Notes from the Field: 30 Days of Night

A little over a month away and the veil of darkness will reveal all. If I wasn't so head down in my work, I'd be waiting with great anticipation and hope, but as it is, I'm running the last leg of this journey and surprisingly my pace is good.

In the past 3 days I managed to pencil 15 pages, and I still might be able to knock out two more tonight. It feels like I've been doing this all my life, and it's really become second nature. There's not too much I fear to draw at this point. Though I'm sure if I thought about it, jumping on a book with a lot of animals might raise the hackles on my neck. What's a hackle anyway?

Speaking of animals it reminds me about two years ago, early on in this process I met Bill Willingham, writer of Fables and Jack of Fables, at the Emerald City Comicon. He was coerced by an artist who knew him to take a look at my work. You could tell he was dreading it as he walked up to the table. He was pleasantly surprised and suggested I contact his editor to do a fill-in issue or something. I thanked him and he was gone.

Two things, 1) I really wasn't looking for work, and 2) he likes to write them pesky animals into his scripts. On my first pro book I didn't really want to fall flat on my face anyway. Soooo...I'll probably slowly start writing animals into my scripts. Actually I've got a yak and llama in an upcoming book, but that's another story. Regardless, I never contacted the editor. I figured if they liked my work then, there's a good chance they may like it later.

The reason I bring this up is that I've reached a point where professionals look at me as potentially capable. I never thought I'd get to that point, not like this anyway. I mean, I remember vividly when I started inking my stuff thinking, "I'll never be able to do this good enough." Eight years later...and I could see a semblance of consistency. I loved the learning, but it took dedication. So much in fact that I'm determined to keep doing things my way, and not "take a job" in the field as it were. I really do love this medium and I think with each effort, and added experience I get to grow in unpredictable ways. I just hope there's a publisher who thinks so too. Well here's the cover of the next BOOK. It seems soooo long ago...but really I remember how this starts solidifying the dangers that lurk for every one of our characters. I think out of all the covers this is one of my favorites...but there's on other that I like just as well coming up.

These are two sketches that I gave away...yeah for free! We're holding a contest for this here book each month we pick a winner and I send out the work...real simple. Go here to find out more.

Otherwise, that's it for now, sorry for the absence, Scott's been holding his own it seems. It's freaky seeing all these scripts that I remember reading sooo long ago.

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Notes from the Field: Ad Nauseum

Back again with a small installment. Our book will be in this months Diamond Previews from the looks of it. That means retailers will be able to order our book for December. But what if they don't order it?

If you're reading this that means you should tell them. Never assume they'll order what you want. Especially something that's not easy to categorize as The Overman. Yeah it's sci-fi, but it's also action, noir, and so on. That being said if you're not reading this, we'll have ads in other Image books. To start we have this introduction ad that should be appearing before and during the release of Book One.

This will hopefully give you the sense of what the series proposes it will be. It's not your typical character in your face ad. In fact there are no characters on it. Yet there are human elements to connect with...except you probably have no idea what's like floating dead in outer space. Which means if you're reading this you have definitely not had that experience.

Once the book is to market and we're well into our 5 book run, then hopefully Image agrees to put this ad in their books as a follow-up.


Notice the lack of the title? We hope by now that the symbol will have done it's job and made you familiar with the graphic, what it means, and what it's connected to. We also put a URL to help you further your investigation of the mystery. The tagline is the same, so now we have context to who the hired killer is.

Oddly enough when shown to someone they did say, "Why would I want to buy a comic if I know the guy fails?" If they were to think about it a little more, there are so many more interesting ways to fail, thus so many different endings to stories. It's the journey that is most interesting.

Hopefully these ads do affect those who see them. Because by all accounts if we fail at this I can tell you our ending will be an unremarkable cascade of tears.


So do your part to stop grown men from crying, order The Overman today.



