What is 7th Precinct Studios?
7th Precinct Studios is a creator-owned, creator-run, virtual comic book publisher. Our only current title is Motown Heat.
Why was 7th Precinct founded?
I, the founder, was an early member of an organization called the Amateur Creators' Union, an organization which was set up to help aspiring comic book professionals get a foot in the door, so to speak. Unfortunately, the Union and its studio, Freelance Studios, went belly-up after less than two years, leaving its members (those who had not found professional work) high and dry. Myself included.
While I had put out an ashcan edition of Motown Heat, I was a little dissatisfied with the production quality of the issue (it was basically nineteen pages of 8 1/2 X 11 Xerox-quality paper, poorly photocopied.). By the time the studio folded, however, the artist of that issue, one Bobby Hewitt, had found himself professional work, while I was scrambling for an artist to complete more issues.
After a lot of disappointment, I decided that if I was going to get my words to the outside world, I had better take matters into my own hands. Thus, with the knowledge of HTML under my belt, I created this endeavor, 7th Precinct Studios, swearing to keep all my stories pertaining to Motown Heat on the Web, for everyone to access, gratis.
So, what's the deal with this? It's not exactly comics.
I know it's not exactly comics. I'm cursed by limited space for graphics for 7th Precinct, thanks to the expensive cost in memory that full-page graphics cost. Therefore, the stories are comic book style; that is, they are stories which can as easily be read as a comic as they can in regular text. I only have room enough on my servers to put up pinups of my heroes, which can be found at the Image Gallery. In other words, try to use your imagination. :)
Where does MH take place?
Motown Heat takes place in the city of Detroit. When is up to you to decide; however, I like to think of it as the near future, or the present day in an alternate universe. In at least one issue, I did mention a real-life Detroit celebrity (Mayor Dennis Archer.).
What is the environment?
You have two kinds of superhumans in the city: those who protect the helpless, and those who look out only for their own interests. The superhumans in the MH team are police officers, and thus are the first kind. Those they fight against, those who look out for themselves, usually fall into four categories:
Needless to say, with this much variety among superhumans in one city, Detroit is very much like an unstable powder keg. The common citizenry would be helpless against this volatile atmosphere, if not for the efforts of SWAT Unit #614, better known as Motown Heat.
The Flea
Who is the Flea?
The Flea is actually two women's minds, accidentally placed into one superhuman body. Her human side is Detroit homicide detective Jillian Ariana Burke. The other personality is a Gaoan nurse by the name of Ferret Diamond-Points.
What is the Flea's power?
The Flea's power is in her ability to jump incredible distances. This is due to the fact that her alien body is designed to operate in a denser atmosphere. In human terms, Ferret's body is on Earth what a human body would be on Mercury.
So how does the Flea operate with a split personality?
Very carefully, let me tell you. The primary personality in charge is Jill Burke's; however, she has at least three daily arguments with herself because Burke and Diamond-Points have polar-different personalities.
When Ferret Diamond-Points is in charge, she is using her medical skills in the field, and usually bandaging up injuries on her own body that Jill Burke has inflicted.
Cutup
Who is Cutup?
Cutup is Detroit narcotics detective Jasmine Liang Chin, the daughter of automotive industrialite Chelsea McClast-Chin and South Korean diplomat Song Chin.
What powers does Cutup have?
None, actually. Her "superhuman" capability lies in a near-mystical expertise in bladed-weapon combat, especially when it comes to knives and daggers. She is also a black-belt in tae kwon do.
Okay, if she doesn't have powers, why is she on a team of superhumans?
A lot of it has to do with the strength of her character. Y'see, Jasmine was raped by her father when she was 15 years old. She spent two years in hiding, during which time she came to live with a knife instructor named Rocky, who trained her to use the knives. At the end of that time, she left Rocky to be with her father again, who was sick. However, when her father tried to rape her again, Jasmine, in defending herself, killed him with her new skills.
She served the duration of her teenage years was spent in a juvenile facility, where lawyers constantly appealed for her early release, while she received letters from young girls and older women who admired her action. After she received over eight thousand letters from rape, incest, and domestic violence victims, her sentence was commuted, releasing her when she was 19 years old. After her release, she did the last thing anyone expected: joined the police force. It was this act which clinched Jill Burke's decision to invite her to join the team.
Ramm
Who is Ramm?
Ramm is former Detroit internal affairs detective Jackson Douglass Porter. At age 59, he is the eldest member of Motown Heat.
What are Ramm's powers?
Ramm's powers are derived from his thick purple hide, which makes him invulnerable to firearms calibered up to thirteen-inch howitzer shells, and allows him to shoulder-press up to eight tons. He also has a steel plate in his skull which lets his teammates use him as a human battering ram.
Why has Ramm been around for so long?
His sense of duty dates back to his father's death, a result of a beating given him by a white supremacist group known as the Legion of the White Swan. At the moment his father died, he pledged that no more innocents would die because of hate. He joined the Detroit Police in 1956, and became one of the first black detectives in the department, an achievement he is incredibly proud of.
