B-Squad Set To Save A Feral Bill Murray From A Masking Tape City

The second issue of Eben Burgoon's B-Squad: Soldiers of Misfortune was released this week. The random-character-killing action-humor comic that's been called if Archer met the A-Team finds themselves at the funeral for their squad-mate lost in Issue #1 – available as a free download on the B-Squad website – before returning to home base in Sacramento to pursue a rogue artist accused of kidnapping Bill Murray and holding him hostage in a city made of masking tape.

The accused artist is Danny Scheible, an real-life artist that works in the medium of masking tape living in Sacramento. Burgoon chose to feature a parody version of Scheible as a super-villian after the two of them met in a creative arts incubator put on by the Sacramento Arts & Business Council. Scheible's award-winning artwork has been featured at several Maker Faire events in the Bay Area, the Exploratorium in San Francisco, and is currently at the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles. The real world version of Scheible's Tape City can fill the floorspace of a 2,000 square foot room, is made up of 10,000+ individual sculptures, and has been his primary expression of his artform, Tapigami, which consists of rolling masking tape into tubes and modular shapes. His portfolio and How-To books are available at: www.tapigami.com

Scheible's Tapigami artwork featuring his creatures and flowers graces the cover of the second issue. Scheible's Tape City setting inside the issue is brought to life by a new art team of newcomer Jon Williams handling the pencils and inks, while Italian colorist Claudia Palescandolo focused on the texture and wild color palette of Scheible's tape creations. B-Squad was once again lettered by Michael Finn and written by series creator Eben Burgoon.

Burgoon says, "The second and third issues were incredibly challenging for me as a writer – mostly because not only do I have to write and create this parody villain version of somebody who has become a good friend, but I also lost two of my favorite characters to the crummy roll of a dice. It's never easy to say goodbye to these characters. Ultimately, I sucked it up, did my job, and wrote a funny kick-ass comic and showcased Tapigami – which for me has been a great source of inspiration as a creative person."

The second issue of B-Squad: Soldiers of Misfortune is available for 99 cents as a digital download on the B-Squad website, and small percentage of the 100 sequentially numbered limited edition print issues were made available as well.

Burgoon's take on his short single issue print runs isn't all about economics, he says, "We live in the era of Netflix and Hulu – we're all binge watching multiple seasons of TV at a time like junkies that must have MORE. That's how I'm approaching B-Squad. I've set out to finance big collections of several issues of B-Squad that will be illustrated all at the same time. Right now, there are 3 different art teams illustrating the next 3 issues and that enables me to jump straight to the collected paperback in January. I give the fans of floppies the collecting challenge coin that reserves 1 of the 100 limited edition floppies, but at the same time the "wait for the trade" people the ability to have that binge reading experience they want. Everybody's happy ideally."

The first Volume of B-Squad, which will collect the first 5 issues and sees 5 of Burgoon's characters perish in various ways will be out in January and is also available for pre-order and should ship out to stores and homes in January.

As a thank you, dear readers, I made a coupon code of "THANKSRICH" so they can download the digital copy of Issue #2 for free over the weekend.

Websites

B-Squad: Soldiers of Misfortune : www.bsquadcomic.com

Tapigami – Touch the Art! : www.tapigami.com