Sunday, July 1, 2007

Crossover

So, The Path's first crossover is coming! I feel like I should take a polaroid of it and put it in my "Baby's Book of First's". I'm looking foward to it, because it's with two of my favorite webcomics, "Phineus: Magician For Hire" and "The Errant Apprentice". I've got a script ready, just running it by Barry and Kevin to make sure they're cool with it. The basic story is that Phineus, Delores (the mage from "Errant"), and Kat get abducted by an ancient deity(The Great Mother) who's losing her lustre. In order to stay in the game, she starts abducting magic users to siphon their life-force. Kat, Phin, and Delores are among those abducted. So Terry (The Errant Apprentice), Sara (Phin's gun-toting wife), and Chance wind up joining forces to rescue their respective partners. There's also a decent modern version of Innana's descent into the underworld, which I wanted to use in The Path, but there's just no room. Here's the cover (provided they're cool with the story):

Monday, June 18, 2007

The Path: Animated "The Paija"

So, I've got a few pages of the "animated" Path comic done and colored. I'm going to wait until I have at least 10 done before I begin posting on DrunkDuck, though. Don't want to get ahead of myself like with "Superhero B-Team, GO!".


The first story is called "The Paija", and is based on a folk tale from the Ihalmiut people of Canada. The Paija is a demon/devil of sorts, that looks like a grotesquely deformed woman. Yeah, we all see grotesque women every day...but this one only has one leg. Oh...and it's growing out of her VAGINA. Yeah, that was what hooked me, too. The Paija hunts men on winter nights and devours them...much like regular women. Just looking at her, though, kills you instantaneously (I KNOW that I read too much. No one needs to remind me.).
The story opens up with Chance and Ratatosk (The two will be the main focus of the "animated" tales, with the rest of the supporting cast showing up occassionally) hunting the Paija down.
The basic premise of The Path: Animated is that it takes place AFTER the events of The Path's current cycle. But, since I have four different endings written for the current cycle, the ending it follows may not be the one you read at the end of The Path. That way, I'm really not spoiling the ending for anyone...AND I get to do all the little side stories I wanted to work on. Everyone wins!


So, here's a peek at the first page:

Saturday, June 16, 2007

No CBC! Denied!

Yeah, so The Path didn't make into the top 50 in the CBC. To be honest, I'm a little shocked and more than a little bummed about that...especially since I had my pitch all planned and it was AWESOME. I was getting calls/IMs from people who had already gotten "the call" and everyone was all, "So, I'll see you there". Yeah...I'll be one of the spectators.

That's cool, who wants to be successful? Certainly not me. This just means I have more time to work on The Path, The Path: Animated, and the crossover with Phineus: Magicial For Hire and The Errant Apprentice. That'll be a lot of fun because it's my first crossover since the "Enerjak" debacle back when I was doing "Antisocial". You can find the pages from that somewhere in my DeviantArt account. Also, Jerry Ahern of Dark Tale Comics took notice of the first few pages of Superhero B-Team, GO! and we're going to team up to do a short 10-page comic called "Still The Greatest American Hero". Which will, obviously, revolve around the cast of The Greatest American Hero...and a cyborg dinosaur. I've always wanted to draw a cyborg dinosaur. I'm rather excited about that.

Well, I'm off. Just in case you haven't started reading it yet, go check out Atlantis Paradise
by my dear (and mildly disturbing at times) friend EvilTwinPixie. This, I command!

Sunday, June 10, 2007

The Path "Animated"

So, in addition to the main storyline of The Path, there are about 80-kagillion other stories that I wanted to use Chance, Kat, and the others for...but they just don't fit in the grand scheme of the story. Side stories that would just be fun to do, fun to draw, and would be easier for brand-new readers to jump on and get interested in The Path's "universe". So, since I'm working nights again and have a little more free time because of that, I've started compiling these stories into a notebook and have labelled them "The Path: Animated".


My plan is to start working on these stories as stand-alone shorts that take place in The Path universe, but outside of continuity. Different art style, a little more action, and little more random. The first one is going to be either something I've wanted to do for a while now, but haven't really had the chance: a crossover. (I'll tell you with whom once I get the final "oks" from the creators I want, but it'll be cool. Think magicians for hire and errant knight apprentices...) Or "The Cutty Black Sow", which is a fun story and would fit in with Chance's lousy luck just perfectly.





