The Pack is still my main focus this summer, and of course The Pack: Winter Kill is still available in trade paperback and in a Kindle edition. The short comic Big Bad Wolves will be going live I believe next month, and I’ve just finish scripting the second short.

Just as Big Bad Wolves is a prequel of sorts to The Pack: Winter Kill, the second short will be a prequel to the second prose book, giving readers a little more insight into one of the main characters and his behavior. And no, neither the second short nor book 2 have a title yet, just some working titles my editor and I are still kicking around. I usually don’t have a solid title until I’m done.

I’m already starting to talk to a potential artist for the second short as well. It’s a lot easier to find an artist for the short pieces than it is a longer project, especially for the kind of rates a new startup is able to pay, so the first comic book in the series, The Pack: Chimaera, will be delayed a bit longer. We’re taking advantage of the delay to do a bit more tweaking to the script for Chimaera, and I think those efforts will pay off in the long run.

Meanwhile, I’m pushing the deadline for the 2nd book, but I’m still confident I’ll make it. It’s going to take some extra knuckling down over the next several weeks, but I’m up for it.

There are a few more The Pack developments in store, but none that I can share just yet. Stay tuned.

I sold a short story last year that I hope will see print in an anthology soon. It’s not been announced yet, so I’ll keep quiet for now. I’ve got two more shorts sitting in a slush pile, and two more to write, one overdue and the other with a deadline imminent. It’s tough to make those a priority with my contractual obligations to Evileye for The Pack, but I’ve not written them off yet.

I’ll have some news on a webcomic soon. The artist is inking the strips, and we’re going to wait until we have several in the can before we launch. I don’t want to say too much right now because we’ve both fallen behind on it, but it’s kind of a new direction for both of us and the short strip format will be a new way to flex my creative muscles.

All of this has unfortunately back-burnered my novel Powerless. With The Pack taking center stage and so many other things going on, it’s been hard to revisit my older work. What’s written is edited on paper, but I haven’t been able to get the rewrite in gear. I had hoped to get back to it by the end of this year, but I think the next The Pack commitment may supersede it yet again.

I’m actually a little more interested in writing Sick Day, which also got preempted by The Pack, specifically the second draft of Chimaera. Crime thrillers have interested me a little more both in my reading and my writing, and Sick Day is a straight thriller with no horror or supernatural elements. Heck, I’ve even been tempted to go back and revisit An Ounce of Brass, an abortive first attempt at a thriller novel that has some good material at its heart but it needs to shed a ton of unnecessary weight.

I won’t even get started on the notebook. It’s got some good things waiting to come to light, like The Shattered Man, but I need to finish all this other stuff first and make some room. Until the writing can start paying the bills, I have to let the day job consume the bulk of my writing time. I’m a night owl and get most of my writing done then, but having to get up early makes it tough to do that consistently. Some see a romantic flair in the writer who forgoes sleep for the sake of his craft, but the fact is it actually harms the output in the long run.

Not to mention the toll it takes on one’s health. I’ve said many times I’d love to stay up late writing and then sleep well into the morning, but right now I just don’t have that luxury. It’s one of several reasons I look forward to Spring and Winter Breaks at work.

In the end it may look like it’s been a while since my last release, but never fear, the wheels are in motion.

Thanks to everyone for reading, and I hope you’ll keep coming back.

The Walking Dead

Man, I’m really looking forward to this series. I get the impression there was only so much footage available for the teaser, which is why we have so much of Rick just walking around in uniform, but if it’s as faithful to the original comics as they claim, this series is going to kick all form of ass.

It will also be nice to see a horror show played straight. Most of them end up over-the-top horrific or they play up the Gothic angle. If this show can blend the dramatic tone of Breaking Bad with some good, old-fashioned zombie horror, it’s going to be huge.

Also, be sure to check out the Walking Dead motion comic, which takes Tony Moore’s original art and turns it into an animated teaser. Cool stuff.

Following are the first three pages of Big Bad Wolves. The remainder will be posted to Evileye Books’ Evileye Reader when it launches, and will be included with future electronic editions of The Pack books. We hope to bring you more short stories like this in the future, offering character insights and brief glimpses of the history of The Pack.

Pencils and inks on this story were handled by Mike Henderson, who I’m sure you’ll be seeing more of in the future. The dude’s got talent.

Hope you dig the preview! Click each image to get the full size.

Big Bad Wolves: Page One

Big Bad Wolves: Page Two

Big Bad Wolves: Page Three

Like The Pack, Deacon’s tales will be told in both prose and graphic novel formats.

Yes, obviously this is coming from my publisher, too. But from what I’ve been told about the book and what I see here, I’m excited about this one. Evileye has a lot of cool things in the works, but this one may just claim the top spot in my to-read pile.

Plus Bernie’s good people. You’ll dig him.

Let me tell you, these guys have a hit on their hands. Cullen says they moved over 850 copies at a signing in Austin that day, and fans who missed out are already begging Oni to print up some more. It’s a worthy follow up to their book The Damned, which itself kicked all form of ass.

