That’s a wrap on Francesco for Undisputed #2. He lead the way, penciling, inking, and coloring all 20 pages of the middle issue of our pro wrestling limited series comic book.

The next step is for me to organize all the files, and send them over to our letterer, Marco Della Verde. He will not only letter, but finalize all the files for us so that once he’s done, we can send the book right to the printer.

The team will be taking some time off before we start doing art for the final issue.

I’m really excited to see this issue finished. This project has been over a year in the making now. And with issue 2’s release, we’ll officially be in the home stretch.

That’s all I’ve got, so a quick update today. But thanks again for following along.

Until next time…
Support indie comics & support indie wrestling!
Love you,
—pjc.

I work a day job, which I really enjoy. I work in the clinical department of a residential/educational program for boys with developmental delays and problematic sexual behavior. My primary job function is transportation. When one of our kids has a family visit, or a court appearance, or a program visit, it’s my job to make sure he gets there and back safely.

It used to leave a lot of free time in my working day. But my department has been going through some transitions. We’ve lost a bunch of therapists, and we’re onboarding a bunch of therapists, and everybody’s kind of seen some role changes. So now, in addition to transportation, I oversee a caseload of about 8 students.

With that, my workflow has changed. I used to do a lot of work on Undisputed at work. Now I kind of can’t. So I’m trying to find some time to get back to posting regularly, while we wait for art & lettering on the 2nd issue to wrap up.

I say that as an apology to those who are accustomed to a more regular posting schedule.

Anyway, I have some time today, and I wanted to get you caught up on what’s going on.

First, Francesco Iaquinta sent in the colors for page 19 (of 20) for issue 2. Next week we’ll get the final page. Then we’ll put all the pages and covers together and send them off to Marco Della Verde for lettering. While Francesco and Marco are doing all that, Christopher and I are getting ready to order the physical books, and preparing for fulfillment. Well, Christopher is getting ready to do fulfillment. He’s the one who will actually be taking care of all the shipments. I’m just doing my best to get him organized with names and addresses and what each of you are getting, and what not. All that means that Undisputed #2 should be ready to ship sometime in November.

After that, we’re going to take a little break. We got nowhere near breaking even on the Kickstarter campaign, so we need some time to rebuild the war chest. But issue 3, the final issue, is already written and ready to go as soon as the money is there to start making pages.

So, all that, I think, is good news. I’m figuring we’ll get to the issue 3 crowdfunding campaign sometime this summer, and have the issue delivered by the fall. So this time next year we’ll have the complete Undisputed story out and available for everyone to read.

Now, on to the not-as-good-news. I got a notification the other day that the crowdfunding campaign for an anthology I’m involved in was cancelled. The campaign for Sightings: A Bigfoot Comic Anthology was cancelled by Lonely Lemmings. The team realized that they were very unlikely to reach their funding goal. So instead of letting the campaign run and fail, they cancelled it, with the intention of building their own mailing list, and community, and trying it again in the near future.

If/when that book goes back on campaign, I will make sure to let you know.

That’s about all I’ve got for you now. But, I do appreciate all of you following along with our journey.

Until next time…
Support indie comics & support indie wrestling!

I love you,
—pjc

Undisputed #2 update: surveys went out, so we’re collecting email & mailing addresses now. Francesco is finishing up colors on the last couple pages, and then the whole book is getting sent to Marco for lettering and prepress. We’re still “on time” for a November delivery.

I’m still trying to process my thoughts on this campaign, and whether or not it was a success. So I’m not ready to put my thoughts on paper and do a post mortem yet (if you’re interested, does great post-mortems on all his campaigns). And, I forgot to mention earlier, I won’t be attending Southern New Hampshire Comic Bash, as previously scheduled. I do sports announcing on the side, and got offered a gig that day from a company that I want to work with more. So I couldn’t turn it down. Sorry to friends & fans up in Nashua.

All that aside, I wanted to remind you that my first anthology contribution is currently live on Kickstarter. Sightings: A Bigfoot Comic Anthology has 9 days to go, and is currently at $2632 of $4000. It’s from Lonely Lemming, who did the game “Pass-a-Fist” back in 2019. The book has 10 stories from 15 creators, and each story is a different take on Bigfoot.

Mine is called “One Way Ticket”, and starts at about 30,000 feet above the Pacific Northwest with another PNW legend, D.B. Cooper…

The Lonely Lemming team is putting together their contingency plans, in the event that the book doesn’t get funded. They’re committed to getting this book out there, and I’m looking forward to seeing it in print. Reward tiers start at $8.

Undisputed #2’s Kickstarter campaign wrapped up this morning. The final numbers: 46 backers, $833. Hopefully we don’t lose anyone while Kickstarter collects everyone’s pledge.

Undisputed #1 finished with 47 backers. The issue 2 campaign was 2 weeks, issue 1 was 4 weeks. So, maybe we could have grown the readership if I had done a month long campaign? I don’t know.

Kickstarter is going to take the next 2 weeks to collect funds, and then distribute them to us. Meanwhile, Francesco Iaquinta has 3 pages left to color before the book is ready to head over to Marco Della Verde for lettering. Marco will also do the final prepress for us, preparing files for the printer, and creating the PDFs that will be distributed to the backers.

My stalwart editor Christopher will be preparing to turn his home into a small fulfillment center. And I believe, if everything goes right, we’ll be shipping issues sometime in November.

Now, Undisputed is a 3-issue limited series. So what of issue 3?

I’m going to talk to Chris this week and see whether we’re going to roll right into art on issue 3 or if we need to take a break. Regardless of that decision, issue 3 will come out, but it may be a while. I’m going to take my time, focus on building up the prelaunch follower numbers, and work on making the issue 3 campaign more of an event.

I want to bring back the prose anthology for issue 3, I had an idea of doing a video roundtable with people like Dr. Carl Martin, and Maven Bentley. People who appear in the comic book, but have worked in pro wrestling “in real life”. I think that might be a fun bonus. I want to call in some favors from friends still in wrestling to cut promos for issue 3.

