Strange Attractors!

Wow, this has been a long time coming.  I’ve been working on Strange Attractors – my story about New York City, complexity theory and the people affected when they interact – since at least January 2006, and my guess is that I had the seed of the idea back in 2005.  Of course, the most intense period of work was from roughly fall 2010 through fall 2012 while the story was being drawn, but still, that’s a long road for any book.

It hits comic store shelves today, and will be available at bookstores and via Amazon in a few weeks.  I’ve been doing a ton of press for it, so I’m a bit talked out about the premise, but in a nutshell, it’s a real-world thriller with some sci-fi touches, about two genius complexity mathematicians who are able to use extremely high-level applications of the Butterfly Effect to (more or less) make New York City do whatever they want.  One of the reviews that hit today called it “equal parts Ex Machine, Sandman and Planetary,” and that’s a comparison I can certainly live with.

If you’re the kind of reader who likes books by Jonathan Hickman, Warren Ellis or Neal Stephenson, or Christopher Nolan movies that don’t involve Batman, then I think this might be your kind of story.  If you’d like to know more about the story, check out this interview I did with Multiversity.com, a pretty fantastic review from MTVGeek and another lovely writeup from ComicBastards.

Here’s the Amazon link if you think you might like to order it, and your local comic shop can certainly help you out as well – just ask for it.

If my ongoing work for DC or Marvel brought you here, consider trying something on the creator-owned side.  I know the entire creative team is really proud of this book, and we’d love to see people reading it far and wide.

Stay complicated!

 

This week…

This has been quite a week.  Crazy rumors about projects I might be taking on in the new year, the release of the first digital chapter of Strange Attractors (and the first feedback on that chapter…), actually finishing Strange Attractors and turning all of the files in to the publisher, the release of the Mankind graphic novel from the History Channel featuring one of my stories and of course, Christmas around the corner as well as the onset of 2013.

It’s been good.  I’d like to quickly chat about all of this stuff before I delve into a short holiday break – no time for a long one, and sometimes it feels like I’ll never have time for a long vacation again.  But I’m not complaining!

1. The crazy rumor.

No comment!  All I will say is that the rumor generated a lot of supportive tweets, FB posts and so on, and regardless of its veracity, I was extremely touched by people’s apparent faith that if a rumor like that were true, that I could do a good job.  Thank you!

2. Strange Attractors finished.

In case you’re coming to this blog for the first time (which seems possible – I’ve been getting a lot of traffic recently, presumably because of (1)), Strange Attractors is my next big creator-owned project, a story about two complexity mathematicians who figure out how to manipulate all of New York City’s layered systems to turn it into kind of an engine.  It’s very grounded sci-fi, I suppose, and I’m very excited about it.  It’s due out from Archaia this March, as one of their beautiful hardcovers.

Anyway, the book is indeed finished!  The team and I worked overtime over the last few weeks to get everything done, and it feels like we spent as much time on the last minute tweaks as we did putting the whole book together.  That’s obviously not true – the first art for this book came in around July 2010 (most of that hasn’t been used, except for the final cover by Dan Duncan), and the final team has been working on it steadily since May 2011.  Regardless, it’s without a doubt the most complex and time-consuming project I’ve ever done, on all levels, and I hope that people enjoy what we created.  As a taste – there will be plenty more to come, I’m sure – here’s the very last piece of art I got for the book, one of the amazing complexity maps created by Robert Saywitz.  They’re amazing on their own, and even cooler as they’re used in the story.  Check it out:

Gorgeous.

3. Strange Attractors Digital!

As I’ve discussed here and there in the past, Strange Attractors is getting a Digital First release from Archaia, which means that it will be serialized in roughly four chapters leading up to the release of the hardcover.  It’s set up to be read on your digital devices – e-readers, ipads, etc.  The first chapter is available now, right here.  Totally affordable, too – $2.99 for 26 full-color, gorgeous pages!  Treat yourself – it’s the holidays!

