10 Reasons You Should Support My Kickstarter (you won't believe #3!)

Here are 10 reasons why you should support my Kickstarter and help bring my dream to life! Though written tongue in cheek, I hope that these arguments will make you consider becoming a Backer of Liberty: Deception Volume 1.

#10. It's New - Maybe you don't typically read comic books, maybe you don't like long-winded and confusing stories. You're in luck! As my first graphic novel you don't need to have any previous knowledge of the characters, story, or world. There isn't a better point of entry than it's initial release!

#9. It Has Pretty Pictures - Maybe you don't care about the story, maybe you don't like reading, or (like me) you're a slow reader. The beauty of the graphic novels is that you have something tangible to look at on every page! So even without reading anything you can get an understanding of what's happening.

#8. Quality - Liberty: Deception is being created by a team of extremely talented artists across 6 continents and we've invested months of work to make sure that every page will look just as good as the last. We've crafted our own fonts, we make sure that every character has the same scars and tattoos on every page, and we will maintain this level of quality across the entire series.

#7. A Solid Story - Every person who's reviewed my book (each word is a link to a different review) has has had something positive to say about the story and how excited they are to see more of it. We have many unique characters and many different elements of our story to tell.

#6. Passion - Every person who's working on Liberty: Deception is passionate about it. Many of us are putting in upwards of 20 hours a week (or more) to create the best possible experience for our readers. You can see how that passion translates into every panel we create.

#5. Generosity (or "Supporting the Economy!") - By supporting the Liberty: Deception Kickstarter you're helping create jobs. No, really! This project regularly gives paying jobs (at fair rates) to a team of over 10 artists. The money from our Kickstarter goes directly into printing our book, so you're creating the vehicle through which we can succeed, which will allow us to create more content! It's sort of like the circle of life.

#4. You're Rooting For The Underdog - We are self-published, self-funded, and creator owned. In terms of simply trying to raise awareness for our comic book online or in a comic book shop we're competing with the Walking Dead, Batman, and the Avengers! Just like Rocky Balboa, all we're looking for is a fair shot!

#3. You've Spent Money on Sillier Things - Search your feelings, you know it to be true. Perhaps it's insurance for a starship in a video game, or a massive 40k army, foolishly expensive drinks at the bar (or the airport), or a blue ray copy of the Lord of the Rings movies you purchased knowing full-well that they'd release the extended editions a month or two later... Whatever the case this wouldn't be the strangest thing you've spent money on.

#2. It's Actually Pretty Good - Don't believe me? Check out the first 20 pages for free right now!

#1. You can "Pre Order" it NOW for less $$ and get more things - While you're probably thinking that you can buy it later for less money, you're incorrect. For $25 you're getting the physical book, signed and shipped to your door, plus a digital copy, your name will appear in our special thanks, and you'll also get to influence future elements of the story! By ordering our book at a later date you're losing out on bonus goodies and there's a stronger chance that our book won't be printed. For a bit more you can even make a cameo and be a part of the story you're bringing to life!
In short, thank you for taking the time to read this list and for thank you supporting my project.

Here's the link to the Kickstater page: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/randomencounter/liberty-deception-vol-1-a-sci-fi-comic-adventure

The Comic Book Creator’s Struggle

The Comic Book Creator’s Struggle

(The Road Less Taken)
[Written for the magazine Mir Fantastiki, copied here with permission]

Comic Page for Liberty: Deception.
Art by Raymund Bermudez & Joana Lafuente

Anyone thinking about creating a comic book should know that it is a difficult road. Many abandon the path after the first few paces, petrified after catching only a glimpse of what lies ahead. You will almost certainly not make money. You will almost certainly spend far too much of your own time and money. At every possible turn of the creation process you will battle against a hoard of invisible pitfalls, trials, and psychological struggles that will make Frodo’s adventures in the Lord of the Rings look like a holiday picnic. You will encounter problems you did not think could even exist! You will lose days, months, and probably years off your life (if you take yourself too seriously), like in the machine from the Princess Bride, learning about distribution chains, ISBN numbers,  grammar, file formats, fonts, and the differences between RGB vs CMYK. You will gain experience, learn to multi-class, become a jack of all trades, or you will undoubtedly give up.

