Day One: Introduction

This insanity all started because one of my dear NE (that’s Nebraska btw) friends, Ashley J____ posted a link on ‘popular social network site’ about ‘zombie ants’, a topic I’m familiar with due to my incessant love of all things zombie. Basically it’s a fungus that affects the neurological ‘path’ of the ants that, while essentially killing them from inside, makes them go to the tops of plants where the fungus then hatches out, gets eaten by birds, pooped out by aforementioned birds, poop gets touched by ants, and the process continues.  But what I didn’t know what the fungus has been around for about 48 million years as far as anyone can figure out.  (The full article is here: http://www.livescience.com/8496-mind-controlling-parasites-date-millions-years.html).  I made a joke about how that’s what actually killed the Dinosaurs; i.e. Dinosaur Zombies. The joke was suddenly being discussed, on ‘popular social network site’ and well received.

Now to take a step back, I need to explain I’ve been working on my own comic for about a year now: trying to get EVERYTHING done so I could launch a mini-series (6 issues) with everything completed, so when I pitched to Diamond (the largest comic book distributor) I could show them everything was done, thus helping my chances of getting picked up. The independent comic market can be rough to say the least, and as I wouldn’t say my art or writing is of the highest caliber, I wanted to hedge my bets.  The problem with all of this is paying my bills, i.e. ‘The Day job’. I’ve worked in television for the last few years, which is not a career easy on one’s personal free time.  My average day is 9am to 9pm as I write this, including weekends sometimes, so getting the time and motivation to sit down and finish penciling, inking, coloring and lettering pages, on quite frankly ancient computers, is a feat of willpower.  In addition the comic in question is a dark, brooding, ‘Crime –Noir’ story, so being in that mindset can wear you down.  As a result of trying to get this published, I’ve read a number of books, most importantly in my mind, Larry Young’s ‘True Facts’, on the subject of self-publishing, and it’s a topic that is often on my mind.

All of the above blah-blah-blah culminated into what you see before you, when looking at one of my favorite blogs  Hyberbole and a Half (http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/) and noticed the ‘blogspot’ address. I checked the site, realized it was a pretty solid, and most importantly FREE blogsite, and got to thinking.  Why not actually have FUN with comics again?  And more importantly wouldn’t it be ‘snazy’  to write down my experiences in publishing a one shot comic, so other artists and writers, seeking to learn more about self-publishing would have a ‘real time’ look at what goes on, what it takes to get a comic out there.  And wouldn’t it be cool to be able to be transparent, in other-words, everyone can see what you’re working on so their comments and ideas, could actually be put into the comic?

So in a nutshell ZOMBIE DINOSAURS is going to strive to be the following:

-First and foremost: a blog about the process, trials, and tribbles, er, tribulations about a first time self publisher, getting out there and getting a tangible piece of art on the shelves.

-A venue where YOU there reader, can input your ideas into the product.  Keep in mind I probably can’t use every idea, in some cases I probably will not want to use them, but I will make the effort to look at all comments and see if I can utilize them in the end product.

-Finally, a source to check out an insane comic about Zombie Dinosaurs!

More to come. . .

Trevor out.

P.S. The banner will change soon. At work and only had a few seconds to bang one out.