We even got our first review, from the cool folks at Comicosity.  They gave it a 9.0/10, and here’s a representative quote:

“I highly recommend this first chapter in Strange Attractors.”

Whaddya want?  If you need more, click over – I’d love to send them the hits.  Suffice it to say, they dug it, which is incredibly encouraging and gratifying.  Getting something new out into the world is always nerve-wracking, and it’s wonderful to be able to think that the time and effort we’ve put in might connect with readers.

3. Mankind: the Story of All of Us

Over the summer, I wrote a story for the second volume of the graphic novel series the History Channel put together to be released in conjunction with their epic miniseries Mankind: The Story of All of Us.  It’s the biggest production they’ve ever done, a multi-part series covering the evolution of human society over the millennia.  Super cool, and I was thrilled to have a part in it.  I wrote a 16-page story entitled “The Gun,” which deals with the invention and innovation surrounding firearms, mostly in China, and it’s really great stuff.  The art’s wonderful, and the other stories are all amazing too.  You can get it here – I think it might be a great gift for teen readers, if you know any young folks into history (not bad for adults, either!)  Here’s the kickass Neal Adams cover:

And there you have it.  I’m sure we’ll have a lot more to talk about soon – 2013 is looking like a really big year, and I couldn’t be more excited about it.

 

 

Why we do this.

A few days ago, a very close friend of mine in the comics world put up a post on his blog that’s getting a lot of attention.  The fellow’s Jim Zub, and you’ve probably seen him mentioned on this blog quite a bit – he writes the fantastic action fantasy series Skullkickers for Image, as well as many other great titles both online and for print.  Very talented writer and great guy.  If you don’t know his stuff, you should.

Anyway, apart from the writing side of things, Jim is also a very canny businessman.  He consistently finds unique approaches to marketing and promoting his work – for example, his latest arc of Skullkickers is relaunching with a “new #1″ titled “Uncanny Skullkickers” – it’s funny, it’s getting him press and chances are it’ll move him some additional books.  That’s the way you have to be in indie comics (and I’m firmly considering Image to be indie – some people debate this, but while Image does take some of the burden off a creator, really the lion’s share of making the book and making sure people find and care about it rests on the people making the book.)  It’s really not enough to be talented, although that’s where it all starts.  You also need to be a master huckster, smart businessman and be fairly tireless.  Getting a comics career up and running is a full-time job.

The problem, of course, is that while working in comics can take as much time as any other job, it doesn’t necessarily pay like one.  In that recent post I mentioned up above, Jim goes through the nuts and bolts (nickels and dimes, rather) of getting an indie book out the door, and what sort of return you can actually expect.  He uses a mid-range book from an Image-type publisher (so that’s lumping in publishers like IDW, Boom, etc.) as his test case, selling around 5,000 copies per month.  That’s actually a VERY successful monthly run for an indie book these days.  The biggies like Saga and Walking Dead do much more, of course, but they’re the white whales of indie comics – it’s not unusual for an indie book not to crack a thousand.  His model comes to the conclusion that after everyone takes their slice, the creators are left with a page rate that’s well under $100 – to be split between everyone – writer, artist(s), letterer, cover artist, design, etc.  The article is here, and you should really go give it a read – but then come back, because there’s more to be said about it!

Now that you’re up to speed, let me say that I don’t disagree with Jim’s conclusions in the least.  I’ve had books that have sold above the 5,000 number, and books that have sold below (sometimes WELL below), and the basic gloss of what he’s saying is correct – there’s not a ton of cash in comics at the indie book level, and it can be hard to make back your investment … if money is all you’re going for.

Jim’s post is important and really useful, in part because it covers an area that people don’t often talk about, at least not to that level of detail.  But money isn’t all comics is about.  I think there are three reasons people want to do comics: money (not necessarily getting rich, but being able to make a living from telling stories), fame or creative freedom.

