Sorry for the radio silence of late – you can usually take that as a good sign.

There are a few projects in the works which have come somewhat out of the blue over the past few months and they’re starting to move in the right direction, however I can’t say anything about them yet. Needless to say, they’re very, very exciting and when the time is right, you’ll hear all about them. In the meantime I’ve a few other things I’ll be blogging about in the near future. Stay tuned, Bat-fans. There’s a lot of good stuff on the horizon…

As you’ll probably know by now if you’ve been following this blog and the official Magic of Myths site, most of my time of late has been taken up by the miniseries I’ve been creating along with Sergio Calvet, Magic of Myths. It’s virtually complete, but I’ll go into the ins and outs of that project in another imminent blog entry.

Well, a few things. The first is that last year I was signed up to write for another anthology due for release later this year/early next year, called Bayou Arcana. It’s a collection of stories set around a mystical Cajun bayou, covering all sort of subjects, from the plight and lives of escaped slaves in the deep south to the mythology and lore swirling around in the swampy environment that surrounds them. Expect stories with ghosts, demons, monsters and bounty hunters, as well as expected topics such as prejudice, racism, loss and redemption.

This came about when the man behind Bayou Arcana (and writer of its universe), Jimmy Pearson, gathered up a small selection of creators from the now defunct Insomnia Publications and asked if they wanted to be part of this intriguing project. After a few ums and ahhs, I jumped on-board with a story idea and much to my delight, Jimmy loved it and Jennie Gyllblad (my artist partner on graphic novel Butterflies and Moths) also joined.

So, now we’re in the middle of a short story called Irons in the Fire, a tragic tale of a man trying to find peace and freedom in a world which refuses him it – both on an incidental and personal level. I’m currently scripting the tale, but Jen has already done some rather amazing artwork:

What else? Well, some rather nice opportunities have turned up, although I can’t say too much of them yet – but I’ve been asked to possibly write another story as part of another franchise, which was a very pleasant surprise. Nothing may come of it, but we’ll see – there are a lot of projects I have bubbling on at the moment, including a very unusual vampire satire series and strange prose fairy tale…

The long overdue second part of my update, then.

Although I’m hesitant to give it the usual kiss of death by talking about it publically, I’ve another story due for publication early/mid next year, courtesy of the good people of Insomnia Publications. By sheer chance I found out this UK based publisher was looking for submissions that were a little off-kilter, strange and different, which seems to be my bag (not just in my writing but, as anyone who knows me will tell you, just in my general personality). I dropped them a line, fired off my long suffering story, Butterflies and Moths, and waited.

Thankfully I didn’t have to wait long before I got a response. Which was, that despite liking it, B&M didn’t quite fit within their portfolio due to its length as a 22 page story. However, the company was interested in a shorter piece which used the same characters, for an upcoming anthology called Layer Zero: Choices. Suitably, my choice was to re-write the script to 12 pages, or write something new.

Hmm.

After mulling it over, I went with something new… and Butterflies and Moths: Fragile was born. And much to my relief, the script is nearly finished, too, in the final few stages of editing and rewrites. In the meantime, Insomnia’s Creative Director, the lovely Nic Wilkinson, did several things which made me very happy. She officially announced the story’s inclusion in the company’s blogsite, the Redeye, in this entry: http://theredeyed.blogspot.com/2008/10/trick-or-treat-choices-from-insomnia.html, convinced the artist who did the original sketches for the first B&M to draw the story (take a bow Ariyana – yep, the same extremely talented young lady who’s working with me on another story, the previous entry’s A Twilight’s Promise) and then made another official announcement in this entry: http://theredeyed.blogspot.com/2008/11/nightly-news.html along with the cover to the anthology.

Phew.

So, Butterflies and Moths: Fragile is coming to your shelves in 2009, through Layer Zero: Choices, all things willing. There’s lots of things going on behind the scenes which are very promising, and this is hopefully just the start of that – I have a lot of plans in the pipeline as usual, after a far too long stint of moping and waiting and more moping. What’s capped off the whole thing so far is that my friend, Matthew Gibbs, has also been signed up for Layer Zero with his excellent story, Erratum. Expect more on that as well, soon.

Fragile itself will be talked about a fair bit in the coming months as the promotion for the anthology starts up, so I’ll save my spiel for then, but I’ll leave this section with a tiny bit of blurb and some artwork that Ariyana did for the original B&M which will be developed for Fragile. Hope you enjoy this tiny glimpse.

Butterflies and Moths: Fragile – coming in Layer Zero: Choices, in 2009

What would you do if the one person closest to you asked you to do something that put her life and your soul in danger?

