BROCKTON MCKINNEY BREAKS DOWN EHMM THEORY
Providing everything you need to know about the multiverse spanning second series to critically acclaimed hit!
PITTSBURGH, PA- Listen up class, settle down please. Action Lab Entertainment is proud to present the next chapter in the Ehmm Theory series, EVERYTHING AND SMALL DOSES. Instead of giving you just a couple of blurbs about how great it is (and it is), let’s hear from series writer and co-creator, Brockton McKinney. Take notes, there will be a quiz at the end.
Gabriel Ehmm and his blood-bound, foul-mouthed kitten, Mr. Whispers, return in the highly anticipated second volume of Ehmm Theory! On the run from the diabolical forces of Lady Dominika, Gabe and Whispers find themselves pursued not only by the Guardians of Dimensional Defense, but also by a time-jumping simian-assassin known only as— Mister Everything!
Hi, I’m writer Brockton McKinney, and alongside artist Larkin Ford, I’m the co-creator of the Action Lab series Ehmm Theory. When Action Lab asked me to write up a little summary about the new volume two of our book I thought, “you know, this might be a great time to tell people what Ehmm means to me.” But of course, I’m often full of bad ideas, so stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
Ehmm Theory was born when Larkin Ford, a long time buddy of mine, and I decided to stop working on books for other people and see if we could create something— on our own— that would be creatively fulfilling and really blow people’s minds off. I had been toying with the idea of a foul-mouthed cat and his human companion, so I sent Larkin a little pitch to see what he thought. He sent me back a sketch of a guy and his floating cat and I knew we had our titular characters.
Floating?
If you have read the first volume of Ehmm Theory, you know that there is indeed a human protagonist, Gabriel Ehmm, and that there is most certainly a smack-talking kitten named Mr. Whispers. But he doesn’t float. Nope. They are both rather earth-bound. As we progressed in our ideas some things stuck and other things didn’t, and “floating” had to hit the bricks. You see, Gabe and Whispers are accidently killed and brought back to life in the first volume of Ehmm Theory by a man claiming to be Saint Peter. He gives Gabe’s kitten the ability to talk and sets them forth on a series of tasks with the golden ring being finding Gabe’s biological father, who he’s never met. Along the way they pick up an older Russian lady named Alyona and her companion, a talking mouse named Tym. I know, I know, I love it, too. They also end up being pursued by a superhero team known as Guardians of Dimensional Defense (G.O.D.D.), and they scrap with everyone from a cybernetic crab to a Robot-Bear-Octopus hybrid (RobearTopus.)
We end that first volume with the boys teaming up with a telekinetic werewolf named Mindwolf (badass, right?), and that’s where volume two takes off. I really feel like we are cooking with gas at this point, our characters are introduced and now we can finally tell the story we’ve been chomping at the bit to tell! Now that’s not to say we don’t have some new stuff to throw at you. Ehmm Theory: Everything and Small Doses introduces us to Larkin and my collective new favorite character, the time-jumping, dimension-hopping, face-paint-wearing assassin super-monkey, Mister Everything. This guy is gonna knock your socks off and then up your butt! Number one: He’s got a yellow cape. Number two: He shoots blue lasers from his eyes and fingertips. Number three: This simian has an agenda, and he’s leaving a trail of bodies in his wake to accomplish it!
One thing the creative team agreed upon early on in Ehmm Theory is that we all have a fondness for head explosions. Blame it on the movies Scanners or Chopping Mall or Dead Alive, but in our opinion, a good head explosion is often unrivaled in the special effects department. Now, again, if you’ve read volume one you already know how much we love a good noggin-pop and you’ve see how amazingly Larkin and colorist Jason Strutz are at rendering a both visceral and chuckle-inducing version. Well, we upped the ante for volume two and the dome-pieces are being blown apart in all-new and severely incredible ways thanks to Larkin’s warped mind and new colorist Aimee Hanchey’s attention to gory detail! Apparently, that Mister Everything guy is as big a fan of it as we are, because he’s responsible for about fifty percent of the destroyed skulls in volume two. And man, does that guy know how to mess up a head.
Ehmm Theory kicks into gear right from the first issue of volume two, throwing us in the middle of the fray with two familiar faces, that of Gabe and Whispers. But something is off. Gabe totes a badass laser pistol and sports an eye-patch, while Whispers seems more android than cat! Mindwolf and her flying robot sidekick the EMP run into this new incarnation of our heroes and are flabbergasted at this shocking change to the fun loving– and if anything– goofy boys they know. But these aren’t theirGabe and Whispers! They’re a time displaced, alternate universe version from a Mad Max-like world of savagery and super-science! Regardless of who they are, Mindwolf must team up with these rag-tag ruffians to escape the evil clutches of Lady Dominika and her horde of G.O.D.D. troops.
Meanwhile, the Gabe and Whispers we’ve come to know and love have found themselves in a different kind of trouble in a world they’re unfamiliar with. After being separated from Alyona and Tym, our boys are stranded on a foreign planet and facing the responsibility of somehow finding their way home while eluding an unknown enemy hidden within the forest in which they currently reside.
We’ve got all this plus the secret history of Gabriel’s biological parents and their involvement in both the portals that enable inter-dimensional travel, and Lady Dominika’s obsession with Gabe. We’re cramming it chock-full in four new issues debuting September 2014!
So, if you’re looking for the most epic story in the multiverse, and you love talking animals, ghostly ex-lovers, simian assassins, and exploding heads, we’ve got the book for you! I am easily the most proud of this work as anything in my creative career, and I very much hope you’ll join us this September forEhmm Theory: Everything and Small Doses. Oh, and don’t forget that the volume one Cat, Quantum and Contrition TPB is still available too, so stock up, hunker down and prepare to have you brain messed off, man, cause we are ready to freak you up!
Keep on readin’,
-Brockton McKinney
-somewhere in the Bleed
For more information, retailers can contact Kelly Dale at kdale@actionlabcomics.com. For press and conventions you can reach Jamal Igle at jigle@actionlabcomics.com.
ABOUT ACTION LAB ENTERTAINMENT- Formed in 2010 with the purpose of pooling their collective talents into a single, powerful entity, the members of Action Lab Entertainment have countless years in multimedia publishing, design, and business. Their first release, Fracture, was successfully funded through Kickstarter and since then they have continued their mission to produce high quality, genre-spanning entertainment. Since its formation, the accolades for A.L.E continue to build on a daily basis. Among its more popular titles are all ages material like the Eisner, Glyph, Shel Dorf Award nominated series PRINCELESS, NFL RUSHZONE (based on the Nickelodeon Television series), Jamal Igle’s MOLLY DANGER, Artist/ Writer Jeremy Dale’s hit series SKYWARD, and Gayle Middleton’s (My Little Pony, The Littlest Pet Shop) monstrously adorable VAMPLETS. Action Lab’s Mature Readers imprint ACTION LAB DANGER ZONE continues to push the envelope of comics entertainment with titles as varied as EHMM THEORY and Dan Mendoza’s over the top horror-comedy ZOMBIE TRAMP, THE FINAL PLAGUE and BO, PLUSHY GANGSTA.
