Hello, all. I’ve decided to make the move to a new website. So please now point your web browsers and bookmarks to www.writejessewrite.com
The site makes it easier to view the comics and their pages, I’ll still have my blog on there, but it will no longer be updated on the wordpress site.
So come by and check out the new digs!
jesse
If you’re an avid follower of the blog (and let’s be honest, how could you not be?) you might remember last year I posted a script to a short I wrote for a writing contest where I put a Marvel/DC spin on the classic take of “Casey at the Bat”. It’s always been a fun project in the back of my head that I was searching for an artist to bring to life.
After a long search I came across an artist named Ha Huy Hoang aka “Spendid River”. He is from Vietnam, but currently studying animation at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. His style was perfect for how I envisioned this to look and he was very excited about the idea. We’ve been slowly working on this the last few months in between his school schedule, but it is finally finished. It was a lot of fun working on this with him and we had such a great time that we are starting the process of putting together a creator owned pitch, which is very exciting.
Next we brought the amazingly talented Thomas Mauer on board to do the lettering. Thomas did the letters for the Amulet of Isanove pitch and it was an easy decision to bring him back for another project.
So that about sums it up. This has been a fun little project I’ve been slowly working on for a few years and was just something I thought would be fun to put out there.
Obviously this is not endorsed by Marvel or DC (please don’t sue me).
So take a look and please let us know what you think. If you like it I’d appreciate you passing the link on, I’d love to get as many people to see this as possible. If you don’t like it, then you obviously have bad taste and pass the link on to someone anyways, because they will more than likely appreciate what you couldn’t. Ha! Just kidding.
Hit me up on twitter @writejessewrite or send an email: writejessewrite at gmail dot com. Please visit the blogs of the other talented people involved (see links above) and check out their projects.
Have a great day!
-jesse
Here is the 2nd script I finished this last week. For those who don’t me when it comes to comics I’m am largely a creator owned guy. I read an occasional Marvel/DC book but for the most part they don’t do it for me. I also think I am one of the few people trying to break into comics who has no real desire to write for the Big 2. Not to say I wouldn’t if it was the right opportunity or story, but that’s just not a major goal of mine. I’m more interested in telling my own stories. Right now doing a story with established characters makes sense to me if I can show them doing something different. That was the basis for a writing contest a few years back which led to my “Casey at the Bat” spin I posted last year.
The other morning when I was brushing my teeth I had an idea for what is essentially the punchline of a joke or running gag involving Spiderman. He has always been my favorite character since I was a kid so I guess it makes sense. I didn’t know if was actually funny, funny just to me, or just really stupid. So I ran the idea by a friend and he enjoyed it so I thought, why not write it down.
I am happy with the way both shorts turned out and I hope you get a kick out of reading them. It is a fun exercise to try to tell a complete story in 5 or 6 pages. I really wanted Spidey to be 5 pages but as I was writing I found that I really needed that extra page. I think in this case it helps make the story stronger.
Enjoy!
-jesse
I’ve been trying to make an effort to get back into doing things of a creative nature despite how crazy the day job, life and family have been lately. I was reading some tweets from Cullen Bunn the other day about he broke into comics and they got me motivated to write, so I’ve been working on some short scripts more for fun and practice than anything else. Although I’d love to find an artist to bring these to life to add to my portfolio. In the meantime I though I’d post the scripts here in case anyone is interested in reading them. If any artists are interested in working on these, shoot me an email and we can talk.
The first script is a Western called “Forbidden Love”
Enjoy.
-jesse
Hey Everyone
So the blog has been a little light lately. The day job has been exhausting and I’ve been putting in long hours which gets in the way of anything creative. Also a few weeks ago I moved into a new house, so what free time I had was going into moving, painting, unpacking, blah blah. Again all things that took away time from being creative.
I’ve also suffered the age old writer problem of artists who get too busy to work on creator owned works. I was in the process of developing some projects with a few artists but their schedules have become too busy at the moment for them to focus on creator owned work. I am hoping we can still work on these down the road but for the time being, they are on hold.
One of my side projects, my Marvel/DC take on “Casey at the Bat” is back on track. The 5 pages have been inked and now just waiting on colors. Once it’s completed I look forward to sharing the pages here.
So that’s about it for now. Talk to you all soon.
-jesse
Hey Everyone
I haven’t updated the page in a bit. Things have gotten hectic with the day job and life has just gotten in the way of the fun, creative stuff. But things are moving along, slowly.
Still waiting on word to hear if the Amulet of Isanove has been picked up from anywhere. The publisher I really want to publish this book is still reviewing it, so hopefully that is a good sign. In the meantime I’ve been slowly working on 3 other projects including working on a pitch with the cover artist for Amulet, Greig Rapson. He and I have a kernel of an idea and have slowly been developing it, although both of our schedules have been hectic lately. However he did send me some rough character sketches and they are all kinds of awesome, so I am hoping we can work on it more soon.
Found an artist to hopefully work on a story of mine called “Rosewood” that I started last year and am also developing a new story with a fantastic artist named Jez Tuya.
So things are in the works and I am slowly moving forward, the past month or so has been a bit more hectic than usual, but I am hoping to get back to it soon. Taking my first vacation in 5 years in the middle of June to see my wife’s sister and our niece in California. We are taking her and my daughter to Disney for the first time and I am really excited. Hopefully the break will recharge my batteries a bit.
I hope everyone is doing well.
