CC/Kebec Sculptures by Jake Dowker

Lev Gleason sent out a newsletter yesterday announcing the release of a third Crime Stoppers Special. Click on the cover to purchase. 

A 2024 Crime Stoppers Canada Exclusive! While trying to track down clues to the whereabouts of one of Canada's most wanted, a young security guard stumbles across a car theft ring that puts him in the unexpected position of a teaming up with Canada's greatest hero... Captain Canuck. 

(W) Danny Djeljosevic (A) Mukor Bazan (CA) Angelo Razzano, John Mungiello

Naturally, this put me in a mood to sort through my old content and make some updates to this often-neglected blog.

While looking around for material, I came upon the rather mind-blowing images below.

These were posted on Art Station four years ago, so fans of the Captain and his entourage may well be aware of them already, but I thought I should share them on an "ICYMI" basis.

Click on this link to see more images from Dowker's work on these two characters, as well as one done for Freelance. 

Redcoat Year One Art by Ho Che Anderson

Before going on to update some of the pages around the blog some more tonight, there's something I came across that I think fans of the Chapterhouse characters would like to see. 

Not counting Free Comic Book Day issues, most Captain Canuck series and its spinoffs tend to be four issues in length.

Quite some time ago, I saw a cover for Redcoat: Year One. It was displayed as issue five in the Year one series which, because it went against pattern, caused me to question its authenticity. I thought perhaps it was fan art but then it found its way onto the publisher's Facebook group.

From deep-cover ops to espionage, Lt. Olivia Wallace Yeates is the last of the Redcoats. Our double feature origin rounds off with one of Captain Canuck's greatest ally. Redcoat: Year One, story & art by Ho Che Anderson.

Double feature, you say?

That's right, two days earlier, Chapterhouse displayed a different cover for the same issue, this one featuring Kebec! Apparently this will be a flip book.

If you follow Chapterhouse's social media, this will be a reminder at best. What some may have yet to see is that Captain Canuck Season Five writer/artist Ho Che Anderson shared some of the art on Instagram account well before then (October of last year, in fact). Here it is, and his account is here. 

These are a couple of pages from a story I did for Chapterhouse Comics a couple of years ago that, due to scheduling issues, still hasn't seen the light of day...Soon I'm told. I wrote, drew, colored and lettered this job which was a lot of work but also a lot of fun, and it was the first time I got my hands on a company-owned property since my Milestone days. Doing creator-owned work is satisfying in its own way but it's nice to be invited to play with someone else's toys as well—which, I'm happy to say, is something I'll be doing again shortly. Stay tuned.

"A couple of years ago"...The man did this work in 2017.

I don't believe I've ever seen the fifth issue of Year One officially solicited but #4 was, back in early 2018, and #3 was just made available for order in print. Maybe we'll get to see the rest of this book before long!

Captain Canuck: Year One, Book Three

The Chapterhouse Publishing April 2018 solicitations include the conclusions of seasons two of Fantomah and Freelance, as well as the third book in the "Year One" Captain Canuck mini.

CAPTAIN CANUCK
YEAR ONE: BOOK THREE
Story by Jay Baruchel
Art by Creees Hyunsung Lee
Cover by Creees Hyunsung Lee and Vaneda Vireak 

Continuing the lost tale of how Tom Evans became the hero known as Captain Canuck! 

Assigned to support the notorious mercenary group Parsifal, Tom Evans has used his powers to covertly sabotage their nefarious efforts. Now exposed, Tom is all that stands in Parsifal’s way, unless he can get a little help from everyone’s favourite sniper, Kebec!

$1.99 | 6.25/10.18 | Full Color 

While I normally view solicitations on First comics News first, this time, Newsarama was the first to carry them (as far as I could tell).

The colouring of that cover reminds me of the 3D gimmick from the late 80s or so. I can't imagine Chapterhouse is going down that road so I suspect that the final product will be a lot tighter.

AOP4 Variant

Chapterhouse announced earlier today that several of their books were hitting stores next Wednesday.

That's not huge news in and of itself; these are all books that were solicited quite some time ago. They're all late to various degrees but it's an impressive job of catching up. In a bit more than a week, we're getting...