Even Vulcans have bad days...

In the miraculous event that you are able to complete your first book, you will experience firsthand what H.P. Lovecraft meant when he spoke of depression, as you try to find individuals who might simply read your book. You will embrace rejection time and time again with a smile. You will likely spy on your critics, become close with the harsh criticisms that you’ll receive, and possibly grow from them. You must suppress your emotions using the ancient Vulcan rituals as the potential readers insist that five dollars US is too much to pay for your book, the sum of years of your life. However, above all else you must remember that you are only in this situation because you truly care about what you are creating.

Frodo knows a thing or two about struggles

The life of a comic book creator is one of passion and struggles. You are passionate about your story, but it takes time to create. The little victories each week will one day lead to a moment of personal triumph where you’ve fought the world, fought nature, and fought against your very psyche and won! No one is obligated to like your work, or even give it glance, and as a project of passion you have to be accepting of this and not take personal offense. There are many many mistakes to make as a comic book creator. I know because I’ve made most of them over the last decade. The creation of a comic book is a very slow and time consuming process and it is always important to remember that you should not expect fame, success, or money. Create something because you find it enjoyable.

Stabbity Bunny: A delightful
independent comic book series!

I am an American comic book writer/creator who has attended over 50 fan conventions, expos, and festivals. I was always intimidated by the amount of information needed to really understand the plots of the X-Men, The Green Lantern, or many other mainstream comic books, and as a result I’ve always been drawn to independent comics. I’ve supported and read dozens of books ranging from extremely low quality (in both art and story), to the most captivating of adventures and I found that I’m personally drawn to dynamic interior artwork, pretty cover art, and stories that seem genuinely interesting. I have a habit of taking notes on what I like about the things I read, and when you switch hats and suddenly become a “comic book creator” the first thing many people forget is to focus on creating something that they themselves would appreciate.

A panel from my first comic book

My first venture into comics sought to explain a comic book world I’d created in 18 pages or less. However, it didn’t really have that much of a story, and I honestly didn’t put too much effort into truly developing the world. The art was created by the first artist I bumped into, and the cover was as dull as an 18th century legal document. It took me almost a year to realize that I wouldn’t be selling the other 5000 copies I’d printed, and it took a few more years to realize that perhaps I’d created the very type of exposition-heavy comic that I myself didn’t enjoy.

The same character, now in my newest book.
Illustrated by Casey Bailey!

The lesson to be learned in this is the most important reminder a comic book creator, or a creative mind in any other field, can have: To create what you enjoy and to enjoy what you create. Otherwise you might as well be getting paid for your time.

Creative Update: February 2014

The last few months have been busy at best and I've accomplished much. While I have a few Video Game reviews I could post this week, with the start of the new year a quasi self-reflective post on things I'm working on seems healthy.

Photo by Tiffany Mueller

Random Encounter has evolved so much in the last two months that it's barely recognizable to me as being the same individuals or even an offshoot of the band I started so many years ago. I'm extremely proud of my bandmates as Rook has taken to professional bass lessons (far surpassing any skill I once may have had on the instrument), Kit got a huge promotion at work (I'm really proud of him) and has significantly increased in his recording abilities, Konami has really picked up a lot of the "band leadership/motivator" role & writes/arranges with me, and Moose is rapidly improving as a drummer, far surpassing the physical limitations of what he once thought was possible. We've become extremely organized... for us... We have some extreme goals for 2014 we intend to accomplish which I can't really share for awhile but we have some really exciting upcoming shows across the state, and at the shows we've played so far we've been very in-sync with one another to the point where I feel extremely comfortable in our performances... Something I never feel as a solo performer, and don't feel performing with other musicians. Sure everyone in the band (but me) is catching a variation of the MAG-flu, but all in all this will be a great year for Random Encounter, though I don't expect we'll have anything to show the public for our efforts for quite some time beyond live shows.

