Hannibal

Admit it.  Your initial reaction is to think of the cannibal.  You would be wrong though.
It started a long time ago.  I listened to the story of Rome told on a PBS special while I was a small child.  This documentary dealt with the parallels that some point out between our nation and the fortunes of the Roman Republic/Empire.  I was bored with this program.  As I was getting up to turn the knob (This was a LONG Time ago) I was stopped dead in my tracks by a painting of a war elephant. The narrator went on to discuss how the brazen African general Hannibal marched his elephants over snow covered mountains and into the heart of Italy to massacre the Roman Legions.  The story was burned into my mind then and stayed with me.  Through my life as I went on to do other things it was always back there.  In the back of my mind.  One simple phrase.  Hannibal...is at the gates.   The success of Frank Miller's 300 inspired me to tell this story.  At the risk of being called a copier, I can point to no other person as the guiding force behind my decision to write this story.  I say write this story because as I scoured all the books I could find on  this man and the absolute miracles he accomplished, the voices telling it came from a wide audience.  Garland,  Cottrell, Bickerman, Bradford, Plutarch and Livy all had their own takes on the man and the action he took.  There was a lot told about his character.  There was a lot said about the battles.  But no one knew the man.  All his journals vanished.  Livy was the sole source for any insight into the man himself, as he was closer to the event than anyone else.  But I always felt an affinity for Hannibal that I couldn't explain.  I felt the heat of the Zama plain.  I saw the blood soaked field at Cannae.  I could commiserate with the man more than I could with any other historical figure.  Sent into action by a vow made to his father and eventually forced to fight a losing battle for the very senate that abandoned him.  He was a mixed bag of honor and brilliance and I want to tell his story.  But since a lot of the tale is subjective save the dates and the body count, I decided I would have to apply artistic license where applicable.

The following 13 pages represent my first draft with this story done over 2 years ago.  I had intended this to be a 4 issue miniseries, but have since revised that to make it longer.  There is simply more I want to tell regarding this man.  I did mention Livy as a source and I do use the words he attributes as the basis for my story.  Not sure how the copyright laws affect dead Romans though...

Don't Fear the Reaper...

...or maybe you should.  Because he's coming.  Let there be absolutely zero question.
We spend our lives ducking the Reaper's Scythe so deftly, we begin to doubt his existance.  We begin to think we're better than everyone else. The long, drawn out absence he grants us while we're off having our fun comes with a hefty pricetag.  We think the reaper has forgotten us. Our complacence is his ally.  The catch is, he's always there, waiting.  He knows our guard is dropping and he relishes that.  He's not evil though.  He's a force of nature, as immutable as time and just as patient.

For those of you who don't know, my mother passed away Friday night.
I was in the backyard.

She had an aneurysm. She died instantly. I had just taken her home from the hospital with my dad. In the car I told her I had a hockey game Sat night that I was thinking of missing out on. She told me to play. She told me she wanted me to play. I stopped at Church's for wings because she was hungry. I got her inside and went out back. I was playing with the dog and just standing there when Caesar started acting odd.

I went inside and saw her lying on the floor. There was a knot on her head, she wasn't breathing and had no pulse. I called 911 and started doing CPR. The paramedics arrived within 2 minutes and did what they could. They rushed her to Methodist hosp. I followed.

Jay was at the Nutcracker. His phone was off, I sent him a text saying Mom is dead. I prayed I was overreacting. I got to Methodist and found the room they had her in. They were working on her feverishly. They wouldn't let me watch. They told me that they would send a doctor and a chaplin to talk to me and put me in a room with a phone.

A mexican girl walked into my room and called her boyfriend on her phone, but didn't stay long. About 20 minutes passed when I couldn't wait any more. I went looking for them. The doctor was walking towards me with the chaplin. He shook my hand and said something.  I have no idea what he said, but he was trying to prepare me for the news I knew was coming. I told him to just tell me. He told me my mother was dead. He may as well have hit me in the gut with a sledgehammer, because even though I was expecting it...I was in no way prepared for it.

They took me to the body and I asked to be left alone with her. I didn't want anyone to watch me cry. Jay arrived about 5 minutes later. He had called mom's brother Joe and my dad's sister Peggy. They both arrived within 30 minutes. Jay mentioned the police may want to talk to me just because of the circumstances. The Chaplin did that for them.

We stayed till everyone had seen her. Then we went home....to make the phone calls. My friend James came by and sat with Jay and me for a while. I eventually fell asleep around 3:30am. The phone started ringing at 7am. We talked to almost everyone.   If I missed you, I apologize.  It has been busy and I know you understand.

