Projects Update

Since I get emails asking, I figured I'd might as well use this opportunity to play catch-up on some of the various projects that I'm working on.

I've mentioned before that I'm working on a novel and it requires an enormous amount of research and I've done most of that as well as making notes on my general outline. I don't get too specific in my pre-writing but I do try and figure out the general structure of things. I took a break from that before I start devoting 4-6 hours daily on writing that for most of the summer.

So, for the break, I put together some more books for Transfuzion including SEEKER and ZULU NATION. Both will be at Chicago Con and neither will be available via Diamond. Seeker was offered but Diamond said the orders were too low and I didn't bother soliciting Zulunation as I can't see comic shops supporting something like that. But the plan initially was to make many of the books available online or direct anyway, so no big deal.

The SINERGY compilation is lagging a bit behind as I have to redo some of the scans and I had some new pages from different artists being added. Still looks to be late summer for that one.

In the "break" from the novel writing, I actually did quite a bit of comic scripting. I have an original graphic novel coming out from Desperado with art from Wayne Reid and it's about a smuggler in the pre-revolution colonies who terrorizes the British as the SCARECROW. Using a Scarecrow as a foil is not wholly original as it has been done before with Dr. Syn, Scarecrow of Romney Marsh, Nathaniel Hawthorn's Feathertop and Percy MacKaye's Scarecrow but it's one of those projects that keeps festering in me so I finally decided to do it. It's coming out later in 2008 and will be entitled "A MURDER OF SCARECROWS".

I also have a four issue limited series I wrote called "THE RAIN PEOPLE" which is utilizing some characters from RAVEN CHRONICLES although this is meant to stand entirely on its own. I don't have an artist yet so I'm hoping that perhaps I can find one at Chicago Con.

But most of my work has been on DEADWORLD. I wrote two full length stories that will be part of an anthology and these were drawn by Bill Bryan and Wayne Reid respectively. They were to be part of DEADWORLD: BRING OUT YOUR DEAD but that project has been put off because some of the contributors bailed at the last minute and some of the stories turned in for this all new anthology were, uh, let's just say not as good as the sample art had led me to believe they would be. It happens. But the good news is that the anthology will continue andI have some more stories coming but now it will be coming out from Desperado and be entitled "DEADWORLD CHRONICLES"...and we're looking at an October or November release.

Speaking of Deadworld, things are going quite hectic there. The action figure from Shocker Toys is geared to be in the second wave of releases from them, the Halloween mask is coming along nicely, the Frozen Over mini-series from Desperado is wrapping up, and there's going to be another mini-series coming out, starting in October.

The new mini-series is called SLAUGHTERHOUSE and I'll come back to writing it. We haven't decided yet how to work it out in terms of whether it will be a mini-series or part of the numbering of the Deadworld series...or both, but either way, it is a story that is meant to stand on its own and new fans can come right into it without knowing what has happened before.

I wanted an artist who could give a very powerful look to it and when Sami Makkonen signed up, I was very pleased. He has a stylized form but I think it will work out great. You will be hearing a lot about Sami soon with his work on the Split Lip and The Chemistry Set anthologies plus the graphic novel he's doing with Elizabeth Genco called BLUE, also from Desperado Publishing. It looks very cool.

Sami is a Finnish artist so it adds to the different nationalities I've worked with on my stories. I've had British, French, Malaysian, Indonesian, and Serbian so far. I have to bug Sami for some information on Finland as that is the nationality in my family that I associate with most. My great grandparents came from Finland and I believe they ended up meeting on the boat and got married. As a kid, the Finland side was the predominate side and my dad had learned to speak Finnish before he learned English. My kids hear about the Finlander side of the family but with all the nationalities they have mixed in their blood, it's just another perspective. My wife is Japanese, Polish, German, and English while I also have French and Irish to go along with the Finnish (plus a little Mongolian thrown in) so they're quite the melting pot. None of our lineages go back beyond four generations here so I guess we're part of what is considered the American fabric of immigration.

So, in the last couple weeks, I completed 8 comic scripts and the original graphic novel, so I've been busy. My next break will come at Chicago Con where I'll be bringing all of my graphic novels. I was quite shocked when I started thinking of how many books I'll have there. Of course, I will have all of the Transfuzion books but in looking at the number of books that I'll have there "representing" my work, it's going to number around 20. I didn't realize that I had done that many trades in the last couple of years.

On some other news, I may not have mentioned it before (or perhaps I did...not sure), me and Guy Davis are waiting to hear back regarding a new edition of BAKER STREET. The previous one, put out by Byron Preiss and distributed by Simon and Shuster, is out of print so it will be nice to get it back in print.

When Chicago Con (guess officially it should be called Wizard World Chicago, but I still call it Chicago Con) gets closer, I'll know the exact table number that I'll be at. Transfuzion will be set up in Artist's Alley along with the Mob Rules group which includes Rafael Nieves and his cohorts. I'll also be bringing Nate Pride with me. Nate, in addition to being a great artist, was responsible for so many of Caliber's designs even on a lot of creator owned books.

Just wanted to give an update. More before Chicago. Again, the plan is to try and keep things more updated on Transfusion's and Desperado's message boards, both of which can be found on ComicRelated.com.