After a long hiatus, I’m updating this blog. Been meaning to for some time, but I can think of no better reason than to mark the occasion of my re-teaming with artist Ralf Singh for a short comic story in the latest issue of Heavy Metal Magazine (issue #299 on sale now).
Ralf and I first collaborated back in 2015 with the publication of Narcopolis: Continuum, a 4-part mini-series published through Heavy Metal, which makes this reunion that much cooler. This time around, Ralf and I have some new collaborators with Cristian Docolomansky on inks and letters, whose inks I got to see in person and are beautiful, and Ilaria Fella joining us on colors, whose amazing work I was familiar with through Ralf and am lucky enough to be working with her for the first time here.
Originally this story was intended to be included in an anthology for Megadeth with each comic inspired by a song of theirs from the album Death by Design. I was invited to submit a pitch by editor Hannah Means-Shannon and jumped at the opportunity. Unfortunately, even though it made it past the first round of editors, it was ultimately passed on by Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine for being too “political and visually outrageous,” which to me are selling points!
But the good news is you can still read the story that was inspired by a Megadeth song about the end of the world featuring eye-popping T-Rex dinosaurs illustrated by Ralf. When we discussed the project and what he wanted to draw, Ralf had one request. He wanted to draw a T-Rex. And naturally, I wanted to see him draw one, so using that as a springboard we came up with this tale of WWIII and what that would look like with a prehistoric bent to it.
Ralf and I have never stopped working together since our initial partnership and are already mapping out our next epic storyline that we want to tell next, but until the time is right to share more about that project, we hope you’ll enjoy our latest team-up effort, dipping our toes back into the world of sci-fi.
What else can I say about this experience except that it gave me a way better appreciation for the work comic book letterers do. I wanted to learn the craft of lettering comics for myself, and challenge myself to letter a short comic story that I wrote, just to see if I could do it, and see how it could improve my craft as a writer. I got plenty of tips from my longtime letterer, Taylor Esposito (who you should totally look up and hire for your next comic), who really helped me to improve my lettering over a short span of time. Ultimately, my first stab at it was not up to industry standards, and thankfully Cristian jumped in and saved me and the rest of the team from looking like complete amateurs, as he’s just as skilled at lettering as he is at inking.
If you want to check out the story digitally, you can find it here, otherwise I encourage people to order it from their local comic shop and arrange to pick it up, if it’s safe and you’re able to.