There are a lot of ideas for issue 3. And issue 3 is going to be a make-or-break moment for us. Christopher, who’s been financing the book, needs to eventually start getting close to making his money back. Which we haven’t done yet. Each book costs about $3k (including variant covers). And so far we haven’t cracked $1,000 on either campaign. But, I think if we can grow the audience, build our community, and do strong backer numbers on issue 3, then I think we can justify continuing on with making more comics.

If you missed out on the campaign, and want to read issue 1, it’s available as a PDF from my website, pjcurling.me. If you want to read a totally different story of mine, I have a 6-page piece in Sightings: A Bigfoot Comic Anthology, which is live on Kickstarter right now. Check out that campaign page here.

Thanks for following along on the journey. I appreciate you all.

Until next time…
Support indie comics & support indie wrestling.
I love you,
—pjc.

The Kickstarter campaign for Undisputed #1&2 has less than 48 hours to go. If you haven’t backed the campaign, the time is now. My goal for the next 42 hours is 6 backers. I want to have at least 1 more backer than the issue 1 campaign, and I need your help to get there.

Support me, and the art team by jumping over to the campaign page.

That’s all I’m going to say about that. So now, story time.

January 14, 2012

That date should mean something to fans of independent wrestling. On that date, Combat Zone Wrestling and Evolve ran a double shot, and promoted the final professional wrestling event ever at the original ECW Arena.

Now, we had heard a few months prior that the building was going to be shut down. Roger had sold the building to Joanna Pang (who also owned the Trocadero Theater, which hosted some incredible concerts over the years). Her plan was to shut the building down, renovate it, and turn it into a music venue. So, our understanding, and I mean everyone involved in indie wrestling in Philadelphia at the time, was that we would get one last shot to run a pro wrestling show at one of the most historic wrestling venues in the world.

That honor fell at the feet of DJ Hyde of Combat Zone Wrestling and Gabe Sapolski of Evolve Wrestling. The double-shot would feature CZW’s “An Excellent Adventure” matinee, followed by Evolve 10: A Tribute to the Arena.

At this time, I had gotten out of working in MMA. I had been working for a promoter as a matchmaker & marketer. But, because of that job I met Maven Bentley (who appears in Undisputed as 1/2 of the announce team). Maven was Vice President of Combat Zone wrestling at the time. And we would invite each other to our shows. I had also done some marketing consulting for Gabe while he was running Dragon Gate USA. So, thanks to those connections, I had the privilege of being backstage, and in the crow’s nest for this last show.

CZW started the night, and featured some really good matches. I had to go to CageMatch to freshen my memory. It’s been over 13 years. But we saw AR Fox vs Uhaa Nation (Apollo Crews in WWE). Azriel & Bandido Jr. retaining the tag titles against my favorite stable of all times, BLK OUT (Alex Colon & Ruckus with Chrissy Rivera & Robbie Mireno). Sami Callihan defeated Rich Swann for the Jr. Heavyweight belt. Greg Excellent defeated Mia Yim (Michin in WWE, with Adam Cole). This match was early in the Greg versus Mia feud that lead to one of the greatest matches I ever saw (I wrote about it just about a year ago). One of my favorite wrestlers of all time, Eddie Kingston defeated one of the most underrated wrestlers of all time, Joker. Adam Cole challenged Devon Moore for the CZW World Heavyweight Championship, and lost. And current CZW owner DJ Hyde defeated CZW’s founder John Zandig in a death match to wrap up the show.

It wasn’t a great CZW show. I think DJ Hyde couldn’t decide if he wanted to do one last “ultraviolent” show, or a true hybrid show, and ended up with neither. Having Drew Gulak go over Matt Tremont in a singles match I believe proves my point.

Evolve had a stronger show, and unfortunately gets all the glory. I say unfortunately, because John Zandig started CZW in 1999 and when ECW went out of business, he moved into the Arena. Then he, and his crew, rebranded ECW’s “Extreme” style of wrestling as “Ultraviolent”. When he sold the company to DJ Hyde, DJ worked incredibly hard to grow the company behind just being a hardcore promotion. Compared to Evolve, which wasn’t even 3 years old at this point, and had never run the Arena before. I get why it was an Evolve show. Dragon Gate USA was an affiliate of a Japanese organization, and wouldn’t have felt right as the last promotion to run the ECW Arena, and Ring of Honor had been purchased by Sinclair early in 2011. So, it had to be Evolve.

Fortunately, Evolve ran a good show. It started with Low Ki squashing Ahtu. Then Cheech defeated his former tag team partner Cloudy. The Scene (Caleb Konely & Scott Reed) defeated current AEW tag teamers Alex Reynolds & John Silver. Jigsaw beat AR Fox and afterwards cut a promo acknowledging Chikara (which probably got some heat, considering the heat between CZW and Chikara at the time). Uhaa Nation (with Ricochet) defeated Pinkie Sanchez. Ronin (Chuck Taylor & Rich Swann) defeated The Super Smash Brothers (Players Uno & Dos). Bobby Fish (with AR Fox) defeated Sami Callihan, with Fox trying provoke Sami into hitting him with a beer bottle and handcuffing his own hands behind his back. Then in the last sanctioned match in the original building’s history, Johnny Gargano (with Chuck Taylor & Rich Swann) retained the Open the Freedom Gate title against Ricochet (with Uhaa Nation).

Again, a load of future WWE & AEW talent on display. With my one regret being how Sami Callihan’s WWE run went. I really liked Sami in the times we interacted, and I wanted him to get a good WWE run for himself.

Anyway, this is when the schmoz started. Joey Styles, Tod Gordon, JT Smith and “Pitbull #1” Gary Wolfe came out to do the dog & pony show. Then DJ Hyde and Team CZW hit the ring, with Hyde saying that if anyone was going to close the arena, it was going to be them. Que Balls Mahoney came in for Team ECW, but then. And this is the memory that sticks with me. “Gangsta’s Paradise” hit, and now I’m standing at Gorilla when a garbage can wielding New Jack comes running past to hit the ring. To even the odds, Justin Credible runs out in support of CZW (which is weird, because I don’t remember Justin doing any business with CZW).

