Read WOLF'S HEAD issue 4 of the comic book series for free on the Internet Archive

Elevator Pitch

“Lauren Greene has been kidnapped by Jeremy Hamilton, the powerful man who invented a self-aware Artificial Intelligence (AI) that is now in possession of Lauren’s mom, Patty. In trade for Lauren’s freedom, her mom surrenders herself and the AI machine to Hamilton. Freed by Hamilton’s goons and assured that her mother will be released the next day, Lauren returns home to wait. But later that night, she learns, to her horror, that Patty has been suddenly hospitalized in critical condition and the AI is missing.

Since the AI has protected her mother in the past, Lauren races against time to find it, hoping that it can save Patty yet again. As she searches frantically, and with her world turned upside down, Lauren must confront an old enemy, dodge new ones, and find the AI, which might not want to be found… before it’s too late for everyone.”

Key Links

Here are all of the key links:

• Internet Archive link for WOLF’S HEAD Issue 4: https://archive.org/details/wolfs-head-004-by-von-allan
• WOLF’S HEAD Volume 2 (collecting Issues 3 and 4 of the series): https://wolfs-head.vonallan.com/p/wolfs-head-volume-2.html
• Shop Page: https://wolfs-head.vonallan.com/p/shop.html
• Wolf’s Head Official Site: https://wolfs-head.vonallan.com/

Turning Points

This issue marks a significant turning point in the life of Lauren, the protagonist and star of WOLF’S HEAD. The problem is that it’s hard to talk about without giving spoilers to this issue. Huh. That’s a conundrum, right? How to talk about a significant event in a character’s life without ruining the reveal of that event. Tricky!

Let me see if I can get at this way. For stories to work — and I mean that broadly, in variety of mediums and genres — readers have to care about the main characters. That goes without saying, right? If a character is just some weird cardboard cutout that we, as readers, don’t give two shits about, then everything else doesn’t matter. The plot might be exciting, full of twists and turns, but if we don’t care about the characters, then all of the other stuff just falls apart.

One of my goals with WOLF’S HEAD was to make the characters as real as possible. Okay, there’s always a bit of a “wink wink nudge nudge” going on here; you know that your reading fiction just as I know I’m writing and drawing fiction. That’s obviously true, but we also have a sort of “handshake agreement” here: for you to lose yourself in the narrative, I need to make sure that the characters are as believable as possible. If I screw that up, then that agreement is broken. So I work really damn hard not to screw it up!

One of my frustrations with so many corporate comics is that they do screw this up. Losses that a character goes through (be it death or other hardship) is often “reset” and the slate wiped clean. I suppose, when I’m feeling generous, I understand it. Corporate characters are literally corporate intellectual property (or IP); for that IP to have “value” (at least to the corporation that owns it), they have to produce value. If a character is killed or otherwise “on the shelf” for a long period of time, that value is often destroyed — regardless of how the readers feel about it.

When I was a kid, the deaths of Marvel characters like Jean Grey (“Marvel Girl/Phoenix”) or James MacDonald Hudson (“Guardian”) really moved me. Ditto for the death of Barry Allen (“Flash”) and over at DC. When all of those deaths were “undone” later on, it rang hollow. Unbelievable. Fake.

I’ve desperately tried to avoid that sort of thing in my own work. When you read this issue, you’ll see what I mean. Hopefully you’ll be moved, too.

WOLF’S HEAD Volume 2 Trade Paperback Graphic Novel

For those who would like to purchase a print copy, issue 3 and issue 4 are collected together in a 60 page trade paperback graphic novel. So while you can always read the series for free, print-lovers are well-represented, too! You can learn more about the graphic novel at https://wolfs-head.vonallan.com/p/wolfs-head-volume-2.html.