Sonic Boom
Who is Sonic Boom?
Sonic Boom is Detroit police officer Meredith Lisa Burke, sister of Jill Burke (The Flea). Although she is 90% deaf, Meredith was given a special commission because of her powers.
What are those powers, anyway?
Sonic Boom's powers are exactly as her name implies: manipulation of sound waves. She can channel sound and turn it into kinetic energy, which in turn can be used for propulsion, or as a weapon. Depending on the volume and quality of the sound, the strength of her blasts fluctuates.
Did she always have these powers? Is that why she's deaf?
No, she didn't. Meredith has been deaf from birth, a fact which has never escaped either her parents or her sister. Until she received her powers, she lived off a monthly stipend from her sister.
Meredith received her powers from a mysterious meteorite, which fell through her patio door and struck Meredith in the small of her back. Instead of killing her, though, it deconstructed on the molecular level and bonded with her DNA, granting her powers over sound.
Paragon
Who is Paragon?
Paragon is also known as Detroit narcotics detective Shelley Anne Marcust.
What are Paragon's powers?
Not all of Paragon's powers are known at the current time. What is known, however, is that she has the body of a snake, which replaces her legs. She is known to have superhuman strength (can bench-press up to 600 lbs.), and stealth-movement capability.
How did she get these powers? I'm assuming they aren't natural.
Det. Marcust was missing for two years, until found by Motown Heat while battling the mystic superhuman Fagin. It is theorized that Fagin transformed her body into its current beastly form while removing her soul so that he had total control over her.
C.aT.
Who is C.aT., and how did she get a acronym for a codename?
C.aT. is Detroit dispatch officer Laura Tamara Ells. Her codename is an acronym, standing for Computer Technician.
"Computer Technician?" What are her powers?
C.aT.'s powers involve a cybernetic implant created by Dix Technologies and given to her after she was left a vegetable in a car accident. The implant replaces the entire left lobe of her brain, which allows her to directly jack in to any computer console, gives her incredibly fast fine motor skills (she types at 83400 wpm), and even allows her a limited precognitive sense.
O-kay, how come she's a cop and not with the Yin-Yan Hex?
The deal with the Hex syndicate is that she would have had to sign a contract with Dix. She didn't, and didn't have to. McCordill allowed her to have the implant for free, as a humanitarian gesture, and to throw attention away from a six-nation deal he was brokering involving thirty-nine DixTech-built ICBM's.
This part of the FAQ would be too big for me to keep my sanity, so I am listing one example from each kind of villainous superhuman in Detroit.
Type 1: Free Agents
Muscles
Who is Muscles?
Muscles' real name is unknown to the team (they don't cover the booking desk too carefully), but he is known to be what the Flea calls a "loverboy": that is, he's a pimp who thinks he's got more than he has.
What are Muscles' powers?
Muscles has a genetically superior physique, and through some training of some kind, he has achieved near-superhuman strength levels.
Type 2: Circle-Point Syndicate
Demolition
Who is Demolition?
Demolition is Kain Marks, an ex-con and ex-Yin-Yan Hex operative, brainwashed to follow Maroone blindly.
What are Demolition's powers?
Demolition has been given malleable hands and feet by Maroone, theorized to be knots of nanomachines under his control. He can mold his hands and feet into any weapon he chooses: he prefers pickaxes and sledge hammers.
Type 3: Yin-Yan Hex Syndicate
Style
Who is Style?
Style is aspiring model Jeri Tyler, now the arm-decoration of Charles Dix McCordill, yet dangerous in her own right.
What are Style's powers?
Style's powers are a combination of McCordill's technology and her own mutation: she masters an as-yet-unknown form of energy blast to her will, which is very destructive, and she uses what she thinks is sex appeal to control and manipulate men (it's actually freakishly-high levels of pheromones.).
Type 4: Mystics
Fagin
Who is Fagin?
Fagin is an immortal entity who has been living for several centuries, and for half of that lifetime he has corrupted children into superhumans and adults into monsters.
What are Fagin's powers?
Fagin's powers, aside from his own immortality, result from the unique position that he has no soul of his own, thus he must consume others' souls. When he does consume the souls, depending on the age of the victim, they either become normal-looking superhumans or freakish monsters. Fagin's powers created Motown Heat's own Paragon.
Who created Motown Heat?
The creator of Motown Heat is Don Alexander Martinez (yours truly), aka the Coyote Bando (the page's creation is credited to Coyote Bando).
Who writes Motown Heat?
The creator, Don Martinez. At least, up until issue #24. At that point, the writing duties will be taken over by Chuck Hall.
Who drew the images in the Gallery?
Don Martinez drew all of the images in the Gallery. They are most, if not all, of the heroes in Motown Heat, as the creator envisions them. I do not draw the villains, though: that I leave for the readers to envision.