Careless Juja is also chugging along nicely. We're well into production of the Layton album and while many would find 4 hour recording sessions stressful, I really enjoy them in this creative outlet. Where Random Encounter is something that HAS to sound professional, I am not under the same self-imposed stress with CJ and can experiment as much or as little as I want to. To explain, I'm not particularly concerned if I don't become popular here so the only person I have to really please is myself (and Juja). My goal with CJ is to record music I want to hear, the way I want to hear it and I get that other people might not be interested, which allows me to try new things which I ultimately allow me to really grow as a recording musician. Most of the tricks I used for LMTYAS were things I discovered on accident while recording stuff for CJ. As CJ, when it stops being fun I stop recording, and when I run out of ideas I do something else. Juja's much the same way, we like the same things for the most part, and though we have a specific goal in mind that would seem taxing, recording what's left of 34 tracks in three weeks, I'm glad that we'll soon have a quality product of our musical friendship that we can share with the world.

Early Character Concept

The Liberty comic book series has seen its greatest developmental growth over the last two months than it's seen in the six months prior. There have been a lot of changes, so I'll start from the beginning... The comic book story takes place hundreds of years after the planet "Atrius" was colonized. Adam (the co-creator) and I sort of set an arbitrary marker for the "present" as being "roughly 600 or 800 years", what we thought was enough time passing to justify the social changes that would be required to make our story believable, but we didn't really have any idea or framework for the events that took place between the "present" (year 713) and the initial colonization of the planet. To fix this, and also to clearly compile a list of all government organizations that would be required to make the totalitarian Inner City function (with their respective job functions, key personnel, and jurisdictions) I put together a book called A Citizen's Guide to Atrius. The intent of the book was to paint an outline to the city's events and a (now very colorful) history over the course of 50 pages while giving bios for key figured, places of interest and the like, without giving so much detail as to make writing future books or comics about those events seem excessive. It's sort of like how I read the Wikipedia entry for the Crucible and was still captivated when watching it performed at a local theater, being genuinely surprised with the outcome of the trial despite knowing how it was supposed to end. The Citizen's Guide is effectively written (taking up most of my December), being edited by someone with a working knowledge of the Chicago NB format. The illustrations for the book should be done sometime in March and if there's enough interest we might do a limited self-publishing run, but I'm skeptical anyone will want a background book to a story that hasn't been published.

Recent Character Concept by Adam

With the sudden existence of a detailed history we had a make a large number of revisions to the comic book script to ensure that continuity existed between the history book and the script itself. As we've not published anything we're thankfully free to make revisions unlike authors like Tolkien (who i'm told desperately wanted to go back and rewrite the Hobbit), or Lucas (who everyone was angry at for revising the cannon of the expanded universe) which took the bulk of my January to accomplish. While I was working on this Adam developed a line of "standard issue" firearms for the Inner City, departmental color schemes, and a general color scheme for the comic, settling on an uncommon color scheme we think will be most visible on a comic book store shelf. We also added a dedicated cover artist for the entire series to our creative team, which we're really happy about. In the short-term we are also working with concept artists to create a unique sense of fashion in the world, a designer to create logos for each governmental division/department, and an archaeological illustrator (my girlfriend) to create a legit archaeological illustration of one of the city's key buildings, as well as an awesome 3d rendering. We're also working with someone who designs advertisements and logos as their full-time job to create a title for the series. I'm finding each of these individual processes to be fascinating, and working with professionals in each of their respective fields has been quite an experience. I hope to share some aspects of the creative process in the coming months but for now it's a bit too early to really get into.

