"Welcome to Epoch and my next project: A one-shot, 100 page, graphic novel called "100 covers". It's the story of a superhero team called The Battalion. The lives and adventures of this team and it's members as told ONLY through 100 comic book covers. Each member of the team has his/her own story that progresses at different speeds/lengths across the series. Covers that showcase the entire team as well as the individual members. Single issues as well as multi-part epics. This one has it all. Characters live and die, relationships are forged, villains are battled and the world is in danger. All here. 100 stories. 100 pages. 100 comics. ONE graphic novel.

100 Covers.

The first year of The Battalion was mostly a set up/introduction to the members and their respective abilities.  The year ended with them facing their greatest nemesis, The Black Duke.  As the series went on, you'd see the stakes increase for all of them.

It was a blast coming up with new threats and new villains and year two is where I started expending the Battalions' universe a bit, including the Obsidian Pride and characters like Lydia the Tattooed lady. It was this year that started C4s' ongoing storyline as well as Mataak's...

The third year saw some villains return and UNITE as the stakes were raised yet again. We also saw a continuing of the "Fathers" storyline as well as the "stories" run, the start of a spotlight series within the series where we learn about the background of each of our heroes. These threads would stretch throughout the series.

I like the Black Duke and that's why I made him into the main, recurring villain throughout the series. The main thing I set out to accomplish with this project was the telling of a story within the confines of just the cover. Quite often, I could DO it in one cover but other times, I gave myself bigger storylines that could be played out over the stretch of 6 or 8 issues. That's part of the benefit of giving yourself 100 covers to work with. Many more possibilities as you build on the characters with a much broader canvas. There were bigger stories and events to come, however...

This was the most intense stretch so far in the series where we saw C4's story end and an entire alien invasion from start to finish. The Duvarii invasion has a number of story elements that you may have to do a bit of searching for but they're there and by this point, one should usually know to pay close attention to detail. Same with the development of C4's story and the progression of his condition...

And that was the tale of the Battalion and its' members. I hope you've enjoyed it as it was truly a labor of love. The entire graphic novel is available at www.comixpress.com under the publisher "Epoch" in both it's regular size for $12.95 as well as a smaller digest version for $7.95. The regular book is available at IndyPlanet.com and the story is available in 3 separate volumes at Amazon.com in Books One, Two and Three.

Visit MY myspace page to see some of the merchandise from the Epoch library:

www.myspace.com/ricklundeen

-Rick"