That’s when it happened, and reading articles about the show, and spending time thinking about it. I’m remembering it, and getting chills. But then, the lights go out, and I feel someone run past me. When the lights come back up, the ring is cleared out save for Justin Credible and the Homicidal, Suicidal, Genocidal…Sabu! Sabu versus Justin Credible was the “true” final match, with Sabu going over.

Then Sami Callihan grabs a mic and cuts a promo talking about how he’s tired of all the ECW reunions and funerals, etc. And yelled to production to turn out the lights, and with Metallica’s “Fade to Black” playing, the lights went out on the Arena.

Most fans were waiting for more run-ins, but it was a literal fade to black.

Being an ECW fan, and spending a ton of time in the building for pro wrestling and MMA (I have the distinct honor of having done play by play for multiple MMA shows in the Arena), it was truly a privilege to be there that night.

The building was closed for a while with nothing going on. And we all thought that wrestling would never happen again at the corner of Swanson & Ritner. CZW moved to the Flyers Skate Zone in Voorhees, NJ, and Chikara would hang around, doing shows around Pennsylvania until Mike Quackenbush got caught in the Speaking Out movement in 2020.

The Arena was eventually renovated and renamed the 2300 Arena. I’ve been there once, with Dr. Carl Martin (who appears in Undisputed as our ring announcer) for a Ring of Honor show. And while the building is great, better for combat sports by every measurable metric. It just doesn’t feel like “home” the way the ECW Arena did. The 2300 feels corporate, professional, sanitized. The ECW Arena felt raw, filthy, and ours.

I will never begrudge a wrestling (or MMA or boxing) fan of going to the 2300 Arena and enjoying it. But for those that never experienced the original building, I feel for them, because they truly missed something incredible.

Wow, this post went on way longer than I expected. Hopefully some of you wrestling buffs, like , and enjoyed this post.

For the rest of you, please don’t forget that there are less than 2 days (42 hours) left to back Undisputed #1 & 2. If you want to support the art team and me, you can do so on the Kickstarter campaign page.

I’ll check back in a few days with a crowdfunding campaign post mortem. But, until then…

Support indie comics & support indie wrestling!
Love you,
—pjc.

I don’t say this often, at least not out loud. But I’m proud of the work I did on Undisputed. I worked hard to use the world of pro wrestling to tell a very simple action story in a way that hasn’t been done before.

To be fair, I’m not writing anything compared to Free Planet. I’m not caught up, but by all accounts, Aubrey is churning out next level story-telling with that title. And I’m super happy for him, and looking forward to plowing through it soon. But, I’ve said it before, I think fairly savvy readers will know where the story is going by about page 8 of issue 1. The real challenge was to tell a familiar story in a new way. I’m confident that I met that challenge with Undisputed.

I also want to say that I love the art that’s come in for this story, too. I have had the chance to work with some incredible artists. Wedersom Arantes, Francesco Iaquinta, Erik Arreaga, Juan “Of the Dead” Ortiz, and Tanner Ogle. All have translated the script in their own ways, and have turned in beautiful work.

Since this is a pro wrestling story, and I am a lifelong fan of pro wrestling, I wanted to tell an authentic pro wrestling story. I’m fortunate to know a good handful of people in the business, including Maven Bentley. Maven (not the one from WWE’s Tough Enough, and by the way, Maven Bentley had the “Maven” gimmick first) spent 20 years in pro wrestling. Besides being a manager, most notably of the stable BLK OUT, a manager, and an infrequent wrestler, Maven was Vice President of Combat Zone Wrestling.

CZW is a Philadelphia-based independent organization that launched in the wake of ECW’s demise, and turned ECW’s “extreme” wrestling and made it “ultraviolent”. CZW also played a role in the early success of many well known pro wrestlers, including Adam Cole, Joe Gacy, Sami Callihan and John Moxley. Combat Zone Wrestling (along with companies like Ring of Honor and Chikara) called the former ECW Arena home for over a decade in the early 2000’s. This was where I went from being a WWF fan to a pro wrestling fan. And thanks to Maven, I have the distinct honor of not only attending the last pro wrestling show at the original ECW Arena (now the 2300 Arena), I was also backstage, standing at the Gorilla Position for the main event.

The reason Maven Bentley and I became friends was through my involvement in MMA. We met at an MMA show at the former ECW Arena that I was working on. I worked for an MMA promotion at that time, and also freelanced as a sports social marketing consultant. Maven and I became friends, and we would attend each other’s shows. This lead to me doing some consulting for CZW, as well as Dragon Gate USA (which at the time was being promoted by Gabe Sapolski). During this time, I also had a chance to do some play by play for a very tiny indie fed, who’s name escapes me (it’s been 15 years).

I tell you all of this to say that I have experiences in pro wrestling that informed Undisputed and lets me play with kayfabe. I wanted to write a story where the reader isn’t sure if the matches are shoots or works (predetermined or not).

Yeah, I spent a lot of time making sure the pro wrestling in Undisputed was authentic. I wanted to create a thing that people in the business could read, and feel represented. But I don’t think I did so to the detriment of non-wrestling fans. For non-wrestling fans, Undisputed is a fun action story full of characters wearing cool masks, and kicking each other in the face.

The reason I say all this is because there are less than 6 days left in the Kickstarter campaign. It is for issue 2, but issue 1 is available again for anyone that missed the first campaign.

The issue 1 campaign finished with 47 backers. Issue 2 is at 39. My goal is to get 9 backers in the next 6 days. I want to get to at least 48 backers. I want to grow the story’s audience, grow this community. I want more people to read and enjoy Undisputed. So, if you haven’t backed the campaign yet, please don’t hesitate. Time is running out.