On a final comical note, we had a rough revelation last week whereby we concluded that the amazing back-story we'd written for one of the main characters (which is periodically referenced throughout the script) could have never taken place within the confines of our world's history. Instead of rewriting what he have, we sadly concluded that it's all true... in that character's head and that s/he's simply delusional.

Comic Production: Editing & Art Direction

"Work Harder!"
An early concept by Adam Cartwright

We're only 8 days into November (at the time of writing this) and I know I've already spent well over 30 hours editing the comic book series. We're still storyboarding the final third of the series, and while I can't change a whole lot about what I've written, I've been asked to go through and revise all of the dialogue in the series with a fine-tooth comb, character by character. So I've had to go through the script, character by character, and modify each person's speech to be unique from the others. Most of our characters come from different places in society, don't have a very diverse vocabulary, and generally won't use words with more than three syllables, while others never use conjunctions, or intentionally use big words to confuse everyone else and take advantage of them.

More complexity is added to the situation because the world we've created is extremely phonetic, literal, foreign (different planet), and has to lack all modern idioms/references. So as I scour the pages of the script for instances of "makes sense", "make sure", "make yourself at home", etc, i'm also looking out for things in the social context of our series, like the various perceptions of how to measure time, how numbers are perceived/measured, or if a character believes in evil/good or moral ambiguity. I also have to avoid any modern terms or phrases like "fish in a barrel," "bull crap," or anything else that refers to plants or animals because they don't exist in the comic. It was a surprisingly more difficult task than initially expected and much of the speech patterns feel truly foreign to English. I had to create rules for a phonetic low-class language early on to make it understandable, while still not resembling good English, and remaining phonetically true to how I'd like the words spoken. For example, one character almost never uses "the", instead opting for " a'." While I could have opted for 'da (as in, 'da bomb) instead of a' the character doesn't use the "D" sound much, so it wasn't true to the phonetic rule. Hopefully what I've got passes the final editor's approval and is easy enough to understand. This sentence summarizes much of my work, how "I brought some mercenaries here as insurance to make sure that didn't happen" becomes "Got some friends here ta’ make sure ‘at didn’ happen."

Tattoos for Tarot

On the production side, I generally look at the last week's art and mark things that need to be changed. These are things like making sure that everything in the script that was important was included (continuity), that excess frames are cut, that characters don't look stiff, that with no knowledge of the script I as a reader can understand the visual motions happening in the scene without explanation, and that a given characters' expressions and body language fit the character. We've been working on concepts and thumbnails (basically storyboards) for the last few months so it's important that I suggest large artistic revisions before we get to the sketching phase. Our methodology is admittedly abnormal in the regard that we're working to finish the storyboards for the entire series before we move on to the sketching phase but otherwise we're following a fairly traditional model. 

Effective Pacing?
That is the question

Pacing is another one of those tough spots that separates a good artist from a good sequential artist. There is a balance between cutting a scene short versus dragging it out for too long and it's the difference between an interested readership, boredom, and being confusing. It's also fairly hard to convey subtle motion gestures like a "nod" in sequential art without spending too much time on them, so you need to improvise around certain gestures. Here's an example of the sort of things that sequential artists think about.

Illustrate a character picking up and eating an apple.

Idea 1 

Frame of the character eating an apple.

We skipped half of the job by not illustrating the character picking up the apple. Was it important to show them picking up an apple? Maybe not, but if so, the reader has no idea where the apple came from and there is not enough information in the single frame (without additional points of reference) to assess much of anything about it's origin. Perhaps the character was carrying it, perhaps it was in his/her pocket, perhaps they just found it. Most readers will assume it's clean because the character is eating it, unless the character itself looks dirty. However, this example has not conveyed a character picking up AND eating an apple, just the eating part.

Idea 2 

Frame of an apple, close up. 

Frame of character eating an identical apple.

