Five tales of one of comicdom's original androids... and OGL Modern rules!

Androids are a mainstay of comics, and in our new comics/rpg hybrid book, Dynamic Man, NUELOW Games presents the adventures of one of comicdom's earliest androids--before he was ret-conned into a high school basketball coach named Bert. As far as we know, this is the first time these stories have ever been collected in one place.

Art by Bill Madden & Charles Sultan

Dynamic Man features five tales of superhero action straight from the Golden Age of Comics. In addition, it contains rules for creating your own super-powered android player characters for OGL Modern and other d20 System-powered games that use feats and talent trees. (This system is fully compatible with other NUELOW Games OGL supplements, such as Feats of Mysticism and Magic and the superpower rules in Madden's Boys.)

Click here to get your copy of Dynamic Man, or to see previews.

Election Day 2014... with Dynamic Boy!

It's election day in the U.S. The main people involved at NUELOW Games are a first generation American and an immigrant, so we take our participation in the democratic process here seriously. We hope you do as well.

However, after you've voted, we hope you'll enjoy a free comic book on us. (And if you aren't eligible to vote, or aren't even American, you're welcome to it as well.)

Free Comics!

We hope your you don't have any local politicians like the ones Dynamic Boy has to contend with in his origin story. In addition to the Dynamic Boy story, the Dynamic Boy Election Day Special features stats for use with the ROLF! RPG.

Click here to get your copy.

And just because we love this song and video (and because we like to imagine they're playing ROLF!: The Rollplaying Game at one point) here's "Election Day" by Arcadia.

U is for the Unholy 3

The Unholy 3 are such an obscure set of characters that no one has even bothered given them a write-up at Public Domain Superheroes... or anywhere else really. Except in NUELOW Games publications.

Meet the Unholy 3. Art by Bill Madden

The Unholy 3 are a trio of con artists who have turned their skills from fleecing the innocent to grifting grifters, and making sure they end up behind bars. Flash provided the brawn (and a sexy distraction for the lady targets), Pearl provided the brains (and a sexy distraction for the male target), and Dale provided the sarcastic barbs (and to dress up like a baby when the need arose). They were featured in two stories that were originally published in Punch Comics #1 and #2 and later reprinted in Major Victory #1 and #2. The series was a product of Harry "A" Chesler's comic book production studios, which supplied content not only for his own titles (such as Punch Comics) but for virtually every other comics publisher operating between 1938 and 1942.

The writer on "The Unholy 3" will probably forever remain unknown, but the artist was NUELOW Games' favorite Bill Madden. He appears to only have drawn a handful of stories, most of them for Chesler during 1941 and 1942. It's possible that he continued as a cartoonist, or penciler elsewhere and we just haven't come across his work yet. We hope to re-present all of his published work in our titles, eventually, as we think it's a shame he does not get more recognition than he does. (We've already published the Unholy 3 stories in The Unholy 3 and OGL Trickery, all three Mother Hubbard stories in the title of that same name, all his Dynamic Boy and Yankee Boy stories in Madden's Boys,and stories that he only penciled in Al Plastino Early Work: 1940 - 1941 and The Werewolf Hunter #1. There are a few more stray items--like the story we featured in Carnival--that we are still looking for ways to present, but by we will get there eventually.

Meanwhile, I'm going to renew my request that if anyone knows something about artist Bill Madden (aka William J. Madden), please get in touch. I would love to be able to write something a little more detailed about him and his career.

Nothing can stop "Madden's Boys" (or the OGL Modern superhero rules)!

Our latest comics/rpg hybrid book is near and dear to the heart of NUELOW Games editor and designer L.L. Hundal She has a great affection for the art of Bill Madden... and this book features five stories penciled and inked by him.

Madden's Boys continues NUELOW Games's effort to shine a little light on cool forgotten characters and comic book creators and this is perhaps our most significant effort in that regard yet. Madden and his small body of work is so disregarded that even respected Golden Age historians respond with a "who?" when approached with questions. Like our previous Madden-centric books Mother Hubbard and The Unholy 3 & OGL Trickery, we present the entirety of a series he drew (in this case "Dynamic Boy") but the book also contains his contributions to the "Yankee Boy" series--the three inaugural stories of one the more successful creations to emerge from Harry 'A' Chesler's studio.