Here's a sample of what the art'll look like.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Comic Book Challenge Update

So, after floundering about whether or not I was going to enter The Path (mostly because of that whole "If you win, Platinum OWNS it" thing), I calculated the odds of me actually WINNING versus the fact that it would just be awesome to enter and have fun with it and threw caution to the win and put together my Path pitch.

I'll send it in tomorrow, so wish me luck!

Thursday, May 3, 2007

The Path goes to WAR!

Ok, maybe not war, per se, but a battle, all it's own.


I've decided to enter The Path in the 2007 Comic Book Challenge. I was faltering as to whether of not I would...but two very hyper and headstrong ladies convinced me that I should.


My problem is: How the CRAP do I sum up The Path in 2 minutes without looking like a complete nutcase?

The answer: I don't. So maybe I should just incorporate that into my pitch. Also, Pix believes I should mention the fact that I grew my beard JUST for the comic. It might push me over the edge as far as the judges are concerned. Either way...it'll be fun times...assuming I get that far.


To close, here's a The Path sticker design:




Saturday, April 28, 2007

Rewrites and redraws

So...I rewrote about 120 pages worth of the story for The Path recently. The more I looked at the ending and what led up to it, the more I was dissatisfied. Now it is changed, and I am much happier with how everything goes down. Plus, I realized that it was turning into more of an action comic, and that's not what it is at heart, so things needed to be changed.

The ending is bad-ass. I love it. I've only told one person, and he's not spilling. You'll have to make it all the way through to find out like the rest of the world.

I got interviewed on The Gigcast the other day. You can listen to the interview here.

Freaking Civil War took up so much of my time, updating daily, that I wound up not updating The Path so much...or, like, at all. Thankfully, with Civil War moved to a MWF schedule, I'll be back on The Path like a fat kid on a twinkie.

Thursday, March 15, 2007

The Rise of Leng

So, this week I started writing the second cycle of The Path. Yeah, this whole thing's going to be a three cycle deal. The first cycle is what's going on now: The Cthulhu stuff. This'll be going on for a while yet. The second cycle will be The Path: The Rise of Leng. Whereas the current cycle is revolving around some of the more common Lovecraftian horrors (Nyarlathotep, Cthulhu, etc.) and more easily recognized European mythological and folklore references, "The Rise of Leng" will almost ENTIRELY revolve around Lovecraft's "At the Mountain of Madness" and Asian folklore and mythology(which I know little about and have begun researching like a man possessed). As the title suggests, the Plateau of Leng will play a rather large role, as will the creatures, The Old Ones, from "Mountains".

Chance, our current hero, may or may not make it to the second cycle however. I spent last week re-writing the end of the current cycle to lay the groundwork for "The Rise of Leng" and it made me wonder about Chance's survival. I may pull rank and make a decision...or I may leave it up to you, my dear readers. Kind of like when they killed of that annoying Jason Todd Robin.

Anyways, I have some last-minute stuff to do for Wizard World, and tomorrow's page to post, so I'm out of here. Hope to see some of you at Wizard World tomorrow!

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Oberon and Nimue

I'm kind of getting into the idea of having a blog JUST for The Path. It gives me a place to "talk" about the comic and get stuff off my chest without my friends giving me blank stares when I start yammering on and on about Lovecraft and mythology and folklore and why certain things are getting intertwined and the like.

So let's jump head-long into the fray, shall we?

1. Oberon:
I know, I know. In "Books of Magic", Oberon is this pretty, tall, blue dude who looks like he could seduce the pants off of any chick who'd ever read Lord of the Rings. But that's not what he was meant to look like. Sure, his face is supposed to be beautiful, or handsome, but he's a dwarf in all appearance. He tends to be a mischief maker and will play his games with those of the Fey as well as humans. This makes hima wildcard...and I do so enjoy wildcards. I'm rather enjoying having a lot of different mythos intermingle in this story, that's why I added the friendship with our next contestant...

