The Blind Eye

Clown Town #1 Available July 2011!

The first full issue of Clown Town is set for release in July, 2011 under the Inverse Press banner!  The book will include the 12-page story from the short-run Clown Town #0 published as part of the 2010 Small Press Idol competition, in addition to 20 BRAND NEW PAGES OF STORY!

Clown Town #1 will be available from our web store at http://blindeyecomic.com/merchandise and will also be solicited to finer comic shops EVERYWHERE!  Tell YOUR local shop about it now and ask them to contact us through this website to order!

The next chapter in the story of Clown Town continues the chronicle of the rampage of Stitches and his clown crew through the small town of Dusty Gulch, Kentucky!  After kidnapping young Melvin McLamb and slaughtering his abusive and neglectful parents in issue #0, what is their next move and WHO is their next target?

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Check out our 2-page Great White story in this awesome Anthology put together by regulars from Brian Bendis’ JinxWorld forums!

http://blindeyecomic.com/merchandise/

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“Finish.”  One of the most consistently voiced words of advice I’ve heard from writing and comics professionals, and Amanda and I are SO close to actually FINISHING this inaugural chapter of The Blind Eye.  Only fourteen screens to go – it’s hard to believe.  Despite the delays in launching this website…despite FINISHING multiple concurrent projects (each of which I’ll update for you below)…despite being absolutely consumed with campaigning for votes for Clown Town in Small Press Idol 2010, Chapter One of The Blind Eye WILL be FINISHED, one fresh screen per week, in mid-November!  And we think you’re going to love the high-tension, full-throttle end sequence we’ve got in store.  Look for a print collected edition of these 60 screens early in 2011.  Believe it.  Oh, and let me clue you in on what to expect on the website between chapters – Amy Rachels, our esteemed assistant colorist, is providing full art and colors on a five-screen story featuring Hindsight!  This is a true departure from what has gone before, but I’ve seen the completed line art for much of the story…it’s haunting and gorgeous and will give you an entirely different perspective on our resident monster.    

Reading With Pictures Anthology Vol. 1

Let me update you on all these projects that have kept us occupied these past months.  The news that we’re most excited about right now is the impending release of the Reading With Pictures Anthology Vol. 1 NEXT WEEK!  It’ll be distributed to direct market comic shops via Diamond Comics Distributors on August 18, with preorder fulfillment soon after for those who pre-ordered via Kickstarter.  To those who preordered this book based on our inclusion, no amount of thanks is sufficient to express our appreciation for your faith in our work at that early stage in our efforts.  I’ve seen a pdf copy of the entire book, and let me assure you, this is an impressive overall product, chock full of stories and art suitable for all ages.  You’re going to love it.  We are extremely proud to be included, and, honestly, both of us keep going through the pdf version, checking to be sure that our work is actually there, just before a story by the mastermind of the project, Josh Elder, and two stories before another by Fred Van Lente, writer of multiple titles at Marvel.  Crazy.  A dream realized, and the best part is the recognition that what we created belongs amongst those lofty creators.  It is good enough.    

We’ve taken on a number of other projects, too.  I’m co-writing a new web comic, The Apocalypse Boyz, a companion strip to a action-comedy web video series about the zombie apocalypse that will be viewable, hopefully within the next couple of weeks, at:  http://www.apocboyz.com!  My writing partner is Juan Carlos Millan, a writer on the video series, and the artist is Nathan Smith, a local and a friend who is going to blow you away with his work!  I’ll make a formal announcement when it goes live.     

Apocalypse Boyz Preview Art by Nathan Smith

Amanda and I were invited to contribute a two-page story for The Gathering Anthology Vol. 2, a collection of stories with themes of hope produced by denizens of the Bendis message boards, and we did – a tale of Great White, easily the most popular character in The Blind Eye.  More news on that as we learn more about release dates, etc.  Our piece turned out beautifully…we were amazed at how noir-cool Undertown looked in grayscale black and white!  Also, Amanda is contributing cover art to a comic companion for a film, Showmen’z Unrest, being produced by some new friends in Michigan.    

Lastly, I’m putting together an anthology comic project that I won’t discuss in detail at the moment, other than the general format.  This venture will feature loosely interconnected short stories of ten or twelve pages in length to be published IN PRINT, initially in sets of three stories, for what I hope will be quarterly 32-page books with an annual collection of twelve stories in a 128-page trade paperback!  There is a definite common thematic thread running through these stories that I think will hit home with genre fans of any age.  Amanda is already one-third of the way through the art on the first of these stories, and I’m collaborating with our friend, Vic Moya (inker of Cohort from Small Press Idol 2010) on another.  I have offered the third story of the first issue to another artist and will have confirmation in just a few weeks (I hope…).  Right now, I’m planning an April 2011 release date.  I’ll keep you updated!  Very excited about this one!  Any aspiring artists looking to collaborate, hit me up with some samples of your sequentials – I have stories that need drawing!    