Visit the Kickstarter campaign page here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/teamninjashark/undisputed-1-and-2

Thanks everyone for letting me into your inbox.

And remember; support indie comics & support indie wrestling!

I love you,
—pjc.

The Undisputed #2 Kickstarter campaign has hit a plateau. Which I guess happens to every campaign. But we’re stuck at about the $700, with 37 backers. There are seven days left to jump in and support the campaign. If you read my newsletter, or follow my notes, I have to assume you enjoy either comic books or pro wrestling. And I hope I’ve shared enough of myself, my process, and the Undisputed story to convince you that this comic book is worth a couple of your dollars.

The story is very straight forward. Good guy fighter retires as the Undisputed World Heavyweight Champion. Bad guy promoter wants his luchador to be the next Undisputed champion. Good guy wants to stay retired, bad guy wants him to come back to “do the honors” and drop the belt to his boy. How far is the bad guy willing to push? And how far is the good guy willing to get pushed, before he fights back?

We’re crowdfunding issue 2 of a 3-issue limited series. This issue is our “Empire Strikes Back”. We see just how bad things get for the hero, Hack Halloway. In wrestling terms, we’re setting up the “Spirit of ‘76 Comeback”.

If you’re new to the story, you can get both issues 1 & 2 during this campaign. You can also get DRM-free digital copies, or physical copies of both comics.

If you’re ready to support the campaign, you can go to the Kickstarter campaign page.

The other project I’m currently a part of, Sightings: A Bigfoot Comic Anthology, is about halfway to their $4,000 goal. Sightings is 10 stories from 15 creators, clocking in at 60 pages. Each story is about everyone’s favorite sasquatch, Bigfoot. My story also ties in another legend of the Pacific Northwest… D.B. Cooper.

Sightings is edited by Lonely Lemming, and you can see the campaign page here.

WWE announced that Wrestlemania 43 is going to be held in Saudi Arabia. And in the same week, TKO Group announced that they were going to be increasing ticket prices. Neither announcement is a big surprise, but both, I think, are disappointing.

I can’t think of a time when the divide between “upper” and “middle” classes were this wide. Plus, during a time when everything is viewed through a political lens, the choice to host the biggest event in pro wrestling in a hyper-conservative country, with ridiculous wealth. A country that has a horrendous human rights record, and literal “fuck you” money. It just feels incredibly tone deaf.

Add to the fact, that this is basically a bought show. A bought show, if you’re not familiar, is a show that a fan pays for, whole cloth. Like, if you bring in a wrestling school to do a birthday party, that’s a bought show. You get to tell the promoter who you want on the card, and what happens. And if you have enough money, that’s what you get. The Saudis are buying themselves a Wrestlemania. Meaning, that the six months leading up to Wrestlemania 43 we’ll see storylines that are created to justify whatever fantasy booking cockamamie card the Ministry of Sport puts together.

It all diminishes the importance of Wrestlemania to me.

The TKO Group statement piles. When discussing ticket pricing, TKO COO Mark Shapiro said:

"We know we have a lot of room there because Vince McMahon was primarily pricing tickets for families and wasn’t totally focused on maxing the opportunity there. We see what we can do with the UFC and we’re replicating that in terms of ticket yield and advance sales when it comes to On Location on the WWE side."

I get it, TKO Group is publicly traded, and beholden to their shareholders. But when was the last time you heard anyone, anywhere, particularly in WWE say “We’re doing this for the consumer”?

This drive to maximize revenue at all costs has to hit a tipping point. And it has to hit it soon, because I’m sick and fucking tired of “shareholders above all”.

That’s it. That’s all I’ve got.

Support indie comics & support indie wrestling.
Love you,
—pjc

I just checked our Kickstarter campaign page, and we are officially fully funded!

This morning, I added a reward tier for readers interested in getting all 3 cover variants. And a couple minutes after that, two of our backers upped their pledge to that tier, and put us over the top!

It took us way longer to get to $500 than I had hoped, or anticipated. But we got there.

If you haven’t backed Undisputed yet, you can do that by hitting our campaign page.

In other news, Sightings: A Bigfoot Comic Anthology launched today on Kickstarter. Lonely Lemmings brought together 25 creators for a 60-page book featuring 10 stories about Bigfoot. My contribution is called “One Way Ticket”, and the blurb from the campaign page:

D.B. Cooper hijacked a plane—but Bigfoot hijacked his escape plan. A classic unsolved mystery crashes headfirst into cryptid chaos in this wild reimagining of America’s most famous skyjacking. Story by P.J. Curling, art by Emilia Sandu, lettering by Lucas Benedine.

I had a great time working with Emilia and Lucas, and I am very appreciative to the team at Lonely Lemming for letting me be a part of their first graphic novel anthology.

You can check out that campaign on the Sightings campaign page. They’re looking for $4,000 over the next month, and rewards start at $8 for the digital edition.

That’s it for today.

Until next time; Support indie comics & support indie wrestling!
Love you,
—pjc.

Undisputed #2 is $68 away from hitting it’s funding goal of $500. We have 14 pages penciled, inked & colored. 6 pages left to go, and then lettering. The book will be finished very soon.

We’re a year and some change into this project. And it hasn’t always been an easy road. But I still love this story, and I love the art that Francesco Iaquinta and Wedersome Arantes have produced for it. I truly believe it’s a good story, and I think it’s well worth $5 for a 20-page PDF (or $8, if you need issue 1, too).

Give me a chance to tell you a good pro wrestling story. Visit the crowdfunding campaign page at: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/teamninjashark/undisputed-1-and-2

Here’s the most recent page that Francesco finished for us…

The top panel features two characters you haven’t met yet. But you will see more of them in issue 3. And we have the return of our ring announcer, Dr. Carl Martin.

I think that’s all I’ve got for you right now.

Until next time; support indie comics & support indie wrestling!

