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In 1929, during the height of Prohibition, Al Capone and Bugs Moran were both pining to take control of Chicago’s illegal liquor trade.
Upon realizing that he and his men could no longer fight fire with fire, Bugs decides to embrace a more elegant solution: starting a prank war with Al Capone.
The pranks start out harmless, and mainly serve to attack Al Capone’s pride.
However, Al Capone and his goons prove to be more resilient than anticipated, and are not so quick to surrender Chicago to their North Side rivals.
The resulting back and forth eventually leads to the infamous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.
This rhyming graphic novel has Capone, Moran, bootlegging, gore, a whorehouse run by an intense madame, doppelgängers, explosive diarrhea, a party, a redheaded whore, burying bodies, a man with a mustache, the formation of the crime syndicate, Elliot Ness and his Untouchables, the history of the Irish and their relationship to potatoes, pranks, and of course… syphilis.
We are very excited to share this project with the world once it is finished, and are extremely hopeful for our upcoming Kickstarter Campaign which will be live on Valentine’s Day 2025.
While this story has only very recently started to take shape with the addition of these incredible images, it has been pushed to the back burner behind other creative endeavors for the last eight years, and it is thrilling to finally see it coming to life.
Thank you so much for checking out Gangster Comic’s very first title, “The Original Gangster: A historically inaccurate retelling of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.” We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we have enjoyed creating it!
Please continue below for our promo video, information about the Kickstarter Campaign, our “About the Authors” section, and more! Thank you!
One of our stretch goals upon completion of this book will be to release an audio companion piece designed to be listened to as readers turn the pages. This is a small sample of what that could sound like.
However, the final version will have added sound effects, music, and different voice actors for certain roles to properly emulate the Old Time Radio Drama style.
Donation Reward Tiers
*All Rewards are cumulative*
Associate- $20- Digital Copy and Internet immortality. Your name, social media handle, or any chosen alias on our immortal wall of fame.
Gangster- $50- Paperback copy of the book. and your name, social media handle, or any chosen alias in every copy printed. Everyone will be upgraded to Hardback book with dust cover at first stretch goal.
Made Man- $70- Audible radio play recording, conditional on meeting stretch goals.
Capo-$100 Name, social media handle, or any chosen alias hidden in your own special page, as well as Team Capone or Team Moran T-shirt.
This could be in the lining of someone's hat, a background picture frame, a sign on the road etc.
Boss- $200- Signed framed poster, variant cover, Donor portrait drawn of you listed in the back of the book with other donors.
Godfather- $500- Become a character. For men, this could be an untouchable, a random mobster, a restaurant/speakeasy patron, or a party guest. For women, this could be a flapper, a restaurant/speakeasy patron, or a whore. If you have an issue with being portrayed as any of these characters, please let us know.
At the Godfather level, you will also receive a special, collectible, 2 image picture frame. On one side will be a print of one of the pages from the book, and on the other will be the original corresponding piece of notebook paper that that particular page was written on.
Donation Goals
Main Goal
15,000 USD- This level goal will get pages finished, and 250 hardback copies printed.
Stretch Goals
22,000 USD- We will record a radio play version of the book complete with sound effects, music, and additional voice actors.
27,000 USD- We will use that additional 5,000 dollars to pay for a flatter to significantly decrease delivery time.
32,000 USD- We will use that additional 5,000 dollars to pay for a colorist for 100 of the 225 or so pages, to help decrease delivery time even more.
60,000 USD- We will pay for mild animation of the book and sync it to the radio show.
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Ever since his seventh grade English teacher, Mrs. Maurer, told him his limerick was too good to have been written by him, Gabe Powell has been rhyming. He rhymed during senior year of high school when he performed in front of his first live audience of 12 classmates, and was told by his friend, “That’s why you shouldn’t be a doctor.” He rhymed in college when he made an explicit rap song with that same friend and was forced to take it off of YouTube by both appalled mothers. He even rhymed when he moved to Phoenix to grow weed with his best friend, and performed the first chapters of “The Original Gangster” for his inebriated Uber passengers.
Though Gabe doesn’t make a living from rhyming just yet, he finds immense joy in working with troubled youth in the Juvenile Department of Corrections in Northern Virginia. And as a bonus, when THEY rhyme, he gets to say, 'You didn’t write that!'—but with admiration, not accusation.
