David Lapham has made the first four issues of Stray Bullets available for free. He is also selling original art at the site.
So why is this a big deal? Because Stray Bullets is creator owned and self published (which doesn't have the same stigma attached to it in the comics industry) it has slipped in and out of print over the years.
While some would argue that Frank Miller is the father of the modern crime comic I say it's really David Lapham. For Miller style was the main thing, he wanted to create a stylized world with surreal baddies and he did. But Lapham's vision was grounded more in the real world. His fingerprints are all over the current generation of crime comic creators. Or to put it even simpler still, without Stray Bullets there wouldn't have been 100 Bullets or Criminal.
The series remains unfinished to this day with only one more issue needed for completion. Lapham has a new Stray Bullets story in the new Noir anthology from Dark Horse. He returned to crime comics a couple of years back with the standalone Silverfish.
Here is the link to his site and from there you can either navigate to the sale or free reads section:
http://www.innocenceofnihilism.com/SBMAIN.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 06 Nov 2009 EST