Campaigners Kickstarter is Live!

It feels like I only come here anymore when I want something from you.

Ah well, if I had more time, or more to say...

Anyhow, I have another Kickstarter running now! I mention a while back about a project called Campaigners, and we've finally got the Kickstarter launched! You can find the project here.

This is a much, MUCH bigger project than I've ever tried before. This is important to me for a number of reasons. This story is incredibly important to me,. It started out as just a small, weird, almost a joke of idea. "What if candidates had to fight each other to the death?" It's one of those things you think of and laugh about. Gee, that'd be great to watch! Right?

Except would it, really? If the sort of person who would beat another person to death with their bare hands for power were put in charge of the country? That would be, for lack of a better phrase, pretty fucked up.

That was my starting point. Looking at political campaigns now, it's all just a game. How best can I convince people to vote for. Not by being the best candidate, but by putting on the best show. In retrospect, pro-wrestling might have been a better analogy for what I was trying to accomplish at that point, but MMA seemed so much more brutal.

While I was developing the idea I realized I needed a POV character. It couldn't just be about the fighters. There needed to be someone watching this and realizing how much a mess it all was.

That's when I met Kydra Franks. A teenage girl, with all the angst and confusion that comes with being a teenage girl. A little bit of an outsider, frustrated at the fact that no one else sees how absurd the system is. The more I got to know her, the more I realized that she wasn't just the POV character, she was the main character. This is her story.

There's a lot of myself in the character of Kydra. Especially the me I was in high school. Smarter than average, but not as smart as she thinks. Self-assured but lacking confidence. As she developed, the idea occurred to me that she should have a best friend. A co-conspirator.

And thus was born Bee. Bianca Faye. Pretty much Kyd's complete opposite. Outgoing. Loves clothes and music. Doesn't care about politics, at all. While I was playing with the her characteristics, I decided to see what would happen if she were a transgender girl. How would that effect the story? And, quite honestly, it opened the story up entirely.

Bee went immediately from a sidekick to practically as much of a protagonist as Kyd. It's because of Bee getting bullied that Kyd lashes out publicly against the political system. It's Bee, trying to piggyback off Kyd's sudden notoriety, who organizes a public protest. And so much more.

The last cog in the machine was the President. I honestly didn't think I needed to do much with him. Just give him a vaguely Presidential history, so I made him a lawyer who got into politics. Give him a background in fighting. He was from a rough neighborhood, poor, learned to fight young, worked his way through school with MMA scholarships.

The thing is, the crux of the story hinges on this character. If the system is going to change, he's the one that has to decide to change it. If it isn't going to change, it will be because he chose to do nothing.

The big breakthrough was a line that he says, and I'm not going to say the line, or who he says it to, or any other context, because it's late in the story and it would give too much away. But it really informed his character for me, and I suddenly understood who this man was. This was a man who defended poor teenagers, mostly black teenagers, being bullied by a dysfunctional legal system. This was a man who lost his first fight for the Presidency, nearly died, and was told he would never fight again. This was a man who fought his way back into the ring, and destroyed all comers.

Of course, it didn't become real until I came across MJ Barros online. I don't remember at this point where I first saw her work, but I knew immediately that she was an artist I wanted to work with. It was clear that she would be an ideal artist for this particular project. It wasn't until she started putting together character designs and promo art that I realized that she was the perfect artist for the project.

I can't imagine doing this book with anyone else. She's brought so much to the project. Everything she's done has been better than expected. And it's not just her art. MJ is from Chile, a country that was until recently run by a violent dictator. These issues are very real to her. She reminds me regularly how important issues like voting rights and the right to assemble are to her. Having her on the book, I think, forces me to take it more seriously than I might otherwise. It keeps me from being overly cynical. There's a passion to the project that simply wouldn't be there without MJ's presence.

And finally, Sean Rinehart, who designed the logo and has put a ton of effort into making all the promotional material look great. He's done an amazing job so far of designing everything and he'll be lettering the book as well as providing further designs (including something really interesting in the book that I don't want to go into too much detail on but am really excited about).

Everything about this project has been an incredible experience so far, and I can't wait to see this book completed. It's terrifying and amazing and I can't wait for everyone to read this story!

So please take a look, and share it around, and maybe give a little money? It's a huge goal, I know, but every cent will go toward creating the book, paying the artists, printing the book, getting the rewards made, and so-on. It's necessary, I promise. And it will be worth it, I promise that as well.

As always, thanks for reading.

-Brendan

Summer Playlist!! (there's still a little summer left)

So I know it's kind of late, since summer's just about over. But the weather is still pretty hot where I am, and there's a nice three day weekend coming up for Labor Day, so I thought I'd share what I've been listening to all summer.