Well, that should bring everyone up to speed on our busy schedule.  With the conclusion of Children of Cassiopeia, I’ll be blogging each Thursday, so watch this space!  We have lofty goals for the next year, and we’re working hard NOW, in advance, to make sure those goals are met!  We’ll be at Baltimore Comic Con on August 28-29 promoting ALL of our various projects, so find us in the program (listed as “The Blind Eye” in Artists’ Alley) and come visit, commission a sketch by Amanda and pick up a copy of the Reading With Pictures Anthology Vol. 1 and some trading cards and stickers from The Blind Eye!

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VOTE for Clown Town at Small Press Idol 2010!

The people behind The Blind Eye - Kevin LaPorte, Amanda Rachels and Amy Rachels – are NOW in a heated battle for the top prize in Small Press Idol 2010!  Our comic, Clown Town, won 1st Place in Round 2, based on our character designs and bios, and we are currently in 1st Place in Round 3, based on our 4-page sample submission, viewable at the above link and NOW on blindeyecomic.com in our custom viewer via our Library!  Please read it, enjoy something completely different from The Blind Eye and support us by voting!

The prizes for winning Small Press Idol 2010 include a 4-issue run for Clown Town, a toy contract for a single figure (yeah!) and $1200 in cash and other prizes!  AND WE ARE CLOSE!  But we need YOUR help!

PLEASE visit Small Press Idol 2010 and VOTE!  You can vote once each day through June 6, and we need EVERY ONE!

The Synopsis for Clown Town:  

The circus has come to Dusty Gulch, Kentucky, and now children are vanishing. A body count of parents and caretakers skyrockets in the wake of these disappearances, as does the roll of dead victimizers of children – those known to abuse and neglect. Panic soon grips the remaining townspeople, and reports of clowns at the abduction sites lead a few desperate citizens to the circus for answers. Led by El Goro, a retired rodeo clown with more than a few tricks up his sleeve, these unlikely defenders include a down-and-out single mom and her daughter, a reformed alcoholic who lost custody of his own children, and a moonlighting birthday party buffoon whose customer base is quickly dwindling. They must conquer that primal fear of clowns that all humans seem to share in order to live long enough to learn a way to stop them. All the while, the question remains – are the imbalanced clowns avenging spirits for innocent children…or simply face-painted monsters wantonly murdering for their own amusement?

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Reading With Pictures Submission – Alien Concepts

  

 

 

 

December ’09:  Amanda and I contract a design firm to put together this very website and are hard at work on story and art for The Blind Eye.  Of course, we were also looking for any opportunities to get our work seen as well.  As I’ve explained before, our first efforts at publication were submissions to DC Comics’ Zuda website, so I frequented their comics threads and message boards.  On the morning of December 15, I was perusing those same boards and came across a post by an aspiring writer looking for an artist to craft a submission to an upcoming anthology project for a new non-profit organization called Reading With Pictures.  I followed the link to check out the submission guidelines for the project and saw that it was an open submissions situation requiring only a story synopsis, some sample images and basic information regarding page count, title, creator names, etc….and it was all due…December 15.  Yeah, the SAME DAY! 

Reading With Pictures Submission - Planet Concepts

So, pack it in, right?  Forget it, right?  Nah…no way.  I was at work when I found this…checking Zuda on a break…yeah, that’s the ticket.  And I immediately had to go to a meeting, but not before I shot an email to Reading With Pictures Executive Director, Josh Elder, inquiring about submitting.  I did my part at the meeting and immediately started outlining the story I wanted to tell for the Reading With Pictures Anthology.  The focus of the submissions was to be on learning, so, given my childhood fascination with astronomy, I made that the central theme of the story and wrapped it in the cozy confines of mentoring relationships.  I wanted to show learning as passed from wise elders to inexperienced young in a variety of settings, at least a couple of them fantastical.  The synopsis literally came together in minutes on scrap paper in that meeting, and I emailed a copy to Amanda at lunch to see if she wanted to take it on.  Only a few minutes later, I received an email from Josh encouraging us to submit! 