-jesse
This post is a bit overdue, but I am back from Seattle and had a great time at the Emerald City Comic Con. I was able to pitch the book to quite a few publishers and they seemed receptive. I also showed the book around with a lot of other creators I respect who were at the con like Steve Niles, Mitch Gerads, Jason Howard, Kurtis Wiebe, Jim Zub and a ton more. Everyone had really nice things to say about the book, which is great news. If they felt I had put together a professional looking package, that gives me hope a publisher will feel the same way.
Now comes the hard part: WAITING!
It totally sucks, but it’s part of the gig. In fact the publisher I want more than anything in the world to publish this book, IS LOOKING AT IT RIGHT NOW! It’s so very exciting and terrifying at the same time. Just waiting for the email that says yes or no.
In the meantime I’ve also sent the book off to book agents, trying to get representation so they can pitch to book publishers if comic companies pass. So we’ll see what happens. Trying to cast a wide net, so we catch something. I really want to see this book come to life.
So all in all, ECCC was a fantastic time. Met a lot of really great people and got to spend the weekend with my dad which was great. He came out, went to his first comic convention and didn’t hate it. Then we spent an extra day in Seattle seeing the town and got lucky enough that one of my favorite singer/songwriters was in town so we caught the show. It was a great weekend and hopefully I can go again next year, this time as publisher author.
-jesse
ECCC HERE WE COME!!!!
So excited to finally be able to say, the pitch is complete. The final files will be uploaded to the printer today and this bad boy is ready to shop at Emerald City Comic Con NEXT WEEKEND! The pitch has turned out great. Hannah’s pages are so incredible, every time I see them I am in complete awe. She really brought a life to these characters I couldn’t have imagined. Thomas’s letters and design are great. If anyone out there thinks that lettering isn’t important to a book, you could not be more wrong. Proper lettering is so vital to a book and Thomas has done a knockout job with this pitch. And Greig came on last minute and did a killer cover and even a design of the amulet to use in the pitch book. The whole team has been amazing! It’s been so much fun putting this together.
I am so excited to share this with people and also very nervous. Everyone has worked so hard on this, I really hope someone at ECCC takes notice. We’d really love the chance to tell the rest of this story. I’ll do an update from the con after next weekend and see if I have any good news to share. For now, check out the awesome cover below as well as our logline:
The Kingdom of Roan is at war. Both sides vie desperately to awaken the last dragon to fight for them, a lost relic whose ancestors were living weapons of mass destruction long uninterested in human affairs. Whoever controls the dragon will win the war, and the secret to bringing it over lies with two ordinary teenagers who have no idea how important they’ve just become.
One of the comics I’ve been most anticipating is SAGA from Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples. Brian is responsible for my current obsession with comics. I first picked up Pride of Baghdad a couple of years ago and was so blown away I had to read everything he wrote. So I tracked down Y: The Last Man, which lead me to Ex Machina, which lead me to The Walking Dead and Scalped and so on and so on until I had turned into a full blown comics fan, something I had never been my entire life.
Fiona has been one of my favorite artists recently. Her work on North 40, Mystery Society and others has just floored me. Her art is unreal and the thought of her teaming up with BKV, it was a dream come true.
I downloaded it on my iPad today because I don’t know when I’ll actually get into a shop to pick up my copy and I just couldn’t wait anymore. Let me tell you it was fantastic. Great story, art was amazing and I’m excited to see where this goes. Also it was about 44 pages and only cost $2.99. That’s a pretty amazing price and kudos to Image for making that happen. There is another new book from Oni Press I wanted to try, but they are asking $3.99 for 24 pages. Just another thing that makes SAGA so special. If you somehow missed it, I highly suggest picking up a copy. Can’t wait for more!
-jesse
Yesterday was Creator Owned Day across the web and tons of people got involved on Twitter, trying to raise awareness to Creator Owned Books. Since I basically only read creator owned books, I feel like EVERYDAY is creator owned day, but it’s awesome seeing people make a push for it. I think we need to see more creator owned books getting made and less of a reliance on the Big 2. I do think there are some great books out there right now from the Big 2 (Synder’s new Batman run is pretty great) but I would just love to see books like Green Wake or Mystery Society sell as many copies as Animal Man or one of the 100 Wolverine books on the shelf. The sad fact is most creator owned books don’t sell well, which is why most don’t continue. If it hadn’t been for a creator owned book called Pride of Baghdad, I never would have gotten into comics. And if it hadn’t been for creator owned books like Y: The Last Man, The Walking Dead, Scalped and DMZ, I probably wouldn’t have stayed reading comics. It’s only been recently that I’ve started to branch out and read some of the Big 2 stuff and the new DC 52 is great because of the few books I’ve tried, I don’t feel so overwhelmed not knowing years upon years of back stories and major events.
But for me, creator owned books is where it’s at. I think they are telling some of the most interesting stories out there and I think if people knew that comics was more than superheroes, they might be more willing to give them a try.
So yesterday on Creator Owned Day I did not read a Creator Owned Book, instead I spent my time last night working on CREATING my own book. As you well know, Hannah and I are working on a new pitch which we are hoping to have ready to pitch for either Emerald City or c2e2 in a few weeks. Last night I sat down and plotted out EVERY page for ALL SEVEN ISSUES we are hoping to get the chance to tell. This way if the book gets picked up, it will make the writing process that much easier, because I have a detailed outline of what should happen on every page. Not to say things won’t change, but this just really helps me out a ton when it comes to scripting.
So you can check out the pic below and keep it locked here. I will be sharing more from the pitch as it gets finished. Hoping to see cover roughs from Greig tonight. Very exciting stuff.
jesse
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