(Note: I tried posting this on my tumblr, but I couldn't seem to get the actual player to embed. I think I've figured out how to do it here, which will be much better than just posting a link to their web-player. If it doesn't work, I'll probably just delete this whole thing.)




So there goes Enjoy!

New Kickstarter: Tales of the Damned

Hey everybody!

So it's that time again! I'm running a new kickstarter campaign. This is for a comic collection of three short horror comics, all written by me, with art by Kevin Enhart, Pramit Santra, and Chris Brown. This is horror in the more classic style, period pieces with creepy monsters and ghosts and so on. I'm very proud of how all these stories turned out, and I would love to share them with everyone, so I'm hoping you guys will take a look and back if you can, and share the link around as well.

Thanks!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/152668502/tales-of-the-damned-horror-anthology

Campaigners!

I’m going to take a break from complaining about Spider-Man to talk about something much more important to me. I may have linked to the tumblr blog for my project, Campaigners, already. If not, there it is. Please check it out.

Campaigners is a graphic novel I’ll be running a Kickstarter for this summer. It’s a project I very much believe in, and I’m incredibly excited to share it with everyone.

I had an idea a couple years back, probably not a new idea. What if candidates won the Presidency by fighting? What if you had to beat the crap out of your opponent? I mean, everyone knows that politicians are full of shit, and everyone not only acknowledges that elections are just a big mess of smoke and mirrors, but actually actively participate in it.

So why bother with the elections at all? Why not just have them beat the shit out of each other?

As the story evolved in my head, it became clear that it needed a focal point, a point-of-view character from which we could watch this chaos unfold. I came up with the idea of a kid whose turning 18 on Election Day, and as an act of protest has decided not to vote.

Because have you ever told anyone you don’t vote? Have you ever been in a room when someone said that out loud? It’s like they said they like to use pieces of the American flag for toilet paper. It’s crazy.

Over time, the story started to revolve around this kid, and this little rebellion began to grow in scope.

And then I realized that I really wanted to make this story happen. And it occurred to me that an election year would be the best time to put a book like this out. An election year like the one coming up in 2016. But there was no way I could come up with the money to make this happen by then.

So I decided to turn to Kickstarter, and the rest will (hopefully) be history. I found MJ Barros online, she’s an incredible artist who has already done an amazing job of bringing the characters to life. She’s already provided a ton of art and it’s all awesome.

This is going to be a very ambitious project for me, and I really hope to make it happen. I hope you’ll all check out the tumblr, and I especially hope you’ll share it with others. There’s so much great stuff coming down the line for this.

Anyway, thanks for listening.

Last thing about Spider-Man movies, I swear (UPDATED)

So I’ve been meaning to say something about this Spider-Man business, mainly because I was so certain it was never going to happen, and now, clearly, it is happening. I would have liked to post something right after the announcement, but quite honestly I just haven’t had then time.

Anyway, yeah. Marvel announced that they made a deal with Sony allowing them to use Spider-Man in their movies. And the nerd-world had a collective orgasm. While I was certainly not surprised at the overwhelming support for this decision, I’m definitely not joining in the enthusiasm.

Look, I know it’s going to seem like, being the one guy shouting that this was never going to happen, now I have to say it’s a bad idea to save face. But, really, I think this is a bad idea. I’m not going to go over all the reasons why. I've done that before, anyone interested can go look at what I’ve already said on the subject.

Just want to mention, though, that Spider-Man has had five movies in thirteen years. This is a known property, and to audiences that aren't familiar with the comics, this is going to make about as much sense as suddenly throwing the Ghostbusters onto the Avengers.

So the details of the deal, as far as I’m aware, are as such: Marvel can use Spider-Man in their movies however they wish, but Sony can basically ‘veto’ if they don’t like what Marvel’s doing. And Sony gets a cut from any Marvel movie Spider-Man is in. Marvel has input into Sony’s Spider-Man movies, but Sony doesn’t have to listen to them if they don’t want to. I don’t know if Marvel gets a cut of Sony’s Spider-Man movies, but I highly doubt it. And, apparently, Kevin Feige will be co-producing Sony’s Spider-Man movies for free.

The interesting thing, to me, is that when these details came to light, the comment people kept making was that Marvel got the use of Spider-Man “for nothing.” Like this is some kind of steal for Marvel.

Guys, really, Sony comes out so far on top in this it’s not even funny. Like no contest.

Sony gets a cut from any Marvel movie Spider-Man is in. So they get a percentage on some highly successful movies for doing literally nothing other than saying “Yeah, go ahead.” That’s just free money for them. Plus any Spider-Man movie they make is going to bring in a wider audience now that the character is part of the Marvel lineup. They can do whatever dumbass thing they want with the character, and Marvel just has to put up with it. More than that, they have to incorporate that into their stories.