• Captain Canuck, Season 3, Issue #2
• Northguard, Season 2, Issues # 1 and 2
• Fallen Suns, Season 1, Issues #2 and 3
• Fantomah, Season 1, Issue #4
• Agents of PACT, Season 1, Issue #4

It's that last one that drew my eye to the announcement. Chapterhouse displays covers to all the book above on Instagram. I may simply be forgetting it, but an alternative cover to Agents of PACT #4 was shown and I dig it quite a bit. I thought it was worth displaying here since at the moment at least, it isn't even included on Chapterhouse's own website, that I can see.

Quite sharp, but anything that features Kebec instantly grades high...

Three of those should be hitting my mailbox in the coming days. I've been waiting for Agents Of Pact #4 to be available before reading the first issue of season three of Captain Canuck. It can't get here fast enough.

Chapterhouse February 2017 Solicitations

As usual, First Comics News lives up to its name and is the first site to make the Chapterhouse solicitations available. If someone else does it any faster, by all means draw my attention to it, but I have yet to find another site that does.

Now then...What's going on...

ALL NEW CLASSIC CAPTAIN CANUCK VOL 01 TIME CHASE
DEC161505
(W) Ed Brisson (A/CA) George Freeman 

The Classic series continues will all new adventures of Captain Canuck! Lost in time, Captain Canuck must face aliens, cavemen, Mr Gold, and the new threat of Criterion as he tries to return home.

Ed Brisson (The Violent) teams up with Canuck veteran George Freeman (JLA, Star Wars) to bring you what Graphic Policy calls “A great collection that’s worth the price of admission!” 

Collects All New Classic Captain Canuck #0-4. 

In Shops: Feb 22, 2017
SRP: $19.99

Nice. The third issue of ANCCC was released last week, I believe. Chapterhouse must be fairly confident that they'll get the fourth issue out soon if they are planning to release the trade paperback.

That will be it for Classic Canuck, at least for the time being, sadly. But the supporting cast of the current version will continue to be featured in...

AGENTS OF PACT #2
DEC161502
(W) Kalman Andrasofszky, Blake Northcott (A) Federica Manfredi (CA) Bella Rachlin 

The Chapterverse continues! Barely functioning as a team yet, and the Agents are already outnumbered and outgunned by an army of souped-up Equilibrium agents headed by the Steeltown Hammer! 

Who can even the score? Spoilers: it’s Kebec. 

In Shops: Feb 22, 2017
SRP: $3.99

When I first saw that cover, I believed it was fan art. I may have even referred to it as such on social media, which makes me feel like a dumbass now. Ah well. How the hell was I supposed to know? Unless it started that way and Chapterhouse chose to use it.

In any event, for those of you perhaps newer to this little universe, that would be Fleur De Lys on the left, of Northguard fame. A character by the same name (Manon Deschamps, that is) appears in the Northguard but is significantly older. So there are two possibilities:

1) The cover is not at all indicative of the interior content and simply a pinup. That could well be, artist Bella Rachlin used the pinup hashtag in her Instagram post displaying that same image.

2) Someone else is wearing the suit. The Northguard guard character is significantly different than the original character, the same could be true of Fleur De Lys. And Chapterhouse leaves precious little material unused. So this is something to look forward to.

And finally, we have Freelance...

FREELANCE #2
DEC161503
(W) Jim Zub, Andrew Wheeler (A) Vaneda Vireak (CA) Alexander Perkins 

The Chapterverse continues! 

On the trail of the murderous Apollyon, Lance and his team are led on a journey that takes them from beyond the Nanisivik Rift to the rooftops of Istanbul. 

Debuting in this issue: the mysterious Sidika! But is she friend, foe, or something else entirely? 

Pulse-pounding action, wit, intrigue, and globe-trotting romance as one of Canada’s original heroes is reborn for the Chapterhouse era! 

In Shops: Feb 22, 2017
SRP: $3.99

I admit that I'm not quite into this book. I know that its connection with the other Chapterverse titles will be revealed over time, and hopefully grow, but so far it doesn't grab me. I also personally detest this art style (preview page below copied from, of course, First Comics News).

Not saying it's bad work, just not what I personally enjoy and not what I was expecting.  Nonetheless, I'll get the book and hope to be pleasantly surprised.

My concern now is that when the Chapterverse was announced, it was promoted as being a whole universe for $8 a month. That's OK, but it would suggest that we're not getting any version of Captain Canuck until May at the earliest. That's a long way to go without your flagship character, but we can look forward to his triumphant return. Hell, we've waited much longer between Canuck books in the past, haven't we?

