Thanks to everyone who came out to see us at NYCC - it was a great show, and we love making new friends. If you’re down Austin way this weekend at STAPLE, be sure to stop by and see Steve Goldman at the Styx Taxi/ ChemSet table and shake hands with him (or buy him lunch, y’know, whatever). Also, the featured guest is Act-I-Vate guru, all-around gentleman and friend-of-The Chemistry Set Dean Haspiel, so go show him some love.

Dig!
–Kev

View the Hunt Thus Far

Join the Crew at

Welcome back to TODT HILL, everyone! Thanks for bearing with our extended break, for which I take full responsibility (don’t shoot the writer). I’ve been playing catch-up on some paying work and putting the finishing touches on some really big, soon-to-be-announced projects as well (I also got married somewhere in there, too).

Be sure to check out the Chemistry Set table today and all weekend at NYCC, where Neil and I will be lurking much of the time, and check out the first part of TODT if you haven’t already!

Love and stuff,
Kev

View the Hunt Thus Far

Join the Crew at

TODT HILL, an adventure strip by Kleid & Colden, updates here every Friday… but is going on winter break! We’ve just wrapped the first issue of our epic story and before we dive in to the next issue we’re taking a much needed short hiatus. Starting next week, we’ll be running a short story by Neil and artist Jamesmith and then come back guns blazing with TODT HILL, Issue Two! See you in 2007!

-Neil

View the Hunt Thus Far

Join the Crew at

TODT HILL, an adventure strip by Kleid & Colden, updates here every
Friday.One week to go until the end of Issue One, folks!

-Neil

View the Hunt Thus Far

Join the Crew at

TODT HILL, an adventure strip by Kleid & Colden, updates here every Friday. The dialogue in panels two through four is the exact thing I used to say when I was frustrated as a kid. And now you know.

-Neil

View the Hunt Thus Far

Join the Crew at

TODT HILL, an adventure strip by Kleid & Colden, updates here every Friday. Officer Safety says be careful when riding your bike, kids.

View the Hunt Thus Far

Join the Crew at

TODT HILL, an adventure strip by Kleid & Colden, updates here every Friday.
Kids can be so damn touchy.

Appearance Note! Neil will be signing copies of his graphic novel,
BROWNSVILLE, at the NBM Publishing table during the Small Press Book Fair
this Sunday, December 3rd, at 20 W. 44th St., between 5th and 6th. Come down
and say hello and talk like a pirate. Arrr!

View the Hunt Thus Far

Join the Crew at

TODT HILL, an adventure strip by Kleid & Colden, updates here every Friday.
Preach on, Officer Tompkins and have a Happy Thanksgiving weekend!

View the Hunt Thus Far

Join the Crew at

This week, Kevin takes a much needed break from drawing pirates and
teenagers and will return with fresh new pages next week. In the
meantime, we thought we might take a moment to familiarize you good
adventure seeking folk with the people you might see on the streets of
TODT HILL.

The Hill, as most realize, mirrors present day Staten Island but I’ve
often referred to it as Staten Island if it were OZ, the maximum
security prison immortalized in the HBO series of the same name. OZ
focused on the inmates of the Oswald Correctional Facility and more
specifically a forward thinking unit known as Emerald City. The show
broke analyzed the various societies in Oz, following them as they
intertwined and interacted with each other, usually with dire and
fatal results. There were the Gangstas, Aryans, Muslims, Christians,
Sicilians, Bikers and more and the fascinating moments were always
those that spotlighted the differences between them and what happens
when one society comes head to head with another - the regular joe who
wants to learn the Koran, for instance or the many
Aryan-Muslim-Sicilian or Gangsta-Latino-Sicilian struggles.

The streets of Todt Hill bring various societies head to head as well:
The Mafia, The Peruvians, The Pirates, The Cops and The Suburbanites.

THE MAFIA
“Johnny Boy” Paglia is one of the surviving members of the Bonnano
Crime Family stretching back to the formation of the Five Families.
Joseph Bonnano granted Johnny his own family in 1957, dividing his
responsibilities between Long Island and the burgeoning offshore
community of Richmond Island. The Paglias began with rackets and
gambling and eventually worked up to protection and miscellaneous
instances of theft. At the turn of the century, Lily Lips Paglia,
Johnny’s grand-niece, set the family up into the world of online
crime, spreading into credit card fraud, internet blackmail, pyramid
scams and more. When zombies appeared in Richmond in the late
Nineties, word got back to Johnny and rumors of hidden wealth inspired
him to transfer all operations and families to Richmond proper, taking
residence in the wealthy neighborhood of Todt Hill – which would one
day be a name the entire island would casually adopt. The Paglias
control all illicit activities on Todt Hill, fearing no repercussions
from a government that won’t step on the Hill to investigate their
actions. The local police turn a blind eye to their activities,
forming an uneasy alliance with the mobsters who help keep the streets
safe for a small fee. The Paglias know that the cops and regular folks
of Todt Hill are the side to fall on against zombies and money hungry
Pirates but the mob has spend a decent chunk of change trying to
uncover the one island secret they don’t know about – and no friendly
neighbor alliance is going to stop them from finding it. They’ve as
of yet been able to find anything and the police are becoming less
helpful and less trustful. Something might have to be done. Someone
might have to be made an example of. Maybe this new cop… the mouthy
one that hasn’t yet learned the way things work on the Hill.
Whatshisname? Tompkins.

