Howdy gang. Just another monthly update, to make it look like I keep up on this blog. Maybe someday I'll get back to regular posting. Maybe. Meh.
At any rate, not much to report. I'm busy with my Portfolio class for my graphic design degree, and I'm actually doing some cool stuff. Aeolus #3 is slowly, ever so slowly getting done; just bummed out with the amount of work involved: doing all the penciling, inking, scanning, and computer-editing yourself is a beast. I mean, I did it all for the first two, but this next one is twice as long, and I've got a serious motivation deficit going here.
Let's see, what else...have to do the next page for Fight or Flight; looks like we may have a hard copy in the works at some point (not promising anything, here). Have some other projects I want to start, maybe, kind of. Just ideas bouncing around in the old noggin, things I'll get momentarily excited about. Perhaps it's better just to let them gestate for a while. Do a bunch of drawings, and such. I have an idea I've been kicking around since sixth grade (ain't that phrase the kiss of death?), and I literally have a binder full of drawings for it. Sometimes I feel like Henry Darger. Hopefully less creepy, of course.
Can I share my ideas with you? Really? Promise you won't steal them? Wow, that's real nice of you.
Liar.
Here's some ideas:
"Arabesque". An Ali Baba-style orientalist fantasy one-off. A bandit-type steals a Sultan's intended concubine by accident, and must rescue her and claim his reward (which may turn out to be horrible torture and death). Hilarious Middle Eastern hijinks ensue.
"Eine Kleines Wampirsgeschicte". I'm not sure where the German comes in - it just sounds cool. A social worker is assigned to a sickly young mother, who exhibits what look like needle-tracks on her arm. Double needle tracks. Slightly less hilarious vampire hijinks ensue.
"Die Katze". Again, not sure what's up with the German. A young cat, apprenticed to a priestess of Bast (all the characters are cats in this story) is drawn into an apocalyptic plot to raise the beast Ammit (or something similar...I'm thinking more of a cat-dragon), who will then rally all cats to take over the world from the humans, yada yada. I'm thinking of doing this one cartoon-style - like dark Disney.
"The Mice of Burkenstein Station". I literally dreamed this one up one night. Intelligent mice (think the Secret of NIMH) are living onboard an asteroid research station from which all the humans have mysteriously disappeared; they live under the iron paw of their queen, a cyborg-mouse. Another cartoon-style (and yes - I sometimes dream in cartoons).
"Maddie's Children". A spinster takes a job as secretary to a strange, reclusive old woman who runs a secret orphanage. Of course, there's something sinister going on, yada yada (no ghosts, though). Another one I literally dreamed up...I should get that checked.
"Evolution". A gothic horror/scifi set in the 1900s. An eager young student accompanies his professor in a time machine going 85,000 years into the future, hoping to see where evolution will take the human race. What they find, of course, is more than they bargained for. Aside from the Lovecraftian overtones, I was hoping to inject a little more philosophy into this one.
The Lightweight. A slight twentysomething bookworm has an encounter with RADIATION and suddenly has the ability to feel the effects of any chemical twenty-fold (think of Futurama's Fry and his 100 cups of coffee). He may or may not hook up with a society of similarly-irradiated superheroes, depending upon how I feel at the time.
Turtle Boy. A superhero who operates in a weird pastiche of Babylonian and other mythologies; I'm debating whether the story is actually about him, or his creator, a crippled, burnt-out comic book writer whose life - like the stories he writes - is going nowhere.
Fantasy Story (no title yet). A mythic hero must evil-ify a holy sword in order to save the souls of his family. He is pursued by a warrior who has been cursed by the kiss of an evil sorceress (half his face is a skull).
Chakkattrakka. A scifi-fantasy-mythological epic of epic proportions. A slave on an earthlike planet facing invasion finds out he is the Chosen One. The bad guys (or MAYBE NOT...) are a dragonlike race. The obvious problem of this story is that it combines all of my interests, and therefore is doomed to fail miserably. I'm hoping to save it with artwork.
The Park. A collection of stories about the residents of a trailer park in southern Indiana. This one's all about the characters - how they live, how they interact, their hopes, dreams, and sorrows. For some reason, I'm fascinated by the setting and the people, at once so familiar we hardly notice, and yet so much a world unto itself, a kind of ghetto for small-town America.
Pandemonium. A comic about Punks - not so much about the music, as about the people for whom the music is their whole lives (and no, they generally won't dress in leather and wear mohawks). I'm considering using some weird art styles for this one, sort of caricature-ish; the comic itself will be pretty anarchic. Not sure where I'm setting it. West Lansing seems to have the right run-down, postindustrial look while still keeping a small-town feel.
Fyodor Dostoevsky's Demons. I would LOVE to do a comic based on this book - it is, in my opinion, Dostoevsky's best novel. Just the characters alone are astounding, but F.D. also tells a ripping good yarn. If you have a yen for Russian literature - and the patience to slog through Part I, which is nearly all exposition - this is one book you need to pick up.
Ellis Peters' Brother Cadfael Mysteries. More ripping good yarns. Small, compact stories, with a gruff yet lovable and keenly-written protagonist. Something about Peters' writing lends itself to a comic - rich in imagery, without being overly cinematic.
Now keep in mind, none of these exist as anything except concept sketches - and some of them aren't even at that stage. I'm hoping at least some of these comics will get written. Who knows.
Anyway, I've got to get back to work on Aeolus #3...first things first, I suppose. I'm shooting for Thanksgiving or Christmas as a release date on that one, considering the rate at which I'm working on it. I'll keep you posted.