Because he’s a part of it now. Once he shows up in Civil War, Spider-Man is officially, canonically, a part of the MCU. And anything that Sony does with Spider-Man is officially, canonically, a part of the MCU. Do you remember the things that Sony has done with Spider-Man so far?

Also, Sony gets Kevin Feige for free.

So Sony gets a huge, huge, huuuuge lifeline. And Marvel? Was Marvel having any real problems without Spider-Man? Other than the comic fans wanting him there? And really, that was as much because they didn’t like the Sony movies as anything else.

So Marvel now “gets” to use this character, in exchange for sharing their profits with another company. Because there are literally no other characters in the Marvel universe that can fill the shoes of Spider-Man?

Guys, there are probably at least dozens of characters that could fill Spider-Man’s shoes in the movies. Did anyone look at the New Warriors? Young Avengers? The Initiative? Kamala Khan? This new Nova kid?

My pick? Cloak and Dagger. Not going to explain why. Just like them.

**UPDATE: So there is a rumor going around - and so far it's just a rumor, so I'm taking this with a sizable dose of salt - that they might be looking for a person of color to play Spider-Man, and that Spider-Man might not even be Peter Parker. *cough*cough*Miles Morales*cough*cough*

So I'll say this. If they choose to use Miles Morales instead of Peter Parker, I will have 1000%  more faith in this move. If they cast a person of color as Peter Parker, look, I'm not gonna complain about the sudden race shift, it really won't bother me at all. But it won't change my opinion on the move.**

Seriously, there is no reason why Marvel should make such a one-sided deal. The beauty of having the Marvel universe at your disposal is having a character to fill literally anything you need. Usually there's a few.

The only thing that gives me any hope here is the rumor that Marvel was really trying to get Spider-Man for Civil War, which to me implies that the decision is based more on the story they have than on them buckling to fan pressure or whatever.

Okay, I’m gonna call this a wrap. There are other things I could add here, but my thoughts get less and less coherent as I go, so I’m just gonna stop here.

Check out Anonymous Nancy on comiXology. Check out the tumblr for my upcoming project, Campaigners.

I'll be locking down a convention schedule soon, so keep an eye out for that. And keep an eye out for my next blog about how Batman v Superman is proof positive that Warner Brothers has literally no idea what to do with DC.

Birthday Post

Today's my birthday!! I usually try not to make a big deal about birthdays, but I wanted to post for two reasons. One: Roy Stiffey, artist on Anonymous Nancy and all-around awesome guy, sent me this



Which is completely bad-ass! (btw, you can still pick up Anonymous Nancy, issues 1 and 2, on comiXology here)

The other reason I wanted to post is because it was on my birthday last year that I started my 365 stories project. Which means that, today, I have posted a new flash fiction story every day for the past year. That's 365 stories! Holy shit!

As I mentioned already, I'll be finishing out the month. Just feels cleaner that way. I'd like to say that I have special, profound story to end on, but I'll probably just crap something out about, like, fantasy warriors defeating an ancient enemy, or something post-apocalyptic, or whatever.

I'll probably spend the next couple weeks digging through the stories, just taking stock. I'd like to do some rewrites on the better ones and maybe put up a digital collection on like Amazon or something. We'll see.

Anyway, that's all for now!

365 Stories is Almost Done!

So, holy crap guys, I’m less than 20 stories short of completing this 365 stories project! I have to admit, when I first started on this I was less than convinced it was going to make it this for. I know for a lot of people it might seem like no big thing, a story every day, and most of them under 500 words, whatever. But for me? This was HUGE.

So looking back, what have I got? Well, if I’m being perfectly honest, a lot of it was pretty bad. Which is fine. That’s what I was expecting to end up with. These are all first drafts, and a lot of them were written just to get a story written. That’s writing, folks.

A lot of the stories seem like they could be the start of something bigger, like a series or a book, something like that. Some of them were clearly prologues to something much bigger. A few of them are actually pretty solid, stand-alone stories, or will be after a fair bit of editing. And a good bit of them will likely end up being stuffed under the rug and forgotten.

I’m especially happy with the 100 word stories. These were inspired by a friend, Eric Boyd, who posts regular six word stories. I wanted something with a bit more meat to it. I feel like telling a complete story in 100 words is an interesting literary challenge. I often found myself with a story at 105, or 112, or something like that. And I’d have to go through and figure out what I could cut or reword for the sake of brevity. That’s an exercise I’d recommend to any writer.

So, now that I’m almost up to 365 stories, I have to say that it’s about time to end this project. I won’t be writing daily stories anymore.

The whole point of this, after all, was to get myself writing every day. I feel like I’ve achieved that. The problem now is that, since I have so little time to write in a day as is, these short stories are starting to eat into my other projects. As fun as it is, and as useful, I think it’s time to take what I’ve learned and move on.

