Poverty Thrill Adventures (Comic)

Poverty Thrill Adventures is a spin-off comic series to Poverty Pack. It's purpose was to focus solely on the individual characters of the team in order to flesh out details that a esemble book would not warrant the space for. Not only does it fufill that concept, but it also serves as a prequel series to the aforementioned title. Future issues will focus on introduction of new characters or the heroes' personal stories, that happen in-between the greater story arcs of Poverty Pack.

Development History
With the completion of the first Poverty Pack issue, Creators Ted Shambaris and Derek W. Lipscomb wanted to give more background to their books characters. Derek still wanted to be involved with something that truly spoofs the golden age of comics. The title "Poverty Thrill Adventures" was made to emulate old style comics with titles like “Action Comics", "Tales of Suspense" and "Journey into Mystery". Ted began to work on a blueprint which each character and villain will be introduced, while Derek began giving the comic's cover its distinct look.

With each character, the tone and artwork were going to vary based on subject matter. Some comics will have a Pulp vibe, while others a Noir, Golden age or 50's Sci-Fi. The covers themselves would invoke an old decrepit book from yesteryear, as if these characters came from another era.

Finally, to distinguish this title further from its sister book, PTA will have its interior printed in black & white rather than full color. The team decides this would be best for production time, costs and overall feel.

Volume 1
Poverty Thrill Adventures starts with "Street Dreamz", the story of aspiring rap artist Matt Marshalls, a talentless hack who's desiny seems directed at taking over his father's business of driving a street sweeper. Matt's ulterior motive is to win the affections of his highschool crush Simone, who constantly refuses his advances, while her best friend Gidget Florrie crushes on him, despite his ignorance. Matt knows that he'll never win her over if his goals are set as being a glorified garbage cleaner, so he along with his best friend Trey (a.k.a "Trash Talkah") conspire to debut their lyrical prowess during a play, put on their high school's drama department one night starring the school's acting enthusiast Conrad Quiverknife. When the two have a disagreement over Matt's lack of lyricism during practice, he takes it upon himself to jump the gun and perform without Trey's consent. This causes a riff between the two as they engage in a heated argument outside the campus that night. The argument is interrupted by Matt's father who has come to pick him up, leaving Trey storming off declaring their friendship over. Matt's dad tries to reason with his son about going another direction in his life, but is shot by a hooded menace, who quickly runs off the same direction Trey left. Matt is devastated at his father's loss as his father begs him to take over the family business in his last breath. The following year, Matt enters an open mic battle held at the local recreational center as a fundraiser to save it from being torn down. His old classmate Gidget, is running the fundraiser and sees him off on stage. There, Matt faces opponents such as Cussonya, Mute MC and 2Black before facing his one time friend, now foe Trash Talkah. But before they can battle, a masked man robs the event of it's proceeds at gunpoint and flees. Matt and Trey put down their beef and pursue the thief. Cornering him in an alleyway, the Mirth Minstrel reveals himself to be none other than Conrad Quiverknife, before being soundly beaten by Matt's broom handle. Matt is declared a hero and is given the monniker "Street Sweepah ".

Issue 2 "Heart Upon My Sleeve" picks up where issue #1 left off, with Gidget Florrie witnessing the defeat of Mirth Minstrel at the hands of Street Sweepah and Trash Talkah. Feeling that she hasn't accomplished anything profound in her life, Gidget is suddenly introduced to Walter Wellfellow, who runs the Farthing Foundation.

Volume 2
Starting with issue #5 "Plight of the Blue Brigade", Roderick Foreman (a.k.a. Captain Commander) visits a shrink by the name of Dr. Excitement who's career is counselling super heroes who have nobody to talk to or require pyschological evaluation. Roddy is apprehensive in his newly (self-proclaimed) role as team leader for the Poverty Pack. When questioned by the doctor as to why this may be, he recounts his stint as leader of a former team called Blue Brigade who consisted of members Airhead, Kid Kazoo and Mountain Man. Captain Commander led them on their last mission to stop criminal German cybernetics and bio engineering scientist Synthekaiser from looting copper wire from a children's school facility. Synthekaiser gets the best of he and his team and flees to Monetary Island off the coast of Golden Megalopolis. When they gave chase to the super criminal by boat, they witnessed a massive energy burst emitting from the island. Upon landing, the team made their way up the East Tower, buy began to experience distorted vision, as they all appeared exaggereted to one-another, save for the Captain himself. When they reached the roof top expecting to find Synthekaiser, they instead were surprised to only  find a lone shadowy figure operating a chrome device that was releasing the wave s of energy. The mysterious individual identified himself as Evizzle Fo' Shizzle, and revealed that he planned to expose the entire city to his Fib-Field Generator, which would make everyone unable to perform every day functions. He would then "lead" them all and bend the city to his will. Before the Captain could give the order to stop him, the Brigade began to crumble under the effects of the device's power and in turn Mountain Man kills Airhead by breaking her back. Kid Kazoo kills Mountain Man accidentally when he throws his whistle disk at the Generator, smashing it, only to ricochet off and imbed in Mountain Man's dome. Unable to deal with insanity, Kid Kazoo throws himself off of the East Tower, dying on impact. Evizzle escapes during the chaos, and Captain his left with doubts that he could ever lead a team again. Dr. Excitement then persuades Rodderick that he may be under the influenece of a heavy hallucinagen, despite his "straight edge" status. He declares that Rodderick let it go and chalk the whole experience up to an elaborate facade. Rodderick complies and declares he will start fresh by having sex with the Dr.'s secretary.