This is still not very effective because we don't know where the apple that the character is eating came from. We are left to assume that the apple is the same one from the closeup frame (background can help sell this idea) or else the artist likely would not have focused on it for a full frame... Unless it's an apple not yet consumed (still in the background), implying that the character is eating many apples and that perhaps something bad/good will happen when they reach the one from the closeup. Poison apple?

Idea 3 

Frame of an apple, close up, or alternatively an establishing frame of the character and the apple apart.

Frame of a hand moving towards an apple. 

Frame of a character (with a matching hand) eating the apple.

This is fairly effective and can be made more effective by use of color on the hand or by perhaps giving the character a long-sleeve shirt or unique identifiable quality that's visible in the last two frames.

Idea 4 

Frame of an apple, close up. 

Frame of a hand reaching towards the apple. 

Frame of a character matching the hand from frame 2 looking at the apple. 

Frame of the character blowing on the apple. 

Frame of the character wiping the apple on their sleeve. 

Frame of the character looking at the apple to make sure it's clean. 

Frame of the character eating the apple.

While intentionally extended to 7 frames for emphasis, you can see how this sequence of events could easily detract from the main story... Unless the point of the scene was to imply that life is moving slowly, or to give an internal monologue, or perhaps to make a seemingly important statement about the character's nature that couldn't otherwise be presented in a different scene. The point here is that this example wastes 7 frames, possible 2 full pages (pages = $), to show something that doesn't progress the plot, doesn't make a statement, and is possibly boring to look at. This isn't to say that you can't add other elements like the aforementioned monologue, or perhaps to use this as a visual dynamic while a conversation is taking place, but on its own this is probably excessive framing.

So this week's post ends with the sort of joke you'd find in an action film.

Frame 2: Anarchist: "What's the password?"

Frame 3: Glasses Guy: "Huh?"

Frame 4: Gun: JAM*

Frame 6: Gun: click click

Frame 7: Anarchist: "Nice joke, eh?"

Frame 7: Text Box (bottom of frame): *There are few things more upsetting in life than a gun jam.

Comic/Creative: A Completed Script

Note: I write these a few weeks in advance. Know that I've been doing almost nothing but work on the Random Encounter album since this post was written...

Exhaustion

This week I've found myself spending more time working on the comic book than I normally do so it seemed like the right topic. My functions as the developer, writer, editor, producer, art director, marketing, and general continuity guy give me anywhere between five to twenty-five hours of things to do on any given week but the last few days have been exceptionally taxing because I just sat down and pushed through the rest of a complete adaptation of the script from light 90 page film script to detailed 150 page comic book script! It's been a two year journey and I'm extremely proud to finally be done.

Character Evolution of "Cade" from 2006 to 2013

As the writer I've generally looked at the same script I've been working on since 2007 (drawing takes time), made revisions, and revised those revisions a few more times. The main cause for rewrites have been upgrades in technology, back story, location, and plot revisions given to me by the artist & co-developer, who's really helped expand the world over the last two years. How will the characters in the story interact now that they're armed differently? Now that they've been hurt in the prior scene? Now that we've changed direction and killed off (or alternatively, let live) a character from a previous scene? How about now that every building is hex-shaped? A lot of things got changed over the grand transition from inception to script but it's been fun work. Over the last year we also picked up two interactive supporters, basically a kind of "pick your own ending" book (via a series of emails) where our donors control a character in the comic book series. They actually designed the characters with us and dictated what actions they'd take at significant crossroads. It's been pretty fun.

Interactive Supporter

Given the sheer volume of changes, writing and editing have taken up far more time than it should...