In addition to showcasing Bill Madden's dynamic artwork, Madden's Boys contains the most varied selection of roleplaying game material we've included in our comics/rpg hybrid books so far. Not only does it contain an all-new set of rules for making superheroes in d20 OGL Modern superhero games, but it also features game statistics for Dynamic Boy and Yankee Boy in the ROLF! and Hideout & Hoodlums game systems/ And it's all behind an original cover by Darrel Miller.

On New Comics Day this week, why don't you add a copy of Madden's Boys to your DriveThruComics shopping cart? You won't regret it!

Madden's Boys Meet the HeartbreakerA NUELOW Heroes & Villains Battle Scenario

MADDEN'S BOYS MEET THE HEARTBREAKER

A ROLF! Battle Scenario by L.L. Hundal

Artwork by Bill Madden

Copyright 2013 NUELOW Games & Steve Miller. All Rights Reserved/

(Permission granted to copy for personal use.)

1/0: INTRODUCTION
As the NUELOW Games staff (all two of us) work on the next collection of Bill Madden comics--tentatively titled Madden's Boys--Steve Miller has been up to his usual tricks of poking fun at the stuff we're planning to publish. This panel caught his eye in one of the Yankee Boy stories, and he just HAD to put it on Facebook as part of his irregular series of Out of Context Theater posts.

 Well, this triggered an idea--a classic ROLF! battle scenario along the lines of our mid-1990s offerings that caused Frank Mentzer to quip: "The download is guaranteed virus free, but I can't be sure about the characters."

2.0: THE PRE-GENERATED CHARACTERS
Here are the characters featured in the Battle Scenario. They were created using rules from the core ROLF! game, as well as ROLF!: Something About Superheroes and ROLF!: Christmas Special II. (If this was an actual release, we'd repeat all the Combat Maneuvers and Traits not included in the core game here.)

Dynamic Boy (AKA Kent Banning, Male)

Brawn 16, Body 14, Brains 6

   Traits: Improv Master, Superpower (Super Strenth [Personal], Flight [Personal], Bonus: +2 Brawn ATT [Permanent]

   Combat Maneuvers: Basic Attack, Pimp Slap

Important Stuff Worn/Wielded: Superhero Outfit (Armor, absorbs up to 2 points of damage).
    Origin Story: Dynamic Boy almost died while saving the life of Dr. Brown's daughter. The good doctor then proceeded to save him by feeding him an unknown substance he had secured from cultists high atop the Himalyan mountains. 

Heartbreaker (AKA Katie Felmann, Female)

Brawn 14, Body 16, Brains 6

   Traits: Coldhearted, Nimble, Stone Cold Killer

   Combat Maneuvers: Basic Attack, Bitch Slap, Castrate, Double Strike, Seduce, Strike Pose

   Important Stuff Worn/Wielded: Leather Vest (Armor, absorbs 2 points of damage), Thigh-high Boots, (Armor AND Leggings, absorbs 1 point of damage). Dagger (Small Melee Weapon, deals 1 point of damage). Pistol (Small Ranged Weapon, deals 2 points of damage that ignore armor).
   Origin Story: Heartbreaker was a CIA operative who relied on "womanly wiles" to achieve siccess in her intelligence gathering missions. When her identity was exposed by a publicity-seeking U.S. senator, she barely escaped from her last assignment with her life. In revenge, she assassinated the senator, and she has been working as a high-priced, freelance hit woman ever since.

Yankee Boy (AKA Phil Martin, Male)

Brawn 14, Body 13, Brains 6

   Traits: Irrepressible Optimist, Nimble

   Combat Maneuvers: Basic Attack, Bitch Slap, Deflect, Dodge, Murderous Mitts, Strike Pose

   Important Stuff Worn/Wielded: Superhero Outfit (Armor, absorbs up to 2 points of damage).
   Origin Story: Phil Martin woke up one day, frustrated with the growing anti-American attitude he detected in the people around him. So, he made himself a superhero outfit and started kicking ass in the name of life, liberty, and the American Way.

3.0: THE BATTLE SCENARIO
This scenario is for two or three players, depending on how you want it to unfold. Each player controls one of the characters from above.

