Hey everybody. It’s been a while since I posted something hasn’t
it?
Part 1: Where are all the Chickens?
First off I need to say, I can’t apologize for the lapse in
posts and artwork, because frankly, life
happened. Good or bad it seems like life gets the better of us sometimes and
between work and home I’ve had my hands pretty full this year (Moreso than in
the past).
But I’m not here for excuses. If you are here, reading this,
then you are one of the small handful of people that are still checking up on
my artwork and the Chickenbrain brand, and for that I want to say thank you,
from the bottom of my heart.
One of the big things that happened last year is that my
computer stopped working, which put a pretty definitive halt to any work on We
Are Legion. What’s worse is that my hard drive may need to be wiped, so I could
potentially lose EVERYTHING, fonts, logos, scripts, raw scans of pages, and
unlettered colored pages, hell, the actual finished pages themselves. On top of
that, my phone’s SD card took a crap on me too. So I was only barely able to
salvage some of my script ideas. I am basically trying to blow up the Death
Star without an X-Wing here.
What I’m trying to say is that it is pretty likely that this
page is going to be the only place where you can look at the first two issues
of We Are Legion in their original form, hopefully not, but I really need to
brace myself for the worst here, and this is a real lesson in backing up my
data.
The other, much bigger thing that happened over the last
year is that my son was born, and while I’m sure one day he is going to be a
massive comic nerd like me, right now he needs a lot more of my attention than
my computer, or Adam and the Legion gang, and I feel like as a dad I’ve gotta
be there for him in these formative moments as much as I possibly can. This doesn’t
include his siblings who I am currently filling with horrible comic book
knowledge as well, slowly turning them into giant nerds who read indie comics
and talk about how X-O Manowar is in fact, much cooler than Ironman, just like
me.
Part 2: Year of the Chickenbrain
I’m not going to lie, this is a downright stupid statement,
but I want 2017 to be the year that I really get Chickenbrain going strong. We
Are Legion was not the only bird in
this brain of mine, and my seriousness about my brand has really driven me to
try to not only work outside the box, but to make my own box entirely.
I am a modern artist. I like to experiment with different
art styles and formats. That’s how all of this started to begin with, and I am
inspired to try to get back to that in 2017. I want to get back to doing my thing,
my way. Get back to not trying to adhere to some sort of schedule or issue
lineup.
Just getting back to having fun making comics again.
When I had this revelation I realized that I didn’t
necessarily need a computer to make this happen. (Okay maybe a little tech is
important). I used to make (not good) comics using just the supplies around me
at any given time. When I made my original comics Packin’ and Metroline I made
them using unmeasured panels, and no prepared script.
Obviously I’m not going to take it that far, that was when I
was a kid. But isn’t that what being a comic book fan is about? About
capturing that joy?
There was only one logical place to go from here.
Jake Land
Part 3: Chicken-Man-Plans
I had worked on the purposefully unhinged Super Jake Land
script using freewriting techniques back when my computer still worked, and
thankfully I had a copy of that script backed up on my computer at work. I
looked it over and laughed, obviously me laughing at my own work doesn’t really
mean much, but that was enough for me. I started drafting artwork. Then I
started working on actual art with just pens, pencil shading and small pieces
of paper I was able to find around the office. This book is capturing the
guerilla vibe of my high school books Metroline and Stamp perfectly (As it
should, since I came up with the idea for Super Jake Land in high school as
well).
The fire was back. But then I started to lose focus again. I
was missing working on We Are Legion.
So I started writing a new book in the We Are Legion canon,
which would serve as a prequel, I actually already have the first issue written
entirely, but am thinking about trying to put the entire thing into one big
project and just making a graphic novel style thing. It’s called Cosm: The Typhon Report, and it
features..well Captain Cosm, the man who raised Adam Atom in space prior to We
Are Legion.
I realized that working on another We Are Legion book in the
interim while my PC is on the shelf meant that I would potentially be chomping
into time I could be spending on Legion itself, so I decided that Cosm was
going to be more of a pet project on the side while I focused on books I could actually
complete right now. But Jake Land is such an unhinged beast that it doesn’t really
tax the mind as much as it did back in highschool, when I was just trying to
make the most bizarre RM2K3 game ever. Needless to say I have grown quite a bit
in the damn near 10 years since I graduated, and I wanted to build something
else, along with Jake Land to help get me into the same mental space that
Legion does.
The second destination came into view.
Jecta.
Jecta, ironically also started as a computer game, or rather
computer games in highschool as well. One was about a vast fantasy world in
which several people learn they are gifted with incredible magical abilities
called The Reckoning. The other was called Chronicles of Jecta, about a man who
existed in two planes of existence, one in which he was a man in a medieval
world, and another in which he was a magical being in an apocalyptic dreamscape.
Both games were much more serious in tone, and I was putting a lot of effort
into them (RPG Maker games take quite a lot of effort believe it or not). I had
gone through and made a ton of story ideas for The Reckoning, while Jecta was
more of an idea that I wasn’t sure what to do with.
*EDIT* I just realized that my very first RPG Maker game “Eternal Winter”, which was made with RPG Maker 2000 my freshman year is also included in the plot, but much later, so there’s a third aspect included as well.
I am much smarter now. Put them together. Make something
new.
While I already had sort of melded the two together I did it
under the pretense that Jecta, the man torn between dimensions would be the
main character, and the magically powered individuals from Reckoning would
become Hierophants to the Gods of the world they lived in, making them ‘power
players’ in the story, but not necessarily the main characters.
After experiencing a ton of fantasy novels and games over
the past few years I’ve come to the realization that I can make a fantasy story
about a world itself and how it changes, which includes characters and how they
change, like a standard fantasy adventure.
Make a book about a fantasy world, and how it changes, call it.
The Chronicles of Iyr
Now this book still has a lot of work to be done on it. But I have been hammering away at a
script for the first issue, and I have it set up (right now) as having 8 issue
arcs spread out over 7 “Books” but that could definitely change. I’d like to do
the art using watercolors, which I have been playing with since reading some of
Matt Kindt’s creator owned stuff like MIND MGMT and DEPT.H. With this stuff in
place it makes creating this book more accessible, so I have goals that I can
reach, but also breaks in between so I can breathe and experience my family the
way a dad should.
I still intend to get my computer fixed, and obviously NONE
of this stuff might happen (Please reference the last post-date on this blog).
I am approaching this carefully, slowly, and casually. These are just some of
my ideas for projects, and my priorities could change at any time. I don’t make
money off of this stuff. I don’t have many fans (if any). I do this for fun,
and I want to get back into that aspect of it in 2017. After all 2017 is the
year of the Rooster (It’s like destiny, or something) so I’m going to focus on
making it the year of the Chickenbrain as well.
(Hastily drawn visual aid)
