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Chuck Miller, celebrated author of such classics as "Gotham X" and others, has launched his own fictional universe.
http://theblackcentipede.blogspot.com/
BLACK CENTIPEDE PRESS brings you stories from the world of "The Optimist," created and written by Chuck Miller. It is a world populated by strange superheroes, pulp magazine adventurers, unbelieveable villains, malevolent ghosts, and freaks of all kinds. Ongoing series include "The Optimist," "Tales of the Black Centipede," "Vionna Valis and the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee," "Doctor Unknown Jr.," and many more to come.
Our blog also features not-for-profit "fan fiction" featuring Batman, The X-Files and Kolchak: The Night Stalker (These characters are not owned by Chuck Miller/BCP, and are presented as tributes/free entertainment), music, humor and other surprises.
"If the mark of a good story is that the reader doesn't want it to end, you've written another winner. I think you've found yourself an unexplored niche and it should do well for you."
-- Alan Grant (Batman, Judge Dredd, the Demon, and others too numerous to mention)
"Chuck Miller is by far one of the greatest unknown writers in America today. Whether he's weaving intricate tales with characters you're familiar with, or creating new ones, his stories are always fun and draw you in immediately." --Gwen Bishop (Publisher, ARTS in Alabama)
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"The Optimist" chronicles the adventures of Jack Christian, grown-up former kid sidekick of deceased superhero Captain Mercury. After 12 years away from his home city of Zenith, Jack is lured back by the promise of a substantial trust fund. When he gets there, he meets one oddball after another, starting with Vionna Valis, a strange young woman with a startling secret that nobody-- herself included-- knows. An encounter with what purports to be the ghost of Captain Mercury puts Jack and Vionna on the trail of the Black Centipede, one of the old-school superheroes. Captain Mercury tells Jack that the Centipede was the one who actually orchestrated his, Mercury's, death.Many strange circumstances and inexplicable incidents dog our heroes, leading them to question everything they thought they knew about themselves and their lives.
On top of all that, it appears that the malevolent ghost of Jack the Ripper has escaped from Fractal Dimension Ten to the Negative One-Millionth Power, to which he had been exiled 13 years before by Jack, Captain Mercury and Doctor Unknown (a reluctant sorcerer with a passion for accounting.)
Jack and his friends, including Doctor Unknown Junior (daughter of the original), embark on an urgent hunt for the ghost. They have little luck until one of them hits upon the idea of summoning from the grave the spirits of the Ripper's five original 1888 victims.
Due to a freakish set of circumstances, the five (Catherine Eddowes, Mary Kelly, Polly Nichols, Liz Stride and Annie Chapman) return to the world with genuine flesh-and-blood human bodies, rather than as ectoplasmic blobs. In the course of their adventure, the girls decide to form their own superhero/detective agency, the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee. (which is being spun off into a series of short stories. There will also be solo tales of the Black Centipede and Doctor Unknown Junior.)
Book Two of "The Optimist" will feature the dramatically abnormal tale of "The Last Venusian Superhero."
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