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So let me tell you about a guy named Michael Harvey. He’s an interesting man with fairly simple needs. If you ever met him, he’d come across as just a decent guy. So that doesn’t really seem too special, he just seems like your fairly Average Joe who’s just walking around, the kind of guy you see every day, right? Well… That’s where I’ve lead you astray. Mike Harvey (I call him that because I’m too lazy to say Michael) is one of the more creative people that I’ve had the pleasure to meet. The stories and ideas that he comes up with are just fantastic. So then, you might be asking me, “Fleet, if this Mike Harvey guy is so special, why haven’t I heard about him?” My reply to that is, “I don’t know.” But, this is the opportunity to hear about him now and make your own opinion. So let’s get right to the point. I’m here to tell you about his first printed comic; Knuckle Buster.

Here’s the deal. Knuckle Buster follows the adventures of young Superheroin named Ami. Her name doesn’t stem from some sort of Anime influence, the character is actually named after one of Mike’s friends… Anyways, the first issue follows her on her first day at her new job at Buster HQ. Before I go on, there’s a lot of “Buster” featured in this book.The city is named Buster City, and the primary hero of said city is named Gold Buster… Back to Ami… She ends up meeting her idol, Gold Buster, at Buster HQ, seeing as Buster HQ is like the equivalent of Stark Towers for Iron Man, or the Baxter Building for the Fantastic Four. As she goes about her day, Ami eventually comes across Gold Buster’s armory and finds an old power suit. So after that, Buster City has TWO heroes. Now, that’s a simple enough origin story, nothing long winded or too fantastic. So what we’re left with is a nice lighthearted tale about a girl who wanted to be more, and she got what she wished for. However, that isn’t to say that everyone is happy about there being another hero in town… Which brings us to the real fun.

Knuckle Buster, the story, was designed to be a contained story, meaning that it wont be an indefinite ongoing tale. It has a set ending. And the way Mr. Harvey has set up his story, you can expect something great to unfold in the coming issues. Which brings us to the actual issues. Currently, there are 3 issues of Knuckle Buster available to pick up right now at Star Clipper, however, if you find that we’re sold out of an issue that ruins your set or doesn’t allow you to begin with #1, don’t worry, a trade collecting issues 1-3 is coming out soon. If everything is on schedule, you should expect that by the end of September. But I’m getting ahead of myself… While the comic is Black & White in format, it’s still very easy to get an understanding of how the characters look and where they are in the panel without it looking like garbage. That tends to be a major issue with a lot of independent B&W books, but here, with Knuckle Buster, it’s not an issue. And as I understand it, starting with issue 4, Mike is reworking how he draws each page, promising to include more detail in his art without sacrificing clarity.

So, this brings us to the end of this blog… I just want to state that Knuckle Buster is a fun comic, and it’s loaded with great characters. In fact, we meet all of the villains at the end of issue 3 and we get a great glimpse of their personalities, which should make for a great time once the story advances enough to focus on this characters. Now, I’m not sure if this is set in stone or not, but as I understand it, Mike’s gonna be doing a Book Signing here at Star Clipper on Wednesday, September 30th… (2009) From 6 PM to 8 PM. I believe that he’ll have a nice stock of single issues there, as well as his first collection book. So come on out, support this local artist, and as a result check out the rest of our independent section. There’s a lot of great ideas just sitting around on our shelves waiting to be discovered… Until next time.

-Fleet

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