Let me handle that last one first: having worked in a number of creative mediums, I can say that creating a comic is one of the purest, least-liable-to-be-fucked-with ways of telling a story out there.  The comics audience is incredibly open to new expression, and if your idea and execution are good, you’ll absolutely get eyeballs.  You also don’t have to compromise your work for financial reasons – because there really are no financial reasons.  That’s the upside.  It’s rare that someone’s going to tell you not to give your character antennae because a focus group said antennae aren’t playing well in Peoria right now.  Because nothing makes a ton of money, nothing HAS to make a ton of money, and that’s freeing.  So no matter how much money or acclaim you get, you can count on that freedom, and for many people that’s enough.

Cash and fame are more problematic.  You can get a certain level of notoriety just by continuing to put work out – there are people with long, storied careers in comics who never really have a “hit,” just like there are plenty of awesome cult bands who never break through in a big way.  But to get famous, even comics famous, you need that big book, and that’s directly linked to the money question, too.  Fortunately, I have an approach to recommend that I’ve seen succeed again and again!  Check it out:

If you want the big dough and the big name out of your indie comics career, I think you need to consider it sort of like you might approach investing in the stock market.  When investing in high-risk companies (basically new, unproven companies – just like your indie comics ideas no one’s heard of yet!) you really don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket.  The reason for this is that most companies fail.  So, you spread your capital around and hope that perhaps one of the ten (or the hundred) companies you invest in pays off in a big way.  Same principle can work for comics.  The chances are low that if you find a way to put out one book, then you’ll all of the sudden be on the map.  But if you put out five, and all of them are great – even if they appeal to different audiences – it accumulates into an overall greater probability that you might get that brass ring.  (If you don’t like the stock market analogy, swap that out for Powerball tickets – works the same way.)  Look at the early careers of guys like Josh Fialkov, Sam Humphries, Nick Spencer, Brian Michael Bendis and I’m sure a bunch more that I’m forgetting.  It wasn’t about one book, it was about all the books.

You might be thinking, “Great.  It’s hard enough to get ONE book out, and now this ass is telling me to do ten?”  Well, yeah, it’s hard.  It’s INCREDIBLY HARD.  It’s not easy to get famous, and it’s not easy to get rich.  Fortunately, making comics is easy to love, and that’ll get you through.

In my opinion, all you should NEED when you start to make comics is the freedom to create.  Comics will give that back to you in spades.  If you decide you need ducats or standing ovations, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.  It’s okay to want those things, and work really hard for them, just don’t need them.  If you can.

 

More from A 27 Halloween!

As many of you heard this past weekend at NYCC (or in other spots if you follow me on Twitter or Facebook), a new 27 short story is coming very soon!  We’ll start running it on the Shadowline website before Halloween – at some point – and then it should run something like a page a day until the BEST NIGHT OF THE YEAR (or one of ‘em, anyway.)

I gave you a little preview of some of Renzo Podesta’s layouts for the story a few posts back.  Now I’ll give you a preview of some of his pencils – this is 4 panels, all in a row.  In context in the story, ooooh… shiver.

Pencils from the 27 Halloween story, by Renzo Podesta.

 

NYCC Schedule

New York Comic Con starts tomorrow, Thursday, October 11.  Last year I started con-related events with a signing on Wednesday, which had me three-quarters dead by the time Sunday evening rolled around.  I live in New York, and there were things going on (not everyone from out of town leaves on Sunday – many people stick around for a few days to hang out in town or just take a flight the next day), but the idea of doing ANYTHING other than heading home to sleep for as many hours as I could pull off seemed completely impossible.  Even with skipping Sunday night I still ended up with a nasty case of con flu.  At that point, I made a bunch of resolutions about NYCC 2012 – no Wednesday night activities, don’t go out every night, pace yourself, etc.