Fortunately we've had the benefit (or curse) of being able to revise the entire story because nothing's been released yet, so when a problematic plot point needs to change, like us not wanting to address a side character's medical condition early on in the series because "it takes too much attention away from the main story" I suddenly have a large task ahead. First I need to cut the dialogue from the big reveal scene while simultaneously marking the existing frames that have already been drawn for it. I need to find new content to fill the gap in the story so the comic remains at an even number of pages divisible by 4. The magic number is "4" because comics are basically large pieces of paper that are folded in half, with printed material on both sides. Then I have to sift through the entire script (for the whole series) and remove any references to the conversation. After that I also need to look both in the script and in the pages of the comic (that were already drawn) for required shifts in body language, interaction, and dialogue. Boring stuff to be sure but after the entire script has been read from start to (almost) finish again to make sure that it's still coherent I've been going back to finish the ever-changing final 40 pages.

"M-Guard"... Finally given the name Jax

The story loosely resembles a revolution led by a colorful and dangerous Dirty Dozen style cast. It became readily apparent by the time I'd reached the last quarter of the story from the 2007 script the original ending would be impossible to recreate because we killed off the key character it relied on. Oops... Far from an arbitrary choice (I strongly believe combat deserves a certain gravity) half of the characters I'd envisioned as being alive just didn't make it to the final leg of the journey. It was surprisingly emotional writing the final moments of characters that have been with me for longer than most real-life friends and I found myself questioning if I'd done a decent job of showing who they were within the confines of the script. I know how they'd act in a given scenario, I just questioned if I'd created the optimal scenarios to portray them in. We've also introduced a number of characters to the series that didn't exist at the start of 2012. Some of these characters also died but others wound up surviving, changing the delicate social dynamics of the group, and unexpectedly becoming fairly pivotal. We even had to name them after writing them into over 20 pages. I felt less and less like I was making up lines for characters and more like I was shifting the circumstances through which real people would interact. I felt like a D20 storyteller.

Storyboard "Thumb"

So having put in close to 40 hours over the week I finally made the much needed push to finish the script. Towards delirium on the final night I came across what amounted to a typo in a set of notes outlining the ending that seemed to make sense in my exhausted state. The typo was basically a placeholder idea I'd written in to fill the gaps of the story left by dead characters. It wasn't intended to be real. It wasn't intended to make sense. It was just what I thought would be running through the mind of one of the characters and how he'd justify his actions. However, instead of seeing it as an inner thought I mistook it for a key plot point (because of a formatting error) and ran with it. Somehow, as if by magic, an ending I hadn't envisioned came from it and all the problems and loose ends I wasn't sure about were magically fixed by my sleep-deprived mistake. I had Adam double-check my work the next morning and he verified that it wasn't just the sleep-deprivation, but that the story now had a solid ending better than the ones we were planning. Two complete revisions of the script later I'm sending it off to a few people for their professional feedback. With any luck we're down to minor revisions from here on out so I can put down the metaphorical writing pen for awhile.

Art/Creative: A Comic is Born

Cityscape by Joseph Tai

Last week's visit to Spectrum inspired me to write a bit about my own struggle as an artist or rather my misadventures to create a comic book series without the possession of any artistic abilities. The story starts in September 2004 with an idea. Being a fairly experienced storyteller at the time (running about 12 concurrent D&D games, writing 2 to 3 short stories a week) and almost a college freshman with a legal handwriting disability, I sat down and scrawled out an illegible spider-web of words that all connected to a central word in the middle of the page: "Twitch." This was the name of the character I had in mind. The other words were connecting points about the world I had in mind for the character, other characters, or ideas like: "post apocalyptic", "streets", "skorpion + baseball bat mix", "Grimm", "gangs", and "nocturnal." This was written midst the notes of a macroeconomics class and, like any good student, I promptly lost the paper and with it the idea.