I can’t wait to see what these guys do next, but for now I’ll be content to savor The Sixth Gun.

This year’s freebies include the first issue of Oni’s The Sixth Gun by Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt, a supernatural Western series. I’ve been looking forward to this one since the guys told me about it and Cullen showed off some of the artwork. I think Cullen just upped his game from The Damned with this one, and Brian’s really bringing his A game with the artwork.

I’m not ashamed to say I’m a bit jealous of this one. This book is going to kick some serious ass, and Brian and Cullen are only building on an already strong partnership. I’m already looking forward to what they’re going to do next.

Meanwhile, I recently did an interview with Comics Bulletin, which you can read right here. The interview includes a few pages from Big Bad Wolves, the short comic that will be appearing at Evileye Books soon. It was a fun interview to do, and I think you’ll enjoy it. The BBW art is by Mike Henderson, by the way. Browse his blog, he’s got some good eye candy over there.

My next scheduled interview is an Internet radio interview with The Parafactor on May 20th. They’re a live, paranormal call-in show, and lately they’ve been interviewing horror writers like Brian Keene. I’m looking forward to this one, and keep an eye here for more details because you should be able to call in and ask questions.

We’re still looking for an artist for the first The Pack OGN, Chimaera, so I encourage artists to send portfolios or samples to Evileye Books. Yes, they pay. Promptly.

Prelim work on the follow-up to The Pack: Winter Kill is still moving along. I’m moving into Spring Break this week and I hope to have everything finalized by then and to complete the actual writing soon. We’re aiming for fall for this one, but that’s going to depend upon me turning in the manuscript in a timely manner.

Right now I’m punching in the edits for a short story called “The Malice Engine”. Wish me luck, as I will be submitting it to an anthology before I crash out tonight. This story has sold once and I’ve been paid for it, and though the book it was to appear in never saw print, maybe the story still has some magic left in it.

Busy busy busy. As always, I’m looking to up my game and I’m getting a few things lined up. More news soon.

The iPad and other tablet readers, however, could really be a game changer. Check out this iPad concept by the guys at comiXology:

Comics by comiXology iPad concept from comiXology on Vimeo.

Reserving final judgment until I have an iPad in my hot little hands, I can see that experience approximating the real thing. I don’t mind reading comics on a desktop or laptop, but it’s still somewhat limited in flexibility. Reading from an iPad or other tablet, however, is a little more natural. Like a Kindle, I can see carrying it about anywhere to do some reading.

And unlike the Kindle, a tablet has a lush, full color display and more flexible page/panel control.

I’m curious to see who else starts distributing comics, too. Will graphic novels start showing up in the iTunes store? Or Kindle native now that there’s going to be a Kindle tablet app? There will be some competition among reader apps at first, sure, but I think the best of the best will rise to the top. I can see Apple or Amazon buying one of the little guys and absorbing their technology into a branded app. Maybe some of those coders/developers become middle men instead, setting up a service to adapt comics to a given electronic format and get them into the electronic distribution chain for a nominal fee.

The main reason I want to try it? I don’t have a local comic shop. The one closest to being convenient has poor stock and poor service, so I get my books mailed to me once a month from another shop. Sometimes I fall behind and my boxes stack up, but the real pain of it is I can’t shop around to see what’s out there, or just stop in and snap up a book I’ve heard great things about. (Viking is a perfect example: by the time I contacted my shop, the book was unavailable.) With the Diamond/Previews system, I have to hope the shop ordered extras of books I missed or forgot about.

I can’t imagine I’m the only one in this situation, either. There are a lot of readers whose LCS only stock superhero books or books by the Big Three and just ignore indie books. A lot of shops are card & collectible shops who just happen to carry a few comics and don’t keep pull boxes for their customers. A solid e-comic app would save a lot of frustration and heartache.

At any rate, this will be the true test for the success of digital comics. E-books have been attempted several times, but it took a truly useful device like the Kindle to make them work. Now we may finally have that killer device for comics. Webcomics, PDF distribution, and iPod comics have found their niches, but I think the tablet is the first device with the real potential to have an impact.

I guess we’ll find out soon.

I would love to have a platform like this to work with comics. Not necessarily as a replacement for floppies, but imagine the extras you can pack in to a graphic novel, comics anthology, or even a complete set (or subset) of a given publisher’s weekly comics. Here are a few ideas off the top of my head:

• Animated sequences or alternate paths/endings (think Choose Your Own Adventure)
• Swipe-through pin-up galleries (with more pin-ups)
• Bring back the letters page with more complete fan-generated content like videos
• Bonus content such as creator profiles with video and/or audio & photos
• Bonus story content like character profiles, references to previous issues, histories, games, etc.
• Behind-the-scenes content such as pencils, inks, and other “process” features
• Dynamic layout control (think different ways to lead a reader’s eye through the story)
• Zoomable panels/pages for “hidden” content, such as clues, gags, or Easter eggs
• Moveable POVs and changing perspectives within a panel (including using this as a method to lead the reader through the story)
• Word balloon and caption toggling (instant silent comic, whether for the story or to savor the artwork)
• Grabbing pages, panels, splashes, etc., as screensavers and wallpapers for the reader device or other devices owned by the reader
• Premium editions that might be ad-free, or feature separate bonus content

Whatever the final content included, the key is the publishers and creators are no longer limited to page counts and printing costs, and in many cases, margins won’t be sacrificed to distributors and to shipping costs. Instead, more of the start-up money goes where it belongs: into content creation. Under the traditional publishing model, the creators get a small slice of the pie, which is a shame given the content they create is what generates the sales in the first place.