It’s Wednesday, so I’ll see you tonight at the awesome panel I’m a part of, preceded by drinks with comic book folks before and after!  And then I’m raging like a maniac all weekend!  Screw you, healthy choices!

Truth is, NYCC’s my hometown con, and if I’m going to do it up anywhere, might as well be here.  Here’s my schedule for the weekend – I hope to see thousands of you over the next few days:

Wednesday, October 10 – Pop Music in Comics Panel at Jim Hanley’s Universe, 7-9 PM.  This one should be awesome.  I’m on a panel with some real grade-A luminaries in the world of music-related comics, like Kieron Gillen, Sina Grace and Jamal Igle.  Plus, there will be free beer and eats – I suspect this will be more of a kickoff party for the con than a panel, but you know we’ll chat comics too.  All the details here.

Thursday, October 11 – the con officially begins at 3 PM, for pros, press and people with 4-day passes.  I’ll be set up in Artist’s Alley at table R6.  This is the place you’ll be able to find me for most of the daylight hours during the weekend.  Keep in mind that AA is in its own area this year, off the main show floor, upstairs.  There should be signs for it all over the place, and really make the effort to get up there – some of the most amazing work at the show will be in the Alley, as always.

7-8 PM – I’ll be signing at the Archaia booth, #1520.  I’ll have some exclusive autograph cards and a VERY LIMITED SUPPLY of the Strange Attractors aschan, which you’ll also be able to get at my table over the course of the weekend.  You can see the cover for the ashcan here - ain’t it pretty?

Friday, October 12 – Again, table R6 for most of the day, starting at 10 AM.

3-4 PM – I have a signing for this cool new story I haven’t talked much about yet.  I wrote a piece for the second volume of the History Channel’s “Mankind” series of graphic novels, which will work as companion pieces to their epic miniseries airing this fall.  I haven’t seen the completed story yet, and I don’t know exactly what I’ll be signing, but it should be interesting.  The art and stories I’ve seen for this so far are fantastic.  Booth #1657

5:15-6:15 PM – The famous Writers Unite panel!  This is the fifth time I’ve done the panel, which always includes a real rogue’s gallery of hot indie writers.  This time it’s me, Cullen Bunn, Ray Fawkes, Justin Jordan and our illustrious moderator/kingpin, Jim Zub.  Our focus is on pitching creator-owned comics, and we usually spitball for 45 minutes, comparing notes on our own techniques, and then open the floor to questions.  It’s always a funny, lively panel CRAMMED with useful tips and tricks.  If you feel like putting out your own comics, or breaking in, it’s a must-attend.  Room 1A14, and more info here.

Saturday, October 13 – at table R6 all day, and signing at Archaia from 10:30-11:30 AM.  I will be joined for that signing, and for the morning in Artist’s Alley, by Robert Saywitz, the creator of the incredible complexity maps for Strange Attractors.  He never comes out to signings, even though he’s local, so if you want your SA ashcan signed by him, this is the signing to hit.

Sunday, October 14 – I’ll only be at the show until about 1.  Signing at Archaia from 10:30-11:30, and otherwise at table R6.

What will I have at the show?  How about THIS STUFF:

The exclusive Strange Attractors 26-page ashcan.  This is the first time any SA material has been made available, and the last time until the book is published next spring.  We only have a small number of copies, so if you want one, this is your chance.

27, both First and Second Sets

Strongman, both Volume 1 and the elusive Volume 2 (again, very limited copies – I believe I’m bringing 27 of them (ha!))

Skullkickers #18, which features a short story by me as part of the third Tavern Tales antho.  Again, just a few, and if you want to go on a treasure hunt to get your copy signed by all the amazing writers and artists who contributed work (Justin Jordan, Tradd Moore, John Layman, Rob Guillory and many more), well, there are worse ways to spend your time at the con.  I may even have a very few copies of the sketch variant cover for this, which I literally think exists only in low double digit numbers.

The 27 T-shirt!

