[mele]

In one of our other infamous off topic discussions, I had mentioned owning a Punisher comic book that was based on frank castle in vietnam and that it used a lot of stuff found in "Marine Sniper". At that point (probably 3 months ago) I promised to look for those books and report what issues they were. Well, it was low priority and I never got around to it until Muzzleblast questioned me about it yesterday. So I went down to where all my old comic books are stored and started searching. Amazingly it only took me about 5 minutes to find them (yes, more than one).

So here is the scoop. The books were two issues of "The Nam". I'm not sure how many of you remember that comic book title, but it ran for a good number of years and told stories/events from the Vietnam conflict. The actual titles read:

"The Punisher invades The Nam".
It is issues 52 and 53 of "The Nam".

The story is about a young army sniper named Frank Castle (imagine that). Some higher ups recruit him to take out an elite Vietcong sniper that has been racking up an impressive kill count. Well, throughout the two issues, they tell the 2500 yard .50 cal story, the 3 day stalk story (he's stalking through the field after the other sniper, not a general) and of course the shooting the sniper through the scope, as well as some other minor events found in the book. They changed the story, but used the events. Its actually kind of cool. The story is purely a frank castle comic book story, they just used some of the events from the "Marine Sniper" book to tell the new story.

If you can find the two books, they are cool. I'd be willing to sell mine for about $3000, or trade for a Parker Hale M85 or Sako TRG-42 in .338 LM :wink:

MEL

 

[muzzleblast]

That's awesome, Mel! I'm gonna run that by my brother, but I am sure you have maybe the only 2 Punisher comics one of us hadn't read yet Thanks for digging those up, and posting the info. I thought Frank was a Marine though :lol:

I'm gonna look into them and see what I can find. If I had a PH, I'd probably actually consider the trade lol.

On a very cool note, a US Artilleryman in Iraq e-mailed my brother yesterday and asked for some comics, so we're gonna ship some out to his unit, along with a few extra goodies.

It made us feel really good that someone over there would ask for our comics, and that we could help him and his friends.

And natch, he was told to stop by Snipercentral

 

[mele]

Excellent! Glad to hear you are promoting the site!! Hum, I think your brother needs to work on the SC comic book.

I only flipped through the comics to remind me of the story, so perhaps he was USMC in this comic.... I'd have to bust them back out and actually read them, but I thought I saw some common Army terms.... my apologies if I got that detail wrong. Oh, one other detail, these two comics show the origin of his skull symbol, you should find that interesting!

MEL

 

[muzzleblast]

Hey, I figured it would be cool to have him here at the boards, and if his unit needed anything, people here would be glad to help.

An SC comic, hm? Great idea! We could have all the adventures...could probably write a dozen or so about Spade :lol: ...One shot stories about all the regulars..Any ideas in mind?

Now that I do have to check out, I need to see where he gets the idea for the skull!

I had been pretty sure he was a Marine before, but the timeline is kinda messed up now. I'm pretty sure he was a Captain when he came home though...Too bad. He shouldn't have been an officer :lol:

 

[Recoil]

*Deleted*

 

[mele]

I had been pretty sure he was a Marine before, but the timeline is kinda messed up now. I'm pretty sure he was a Captain when he came home though...Too bad. He shouldn't have been an officer :lol:

Yeah, he is for sure a Seargant in these two books, perhaps a field commision later during his time.

Well, we could have the serious SC comic book, and then the SC members comic book... which would probably be more like a sunday funny :lol:

MEL

 

[muzzleblast]

Jeff_850 would make a great Punisher, We could have war stories by BC and K2 and the other high speed heroes, and maybe a Blackbird comic about Mel's team.

The funnies need Mad in there, coutroom drama and off the wall humour

 

[mele]

Heheh.... yeah, Mad's stories would fill the comic strip for years!

