Posted in: Comics | Tagged: comics curse of the vessel, entertainment, kickstarter

Curse Of The Vessel: Guns, Ghosts, Magic, & Mayhem

Published Sun, 22 Dec 2013 16:00:29 -0600

Curse of the Vessel is a supernatural crime thriller, written/created by Michael Leal, penciled by Mike Wilson and colored by Michael McElveen. The Kickstarter campaign is running until Jan 10^th2014.

We asked Leal… what's it about?

Vincent Faustino has become an involuntary vessel for the dead.
Once a brutal mafia enforcer, now his life is not his own. He has been branded with a magical sigil that allows spirits to possess his body at will. On the run from both his deadly former associates and law enforcement, he is wanted for murders and events he has no memory of. Vincent relentlessly hunts the man who cursed him, continually being hijacked by restless spirits who have their own personalities and agendas, both good and evil. This is the torture he must endure. This is the punishment for his evil past. Vincent Faustino is forever "The Vessel".

People have often asked me where I got the idea for Curse of the Vessel. I answer that question with a few of my own. Have you ever seen a ghost? Do you believe that they're real? If so, what do you think they want? In 2010, I was living in a house that was definitely haunted by something.

From a very young age all I wanted to do was make comics. However, life did not turn out the way I thought it would. Turns out I was, in fact, not Jim Lee. I finally gave up on comics when my son was born in 2009. I resigned myself to "being normal" and working my night job for the rest of my life. It was a very dark time for me. However it turns out the comic gods were not done with me yet.

From the day we moved into the house on Glisan Street, there were odd creaks and bumps in the night. We paid it no mind. It was probably just the cats. Funny story, all the cats died over a two year period and guess what, there were still creaks and bumps in the night. Over time things became harder and harder to dismiss. There were disembodied voices calling our names, footsteps going down the stairs, rushes of cold air and we were touched by icy invisible hands on a few occasions. I even have a video of my wife singing to my son at bed time when she is interrupted by a disembodied voice. We don't know what it said exactly, but my son stopped, turned and replied to it "I'm just sleeping." Creepy!

At this time I was also devouring endless episodes of the true crime reality shows, The First 48 and Manhunters. I found it to be very intriguing television. These things, the ghostly activity and true crime influences, stirred around in my brain. I wondered if what was happening was really real and if it was real why these ghosts were still here. What did they want? Were they murdered like the people on these shows? Were their deaths never explained? Are they lost? Are they angry?

That's when Small Press Idol happened and I was asked by Erik Hendrix, the 2009 winner and one of the current Judges of the contest, if I wanted to participate. That's how Curse of the Vessel was born. Half crime story, half ghost story about a man cursed to give spirits a chance to finish their unfinished business. One may just want to say goodbye to a loved one, one may want to kill a guy for wronging them, and one may even want to solve his own murder. There were so many things I could do and stories I could explore; the idea became intoxicating to me.

My team produced a zero issue and went on to win Small Press Idol 2010 with the most votes in SPI history. Afterwards we all went on to do other things. I did some writing for a number of projects including Commander X Adventures, articles for Zedura Magazine and most recently I wrote a few stories for Bela Lugosi's Tales From The Grave with Nik Poliwko, one of my teammates from SPI. It's the official Bela Lugosi comic. You should hunt that down online or at your local comic shop. It's a cool book!

Over the years, Vessel was always in the back of my mind. Now after all this time it has finally willed its self back from the dead. You can help us keep this one of a kind comic alive by pre-ordering the book from our Kickstarter. Each issue is jam packed with dangerous gangsters, powerful witches, grizzled lawmen and vengeful spirits. We have a lot of great backer rewards including artist commissions and original art pages from the book.

We have a special deal for Bleeding Cool readers! Once you pre-order send us a message saying Bleeding Cool sent you and if you have a shippable reward level we will send you an exclusive bonus print of the Joëlle Jones cover!

The book is done and ready to go to the printer, we just need a little help. If this Kickstarter is successful we will continue on and explore as many stories as people want to read. So, check out the link and get in on the ground floor of an epic supernatural journey!

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!