But this Christmas will see the release of the most important work of Tucci’s extensively colorful career – the comic book adaptation of the birth of Jesus with Billy Tucci’s A Child Is Born.

Taken directly from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, A Child Is Born faithfully depicts the Christmas Story as it has never been seen before in graphic novel form. Painstakingly researched with Nativity scholars, Tucci’s highly detailed illustrations, coupled with superstar colorist Paul Mounts’ digital palette, promises that “every panel will feel like a painting” and will bring forth a sense of “being there” as readers accompany the Magi while they follow the Star of Bethlehem.

It’s a journey that Tucci has focused on for almost a decade now, but other commitments and priorities always seemed to have pushed the project aside. But last year, Tucci’s wife Deborah was diagnosed with breast cancer and, according to the artist, it was Deborah’s fight that finally led him down “the right path” in his career. “From the earliest days of Shi to my current mainstream work for DC Comics, every project I’ve approached has been deeply personal to me,” Tucci stated. “And I cannot think of any body of work more worthwhile to my family than to illustrate the story of Mary and Joseph.”

Tucci has found a pair of kindred spirits in his business partners, Evan Archilla and Dr. Jason Peet. Mr. Archilla, grandson of Lost Battalion hero Lt. Colonel Eliel Archilla, first met Tucci last year in Texas, where the two struck up an immediate friendship. “We were having dinner and I asked Billy if he felt that The Lost Battalion was his ‘Magnum Opus,’” the software marketer recalled. “It was then that he told me of his passion to write and draw A Child Is Born. I can’t explain it in earthly terms, but there was something in Billy’s idea that called to me, an ‘invitation’ to be a part of something larger than either one of us could comprehend.”

Within weeks, Tucci returned to San Antonio to discuss the project with Archilla and Dr. Peet, and Apostle Arts, LLC was formed. “What was amazing was just how in tune with each other we were about what type of comic book we wanted to read come Christmas,” Dr. Peet added, “and it soon became very apparent that we all needed to see this become reality.”

In a world of superheroes, it might seem a bit out of the norm to release a Christmas comic book, but Tucci knows that such a “leap of faith” will bring in new consumers who’ve never shopped at comic book stores before. After all, “A Child Is Born is not just another Christmas story…it is THE Christmas Story.”

Under the stunning cover painting by Tucci and painter, Mark Sparacio, the 32-page Billy Tucci’s A Child is Born hosts 24 colorful pages of story, plus bonus artwork and a look behind the scenes detailing Tucci’s long journey to tell the Christmas story. Debuting in comic shops with a $5.99 US price tag, this graphic novella will make the perfect holiday gift for all! For more details e-mail achildisborn@apostlearts.com or visit http://www.facebook.com/achildisborn.

Billy Tucci’s A Child is Born is featured on Page 226 in the September 2011 edition of Previews from Diamond Comic Distributors. Its product code is SEP110740.

Again, I’m really exciting, the ending is quite sad and it even brought tears to Deb’s eyes so hopefully, others will feel the same.

I got an email from a 442nd veteran today, and will contact him via email. I am so terrified that I’m SHAKING. I’m just glad I didn’t see it last night, or I wouldn’t have slept. I’ll be posting another Hellion up next week (I plan) titled, “covering Rock” but will post it here first.

Until tomorrow and I’ll post the cover when I complete it tonight.

Billy

That said, I’ve finished the fifth issue script to “Sgt. Rock – The Lost Battalion” today. I actually finished it last week, but with the hope that it was going to be a seven issue series, but received the news that we’ll only have six yesterday. I was incredibly depressed, but decided to get back to work today and finally finished it. The actual battle took place over seven days (and each of our issues is labeled “ ay One” etc.) so the series really should be seven issues but what are you gonna do? Again, I was really bummed as I felt I’m not doing justice to the men who served — the whole damn story is like a Hans Zimmer soundtrack, and know it would be SO much better if I had that last issue.

There’s just so much info, drama and humanity to be added but again, I will do my best to portray the valor of those men as best we could.

I spent the weekend with 1400 other history nuts, doing a full scale WW2 Battle of the Bulge reenactment at Fort Indiantown Gap, PA. It was an absolute blast and one of the best times I’ve ever had. I had the opportunity to portray both a German (Friday) and US correspondent (Thursday, Saturday) and hung out with a bunch of great guys and gals, took almost 800 photos and experienced an inspiration that I’ll never forget. Solof, Angel Doggie and Black Cat Guy promised to come — so guess what guys, there’s another in March! I’ll write more about it in detail for my coming Newsarama column.

Anyhoo, let me get back to work, but man, am I exhausted from all the running around, setting up all the photoshoots, getting up a 5am and just having a grand ol’ time.

I’ll talk to you tomorrow!

I hope too many messages weren’t lost…

When Billy told me there was a problem, I attempted a forum upgrade.

We didn’t have enough server space to do the forum upgrade, and we crashed in the middle of the forum upgrade, leaving the database in a half upgraded state.

At some point during my forum upgrade attempt, our web host upgraded our platform, so I lost back ups of the forum before the attempted forum upgrade.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to re-install the forum and still keep all members, posts and messages.

So, I’m working on it. It’s just slow going right now.

Please bear with me. I’ll update if I get any closer…

If you’re bored, you can read about my very first marathon which I ran in Disney World a couple of weeks ago

I’m finishing up yet another commission today and will finish the script to issue#5 by next weekend. Then I’ll give myself another ten days to finish #6. I’ll also be doing a commission a week and the covers for the last three issues. I’ll start issue #1 art this month as well. I’m really, really psyched about all of this. I’ve also looked at my convention schedule up to the end of summer and here it is. I’m won’t be at the first Big Apple show as it’s the same weekend as the Paradise Con in Toronto. I also and might be going to FX January 25-27 as I should just stay home and draw. The Wizard shows are up in the air (aside from Philly) at the moment. After the scripts are done, I’ll update the website and also start my Hellion For Hire columns again.

Here it is:

1. Stripboekenbeurs Rijswijk
March 1 & 2
Holland
(of which afterwards, I will be heading to the Lost Battalion battlefield in the Alsace region of France)

2. Mega Con, Orlando, FL
March 7-9

3.NY Comic Con
April 18-20

4. Pittsburgh Comic Con
April 25-27

5. Motor City Con
May 16-18

6. Wizard World Philly
May 30 – June 1st

7. Paradise Con, Toronto Canada
June 6-8

8. WW Chicago (?)
June 26-29th

9. San Diego Comic Con
July 23 – 27th

Whew! Nine shows in the first seven months…

Anyway, I’ve come up with a really cool scenerio for Rock but want to run it by some of my WW2 experts to see what they say. It involves Rock, taking his signature machine gun belt off his neck, tying it around a couple of grenades and chucking at a bunch of Germans. The explosions would be pretty damn lethal I think. What about you guys?