Should be a nice, full table, and a nice, full weekend.  See you at the show!

 

 

 

A little 27 tease…

As I’ve mentioned here and there, Renzo Podesta and I are doing a brand new 27 story that should be out by the end of the month. (I hope so, anyway, because it’s Halloween-related.)

A few teases of Renzo’s layouts are below.  No real spoilers here, but they should be enough to get your curiosity piqued a bit.  More info on when and where you can read the story soon!

Ask me nicely at NYCC (I’ll be at table R6 in Artist’s Alley), and maybe I’ll tell you a bit more about it!

 

What’s doin’…

At the beginning of the year, I wrote two posts talking about a variety of projects I was working on at the time.  I thought it might be fun to catch up on where all of those things went, and provide a similar set of obscure notices about things in the mix right now.  Some of the stuff developed, some of it didn’t, sometimes I got paid, sometimes I didn’t.  Before I run down the list, here’s the first post and here’s the second one.

Let’s start with the active list from that first post.  I’ll put my update below each one:

1. Strange Attractors – OGN about a guy who turns NYC into a sort of engine, and what happens when he turns the key.  Due Q3/Q4 from Archaia.

***Well, Q3/Q4 turned out to be a little ambitious.  We’re now looking at a Spring 2013 release, just because the book is incredibly complex (in a good way) and everyone involved wants it to be as stupendous as possible.  I expect the actual book to be finished by the end of October, at which point we’ll nail down the exact release date.  I have some really fun ideas for getting the word out about it, and I am THRILLED with how it’s all coming together.  You can see some art and other bits and bobs from the book if you search the blog under the ‘Strange Attractors’ tab.

2. Letter 44 – limited series about the research items I mentioned above.  Coming Q4 from[_________]

***The details on this are going to be announced very soon, I think at NYCC.  I CANNOT WAIT for people to hear about this one.  The artist is assigned and wonderful, and (fingers crossed) it’ll be something people really connect to, especially with some real-world stuff going on that the plot connects to somewhat.  Also, it’ll be ongoing, not limited… although that will, as always, depend on you guys. Obviously not Q4 2012, though.  I think probably Q1 or early Q2 2013?

3. [Project Jazzhands] – 6-issue series being drawn by [____________]. My first foray into superheroes, sort of.  Inspired by old Stephen King books.

***This is still in progress.  It’s mostly written, and the artist is drawing it sort of on the side as he works on other projects.  I haven’t lined it up anywhere yet, but it’s turning out to be a very personal story, so I’m in no rush.

4. [Detroit book] – 5-issue limited series about bringing Detroit back from the brink.  Probably out Q2/Q3 2012.

***Nope! This was a work-for-hire thing, described in more detail in the second post linked up there.  After I turned in my outline, which everyone dug, the client decided they no longer were quite as sure about spending what they’d have to spend to make the book.  I love the story, and I still own it (they didn’t pay), so I suppose there’s a chance this could see the light of day somehow.  The longer I do this, the deeper my drawer of “maybes” gets, but that’s okay – it means I have a deeper bench of fleshed-out ideas I can draw on if I need to down the road.

5. [Untitled Edie Sedgwick project.]  Basically what it sounds like.  Due later this year, I think?

***See (4).  I believe the client still wants to do it, but he has a lot going on.  The story’s a lot of fun, and my pal JK Woodward’s on board to do the art if we get a greenlight.  I spent a lot of time reading about Ms. Sedgwick, and I think it would be fascinating to tell the story we came up with, but what are you gonna do?

6. [AR] – sci-fi action adventure.  Just about to start scripting, probably 6 issues.  Release date unclear.

***This was actually the project referred to in the second post linked above, which I ended up bailing on.  Subsequent to that, the friend of mine at that production company left as well, and it seems as if I may have dodged a bullet.  Still no regrets.  I’ve been told that you take any gig you can when you’re getting started, and I see the logic in that, but time is an irreplaceable resource, and there are certainly projects that aren’t worth taking – as long as you spend that time on something that is worth doing, like one of your own stories or a higher-profile work for hire job.