Reading With Pictures - Student & Professor Concepts

Reading With Pictures Final Art - Alien Starship

Always up for an artistic challenge, Amanda eagerly agreed, even when I told her we’d need sample images by that same afternoon.  We discussed specifics of the sketches by phone as she drove home from work, and the actual drawings took her less than two hours.  I’ve posted them here, so check’em out!  With those done, we organized the synopsis and sketches and sent it all to Josh.  He soon got back to us with a tentative acceptance, pending viewing of Amanda’s sequential art.  A few pages of The Blind Eye later, and we were approved for inclusion in the Reading With Pictures Anthology Vol. 1! 

Reading With Pictures Final Art - Planets

Reading With Pictures has already reached its minimum fundraising goal for publication of the Anthology, but more funds are needed to ensure that extra copies of the book are available for general sale by the organization.  Please visit the fundraising site Kickstarter and pledge to pre-order YOUR copy of the Reading With Pictures Anthology Vol. 1!  For a donation of as little as $5, you can get a copy of the entire, 192-page book (digital for $5 but available in soft- and hard-cover for just a little more).  OWN A COPY OF OUR FIRST PUBLISHED WORK – Light’s Speed!  We’ll sign it!  We’ll read it to you aloud!  We’ll act out the parts!  Support this wonderful non-profit and own a piece of history!  And please send a message to Josh Elder on Kickstarter letting him know that you’re pledging at the recommendation of Kevin and Amanda! 

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 Amanda, Caesar and I are hard at work on Clown Town pages, since the 12-page story is GUARANTEED to see print, having reached Round 2!  Right now, it’s the 4-page sequence required for Round 3 that we’re focused on.  Hey, prepare for the best case, right?  We’re working the votes, exhausting all avenues to make this happen!  Unfortunately, there’s not much we can reveal about these (we think) gorgeous pages on which we’re slaving away, so I’m gonna share with you our process for putting together the rough covers that we submitted for Round 1, including the updated version we posted on our Round 1 thread! 

After the story concept for Clown Town began congealing in my brain (oh, picture that…), Amanda and I began tossing around ideas for the cover, since it was ALL we needed for Round 1 besides the pitch.  We learned about Small Press Idol 2010 somewhat near the opening submission date, so time was a bit of an issue.  I was still working out the abilities and gimmicks of each of the clowns to appear in the story, but I already knew there would be one on telescoping stilts.  Thus, Stilts was born, and his seminal image was seen from a perspective near the ground peering up at him towering above and clutching a struggling, inverted victim by the leg.  In my original vision, Stilts tipped his own hat in a congenial taunt to the reader that was dismissive of his captive’s panic as the latter was apparently being lowered onto the spiked apex of a mini-umbrella wielded by a much smaller clown below. 

Our 2nd Rough Cover for Clown Town

Over a cool weekend not far from the Gulf of Mexico, we toyed with a few thumbnail sketches but could never get the angles and positioning quite to our satisfaction.  So, we did the natural thing:  we went for a few rounds of pool at the local bowling alley – our version of “roughing it” – it was like visiting a trailer park without all the danger of a meth lab explosion!  After a rousing bout of ::koff::domination::koff:: by yours truly, the fog seemed to lift, and we soon found our way to a corner of the busiest Starbucks in southern Alabama.  The image that we submitted as the rough cover was conceived during that hot chocolate and humongoid cinnamon roll indulgence.  Oddly, Amanda draws nearly everything of any sort on her Cintiq, but this piece came together so well, and after so many efforts, on paper that I think we were happy just to rely on the scanner.  Amanda digitally inked portions of that rough sketch, and we went with it when we submitted for Round 1. 

Unfortunately, what we interpreted as “rough” for the cover submission was clearly TOO rough based on the feedback received during Round 1.  Fortunately, the SPI Judges saw Amanda’s talent clearly even through the unfinished piece they had to go by (and despite my unwieldy pitch) and dished out unanimous Yes votes to move us on to Round 2!  RELIEF!  A chance to improve upon an already-evaluated work is truly rare, but we got just that with the opportunity to re-work the rough cover (and the pitch, but that’s another blog…). 