As for distributing this new content, there are plenty of options. Guys like Robot Comics are already doing exciting things on the small-screen digital market, but a “full-size”, dedicated e-reader opens up many more possibilities. Content subscriptions could be pushed out just as magazines and newspapers are with the Kindle. Intermediaries like iVerse and comiXology can handle indirect distribution, and larger publishers can probably host items directly (not to mention make use of the iPhone App Store, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble’s online store).

Where does that leave comic shops, you ask? I hear you, I’d hate to see my favorite shops like Amazing Fantasy, Graham Crackers, Darktower, and Comix Connection take a nosedive, too.

For starters, they’ve got a while before they have to sweat because print’s probably not going anywhere any time soon. Despite the success of the Kindle and the sudden proliferation of e-readers, we’re not seeing any decrease in the appearance of print books, are we? Digital distribution may finally have put a dent in music CD sales, but we’re certainly not seeing empty CD racks at Best Buy and Borders. Retailers still sell the hell out of DVDs, and while most games are available digitally, we’re not seeing the game shops in a panic yet. There’s also no reason the shops couldn’t help distribute the digital content, just like Barnes & Nobel plans to do with the Nook at its brick & mortar stores.

Even if digital distribution did put a major dent in the print sales, there’s still going to be a niche market for print (think of all the people still seeking out 8 tracks, and the recent resurgence in vinyl interest). Purists will pay a premium for print, and this is where your signed, limited editions come in. Include color plates, hand-written material, and so on, and you’ve got a product fans will seek. An increase in margin would help offset the loss in volume, and still bring people in for the rest of the stuff.

Which brings us to the next item: merchandising. Fans are going to need a place to pick up t-shirts, action figures, and other tchotchkes the content tends to generate.

Finally, and most importantly, there’s the cultural connection. The best comic shops have a reason for people to show up there and talk comics, including signings and special events like 24 Hour Comics Day. They host gaming tournaments, or they play host to podcasters and media folks like Darktower hosts the Around Comics guys. The cooler publishers and creators will play it smart, using comic shops to host launch parties and similar celebrations, simultaneously pleasing their fans and supporting the shops.

Is it all that easy? Hell, I don’t know. I’m just thinking out loud here, but it would be a shame to have these shiny new toys and still see publishers just handing us the same static content and 22-page story fragments.

I’ve always been a Lone Wolf and Cub Fan, so I picked up some other Kazuo Koike work and started looking at it from a creator’s perspective rather than just as a fanboy. I started with Path of the Assassin, and it amazed me how quickly I could burn through such a dense (in terms of page count) book with that four-panel grid. The pace just moves along, and it seems artist Goseki Kojima can pack in much more information without having to rely on splash pages for major scenes or reveals. The grid left him plenty of elbow room to show off his ink lines and rendering. Of course, it also helps that there’s a lot of historical detail in this one, and I just eat it right up.

I picked up two volumes of Koike’s Crying Freeman, too. I enjoyed the first volume, but the second went off the rails. It just got a little too out there. Artist Ryoichi Ikegami breaks the four-panel grid frequently, yet like Path of the Assassin, I ripped through these 300+ page books in no time. Ikegami rendered some great images in brushwork, then transitioned into some straight lines and tones. It makes for a very lush book, despite the lack of color.

It stuns me how long some of these series run. I read the first Death Note book and the first few MPD-Psycho volumes, and I liked the way they slowly revealed the layers of their plots without leaving more and more questions behind. Yet if you look at some of these manga series on the shelves, they run for a dozen volumes or more. Something I’ll need to explore is whether they concentrate on one long story, similar to the way books like 100 Bullets and Preacher reach a finite end, or if they reboot/relaunch themselves like most of the American superhero books.

In any case, they make for entertaining study. There’s a reason the Big Bad Wolves preview book is in a four-panel grid, and I can tell you, the artist, Mike S Henderson, loved me for it. Sure, his art boards were the same size, but he was able to lay out and draw the pages a lot faster. I could probably explain why if I were an artist and had the words, so I’ll just assume it’s because he didn’t have to draw as much detail in tinier spaces. At this point, whatever helps an artist move along more quickly is a good thing.

It will be fun to see how much reading the manga style and pacing will affect my scripting the next few weeks.