What We Learned From Chapterhouse's January 2017 Solicitations

Yes, I swiped that title from Newsarama (or is it Comic Book Resources? Both? Can't recall).

In early September, Chapterhouse Comics announced that they were going to create a "Chapterverse" in 2017, meaning that many of their titles would be more closely connected. Several projects were announced, among them the two below. There are more titles coming out in January, specifically Die, Kitty, Die and The Fourth Planet, but the two listed here are specifically part of this universe and, therefore, featured here.

AGENTS OF PACT #1
Story: Kalman Andrasofszky, Blake Northcott
Art: Federica Manfredi
Cover: Sanya Anwar

The Chapterverse launches with this brand new series! The X-Files meets Velvet meets Birds of Prey. 

In Canada. There’s an extra-dimensional breach in the Canadian North. Enter P.A.C.T., the paranormal investigation arm of CSIS. 

With Captain Canuck AWOL, P.A.C.T director Manon DesChamps (formerly Fleur De Lys) must forge her own team of super-agents, pulled from Equilibrium, the Aurora Dawn, and other less savoury sources. She affectionately calls them her Fleurs de Conflit but to the world at large, they are: The Agents of P.A.C.T.!

Nice. When this book was announced, Kebec and Redcoat were named as team members but it was implied that there would be more. I guess we have a look at one of them there. Unless she appeared in Captain Canuck #9 and/or Northguard #2 (released simultaneously last month but which I have yet to read), she's a new creation. For the most part, the Captain Canuck books to this point had focused on re-imagining the characters from the 70s and 80s series so it'll be interesting to see how they do with their own creations.

FREELANCE #1
Story: Jim Zub, Andrew Wheeler
Art: Vaneda Vireak
Cover: Alexander Perkins 

The Chapterverse launches, with this brand new series! 

Lance Valiant, John Cabot, and Tasha Kolchak are fearless explorers who delve into hidden secrets of our world and protect us from threats beyond imagination, but the greatest secret of all may be Lance’s own mysterious past! 

Pulse-pounding action, wit, intrigue, and globe-trotting romance – one of Canada’s original heroes is reborn for the Chapterhouse era!

Well this sounds fun, even if a connection with the good Captain's entourage is not immediately obvious.

But then...Does it have to be? The Captain is said to be AWOL in the Agents of PACT solicitation text. Perhaps this group's formation is a response to that as Captain Canuck is unavailable to respond to these threats. Or Freelance can take place in the Chapterverse without a specific tie to Captain Canuck. Hell, not every DC hero has been in the Justice League (it only feels that way).

The only disappointing aspect of these solicitations is...No Captain Canuck (or Northguard) books forthcoming. The last Canuck book solicited was issue #11 and, at least for the moment, it is expected to be available in late November. Maybe Chapterhouse is making sure that the previously-solicited books are released in due time before soliciting new material. We were told both books are continuing, so no concerns along those lines, but we just have to wait a little longer.

Captain Canuck Novel Coming Soon

I guess I'll be adding a page specific to prose.

First Comics News is a great friend to Chapterhouse Books, regularly displaying the publisher's monthly solicitations and frequently reviewing issues of its various titles. FCN posted Chapterhouse's December releases earlier this week and while the next issue in the Captain Canuck comics series wasn't to be seen, it did include a prose novel.

Neil Dougherty kicks off the Captain Canuck novels with The Terror Birds!

Answering a scrambled distress call from an old friend launches Canuck and Kebec into a maelstrom of violence triggering a race against time to foil a terrorist attack. Backed by a fanatical North Korea hell bent on revenge, Goldcorps’ sinister special projects have pushed the dark frontiers of science and weaponized a prehistoric cyborg. Their target – the new Canadian Prime Minister’s first G8 summit in Ottawa. Equilibrium’s two top operators will need all their skill to stop the massacre on the Rideau and push their friendship to its limits as the duo cross Canada on their wildest and most outrageous outing yet.

The cover's quite cool, have a look below.

This is so good to hear. I became a big fan of the now-apparently-dormant Heroes Of The North a few years ago. A big part of their appeal and success, in my view, was that they were sharing their stories through multiple formats. I love that Chapterhouse is willing to utilize a variety of story-telling methods to get material out.

The scheduled release date is December 28th. I'm going to be clearing a little shelf space early in the new year.

Edit: This information wasn't available to me yesterday, but the novel is 160 pages and will be priced at $9.95.