Kevin - Modeled Pose for Clown Town Rough Cover

So, the first decision was to preserve what worked and to ditch what didn’t.  What didn’t was the small clown and his umbrella.  I wanted Stilts’ victim to be in some imminent danger other than just dangling by his leg from the grip of a tall clown (WHACKY!). However, removing the sharp umbrella consequently removed that element of danger.  Amanda swiftly – and a little disturbingly – conjured up the notion of having the hat present the needed danger by showing it eager to consume the victim as Stilts waved it before him.  A carnivorous hat!  Why didn’t I think of that?  (pssst…it’s because I’m not off my friggin’ rocker like Amanda…)  Thus, the focus of the image tightened to the leering, gesturing clown and his tongue-wagging chapeau contrasted with the flailing, fearful victim who ended up remaining fairly generic because, at the time, the actual character he represents was not fully designed 

 In the process, the angle at which Stilts and victim were viewed changed, and Amanda asked me to model the pose we’d discussed for Stilts in order to solidify it.  An empty wrapping paper tube become the victim’s leg, and my old Colts hat (BOOOOO, Saints!) became the flesh-hungry top hat (if only it were munching on Drew Brees…grrrr….).  Amanda spent her fair share of hours locking down the second rough cover with the new parameters, and it is a thing of horrific beauty, at least to us evil clown lovers.  Wait’ll you see it with Stitches updated to fully reflect his final design as seen in this thread and the actual victim drawn in, all in full, glorious color beneath our logo!  All you have to do is vote us into Round 4!  Let’s make it happen!

To vote, visit:  http://www.smallpressidol.com/forum/topicview/misc/825.htm

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“The circus has come to Dusty Gulch, Kentucky, and now children are vanishing. A body count of parents and caretakers skyrockets in the wake of these disappearances, as does the roll of dead victimizers of children – those known to abuse and neglect. Panic soon grips the remaining townspeople, and reports of clowns at the abduction sites lead a few desperate citizens to the circus for answers. Led by El Goro, a retired rodeo clown with more than a few tricks up his sleeve, these unlikely defenders include a down-and-out single mom and her daughter, a reformed alcoholic who lost custody of his own children, and a moonlighting birthday party buffoon whose customer base is quickly dwindling. They must conquer that primal fear of clowns that all humans seem to share in order to live long enough to learn a way to stop them. All the while, the question remains – are the imbalanced clowns avenging spirits for innocent children…or simply face-painted monsters wantonly murdering for their own amusement?”

So, NOW we’re starting Round 2, which involves character bios and designs (6 designs for each character featured)!  The difference between Rounds 1 and 2 is that our fate is partially up to VOTES from fans – the other 50% comes from the 3-judge panel at Small Press Idol.  We need YOU to sign up for a free (and SPAM-free) account at the Small Press Idol website and vote for us once per day – EVERY DAY – from now until April 30!

Also become a fan of our Clown Town facebook fan page and follow our progress and get daily reminders to vote!

To see the full array of Clown Town imagesand actually learn something about the characters, check out all the character bios and designs at our Small Press Idol thread!

And, don’t worry, The Blind Eye will continue twice weekly publication!  Clown Town is an extra project – not a replacement!

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Maskers - 1st Zuda Entry

Now, allow me to qualify a few things about Maskers.  It was our FIRST effort at a collaboration – and my first honest-to-goodness comic script.  That’s our excuse for its obvious shortcomings.  The pacing is rushed, the panels are cramped and often hard to follow, and much of Amanda’s gorgeous art is covered up with word balloons and the enclosed exposition, all of which should have been handled more elegantly.  As incredulous as I was two years ago when Maskers was rejected, I’m equally as aghast now that we ever thought it had a chance!  Regardless, it was a terrific learning experience that cemented the creative synergy between Amanda and myself and pushed me to learn better how to script and, more technically, how to letter a comic.  The advancements in our efforts to master the craft are obvious when comparing Maskers to The Blind Eye. 

Caesar Garcia's The Bridge

Caesar is gracious enough to allow us to post his previous Zuda entry, The Bridge, on our website as well, and it’s pretty clear he was EONS beyond us in terms of pacing, composition and overall craft when he submitted his first comic to Zuda.  Check it out, also in our Library!  One of the really cool (and fun) things that came out of our collaboration was combining our very distinct sets of skills and experience to create the work that we turned in to Zuda Thursday a week ago.  That project has NOTHING in common with either of those posted for your enjoyment today, but I always think it’s important to display work for public consumption even if it’s not being continued, whatever the reason. 

We’ll keep you updated on http://blindeyecomic.com as well as the Zuda message boards and our social networking apparatus as we do (or don’t) hear something on this latest Zuda effort.  In the meantime, The Blind Eye continues twice-weekly updates and will continue to do so on an ongoing basis, no matter what other projects we have going.  Rest assured of that. 

Look for another blog in the next few days on our other BIG project, ClownTown for Small Press Idol 2010!  Our character bios and designs will be up for voting there THIS WEEK and we need your vote to move on in the competition!  You will not believe the work Amanda and Caesar have done on these characters!  Watch for it! 

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