I've noticed a lot of people doing their 'best of the decade' type posts this week, and with the 'noughties' turning into the 'teens' I can see why this is. And, as a comic writer who started during this decade, I certainly have a lot to crow about over the last six years. But rather than talk about the best things I wrote, or even the worst things that I wrote, I thought I'd talk about the things that never happened, that changed mid way, that got cancelled, that simply didn't occur the way I expected them to. Pitches with artists that never got anywhere, stories that simply died, others still lost in development hell. So settle down as I tell you, with often never-seen-before artwork (that if you right click and 'view as' will show the full size image) of the 'Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda' of my comic writing life.
MythLands / Hunter's Moon: I came back into comics in 2003, after a long hiatus. and by long, I mean decade stretching in length. And when I came back, I came back with a vengeance. I wanted to take over the world, and there were a couple of people around with me who wanted to help me. One of which was Owen Gieni - currently wowing them all in Keenspot - who, with colourist / inker extraordinaire Don MacKinnon, created a short story for Digital Webbing Presents #18 called 'Jigsaw Lady'. It was fun, and we wanted to do more together. And I had a lot of ideas, two of which were just ready to go - MythLands and Hunter's Moon.
Hunter's Moon was a simple story, it was effectively Buffy The Demon Hunter with a few twists, girl discovers she's the last of a line of hereditary demon slayers, has a magical spear, must go kill. It seemed such a good idea to me at the time, but obviously it had it's flaws. Still, we worked out a six page sample and started to work on it - page one can be seen here. But of course, it simply wasn't good. I wasn't a good writer at that point (some would say I haven't progressed) and it just fell flat. After a few months of umming and ahhing it kinda just, well, died.
MythLands however was a different matter. This was going to be my big thing, and to be honest I still think, rewritten, that it has legs. The high concept was very simple - imagine a world where every fantasy book - Lord Of The Rings, Shanarra, Dragonbone Chair, you name it - was actually the middle ages. How would the 21st century look? I had a world where electricity was never invented, where magic still worked, where laptops were magic mirrors and where a SWAT team of Human, Dwarf, Feline and Elf fought against gangsta orcs and Armani-clad Dragon arms dealers. Even writing that now, I reckon I should have another whiz at it. But back then, Owen and Don leapt on board and again, we worked out a few sample pages. But this time we had a problem as Don disappeared off the radar for weeks at a time, and we never knew what was happening. And eventually we all moved on. I started work on Starship Troopers, and the project just fizzled.
In 2005 it had a slight blip of a revamp, when APC offered to print a new version. By now Owen was working on other things and making a name for himself, but Rich Emms (publisher of APC) had an artist in mind, Jim Sutherns. Jim did some rather excellent concepts, as seen by the one here, and we started to re-write issue one but, again, by the time we hit page four - Jim disappeared. And although people have claimed random sightings of him over the years, we've never really heard from him since.
So currently, MythLands is in limbo. Perhaps I might bring it out again in 2010.
Of Vengeance / Hope Falls: No, not two projects, but one. You see, Hope Falls, the five issue, Eagle Award nominated comic I created with Dan Boultwood wasn't always that way. Two years earlier, it had been a different beast, called Of Vengeance, and it had a different artist, my good friend and now Longbox wunderkind, Rantz Hoseley.
Rantz and I had met on the Engine message boards when they existed, and we'd hit it off. And so when I started to play with this idea I had of a falling Angel, Rantz came on board as artist. We had one problem, however - Rantz was on a deadline because early the following year, he would be starting an already contracted book called Displaced Persons for Image. So the clock was ticking.
Rantz worked through the script with me and actively helped with some of the gorier moments of the book - the singing to Treadwell while he died is all Rantz, baby. Rantz had a friend called Mike May who offered to make painted covers for the comic, and we were set to come out for Fall 2006. However the best laid plans of mice and men and all that; Rantz was working stupid
hours on his day job, I was swamped with mine, and that deadline loomed closer and closer and then eventually we had to stop the project due to time restrictions. We said we'd do it later, but then Rantz became editor of Comic Book Tattoo, and we called it quits. Probably the best decision he made, too - as that won an Eisner.
We were working on another idea, a post apocalyptic fantasy world set 1000 years in the future - here's a concept of the main character, 'Cole' - but again, we never had to time to do anything more with it.
And so Of Vengeance was dead. Which was annoying as by then I'd pretty much written all five parts. For almost a year I tinkered with it, almost making it a novel at one point, and then Dan Boultwood came on board and Markosia took it on. Dan's a great friend and we've worked on a ton of stuff together (some of which is mentioned later), and I knew that it would work. Rantz gave his blessing, Larry Young suggested a new name - Hope Falls, the name of the town - and it was created. And it was a different beast, as shown by these two comparison pictures below...
52 Pickup: This one was another 'high concept' idea - basically it was Battle Royale for supervillains, fifty two of them winner takes all, taken from the perspective of one of the competitors, only doing this to save himself from a psychotic superhero.
Gary Lister came on board for art duties, and even Don MacKinnon, back from wherever he went agreed to do the colours. Gary was an absolute star, we put together a sample and sent it off to Image, but nothing was heard back.
Whether it was the art, or the writing we'll never know, but after a while, waiting, the project just fizzled. Gary and I both had other projects to work on, and so we left it.
At SDCC I had an interested offer from a publisher to alter it slightly and redo it, and I've been talking to Lady Action artist Jake Minor on drawing it, as Gary is currently working on his excellent webcomic Morganna Of The Borg. So we'll see what happens in 2010.
Personally, I'd really like to see this work. I loved this story.