My Original Sketch

A few months later during the Christma- er, Yuletide (I'm reading Krampus: Yule Lord at present) break I came across the page, which had almost entirely faded (Pro Tip: erasable ink erases on its own after awhile). I wrote more of my spider-web diagrams, expanding on various elements, making lists, and I finally drew a little sketch of the character with a map of the city in my head. I spent most of the winter break brainstorming parts of the setting but once school picked back up I lost track of what I'd worked on and couldn't find the pages because it was (again) all done between calculus or financial accounting notes. This pattern of discovery, expansion, loss, discovery, expansion, and loss continued every break from college I had, returning to me more vividly and dear to my heart each time I rediscovered it. I slowly added more characters, depth, and started to create a context for it all. Before getting distracted by college projects, by starting a band, by summer jobs, and by beloved video games I got a little bit further in developing the world until a story started to form. It started off as "betrayed gangers seek revenge" but quickly evolved into an extremely lengthy handwritten novel, mixed in with the occasional note from Advanced Statistics or Principles of Business Ethics.

"Sit down and write an outline, dammit!" -Yuri
Unused Issue 2, Page 13 - by Joseph Tai...

In 2007 I ran a few pen and paper games in the setting to try and see what other people thought of it and got generally positive feedback. Because (at the time) I had commitment issues in completing any writing project longer than 50 pages I recruited my friend Yuri to help me form a coherent outline. Though we weren't always on the same page, Yuri added much needed structure to my life and motivated me to sit down and complete a full outline of the story, which had previously been envisioned without a clear end in sight (sort of like a D&D game). Yuri also pushed the main character i'd designed the series around (Twitch) into more of a back-seat role. The story now focused on a witty male protagonist named Justice, whom Twitch followed like a silent guardian angel of death. As a feminist I was sad to make the change but since Twitch was a character that didn't talk much, and I was pretty uncompromising about her nature as a character, it was hard to argue her as the main character from a storytelling perspective.

Crushing Defeat...
Early Sketch by Adam

After graduating college I'd saved up just enough money to avoid joining the work force for three solid months and secluded myself from music, friends (except my trusty kitten, Evanrude), video games, and entertainment to write. I was a ghost. The only time I was seen in public was at a local Burger King, mapping out the dimensions so I could re-create a space of similar size in which to map out fight choreography. Since I was now looking to make the story into a film (I had some experience in the film industry so it seemed like a logical step), I wrote the first draft in a few weeks, revised it, put together a solid prospectus (a brochure to get investors), and spent the rest of the time seeking backers for the film (which needed about $3.4M if done to low-budget Hollywood standards). To my credit, I was able to sign backers for $1.27M (you read that right) of the budget through a process just shy of selling my soul to a few well-dressed businessmen in LA, but because I ultimately couldn't secure the other (huge) chunk of money I wasn't able to get the project off the ground. Defeated, I wallowed in self-pity for awhile and started a lawn care company. Luckily for my mental state, rumors for The Dark Knight were friendly distractions from my failure, because it's never advisable to do lawn care without good things to think about. That sort of what I envision as being the inner circle of hell. A giant push mower that doesn't start easily.

The Conway Brothers by Ryan W.

When business started to slow down in the winter of '07/'08 I found myself with a lot of down time and kept thinking about what had gone wrong. All else aside I concluded that the story was solid, so, since I had a fairly steady income I thought it might be an interesting idea to just try and convert the script into a comic book. I'd already done the work on the writing end so what was the harm in giving the script to a talented artist? I quickly discovered just how difficult finding an artist I could afford was, and it took me a few months of searching until I finally discovered the art of Ryan W., a notoriously short-tempered but talented artist hailing from Canada I'd met through an internet forum. What harm could possibly come of sending someone on the internet money in exchange for services that would be rendered after payment?

A "Scan" of Twitch by Ryan W.

A few weeks after sending him a down payment, Ryan informed me that after many attempts he discovered that he couldn't draw women unless they were wearing gas masks, a problem I hadn't really expected after looking through his Deviantart page. He also told me that after drawing the first two sketches he found that he wasn't interested in the characters I'd written, that he changed the entire script, drawn the first 7 pages of his version of the script, and that he had already spent my down payment. The "PS" included that I was able to use "these scans" of the images he sent me in any way I chose, as consolation, so here they are... Six months after not hearing anything from him, he eventually sent me a message from a public library apologizing and informing me that he'd lost everything after acquiring a hard drug addiction.

