And Then There Was One.

How do.
I've started this blog to chronicle the production of HALF PAST DANGER, my first stab at a creator owned comicbook series.  As well as handle the art chores, I aim to write the script for this badboy myself.

Some background: I've been drawing various forms of seqeuntial storytelling professionally since 2001. Mostly on comicbooks, but also storyboards for animation, videogames and advertising. In all that time however, I never once wrote the script for any of these projects. That was some other guy's job.
Back when I was a teenager, maybe 15, I met a couple of like-minded fellas in Dublin who introduced me to the world of the American comicbook. Now this wasn't exactly my first exposure to such a beast; I had been a major fan of both the Asterix and Tintin books as far back as I can remember, as well as a lot of old British war comics like Battle. But these comics were different. They had larger than life characters, battling it out in incredible situations and predicaments. They were firmly rooted in the realms of imagination and impossibilty. This was it! This was for me. I had always loved drawing and creating, and now I knew where and how to channel those energies. I spent the following 10 or so years drawing with studiomate Stephen Thompson, learning our craft and concurrently studying classical animation in college. We've both worked on many comicbooks since, and for all outward appearances, achieved the Holy Grail; working as professional comicbook artists. Done and done.

...And it's been great. Being paid to partake in your favourite hobby all day everyday is just as it sounds; living the dream. There are obvious downsides. The days are long, usually at least 12 hours when working on a monthly book. It can be very lonely work at times, but more and more these days this is being offset by the various social media available online, such as twitter. To stave off the isolation factor, myself and 6 other pro Irish artists formed the Eclectic Micks, on online virtual studio where we post artwork and shoot the breeze. This work, coupled with regular on-the-side storyboarding assignments is how I fill my days.

But more and more lately, something has been feeling awry. Drawing these books hasn't proved to be quite as... fulfilling as the teenaged version of me imagined it would be. What could be better than collaborating with other like-minded people in telling the ongoing adventures of some of my favourite characters? Well, frankly, creating my own characters and writing the stories as well as drawing them. In other words, I'd get to tell the whole story myself. The current situation has been starting to feel more and more samey and stale.  Generally these days I tend to work on Licensed Character 'A' in Mini-Series 'B'. While these stories are generally perfectly well-written and engaging, I find myself longing for a change. A story that doesn't feature somebody else's long-established characters playing parts in somebody else's fiction. I want a shot at the wheel.

So please tag along as I work out exactly what the hell it is I'm doing. It'll be a lark! I hope.

Oh! One last thing - I aim to make this behind-the-scenes peek as interesting as possible; warts and all. I'll be honest about the mis-steps as well as the good stuff. For instance this, rather hilariously, is my third attempt at a first post. Yep, this is all I came up with.