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Free Comics From Marco Lopez

Marco Lopez writes,

My name is Marco Lopez and I am a writer and I make comics. I mean, who doesn't make comics? With the technology, we have at our fingertips and the internet. Saying I can't really isn't a good excuse. And yes, you can always go on about how it's hard to find collaborators that are willing to work for free, but nothing was ever gained in life without a bit of hard work and like they say it takes money to make money. So go without a few of the luxuries in life and you will probably get to where I'm at or even further. Now about those comics I make.

My website is called Atomic Rex Entertainment.

Interesting name right? Like all good things, it came out of a conversation with a friend on story ideas and names for a band. I co-own the site with a fellow named Eugene Selassie. Another writer such as myself who is also working on making his way into the comic book industry. The site acts as a digital publisher/portfolio. Now one of these works hosted on the site could get released via Comixology and it was but the reason it's no longer is long and boring and a story for some other time.

Currently, I am putting out three different series. Two sporadically and the third on a constant basis. The reason why two of them are sporadic? Well, when I have the money to pay artists and my letterer that's when work for those get done. Usually in bulk. The other series is one that's basically a long time in the making (literally 6 years long) and now that it's 100 percent complete and the deal with the publisher fell through I figured why not release it for free. I think in the long run it will do a lot more for me than trying to find another publisher.

Now a little about these three series.

The first one is called Orion's Belt.

It's a series of comic strips. Like the Sunday funnies, but each strip is a snapshot in the life of an Afro-Latino couple, Jim and Katherine Pimentel, and their kids and the insane sci-fi adventures they get themselves into. So far there are 11 strips with a 12th one being worked on currently. The plan is to do 25 strips in total with the last 14 telling one story across the remaining strips. The first two were drawn by Luisa Russo and the rest were drawn by Chris Winters and Jose Marono with FANTASTIC lettering by DC Hopkins. He also designed the series title as well.

The second series is called A Shot of Whiskey.

DC Hopkins letters these as well and designed the title. A Shot of Whiskey is basically a series of 1-4 page genre stories. Generally, when people want to get into the industry, they make the mistake of creating this giant magnum opus to try and get out there or to get them noticed. When that is the biggest mistake one can do. Sometimes it's the small things in life that offer you the biggest amount of success. All of my Whiskey stories were drawn and in the case of the last one colored by Robert Ahmad. A phenomenal artist who I adore working with. He has a very Bruce Timm, Darwyn Cooke inspired art style. We're currently working on a 4th story together, that's going to be a 4-page tale of action, intrigue and bad ass woman kicking alien ass.

So now this brings us to the last bit of work on the website. It is a comedic superhero buddy story called Massively Effective.

Imagine Blue Beetle and Booster Gold but filtered through the 80's Saturday Morning cartoon mentality. And that's what this comic pretty much is. It originally was started in 2010 but life, tragedy, and other such things got in the way of its completion and now six years later it's finally done. It is a 75-page story that will be released three times a week. Every Mon, Weds, and Friday until its completion and then hopefully afterward published in a trade with some of the other above stories.

All of the above comics are free and will always be free on the site. I'm basically taking my hard earned money and instead of talking the talk I'm walking the walk and it's helped. I have a comic book coming out next month from Zenescope Entertainment. I wrote issue 11 of Grimm Tales of Terror and I currently have another pitch in with them. I'm also doing some work for Lion Forge comics and talking to another publisher. So I guess I am proof that if you work hard, get some self-published comics out there that it could lead to paying gigs and a break in the industry.

Who knew? Well, everyone who kept repeating that mantra over and over again at conventions whenever the question how do I get into the comic book industry was asked. Either way. I hope you enjoyed this article. I hope you check out some of my work and please follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. And COMING SOON the website will have a newsletter, you can sign up for as well. Also, if you like my work and the artists and letterer involved, please share that work on your social media accounts. It helps. A LOT!

Atomic Rex Entertainment Facebook Page

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