2nd Revised Concept by Yuri's Friend

Around the same time Yuri had suggested a friend of his (also in the lawn care industry, but who's name I can't remember) who went to art school. I gave him a clear description of the character I'd wanted him to draw (Twitch) along with a large (for me) sum of money, and about three weeks later I got a concept that had no resemblance to what I'd asked for. After a few weeks of revisions (going from sexy native american to less-sexy biker) he finally agreed creating something that loosely resembled what I was looking for, though significantly more sexualized. The whole experience left me feeling quite sour because even after he finished the art (and took payment) he would never formally sign anything to allow me to use the images to promote the comic. Shortly before giving up altogether I randomly met an extremely talented young artist named Joseph Tai who was both interest in the project and within my limited price range. It turns out that my "limited price range" was on the high end of the going professional rate at the time but, oblivious to the fact, I was just happy to support someone local who would create the images that matched my descriptions. Joe's art had style, he had an honest work ethic, and that's all I really cared about.

Issue "0", Page 16 - Joseph Tai

The first issue of the fifteen part comic book series had taken Joe the better part of a year to complete (from start to finish), and while he was genuinely working his hardest I didn't think that any publishing company would accept a 16 page, yearly release comic. So, with the idea of working towards a quarterly release I limited his workload from "everything" to "sketch/ink/text/formatting" and hired the fantastically talented Ean Moody to color a page a day. Joseph and I worked together on the comic in this way for two years (on and off with Ean as we still worked significantly slower than he did), completing roughly four comics in under two years with sketches for another issue well in progress. Then, suddenly and unexpectedly in the Florida winter of 2010 Joe left the gulf coast to seek gainful employment and ceased all involvement on the project.

Early Sketch by Adam

Once again up the proverbial creek, I was done with artists, done with the story, and more emotionally exhausted than I'd been from all of the other setbacks combined. The worst part of it was that I could actually see the story progressing, had introduced the characters, and was well on my way through the series when it happened... So, mid 2011 I was completely surprised that while talking about my "failed project" during downtime at a recording session, my drummer-friend Adam volunteered to sketch and ink the entire series. Adam had but one key condition in working with me: "that the series has to be awesome." That meant no plot holes, no references to modern culture, no comic sans, and no cutting corners. I'd admittedly cut a few corners earlier, compromised in places, but from this point onward I'd have to approach the project with my full professional effort. As the comic now signified a lot more than just something I'd written over seven years, I shook hands and committed to those terms. This was going to be my best work and my level of approach went from "work of passion/side-project" to "professional-grade".

Elevator Sketch by Adam

We spent the next year simply developing the new art style, the world, the culture, and the characters. We didn't even work on comic pages, just experimented, going from pointillism to cross-hatching. We also gave the setting a lot of thought, developed a language, society, weapons, clothing, government, etc. Eventually, once he'd redrawn the first issue of the comic it was clear that I'd have to completely rewrite the script to fit the new darker setting. It also became apparent that because Adam had not taken formal art classes he could benefit strongly from having reference photos, so we hired talent and hosted a weekend-long photo shoot. The shoot immediately affected Adam's work, making things less stiff and shifting the style from slightly toonish to gritty.

Punk Concept #3 by Adam

Over the last year, we upped our commitment to the series, by putting in part time hours on the project (no less than 20 hours a week) and haven't looked back since. To date we've completed story boards (we call them "Thumbs") for 10 issues, sketches for 6, and show no sign of slowing down. Because the "thumbs" aren't particularly pretty (basically pre-sketch lighting/character/location guides) I don't regularly post them or mention the comic much but it's what Adam and I have been up to for the last two years and will be up to for the foreseeable future.

Issue 10, Page 6 "Thumb" by Adam