Late, to be sure, but here.
A lot has happened in the intervening six-ish weeks since I last talked to you, dear people of the internet. Most of it is good news.
First, the biggest news: after a little over a year of waiting, I can now say I have officially signed a contract with comic book publisher Archaia to put out my series Critical Millennium (they put out a little book called Mouse Guard). The series is co-created with my friend and BLAM! Ventures CEO Andrew Gaska and spans seven time periods over a thousand years of humankind’s foray into interstellar travel, their domination of what they find and their eventual downfall.
Critical Millennium is a huge undertaking, and has been in the works for many years. Much more will be written about it in the months to come, but here’s a tease on the first story arc: it’s set during the Dark Frontier period (the second major period we’ll be chronicling) and focuses on the efforts, effects and intrigue intertwined to bring humanity into space. This is a desperate attempt to save a decadent and dying race, many of which do not want to be saved, or indeed see nothing wrong with the world as it is. With art by the fantastic Dan Dussault, we’re extremely excited to launch in November as a part of Archaia’s new publishing line up. So keep an eye on our MySpace page for updates, and to our website for the eventual revamp (which should hopefully happen by the summer).
My other big writing project, which I scribbled about last time but was unable to elaborate on; well, it must remain un-elaborated on. At least until April, which is when we are officially announcing it. The first draft is done and approved by the licensor (big step, yay for making it!), waiting on readers and should go to the next and possibly final draft soon. So, stay tuned for details.
Elsewhere in my world I was also sick, but got better (finally) by mid-February. It was a rather miserable month and a half of coughing and being unable to use my newly acquired C-Pap machine (for my recently diagnosed, but probably not recently acquired sleep apnea). Now I don’t cough and can sleep well (yay again!).
One other recent highlight was receiving the drawing of Chewbacca I commissioned from Colleen Doran. She did an awesome job, and I am pleased that she will be the first in what I hope will be a long line of artists I love doing pictures of one of my favorite characters. I’ve posted the picture below, which I hope is cool as she already posted it on her blog (which, by the way, you should read if you are an aspiring artist, she gives lots of excellent advice. You should also read if you are not an artist, as she also maintains an excellent blog in general and is an extraordinarily talented artist. While I’m at it, you should also buy and read her series, A Distant Soil, seriously - NOTE: I'm not an amazon affiliate, so I make no money from the links I just provided).
My girlfriend Catherine and I are currently in the process of redoing our home office. A couple of weeks ago it was an overcrowded mess, and we had been planning on tackling it toward the end of March, but things were so bad that I was having trouble working. She suggested we do it early, having a window of opportunity where I had completed the first draft of the unnamed novel and the first script for the second Critical Millennium story arc (set during The Gilded Life period, out in 2010! Whoop!). I was reluctant at first, but soon agreed because I couldn’t stand it anymore.
So now we’re freshly painted, with new shelving installed, new recessed lighting in the ceiling and shortly a spanking new work table will be erected across from our desks. We still have some organizing to do, which has dragged a bit longer than necessary, but the vibe is much better, and I think work will flow easier and more evenly after the final touches are done this weekend.
OK, I think I’ve rambled enough; the internet doesn’t need to be bored any further by me (I’ll spare you the sad story of my car not passing inspection). See you in April with a book title in hand and some art from Critical Millennium on display.
Oh, sorry, there weren't any tigers in this post. Maybe next time.