3.1: What Has Come Before
Heartbreaker has been hired by the Great Question to destroy Dynamic Boy and Yakeeboy. Deciding to use the youthful superheroes to take each other out, she has been posing online as a teen girl and has been flirting with them via their "social media" accounts and :"sexting"-type activities. Earlier today, she set up a meeting in a secluded spot, telling each of the boys that she wanted to take their relationship to the "physical level." Just before they are to arrive, she sends each of them a text message, apparently in a panic. "Yankee Boy is jealous of our love--he has vowed to kill me!" to Dynamic Boy, and "Dynamic Boy is jealous of our love--he has vowed to kill me!" to Yankee Boy. She now lurks nearby, waiting to see which of the boy heroes wins the fight, and then.intends to leap out and finish off the one still standing..

3.2: The Battle, Part One
The fight starts at Ranged Distance. Dynamic Boy and Yankee Boy both agrily demand that the  other leave Katie alone. They then attack each other. The fight
   Special Game Note: If Yankee Boy successfully uses his Strike Pose Combat Maneuver to halt Dynamic Boy's attack, the player of Yankee Boy can choose to either continue the fight, or he can say that Yankee Boy tries to talk to Dynamic Boy and figure out why he's suddenly turned into a psycho-stalker targeting his girl. Dynamic Boy's player rolls 2d6, and if the result is equal to or less than 6, the two teens stop fighting.

3.3: The Battle, Part Two
Once either Dynamic Boy or Yankee Boy are defeated, Heartbreaker breaker attacks the remaining hero, controlled by the player of the defeated character. If the fight between the heroes ends as described under the Special Game Note above, the player who controlled Dynamic Boy now controls Hearbreaker, while the other player controls the two heroes. (If there players are playing, each of them controls one of the characters.)
   The fight continues until Heartbreaker or her targets are defeated.

4.0: DESIGNER'S AFTERWORD
Dynamic Boy and Yankee Boy were characters that appeared in issues of Dynamic Comics and Yankee Comics respectively, published in 1941 and produced by Harry "A" Chesler's art studio. Heartbreaker is an original creation.
   Dynamic Boy and Yankee Boy were teenage characters modeled after the superheroes from which the anthology titles drew their names (Dynamic Man and Yankee Doodle Jones) but otherwise had no connection to the adult superhero in question. Curiously (although typical for a Chesler-produced strip), Dynamic Man did end up with a sidekick by the name of Dynamic Boy, but it was a completely different character than the one this battle scenario was inspired by. Yankee Doodle Jones also had a kid sidekick, cleverly named Dandy.
    Bill Madden drew both published Dynamic Boy stories, the first three Yankee Boy tales, and he may have penciled the fourth with someone else finishing the art. I think Madden's art deserves more attention than it's gotten over the years, and that's why I'm happy to be part of NUELOW Game's forthcoming Madden's Boys book--which will feature the entire run of the Dynamic Boy series, as well as the first three Yankee Boy episodes. We also may or may not include the Rocket Boy series; we're working on determining whether Madden had a hand in that one or not. I hope you'll join us for them.
   Meanwhile, check out Madden's artwork in The Unholy 3 and OGL Trickery or Mother Hubbard.

NOTE: IF YOU WANT TO GIVE US FEEDBACK ON OUR COMICS ANTHOLOGIES OR GAME PRODUCTS, PLEASE DO! WE VALUE YOU INPUT! WOULD-BE REVIEWERS SHOULD GET IN TOUCH AS WELL... MAYBE WE CAN GIVE YOU A FREE BOOK OR TWO.
 

Presenting the works of Bill Madden....

How do we select the comics we decide to publish in our anthologies o Golden Age reprints?

I've been asked that question a couple times now. The answer is the same that it was for the Robert E. Howard collections we produced last year... we find stories we think deserve more attention than they're gotten and we use our little vanity press here to put them before a new audience. Other things we consider is whether the material would hold any appeal to a modern reader whatsoever (who doesn't happen to be a total nerd).

Given those factors, it shouldn't be surprising we led with things like Jack Kirby's Stuntman, George Tuska's Lady Satan, and, of course, the lovely Black Cat.

For that same reason, it was a foregone conclusion that we'd want to put the work of forgotten 1940s comic book artist Bill Madden in front of modern readers. When L.L. Hundal first came upon his work, he was another creator about whom she said, "It's as if he drew these just so we could adapt them for RPGs!"

Upon surveying the dozen or so stories that she has identified as being by Madden, I agree that he was an interesting and unique talent. I can nitpick individual panels and some of his layout choices, but overall he had a dynamic style that stands out from the pack, and it seems to me that he deserved more recognition than he got.

