PREVIEW PAGES
It has some extra details and concept sketches for your enjoyment.
Malfunction is a cyberpunk action series, and we're looking for a publisher.
10 issues between 2 volumes. 200 pages altogether.
Written by Patrick Trahey, illustrated by Jacob Halton.
With the advent of corporate law enforcement, police protection is a privilege, not a right.
A murder caused by a malfunctioning corporate law enforcement robot sparks a cover-up that reverberates from the slums of Chicago to the Martian parliament.
Malfunction explores an idea that we take for granted: that police protection should be a right, not a privilege. At its core, this story shows that no amount of technological advancement can protect people from a broken system.
It has some extra details and concept sketches for your enjoyment.
This plot takes many twists and turns, with an ensemble cast that takes their fight all the way to the stars.
Danny and his mom were poor, but she could afford law enforcement insurance, more than most. When Danny calls Sabre — the company that made conventional police obsolete — to protect his mother from his drug-addled father, they send their top of the line mech: the Honor Guard. Danny never expected his call would leave him an orphan and expose the cracks in the corporate law enforcement system.
Detective Jackie Quinlan begins an investigation into the incident, and discovers Danny’s mother was killed due to a flaw in the machine’s programming, and that Sabre is trying to pin the blame on their dispatch personnel. As Jackie seeks proof to bring Sabre to justice, she uncovers an elaborate plot of corporate-political espionage, in which Sabre is aggressively establishing themselves as the sole provider of arms for the recently liberated Martian government.
Jackie’s investigation reveals that the Honor Guard that malfunctioned had a neural processor designed for the Honor Guard Mach 2 (HG2), a Sabre prototype that is the backbone of Sabre’s Martian defense contract. The HG2 wasn’t meant to serve and protect, it was designed as a tactical assault mech meant to crack ships and battle a group of Martian pirates known as the Red Nebula. What Jackie doesn’t know is that Sabre is paying the Red Nebula to terrorize Mars to justify their arms contract.
The Red Nebula, fearing that they are pawns in Sabre’s scheme kidnap Danny before he can go to trial. He is taken to Mars and put into a Red Nebula mining camp and held as their bargaining chip in case Sabre tries to back out of their deal with her and the Red Nebula.
As Sabre realizes how much Jackie is uncovering through her investigation, they send the Red Nebula’s leader, Eutimia, to assassinate her. Their plan is to kill Jackie, and then betray Eutimia by sending an Honor Guard mech to kill her. This plan backfires, and both Jackie and Eutimia escapes while the HG destroys a busy highway, killing dozens of civilians and creating another public relations nightmare.
Jackie and Eutimia both head to Mars, Jackie looking to save Daniel and Eutimia looking for revenge. Eutimia orders her men to hack the HG2 that Sabre had provided them to guard their mining operation, and uses it to kill Sabre’s CEO and hijack Martian shipping lanes. With the HG2 gone, a Martian strike team is able to free the captive miners. Jackie arrives on Mars and finds Daniel, and agrees to help the battered Martian fleet defeat the Red Nebula.
The stage is set for an epic space battle that pits the Jackie and the Martian fleet against Eutimia, the Red Nebula, and their hacked HG2. In the end, the Red Nebula is gone, their HG2 is destroyed, and Eutimia is dead, but the Martian fleet is decimated.
After the battle, Mars has no choice but to accept Sabre’s contract, sacrificing its hard earned independence in favor of protection. Jackie and Daniel return to earth. Sabre buys off its dispatch personnel and buries the trial. In the end, justice isn’t served and Sabre gets off without consequence. Mars is stuck under the heel of Earth’s commerce. Humanity is set to expand outward into the galaxy. The system is broken.
The Red Nebula, fearing that they are pawns in Sabre’s scheme kidnap Danny before he can go to trial. He is taken to Mars and put into a Red Nebula mining camp and held as their bargaining chip in case Sabre tries to back out of their deal with her and the Red Nebula.
But at least Jackie and Danny have each other.
is a writer and a Chicago native. He enjoys routinely hurtling his beloved hometown into apocalypses of various flavors. He is the creator of Sol Comics, and the writer behind all the stories that live therein.
He lives by a simple credo: story first.
Patrick’s series, The XII was successfully funded on Kickstarter for a print run of 1000 copies. He teaches writing at the International School of Comics Chicago, where he also hosts an annual gallery show and monthly graphic novel book club.
is an artist and designer with a background in illustration and interactive design. He brings a strong eye for vivid, evocative imagery in his art and design. Jacob runs a studio specializing in illustration and design for comics.
Whether he’s designing something for people to click on, composing a cover for a comic, or drawing panels to read, his goal is always that the work be thoughtful, beautiful and compelling to look at, and inspire the reader to think about the deeper themes of the content.
Jacob successfully ran a Kickstarter in Fall of 2015 to print 1000 copies of the first volume of his trippy techno graphic novel series, Boké Expressway.