Re: [DL] WesternGothicGraphic novel1st 20pg FREE@blackdaze.com

["Allan 'Deputy' Seyberth" <moderator@darious.com>]

Barry. . .

This wasn't an unsolicited advertisement sent to this list, was it?

At 09:50 AM 6/10/2001 -0400, BarryB301@netscape.net wrote:
 >
 >1. What influenced you to create a western comic book?
 >
 >Boy, I hope your URL has some space.  I’ve always leaned towards  the creed:
 >write what you know. I’ve lived in many small towns
 >and have always been interested in using them as settings for stories.  The
 >people are unique, there is a different sort of mindset to
 >living in a small town and they do have their darker side just like big
 >cities.  I had a few ideas mulling around in my head ranging
 >from short stories, screenplays to graphic novels, or whatever.
 > The most prevalent one was of a young man returning to his small home town
 >from college to discover something strange going on.
 >This leads him to start probing into his town to unearth it’s seamier side.
 >At this time movie director David Lynch put out “Blue
 >Velvet” and it’s plot was so close to what I was aiming after I had to come
 >up with a different angle.  From that I concocted a
 >straight murder mystery set in a small town. No sooner do I come up with
 >this bright idea when  Lynch comes out with the t.v.
 >series “Twin Peaks”.  On that account I needed to think of something with a
 >little more spin. Finally, as I was driving home from
 >college one day, I had the epiphany, or maybe a  psychotic episode, of
 >having a murder mystery take place in an small town in the
 >old American West.
 >
 >
 >Interestingly enough, I have ridden and have been around horses all my life,
 >but I was never into Westerns of any shape or form. So
 >I started to inundate myself in researching the Old West. Reading, studying,
 >and photocopying every kind of book and magazine on
 >this place and time in American history. I completely enjoyed immersing
 >myself in auto- biographies and biographies of the people
 >that lived it. Granted, most of these books written were full of falsehoods,
 >mis- remembrances and out right myths.  This is
 >espically true of the auto-biographies, but they really give you a sense of
 >being there. Like I said; write what you know and if you
 >don’t know it you can always find out.
 >
 >  I mixed all this in with the premise that the graphic novel would have
 >supernatural under-currents running through it’s story-line.
 >The one thing I always associated with the Old West was that it was kind of
 >macabre. You know, all those black and white
 >photographs of women and children standing around the bullet-hole filled,
 >fly-covered body of a recently dead outlaw. No one was
 >smiling. They couldn’t hold a grin long enough for the time it took to take
 >the picture, however it made the scenes even more
 >morose.  This is one of the reasons the covers read: A Gothic-Western. We
 >couldn’t go for just an average genre we had to come up
 >with one of our own.
 >
 >
 >
 >
 >
 >
 >
 >
 >2. Those Mike Hoffman covers are great! How did you establish your
 >relationship with Hoffman?
 >
 >  If a picture is worth a thousand words those covers are good for hundreds
 >of thousands apiece.  With each progressive cover Mike
 >just keeps knocking me out.  They literally set the tone for the story
 >inside the comic.
 >I had found the two issues of the Tigress comic that Mike did for Basement
 >Comics in a bin at ComicFest in Chicago. Later that
 >year Black Daze had a spot at Wizard World and Mike’s table was a few rows
 >over.  I stopped to talk to him about how I much I
 >admired his artwork.  He mentioned that he was thinking about doing a
 >Western. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but we started
 >corresponding through email. He loved the idea I had for “The Ballad of
 >Utopia” and wanted to do the art.  And me, knowing a
 >good thing when it kicks me in the face, took him up on his offer. It’s
 >worked out extremely well. Our talents jive so skillfully that I
 >couldn’t ask for a better collaborator.
 >
 >3. Please describe the story of THE BALLAD OF UTOPIA for our readers.
 >
 >“The Ballad of Utopia” is a murder mystery that takes place in the small,
 >old southwestern town of Utopia. It revolves around the
 >puzzling slaying of the local stage-keep, Charlie Burnette. Utopia deputy
 >Samuel David discovers Charlie’s body and subsequently
 >has to search for those responsible. Assisting Sam in his quest is Brigham
 >Love, a very peculiar bounty hunter. As their path leads
 >them towards finding the murderer, or murderers, they lay bare  many of
 >Utopia’s darker secrets and hidden truths. Along the way
 >we deal with things like (free association style): the mythology of the
 >American west, mythology in general, western clichés,
 >madness, secret societies, revenge, Utopian principles, love, Apache
 >religion, small town values, dime novels (predecessors of
 >comic books) just to name a few. Hopefully our tag line says it all: “The
 >Old West Ain’t What It Used To Be.”.
 >