IIndie comics creator Lukas Koelbel illustrates comics to support his bad habit of paying rent. He’s also an incorrigible caffeine addict, who can drink coffee without a fresh issue of Copra. In between drawing monsters and mooks getting gunned down in the street, Lukas can be found biking in parks and trying to keep up with One Piece. He’s worked on numerous titles such as Hellmouth and The Dark Ones, and he’s created his own worlds under the Andromeda Comics umbrella titled Grist, A Spacetime Daydream, and A Friend of Gl’Thzur. Now he brings his love for cartoon violence to the historically inaccurate streets of Chicago.
With this historically inaccurate story, and hopefully an anthology of historically inaccurate stories to come, Lukas aims to finally achieve his goal of becoming obscenely wealthy while misinforming the masses of his adoring comics fans.
While you may have already read the Prologue, or seen the Prologue and Chapter 1 in the promotional video, we would like to offer sneak peeks of them, as well as Chapters 2 and 3 for your viewing pleasure.
This story will have somewhere between 20 and 25 chapters once completed, so while we will not post every one of them as they are completed, we will likely post fun moments, or particularly interesting images, and chapters that do not contain any major spoilers.
Chapters 2 and 3 Coming Soon!
Al Capone
People often remember Capone as an overweight hedonist who spent all of his time whore mongering and doing cocaine. However, there were several years of his reign where he was formidable, stocky, and strong. This is the version he would have been during the massacre, and while this story is an inaccurate retelling, we try to be as accurate as possible when we can.
Bugs Moran
In reality, Bugs Moran had a similar build to Al Capone. However, for the sake of this story, to better show the contrast between the two, while Capone is stocky and mostly in white pinstripes, Moran is tall and lanky, and wears darker colors.
Some of the inspiration for Bugs’ demeanor comes from Dr. Seuss’ Grinch, and some of the more famous Batman villains.
The Goons
What’s a gangster without his henchmen?
For Capone, we chose to give him two Capos that help him run his much larger organization.
For Moran, it was easier to decide on a more intimate group of 7 men. 7 men died in the massacre, so we went with 7.
The Redheaded Whore
The redheaded whore is a character that is not introduced until Chapter 5. She’s the “Love Interest” of Capone, and works at the local whorehouse.
The colored image was the initial concept. However, we both decided that she looked like she had seen some better days, and decided that as an object of lust, she should be a bit more seductive.
Chicago
Originally, my idea was to do a completely sepia toned book, with the exception of vividly red blood.
After thinking better of it, I mentioned it to Lukas who liked the idea and took it as a challenge. From there we decided that the background and unimportant parts of the story could be done in sepia, while finding great use of color for characters and important settings.
The story behind the inspiration for this book is a very simple one. In late 2016, I was living in Phoenix and had attempted to launch a new dating app. However, as a 24 year old with no tech skills who had bitten off more than he could chew, things were not going well.
My business partner at the time, despite his other shortcomings, did incredibly well at helping me stay positive, and to this day remains one of the most encouraging people I have come across.
During the most recent in what was a long list of disappointments, he said, “You haven’t written anything in a long time. You need to write something.” I of course rolled my eyes, but began carrying a notebook and pen with me everywhere I went.
After about 2 or 3 days of this, I was in between Uber rides, and decided to stop at a Chicago style pizza restaurant for dinner. I left my notebook and pen in the car. After ordering my food and sitting down I looked up at the poster next to my table. It was a picture of Al Capone and it simply said, “The Original Gangster.”
I mumbled to myself, “The Original Gangster…. the one with the scars… Okay… That’s good… Was sitting alone in the back of his bar…” This was enough for me to jump up out of my seat and run to my car to get writing tools, and 3 days later I had the Prologue and Chapter 1.
I only had a loose idea for the full story at the time, and the natural flow of the writing stopped after about 4 chapters with random parts that could work in the later chapters here and there.
And there it sat. For almost 8 years.
After some other pursuits, I finally decided to brush it off and try again. I posted a very detailed description of what I was looking for on r/comiccollabs, and after weeding through quite a few applicants, I found Lukas.
He has brought my vision to life in ways I could not have imagined, and he also seems to just genuinely enjoy working on this story.
We are both very excited to see where this book and gangstercomics.com can go in the future.
Upon completion of a successful Kickstarter Campaign, every donor’s name (or chosen alias) will appear here for however long the site remains active.
While we do not have any one title planned for our next book, Lukas and I have discussed several options including exploring an old idea of mine for a book of monsters, a circus themed graphic novel, and an anthology that would serve as a continuation in the “Historically Inaccurate Retelling” series.
It is also our greatest hope that, under the Gangster Comics brand, we can shine a light on truly unique stories while providing a platform for emerging storytellers and artists to share their ideas with the world