And now, some new stuff…

A. [Revival of once incredibly popular, now somewhat obscure property] – VERY VERY excited about this one, but there’s not much I can say about it yet.  I’m on board as the writer, based on several rounds of pitching and a super detailed outline that was well-received.  There are some outside factors that need to come through before it gets the full greenlight to be produced to series (or an OGN), but I’m hopeful.  Even though I’m being vague, cross your fingers for me.  It would be a very high-profile, name-making gig for me, so I’m holding my breath on it a bit.

B. [Original crime thriller sort of thing] – working on this with my friend Palle Schmidt, a very talented Danish artist.  The story’s a bit of a departure for me, but I think it’s important to stretch new muscles writing-wise.  We’ll have this out as a pitch at NYCC, and I’m hopeful that it will get some traction.  Kind of an intense story, but that’s what will make it fun.

C. [YA Adventure series] – in the works, with an artist I’ve worked with before (hmm…) and really admire.  I have a feeling that the pitch for this won’t be ready for another few months – he’s busy – but hopefully it’ll something I can talk more about in 2013.

D. Short story for the History Channel’s MANKIND series of graphic novels – THC is doing a three-volume series of big graphic novels to accompany the release of their MANKIND miniseries this fall.  The series will cover the history of humanity from a man-on-the-street perspective.  Instead of telling the story of Washington crossing the Delaware, it might be the story of one of the guys pulling an oar (for example.)  I did a story for Volume 2 related to the invention of firearms in China.  It was a blast to use my China background for a story, and what I’ve seen of the art is sweet.  The editor on the series is Joan Hilty, who’s been absolutely lovely to work with.  I’m not sure when this actually appears in the world, but I think it might be before year-end, possibly.

E. Other stuff… there’s another big work-for-hire thing I have lined up for the fall, a new 27 short story that should hit before Thanksgiving, a short film based on the 27 story “Crossroads Blues” that will hopefully go, more Strongman and more.  I’ve got more to write than I know what to do with, which is the way it should be.
Next post, NYCC!

 

 

 

Kicking Skulls

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I love Jim Zub’s Skullkickers series.  It’s a tongue-in-cheek fantasy adventure book, or as I’ve heard him pitch it at cons a million times: “A buddy cop movie meets Conan.”  It’s true!  Skullkickers is just a blast and a half. Don’t take my word for it, though – read it yourself for free online over at http://skullkickers.keenspot.com.  Be warned, though – you’ll get hooked quickly.

The series is just about to finish up its third arc with Issue 18 (a notable achievement for any comic these days), and the team is continuing with a tradition they’ve upheld since back at Issue 6.   As you may know, sticking to a monthly schedule on a book can be murder for the artists.  Churning out 22 pages of high-level pencils, inks and colors every month is nigh impossible, even for super-talented and speedy folks like Edwin Huang, Misty Coats and the rest of the team.  So, most series use fill-in artists here or there, either on single issues or entire arcs, depending on what’s required.  Skullkickers has handled the schedule conundrum in an interesting way: every sixth issue they do an anthology issue, with stories and art contributed by people who aren’t members of the regular team.  It’s been a really fun way to see how others play in the SK sandbox.  Skullkickers 18 is the next one to get the anthology treatment, and I am absolutely thrilled to be able to say that Jim asked me to contribute a story.

Mine’s called “The Corran’s Tears,” and the art was spectactularly drawn by Michael Mayne, of Bonnie Lass fame and others.  The story’s sort of a funny little thing that I think fits nicely into the Skullkickers world, but ultimately it’ll be up to you guys to decide.  It revolves around beer, for one thing, so that should help.  If my participation alone doesn’t sway you to pick this one up, I bet the murderer’s row of additional talent on the book certainly will.  We’re talking: Rob Guillory and John Layman, Justin Jordan and Tradd Moore, Blair Butler, J. Torres and many more.

