Akemi

Creating Comics

New comic. New newsletter sent out to my subscribers. I’m trying not to send too much to your email box, but I’m also trying to do a better job of barely sending anything out. If you picked up something by me and liked it, I want to make sure you know of new things coming out by me.

This actually was written a few months ago. Maybe even longer than just a few months. The genesis was Ben Dunn of Antarctic Press. One of Ben’s and Antarctic Press’ biggest successes was Warrior Nun. Ben ended up selling the comic to a media company that made it into a TV show, which did pretty well from what I’ve heard, but still was canceled. Ben had a non-compete clause that he couldn’t create anything similar for a certain length of time. Evidently, the clause was up; he was talking about wanting to create a new version of Warrior Nun. I’ve done some work with Ben and am always looking for ways to continue that relationship. And I liked the idea of Warrior Nun. So I thought I’d work up a pitch.

I’ll admit to something here that maybe I shouldn’t. I have never read Warrior Nun. I never saw the show. I did try to find some copies of the comic when I became interested in it, but couldn’t find any. I think this actually was a good thing.

In the end, I was able to create something completely independent and original of Warrior Nun. The only similarities are that the main character is a Nun, more or less.

I was thinking about this project and trying to come up with the idea when a friend of mine, an artist that I work with, mentioned the idea to me about Ben’s post when we were talking on the phone. He threw a few ideas at me, none of which I ended up using; in fact, I went the exact opposite of what he suggested.

I wrote a script. It went really well, and I was finished with it pretty quickly. I thought maybe the artist would want to draw it. I put it to the side, waiting to see how things worked out. For reasons that mainly had to do with the artist being too busy and not that interested, I decided to look for an artist to illustrate the comic.

I really liked this script, and I really liked the character of Akemi.

I took to Facebook and posted in a couple of groups that I was looking for an artist. And got a lot of responses. The funny thing is that the artist I went with was probably one of the first artists to contact me, maybe the first. Jorge Luis Gabatto was the artist I went with. For writers out there looking for artists, I always say Facebook is a good place to look. You might get bombarded with a lot more artists than you want, with a lot that are nothing what you are looking for, but somewhere in all that chaff is a diamond. Most of the artists that I’ve worked with in the last decade, I’ve discovered on Facebook.

And I found a lot of other really good artists that I would love to work with, but unfortunately, I only have so much money. I have two more projects that I would love to bring to life right now, and some of these artists would be perfect for the job, but I have to wait until I can get enough funds.

I’ll be honest, at first I wasn’t sure. I looked at Jorge’s art and kept looking at others. But there was just something about his art that kept drawing me back. There was so much emotion in his characters. The expression on the faces he drew.

This was a panel from one of the first batches of pages Jorge drew. As soon as I saw it, I knew Jorge was the artist I wanted for this comic. The look on Akemi’s face was perfect. He conveyed so much in her expression that I wanted to get across, without having to write a bunch of words. He was the artist for Akemi.

Look at the panel I put at the top of this column. I love it. So much emotion on the face of Akemi. I can’t stress how much I’m so happy with the art from Jorge Luis Gabatto for this project!

Another cool thing about Jorge is that he does it all. Pencils, Inks, colors, letters. And he’s fast. I think it was the beginning of the new year that I sent him the script, and the plan is to have it finished by next month. I’m already starting on the second issue.

The plan is to Crowdfund the comic. I’m trying new crowdfunding sites out besides Kickstarter, and this one is Fund My Comic. One thing I like about this site is that it’s geared towards comic books. It doesn’t have the reach of Kickstarter, but it’s been doing some serious growing, and some projects have made some serious bank.

By the time we fund the first issue, we should be done with the second. Then the plan is to crowdfund the second issue, hopefully within a month of the first. By the time we’re finished funding the second issue, hopefully we’ll be making enough money to fund the third issue and so on and so on. I’d like to at least get four issue arcs out on a more or less monthly schedule. Heck, if the Crowdfunders make enough to keep paying for the next issue, I can see us just keep putting it out. I am that vested in this character.

So what about the original idea of creating a new version of Warrior Nun? Well, I’m glad that I think I pretty much created a completely different character. After we get the first issue out, I’ll probably send it to Ben Dunn and see if he’d like to publish it at Antarctic Press. I sent the script to Ben back before I had any art connected with it, and he said he liked it, but he didn’t make any offers, just to show it to him after it’s done. I like Ben and would be happy to have an ongoing comic through Antarctic Press, but it’s too soon to know how that will play out.

So who is Akemi?

“After escaping the father who raised her as an assassin, young Akemi flees Japan for the U.S., where she’s recruited into the Order of Innocent Blood—an underground force battling demons and monsters that demand she confront the darkness she was trained to serve.”

I’ll have more to write about Akemi in the future. When the campaign goes live, I’ll be sending a new email out to everyone, in the hopes that you’ll be interested enough to check it out and order a copy. I leave you with the image of Akemi in battle gear.

As always, if you like what I’m doing, please feel free to click on the BUY ME A COFFEE link and leave me the price of a coffee to help continue producing cool comics!