Probably Something YOU Did
I’m kidding; I’m sure you had nothing to do with it…or did you??
Actually it was the combined efforts of many people, primarily this group of jokers; maybe you’ve heard of some of them?
First up we have the author Michael Colbert, followed by artists J.K. Woodward, William Blankenship, and Ryan Sargent, then some guys named Tony Lee and Lou Anders, this Josh Finney character, and something called 01 Publishing.
And of course by “crazy” I mean “completely crazy-freaking-awesome.”
She might be the other type of crazy too, but that’s really something you should decide for yourselves.
Miss Maybe Mentally Mutilated Mary is a cyberneticly-enhanced bad-ass mercenary doing her thing in the New York City of the future. She’s burdened with hallucinations of a world on top of this reality which no one but her can see. She also has spirit guides who give her advice and what appears to be help along the way. Obviously the chick is nuttier than Charlie Sheen on PCP but if it helps get the job done does it really matter? Is she really just hallucinating or are the rest of us born blind and don’t know what’s really happening all around us every day?
Crazy Mary was originally seen in the pages of Digitally Webbing Presents in 2006 as a series of short stories and was never completed. One short story in particular called “Trail of Tears” was a project that artist J.K. Woodward helped create nearly a decade ago. (That would be before he was snatched by Peter David to do Fallen Angel and became all distracted working for the likes of IDW, Boom!, Top Cow, and Marvel.) That story is now going to become part of a full graphic novel entitled Factory Smoke and Acetylene Light, which will contain all of Mary’s collective adventures along with an additional 52 pages of new stuff- thanks to the efforts of Mr. Michael Colbert. Mr. Woodward, having always wanted to return to the mentally-unstable red-head from his past, signed on as an artist
Additional artwork will be provided by Blankenship and Sargent- two names you should probably familiarize yourself with since my guess is, given the quality of their work, you’ll be seeing them more and more often. In fact I’d say that original art by any of these guys is probably a good investment…there’s also new blood in the Crazy Mary storytelling in the form of Josh Finney. If you’re familiar with his art and writing via Utopiates or Titanium Rain then you know he will deliver something that is, shall we say, off the proverbial chain.
If you aren’t familiar with his work, well….sucks to be you. Sorry.
Well known among sci-fi/fantasy fans as well as a Hugo Award winner and both a close friend & mentor to the author, Lou Anders is adding
an afterword to the graphic novel, which will also contain a forward by acclaimed Doctor Who writer Tony Lee.
“Tony has been a huge supporter of Crazy Mary since the early DWP days and a good friend to boot.” says Colbert. “I’m thrilled that he’s writing the forward.”
These both only add to what is already an incredible project, and should go well with was just added as an incentive to Kickstarter campaign.
That’s right; I said “Kickstarter;” which means this project and all of the hard work associated with it will come to naught if it doesn’t reach it’s modest monetary goal.
The Crazy Mary Kickstarter was created by Colbert to raise the funds necessary- $8,000- to finish the remaining stories and compile/publish/print the complete arch into one graphic novel. The campaign will run till May 14th and assuming everything goes according to plan, the completed book will be available in August. So far they have almost 20% of the funds needed with less than 2 weeks to go.
This is the part where you come in. *(See first line of article.) 
You dedicated and supportive comic book fans are the people who make things like this happen by becoming project backers and by spreading the word through RTs on Twitter, Likes and Shares on Facebook, sending links to friends, and so on.
Join the ranks of people like Steve Niles, Rick Remender, ComicAttack.net, Bill Corbett, & Dave Dwonch and show Crazy Mary some love. Why? Because of the other word that goes along with “Kickstarter”: the one after “donation” and “backer” and “amount.”
I’m talking about “incentives” baby, and there are some great ones.
On top of things like having your name listed on the inside as a thank-you and receiving a signed copy, there are things like limited edition art prints and posters, shot glasses, cover gallery art books, commissions by the book’s artists, and most recently the mother of bad-ass one-of-a-kind collectibles for the right fan: an original page from the IDW miniseries Doctor Who/Star Trek due to hit shelves later this May will go to one lucky backer who supports the Crazy Mary Kickstarter effort!
Ah, incentives; because donating for the sake of supporting art and talented artists is a lot easier in these tough economic times when you get something awesome in return.
I want to see this Crazy Mary graphic novel happen and I want to see more of Mary herself. Maybe it’s because she reminds me a little of 
Typhoid Mary, who was also a step or two away from the Sane area of the playground and looked so cool with the whole half-painted-face thing going on. What’s with red-heads being cast as all looney? Is that a stereotype that I just wasn’t aware of; red-heads are supposedly batshit crazy-pants?
Hmmm…Well Poison Ivy is pretty wacky. Jean Grey has lost it a few times, too. The angel that Dean banged in the backseat of the Impala went all Glenn Close genocidal, and Det. Linden is at least a strawberry-blonde and everyone knows she’s spent some time walking around in elastic shoes.
Plus I was a red-head for a little over three years.
But then I’ve also had blonde, brunette, auburn, purple, blue-black with pink tips, black with a blue stripe and brown-black hair for various amounts of time, too.
Wait, what was I talking about?
Crazy Mary– right!
Well I’d suggest taking a look at the website after you scope out a few of the pages/images and the video I snagged for you. They have excellent previews of entire stories for you to enjoy and get a feel for the characters and the writing 
style, as well as bios and contact info for all the cool people involved that I talked about. So go look around at http://www.crazymarycomic.com before you head over to http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1164327580/crazy-mary-graphic-novel and become a backer.
Another fun thing to comb through would be artist J.K. Woodward’s blog about Crazy Mary, http://jkwoodwardart.blogspot.com/2011/12/crazy-mary.htm which is filled with pictures of his works and descriptions of his process. Lastly I also recommend listening to the Crazy Mary interview on Comic Geek Speak, http://www.comicgeekspeak.com/episodes/comic_geek_speak-1521.php which can also be found on the Crazy Mary homepage.
So spread the word about this barmy broad and help make her messed up double-reality a part of our messed up single-reality while helping to make the whole world a better place by giving all of us something to look forward to whilst dying in the staggering heat that is the month of August!
Still Doing The Same Thing Over and Over
Expecting Different Results,
-Dianthrax