I want to start by thanking everyone who has supported Undisputed over the past year, from the creative team who are helping bring the story to life, to everyone who’s backed either the first or second campaign. Making an indie comic is a group effort. It’s not lost on me the investment other people have made in this story, be it the artists who have invested time to the backers who have invested money. It takes a village to raise a comic book.

That said, there are a lot of people who get this newsletter who haven’t backed the second campaign, and I want to take a minute to talk to you, and tell you why I think you should invest in Undisputed #2.

Now, I had written a longwinded post giving you four well detailed reasons why you should back Undisputed. But really, it all comes down to the five of us have worked really hard to tell you all a good, old school action story set in a world of professional wrestling where kayfabe is still king.

The crowdfunding campaign for Undisputed #2 is live right now. The campaign is inclusive, if you’re new to the story, you can pick-up issue 1 with issue 2, so you won’t miss anything.

Back to issue 1, we meet Hack Halloway, the reigning and retired Undisputed World Heavyweight Champion. His retirement years are quiet, he spends time with his wife and daughter, and runs a bar called Hack’s Place. That quiet is disrupted by Tigre Negro, who announces his intention to become the new Undisputed World Heavyweight Champion. He’s entered the Open the Chest Tournament, which decides the #1 contender. But Tigre Negro, and his promoter Tino Montez, don’t want Hack to vacate the belt as he intends. They want him to come back and fight one more time. Because like Ric Flair always said, “To be the man, you gotta beat the man”.

Undisputed is a 3-issue limited series, and issue 2 we see just how far Tino Montez and Tigre Negro are willing to push Hack, and how far Hack is willing to get pushed before he fights back.

For fans of pro wrestling, Undisputed is my love letter to pro wrestling. And in an effort to tell the best pro wrestling story possible, I consulted with former preferred promoter at the ECW Arena (now 2300 Arena), and retired vice president of Combat Zone Wrestling, Maven Bentley, esq. Maven, and his 20 years in the business, helped ensure that all the wrestling bits in Undisputed were “right” and authentic. Undisputed is a wrestling story that would fit very well in either Lucha Underground or AEW.

For non-wrestling fans, Undisputed is a classic 80’s straight-to-VHS action story about a good guy who’s retired, and the bad guy businessman who wants him to fight just one last time. It’s got a seedy dive bar, a wife and daughter put in peril, and guys in masks getting kicked in their face.

You can back Undisputed #2 for a little as $5 to get the digital version of issue 2 ($8 for issues 1 & 2 together). Or, $10 if you want a physical copy of Undisputed #2 for your collection.

We need to raise $500 by September 23rd to meet our funding goal. We can do that, but we need your help.

Click here to back Undisputed #1 - #2 on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/teamninjashark/undisputed-1-and-2

Just got this page back from Francesco Iaquinta. This is 2/3rds of page 13, and I’m not going to give you any other context. We have 7 pages left to color, then they’re all going to get sent off to Marco Della Verde for lettering.

I’m starting to rebound from the funk I’ve been in lately. I’m starting to feel a little more upbeat and positive about things, including Undisputed. We’re currently at $337 of $500 needed to fund the campaign after 4 days. I figure we’ll get a bump next week when the Sightings anthology campaign goes live. And there’s one more event I may end up vending at between now and the end of the campaign. We should be able to get to $500.

Undisputed #2 Campaign Menu
Undisputed #2 PDF - $5
Undisputed #1 & #2 PDF - $8
Undisputed #2 physical (any cover variant) - $10
Undisputed #1 & #2 physical - $15
18” replica belt & Undisputed #2 - $70
28” replica belt & Undisputed #2 - $90

If you’re interested in reading Undisputed, you can support the campaign here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/teamninjashark/undisputed-1-and-2

I think that’s all I’ve got for you today.

Until next time; support indie comics & support indie wrestling!

Love you,
—pjc.

Before this post gets too long. I want to let you all know that the Kickstarter campaign for Undisputed #2 just went live. You can check out the page and support the campaign by clicking here.

Now, why is the campaign launching on Monday the 25th instead of Saturday the 23rd, like I had planned? Well, glad you asked…

Let’s jump in the wayback machine a couple days to Saturday morning. I’m up bright and early at 6:30. The plan is simple. Launch the campaign, get in the car and drive up to Leominster for Plastic City Comic Con, and sell the shit out of Undisputed #2.

Want to know what happened instead?

I walk into my office Saturday morning, and instead of waking the computer from sleep, I’m looking at the MSI BIOS screen. I try to boot into Windows a few times, and it just doesn’t work. So now (for the second time this summer), I have a computer that just won’t boot.

Switch over to my laptop, which is running fine, go to Kickstarter, and instead of being able to launch, I have to send the campaign back into review. Rookie mistake. I made changes to the campaign page, and didn’t think that I’d have to get it reapproved. So now I can’t launch on Saturday.

Now, I’m starting to run a little behind schedule, so I jump in my car and drive to Leominster. Get to the venue, and I start setting up, and I realize I forgot the awesome display stuff that I got from Wham! Stands, and my Chromebook (which I was going to use to promote the Kickstarter campaign).

It was a brutal start to the day, I had this plan to have a really cool looking display. Talk to a lot of people and have a great first day of the campaign. Instead, I just had copies of issue 1, the 28” replica belt, and the 3D printed logo on the table.

The convention was tough, too. I had a helluva tough time just even getting people to come over to the table to talk. I’m not faulting the convention. Keith has a great show, and he’s an indie creator, so he knows how to run a show that’s conducive to selling indie comics. But, I mean, I saw a ton of people wearing wrestling shirts. I would always call them out with a, “hey, nice shirt”. And either they would give me a really awkward “thanks” and keep it pushing, or they’d come over, give me their life story, and then walk away. At the end of the show, I had sold 2 copies of Undisputed #1.

The other shows I’ve done, it was easy to explain why I wasn’t selling a lot of copies. The wrestling convention; well, people were there to get Kurt Angle’s autograph, or they were looking for WWE or AEW merch. Library conventions are small, and it’s more about supporting the library than anything else. But this was a comic book convention. I really thought this would be where “my people” were.

