This Saturday, Feb. 25, from noon to 3 p.m., please join Alternate Reality Comics in welcoming local creators Pj Perez, Deryl Skelton, Jska Priebe, F Andrew Taylor, Warren Wucinich and Ed Hawkins, who will be signing and selling copies of Tales From Fremont Street. Their original art will be on display as Alternate Reality’s Artist Spotlight for March. This event will also be a benefit for SafeNest, a shelter for victims of domestic abuse. We’ll have raffles for keen prizes (all money from raffle tickets will also be donated to SafeNest, as well as a portion of that day’s back issue sales), and FREE refreshments!

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A few days before the festival, valley residents can not only pick up a copy of Tales from Fremont Street, but also meet its creators and get a look behind the scenes at the UNLV Barrick Museum on Wednesday, Nov. 2, where an opening reception will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. for “Spinning Tales from Fremont Street,” an exhibit of original art, sketches and notes from contributors such as Evan Dent, F. Andrew Taylor, Warren Wucinich, Deryl Skelton and Jska Priebe. Uncovering the process that went into the creation of these comic book tales, the opening reception will also afford patrons the opportunity to meet and hear from the artists and writers about the inspiration and process that went into creating their unique stories. The original art show will run through Jan. 15, 2012.

Featuring six stories telling an intertwining tale of lust, deceit and murder set in the heart of downtown Las Vegas, Tales from Fremont Street features all-local talent, including returning creators Deryl Skelton, Jarret Keene, Victor Moya, Warren Wucinich, F. Andrew Taylor and Pj Perez, along with newcomers Ed Hawkins, The Fillbach Brothers, Evan Dent, and cover artist Jska Priebe.

The 48-page, black-and-white, limited-edition comic costs only $5 per copy, and will be shipped by the first week of November.

Titanic local talents such as Ed Hawkins, The Fillbach Brothers, Jarret Keene, Victor Moya, F. Andrew Taylor, Warren Wucinich, Evan Dent, Pj Perez and more are banding together to create a noir-style collection of interrelated stories boasting a diverse cast of characters, and one of the wildest of those characters is Mr. Prudeholme. His devilish tale is told by writer Jarret Keene and artist Vic Moya (the team responsible for Tales from the Boneyard‘s “Ramsay: The Post-Doomsday Showgirl“). Moya has generously provided a teaser pinup of Prudeholme, whom you’ll be learning a lot more about when Tales from Fremont Street debuts in November:

Thanks to the support of people like you, Pop! Goes the Icon was able to make a donation of $1052.30 to the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District Foundation with money raised thus far from sales of Tales from the Boneyard.

Pop! Goes the Icon founder Pj Perez happily handed over the $1052.30 check to Las Vegas-Clark County Library District Executive Director Jeanne Goodrich on May 3 at the Neon Boneyard, the location that inspired the comic’s various tales.

The generous donations of sponsors Alternate Reality Comics, MaximuM Comics, Comic Oasis, Grace City Comics and Frankie’s Tiki Room paid for the printing of the comic, enabling 100 percent of the comic’s sales to be donated in support of the Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival.  If you haven’t picked up your copy yet, Tales from the Boneyard continues to be sold in select local stores and can be purchased directly through this website.

In the wake of Tales from the Boneyard‘s success, a new anthology, the noir-themed Tales from Fremont Street, will debut at this year’s Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival, being held on Nov. 5 at the Clark County Library. Once again, the comic will feature all-local talent and all proceeds will benefit the Library District Foundation.

The talents behind the Tales from the Boneyard anthology are coming together again to meet fans and sign copies of our benefit comic book on Saturday, Dec. 11 from noon to 3 p.m. at Alternate Reality Comics (4110 S. Maryland Parkway #8).

Creators scheduled to appear include Deryl Skelton, Jarret Keene, Victor Moya, Warren Wucinich, Pj Perez and cover artist Danny Roberts. If you haven’t yet picked up your copy of this locally-produced comic benefiting the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District‘s support of the Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival, this is the perfect time. It also makes a great gift for anyone who loves comics or Las Vegas culture. If you have purchased a copy but want it signed by the creators, bring it down!

Artists will also be available to do sketches, talk about their creative process, and generally schmooze to your heart’s content. Thanks to Ralph Mathieu and the Alternate Reality Comics team for hosting this event.

