A thought I’ve had as a result of concept planning for Small Press Idol this year was to focus more on the back story of ED such as how Liege Lord came to be and the story of his parents. I took that a step further and began dwelling deeper into the origins of their powers and how they were chosen by fate to play an important role in history. A role that unfortunately led to the birth of ED’s main protagonist, Liege Lord and his agenda of death and destruction.

Not sure how this may play out, but the revised idea is helping to give me a lift in deciding what to do with this story and how best to bring it to fruition.

In non-ED news, my 2008 Small Press Idol pitch with Mark Oakley is ready to go. Who-Hoo!

Better to focus on SPI 2008 and my story ideas. Still searching for a collaborator so if you’re reading this and have interest ping me.

Part of this effort has included scanning, cleaning up and lettering what I call the original draft of the Eternal Dusk, a story called Ground Zero. I called it Ground Zero because 1) I liked the title and 2) because what I was writing was intended to be an origin or #0 issue of a larger storyline. The whole point was to complete a book to send to publishers in hopes of landing a paying gig.

Over the past eleven years, the story has grown and evolved into the modern day version called Eternal Dusk, but there was always this nagging feeling in my head in that I never even completed the first chapter of Ground Zero. I got eight pages into it (nine if you count the fact that I also did the last page) and then quit until I started revising my characters five years later. So part of this effort includes me going back and completing the last four pages. Half to have it done and half to hone my skills a bit for a possible run in Small Press Idol 2008 (we’ll see about that though when when my second child actually arrives).

So posted to the site will be the original chapter, Ground Zero. I’m hoping people enjoy it and I will definitely be posting it to some of my favorite comics communities for critiques to help see where I can improve my skill set. Victor is my artist for ED, but I’m hoping to just get some practice in again after an almost 11 year layover.

I just saw this link posted in the Small Press idol page for Viginia Mill-Barfield’s Windy City and am happy to see this article. It basically talks about how comics are starting to focus more on female readers than just the traditional male audience. I think this is a smart move as the comics audience could use a good boost. I also like this trend as two of the Eternal Dusk’s three main characters are women and I had hopes of attracting a strong female audience to the story.

• Danger Ace
• Ruthless
• Windy City
• Ninja Garden
• Translucent
• Yokai

And, oh yeah, Spread the word!

I wasn’t 100% sold on the contest nor signing the rights to the story away. But I declined the Small press Idol Honorable mentions issue due to schedule limits for Victor so I could always enter in 2008 if I change my mind.

In the releases and agreements section, it first says: “Before a potential Top 50 Entrant winner will be deemed an official Top 50 Entrant winner, he/she will be required to a) sign and return a document containing an Affidavit of Eligibility and a Rights/Publicity/Liability Release (“Top 50 Entrant Release”), and b) sign and return a Comic Book Publishing and Acquisition Agreement and a Work-For-Hire Agreement (collectively, the “Creative Materials Agreements”), and c) have each Team Member, if any, sign a Rights Release (“Team Member Release”) and return such releases along with the other documents described above.”

Further down, and in bold letter it says: “Please note that the Creative Materials Agreements require that you transfer all rights in the Creative Materials to Sponsor.“

Yikes. So essentially what they are saying is that to win the contest, you basically have to give them your project and let them hire you in a work-for-hire arrangement. They agree to hire you and publish the work and market it where you choose, but you have to hand over all creative rights to the project. So if the book is published, gains an audience and is a hit (in a perfect world), they have the right to do with it as they please and collect all the $$$.
After 10 years of working on this, the prospect of having it win and get published is alluring, but signing over all my creative rights to a company I know nothing about and has only held one contest previously and launched a minimally interesting title dose not exactly make me jump for joy. I’m toying with the idea of submitting, but something in the back of my mind is telling me not to and to find another route. Entering this contest would also prevent me from participating in the Small Press Idol honorable mentions issue which would publish Idol cast-offs in a special anthology later this summer as the work is not supposed to be in print at all. Going to have to think on this some more.

So what’s next? I’ve completed comments on Victor’s sequentials and plan to move forward with completing the artwork. I have a few ideas for promotion in the hopper but my next step is to start regular Web site updates to draw and keep drawing an audience. I feel like this was our first step on a long road. The key word here is likely going to be persisitance. After the art is done, we’ll have to find a way to get it published and hopefully draw attention to make more chapters of the story. More details on my initial plans to follow shortly.

I encourage everyone to drop by and check the book out.