Best In Show

When Daniel and I first decided to work together, we did so with the plan to put our efforts into creating comics that we could pitch to existing publishers. We knew people who were signed on to do books with written pitches and very little actual comic work in a finished state, but we wanted to go futher. Our concept was to get enough of a book done so that you could really see where we were going with it. In most cases, we were putting together full first issues, and I think we were getting an unexpected level of interest because of the amount of material we had to show people.

When we decided to dive in headfirst into self publishing, it wasn't because we had no other way to get our material out there~ getting an offer to publish our stuff has never been the problem. What HAS been the issue, has been finding the right deal. Sometimes the deals we were offered were losing propositions from the get go, and in other cases it was a situation of their being interest but a lack of funding to bring on new books...

In any case, Daniel & I are going to be putting our books out ourselves~ at least for the time being. Our first book, Robot 13, will be coming out in June just in time for MoCCA. We will be at the show, with copies of the book and a bunch of other cool stuff. As the show gets closer, we'll be making more announcements about blacklist studios and the future of our monster killing friend, KING!...

Stay Tuned. You'll be glad you did.

Motion In The Ocean

I was raised to not be afraid of water; being taught how to swim, boat, fish and do almost anything you can imagine around any and every body of water you can name, I knew how to handle myself in any situation where I might be called upon to keep afloat.

Being comfortable around water is one thing, however, and being able to know what will happen to you is another story. In any large body of water, the external forces of nature are always active and they make it behave in ways that make sense but can't always be predicted.

Lately, my creative life has become that way quite a bit~ it makes sense what has been happening, but I am being pulled in ways I couldn't have predicted if I tried. That is neither bad nor good... it's just a statement of where I am right now.

One thing I could never have predicted is I have an opportunity to do some work with my brother on a very interesting project. On my end, it's been easy to write~ it's based on an idea I tossed out to my brother when we were eating together after the NY Comic Con that we banged around until we thought it had some merit. As I have been working on it, I have found that it has just flowed out onto the paper; not necessarily effortlessly, but with a minimum of real sweat. It's a story too good even to hint at yet, but what I can say about it is that it's a very poetic and lyrical black comedy. Hopefully my brother will hang in there and do the kind of art I know he's capable of on this one, because I know if we finish the whole story, it will be something quite special...

Time will tell.

Back to work for me... Talk soon.

Day Of The Tentacles

The first issue of Robot 13 is done & in the can, and I can honestly say I am excited about how the book has turned out. As Daniel & I have worked on this story, we have both had to dig a little deeper than normal, and I think the book will be that much deeper as a result. Now that my creative part in Issue 1 is done, I am starting to coordinate the publicity effort for the book. Our hope is that pretty soon, you will hear about the book pretty much everywhere...

In the meantime, enjoy today's image- it's a version of the back cover for Robot 13...

Needing A Bigger Boat

For a good portion of my life, I have worked at self-publishing comics; on occasion, I was a virtual one man show, doing every aspect of comic book creation from coming up with the idea to writing, drawing, reproducing and distributing my own comics. Most of the time, however, I have been someone who works on projects with others- doing some jobs, but also relying on the talents of other to excel where I lack in some way. To me, that is the best way to do comics~ where there is partnership and several people are working together toward a common goal.

When that goal is "not sucking," so much the better.

Blacklist Studios will be relaunching it's website soon; for the past 5 years, Blacklist has been the vehicle for Daniel Bradford and I to launch all our various projects. It's like our batcave, only we don't wear tights... well, most of the time. :-P

In any case, 2009 is the year that we have been working toward for a long time now~ where many of our dreams will become realities and some of our realities will become dreams. As I mentioned before, Daniel and I will be bringing the blacklist wagontrain to MoCCA in June. That show will be a big event for us~ we will be debuting the first issue of Robot 13 there, as well as making some major announcements about the future. If you can make it to NYC to see us, please do. It's going to be an amazing time.

Keep an eye on the blacklist site, because it will be the hub of all things Blacklist; from there you will be able to get all the current info on Robot 13 and the re-launch of KING!...