And, really, flash fiction is great, but there are things that you can’t do with it, and there are things I can’t learn and skills I can’t develop if my stories are all under 500 words. I need to learn to develop characters, and build arcs and so on and so forth.

So I’ll still be writing every day. Just that most of the time it’ll be part of something bigger. Like a longer short story, or even a novel. My goals for the year include writing a novel, and a screenplay, and I have some big comic book projects coming up (campaignersblog.tumblr.com). If I have something I feel is appropriate for the site, or if I just feel like cranking out a 100 worder as a warm-up, I’ll certainly post it. But otherwise, it’ll all be going elsewhere.

I actually thought about asking who might support a Patreon for more stories, but the more I thought about the more I realized that just didn’t feel right for what I was doing here. I might edit some of these and collect them, put an anthology up on Amazon, at some point in the future. We’ll see.

So, in the coming three weeks-ish, I’ll be winding down. I think I’m going to keep going through the end of the month, which will be a little over 365, but I fudged by posting a few older stories right after my daughter was born, so that should make up for it.

Thanks for reading, and for faving and reposting. And if anyone out there has any favorite stories or just wants to say hi, I’m here.

A New Year's Post!

So it’s a new year. Or at least it was four days ago. Some people use this as a time to reflect on the recent past and consider the near future. Some people think that’s dumb. As a writer/creative/whatever, I find opportunities for reflection and consideration, artificial or not, to be useful. So I thought I’d put some thoughts down, both on the past year and the one to come.

Outside of my own life, 2014 was kind of a rough one. At least from the news, the running theme seemed to be challenges to the established power structure, and violent response from that power structure. Whether it was GamerGate threatening women with rape and violence for daring to suggest they’d like to see women in video games who aren’t being raped or killed, or police bringing riot gear and tear gas to a protest of police brutality, there was definitely a theme there.

And, look, I mostly talk about comics here, so I don’t want to go too far down this path, and really so many other people have spoken more eloquently and with greater authority. So I’ll just say to those fighting the good fight (and, trust me, when you’re threatening to rape people or defending a police officer gunning down an unarmed man, you aren’t fighting the good fight): Keep at it. As a white guy, I can tweet my support, I can donate to causes, I can even show up at protests. I can support media that portrays women and people of color and other minorities in a positive light. Hell, I can even create that sort of media (or at least I can try). But at the end of the day, it’s gonna be you guys, fighting, sometimes an inch at a time. It may not seem like you’re gaining much ground now, but when you look back in a few years, (hopefully) you'll be able to say it was worth it.

To move on to lighter topics, in my personal life, it was actually a pretty great year. Anonymous Nancy issue 2 was finished, with the help of a Kickstarter. (Thanks again to all who backed and/or shared the link!) It’s even up on comiXology right now, along with issue 1. (Issue 3 is moving along quite nicely.) I’m mostly finished with a collection of three short horror comics. And I was able to write a brand-new short story every day! I’m almost up to 365 stories, which is kind of a huge deal for me. When I started that project, I was sincerely concerned that I would crap out after a few days.

I had tables at several conventions this past year, including Nittany Con, Sci-Fi Valley Con and WV Pop Con. Got to meet some cool people and had a really great time. Also slowing getting the hang of the whole “trying to get people to give a crap about things I write” thing.

More personally, and more importantly, I became the father of an amazing little girl. Five (and a half) months old now, and every day she’s challenged me, and every day is something special because she’s there when I wake up.

So that was my year. And for the coming year? Well, of course there’s writing. Always writing. Once I’ve finished up with all 365 stories, I’m likely going to put an end to that project. It was great fun, a huge challenge, and worth every story. The whole point was to get me writing every day. The problem is that now it’s taking up time that could be spent writing other, larger projects. So I’ll still be writing every day, certainly, but going forward it will be for larger projects; novels, full-length short stories, etc.

That’s one of my big goals for the new year, to write a novel, in full. I have a few novels that are close to being ready, so I’ll have to decide which one to write first. But it’s one foot in front of the other time. Time to get marching.

As far as comics go, there’s Nancy issue 3, hopefully I can have that ready to go by convention season, as well as this horror anthology, which I may end up running a small kickstarter for. I’d like to put together at least one more, but ideally two more anthologies. Similar format, three short, eight-ish page stories, but in different genres. Probably sci-fi next, and then maybe western or crime before coming back to horror again.

And of course, there’s the big project, Campaigners. This is going to be a pretty sizable Kickstarter, which I plan to run during the summer. If you’re not following the tumblr, it’s a story set in the year 2076, when presidential elections are decided by hand-to-hand fights, often to the death, and a young woman turning 18 on election day raises the ire of the entire country by declaring she plans not to vote. So check it out, share it, talk it up!

And of course, there’s more conventions to attend! People to meet, comics to sell! Friends to make!

Anyway, that’s my year-in-review, and my year-to-come. Best to all of you!