NINE GATES: My journey to making a graphic novel

Greetings! Never mind that last post, I was ranting like a mad man! Recently I promised you in depth interviews and videos about my newest book Short Stories of a Man Named Frankie Dingle: Adventures of Absurdity. Well you're still going to have to wait for that! Ha! It seems I've sold but one copy so far (pathetic) seemingly because a lot of people don't understand that its only available in digital format. So I will have to adjust my marketing strategies and get that rolling.

I wanted to talk a little bit about my other current project, Nine Gates  my graphic novel! I'm in the prelims right now with it and am unavailable to scan in and post any progress pictures unfortunately but I am coming along. The script for the first chapter was finished quite sometime ago and now I have finished most of the character designs, and page 1 pencils and the cover pencils as well. Currently starting on page 2, of which I have the prelim pencils done so far. Everything with time and effort.

I'm looking to hopefully get this published through an actual big name publisher (IDW; DARK HORSE, IMAGE or SLAVE LABOR GRAPHICS) so as not to have so much pressure on myself to sell it. All of their submission guidelines are luckily all the same pretty much: Cover Letter, Whole Story Synopsis, Character Breakdowns, and 5 penciled, inked and lettered pages. Five is the minimum but its pretty much what I'm shooting for right now.

The cover letter, synopsis, character breakdowns and pencils part is easy for me and somewhat the inking. I run into a huge problem with the lettering part however. Like what do I do for that part? So that is really going to be quite a doosy for me. I'll figure something out I'm hoping.

I picture this series in black and white (basically like a manga graphic novel) interiors with of course full color covers and wraps and what not. It's sort of a cross between; Avatar/Korra; Ral Grad, and Lord of the Rings. Sort of. The rest of it is something different that I've never come across myself out there in the comic world. I'll post the synopsis and stuff soon and hopefully some pictures. Thanks.

Creator Owned Hobbits Christmas

So here is the thing. I am a creator. I like to create different worlds, characters, situations, scenes, history and etc. So once again I am venturing off into the world of creator-owned comics and graphic novel-hood. Starting finally with my stories involving a character I've been developing since I was, well, sixteen. His name is Ananami (which I had though I came up with originally, but recently due to an impromptu web search discovered other people have named their characters that as well. Oh well.) and he has gone through many different changes. As I have, and my characters and stories tend to develop along with myself. So here I am with his current carnation and story: Blood Tales. It's going to be awesome. My plan is to develop all the necessities for a package to be sent to Slave Labor Graphics. I'm going to make sure it's amazing and professional and everything. As soon as I get a large format all in one printer (I've been eying a specific one at my local Staples) I will upload images of my progress and maybe some vlogs covering it as well (inspired by Skottie Young's blog).

On another note I have been doing a lot of sketching lately which have culminated into beautiful completed illustrations. All of them are Christmas themed as I am inspired to do so. These I will upload once I have said printer as well. I am using the color theme of reds and greens as per the color themes of the season after all. I'm going for cartoony simplicity. It's difficult sometimes because I've developed two different styles over the years. One strictly for cartoons and one for what I consider comic book style art, even though that is subjective. But this is how I keep them categorized in my mind ha ha.

I've recently been very inspired with a renewal in the love for J.R.R. Tolkien's stories, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and his other works. Great, great novels, fantasies, poems, films, just everything. I love it all and wish to create such rich illustrious characters and stories and histories as he has and hope to learn more from him and other authors I adore as well. I have also been reaching deeper into my Art History books from college as well. So much more can be learned from these resources than what was taught in my college classes. I have a lot to learn and a lot to do. For it's more important to actually show that you're doing something you love than just to talk about it I believe.