Hopes, desires… lives… everything can be broken… as if distantly flying on the fragile wings of a…

My next bit of news. As stated in my last entry, I managed to become published again this year, reaching my self imposed goal of trying to get a piece of my fiction published every year from 2007 onward. In fact, I broke that goal and became published three times this year, with a fourth by the end of this month.

What the hell is going on?

Well, as you already know, my WipEout HD fiction was published last month. What you may not have known is that indie anthology comic series Tales from the Plex was re-launched as a monthly in November, which you may have noticed via the banner on the right hand side of this site. The book will run through the rest of 2008 and all of 2009, with a variety of different stories available each month. It’s also the home of a comedy series I devised, called L33tspeak, which I’ve mentioned a couple times on here before, drawn by the lovely and wonderfully patient Stephanie O’Donnell, (not only the artist of L33tspeak but also the great talent behind the excellent The Original Nutty Funsters, a drama/comedy strip which is really starting to gather some much deserved attention after the release of the collection, A List of Grievances). Tales from the Plex will also be the place where A Twilight’s Promise will be published, next year. Yay!

MY OLD FLAME by Jesse Farrell, DEMI-DEMZ by Daniel Lundie, DOWN BY THE RIVER by Chad Nevett, Ze Troia & Nate Thompson, COLOSSAL BOY 3 Part 1 by Daniel Lundie, Celina Hernandez, Mike Murphy & Darren Schwindaman, L33TSPEAK by Corey Brotherson & Stephanie O’Donnell and TACO ON THE BEACH by Shironu Akaineko

I’ll talk more about L33tspeak in coming entries, but Issue three of Tales from the Plex will be out later this month, alongside its publishing stablemate, The Darkling by Chris J Powers, a great monthly limited series about a young girl trying to find her way through life… by being dead. Oh, did I mention she’s blue skinned vampire? And has to deal with some really, really weird stuff? It’s Bridget Jones meets Interview With The Vampire – a madcap fantasy comedy drama that’s unlike anything else in the graphic novel medium.

Ok – I know I said I have a lot of news, and as it turns out I’ve actually got way TOO much to tell in one post. So this is merely part one of the super-large update which I’ve been planning since… well, a long time. You’re… erm… still here… right?

*watches tumbleweed slowly float past a decrepit howling wolf*

Right, down to biz. First bit of good news. Numerous projects of mine have come to light, which, during a particularly difficult time right now, has managed to keep me optimistic enough to stop pushing pencils into my ears and eyes. Last year I wrote a single page story called A Twilight’s Promise. The plan was sketchy, but it was accepted by a small indie publisher who originally intended to collect a massive group of one page stories by various writers and have them drawn by one artist.

And then that whole project fell through.

So, I was left with this one page script which I knocked up in a day or so, easily the most depressing tale I’ve ever written, sitting in the drawer until I could find an artist and home for it.
I found both a couple months ago. And it’s nearly finished.

I’ll tell you more about A Twilight’s Promise when it gets published – by who, where and when I’ll explain in the next update (oh yes, slacker-no-update-boy went there). In the meantime, here’s a sneak preview. Only one panel, because, well, it’s only a four panel story. And even in its half completed state (no speech balloons, dialogue captions or finished artwork quite yet – but what Ariyana has done so far is fantastic) giving away a one page story that will be sold in the near future is a little loonier than I can go for right now. At least wait for the opium to kick in…

A Twilight’s Promise (one panel preview) – drawn by Ariyana Vidya

Good news number two. I don’t usually do this, as it slightly breaks etiquette, but just this once I’m going to. As some of you may know, I write for Sony Computer Entertainment Europe on the official PlayStation site. And while none of the great team that works here have bylines to tell you who has written what, I’m happy to say the site became home to what is, in a strange and slightly ironic way, my first piece of published (in the public domain) prose. It’s a short two part story based on the Sony PlayStation 3 futuristic racing game, WipEout HD. Click on the text links below the images to read them.

Live fast… in the cockpit of WipEout HD – Part one

Live fast… in the cockpit of WipEout HD – Part two

It may not mean much to you if you’re not familiar with the WipEout games, but hopefully it still makes some sort of sense if you’re not.

While I haven’t fulfilled my aim of being a novel author before I turn 30 (short of me actually finishing one of my novels, it getting picked up and then put on the shelf in the next 4 months), it’s nice to think I managed to get something like this and two comic stories (yes, two – more on that next update *cackles*) out the door and publically/officially published all the same, with more to come.

Next update you’ll get another glimpse at what I’ve been up to the past month, planned and published – although eagle-eyed readers may already have spotted the latter…

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