Changing my War plans...
Over the holidays, I thought a lot about all the projects I currently have on my plate. I thought hard about what I actually want to be doing, and decided to shift things around a little.
This all came about while I was finishing up page 35 of Dead Man Holiday. I looked at the page, and thought about where it fit in the story. I looked up and saw all the previous pages in the story, taped to the wall. I realized that this would make a pretty good stopping point, both in the story and in the page count. And besides that, I started Dead Man Holiday an embarrassingly long time ago. I was pretty green, and employed techniques that are both time consuming and tedious. I'm sick to death of them. Moving on to a new issue would enable me to start utilizing all the new tricks I've learned (mostly as a result of having this blog). But most importantly, I'll be able to get a comic book produced, and all the good stuff that means- I can start getting feedback, go to comic book shows... make the transition from "guy who sits at home and draws all the time" to "comic book artist". I'm also really looking forward to self-publishing. I want to know everything about the production of comics, and to be able to say that I did every bit of this myself. I've been moving a lot the last couple of weeks on figuring out how to print my comic- but that's going to be a whole other entry.
So, because I was so in love with and excited about doing Dead Man Holiday, I wanted to get to it right away. There was just one thing in the way... my War of the Independents tie-in book The Kosmix Vs. The X-Heroes. I spent a long time working really hard on a nice, formal script for The Kosmix Vs. The X-Heroes. And I'm really proud of it- it's really goofy, fun superhero stuff. Kind of like The Tick without the irony. It had a lot of great jokes and some really big action scenes. Originally, I was supposed to be splitting the art duties with John McDowell, the creator of The Kosmix. We had a great idea: For the first third of the story, before our characters met, we would draw alternating pages (Page one was starring The X-Heroes and was drawn by me, page two was about The Kosmix and drawn by John, etc). Then for the middle third of the story I would pencil and ink the X-Heroes and John would pencil and ink the Kosmix, but integrated on to the same page. So, in the same panel would be CosmoGnat of The Kosmix, penciled and inked by John, and Xxero of The X-Heroes, penciled and inked by me. Then for the last third of the story, after our heroes joined forces, John was going to pencil and I was going to ink, the combination obviously echoing the storyline. The story started with a date between The Incisionator of The X-Heroes and Milla of The Kosmix over which a Jerry Springer-type battle happens between the two teams. In the middle of this they are approached by two characters from the War of the Independents to go to Damascus and apprehend a giant demon. Their failure to accomplish this comprised the last third of the book. It featured Plan B in a giant chicken suit, Space Wraith accidentally disintegrating a small child, and a guy using the watch on a severed arm to check the time. Good stuff! Here's an excerpt from the ad that John and I drew together. It's our characters signing the Declaration of Independence. CosmoGnat is supposed to be looking at the War of the Independents logo and saying "It's Independents not Independence, you goofs!"
Pencils by John McDowell, inked by yours truly. I always dug the way John drew The X-Heroes' hair... But soon after finishing the script, John told me that he was quitting comics. I totally understood his choice, and don't hold it against him at all. So, in that light, it was easy for me to put the nix on The Kosmix Vs. The X-Heroes in favor of doing more Dead Man Holiday.
Rather than abandon The Kosmix Vs. The X-Heroes altogether, I commissioned someone to ghost-draw it for me. After giving him my 35 page script, this is what he gave me:
He didn't even spell my name right! Boy, you just can't find good help these days...
BUT, this doesn't mean that I'm abandoning War of the Independents altogether. Far from it. Where The Kosmix Vs. The X-Heroes was chopped down, little buds have started to sprout... There will be five X-Heroes strips released in weekl installments beginning in June of this year (the same month that War of the Independents #1 hits the stands). They're going to be more true to the original concept of The X-Heroes (which was never really meant to be a straight superhero strip anyway), while also taking that concept way further out than it had previously dared to rear it's head... it's going to be pretty wild. In addition, I'm redesigning TheXHeroes.com, which is also coming out super great.
Here's a sketch I did, to get myself back in to the "X-Heroes mood"...
So, if all goes according to plan, you should be seeing all these War of the Independents festivities and TWO issues of Dead Man Holiday before the end of the year. Whew! Now all I've gotta do is finish Dead Man Holiday #1. You know- scan it, letter it, draw the logo, re-draw some panels, get people to do a couple pin ups, figure out how to print it, make a website for it... uh...
