Begin the Beguine!!!

Welcome to Death by Comics!

This is the production blog for the multiple comic book projects on which Josh Dean and I are collaborating. At this point in time there are two: Cast Off & Softly Tenderly. Josh is writing, I am drawing. Neither of us wants to spill the beans too much on either project until they are complete, but I will be posting some sketches and other tidbits to tease and delight along the way. It will be a fine line to walk, but hopefully in the process we can inform and record progress without diminishing the integrity of the final projects.

My personal goal is to use Death by Comics as a measure of my progress on our collaborations. I am requiring of myself that I post a minimum of once a week with updates on my progress with each project. This is to help keep my lazy butt in line as well as give us both a measure of the status of each project. This will be a forum for me to discuss the process of creating a comic book from the ground up and any issues or excitement we encounter along the way.

This is my first full comic book experience. I've inked other artists, I've penciled and inked unfinished works, I've even created a weekly comic strip during college, but my dream has always been to hold a completed comic that I've drawn. That brings me here to Death by Comics!

The first project we're working on is a horror story called Softly Tenderly. I won't go into details about the story, but I will let you know that, Gods willing, it will be appearing in this year's issue of Hallowscream. Hallowscream is an annually published online magazine celebrating the life and style of the magazine SCREAM from the 1980's. Check out Back from the Depths and Horrorcomics.org for more info.

The second project we're working on is called Cast Off. It will be a full length horror comic book. We haven't decided yet on the format the finished product will take. Josh has already finished the scripts for both projects, so now it is up to me to get off my bootie and make the art happen!

Next week I'll have more details about my progress on Softly Tenderly. I'll be focusing mainly on that project until it is published as it has the most urgent deadline. If I make any progress on Cast Off in the interim, I'll be sure to post the goods as well!

And this is Josh...I agree with and approve of everything my colleague has written above. I just wanted to add that Jesse is not only super-talented but a good friend/fellow comic geek. We met and bonded over our shared love of 80s Marvel books and the Lovecraft mythos. If you enjoy either of those things, hopefully you will find lots to enjoy in our productions. While the first two projects are horror-based, we plan to dabble in some other genres eventually. Thanks for reading...hope you enjoy!