Sharing My Story

The Origins of Valiant Efforts Part 3

Perhaps one of the problems was both Ralph and Charles were
character creators not story generators. Charles the writer and
role playing guru had loads and loads of characters, but little in
terms of actual plots. Eventually we decided to recycle a plot I
had written for the revival of my Protector that appeared in a
then recent issue of Alpha-Omega (#12, January 1987).
This story dealt with child pornography.

We spent time working on a script and actually doing the artwork.
Ralph and I did pencilling and we both did some of the inking as
well as David Transue. David, artist then living in New York state,
whom I interviewed for the Valiant newsletter several years before.
I had kept in contact with Dave by correspondence since that time.
Jack Martin also did some inking on this first issue. The story was
way over written (Charles was our scripter) and concerned one of
Ralph's characters the Crippler. The creating of the story was a fun
experience (and some of the enthusiasm for the characters came
though) but it was very rough and not great comics by any means.
We were able to do a lot of the production work in the NCF print shop
and it was printed there.

The second issue of Valiant Efforts (September 1989) was a much
better effort. Instead of one long story we decided to do an anthology
with three different strips. The issue consisted of Ralph Miley's
Street Fury, Charles Whitley's Dragonstrike and my Golden Protector.
Ralph's work had grown a lot (he was a college art major) and was
enchanted by Mark Poe's excellent and detailed inking. Mark was an
early member of Alpha-Omega and a later Center Mailer for the Apa.
Charles strip had breakdown's by Billly Leavell and inking by John Tigne.
Billy was also an early member of Alpha-Omega (and three time
central mailer) and a minister to the deaf in Tennessee. John was one
of the Santa Monica comics discussion group who lived south of me.
Billy did some very good layouts (which John doing some minor changes).
John did some excellent inking on the story. I pencilled and wrote the
Golden Protector story with Dave Transue doing the inking.
Dave did a good job on the inking. This issue overall was a much
better effort that the first one and it was also printed in by the NCF print shop.

Both of these issue Ralph, Charles and I promoted to comic shops in
southern California. We compiled a list of shops and spent several
Saturdays traveling around the greater Los Angeles area from Santa
Monica to San Bernardino talking to store owners about carrying our
books on consignment. We not only produced the books were were
also involved in distributing them to regional comic shops.