2. Nimue:
Now, Nimue is the name most commonly given to The Lady of the Lake. It's the name I grew up with and I'm rather fond of it. Like I said on the new page of The Path over at DrunkDuck...Niniane and Vivianne just don't do it for me. Plus, using the name Vivianne means I'd have to tie in Lancelot and all that claptrap, and that's just not happening. The greatest knight in all of Christiandom will not be making an appearance in The Path. Sorry ladies. Nimue's going to be a triple-aspecter...sort of mirroring The Fates from Chapter One, but with more of a personal stake in what's going on.Her first aspect, The Lady of the Lake of course, is a "good guy". Her immediate concern will be aiding our small band of heroes. Her second aspect, being the alter ego of Morgan le Fey, will find herself torn between her hatred of her half-brother, and her need to survive the coming apocalypse. Her third aspect is almost entirely single-minded: keeping Merlin out of the fray. We wouldn't want him popping up and solving everyone's problems with magic now, would we?
Nimue will, much like in original Arthurian lore, be both Chance's would-be savior and doom at the same time.

Why did I choose these two characters to open up the chapter? Well, if you haven't noticed yet, the supernatural characters are being used in a primarily expositorial way. Oberon's news for Nimue will be news for us as well. Since so much information is being witheld from Chance, it's the only way we'll find anything out.

I'm also using them to help show that the mythological world has sort of set their past differences aside in light of the fact that humanity and christianity have pushed them to the brink. Ratatosk talks to Inanna who threatens the Fates with a Sumerian lion (Lugal), who just happens to be the lion from Aesop's fable about the field mouse to get (what we presume to be) Excalibur so they can get it to Chance so he can draw it from a stone and use it against Nyarlathotep whose violent disappearance prompts rumors to spread throughout the hidden corners of the world that the once and future king has returned...

I think the thing that scares me sometimes is that all this makes sense to ME in my head.

Eaters of the Dead and why Borders thinks I'm strange...

I was talked into this by some readers. I can't imagine that many of you want to read my ramblings, but who am I to ignore a bunch of emails telling me I "NEED" to set something up in the way of a blog?

So, it's about 7 a.m. and I just finished the special "WizardWorld only" Path story entitled "Eaters of the Dead". I like it. I like it so much that I'm annoyed with myself for already announcing it as "WizardWorld only". But, that's life, huh? I'd rather not go back on that announcement until a big "Collected Edition", so...

Anyway, it centers around a younger Chance McGavin back when he was in the military. On a Special Forces mission during Desert Storm, McGavin and a handful of other soldiers get lost in the desert. With limited food and water and enemy forces closing in, it looks like they're done for. That is, until one of the men remembers an old tale he'd heard a long time ago...about the Eaters of the Dead. I'll post some prelim art later on. It was mostly just studies of uniforms and supplies, stuff like that. Maybe I'll slap up the early sketches of the actual Eaters themselves. I dunno.

I'm fairly certain that working on The Path has made me insane in the eyes of the employees of the local Borders, not to mention the little hole-in-the-wall bookstore on the other side of town where I do most of my special ordering. Damn near anything on Arthurian lore, the Goetia, specially ordered books on Demonology, Alchemy, encyclopedias revolving around folklore and fairy tales, illustrated guides to supposedly magical ceremonies, Satanism, mythology, books on Babylonian and Sumerian folklore and rites, multiple copies of books containing the works of Lovecraft as the copies I own are routinely ruined by highlighting and notes in the margins and, finally, a faithful recreation of Lovecraft's blasphenous tome...The Necronomicon, now covered in highlighter ink and notes in the margins. I find that the people who sell me these books give me stranger and stranger looks each time I come in to pick up my books. I'm sure the small black book I carry around like a bible doesn't help. It's where I've done all my brainstorming. Where I've been weaving together this fantastic tale and melding all these different aspects together.

I get frustrated because there are very few people I can talk to and bounce ideas off of. Any time I start to talk about an aspect of The Path...like how I want to weave together the journey of Gilgamesh into the Underworld with Lovecraft's story "The Transition of Juan Romero", I get blank stares, patronizing nods, or flat out "Um...what the fuck are you talking about?" One or two of my friends are nice enough to pretend to care about it when I start talking, but I quickly realize that they're just being nice and change the subject to something more pedestrian. Oh, well. I'll probably wind up hitting Barry Linck or the guy who does Errant Apprentice up and talk a little Lovecraft shop with them. I should probably INTRODUCE myself to the Errant guy first before bombarding him with Lovecraft talk, though.

Anyways, I've babbled on long enough. There have been quite a few requests about where I got the idea for The Path...maybe I'll tackle that later.

Catch you hip cats later.