And seriously, don’t take this as a knock on Plastic City Comic Con. It was really a great show. A lot of great vendors, and the place was full almost all day. I guess, I just have to figure out a new way to sell the book.

Anyway, after the convention, I went home and had a good dinner with my wife, and spent the rest of the weekend hanging out with her and our dog. So at least there’s that.

I was able to launch the campaign today. The only change I made, since we weren’t able to launch during PCCC, the Tanner Ogle variant cover is now going to be available throughout the whole campaign. Originally, it was going to be a day-1 exclusive. But with how things went, I don’t think that’s fair to Tanner, or to you all. So you’ll be able to get any of the 3 variants (the main one by Wedersom Arantes, the Tanner Ogle, or the Sabu-tribute by Francesco Iaquinta). Later today, I’ll bust up a reward level for anyone who may want all 3 covers.

And with that, Undisputed #2’s Kickstarter campaign is live. Not with a roar but with a quiet “what’s wrong now”. Visit the campaign page by clicking here.

I’ve spent the last year working with the art team, building my community (hi, that’s you), and promoting. I went to conventions and wrestling fanfests, even when I didn’t have an actual, physical comic book to sell, to promote Undisputed. I did a half dozen or so podcasts and YouTube shows (and one terrestrial radio show).

Now, we’re just two days away from launching the Kickstarter campaign for issue 2. But I’m struggling. Maybe it’s the ADHD, maybe it’s just the creative journey for independent creators. But I’m starting to feel disconnected from the story. I haven’t read the script in months. I mean, I don’t have to, I know the story backwards and forwards. But while I’ve been saturated with the marketing and creation of the comics, I feel isolated from the actual story.

To compound that feeling is a feeling of guilt. My editor, Christopher Stevenson, has financed both issues out of pocket. I’ve put up hundreds of dollars myself, I paid for the cover variants for issue 1, and all the marketing materials (flyers, banners, etc) and paid for convention appearances myself. But the bulk of the budget has been funded by Chris. To the point where I feel childish for even pointing out the things I’ve paid for. Now, those of you who are comic book creators know what kind of financial undertaking it can be to finance two comic books. I’m just a writer, which means we’re paying retail for art and lettering. So, 2 books, each 20-pages full color, we’re north of $4,000 just in art and lettering. And now, we’re 2/3rds done. We still have another issue to complete the story that we’ll be campaigning for sometime next year.

I’ve spent this week working on the Kickstarter campaign page. Or, mostly avoiding working on the campaign page. I really don’t know how to sell this issue. I don’t know how to say “buy this issue so we can make issue 3 and finish the story” in a way that entices people to buy issue 2.

Maybe I wouldn’t be this worried if I had taken Tyler James’ Comix Launch course. Or, maybe I would. Maybe every creator feels this way before a launch, and I’m just the only one saying it out loud. And maybe some of you won’t back issue 2 because now you’re worried I’ll burn out before we campaign issue 3.

I don’t know. I just know that on Saturday, I’ll be at Plastic City Comic Con, with a live campaign for Undisputed #2. And whatever happens after that, Chris and I will just have to figure it out.

On Saturday morning, right before I leave to go vend at Plastic City Comic Con, I’ll be pressing the launch button the Undisputed #2 Kickstarter campaign.

The team and I are looking for $500. We are, again, funding the entire issue out of pocket, and the $500 will cover our printing expenses, and pay back my editor Christopher a fraction of his investment. We are nowhere near our breakeven point on this story. And Christopher and I don’t expect to make our money back on Undisputed. That’s not our goal. Our goal is to tell you the story.

This campaign is going to be much smaller in scope than the first. We aren’t going to do an anthology to go along side the digital release. We aren’t doing trading cards. The only extras we’re doing are variant covers and replica championship belts. And we’re only doing the championship belts because that deal is already in place. I want this campaign to be much clearer in it’s goal of showcasing the story. All I want is to share the story with you. I want to make this campaign as accessible as possible to people. You can buy issue 2, you can buy issue 1 & 2, or you can buy issue 2 with a title belt. I want as few reward tiers as possible.

This is all about progressing the story. Issue 1 asked the question, “How far can you push Hack Halloway before he fights back?”. Issue 2 answers that question.

We’ll need about another two months to finish up art and lettering, which puts fulfilment back to about January.

For me, this is the tough part of making a comic book. I finished writing it over a year ago, and we sent the first pages out for art on 8/19/24 (one year ago tomorrow). So the last year has been nothing but trying to promote the book. Approving art, and promoting. That’s a tough slog to get through. Especially since I’ve done precious little writing in the last year. But Christopher and I are determined to finish this project. We are bound to get all 3 issues of Undisputed out into the world.

These are just the dog days for me, I’m both dreading and looking forward to vending on Saturday. I love meeting people and hanging out and talking about comics and whatever. But man, does it drain the battery.

Anyway, I think that’s all I’ve got today.

Remember; Support indie comics & support indie wrestling!
Love you.
—pjc

Also: hit our Kickstarter campaign page and click “Notify Me On Launch”. Click here for the campaign page.

I haven’t shared much art from issue 2, so I wanted to share this piece. It’s page 4, featuring a “conversation” between Hack Halloway and Tigre Negro.

We have page 9 (of 20) pages colored by Francesco Iaquinta, who’s holding the bag on art for all 20 pages in this issue. He’s done a great job, and I’m looking forward to seeing more pages as he finishes them up.

Marco Della Verde is sitting in the wings, waiting to letter.

All covers are done. The main cover was done by Wedersom Arantes (who did some interior pages on issue 1), with variants by Francesco and Tanner Ogle. Tanner’s cover will only be available on day 1 of the Kickstarter campaign. So make sure you click the “Notify me on launch” button to get that piece for your collection.

Undisputed #2 is still on track for an August 23rd Kickstarter campaign launch date.

