To New Beginnings

Here is a rough draft of some newer character designs I am working on for the revamped book.  Essentially I am scrapping everything I did before.  As I said it was my therapy and it should be left at that.  On to new beginnings...

Dad...This Is Your Adventure.

It's been a long time since I have updated this site.  Too long.  Life and work seem to have taken up a bit of my time for posting, luckily not for drawing.

This weekend is Father's Day, arguably the toughest weekend of the year for me, especially when it falls on June 17th.  In 2007, I lost my Father to MSA, a rare and horrible disease.  Sunday, June 17th, 2007 was the last day I would sit and talk with him before flying back to California, he would pass away on September 4th of that year, just two days shy of me flying home to see him for his birthday.  There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about him and what he not only meant to me, but to everyone that knew him.  While I was trying to cope with the loss I experienced I decided to be creative with my therapy.  I started to draw and I started to write.  

My father loved telling stories and he loved history and mythology.  I grew up listening to him tell me all sorts of fantastical tales, both true and fantasy.  He would glow when he would speak and I can remember being mesmerized.  You see, my father had always wanted to be a teacher and as far as I am concerned he was, I learned a great deal from him, but he wanted to teach history, tell stories and inspire more than just me.  

So, one night in the depths of my sadness, I took a small Moleskine journal that had been given to me by my boss at the time, the lovely Jody Yorkey and I started a tale.  A tale of life, death, history, mythology, adventure and most importantly...love.  It was my love letter to my father, my hero, my teacher.  I had never intended it to be anything more than a personal quest through my dealing with the pain I was and still continue to experience.  

However, one day while helping a friend at a comic book convention in Orlando I was asked what I was working on.  I explained that it was the adventures of my father in the after life and how he was saving the universe with his knowledge of history and mythology.  During that show I intrigued a few people, one of which was one of my favorite publishers.  It inspired me to think in a different direction, to share the tale, to actually have my father teach, but teach in a way that was full of high adventure, to illustrate that glow I used to see in his eyes when he would tell me stories.  I pulled from all of the things that I remember he loved.  History, myth, fantasy, movies, books, adventure and held tight to all of the core values he held true to.  

I flew back to California energized and ready to tell his tale.  I attempted to get time off of work to finish the book by the San Diego Comic Convention in July, just three and a half months away, but was declined under new management.  In the end they tried to strong arm me and declined giving me my time to do what I felt like was for my betterment so I quit.  

I lived for the next 4 months off of my savings and worked on my book every day and by July I had just about finished.  153 pages, written, penciled, inked and mostly lettered all by myself in about 90 days.  I was exhausted to say the least and once I had compiled it all I felt accomplished, but a bit disappointed.  As is with everything I do I am usually fairly disappointed so I am used to that general outcome.  But with something being this personal I knew there was no room for me feeling that emotion, it was my therapy after all and it was for my dad.  

I decided to bite the bullet and present it anyway and to the San Diego Comic Con I went!  I had created a 70 page preview and started pitching it.  The reviews were varied and ultimately I stopped showing it off after the first day as while I got a lot of great input and fantastic criticism, there were a lot of flaws pointed out.  A lot of flaws that I knew existed, but was so exhausted from the process, both emotionally and artistically that I did not have the energy to go back and redo or fix.  This was for my dad and it could be nothing less than amazing.  For years I had intended to go back and revisit this project, for years I would get weary when I thought about it.  So seeing as it is Father's Day and a day about celebrating those men of men we look up to I felt compelled to share the same 70 page preview I had with me in July 2008.  If you like it, or at the very least the premise, don't worry, I've started working on it again, better story, better artwork and if all goes well, better execution.  For now, take a journey through me finding my way out of a very difficult part of my life and finding a little bit of adventure along the way.

Click the link below:

http://temp-share.com/show/HKdPf80jA

New artwork to follow in another post... Happy Father's Day Dad!