.  While I'm about as far from a teenage Muslim girl in New Jersey as you can get, her story resonates with me on a fundamental level. I connect with her and her experience more than I have with any comic book in a long time.  She is someone who is desperately trying to balance multitude different aspects of her life while attempting to be something greater than just a girl in high school.  She is trying to change the world and be a hero because it's what you do with super powers and what we all aspire to do with our ordinary lives.  Along the way she makes just about every mistake possible and we love Kamala Khan all the more for it, because she doesn't let those mistakes stop her from trying.  G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona have knocked it out of the park with this one.

2.       Captain Marvel

 If Ms. Marvel is about learning to be a hero, Captain Marvel is about enjoying the ride once you are a hero.  This book is just flat out fun!  I was hooked from this exchange on:

If I had superpowers, Carol is the hero that would want to be. And in that vein, the great Kelly Sue DeConick is the kind of writer I wish I was and strive to be. The artist David Lopez's illustrations complements her writing perfectly.

3.       Atomic Robo

Speaking of fun, Action Scientist sounds like a cool, fun job.  You get to go exciting places and hang out with Atomic Robo, an awesome sentient robot invented by Tesla.  There are nine volumes of Atomic Robo comics so far with more coming all the time.  My favorite is Volume 3: Atomic Robo and the Shadow from Beyond Time, where Robo has to fight a trans-dimensional, trans-time monster with the help of famous scientists through history.

4.       The Atomics

 No relation to the title above, The Atomics follows the adventures of a group of super powered beatniks.  Need I say more about this awesome Madman spinoff from Mike Allred?

5.       Action Philosophers!

When I was in college I had a rule that every term I was going to take at least one course that had nothing to do with my major and was just for me.  This led me to taking nearly 20 credits every term and gaining a Philosophy minor without even planning on it.  One day my friend Fran, who had the same idea as I did about school, turned to me and said, "You know we only need 6 more credits to qualify for a minor in Philosophy."  Epistemology, Philosophy of Religion and one term later we qualified.  Given my education background, take from me you can learn nearly as much about philosophy as I did just by reading Action Philosophers! by Fred Van Lente & Ryan Dunlavey.  They make each philosopher and their key philosophy accessible and fun to read about.  It’s a book I turn to anytime I need a refresher on the difference between Descartes and David Hume.

That should be just about enough to hold you over until we release the book you've all been waiting for, The Chronicles of the Tal Nor Volume 1 issue 1.

T.

Dangers of the Road page2

It's Wednesday and as all good comic book fans know that means new comics day!  Not only is that true at your local comic shop, but its true here at the chronicles of the Tal Nor.  While Kelsea, Rose and I are hard at work crafting the next issue, I've been sneaking off now and again to do a little coloring flatting and re-lettering of the first Tal Nor story, Dangers of the Road.  Every Wednesday I'll be posting up a newly colored page.  Today we have page two.  You will notice that from page one to page two that the color of the grass and shrubs has changed.  This improvement is due to some fabulous advice I received from Chronicles of the Tal Nor issue 1 and I Hate When They Run artist Kelsea Jewell.  She really knows her stuff; be glad she is the one coloring issue 1 and not me!

Click HERE to check out page two of Dangers of the Road.

Before I sign off, I wanted to mention how lucky Rose and I are to have a fantastic local comic shop called Uncanny! in the King of Prussia mall.  If you are ever in the King of Prussia area of Pennsylvania, do yourself a favor and visit the store.  Tell them T. sent you.  They have a new location just above the food court.  Unfortunately, there is a shoe store that is interested in this location and may cause our favorite comic shop to have to change location once more.  I go into more details on this in my personal blog, which you can read HERE; but because Uncanny! has always been so supportive of my comics, I wanted to return the favor and share the letter I wrote to Villa, the shoe store in question.  I hope your local shop is as awesome as mine and you love it just as much!

T.

Dear Villia Management:

I'm writing you today because I heard some distressing news.  It's my understanding that you are thinking of opening a store in the King of Prussia Mall in the location currently occupied by Uncanny.  I urge you to choose a different location in the King of Prussa mall.  Over the last year Uncanny (formally called Comics and More) has had to move twice and as you can imagine this has put a real strain on them as it would any business.  I know it put a major strain on their employees as I was there to help them move, because Uncanny is more than just a store for me.

I have been a dedicated customer of the store for nearly 30 years.  I even worked there for a few years while I was finishing up college and looking for a job in my field.  I have seen every location they have ever had and this current location is by far the best.  They have just finished setting up the back room for gaming and events.  It looks fantastic.  They have incredible art on the walls and front window.  It is clear to see how much time and effort that the employees and customer volunteers have put into the store.  As the operators of a store you know how rare it is to have employees and a customer base that cares that much about a store.

That's because Uncanny is more than a store and employees; it's a place for old friends to meet and new friendships to be formed.  Every Wednesday I come in to pick up my comic books.  Not only do they have the books that I have asked for, but they will set aside things that they know I would be interested in.  It is rare in this day and age to find such customer service.  As much as I love the people that worked there when I was an employee back in the early 2000's this current group are some of the best people I have seen running a comic shop.

I have become a comic book professional in no small part to due to the influence this store has had on my life.  It the first place to ever carry any of my works and it the first place I look to when I want to premier any of my new titles.

This store is also responsible for me meeting one of my best friends in the world.  Over a decade ago I was finishing up one of my last shifts at the comic shop when a young lady came in asking for a comic book recommendation.  Over her next two visits we had such a good time talking we decide to meet up for coffee after I was no longer working at the shop.  From that meeting we formed a lasting friendship that included me being a bridesman in her wedding.  I still see her nearly every week.

This is the kind of place that you could put in jeopardy if decided to have the King of Prussia Mall management make them move once more.  I ask you again to investigate and choose a different location in the mall.  While I have never shopped in your store before, if you choose to pursue Uncanny's current location I assure you I never will and will be vocal about my reasons.  However, if you choose a different location in one of the largest malls in the world, I will most assuredly come and check your store out.  I cannot promise to buy anything, but there is a good chance that I will. As you can imagine from this letter I tend to be a vocal supporter of the places I like.

Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter.

Regards,

T. Perran Mitchell
Creator of Chronicles of the Tal Nor

Hello World, Welcome to Ours.

Welcome to Wynsel, the home of the Tal Nor.

Founded over 1,000 years ago by Lord Roderick the Wise, the Tal Nor is a force for Order in the Realms of Wynsel.  From regional strongholds; they send out their Rytiers to enforce this order in the manner they see fit.  They owe no allegiance to any King or Country but are respected and feared by all.

The first color story featuring the Rytier Kat Zang has been posted to the web site can be found HERE.

We are currently hard at work on the first issue of our new on going series about the Tal Nor called The Chronicles of the Tal Nor: Volume One.  We are shooting for a late spring release date.  We will keep you updated here on the statue of that project. 

This website will be your home for all things Tal Nor.  Thank you for your early support for our comic and we can’t wait to hear what you think.