State creators return in Popgun anthology

WORD BALLOONS

The wandering postapocalyptic oddballs of “Bastard Road” return in “Popgun” Vol. 4, which was released Wednesday by Image Comics.

Brian Winkeler of Yukon writes “Bastard Road,” and the artist and co-creator, Dave Curd, lived in Oklahoma for about 12 years. Bastard, the lead character, and Farel, his sidekick, get into two separate but intertwining adventures in “Popgun” Vol. 4. “Popgun” is an anthology of creator-owned comic-book work.

In the first “Popgun” story in the volume, illustrated by Curd, Bastard meets the “sexy, last lumberjack of the apocalypse, Elle Natural,” Winkeler said. “She does not take kindly to his crude come-ons, and hilarity and violence ensue.”

The second “Bastard Road” story in “Popgun” Vol. 4 is drawn by Oklahoma City artist Eric Sandhop.

“(It) starts at the same place as the beginning of the first story, and it’s essentially kind of a solo Farel tale, where he gets involved in a bar fight between leather-clad government agents and lizard thugs, basically,” Winkeler said. “The end of the first story actually crashes into about two-thirds of the second story, and the end of the second story kind of wraps up the entire adventure.”