King Arthur: Now this has been a labour of love. Since a young boy, I've loved the myths and stories of King Arthur, and I had an opportunity to pitch a three book series, delving into the whole mythology of King Arthur, from birth to death. They were StoneBlade, CircleBorn and WarChild, each one building on an era of the myth. Markosia took the plunge and agreed to do it, with artist Andy B (currently writing and drawing Bottle Of Awesome for DC Comics / Zuda) on as artist. Andy agreed to the contract, drew a couple of concepts, but then disappeared. Nothing was heard for ages and then eventually the book was cancelled.
(I actually met Andy again at this year's SDCC - he only just remembered the book, couldn't remember the publisher, and didn't remember the contract.)
A year later, I had an opportunity to pitch the same trilogy to Walker Books, who were doing my Robin Hood book. This time we went for a more 'Disney' approach in style, and Pedro Delgado, who was the artist on my adaptation of Shadowmancer did a couple of concepts - but time scales and deadlines killed this - because Pedro's a bloody great artist and always busy - and Walker at this point decided that King Arthur would be a better fit as a one book story, a second book in the 'Heroes and Heroines' line that Robin Hood was now part one of.
Which was fine by me because even though Pedro couldn't do it, it meant that Sam Hart could. So it worked out in the end.
Bloodbourne: This was my 'Vampires vs Zombies' book with Szymon Kudranski.
Szymon's a great artist and the pages were brilliant, but it was simply the wrong time, being a few years back now and before all the Vampire / Zombie madness kicked off.
Szymon went from this to do the Hope Fall covers, for which he received an Eagle Award nomination.
One day, one day, we will get something going.
CrowTown / St Spookys: Two projects, both with CHEW artist Rob Guillory. CrowTown is yet another project that will be 'done one day' in a different guise, but Rob came on board to draw it, the story of the Police Precinct in Purgatory where corrupt cops go to when they die, but we put this on hold - as it was back end pay - when The DFC - who were paying advances and page rates - offered us the chance to create a new story called St Spooky's School For Girls, an eight part story, four pages a week, that had evil witches and ghostly headmasters and three plucky young girls saving the day at a girls school. Harry Potter meets St Trinians, really.
The problem was, St Spookys was fun, but The DFC was flawed - and as we finished the final issue and started to plan out the next one, the comic announced that it was closing. And when the comic ended, St Spooky's School For Girls had never seen the light of day, and most likely never will. Which is a shame as Rob did some of the most awesome pages I have ever seen him do in this comic.
So one day, hopefully, we might be able to show them, when the comic isn't in litigation limbo.
And then, after The DFC died, we looked back to CrowTown - but by then Rob had the CHEW opportunity - and again, it was the best thing he could have done.
The Three Musketeers: Talking of The DFC, the first pitch that I sent them (before St Spookys and The Prince Of Baghdad) was a collaboration with Manga's Mrs Sexy, Emma Vieceli, a manga, serialised adaptation of Dumas' The Three Musketeers. I'd pretty much put together the first three issues and Emma had put together a swathe of concepts when we went to Oxford to meet with the editors and, while they were there they asked us what else we had. Emma had a self produced story called Violet, and I had the aforementioned two stories.
After a few weeks of umming and ahhing, The DFC went with the original stuff from both of us, worried that something like The Three Musketeers might turn kids off. Which was probably for the best, really as if we'd started it, it'd only gotten a quarter of the way through the D'Artagnan Romances before it would have reached an abrupt end when the book was cancelled.
I still love the Musketeers, however - and I have an idea for a related story that one day might happen.
Rough Trade: This could be possibly the one comic I regret not seeing through to the end - a story of con men and spies and identity theft, with two main characters literally going off the grid to escape a shady government organisation, drawn by Scott James, covers by Kody Chamberlain and co-written / consulted on by Burn Notice Consulting Producer Michael Wilson.
We had the story, we had the start of the art, but long delays and subsequent arguments (mainly from me being a bit of a control freak) meant that eventually this project died.
One day I'd like to return to this, maybe even with the original crew. It had legs, we just need to look at it a different way.
Maybe I'll look at that for 2010 too.
Dodge & Twist: Three years ago, I pitched AiT/PlanetLar this sequel to Oliver Twist and Larry Young agreed on the spot. He even had the perfect artist, Paul Peart-Smith, who had recently asked about work and was raring to go. The contract was signed in April and in July there were eight pages of finished, lettered art to show people at San Diego.
And then - it all slowed down. In the following two years we saw about thirty pages of the book, a book promised in a year - not because Paul was slow, but because he;d taken too much on. With his more important paid work, he simply didn't have the time to continue it.
Earlier this year we discussed this and agreed to part ways, and for the next six months Larry and I looked for a replacement artist. And, in December, Dodge & Twist is living again - but I can't say yet how. Wait until Christmas, and check Bleeding Cool.
And finally, Dan Boultwood.
We're bestest friends and live a mile away from each other. And when we get drunk, we come up with crazy ideas.
Some, like Prince Of Baghdad, Hope Falls and The Gloom happen. And there are some that never happen.
Ideas like Bjorn Of The Dead, a Vikings vs Ninjas vs Zombies tale from 2005, FairieTale, a story about children seeing Faeries at the end of their garden and being pulled into their war, which would have ended up in The DFC, 2009's The Forgotten Oz Trilogy, three books set
between books one and two of Baum's Oz series, adding a far more Steampunk style to the proceedings. And of course Shotgun Samurai, Romeo and Juliet between the Yakuza and the Triad where everyone dies. This one however will come out and we'll be working hard on it in 2010 for Arcana, once paid work gets out of the way.
But these are many of the projects that never happened, the art that nobody ever saw.
Which is a shame because these guys deserve to be seen. Because they're awesome.
