While submissions packs for the ongoing series of The Young Gods sit expectantly in the in-trays of the submissions editors at Image and Antarctic, it occured to me that rather than just let the project languish in development limbo while we wait to hear back, we should probably do...something."Something" turned into a plan for a 40-page one-shot set (mostly) before the events of The Young Gods #1. This one-shot "prequel" will feature ten chapters, each chapter focuses on a different character from the book, and each chapter takes its title from a different track on the Young Gods album by 90's hard rock band, The Little Angels. Yes, this comic book has a "concept" and is in great danger of straying into the realms of "art."
I'm announcing this now because, yesterday, I finished writing the plot, and handed it over to Derek for him to start writing the script. So, the book is now officially "in development." Once the script is complete we'll be submitting it to Visionary with the hope of continuing the book's development and promotion through them. I guess one important point I should make is that I will NOT be providing the art for the one-shot. I have plenty to do art-wise right now, and for this book to progress, we really need to bring a penciller on board. I may ink and colour...I may not...we'll see. I do have a penciller in mind, and I've already spoken to him about it, but I'm very aware of the fact that he's very busy himself right now. He's keen to do the book, but we'll just have to wait and see if the timing's right.
Assuming that Image or Antarctic don't pick up the ongoing series on the strength of our recent submissions...and assuming that Visionary do pick up the one-shot, find a publisher for it, and it's successful...then we will continue the ongoing series with traditional pencilled art too. Until I'm earning enough from comics to do this full-time, I have to be realistic about what I can achieve, art wise, and accept that if The Young Gods is to see print, I'm going to have to bring in other people on the art side. Personally, I suspect this will only make the book stronger.
I'd really welcome people's comments on this. Is anyone out there actually interested in reading The Young Gods? What do you think about the switch from CG art to traditional pencils?
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6 comments:
Generally, I much prefer reading non-CGI books, but as a pencil-and-ink man (albeit unpaid and stuck in small-press land!) myself, I'm probably biased. Your mention of the Little Angels brought back memories of A-level art and sixth form. God, I'm getting old!
No, I was forced out of Erdington and now live in the People's Republic of Stechford.
Well, I dropped out of A-level art after my first year...apparently my work wasn't very "mature." I should have known things were going to go badly when the same art teacher told me that comics weren't real art when I was eleven. But I'm guessing we're a similar age if you were listening to the Little Angels at that time too (I'm in the last month of my youth...sob...). I'm actually a pencil and ink guy myself, although with more leanings towards the ink side (don't worry, Derek, I won;t mention being trained by Tim Townsend again...), and I prefer the traditional method over CG myself too. It's just a lot easier and quicker to create a full colour comic on your own using CG than the traditional way. However, I'm no longer on my own, am I? So let's start doing this thing propoerly, eh?
You're not on your own! I also did badly at my art A-level, my teachers thinking (wrongly)that drawing life-studies of the clichéd bowl of fruit more interesting than Bolland's cross-hatching!
I only started drawing seriously again about 18 months ago, when I won a place on the 'StripSearch' scheme here in Brum, where I was trained by John McCrea and Hunt Emerson, and we had workshops with Phil Winslade, James A. Hodgkins and Andi Watson. From then, I've been working in small-press stuff mostly.
I have to ay thanbk you to my English teacher at Middle School Muriel Moss. If it wasn't for her writing would be something I only ever did while at school. She encouraged me no end and let me work on different things from the other kids to help nuture my talent. While others were learning their spellings for the spelling test I was allowed to write stories using all the words from the test. I was only about 10 or 11 but she really pushed me and had me entering National schools poetry competitions and the like. It made other kids dilike me but hey I'll swap writing for social acceptance any day. She'd never get away with it these days with national curriculums and test upon test.
If she knew I was writing comics I think she'd be pleased. If she knew I wrote radio ads too probably less so. I trained as a teacher before I sold my soul to advertising, probably because of her. Damn just wasted some of my future autobiogrpahy material on Ian's blog.
I'm a pencils fan myself personally and I can't wait to see where things so in the prequel. Love the song titles chapter idea by the way.
Oh the wonders of no edit function.
And the irony of me not learning for the spellings test and making some huge errors in my post!
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