“Digger” McCrae (Gravedigger)

Created by Christopher Mills & Rick Burchett

“I’m a detail man. Figuring angles, covering bases — that’s what I do.”
— Digger gives us the facts, ma’am, just the facts.

“DIGGER” McCRAE, aka “GRAVEDIGGER,” is a professional thief, with the emphasis on professional.

If there’s one thing he can’t abide, it’s amateurs, in a great hard-boiled web comic by Christopher Mills and Rick Burchett that originally appeared on-line at Atomic Pulp.

It’s a hard world Digger lives in. He doesn’t have friends. The best compliment he can give to a cohort is to say “he distrusts him less than anyone else in the room.” When we first meet him, he’s just out of prison, and determined not to spend anymore time in stir. And he knows he’s not getting any younger — all he really wants is a shot at one last big score, so he can buy a condo in Miami that he’s had his eye on, and retire.

Sure. We all know how that’s gonna go…

If you think “Digger” looks suspiciously like Lee Marvin, well, Chris assures us the resemblance is entirely intentional. Marvin, of course, starred in Point Blank as Donald Westlake/Richard Stark‘s professional thief Parker.

In fact, the whole thing is a spot-on tribute to all those slick crime and caper movies of the sixties and seventies, complete with betrayal, psychopathic thugs, crooked cops, seedy motel rooms, and babes just asking for it. And it’s not just crime films that Mills and Burchett are paying tribute to — one character is called Goodis, and there are plenty more sly winks and easter eggs lurking in the shadows.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chris Mills is a writer, editor and graphic designer, born and raised in central Maine, but currently residing in South Florida with his wife, cat, videos, paperbacks, comics and toys. His comic credits includes stints at Image Comics, Moonstone Books, Action Lab Danger Zone, American Mythology Productions and four years as Editorial Director of Alpha Productions, and two years as an editor for Tekno*Comix (where he also scripted a year’s worth of the company’s flagship title, Leonard Nimoy’s Primortals). He also served as co-publisher/co-editor (with James Chambers) of Shadow House Press. He’s also the founder and proprietor of the Supernatural Crime: Digital Comics & Pulp website, which featured several of his online comics creations, including Femme Noir, Brother Grim and Nightmark, and served as the editor of adventure strips.com. As a writer, his short fiction, featuring private eye Matthew Dain has appeared at Thrilling Detective and Handheld Crime, and his short stories include contributions to Moonstone Books’ The Spider Chronicles, Werewolves: Dead Moon Rising, The Captain Midnight Chronicles and Kolchak: The Night Stalker. And if that’s not enough, he was also the creator and editor of the short-lived but much-loved illustrated crime fiction magazine, Noir.

Rick Burchett is a long-time veteran of the comics industry as both a penciler and inker. In that time he’s been privileged to work on some of the most recognizable pop culture icons of the 20th century. Among these are: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, The Green Lantern and The Justice League. Rick lives near St. Louis with his wife and two sons.

UNDER OATH

“Everything you could hope for in a crime tale: violence, wit, action, sex, mystery.”
— Examiner.com
“Mills drives us through his paperback underworld at breakneck speed, and gives Burchett the raw knuckled story he was born to do.”
— Jeff Parker
“Gravedigger: The Scavengers is the great lost crime film Lee Marvin coulda (and shoulda) done — straight up hard stuff, no chaser. It may go down easy, but it packs a punch like those brass knucks we mentioned. Let’s hope Mills and Burchett serve up another round of murder and mayhem real soon.”
— Kevin Burton Smith (The Thrilling Detective Web Site)

WEB COMICS

ADVENTURE STRIPS.COM
(2002-03, adventure strips.com)
Online
Weekly
Written by Chris Mills
Art by Rick Burchett
- “The Scavengers” (2002-03, adventure strips.com)

COMICS

GRAVEDIGGER: THE SCAVENGERS
(2004, Rorschach Entertainment)
One issue
Written by Chris Mills
Art by Rick Burchett
Collects the online serial.
GRAVEDIGGER: THE PREDATORS
(2015)
Two issues
Written by Chris Mills
Art by Rick Burchett

COLLECTIONS/GRAPHIC NOVELS

GRAVEDIGGER: HOT WOMEN, COLD CASH | Buy this book | Kindle it!
(2015, Action Lab Entertainment)
96 pages
Written by Chris Mills
Art by Rick Burchett
This is the one to get, collecting both The Scavengers and The Predators mini-series.

FURTHER INVESTIGATION

Atomic Pulps & Other Meltdowns
Chris’ personal blog, where he lets fly with shameless self-promotion and obsessive pop culture commentary.

“Digger” McCrae (Gravedigger)