Last week I recorded a campaign video with in the style of an episode of Long Box Punk. I’ll share that with you all very soon. It was a lot of fun to record.

I may not have mentioned this, but we are continuing our partnership with Undisputed Belts. We will have more mini-replica championship belts available for this campaign. So if you missed out the first time around, you will have a chance to get an 18” or 28” replica of the FMLL Undisputed World Heavyweight Championship belt.

My next con appearance is still set for August 23rd. I will be vending at Plastic City Comic Con in Leominster, MA. So please, come out and say hello.

Coming in September is the Kickstarter campaign for my first anthology appearance. I will have a short story in “Sightings: A Bigfoot Comic Book Anthology” from Lonely Lemming Publishing. I’ll share the campaign page as soon as it’s published.

Aside from that, I saw Superman and Fantastic Four, and enjoyed both. I’ve been bowling a lot, and generally trying to enjoy the summer as much as I can. I hope you’ve been doing the same.

I think that’s all I’ve got for you.
Until next time: Support indie comics & support indie wrestling.

I love you,
—pjc.

Today marks the T-minus 1-month date for the Undisputed #2 crowdfunding campaign launch. It’s time to find the Vin Diesel gears, and get to work.

So here’s where we’re at:

We have art done for 7 of 20 pages. We’ll be about halfway done the art for the book when the campaign launches, and have about 6 pages left when the campaign wraps up. That gives us about 2 months worth of work on the backend to complete art and lettering, and prepare us for printing. If my back of the envelope math is right, that puts us into December for fulfillment. Which isn’t bad, considering there are a couple campaigns I backed years ago that still haven’t fulfilled (I’m not bitter, though).

I’ve decided to lower our initial funding goal back down to $250. We’ll be able to get the art done out of pocket, so we don’t have to worry about meeting a funding goal to pay for the art. My "secret” goal is about $1500, that marks a $500+ improvement from the first campaign.

We will have a couple cover variants available. On day 1 (August 23rd), we’ll have the Plastic City Comic Con exclusive cover that was done by Tanner Ogle. And we’ll have the Sabu tribute cover done by Francesco Iaquinta. We’ll probably also do a sketch cover and a virgin version of Wedersom Arantes’ main cover. So we’ll have 5 covers for issue 2 — as we did for issue 1.

I’m also excited to confirm that we will have our custom replica mini-championship belts from Undisputed Belts available, again.

I am really excited about our Plastic City Comic Con tie-in. That’s a one day convention in Leominster, MA run by Keith Gleason (who lettered the little four-page comic I released earlier this month). My plan is to hit “launch” on the campaign in the morning, before I head to Leominster. Then that day I’ll be selling physical copies of issue 1, and telling people to back the campaign that day to get the exclusive cover. I’m hoping to do a $500 day 1 on the campaign. Optimistic, considering that’s a 3rd of my “secret” goal. But I think if I have a good day at the convention, we can get there.

At some point during the campaign, about the midway point, Lonely Lemming will be launching the campaign for Sightings: A Bigfoot Comic Anthology, which I’ll be in. So we’ll be able to do some cross-marketing with them, and I hope that helps us in that mid-campaign slump zone.

Sorry if this feels like a brain dump. It sort of is. But this is the starting line for the issue 2 campaign for me. And while there haven’t been a ton of Undisputed updates lately, things have been progressing. And that progression will start to pick up some momentum starting today.

But, for now, I think that’s all I’ve got for you. It would be awesome if you would go to our Kickstarter prelaunch page and click “Notify me on launch”. You can do that by clicking here.

Until next time…
Support indie comics & support indie wrestling.
I love you.
—pjc.

Wanted to give you a little traveloge update. I was on a mini-vacation over the weekend. I flew solo down to North Carolina to visit my friend (and one of my two best men at my wedding).

Quick history lesson. A year or so before I moved to New England, I visited my buddy Mike, who lived in New England. I didn’t like where I was living at the time, and wanted a change. So, when my last girlfriend back home and I broke up, I called Mike. Without hesitation, he invited me to stay in his guest room. He also got me two job interviews. So up to Rhode Island, I moved, with $250 and an incoming unemployment check (it was a rough time for your boy). I got settled. Started working three jobs, and eventually moved out of Mike’s place into a rental spot he helped me find. Then, a few months later I started dating a girl Mike had gone to school with (but hadn’t seen since graduation). A few years later, Mike is best man at our wedding. That’s an incredibly compact version of the story.

Anyway, during the pandemic, Mike and his family moved to North Carolina to be closer to his (now) ex-wife’s family. So we don’t get to see each other as much as we did when I was living in his extra room. lol.

My wife, Amanda, chose not to go, and encouraged us to have a great “boys weekend”. And we did.

I flew down to Raleigh on Friday morning and we went to a really good local Mexican spot for lunch. Then Mike had to work a couple hours. But when he was done, we headed over to Durham to watch a Durham Bulls baseball game. The Durham Bulls were the team that Crash Davis played for in the movie Bull Durham. For baseball fans, it was an incredible game. A couple huge home runs, good pitching, and the game came down to a bottom of the ninth walk-off home run.

Saturday was just as laid back. Mike had to work a couple hours again, so I watched some movies and just hung out with his cat, Floyd. Then we went to Bowman Gray Stadium, which is the longest continuously operating NASCAR track in the world. I love short track car racing. It’s very fun, and if you have a track near you, I would highly recommend going at least once. Bowman Gray is known as “The Madhouse”, and if you’ve ever seen a video of two race car drivers fighting at a small track, chances are it’s from here. This place is insane. It’s fully built race cars, running around the outside of a football field. And they get huge car counts, 20+ cars on track at a time. For car racing fans, it’s a “must go” kind of place. Like, Madison Square Garden for boxing fans, or Wrigley Field for baseball fans. So it’s awesome to be able to check Bowman Gray off the bucket list. And the racing was fun. Much better than I had expected.