Who was Bill Madden?

According to Jerry Bails' "Who's Who of American Comics 1929 - 1999", Bill Madden (who also signed his work as William J. Madden and W.J.M) produced comics for the Chesler Studio during WW2 and moved to the Schoffman Studio during the post-war years; these studios produced content comics magazines from dozens of different publishers. There are indications that he started his comic book career working with industry pioneer Harry "A" Chesler as early as 1937, with work for Chesler's Centaur Comics imprint, but we've been unable to verify that with any certainty.

In general, very little information is readily available about Bill Madden. He's not a Bill Draut, Lee Elias, or George Tuska who kept working in the comics field after the 1950s and into the era where fans were hungry for details about creators. By the dawn of the Silver Age, Madden was long gone from the comics field, or at least no longer working in any sort of audience-facing capacity.

All we've been able to learn about Bill Madden through our usual half-assed, Google-driven research methods is in the preceding paragraph, and that the majority of his published, identifiable work was done through Chesler on their short-lived B-series--things like "Carnival," "Dynamic Boy," "Mother Hubbard," and "The Unholy 3." His presence at Chesler's studio is itself noteworthy as it was an important shop in its day, where celebrated artists like Joe Kubert and Carmine Infantino got their earliest professional gigs in the comics biz. Kubert was 11 or 12 when he apprenticed at Chesler's, and since Madden did not appear to serve in WW2, he may have been too young, too old, or maybe suffered some health issues. We don't know, and at this late date, we may never know. (But if someone out there wants to share details about William J. Madden/Bill Madden--where he came from and where he went after 1954--please get in touch!)

While Madden the man is obscured in the shadows of history, his work is here for us to enjoy. As mentioned, we've identified about a dozen stories that we'll be  reprinting in our comics/rpg anthologies over the next several months. In fact, we've already released half of them. Each of our books featuring his work collect the entirety of his recognizable contribution to a given series.

Our most recently-released Madden project features nothing but his work, cover to cover. "Mother Hubbard" was a series that ran for the first three issues of Scoop Comics in 1941. The third Hubbard tale (untitled in its original presentation and titled "Eye Trouble" for its NUELOW Games release) served as a source for the notorious Frederic Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent. (Perhaps this is why Madden left the comics field; Lee Elias walked away from the industry for almost ten years after Wertham claimed his art on the "Black Cat" series for Harvey was "perverse.")

The cover of Mother Hubbard from NUELOW Games

Earlier this month, we released The Unholy 3 and OGL Trickery. Madden drew two stories about a trio of con artists and masters of disguise who have turned their talents to taking down criminal practiciners of their "craft." Inspired by the screwball comedies of the 1930s--the headlined by the Marx Brothers, Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, William Powell, and Myrna Loy--these stories should be particularly appealing to both lowers of comics and old movies. The book also contains a non-Madden adventure featuring superhero Black Cobra spending a chaotic night at the ballet, and these three stories are great examples of the freewheeling nature of comic book storytelling during the Golden Age of Comics.

The cover of The Unholy 3 and OGL Trickery from NUELOW

The first of our books to feature Bill Madden, and the one that inspired L.L. Hundal to go digging for more work by him, was Carnival. It's a collection of three circus-themed mysteries, and although it only features one story by Madden, it's a great introduction to his work. It's also an excellent place to start with the NUELOW Games comics line, because it's rife with the sense of freewheeling, no-holds-barred storytelling that attracts us to so many of the short comics features from the 1940s and early 1950s.

The cover of Carnival from NUELOW Games

We have at least one more title featuring unadulterated Madden in the planning stages. It's it working title is Madden's Boys, and it will be a collection of superhero adventures with Dynamic Boy and Rocket Boy. (There may be others--we're still researching this one.)

We're also in the process of identifying other Madden work. I think I've spotted him in at least two other stories, under the inks of other artists. I'm trying to confirm whether I am right or not before we publish. (My ID of Al Plastino in a couple of spots is a bit dodgy, and while I feel confident about my judgement that it is indeed Madden's work on a couple "Madam Satan" stories, I want to be as sure as I can be.)

Meanwhile, I hope you will choose to take a look at Madden's under appreciated work in Carnival, Mother Hubbard, or The Unholy 3. If you do, please share what you think, either on the site you download the book from, or here at the blog.