Trying to Find a Comic Book Artist

Part 1: Reawakening the Dream

For those who don’t know, I’m a novelist. I’ve had ideas for some comics & graphic novels for a long time—including many superhero stories which take place in a “world” I built as a boy and has evolved as I sporadically brainstormed about it in subsequent years.

My first creative efforts were pictures of superheroes, and later my own comics, panels drawn on whatever scrap paper I could find, plotting and character development handled on-the-fly, and assembled slapdash with staples, Elmer’s Glue, or whatever binding method I could improvise. My writing experience began as a necessary adjunct of those efforts.

My drawing was pretty good for somebody who was self-taught and seat-of-the-pants. I can honestly say I was a better freehand artist than anyone I ever met, until I went to college. I wasn’t in the same league as any comic artist from the Bronze Age on, but had I developed better habits and techniques, maybe I could have gotten there. I’ll probably elaborate in the future.

In my late teens, I drifted away from "kid stuff" (comic books) and began aspiring to more "serious" creative efforts (text-based fiction). I gradually quit drawing and began concentrating on writing--which, at the time, was a bigger challenge.

My shift to prose solidified over the years and the old sequential art ambitions collected layers of dust on the back shelf. Even so, the seeds of that superhero saga germinated in my mind and never completely faded away.

The old dream languished, increasingly resembling a pipe dream as the years stacked up and life took me further and further away from ever having the time to make a serious effort at that partially-developed idea on the shelf.

And then…

One day on Gab, a publisher who I'd never met or heard of (he was from Europe) DM'd me out of the blue. He said he liked my prose and asked if I'd ever considered writing a graphic novel before.

Little did he know the depth of my appreciation for the medium and my abandoned dream. The dream had never completely died, though my drawing ability had.

This would have been flattering, but at first I didn't think the dude was serious; or I must have misunderstood him or something. But no: after exchanging messages for a while, it became clear he wanted me to write a graphic novel for him. He had published a couple (illustrated) based children's books; which I checked out. Amazon banned one of them, which is a badge of honor in my view. I did buy and read one that survived.

Anyway, I dusted off another idea I'd been nursing for years (a sci-fi aviation adventure in another galaxy) and pounded out a rough draft. I had some experience writing screenplays, and comic scripts aren't too terribly different.

The experience effectively gave me a jump-start. I got the bug to chase that old dream.

He asked what kind of art style I envisioned. I told him something like Milton Caniff's Terry and the Pirates or Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon. He shopped around for artists, and found one in Italy who he got to illustrate a sample 1st page.

The artist didn't make the outdoor bistro appear like what I had in mind, but otherwise it looked real promising. After subsequent experience with artists; I really appreciate how much he understood about what I was going for, and didn't have to tell him simple stuff (like how a stringed instrument in a galaxy far, far away should look different from an acoustic guitar as we know it, for instance).

The artist said it would be 4 months before he'd be ready to start. While waiting, I edited and polished...and decided to script the first GN in that superhero saga I'd also been nursing.

When the 4 months passed, the publisher told me he and the artist couldn't agree on a page rate, so that part of the deal (the Italian artist) fell through.

He found another artist, in Mexico...and that's the last I ever heard from the publisher again.

I concentrated on the superhero idea, hoping that I'd hear again from the publisher and he was okay (he was a cancer survivor; and of course that set me to imagining it had come back).

I still don’t know for sure what happened, and can only imagine the worst. From everything I can tell, he was a stand-up guy and exactly the kind of man you’d want to do business with. Working with him would probably have been a dream. Think about it, writers: all you have to do is write, and interface with an artist, while somebody else (an honest man, no less) handles the business minutia?

As quickly as this unbelievable deal fell in my lap, that’s just how it disappeared.

I don’t know anybody else who knew him, and doubt they know me. He’s been radio silent on Gab and the email address I have for him. I’ve used the only relevant contact info I have, to no avail.

He was married, and I wonder if his wife’s okay. (There I go, assuming the worst again. Maybe they’re perfectly fine and this was all an expensive practical joke on me. Maybe he got thrown in prison for posting a right-wing meme or something, and has no way to communicate with me.)

I didn’t get to know him very well, so it’s not like I lost a close friend or family member (been there; done that). Still, even if we never were to work together, I’d like to find out that both of them are well.

This is how my quest to make graphic novels began. In the years since, that quest has been quite the frustrating ordeal. Of course, not that much of it is funny to me, but you might find it is.

More next time.

If you like reading fiction (for free no less), click over to my other section, “Henry’s Sneak Peeks,” where I’m currently posting the chapters from the first novel in my bestselling Paradox Series, featuring time travel, the journey to manhood, and full-contact sports.