Song’s End published

IF-X Vol 3 #6:  West was published in mid-November and I received copies in the mail on Friday, November 25. This issue of IF-X features Song’s End, written by me, drawn by Adam Sward, and lettered by E.T. Dollman. The printed edition of the comic looks great. This is the last issue of IF-X for 2011.

Song’s End is the second comic Adam Sward and I worked on together. The first was Dark Art, which was published in IF-X Vol 3 #5 and on The Grim Collection. Adam and I are working on a third comic together. This one is called The Dig and it will appear on The Grim Collection in 2012.

Updates galore

The last half of October has been a heck of a few weeks for me. The biggest highlight was my trip to Winnipeg for Central Canada Comic Con where I was selling Acts of Violence: An Anthology of Crime Comics and the issue of IF-X featuring Dark Art, promoting The Grim Collection, and checking out Artist Alley in the hopes of finding some talented artists who might be interested in working together on comics for The Grim Collection. I will have a full Con report posted on this here blog in the near future.

In other news, Song’s End has been lettered by E.T. Dollman. I will be packaging the files and sending it to the Hamtramck Idea Men over the weekend. You might recall that Song’s End will appear in the December 2011 edition of IF-X. The theme is “West”.

There has been movement on other comics as well. Manoel Magalhaes has turned in more pages for Orphan. Tim Hall has completed character designs for On The Other Side of The Bridge, and just the other day turned in thumbs of the first eight pages. My experience with Tim has been great thus far and I can’t wait to see what the final artwork looks like. The third comic currently in production for The Grim Collection, The Dig, is also moving forward. Adam Sward provided me with character sketches that were quickly approved. This will be the third collaboration between Adam and I.

And, I hate to announce this for fear of jinxing it, but there is a very good possibility that a long gestating comic project is soon to debut.

I will finish with one final word about The Grim Collection. I added new content to it on November 4. The Draw of Memories is a short fiction, the first to appear on The Grim Collection.

Song’s End to appear in IF-X

A short comic I wrote called Song’s End has been accepted into the December 2011 edition of IF-X. The theme that month is “West”. My tale takes place in West Virginia during the American Civil War.  My earlier appearances in IF-X (Halloween 2009 and Halloween 2011) were horror tales, but this newest story is perhaps best described as a drama. The six-page tale is drawn by Adam Sward and lettered by E.T. Dollman.

Here is the first page of Song’s End. Art by Adam Sward.

Dark Art gets published

Dark Art is a short horror comic I wrote and Adam Sward drew back in early to mid 2010. Originally slated to appear in a horror anthology in 2010, Dark Art went into limbo when that anthology stopped publishing. A second anthology emerged from the ashes of the first and Dark Art was going to appear in its pages but that anthology never saw the light of day. This was frustrating because I thought Adam and I did a great job on this piece and I wanted everyone to see it. When I hatched the idea for The Grim Collection in the summer of 2011 I knew Dark Art was going to be one of comics published soon after the launch. And it was. Dark Art was published on The Grim Collection in September 2011.

But Dark Art was also accepted into the 2011 Halloween edition of IF-X. I received my 30 copies of that edition today. It’s a great looking book and Dark Art looks fantastic within. I will be selling this issue of IF-X at Central Canadian Comic-Con in October 2011.

It took more than a year, but it feels good to have Dark Art available to the public.

Dark Art update

My previous post about Dark Art generated some enthusiastic response so I thought I would provide an update. Artist Adam Sward has been working on it and I am very pleased with the results. He started with a series of thumbnail sketches to show how he would approach the story. After some back and forth discussion, he got started on pencils, and then moved onto finished pages. As of earlier this week, I’ve seen seven of the eight pages. I thought you might like a look into the creative process…

All art by Adam Sward

What you see above is the evolution of page 2 panel 2.

(top left) Adam began with a series of thumbnails, small sketches to show how he would approach the artwork. These thumbnails were small and accompanied by notes describing why he did what he did. For page 2 and page 1, he sent more than one thumbnail.

(right) Pencils were next. Comparing the thumbnail with the pencils you can see Adam changed the perspective. I didn’t want the doorway to be so prominent in the panel so he came up with the concept you see in the pencils. I really like the positioning of the characters. This panel is the establishing shot that introduces the reader to the characters and the setting so it was important that he include all the key things I wanted shown. He nailed it.

(bottom left) A low resolution look at the final panel (without lettering and with some minor cropping). You can see that not much has changed from the pencils.

If all goes according to plan, you’ll be able to enjoy the completed Dark Art some time later this year when published. Stay tuned to this blog for more info.