Tuesday, July 1, 2008

The Long Hard Hello



Talk about a long, long, LONG time coming... To anyone making the attempt to produce their own book will find the task anything but easy. In the ardous journey towards completion, I stopped to look at the one time school project to give you an idea of how I got here.

FIERCE CREATURES ( originally entitled The GRIFFIN) started as a host of character sketches and an outline in June of 89', but I didn't get serious about it until I got hit with a writing assignment in film school... The year was 1995.

I switched from art school to film school as a future storyboard artist. My father had passed away that fall, so you can imagine what it was like to concentrate on anything. The assignment was to create a short shooting script based on an original idea. I used the comic outline as a script outline.

As luck would have it, I got an A for the assignment and even got some attention from a film studio thanks to my counsellor. Because of the interest level, I was convinced the project would be best ticket. From that moment on, I would produce my high school idea using my film school script and put it on the shelf. What the hell was I thinking?

I took a crash course in the school of hard knocks over the next several years... Divorce, cash straped for supplies, thereby working two jobs on top of school--- Hell, the first issue alone got highjacked by a young inker who was told that I would never pay him for his work--- by an inker who turned me down due to his workload of what he considered 'more important work'...

Jesus... Life does come at you fast.

Anyway, after getting my affairs in order, I returned to the project with a retooled script and switching to a full color format. I showed the work around to a couple of publishers to mixed results ( one publisher said it wouldn't pick up the title simply because they didn't know what genre it could fit in. Wow. The Matrix had the same problem, and look what happened.).

Ha. Here I am. Still in this. I've had supporters ranging from Budd Root (Cavewoman), Jason Alexander(Empty Zone), to Andy Lee, who contributed the Sumi-brush piece on this blog.
As I near completion, I look back on all of this as a testament to perseverance. To all the creators out there seeking what I seek, stay in it and never let the pratfalls of life trick you into giving your dream project the long kiss goodnight.

Fight for your introduction as you get your foot in the door... Call it the long hard hello.

1 comment:

Samax said...

"one publisher said it wouldn't pick up the title simply because they didn't know what genre it could fit in."

uh, the genre of Awesome?