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Notes from the Field: Fighting Wizards and the Gastronomicon

Barely surviving Wizard World Chicago comic convention I'm trying to get back in action. During the show I was able to finish the thumbnails on Book V. Needless to say seeing the makings of the last page of story that I'll be drawing for The Overman gave me a strong moment of pause.

The ending that was so elusive to us after all these years was there scribbled in a way that I alone knew what was going on. I mentioned to Scott how a wave of sadness came over me. Oddly enough I think he knew exactly what I was talking about.

The show wrecked me.


I lost sleep because of the 2 hour time difference and having to get up at 3:45 the day of my flight. I got up early Chicago time to hit the gym and continued depriving myself here and there not sure what time zone I was in. When the show came around it was just one big blur of everything I was too familiar with. Except this time Scott was there helping to spread the warning that The Overman was coming. I think we would have had better luck wearing those sandwich boards over our head ringing a bell warning people, "The End of the World is Nigh!".

I've never just promoted a book at a show. One thing is for sure, it's empty and slow. I think the people who took the time to see it, really enjoyed it. And those who did not will remember it regardless.

It wasn't a total loss I got to hang with my friends and I really enjoyed that quite a bit. Cef, Pav and Beth were kind enough to embark on challenging journey to Blackbird on my first night in. What a wonderful restaurant with such a distinguished menu to boot. I didn't think I'd find anything like it outside of Seattle. It took my snobbishness down a peg or too.

As for hanging out with Scott. Nothing's changed...well maybe nothing. We still manage to annoy the hell out of each other, make each other laugh ridiculously and find a bit of that youthful brashness that has made our relationship unique. In the end we're very different people, while we respect each other's skill we certainly have different ideas about where our futures lie.

Well...gotta get back to it...two more books call...and then I'll finally be done with this journey.

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Notes from the Field: Screaming from Soapboxes

So...we come to that point in the marketing where we will be officially going public with our intention to publish The Overman. Not that it was ever in doubt, but this will be the kick-off of us being equal to a ringmaster of sorts, touting our wares as the next best thing to sliced bread. I don't think IMAGE has a booth here, and that's fine because we've supplied you a map!

Come witness the End of the Future at WIZARD WORLD CHICAGO table #5206.

We'll have a preview of the first book, many items for sale and a few to give away. The goal is to get you familiar with our work and to establish good networks of people excited about our project.

We hope to see you there.

Stay tuned for more announcements.

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Notes from the Field: Covering it all! Part II

If you couldn't tell by now this is just a small sample of the agony of designing that first issue cover. Even now I'm struggling with covers for 4 and 5 and have yet to slow down this inevitable process. More times than not, having Scott's input on a cover idea is much more rewarding.

Our working relationship as such is one of those rare instances where the other person provides and excellent springboard. Usually that springboard is so out-of-whack that it makes the other rethink their initial idea or abandon it completely. It's all about one-up-manship, and I think we're lucky to have that.

Anyway, enough of my yakking...let's get to the art.

The psychology of a cover is important to us. We strive to capture key moments that add to the story and make you reconsider what is going on in the scene. It's the kind of covers that we like to see that grab our attention that we're most passionate about making. From concept, composition to color it all plays a role in attracting you the reader like a bee to pollen.

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Notes from the Field: Covering it all!

I thought it was time to reveal the cover of The Overman Book One. Covers are the hardest thing to come up with and this was no exception. I think the first issue is generally the hardest and then each one after that needs to really carry along the over-arcing theme of the series as well as the contents of what's inside.


There is truly no formula for a great cover.

But the closest one to it would be something that is provocative with a hint of story or ambiguous moment that involves the audience. Ultimately my job is to get you to pick up our book even if it's for a quick flip through.

In the months to come I'll post the other covers and talk a little about the psychology and reasoning why we chose the images we did...though it may just blow up in our face if all our deducing and figuring amounts to nothing and the book gets cancelled. I hope by Crom that is not the case.

Next time I'll post all the thumbnails and roughs I went through just for this issue. It's quite mind-boggling I assure you.


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