Time FLIES...

....when you're having fun! I can't believe it's September already. Progress on Starfish is steady...It's almost like time is much slower around my drafting table while the universe around me speeds ahead. I'm on the last leg of production on the graphic novel... 15 pages to draw and about 60 pages to color... My hope is that I can finish by December... but as John Lennon once sang, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."

I'm excited, though, the book is really shaping up to be everything I wanted to be. Hopefully, once I'm finished working on the actual book... I can give more attention to promotion, update this blog and work on ways of getting the word out once the book goes to print. So, I WILL be back. until then I leave you with another cover concept of Starfish in full battle gear.

The Azures

Whoah! ...have not posted in a while. I've just been so busy working on the actual book. The story and art are coming around nicely...I am absolutely thrilled with the results so far--3/5ths of the way done!!!

I wanted to go into a little more detail about some of the characters I've been postring on the Facebook page.

Recognizing I needed more characters to relate to the widest audience and because the story demanded more possibilities for future storylines, I created the Azures. The Azures are kids with special powers and abilities being studied by the government. Towards the end of the first graphic novel, Starfish uncovers a secret government plan to harvest the next phase of human evolution, known as Project: Azure. The program studies kids who are born with paranormal abilties like pyrokinesis and telepathy. These "orphans" have become wards of the State and are kept in a special facility where their powers can be controlled and monitored.

Of course the idea is similar to Marvel's X-Men and Heroes on NBC. But, I was mostly inspired by true events surrounding the New Age discovery of Indigo Children. In Starfish I've termed them Azures because of the connection they have with the Aeon, the energy that powers Starfish's jet pack, which is a bright shade of blue.

The first book only introduces these characters of which there are about 30 or so. I'm hoping, if things go well, I can write a 2nd book that will use the Azures as its central plot. Below are posted the character shots of the first six Azures appearing in the first graphic novel, STARFISH: Fight the Dark!

Ahhhh progress!

After wrestling with certain story points for a little while with a mild case of writer's block, I've finally nailed it down and begun to script out the rest of the graphic novel.

Some cool things to come, including a brand-spanking new uniform for our hero to wear which will soon debut on this blog.

Suffice it to say, I'm a third of the way through with the art with about 80 odd pages to go.... yikes!

Spin Cycle!

Mike Perridge over at http://mpd57.wordpress.com decided to put me through THE SPIN CYCLE! He's a Zuda watcher since the early days and a commentator on all things COOL! Checkout the mini-interview!

Starfish: Fight the dark video

My drawrings... set to music!

STARFISH: FIGHT THE DARK graphic novel 5-page preview

The following are the first 5 pages as they will be published by Arcana Studios. The first two pages are brand new and will serve as sort of an epilogue/prelude to the book... the last three pages were seen before as they were previosly meant for the first issue of the comic series.

These were turned in and will be published on Arcana's web site soon... will report when it happens!

The Plot thickens...

Finally, decided on the plot the graphic novel will take. It's very strange trying to turn a whole bunch of ideas you had for individual storylines into one large plot for a complete story. I mean, I have all these scenes and characters and moments I wanted to see, but didn't really know how they were all going to come together and more importantly, in what order they would be introduced to the reader. I think that's the biggest challenge a writer has that I was alluding to in my last post. As a creator you have all these jumbled ideas in your head...threads to a story, but not exactly the complete quilt. How to weave it all together--to beat the metaphor to death--is probably the toughest thing for me to do.

Of course, I'm not going to give away the story completely here... I gotta save something for the book, after all. I will say that every character I wanted to introduce will be introduced and you'll see Starfish doing some pretty heroic things.

Next step is starting to hammer out the script as I draw the pretty pictures. It's full steam ahead and now that I have the direction I want to go in, it'll be easier to flesh out all the specifics.

Next post will be a little about the process I use.

Until then, it's back to the drawing board.
-M