Bag Open; Cat Out, Headed West.

So, One-Eyed Jack: Into the West.

Man, this has been a long time coming. So let me fill you in on a little history.

A few years ago, Adam Beranek and Mike Bencik created One-Eyed Jack, a cat with nine lives who would live in nine different time periods, having adventures with his pal Hogan. They started out the series with an adventure in ancient Egypt, which Mike has completely drawn. The plan was for Adam and his brother Christian to publish the book through Silent Devil, their publishing house. And when the plans were made up for which time periods to cover, Mike suggested the cats live the lives of Lewis and Clark, and he wanted me to write it. (Mike's known me for a long while; we worked at the same children's publisher together, and collaborated on dozens of stories.)

I don’t know how hard a sell that was to the guys, but it was an awesome favor. I owe Mike big.

I had no comics experience (other than some great classes Danny Fingeroth taught at NYU and years of reading them), but I have written a book on Lewis and Clark, so I could be counted on to be fairly historically accurate. The guys went for it, and I got to work.

Eventually, the plan changed: The book would now come out all at once as a graphic novel. I’d be writing one (at least one) of the chapters in the book. Meanwhile, I had gotten my script to Mike, and he started drawing the pants off it. We expanded it a little, to give the story room to breathe now that we weren’t constrained by standard comic page count. (Oh, and we need a bear attack? I can do that, sure.) And we figured out what my second chapter of the One-Eyed Jack saga would be.

Somewhere along the line, Christian and Adam decided to refocus Silent Devil, and now Christian is spearheading Disney’s new Kingdom Comics line. That left Mike with a bunch of pages and no publisher. And One-Eyed Jack with an uncertain future. (Up until this point, I hadn't mentioned it online, figuring the publisher should make the announcement when they were ready.)

Not wanting to face another Wizard World Philly (our hometown con) without anything to sell, Mike decided to put the Lewis & Clark book out as its own comic. In its way, it’s a sampler of the larger graphic novel, but it was always intended to stand on its own. The nature of the series is such that it really can’t help but stand on its own, so that worked in our favor.

I’m really excited by the book. I think Mike is a heck of a storyteller, and he’s got some great character designs as well. And I think I acquitted myself well for my first time out of the gate. (I’m can't be 100% certain of this yet; getting this micro-print-run ready was so down to the wire that I never got to proof the book in PDF. Saturday’s con was so busy for me that I never had a chance to read it. And leaving the con on Saturday was so hectic that I completely forgot to grab a copy of a comic that I’ve spent my entire life working toward in one way or another. Yes, I am a schmuck.)

Mike’s mailing me some copies. I know how it ends, but I honestly can’t wait to read it.

Rob
P.S. The filthy lucre segment: We’re not available through Diamond, Cold Cut or any other distributor. We’re selling these ourselves for four dollars, including shipping. At 30-some pages, it’s a lot of book for the price. Email me at grimmbeau AT optonline DOT net. (You can PayPal to that same address.)

Big Weekend, Episode I

I haven’t had a weekend so packed with fun in a while.

It started out with a D&D game Friday night, in which the intrepid band of adventurers came face-to-face with a Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton. That’s not just awesome, that’s Fifth-Grade Awesome. Because there’s nothing more intrinsically awesome than the things you love in 5th grade. (We’ll see this again later in the weekend.) The only thing that would have been cooler (although a shame for the player involved) would be if my T-Rex chomped the paladin in half and everyone could see his head and torso bounce through its ribcage.

The next day was the Main Event. I drove down to Philadelphia for the Wizard World comic convention there. I was looking forward to it for a couple of reasons. First of all was One-Eyed Jack. Mike and I had finally completely my chapter of the graphic novel, in which Jack and his pal Hogan live one of their nine lifetimes as Lewis and Clark, making the historic journey to America’s west coast.

The original plan was to save publishing any of the book until the entire graphic novel was completed, but it gets frustrating going to conventions with nothing to show people. So this special issue—the complete Lewis & Clark story—was born. People seemed to respond well to it—especially parents and kids. It was really gratifying. (I'll do a separate post on the book later today.)

Another reason I was looking forward to the show was the chance to see friends again. I caught up with Mike, of course, as well as Scott Neely and Sean McManus. Plus, I got to meet an online friend for the first time, since Ami was in town for the weekend too! I had lunch with her and her friend Greta, and later on we had a great time walking the con floor. And Ami got to witness my second moment of Fifth-Grade Awesome for the weekend. Or maybe third-grade. Either way, it was serious glee when I encountered this:


A big pile of comics.

Not comics in boxes. Not comics in bags, or boarded up. And these were the comics I was pulling off the drugstore stands when I was a kid; some of them were the same books I bought from Greenberg’s pharmacy before riding my bike home. It was like finding some lost treasure. It was like winning the lottery. They were 50 cents apiece, and I pulled one after another from the pile, just on the basis of their covers alone. Fantastic Four? Sure! Popeye? Why not? Casper? Cool -- any Richie Rich around, too? Ghostly Haunts? Ditko says YES!

After the con, Mike had me over for a delicious cookout at his place, then we went to the Zenescope after-party, where I didn’t drink as much beer as I’d like because a guy only has so many bonus points, and I knew there was pecan pie in my future. Mmm... pie.

So that takes us through half the weekend. Special thanks to Black Manta, the Baroness, and of course the ever-adorable Ami for classin’ this post up with their smiling faces (and, um, helmets).

Rob

Joy.

I just saw a pdf of the first couple pages of my comic fully lettered.

This is a very good moment.

Rob