Sunday Mike and I went to a store called McKays that’s a second hand shop for all things fun. Funkos, music equipment, books, video games and comic books. Mike’s starting to collect comics, and he’s getting into older stuff by rifling the long boxes at McKays. He’s putting together a pretty interesting collection, too. He’s working on a full run of the original Alpha Flight. I saw some really interesting indie books, but didn’t pick anything up (mostly because we just don’t have the room at my place for a comic book collection, so I read everything digitally).

We also went to a Peruvian chicken place called Alpacas. Apparently, it’s a chain in North Carolina. But it was fucking excellent. As was the Mexican place, Los Tres. But Alpacas is like Chipotle for Peruvian. Clean, quick, really high quality meat. It was incredible. I hope the chain moves north. Because I would eat there all the time if they were local.

After McKays, we hung out and played some video games, then it was time to go to dinner with his daughters. My nieces are 6 & 3, and they are wild, and it was pure joy to be able to spend some time with them. I’ve seen them briefly a couple of times when Mike comes up for visits, we can usually do like 15 minute stop-ins between visiting grandparents. But, to be able to spend the afternoon with them was a real treat.

Monday was a travel day. It was great to get home and see my wife. This past weekend was the longest we’ve been apart since we got together in 2018. It was tough, I missed Amanda every second I was away, and it was great to be able to get back home and lay down in my own bed with my wife again.

And now I’m back. Tonight I’ll go bowling, and tomorrow I’ll start to dial-in the Kickstarter campaign page for Undisputed #2 as we get ready for that launch in just over a month.

I think that’s all I’ve got for you now.

So, until next time…
Support indie comics and support indie wrestling!
I love you.
—pjc.

Before you get to the comic, though. I want to remind you that the Kickstarter campaign for issue #2 of Undisputed is coming on August 23rd. On the 23rd, I’ll also be appearing at Plastic City Comic Con in Leominster, MA. People who back on day 1 will be able to get a special PCCC-exclusive cover of Undisputed #2, featuring the art work of the aforementioned Tanner Ogle. (Funnily enough, Keith Gleason is the promoter of PCCC, so Go Tigers! is a bit of a family affair.)

Hope you enjoyed this little short story.

Until next time, support indie comics & support indie wrestling.
I love you,
—pjc.

Three weeks ago, I did an “across the board update” regarding everything that I’ve got going on. It seems, in retrospect, that update was slightly ill timed. A lot of things have happened this month. So let’s get you all the way caught up to date.

Undisputed #2 - we won’t have all the artwork done before we launch the Kickstarter campaign on August 23rd. We will have it about half done. I talked about the economics behind the book and the upcoming Kickstarter campaign a couple weeks ago (read that here). We are starting to get pages back from Francesco Iaquinta, and they look badass. But, with the way things are shaping up, we’re looking at increasing our funding goal from $250 for issue 1 to about $1500 for issue 2. We ended up with just short of $1000 in funding, so we’ll need to increase our final funding by at least 55% to make up for the shortfall we’re looking at. The book will still come out, as will issue #3. Funding will determine the timeline though.

I did submit Undisputed to a couple direct-to-market publishers. Hoping to hook-up with a label so that we can get some in-store distribution. It’s unlikely, but you never know. “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” — Wayne Gretzky — Michael Scott.

One Way Ticket - This is the piece that will be in the Sightings: A Bigfoot Comic Anthology coming up from Lonely Lemming this year. We got an update, and they are set for a September 2nd Kickstarter campaign launch. This is great, because it will run almost concurrently with Undisputed #2, allowing us to do plenty of cross-marketing with each other. One Way Ticket is my first cryptid story, and also involves the legend of D.B. Cooper. You’ll have to wait until the fall to see how I pull that off.

Go Tigers! - I’m not entirely happy with the name. But, that’s what I’m calling the 4-pager that I’ve been working on with Tanner Ogle. Tanner wrapped up the pages over the weekend, and they look incredible. It’s bonkers how quickly he works, especially to put out the kind of quality that he does. If you remember, Tanner also did our Day 1/Plastic City Comic Con exclusive cover for Undisputed #2 (get a look at the cover here). Welcome to the family, Tanner. Anyway, Go Tigers! is our submission for Alterna Comics’ It Came on a Wednesday anthology series. Just waiting for them to come back from the letterer, and then that submission is good to go.

Boston Falling - This is the story that started me on my path in comics. It was originally called Taking Out the Dead. But I was unhappy with the title. I have issue 1 written (32 pages), and I’ve been taking hacks at issue 2 for over a year. I had 18 pages written, and last week I went back and reread them. I realized that I only had about 20 pages worth of story with the way things were going. So I spent a few days trying to convince myself of what I knew to be true. I had to go back and frog about 11 of the 18 pages and go a different direction. Right now I’m at the point where I know I need one of the entourage to die. I’m just trying to decide which one has to go. I’ve written a beautiful death scene for one of the characters, but I don’t think I’m ready to kill that one yet.

PJCurling.me - If you read my notes, you know I’m a huge advocate for every creator having their own website. I did some work on mine over the weekend. I added a photo gallery that I’ll continue to add to, and I added a page with all my fandoms (well, not all my fandoms, but as many as had groups on TheFanListing.org). I want the site to feel a little bit more like a personal site. But I need to keep it on WordPress so that I can continue to use WooCommerce to sell digital copies of my comics. Although, I’m sure there’s a more indie/DIY/punk rock alternative to WooCommerce. If you know of one, hit me up.

For upcoming events. We did not get selected for Worcester Punk Rock Market. Which is an extreme bummer. I was really looking forward to that show. But we will try again for their fall/winter market. I am looking at a couple local craft fairs. Because you never know. If they’re cheap enough, I could sell a couple comics and make some money (which would go towards making issue 2). The big events are coming up in August (Plastic City Comic Con) and September (Southern New Hampshire Comic Bash). Details for those events can be found on my website, pjcurling.me.

I think that’s all I have for you right now. So, until next time.

Support indie comics, and support indie wrestling.
I love you.
—pjc.