FAMOUS FIGHTERS is 52 pages of evil-fighting mayhem! Incredibly stupid! Culled from the past 10 or 15 years of dumb collaboration between Tom Pappalardo and Matt Smith. You got yourself some zombies and some barbarians and a couple of headbangers and Satan. Sweet! A very small number of copies made it into circulation with a glitchy computer error on one of the last pages of the book. If you have one of those, you are either in possession of a highly collectible rarity, or a defective piece of merchandise. Only time will tell.

"...one of the most original books available" - Broken Frontier

"Buy it and laugh" - Optical Sloth

"Better luck next time, guys" - The Comics Journal

"...see how good a self-published comic can and should look" - Comic Book Resources

full reviews HERE | for sale on the BUY COMICS page | visit the FAMOUS FIGHTERS site

Labels: 2006, Comic Projects, Famous Fighters, Kung Fu, Matt Smith, Self-Published, Star Wars

(Artwork: Matt Smith - Story: Tom Pappalardo) Through the Wood... is a re-written, partially redrawn & expanded version of our Xeric grant-funded indie release Alec Dear. Between the original self-published Alec Dear story and this Caliber Comics release, I must've rewritten the damned rhymes a gazabillion times. Paul Jenkins helped out a lot the second time around, and also provided Guinness, which always makes writing better. This was our first time ever being published "for real" and for reasons I cannot recall, we never saw a proof copy. I was sort of crushed when we saw the finished product and there were a few lines missing (somewhat critical in a rhyming poem book) and I think one of the main character's name is misspelled once. Ah, well. We should've asked for a proof. Lesson learned.  


TTWBTM is for sale on the BUY COMICS page. Read the reviews here. See the cover: TTWBTM

Labels: 1998, Alec Dear, Comic Projects, Matt Smith

A special five-page Alec Dear story appeared in an issue of Salem, Mass.-based Aftertaste Magazine in 1998. "The Edification of Young Chet" featured Alec Dear teaching a spoiled rich boy a very valuable lesson about something or other. Art by Matt Smith, writing by me. It was actually a re-write of a story called "Dig That Fat Big Butt Rat" I wrote for another zine called "Rat Sass" way-back-when.

Labels: 1998, Alec Dear, Matt Smith, Published In

(Artwork: Matt Smith - Story: Tom Pappalardo) The blurb: "Find out what Alec Dear, the mischievous gasmask-wearing dead guy does when he finds himself in the burn victim unit of a secluded children's hospital!" Zowie fun times! Alec Dear was written by me, mostly while sitting behind the cash register at an All For A Dollar store in a mall in Salem, NH in the early nineties. A perfect setting to write grotesque horror, if you ask me. I tried drawing it, but knew my good buddy Matt Smith had more talent and vision than I did, so he took on the art side of things. He worked on it in Massachusetts, New York, and maybe New Orleans. He applied for a Xeric grant and scored a little money for printing. It was later heavily tweaked and released by Caliber comics in 1998. Alec Dear is free with purchase of another comic or a poster, if you email and let me know. I've got boxes of these fuckers! Read the reviews here. See the cover: AD

Labels: 1996, Alec Dear, Comic Projects, Matt Smith, Self-Published

From 1992 to 1994, I was the editor of this fine, lo-fi school-funded anthology at Massachusetts College of Art (MassArt). It was nightmarish and sort of fun. The name FORTY-3 apparently lived on for at least a short while after I left... maybe the incoming freshmen didn't realize that I'd made up the name and thought it was some thing "official", I dunno. The five issues I put out included contributions from Mister Reusch, Paul Alix, Jack Purcell, Matt Smith, and lots of dudes submitting under assumed names. As for my personal contributions to the issues, I had a recurring storyline comic called Bughouse (later renamed to BUGHAUS after some dude put out a "real" comic called BugHouse). - Tom (The Artist Formerly Known as Goat) FORTY-3 is out-of print and rabidly sought after by indy comic fans around the world.

Labels: 1992, 1993, 1994, Comic Projects, Massachusetts, MassArt, Matt Smith, Mister Reusch, Published In