Hey! Four weeks in a row I posted here, that’s pretty good for me!

It helps that I have a ton of these “dead” pitches. And speaking of, here’s another one that is currently being re-worked with a new artist, but I wanted to post these pages because I really loved them.

Dead pitch week four – SIRE

SIRE started as an excuse to do a secret agent/spy comic, but it really ended up morphing into something different altogether. The original idea was much more straightforward, with a no-nonsense British superspy dude kicking ass and taking names, but that didn’t really appeal to me, and I started to tweak the story to the point it ended up at.

As I mentioned, I’m currently working on a new version of this story with a new artist, and I’ve written a lot more than what’s shown here, and I can definitely say, it’s one of the weirdest and most fun things I’ve ever written.

This iteration of SIRE was written by me, illustrated by Denis Vermesse, colored by Marcelo Costa, and again, lettered by Micah Myers.

Enjoy!

Welcome back to the ongoing history of “dead” pitches, story ideas that were created and submitted but never went anywhere.

This week we’re looking at something that was really out of my normal wheelhouse. This is a Barbarian/Sword & Sorcery idea that really intrigued me, but never amounted to anything beyond these pages.

Week Three: SEASON OF THE BEAST.

Normally when I’m creating a pitch, I’m creating a miniseries (most publishers aren’t looking for long-form work from relatively unknown creators such as myself), with a potential to expand upon the work if the option rears its head. This was not so for Season of the Beast. I had it at a 3-issue series and that was it, full stop.

I do wish we’d been able to make more of this story. I think it would have been fun, and would have appealed to Conan fans and Game of Thrones fans. But alas, here we are, in dead pitch land.

Interesting (maybe only to me) – the idea first came to me as a singular image, of a wandering Nomad-style clan of warriors, travelling through a snowy wilderness, all roped together so no one wandered off or got lost. That’s the first page.

I hope you dig it – Season of the Beast was written by me, illustrated by Lucas Orueta, colored by Matej Stasko, and as almost always, lettered by Micah Myers.

Literally the next page would have introduced Tyar’s wife, warrior woman Jana, as she killed the creature (part of a supernatural species called The Resh).

Hope you enjoyed this little tidbit! Back next week with another one.

I’m interrupting my own dead pitch series to post about an ongoing, experimental comic I’ve been creating with my friend, artist Jerome Eyquem, for several years. Jerome and I are comic book blood brothers, we’ve created a lot of comics together, and I feel like we’re always on the same wavelength. Our first book was the sci-fi thriller “Knowledge” published by Markosia several years ago. We’ve done a ton of short stories together. More recently we created a graphic novel called “The Man Who Shook the Earth” that we’re currently trying to find a home for.

But in the background, we were always working on “Conscious Stream”, which is created in a unique way – Jerome creates these full-page panels, 12 pages per “season”, and then presents them to me, and I have to write the text based on what I think is happening, vs me writing and him drawing what’s in a script. It’s been a ton of fun, and it uses mental muscles that I don’t exercise very often.

Our first few seasons of Conscious Stream were lettered by Chris Horan, but eventually Jerome himself took over that duty as well, so the entire page is his creation now.

He’s got all 5 of our completed “seasons” up on Global Comix for free, you can read them all right now:

https://globalcomix.com/c/conscious-stream

I hope you check it out, it’s a lot of fun, and did I mention free?

Also, Jerome and I are starting the sixth and possibly final season, in anticipation of maybe collecting the whole thing into a physical book – more on that to come.

Here’s a small sample of what you can expect – wild, gonzo sci-fi stuff. Check it out!

Okay, so looking back over the years, as with many of my fellow comic book-making compadres, I have a TON of pitches that never gained any traction, never went anywhere, never got picked up. For real, so many! All of them wonderful, beautiful pieces of work (in my humble opinion as creator and writer of all of them), and it’s a shame that no one sees them. I’ve posted little bits here and there on social media, but I think it’s time to a) post these pitches with a little background on each and b) actually use this friggin’ blog a little more.

So there you have it – a series of dead pitches, starting today, I’ll do one per week every Wednesday. Maybe it will be interesting, maybe not, but I think I owe it to the artists and colorists and letterers that I’ve worked with over the years, who have put in a lot of hard work, to show these pitches off.

Week One: Brood (the original pitch)

Brood is my attempt at a superhero family comic, but one with a lot of weird twists. It was also my attempt at a murder mystery – who killed _____?

I’ve described the idea as Fantastic Four meets the Umbrella Academy. Now, this original version of Brood never really gained any traction anywhere, but I’ve since revamped it and I’m working with a new artist on a new version. However, I will likely have to change the title since there’s a book out now called The Brood, part of the Minor Threats universe.

This version of Brood was written by me, illustrated by David Landi, and lettered by Micah Myers. Enjoy!