The book will be out on SEPTEMBER 26 in comic shops everywhere.  If you want to pre-order it, use Diamond order code JUL120516.

Here’s the awesome cover:

Available everywhere September 26 – don’t miss it!

 

JUMP.

Last night, on Twitter, I said this: “Starting a new thing = leaping off a cliff. You hope you fall like Jackie Chan, not Hans Gruber, but you still need to jump.”  When I typed that into my phone, I was taking a momentary break from work on a big new story.  It’s a work-for-hire thing, one of the higher-profile projects I’ve had so far.  I hope you guys get to hear about it soon, but for now only four people know much about what’s happening.

My job right now is to break the story.  In other words, I’m figuring out the main thrust of events, and the beat-by-beat layout of the thing.  Themes, main characters and overarching ideas have already been mostly nailed down, so now it’s about finding how A gets to Z.

As I’ve mentioned before, most of my early-stage hacking out happens in longhand, in moleskine notebooks, and this one’s no exception.  So, last night, I was sitting at a bar, with the book open to a blank page, ready to start jotting down ideas.  I was mildly nervous, because as I said, this is a high-profile thing, with the potential to get me a lot of very welcome exposure.  I had a beginning and an ending, but only the vaguest idea of what would come between them.  But there’s nothing for it – either you start writing stuff down or you don’t.  If you don’t, then you might as well give up.  If you do, even if it’s bad, at least you have something to revise.

I put pen to page, and ideas began to spark, bouncing one off the other until I entered a state I think of as “ideaphoria.”  I’m not claiming to have invented the term, but I think it’s a very apt way to describe the way it feels when ideas just seem to sprout one from the other, spinning out in unexpected directions.  There’s a well-worn trope in writing that suggests that stories and characters can take on lives of their own, but it’s well-worn for a reason.  It couldn’t be more true.  The story finds you, a lot of the time, and fighting against it doesn’t do you OR the story any good.  (I think that’s why some people find it really hard to work on corporate characters – directives from on high make it hard to find their own story – but that’s another discussion for another day.)

Anyway, in this particular circumstance, it felt something like I had jumped off a cliff, one with tree branches, ledges and other protrusions sticking out of its face.  And as I fell, I was bouncing off all that stuff, resting here, changing direction there, but all the time with only a limited amount of control over where I was going.  I was always headed down, but how I got there seemed to involve a lot of flipping around.  It definitely felt pretty Jackie Chan, though.  Not too Hans Gruber.

Okay, this is getting metaphorically unwieldy, but my point is that you’ve got to start.  If you don’t start, you’ll never finish.  See you next time – hopefully I can actually talk about some of this stuff soon.  I have four big things going on that haven’t been announced, which is rough! I want to show you guys some of these things!

 

Just a taste of Strange Attractors

I put together a big proof PDF today of the first 100 or so pages of Strange Attractors, my upcoming graphic novel from Archaia.  Seeing it all (mostly) assembled like that really just brought it home that I’m very lucky to be working with the team I have on this book.  In case you’re wondering, that team includes:
Greg Scott -Pencils/Inks

Art Lyon -Colors

Matthew Petz -Colors

Thomas Mauer -Letters

Robert Saywitz -Complexity Maps (this will make more sense when you get the book.)

They’re all knocking it out of the park.  Most are NYC natives, too, which makes a big difference for this particular book, as the city is one of the story’s most significant characters.  But don’t take my word for it.  Here are two gorgeous, finished and lettered, pages, presented for the first time anywhere, from Strange Attractors.

It’s like you’re right there at 42nd and Park, isn’t it?

Give me half a chance and you know I’ll work in a music reference somewhere.

Just gorgeous, right? And, I’m thrilled to be able to say that these are just the tip of the iceberg. Can’t wait for you guys to see more.