Rick Out.
At any rate, not much to report. I'm busy with my Portfolio class for my graphic design degree, and I'm actually doing some cool stuff. Aeolus #3 is slowly, ever so slowly getting done; just bummed out with the amount of work involved: doing all the penciling, inking, scanning, and computer-editing yourself is a beast. I mean, I did it all for the first two, but this next one is twice as long, and I've got a serious motivation deficit going here.
Let's see, what else...have to do the next page for Fight or Flight; looks like we may have a hard copy in the works at some point (not promising anything, here). Have some other projects I want to start, maybe, kind of. Just ideas bouncing around in the old noggin, things I'll get momentarily excited about. Perhaps it's better just to let them gestate for a while. Do a bunch of drawings, and such. I have an idea I've been kicking around since sixth grade (ain't that phrase the kiss of death?), and I literally have a binder full of drawings for it. Sometimes I feel like Henry Darger. Hopefully less creepy, of course.
Can I share my ideas with you? Really? Promise you won't steal them? Wow, that's real nice of you.
Liar.
Here's some ideas:
"Arabesque". An Ali Baba-style orientalist fantasy one-off. A bandit-type steals a Sultan's intended concubine by accident, and must rescue her and claim his reward (which may turn out to be horrible torture and death). Hilarious Middle Eastern hijinks ensue.
"Eine Kleines Wampirsgeschicte". I'm not sure where the German comes in - it just sounds cool. A social worker is assigned to a sickly young mother, who exhibits what look like needle-tracks on her arm. Double needle tracks. Slightly less hilarious vampire hijinks ensue.
"Die Katze". Again, not sure what's up with the German. A young cat, apprenticed to a priestess of Bast (all the characters are cats in this story) is drawn into an apocalyptic plot to raise the beast Ammit (or something similar...I'm thinking more of a cat-dragon), who will then rally all cats to take over the world from the humans, yada yada. I'm thinking of doing this one cartoon-style - like dark Disney.
"The Mice of Burkenstein Station". I literally dreamed this one up one night. Intelligent mice (think the Secret of NIMH) are living onboard an asteroid research station from which all the humans have mysteriously disappeared; they live under the iron paw of their queen, a cyborg-mouse. Another cartoon-style (and yes - I sometimes dream in cartoons).
"Maddie's Children". A spinster takes a job as secretary to a strange, reclusive old woman who runs a secret orphanage. Of course, there's something sinister going on, yada yada (no ghosts, though). Another one I literally dreamed up...I should get that checked.
"Evolution". A gothic horror/scifi set in the 1900s. An eager young student accompanies his professor in a time machine going 85,000 years into the future, hoping to see where evolution will take the human race. What they find, of course, is more than they bargained for. Aside from the Lovecraftian overtones, I was hoping to inject a little more philosophy into this one.
The Lightweight. A slight twentysomething bookworm has an encounter with RADIATION and suddenly has the ability to feel the effects of any chemical twenty-fold (think of Futurama's Fry and his 100 cups of coffee). He may or may not hook up with a society of similarly-irradiated superheroes, depending upon how I feel at the time.
Turtle Boy. A superhero who operates in a weird pastiche of Babylonian and other mythologies; I'm debating whether the story is actually about him, or his creator, a crippled, burnt-out comic book writer whose life - like the stories he writes - is going nowhere.
Fantasy Story (no title yet). A mythic hero must evil-ify a holy sword in order to save the souls of his family. He is pursued by a warrior who has been cursed by the kiss of an evil sorceress (half his face is a skull).
Chakkattrakka. A scifi-fantasy-mythological epic of epic proportions. A slave on an earthlike planet facing invasion finds out he is the Chosen One. The bad guys (or MAYBE NOT...) are a dragonlike race. The obvious problem of this story is that it combines all of my interests, and therefore is doomed to fail miserably. I'm hoping to save it with artwork.
The Park. A collection of stories about the residents of a trailer park in southern Indiana. This one's all about the characters - how they live, how they interact, their hopes, dreams, and sorrows. For some reason, I'm fascinated by the setting and the people, at once so familiar we hardly notice, and yet so much a world unto itself, a kind of ghetto for small-town America.
Pandemonium. A comic about Punks - not so much about the music, as about the people for whom the music is their whole lives (and no, they generally won't dress in leather and wear mohawks). I'm considering using some weird art styles for this one, sort of caricature-ish; the comic itself will be pretty anarchic. Not sure where I'm setting it. West Lansing seems to have the right run-down, postindustrial look while still keeping a small-town feel.
Fyodor Dostoevsky's Demons. I would LOVE to do a comic based on this book - it is, in my opinion, Dostoevsky's best novel. Just the characters alone are astounding, but F.D. also tells a ripping good yarn. If you have a yen for Russian literature - and the patience to slog through Part I, which is nearly all exposition - this is one book you need to pick up.
Ellis Peters' Brother Cadfael Mysteries. More ripping good yarns. Small, compact stories, with a gruff yet lovable and keenly-written protagonist. Something about Peters' writing lends itself to a comic - rich in imagery, without being overly cinematic.
Now keep in mind, none of these exist as anything except concept sketches - and some of them aren't even at that stage. I'm hoping at least some of these comics will get written. Who knows.
Anyway, I've got to get back to work on Aeolus #3...first things first, I suppose. I'm shooting for Thanksgiving or Christmas as a release date on that one, considering the rate at which I'm working on it. I'll keep you posted.
Rick Out.
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