THE PERUVIAN ZOMBIES
Their lands were raided, women raped and treasures stolen. Shamans
were burned at the stake and burial tombs defiled. Now, centuries
later, they have followed the trail left behind by the vermin that
swooped in on the ocean waves and killed their way of life. They can
feel a siren song calling them back from the land of the dead onto the
islands of the devil. Single-minded in their search, seeking out coins
whose curses failed and sacred idols to gods that did not help them
survive the storms, they are driven by all-consuming passion: revenge.
Until their treasures are returned, no man, woman or child on Todt
Island is safe from their grunting, prodding, poking and weekly
prayers to the gods above in Hill Harbor Park… to the dismay of those
who live there. At first the Peruvians were violent and pushy –
demanding virgin sacrifice, claiming offerings to the gods would help
them find the treasure, avenge its loss and allow them to continue to
Paradise. But it’s been ten years and during that time they’ve gotten
a little lazier… more accustomed to their surroundings. They found
homes and took jobs to pass the time. One drives a local bus and
another operates a well-liked candy store. The police have forced them
to stop taking human sacrifice and the mafia supplies them with cattle
they can barbecue to their gods instead – for a price, of course,
forcing more of them to take jobs. Most of the zombies cannot
communicate in more than two syllables but some of them – like their
grand shaman, learned the language by finding living accommodations
near libraries, universities and local college professors. The shaman,
Sunder Sulah, is their liaision to the other societies – not because
he can talk but mostly because he smells the best and has taken care
not to let his body decay too much. They try and live by the rules but
push a zombie and he’s going to push back. Sometimes he’ll take a
bite, too. But if you’re smart and careful you can avoid that by
offering him a Krispy Kreme donut. Peruvian Zombies love Bavarian
Kreme. With sprinkles.

THE PIRATES, CORPORATE AND OTHERWISE
Once their fathers sailed the seven seas, raiding shores and stealing
booty from noble, law-abiding suckers. Now generations past have
returned to claim their rightful inheritance – the vast and
inexplicable treasure secreted away beneath Todt Hill by their
great-great grandfathers, step-fathers, uncles and more. Piracy is in
their blood but rather than swing from ship to ship on riggings and
masts, sabers clutched in teeth, they perform their raiding tactics
from offices and boardrooms, flashing subpoenas and work orders in
their well-manicured hands. Some display their familial legacy like
kitsch, using their pirate background as a form of eccentricity, and
others shun it, claiming they’re just after what’s coming to them.
They are Pirates all, occupying well-to-do areas of the island and
fighting with the mob community for more acreage while defending
themselves from Peruvians set upon taking revenge on the sons and
daughters for the sins of the father.

THE SUBURBANITES
They’ve been living in Richmond since before the freaks arrived, drawn
by something they could never put their finger on. Who would want to
live on Richmond Island, anyway? Two bridges and heavy tolls in both
directions to a landfill at the bum end of New York? How
geographically undesirable can you get! For that time and money you
might as well live in Jersey or Brooklyn. But something called to them
and now they know what it is: the treasure. Surrounded in the only
gated community in the area to be gated by the Marines, the residents
of Richmond Island try to make what sense they can of their towns and
communities while enduring mafia-pirate knife fights, weekly zombie
barbecues, interminable supermarket lines brought on by ebb and flow
of supply and demand and constant police presence on every city block.
For the most part they haven’t let it get to them. Oh, there are the
occasional nut jobs like Old Grinning Bastard, the guy who runs the
only gourmet deli on the entire island since the meat drought (where
does he get his meat?!!); Mayor Theodore Huxtable Bailey, youngest
Mayor in Richmond County, brought up by parents who let television
affect their life way too much; Shana McSeamus, Realtor extraordinaire
who can sell a fabulous studio with dim lighting to a Peruvian zombie
who just needs a place to rest his head; Often Johnson, Todt Hill’s
resident superspy and master of intrigue; and Mister and Mister John
and Johaan Todt, gay undertakers with mortuary chains all along the
island.

Welcome to Todt Hill. Population: Fifteen Men on a Dead Man’s Chest.

See you here next week with more pages.

-Kleid

TODT HILL, an adventure strip by Kleid & Colden, updates here every Friday. Enough of this flashbackery! Next week - we let Colden take a small break and rest his widdle head as Neil offers a lay of the land. Heh. We said “lay.”

View the Hunt Thus Far

Join the Crew at