I tried getting some sleep but it was pointless. I played hockey and got shelled for 11 goals (on 49 shots) Only 3 of my teammates knew, and I preferred it that way. I went out with the guys after the game and had a beer. I got home Lastnight at 2:15...falling asleep by 3 only to be woken up at 5 by the VA telling me my father was about to die.

Jay and I rushed to the hospital and found out it was a false alarm. We stayed till 7 this morning and returned home. The phone started ringing again at 10am. I stayed up...watched the Cowboys game...talked to some more family and even after all that...I STILL expect to walk into that house and see her sitting on the couch watching the Food Network.  I fully expect to be able to go talk to my mother and tell her all about my day.  I expect to be able to show her the latest comic I am working on.  She is my biggest fan, after all.  It isn't until the reality hits me that the pain starts.  It is not a pain I want.  It's not a pain I think I am capable of handling.

But I will.  I have to.

The worst part? I still can't get the smell off of me from giving her CPR. It's been following me this entire time.
 
What is the moral?  What do I want you to take away from this?  It's simple.  Take the day you have today as if it will be the last one you have.  Treat everyone you love as if this will be the last time you will ever see them.  You got all this from the Dead Poet's Society.  Carpe Diem and all that.  But I'm here to tell you.  I sat next to my mother 20 minutes before she died and I didn't tell her I love her.  I will take that with me to my own grave...and I have no doubts the reaper's sharpening his scythe right now.

Zombie Tom

OK.

I bend to the will of the people.  I will write and draw a zombie story that is 100% mine.  For any who want to know what MY take on Zombies is...here is the first peek.  I don't know how long the story will be...or how it will end.  But these are the first 3 pages as they are.

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...on the hero

I've given this just enough thought to interest me.  That alone should worry you. 

What is a hero and why do we want them?  Why do we need them?

I look through countless stories out there these days and the one thing that strikes me about them the most is the hero. The protagonist.  This creation is normally considered the good guy but not always.  I'm going to avoid the whole when is a good guy the best hero and when should you use a bad guy instead? question altogether.  That's not what's stuck in my craw right now.  The thinig I can't shake from my head is the question of wether you need a hero at all in a story.  Sure you can write a short story with no central character, but at SOME point, a hero will emerge.  The one character the reader can relate to and cheer for.    But is such a creation necessary for a story?

As a writer, one learns fast that plot drives story.  And we also learn that Plot is derived from one of the seven basic conflicts (Borrowed from wikipedia). Man against Man, Man against Nature, Man against Himself, Man against God, Man against Society, Man caught in the Middle, Man & Woman.  In each of these conflicts, someone (or something) is at odds with someone (or something) else.  You can't have a decent story without one of these, we are told.  I've always been a person whose initial reaction on being told I cannot do something is to go out and do it.

I'm not saying it's possible...or even practical.  What kind of a story can you have without a hero?  How can you establish conflict without a protagonist? 

I'm not as well read as I would like to be.  There are holes in my literary index you could drive a truck through.  I never read Faulkner.  I never read Frost.  In fact, if you name 10 of the top writers of the last 100 years, it would be a safe bet that I have probably read one or two of them at most.  That said, a person with a 20% coverage of today's writers is hardly the best person to sy "It ain't never been done."  I'm sure that some experimental type got this identical bug in his britches and his effort was widely appreciated.  SO I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel or even remotely claim this quest as my creation.  I am claiming it as my own though...in that I want to know what a story without a hero looks like.  I want to know what it is about the reader that demands his presence.  What is it within the working dynamics of any story that implicitly states "Thou Shalt Have a Hero!!" 

I'm probably chasing a red herring here, but I don't care.  There are no heroes in your daily life.  None that are worth noting that is.  The ones that rise above it on a daily basis never have their story told.  And that's not even my main concern here.  There is limited conflict in your day to day life.  You struggle against unseen foes, you triumph 30% of the time and fail 60% of the time.  The last 10% is a tie.  But no one wants to hear about your sandwich story...even though you did something quite heroic in achieving it.  That's still a story, though.  And You are the hero of it.  But what's the story about that homeless guy on the corner with the sign?  Is he a hero?  In the literrary basis of the term, if I write a story about his struggles, he becomes the hero.    But what has he done?  He got $2.50 today and was able to eat.  That's his big triumph.  You ought to be impressed.

