Peter Panzerfaust: Paris

If you’ve followed my blog with any sort of regularity, you’ll know about the fate of Green Wake. Shortly after the announcement of the series becoming ongoing, Riley and I had to make the decision to cancel it early because of dwindling sales. Of course, Green Wake was a little different than Panzerfaust in that I’d never planned a continued series for it (I had many ideas, but assumed it would be a five issues series).

Peter Panzerfaust was always planned as a long form story. Obviously with the cancellation of Green Wake fresh in the minds of both Jim Valentino and I, we went into this new series with a bit of caution. We talked about the continuing story but didn’t announce it until issue #3 as the numbers had stayed level from the beginning. So, there was no mad rush to come up with an outline for the next arc when the decision was made.

This series was meant to be 25 issues.

Here we are, then. The second season of Peter Panzerfaust is called Paris. It takes place very soon after the finale of the first arc and we shift narrators to the stoic young man named Julien, or, as Peter affectionately called him, Curly. This was an intentional shift and a narrative point that had been planned since the very beginning. It allows us to see Peter through the eyes of someone very different and for both Tyler and I to explore the legend of Peter in a new way.

When I started writing #6, I had already penned a very in depth summary and so it was a matter of filling in the details. I was surprised at how quickly the mood and tone of Paris fell into place. It was still Peter Panzerfaust but Julien’s outlook very much changed the world that Peter and the boys lived in. More real. More grounded. It also became something akin to a 1950’s heist movie with certain scenes and dialog. It was something very new and exciting.

Of course, the best part of this issue for me is that final page and I can’t wait to hear people’s reaction to it.

The next issue ramps up the danger and action to a level not yet seen in this series, I even made a tweet about the level of violence in it as I was a little surprised at how a specific scene played out. Then, not long after, I realized that this is a path that Peter and the boys must eventually follow and there’s no way around it. This is war, and it’s come to them at last.

And as we all know-

War is hell.

Some things to look forward to.