We’re so excited to share Tales from the Boneyard with the world, we’re not satisfied with hosting one party celebrating its release on Nov. 6. Oh, no — we’re going to hold three different events in three venues over two days, starting Nov. 5. Buckle up, true believers!

The festivities kick off during the monthly First Friday art festival on Nov. 5 at Blackbird Studios (1551 S. Commerce St.), where an opening reception will be held from 6 to 10 p.m. for “Inside the Boneyard,” an exhibit of original art from Tales from the Boneyard contributors Deryl Skelton, Victor Moya, F. Andrew Taylor, Warren Wucinich and Pj Perez. Uncovering the process that went into the creation of our comic book tales, the opening reception will also afford you the opportunity to meet and hear from the artists about the inspiration and effort that went into creating their unique stories. The original art show will run through the month of November.

Tales from the Boneyard makes its official debut on Saturday, Nov. 6 at the Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival, held at the Clark County Library (1401 E. Flamingo Road) from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Among the other offerings at this free event — including film screenings, artist signings, panel discussions, a retail marketplace and much more — the Boneyard crew will be greeting people and signing copies of the comic.

The festivities wrap up Saturday night at Brass Lounge (425 E. Fremont St.) with a dual launch party for Tales from the Boneyard and Dead Neon: Tales from Near-Future Las Vegas, a sci-fi anthology edited by Boneyard contributor Jarret Keene. Seattle-based geek-rock act Kirby Krackle will headline the evening of music, supported by local bands Minor Suns, As Yet Unbroken (featuring our own editor Pj Perez) and Dead Neon, Keene’s doom-metal outfit. The free show starts at 9 p.m. and is open to guests 21 and over.

We hope to see you at one or all of these diverse events. And if you can’t make it to any of them, remember: You can order the comic online right now! All proceeds benefit the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District Foundation.

Well, it may be hard to believe, but the end is near — the final chapter in the Tales from the Boneyard collection has finally made its online debut. “Ramsay: The Post-Doomsday Showgirl” is Jarret Keene and Victor Moya’s vision of a post-apocalyptic future Las Vegas in which all societal mores have broken down, and Sin City’s sins are taken to the extreme. From amidst the horror arises a singular figure, and … well, the rest would be telling. You can check out the entire six-page tale here, right now.

Here’s what Keene and Moya had to say about the process of creating this world of opportunistic decay:

JK: Ramsay’s genesis stems from an intensely depressing tour of the Nevada Test Site, a visit that involved driving around a series of miserable craters in a desert wasteland. It got me thinking about the mass psychopathology of the Cold War, and how Las Vegas lies at the very edge of the heart of planned Armageddon. Who might emerge, what kind of creature succeeds, in bomb-ravaged Sin City? Would there be showgirls? They’d have to resemble Ramsay (who’s also the mascot of my doom-metal band Dead Neon). The script is a world-building prologue, a way of briefly sketching the contours of a character and setting that, with luck, will develop into a graphic novel.

VM: One of my first questions to Jarret before I said yes was “What are the restrictions and parameters, or can I just go hog-wild?” He replied a few minutes later and said, “Go nuts!” That’s when I agreed to do the story. Nobody has ever told my to just go for it before. How could I pass it up?

I approached the visuals as if the reader were looking at stills from a wide-screen movie. I wanted to make a black-and-white, post-apocalyptic zombie movie with a scary, hot showgirl. Jarret described Ramsay as a showgirl with a gas mask. I took that into the S+M realm a bit for the costuming and just gave her a big phoenix tat on her chest to kind of make it feel like all the big necklaces the showgirls wear on the strip — big hair and a tiara with tattered feathers and the same feathers on her bum.

Romance! Adventure! Violence! Tiki mugs! Zombies! F. Andrew Taylor’s “Boneheads” packs so much into six little pages, we almost feel undeserving of it all. But you’ll enjoy the heck out of this comedic tale featuring a zombie-hunting zombie. Don’t take our word for it — preview it now for free!

If you thought you were ga-ga over the amazing line-up of talent and their stories we’ve thus far previewed online for Tales from the Boneyard, well my friends, you will be pushed over the edge when you see the stunning cover artwork by Danny Roberts:

Consider yourself sold. Digital paints by Danny Roberts. Design by Dylan Todd. And the only way to get a full-size version in your hands is to buy a copy, either online now or at the Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival in November. It’s for charity, yo!