Progress on the G-Man restoration project is moving forward. I finished and posted 4 pages today, and plan to do another 4 tomorrow. Actual continuous plot will begin in about 12 pages, because the story was always ever-evolving into something grand and special (and I always hoped, funny).

The thing that you have to keep in mind when reading G-Man is that I was working on them during classes in high school. They're mostly all on lined paper, and there are a lot of concepts and topics in them which could be considered insulting and derogatory to some readers. Later on in the series, I started trying to put in content about current events (ie: gays in the military, illegal aliens from Cuba, corruption in the White House, raciests in the south, and pop-culture movie references / paradies). The intention is not to be insulting, but some stories and characters might come off that way. Just keep in mind, these were created back in 1997-2000, when I was 16 or so, and they mostly involve G-Man and T-Man trying to impress women and save the world from the forces of "evil."

Characters:

Dr. Shnitziel: A character from the movie of the same name (created by Jeremy and I back in high school), Dr. S started off as a Professional Neck Cracker while working in Canada. While there, he met a beautiful woman who later went missing (more on her, later). Dr. S, paranoid as he is, believed that the Canadians took her, and vowed to hate Canadians for the rest of his life. After returning to the USA, he took up profession as a psychologist, and usually sent his patients to Mott's Hospital for the Criminally Insane. There they met the Warden, who mistreated his patients and eventually battled Dr. S for their freedom.

One Eyed One Horned Flying Purple People Eatter: This creature was called forth from the Black Abyss, and was befriended by G-Man when he introduced it to tomatoes. Now strickly vegitarian, the creature has become G-Man's pet. The only real word that he knows is "tomatoes," and he eats constantly. Think of him as a less-marketable Pokemon....

G-Man Jr.: Actually the great great grandson to our present-day G-Man, G Jr. came back in time to visit his father, only to be caught up in events that would ultimately shape the destiney of our world forever, and the fate of our heroes. This character comes into play much much later in the story, and plays a significant role towards the end. He continuously calls G-Man his daddy....

And it's finished. This is the last page of the original series of The Temple of a Thousand Tears! However, I will eventually get around to working on the 2 prequels and sequel, once time allows.

Thanks to everyone who stuck with me, through the good times and bad, and who read the thing all the way through. If you feel like posting any comments about it, feel free to do so on either my MySpace account, or on the Exile forums. I would be very interested in hearing everyone's feedback, both positive and negative (what you liked, what you didn't, what you'd like to see more of / know more about, what you could do with less of, etc), so please leave a message or a post and let me know what you thought.

My next project will be the G-Man restoration, some more stuff for the Exile (now that Scott's working on new code for the forums and the site), and some original stuff for both @$$hole and G-Man! I'm also scripting the prequels and sequel to Temple, which some of my friends are going over to look for plot holes and character developmental issues.

Presently, I've been super busy with job hunting (yet again). I've been putting applications out to retail stores in the area (to which I've have some marginal response), and to a few advertising agencies. I don't really want to work retail anymore, so I think that focusing on ad agencies is the way to go. We shall see what the future holds for me.

Thanks again for reading, and I look forward to your comments!

So, now that Temple's officially finished (well, on Thursday it will be), I've begun restoring more of the old G-Man series (which I worked on back in high school, and it's on lined paper...so it looks horrible). I'm doing this because 1) I love the characters, 2) I enjoy the stories, and 3) I have some ideas for new stories, but it would require the reader to have a working knowledge of what came before...so, the original series.

I'm going to try to get a few pages done each week (I can get 2 pages done per day, if given enough time to work on them), and then try to get some original stories done that don't require knowledge of the original series (which will be difficult, since I introduce a lot of major characters down the road in the series). At the risk of spoiling anything that happens, I'm going to include a brief description here of some of the characters and major plot elements:

Characters:

G-Man: G is based on my friend, Jeremy Galimberti (G-Man), who loves to eat food and is quite the lady's man. I was reading a book entitled How to be a Superhero: Your Guide to Saving the Galaxy, and decided to use some of the jokes and ideas from it and form my own superhero story about a guy who protects food. He doesn't have any special superpowers (until one story, much much later), and he doesn't have any real hidden past...he's just obsessed with the protection of food! His adventures, however, become quite legendary, as he's battled off aliens from steal Earth's supply of women and chocolate, and clowns from going back in time to steal various ingrediants to create a giant pie!

T-Man: T is based on myself, all the way down to my goofy haircut from high school. The more grounded of the two, T-Man is very much an eccentric version of myself. He's quick to action, and incredibly loyal to his friends. This character wouldn't work without G-Man, because by himself, he's not very funny. However, the two characters playing off of each other are quite hillarious! Their adventures have taken them all over the world, and even into the bowels of the Superhero League's secret halls, to receive awards for their efforts. T-Man and G-Man are not partners nor side-kicks, they're just friends that occasionally (very often) team up to battle the forces of evil. Once, T-Man was held captive by his enemies and asked, "What do you protect?" and his answer was a simple, "I am T-Man: The Defender of the Defender of Food!"

The Alien: I never named this character, but she started out as a villian trying to steal Earth's food supply and sell it on the intergalactic black market. G-Man successfully stopped her, however, by pointing out that she had no hair and bad eye sight! She became stranded on Earth, and started managing a Big Boy in Saline...until later adventures forced her to team up with T and G, and she absorbed the awsome power of the Magic Wand! She later falls in love with T-Man, and the two become an item.

In the end, there can be only...well, one. But in this case, there's two!

So, this is it: the final two pages! The Journey is over....the battle has ended....the fighting has stopped....but what will happen to the characters that survived? Will their world ever be the same again? Find out next week!

And what of the Seven Lost Keys of Abraham? Well that, my friends, is a tale for another time....

In all seriousness, though, I'm thinking about doing the two chapters that I cut as prequels, and then writing a sequel to answer any and all plot holes that might exist from this story...and to wrap up the story of the characters that made it. Here are the titles that I'm thinking:

The Temple of a Thousand Tears: The Legend of Abraham
The story would cover the complete legend of Abraham, and how his actions inspired an entire religion. It would also go into more depth into the Seven Keys and each objects significance, as well as the role of the gods in the land of the mortals. I think it would help flesh out the world a bit, which was the original intention.

The Temple of a Thousand Tears: Bushido
This would be about the swordsman's history, about how he came to meet his family, and how he failed them. I tried in the regular Temple story to show how much he cared for his family, and how important they were to him, but in the end I'm just not sure that it was enough. Also, there's a little traggedy that led to him being in the valley in the first place....

The Temple of a Thousand Tears: Holy War
This story would focus mainly on the survivors from the original series, and how the world has changed based on their actions. I'm thinking it'll take place some 30 years later, and deal with some of the issues that I feel are important in today's society, but put them in the context of a sci-fi / fantasy world (so no one gets insulted or bored by preaching). I have a few ideas on where this story would go...some of them I like more than others, so I'm in a pre-production editing phase right now, as this story hasn't already been written yet (while the other two were originally written to be a part of the regular series).

Post on the forums, let me know what you think. Also, give me feedback on the series. Did it make sense? Did you like the characters, the art, the coloring (towards the end)? What would you like to see more / less of in my future projects?

Thanks again for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this series as much as I have!