Comic project

One of our goals for this year was to get a real comic project together. Sitting down and figuring out deadlines at the new year meant a little bit of panic set in, since San Diego is six months away, and if we were going to get something together for then, we'd need to start NOW.

"Getting a project together" can mean several things, however, and we had a few decisions to make.

Last year at San Diego Comic Con, I'd done some networking. We also attended several other conventions as exhibitors for our audio production company, Pendant Audio. As a result, I met many people at many comic companies and I've kept in touch with certain people at IDW, Aspen and Oni. Some of these people told us they would accept a mini if we had it.

A mini is when you put together a short comic with your proposed creative team and get it printed. When you're trying to break into comics, one way to do it is to assemble an entire creative team and shop a project as a whole. So you have a mini put together and printed, and it's much easier for an independent company to see if your team is serious and/or talented with a mini in hand.

Our idea was to shop our audio production "Dixie Stenberg and Brassy Battalion Adventure Theater" as a comic book. As writers and all-around nerds, we have a pretty good understanding of how to shop our various creative projects, and what will work where. Dixie is a wonderful audio production, and would make an amazing comic book. Due to the budget it would take (and the relative non-success of other similar movies) it's likely never going to be a movie. And that's OK.

We've also put a lot of thought into some other changes that worked in the original production but don't work when you compress the story. So it's not going to be a straight adaptation.

Anyway, we approached an artist friend of ours that we knew through Pendant last year, to float this idea of working on Dixie. He's perfect for the project -- his style works with the subject matter beautifully. We sent him a proposed script for the mini after San Diego last year. Unfortunately he hadn't really had time to review our script until, oh, now.

We were hoping he would be able to draw the mini for us gratis in exchange for being shopped as the artist, but this artist is far too busy with paid work for that. For me, this is a good sign -- I want someone who's in demand and I'm crazy about his art. So we asked him to quote us a rate, and he did, and we've agreed, and we're going to get our mini with a full creative team -- artist, colorist, and letterer. No inker, but we've seen an example of the un-inked color art and it's glorious and perfect and I'm thrilled.

We'll be putting together a Kickstarter campaign so that the fans of Dixie can help us fund the mini-comic, and one of the prizes for a certain level of donation will be a signed copy of the mini. Dixie was Pendant's first and most popular serial, so I have no doubt that the fans are going to be crazy for this too. I'm excited to do this both for us and for them.

I just want to say that I am the picky, pessimistic member of our writing team. Seriously, I hate everything. I find flaws in EVERYTHING. I never feel sure about projects. I fret more than is healthy.

But Dixie? I love Dixie. I love Dixie with all my heart, and I know this mini is going to be the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. And my enthusiasm is going to bubble through when I'm sharing this with people, and I'm so excited about all of it.