This all came about while I was finishing up page 35 of Dead Man Holiday. I looked at the page, and thought about where it fit in the story. I looked up and saw all the previous pages in the story, taped to the wall. I realized that this would make a pretty good stopping point, both in the story and in the page count. And besides that, I started Dead Man Holiday an embarrassingly long time ago. I was pretty green, and employed techniques that are both time consuming and tedious. I'm sick to death of them. Moving on to a new issue would enable me to start utilizing all the new tricks I've learned (mostly as a result of having this blog). But most importantly, I'll be able to get a comic book produced, and all the good stuff that means- I can start getting feedback, go to comic book shows... make the transition from "guy who sits at home and draws all the time" to "comic book artist". I'm also really looking forward to self-publishing. I want to know everything about the production of comics, and to be able to say that I did every bit of this myself. I've been moving a lot the last couple of weeks on figuring out how to print my comic- but that's going to be a whole other entry.
So, because I was so in love with and excited about doing Dead Man Holiday, I wanted to get to it right away. There was just one thing in the way... my War of the Independents tie-in book The Kosmix Vs. The X-Heroes. I spent a long time working really hard on a nice, formal script for The Kosmix Vs. The X-Heroes. And I'm really proud of it- it's really goofy, fun superhero stuff. Kind of like The Tick without the irony. It had a lot of great jokes and some really big action scenes. Originally, I was supposed to be splitting the art duties with John McDowell, the creator of The Kosmix. We had a great idea: For the first third of the story, before our characters met, we would draw alternating pages (Page one was starring The X-Heroes and was drawn by me, page two was about The Kosmix and drawn by John, etc). Then for the middle third of the story I would pencil and ink the X-Heroes and John would pencil and ink the Kosmix, but integrated on to the same page. So, in the same panel would be CosmoGnat of The Kosmix, penciled and inked by John, and Xxero of The X-Heroes, penciled and inked by me. Then for the last third of the story, after our heroes joined forces, John was going to pencil and I was going to ink, the combination obviously echoing the storyline. The story started with a date between The Incisionator of The X-Heroes and Milla of The Kosmix over which a Jerry Springer-type battle happens between the two teams. In the middle of this they are approached by two characters from the War of the Independents to go to Damascus and apprehend a giant demon. Their failure to accomplish this comprised the last third of the book. It featured Plan B in a giant chicken suit, Space Wraith accidentally disintegrating a small child, and a guy using the watch on a severed arm to check the time. Good stuff! Here's an excerpt from the ad that John and I drew together. It's our characters signing the Declaration of Independence. CosmoGnat is supposed to be looking at the War of the Independents logo and saying "It's Independents not Independence, you goofs!"
Pencils by John McDowell, inked by yours truly. I always dug the way John drew The X-Heroes' hair... But soon after finishing the script, John told me that he was quitting comics. I totally understood his choice, and don't hold it against him at all. So, in that light, it was easy for me to put the nix on The Kosmix Vs. The X-Heroes in favor of doing more Dead Man Holiday.
Rather than abandon The Kosmix Vs. The X-Heroes altogether, I commissioned someone to ghost-draw it for me. After giving him my 35 page script, this is what he gave me:
He didn't even spell my name right! Boy, you just can't find good help these days...
BUT, this doesn't mean that I'm abandoning War of the Independents altogether. Far from it. Where The Kosmix Vs. The X-Heroes was chopped down, little buds have started to sprout... There will be five X-Heroes strips released in weekl installments beginning in June of this year (the same month that War of the Independents #1 hits the stands). They're going to be more true to the original concept of The X-Heroes (which was never really meant to be a straight superhero strip anyway), while also taking that concept way further out than it had previously dared to rear it's head... it's going to be pretty wild. In addition, I'm redesigning TheXHeroes.com, which is also coming out super great.
Here's a sketch I did, to get myself back in to the "X-Heroes mood"...
So, if all goes according to plan, you should be seeing all these War of the Independents festivities and TWO issues of Dead Man Holiday before the end of the year. Whew! Now all I've gotta do is finish Dead Man Holiday #1. You know- scan it, letter it, draw the logo, re-draw some panels, get people to do a couple pin ups, figure out how to print it, make a website for it... uh...