Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Catching up....

I guess I was right about the time factor as its been over a month since the last post. Things have been hectic but I expect it to lighten up soon. I'm heading into the last part of the semester so I have a few more lectures to give and then the finals. Next semester I lightened my load to give me more time for the many projects I'm involved with so I expect to be able to finish many things and catch up on others...and of course, embark on even more new projects. Quick update on some projects: The project with Tom Mandrake is on hold as we have to investigate some legal situations and plus Tom is getting a lot of work from DC (which is great for him). There has been communication with a couple of publishers about it so hopefully that will get back on the burner when Tom's schedule permits. There will be an all new SAINT GERMAINE story coming up in Desperado Publishing's Negative Burn. It is a full length story (24 pages) that will run in the anthology and is illustrated by James E. Lyle who drew the Casanova's Lament one shot in the Saint Germaine series. This one deals with the tragedy of Falstaff from the Bard's plays. James is over 75% of the way done with it so when he finishes it, look for it to be scheduled. I have a couple of original graphic novels that I'm working on with various creators and as they come closer to completion, I'll discuss them a bit more. From Transfuzion Publishing (more on that below), there will be an all new anthology of DEADWORLD (the collection is called "Bring Out Your Dead") and I have a few stories in there. TROY is being reprinted in Italy, following the two Deadworld graphic novels that have been reprinted overseas. RED DIARIES is also on the schedule but I'm not sure exactly what countries at this point. The Deadworld role playing game is moving ahead at full speed. I hope to be able to see what cool stuff they're doing for it shortly. Speaking of DW, the new miniseries (which is guest written by Mike Raicht) just came out and it sets the stage for the continuation of the series after this mini-series finishes. More on that later....much later. The estate of Bryon Preiss' iBooks looks to be settled soon and when that happens, it will give me a better idea of what's going on with some projects tied up with that. BAKER STREET might be something that we can take to other publishers depending on what shakes up with the iBooks scene. There is also the BEATLES project that I wrote and R.G. Taylor was illustrating and so that might be something that we will be able to move someplace as well. It's a shame about the deal iBooks had with Penguin Books on the classic graphic novels (I wrote DRACULA with Becky Cloonan doing the art and Frazer Irving illustrated the FRANKENSTEIN adaptation I did). The books seemed to do real well and I see them everywhere including many libraries. It's amazing on the market penetration the big guys (i.e.- Penguin) can obtain. I hope to be getting some more notes from the producers regarding the RENFIELD storyline which I'm writing a play for. Rather than just licensing it out, I was asked to write it as well...so that's cool. I'm looking forward to tackling that. The Actionopolis line stalled a bit with the bankruptcy of the parent company of the distributor (PGW) but things got back on track a couple of months ago. Now it's a period of adjustment and re-evaluation for books like my SPIRIT OF THE SAMURAI. The young adult novel market is highly competitive but the publishers continue their discussions and so hopefully there will be word on that soon and I can finish the second book. I have three books that likely won't find their way into the comics market as they're produced specifically for the library market. They're children's books and are written for very young readers so unlikely to find much appeal beyond that but they were fun to do. Transfuzion is set up to have the first books officially release in February. They will be available via Diamond (hence the delay...in order to get them time to order). The first releases will be OF SCENES AND STORIES, a 320 page anthology of stories written by me and featuring many of today's top artists; JACK THE RIPPER, a docu-comic from me and Mark Bloodworth; GHOST SONATA, a drama with supernatural overtones illustrated by Andy Bennett and based very loosely on the play by August Strindberg, and SAINT GERMAINE: TALES OF AN IMMORTAL which collects issues 5-8 of the Saint Germaine series (drawn by Vince Locke, Tom Bionodillo, and Andy Bennet, some short stories, and the two one shots- Casanova's Lament (James E. Lyle) and Man in the Iron Mask (Guy Davis/Andy Bennett). Next time, I'll go through the first few months schedule which includes titles such as SINERGY, OZ, ORLAK, and others. I'm increasingly torn to spending time on the comics stuff and what is fast becoming my major interest which is science related books. Since I started teaching college biology courses after Caliber closed, I find myself more and more becoming entrenched in that field and I have some projects that I want to do. The book publishers that I talked to seem interested so I may devote more of my future time with that avenue. More on Transfuzion and the schedule next time.

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