What is it that attracts us to read about great deeds done by others?  You put yourself in the shoes of the first audience, gathered around the campfire as Ugluuk tells the others of Aghaak's battle with the fearsome lion.  He tells of masterful feints and powerful strokes that slay the beast in heroic fashion.  You are impressed with this story and it inspires you to duplicate Aghaak's actions.  Yet when you meet a lion in the woods later, he eats you.  End of story.  But that first tale about Aghaak and the lion has done it's work and convinced you to fight a lion.  It doesn't matter that the lion is now chewing on your bones.  We look to the stories as targets.  We look at them as entertainment when they instill in us the desire to get better and achieve more.  We look at them as preachy when they tell us what we ought to do rather than what we want to do.  We look at them as wise when they show us that through the right mindset, any obstacle can be overcome.  But they are all boring when there is no hero.

We need his act as a mirror held against our own actions.  Were WE on Odysseus' ship, would we have ordered ourselves lashed to the mast as we passed the sirens?  Would We have been crafty enough to tell the cyclops our name was No Man?   Odds are we would have jumped overboard at the first note of their song...or else had our femurs serve as Polyphemus' toothpick.  That Odysseus succeeded where we would have failed gives us a target.  We want to be that courageous.  We need to be that wise.   That is the role of the hero, I suppose.

In the greater scheme of things, a hero is simply one literary device.  Like the plot, like the introduction.  You think of it in terms like that and it is not long before you try to work a story that leaves one of those devices out.  Much like a jet airplane.  At it's core, all a plane is, the thing that makes it go, is an jet engine.  Were it not for that, it would cease to me a plane and become a plain old trailer.  You think to yourself 'that engine needs to be attached to something, so you need a fuselage.  Ok.  Now you think 'well...I need wings or it won't fly'.  Then you add landing gear so it can land.  Next you give it a pilot.  He's going to need a cockpit, naturally.  When that's said and done...there is still a laundry list of things it still needs.  Seats, seatbelts, windows, rudders, drinks, bathrooms.....passengers.  The thing of it is.  The main part may very well be the engine.  But without those other components, it's worthless.  It's not a plane.  The hero is the engine of the story.  His actions are necessary to draw our interest.  His struggle is necessary to boost our own ego.

Thinking of it in terms like that...I can see why we need heroes in our stories.  I may not like it..but I understand their necessity.

Zombies!!!!!

I like working by myself.  I just do it so often that it is second nature to me.  It's a rare moment when I collaborate.  It's EVEN Rarer when I draw something someone else wrote.  I love seeing a good story and being able to add to it in any way I can.  That said, when my buddy Erik Hendrix The Last Bard emailed me asking if I would be willing to work on a story with him, I was a bit reticent to do so.  That was untill he told me the story.  We comic guys are super protective of our pets.  We are so afraid others will take our efforts and make the dollar we were unable to squeeze out of it that we often keep these stories in a folder and let no other human see them.  I'm not that way.  I share (some would say too much) almost all I do.  When Erik shared this with me, I jumped on it. I was supposed to be published last year, but that fell through.
Here are a few pages.  I promised Erik I wouldn't share them all, but the comic is so good I had to give you a taste.

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Vaudeville

I've Always been facinated with the turn of the century.  With our nation's gradual shift from agrarian to industrial.  From our weaning from gaslight to suckling on the teet of mother electricity.  That era is an untapped trove of story and drama.  The characters that actually LIVED in this time are more colorful than those created by almost any writer since.  That old saying truth is stranger than fiction holds true.  THAT SAID...I took that era and held my peculiar magnifying glass to it and THIS comic was the result.
There is more to this than meets the surface.  I only jotted down the first 5 pages of a story that easilly will number in the 80-100 page range.  There are characters and events that I'll hit with this that will truly make you stand up for a minute and ask yourself if I just did that.  I'll answer that now.  Yes.  Yes I just did that.

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The Wright Brothers

This was my answer to one of my favorite TV shows as a kid, Simon and Simon.  Along with magnum...this was one I made time to watch, likening the interraction between Rick and AJ to that of me and my own brother.  When I sat down to write this one, however, I left THAT dynamic, as well as the one between me and my own brother out of it and attempted to capture the dynamic between two polar opposites, tied together by blood, and little else.  In a way...that IS the heart of Simon and Simon, as well me and my brother.  It's a brother thing regardless of how you look at it.  My story is a finite one with this one, but I still haven't decided if it will go on beyond the conclusion of this.  The future is unwritten, we are often told. 
That said, I have altered the setting a bit in this.  It takes place in a time similar to ours, but it has different inventions and culture.  Most of what you know and expect is the same but a lot of the key components have been altered.  That plays into the story a lot.  You don't get a feel for this from the brief 5-page sample I did...but it is painfully evident in the full story.

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