Boy, we could have a purely sniper comic book. Similar to how "The Nam" was setup. There would be stories told about various snipers and teams, not necessarily related to each other. One month story about BC, the next about Kenshin, the next about one or our Norway brethren, etc. You'd end up seeing several issues over time about the same team, but generally not an ongoing series. (perhaps an occasional 2 or 3 issue story could be told).

Of course, names would be changed....

MEL

 

[muzzleblast]

I think I've got it...War on terror comics for the current guys, like BC, Brian Phinney, Poundcake, et al...

"The Nam" issues for the guys who were there, like K2 et al...

And good point about the bros from Europe. I'm sure Caban, Nek, Kamatz, and their crew would love having books of their own.

Kenshin could star in the Canuck books, and I have enough stories from my friends that can turn people's hair grey from Bosnia and The Ghan. Soon to be Darfur, Sudan as well. We all know every good Superhero series needs a Canadian, look at Wolverine!

The pure sniper comic is a great idea. That one could just be called "Sniper Central"..with plenty of ads for Mel and Adopt a Sniper and likewise organizations there...

A good "Homeland Security" book would be nice, showing guys like Mel and Mlammers at the range, learning and teaching how to take down terrorists, and then going home to their families, to show the human side of our soldiers.

Ah, Mel...turns out I have the first couple issues of "the Nam"...They're about a Marine named Joe Hallen, on an LRRP...do you have those ones? My brother also wants to know...Are the ones featuring The Punisher written by Dixon? He says he thinks he knows of them.

And for all the guys who like military comics, check out the recent remake of Sergeant Rock, in graphic novel format...Good stuff!

Oh-kay, thats enough funny book geekery from Muzz for one day lol.

 

[Recoil]

*Deleted*

 

[mele]

Great point recoil! I think the "Sniper Central" title should certainly include military as well as law enforcement.

Muzz, your brother going to pencil these for us? :wink:

MEL

 

[muzzleblast]

Easy now, I had LE in there as Homeland Security as Mlammers :lol:

Ah, but I wish he could Mel, things at the shop are running around the clock as it is! I can't say what but some big and very cool things are happening.

We can look foreward to seeing a picture for Mel's video game, a splash panel sorta thing, for probably the start of July. If Mel likes it when he sees it, I'll ask him if I can post it here as a preview.

 

[mele]

Sure thing, if its hot, posting will only be a good thing!!

In terms of the artist, I think I just found one. There is a young kid (17 yo) in our church here that is an amazing artist and comic book fan. I talked to him last night about our little project and he is very interested. I don't know if he can ink (color) it also or not. But I've seen his pencil work, and its very good.

Perhaps muzz you can provide some details of how we could publish if we were to actually get serious (gee, I wonder if there are any other projects I could do also) :wink:

MEL

 

[muzzleblast]

Sure thing, Mel. If anything happens with it, giving the lad a job like this one could really help him break into the industry, if he decides to pursue it. If it ever becomes a go in the future, I could try to hunt you down a good, cheap working inker. I know alot about the costs and procedures of having a limited run, bimonthly title printed.

If you do go ahead with it, you'll probably have to self-distribute though. There's only one "real" distibutor and it would mean trying to run with Marvel, DC, et al.

If it ever turns into something, go ahead and let me know, please. I'll do what I can to help and my bro would be a good source of info and talent hunting.

Scatch, what do you think of your books, man?

(Gotta love working on a million big projects, huh Mel?)

 

[mele]

I think I'm going to try to help this kid out. He is a really good kid and I like him a lot. It would be fantastic to be able to get him something to put on his resume for the future.

Self distributing wouldn't be that big of a deal. We have a decent audience that comes to the site, and I suspect the word about a good comic purely about sniping and sharpshooting would spread through the community fast. I would be willing to attempt a limited run to see how it pans out.

If you get a chance muzz, shoot me some info about cost to publish bi-monthly. I better start punching some numbers before deciding to jump in with both feet.

MEL