Hi, I’m Dave Cook, an award-winning comic writer, video game history book author and gaming journalist from Edinburgh, Scotland.
Here’s a breakdown of all my past and present projects, followed by a look at what you can expect on my Substack blog and newsletter:
I write comic books, starting with my cyberpunk series Killtopia, which is published by Scottish publisher, BHP Comics and distributed in the UK and US by Diamond and Turnaround. In total, the first five-issue arc has raised over a whopping £100,000 on Kickstarter and has won three Scottish Independent Comic Book Awards, as well as a creative Edinburgh award.
I also wrote Ninja Baseball Spirits, a comic book reboot of Ninja Baseball Bat Man, a 1993 arcade beat ‘em up game developed by Japanese game studio Irem. Together with artist and co-creator, Steve Gregson and the game’s creator Drew Maniscalco, this first issue of this five-part series is available now!
Steve Gregson and I are also the team behind our other Kickstarter comic smash and Killtopia prequel, BPM: Beatdowns Per Minute. It’s our loving tribute to retro fighting games, such as Streets of Rage, Double Dragon and Final Fight - and stars two vigilante cops fighting a drug cartel in 1993.
My other comic projects include the psychological horror comic, Deadliner, which is about my experiences of burnout and creative anxiety during my career as a writer, and Bust, my first ever comic series that started in 2014.
Aside from comics, I also write video game history books, starting with Go Straight: The Ultimate Guide to Side-Scrolling Beat ‘em Ups, which was co-developed and published by Bitmap Books. I’m currently working on my second gaming history book for Bitmap Books - a history of the run ‘n’ gun genre.
I’m also a staff writer for quarterly gaming journal Lock.On for publisher Lost In Cult. It’s a 250+ page gaming journal that features deep-dives and interviews on gaming’s most iconic and influential games, and all-original artwork from many guest artists from around the world.
Lastly, I also write video game scripts, such as Unbound: Worlds Apart from Alien Pixel Studios, Loot River from Straka Studio and I worked as a story consultant on the horror beat ‘em up, Final Fright.
My Substack blog is the best place to stay up to date with my projects.
This blog is completely free to subscribe to, and I send out a newsletter to subscribers every other Friday, which has details on all my writing projects, new project reveals, writing samples, new artwork, Kickstarter announcements and details on my upcoming speaker events and comic convention appearances.
You can also upgrade to a paid subscription for £3.50 a month to get deeper dives into my comics, behind the scenes looks, how-to Kickstarter guides, writing tutorials and more. Here’s a full breakdown of what you get for your paid subcriptions.
Why Substack?
Basically, Twitter’s a bin fire and Facebook’s long dead. It’s become so difficult to stand out without paying for a blue tick or paying for adverts that may or may not have any effect.
Substack also has a lot of neat features that let me give you some really fun updates, such as polls that let you have a direct say in the projects I’m working on, including what Kickstarter rewards you’d like to see, what sort of exclusive updates you’d like on and more.
I can’t wait to share what I’m working on with you all, and to get involved in some really fun discussions about comics, video games and everything between!
Thank you :)
-Dave
To find out more about the company that provides the tech for this newsletter, visit Substack.com.
