Bleeding Neon

The top panel on this page I’m working on has taken me about three days to just get that far in rendering. Obviously, not three days straight, but three days of about two hours at a stretch. It’s the last bit of inking I need to finish for my contribution to Tales from the Boneyard, the one-shot (well, possibly annually recurring) anthology comic book I volunteered to publish and edit for the 2010 Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival.

You can learn a heck more about the comic at the official website, which also features the first chapter of the anthology, an amazing story by newcomer Barret Thomson. He’s set the bar high, but that’s good, because it goes to prove the awesome collection of homespun talent we have here in Las Vegas (though, sadly, Barret is moving to South Korea to teach for an undetermined amount of time). This project has sucked up a good amount of my time lately, between wrangling freelancers, building the website, doing public relations and marketing, editing and, as evidenced above (and in previous posts), completing my own eight-page tale, which will make its web debut on Aug. 15.

At the same time, the band has started recording tracks for our forthcoming debut EP, the Utopian is careening headlong into its final chapter, and as soon as I finish the Tales from the Boneyard story, I have to dive back into finishing the third chapter of “Omega” for Omega Comics Presents #3, which is supposed to be released this fall, assuming my head doesn’t implode by then. Oh, on top of that, TV and comic book writer Mark Guggenheim went off and announced a new comic book he’s created for release this November, coincidentally titled Utopian. So as you might imagine, I’ve spent some time talking to lawyers the last week as well.

It’s all a bit overwhelming, but at the very least, most of these projects have termination dates in the foreseeable future. The Utopian (erm, mine, not the Johnny-come-lately) will finish its year-and-a-half web run in September or October, just in time for a fourth and final print issue to make its appearance, and then — assuming I still have the rights to that name by then — fully collected as one complete work in a trade paperback collection in the winter, hopefully in time for Christmakwanukah. At which time all of you who have been holding out on reading The Utopian (yes, I’m looking at you, Sara) will have no excuse not to enjoy 100-plus pages of all the teen dramatic fantasy you can handle, in full blazing color.

Whew. I’m kind of tired just typing all this. Or maybe I’m tired from working on that stupid, overly detailed panel above for the last few hours. More soon.

I’m back at the drawing board, trying to get all of the pencil artwork for my eight-page contribution to the Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival anthology finished before I leave town for 10 days. And get the website for said anthology launched, at which point I’ll post all about it here and beg you for money. What else is new? At least the money is for the Library District and not for my hedonistic exploits.

I wrapped up a feature for Vegas Seven I’ve been working on for a while on breaking into comic book writing, something about which I know a little. Actually, I turned in the story yesterday, got asked to do some rewrites today, and finished those rewrites tonight, so hopefully that will be the end of that. I’m still busting my butt as much as possible to get The Utopian wrapped up ahead of schedule and then turn my attention back to other things, like finalizing and releasing the fall publishing schedule for Pop! Goes the Icon and turning my band’s rehearsal space into a recording studio for the next few months.

Speaking of As Yet Unbroken, it seems like momentum is picking up again quite quickly. We had those bookend gigs last week, and hadn’t planned another show until the first week of September. But the band that opened for us at N.O.I.S.E. on Friday, Thrown Clear, has asked us to join them (or at least one of them) at another venue in a few weeks. So we’ll probably do that, and I’ll have more info on that soon. And for you lovely Southern Californians, we’re working on a gig in the Orange County area circa Oct. 1. Nothing is confirmed yet, so if you know any bookers in the L.A.-O.C.-S.D. area, feel free to highly recommend us for a slot at one of their venues on that date. Otherwise, keep posted here, or even better, join the AYU mailing list.

J. Caleb Mozzocco, who used to review comics for the Las Vegas Weekly and still contributes to websites such as Newsarama on occasion, posted a review of Omega Comics Presents #2 on his blog yesterday, and … it wasn’t bad. He was fair and tried to find something good in each story, even noting that any review is somewhat colored by the reviewer’s own tastes.

Most surprisingly to me, Mozzocco had nice things to say about the second chapter of my serial thriller, “OMEGA.” No, really:

Omega, by PJ Perez, is a thriller about a terrorist [g]roup taking over the Hoover Dam with high school students taken hostage. Their plan is to blow up the dam, but one of the kids has some sort of strange power that saves them. It’s just a chapter of a longer story, but it has a clear beginning, middle and end, and Perez is subtle enough with the storytelling that it creates a mood of intrigue. The character designs are strong and well-rendered, but as solid as any individual panel was, the art seemed a bit stiff to me…and the computer-lettering left a lot to be desired.

Subtle storytelling? Strong character designs? I swear, I did not slip him a fiver with his review copy. I agree the art is a bit stiff. Something that was a problem with the first chapter, too. Something I’m gonna try really hard to fix with the third chapter. But, you know, what’s better? Well-rendered by stiff? Or poorly rendered but loose like that crappy webcomic I put out every week? (Don’t answer that.)

If you’re intrigued and haven’t gotten a copy yet, go ahead and fix that now. Yep.

This weekend has been somewhat of a bust. Sometimes I have really good, productive streaks. Sometimes I don’t. That’s the problem with working in creative fields: It’s kind of hard to force creativity. Oh, sure, deadlines often force something to happen, but that “something” isn’t always of quality.

Last week, I managed to get a lot of progress made on a variety of things, including plotting out the remaining 20 pages of The Utopian webcomic, story-boarding about 10 pages for various comics, developing a sponsorship packet for a new project and a few other random things I can’t recall right now. This week? I’ve been making progress on implementing the concepts generated last week, but have made no headway on developing anything fresh.

It’s weird how I weave in and out of productive states of creativity or inspiration. The muse rarely appears when you need her, though there are rare times — like during a caffeine-fueled visit to downtown Las Vegas’ newest independent coffee shop, The Beat, last week — when she guides your hand, unwittingly, for as long as you’re willing to have her.

So it’s back to the drawing board today. Literally (well, digitally literally), just doing layouts, finishes and colors on a variety of pages from both the Utopian and, seen above, a secret, new project that I’ll be telling you about very soon.

Back to the drawing board. Finally started work on the third chapter of the “Omega” serial from Omega Comics Presents (you did order issue two, right?) now that contracts have been issued for that anthology’s third issue, and getting a bit ahead on The Utopian. About to start work on a new one-off anthology that you’ll be hearing a lot more about in the near future, which I’m editing and contributing a piece as well. Going to try to get some serious writing done today on several fiction projects, as I need to start on my next feature for Seven soon.