 >4. How long is THE BALLAD OF UTOPIA (number of issues)?
 >
 >
 >The murder mystery will be resolved in issue number eight. There are three
 >other story-arcs involved with the entire story, but for
 >now we’re going to concentrate on resolving the question :“Who killed
 >Charlie Burnette.”
 >
 >
 >5. I see you have a second title coming out in September: TIGRESS. Please
 >tell us about this title.
 >
 >Mike Hoffman’s Tigress is a one shot comic written and drawn by the artist.
 >Mike was itching to do a sequential comic in what is
 >his current forte, sci-fi fantasy, and he wanted to use his Tigress
 >character, so Black Daze is letting him.  Man, am I glad we did.
 >I’ve seen the pages to this comic and it is by far the best looking black
 >and white brush-work you going to see in todays comics.
 >Just some of the most scrumptious art. Mike is at the top of his game and
 >Black Daze will be nominating this for more than a few
 >comic industry art awards. It is that awe-inspiring.  The story itself, a
 >retro science fiction adventure, is like  a breath of fresh air in
 >this gloomy market. I can’t wait for people to see it.
 >
 >
 >
 >6. Where does Black Daze go from here? Do you have more publishing plans?
 >
 >We’re plowing ahead with finishing “The Ballad of Utopia” and getting
 >“Tigress” out into the readers hands. Currently, BlackDaze
 >is starting to concentrate on it’s web-site blackdaze.com. We’ll begin this
 >fall by placing free comic stories in our “Lending
 >Library” with the final goal of collecting them in trade paperback form.
 >
 >RETURN TO UTOPIA
 >
 >   The 21st Century is here and Black Daze Publishing is saddled up and
 >ready! The creators of
 >the critically acclaimed Gothic Western comic book series THE BALLAD OF
 >UTOPIA have
 >watched the Comics industry fluctuate, change and just plain metamorphose,
 >and now they're
 >adapting by releasing a new 88-page trade paperback THE BALLAD OF UTOPIA:
 >Volume One!
 >       "Our story has close ties to the dime novels that were mass-produced
 >around the turn of the
 >century, and pulps that followed," said Barry Buchanan, who produces the
 >book along with
 >reknowned Fantasy artist Mike Hoffman. "UTOPIA followed these traditions by
 >being served up
 >in monthly installments appearing in a comic format. Incidently, a huge
 >influence on the book
 >has been serialized stories of the past, the most obvious being dime novels
 >that contained
 >retellings of (and out-right exaggerated lies about!) real Western legends
 >such as Buffalo Bill
 >Cody, Calamity Jane, and so on. One of the less obvious inspirations is Sir
 >Arthur Conan Doyle's
 >Sherlock Holmes adventures, serialized in the London  magazine The Strand,
 >which kept readers
 >waiting eagerly for the next installment".
 >
 >THE BALLAD OF UTOPIA is essentially a murder mystery as seen through the
 >eyes of Utopia
 >deputy Sam David, who is sometimes accompanied by the mysterious and
 >occultic bounty hunter
 >Brigham Love. Along the way, they encounter quite a few grisly shocks and
 >encounter many of
 >the odd personalities of the town of Utopia. "It's a very weird and bizarre
 >Western, and
 >challenges a lot of the stereotypes of the genre", stated Hoffman, to which
 >Buchanan added
 >"We'd planned on continuing in this format, but recent changes in the comic
 >industry have
 >caused us to retool our initial plan. Call it publishing Darwinism"
 >       "Nowadays it's the graphic novel that flourishes in this market,"
 >continued Buchanan,
 >"Which isn't a problem because this story had been approached as one
 >complete tale from the
 >start with a definite beginning, middle and end, even though initially
 >spread over eight issues.
 >Added benefits to a re-release in the graphic novel format are a more
 >substantial read, longer
 >shelf-life and the inclusion of a ISBN number, which will help make it into
 >bookstores and
 >libraries. This may be a big step in attracting some of the eight billion
 >people on this planet who
 >don't ordinarily read comic books."
 >       THE BALLAD OF UTOPIA: Volume One will combine the first three
 >previously released
 >issues along with the unreleased fourth issue, all of which will be
 >enveloped in a new oil
 >painting by Hoffman. "We want to keep the cover price down, while unifying
 >the storyline.
 >Volume One will contain the first half of our tale, and Volume Two (also a
 >88 page TPB) due
 >out this winter will complete it. All the mysteries will be solved!"
 >       To commemorate this new publishing venture and provide a free sample
 >of The BOU, Black
 >Daze has posted the entire first issue online in the Lending Library at
 >www.blackdaze.com
 >   <http://www.blackdaze.com>.
 >
 >   THE BALLAD OF UTOPIA: Volume One, the 88-page B&W trade paperback will be
 >in the JUNE  2001 Previews catalog and in stores mid-August.
 >__________________________________________________________________
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Allan 'Deputy' Seyberth
moderator@darious.com

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