Week eight! Yikes, that’s a steady diet of posts, very unlike me if you’ve been following along over the years.

I’ll take this opportunity to give everyone the heads up that next week will be a skip week and then I’ll be back in business on April 8th.

So because of that, I’m going to be overly generous and hit you with two, count ’em, two dead pitches – however, they are the same pitch, two different versions, neither of which ever gained any traction with a publisher. So here in all their glory are two versions of:

Dead Pitch Week Eight – HELL TO PAY

Oooof, this was a tough one, because I love this story and both versions of it so much, it was pretty crushing when it didn’t get picked up either time, because I was fully convinced, both times, I had found the secret recipe (spoiler alert: I didn’t, and still haven’t).

I wrote Hell to Pay like a video game, where the main character had to battle his way through various boss levels until he got to the BIG BOSS at the end. And the boss fights would get harder as he progressed. I had a lot of fun characters developed for the boss fights. It’s too bad we never got to see them.

Another interesting part of this story was the fact that the main character was gay. It wasn’t a big part of the story, but it’s mentioned in the dialogue, that the bad guys killed his husband and he went nuts and started killing them in return. I’ll be completely honest here, it was my first time writing a gay character, so I hope I was respectful and truthful to that aspect of his character, even in these minimal pages.

I ended up stealing the main conceit of the interrogation room for my series Bastard’s Waltz, so I think I can consider Hell to Pay officially dead in the water. However, these two versions of the story are pretty awesome, and show off two incredible artists.

This first version I’ve posted here before, these pages and cover were created by an artist named Havoc Caster (obviously not their real name), who I subsequently lost touch with, which is a shame because their artwork was absolutely stunning. But no joke, it was like they fell off the face of the Earth after these pages were finished. So wherever you are, out there in the world, Havoc Caster, I hope you are doing well. Here are their Hell to Pay pages, letters by Micah Myers.

And here is Hell to Pay version 2, which I created with a friend named Dann Franco, a fantastic artist who I tried to get a series together with on a few occasions, but the timing never quite worked out. But I have these amazing pages, so there’s that.

Another interesting thing is how different the sets of pages are even though they were working off the same exact script. The choices made by each artist are brilliant and each brings such a different vibe to the work. I’m a very lucky writer indeed.

Art by Dann Franco, colors on page 1 by Carlos Diaz (these pages were never lettered.)

Thanks all! See you in 2 weeks!

Yup, it’s official, seven weeks in a row of these “dead” pitches. Clap for me.

Go on, clap. I’ll wait.

…You didn’t clap….

Anyway, on to week seven:

DEAD PITCH WEEK SEVEN – REAPERS

This one was fun, and I really think is something that has some legs and I would love to try again at some point. REAPERS is a bit of a different animal for me, it’s a hard sci-fi story about the end of the world – but the end of the world never happened.

Here’s the scoop – an alien race attacked Earth with the intent of conquering it. The various governments of Earth banded together (yeah, highly unlikely, I know) and picked 18 men and 6 women to enhance to superhuman capacity in order to fight off the alien invaders.

And then they did. These folks, who were nicknamed Reapers, were given superhuman abilities and fought the aliens, driving them away and off of the Earth, saving the world.

However, all of this basically happened before the story even started (these pitch pages show it in a pretty abridged version), because that’s NOT the story. The story is about these enhanced human beings and what happens to them after they are no longer needed. They did their job. They saved the planet. What next?

Then they start getting killed off, and their designated Reaper investigator and her partner have to figure out who’s killing the Reapers and exactly how – these are the most powerful creatures on Earth.

I actually wrote the entire 6-issue miniseries for this story, it really had my attention and I loved the murder mystery idea, trying to figure out who was killing the Reapers and who was going to be next. It was fun, and like I said above, I’d love to try this again some day.

These pages were illustrated by Fabricio Bohrer and lettered by Alex Giles. The cover was colored by Dave Simon. I hope you dig it!

Yup, six weeks in a row is definitely a new high point. Thanks for sticking with me, I hope you (yes you!) find these interesting.

There’s really no telling what will connect with a reader. Making and pitching comics is like throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. Not that I’m equating my work with shit, mind you, it’s just…a bad comparison. Let’s move on.

Dead Pitch week six – WORLD OF HURT

World of Hurt came out of a few different places for me. I wanted to do a post-apocalyptic story. I wanted to tell a story about freedom fighters. About an iron-fisted ruler. About survival and what we do to survive.

And I wanted to make a bunch of creepy-ass characters for our heroes to overcome. Done and done!

I really love how these pages came out, but they just didn’t connect with a publisher. I’ve since scavenged pieces of this story for other stories, so I think this might be dead and gone for good. But you can check it out here.

World of Hurt was written by me, illustrated by Patrick Buermeyer, colored by Matej Stasko, and lettered by Micah Myers. Enjoy!

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!

My newest book, El Bosque de Dios (The Godwood) is set to release at the end of November, 2025. This is an interesting one.

Created with my friend and stunning, amazing, can’t-say-enough-good-things-about-him artist Valentin Ramon, we originally made this as a couple-pages-per-week webcomic that ran on Valentin’s website. Eventually we completed the book, packaged it up nice, and Valentin translated it and we landed the deal with Tengu Ediciones for the Spanish-language release. I’m super pumped about it – this is the first time my work has ever been translated like this, and hopefully, with this release, we can look to find an English-language publisher down the line.

But for now we’re focusing on this – El Bosque de Dios, a Lovecraftian/Twin Peaks/horror story about old Hollywood and the curse of getting old.

I really hope you dig it, even if you don’t speak the language! You can find more info here:

https://www.tenguediciones.com/el-bosque-de-dios