Liam
06-27-2007, 10:33 AM
My name is Liam Gray and I’m new to the boards, I met Alex at a convention in Australia a while back and was stoked to discover he worked on CW: Confessions. The book had really moved me and when I read it a lot of the impact came from the visuals, I instantly knew that whoever illustrated this book had a lot of talent, when I was given the chance to speak with Alex I couldn’t turn it down.
I spoke to him the next day when he was in the stall and I figured out this was a really cool guy. He was easy going, fun to talk to and knew what he was talking about (thats rare) I was really glad to have been able to speak with him.
That’s the story of why I’m here today.
For the last few months of my life I have been working hard to realize my dreams and become a comic writer. It is my dream and life goal to one day work in Marvel and I’m willing to do anything to make that happen.
I remember when I spoke to Alex he told me that there was no point in going to the school I had planned to and that my real chances lied in having already existing work that Marvel could reference. I really took that in and kept down the same path I had been, taking pointers from my hero John Mark DeMatteis and doing my best to improve on my natural talent.
It’s not always easy doing it on your own and at times I wasn’t sure if JMD was being vague with his impute because I sucked or because he wasn’t interested.. or if he was just too busy?
But I continued on taking little pieces of what he gave me and I surprisingly improved dramatically. Each day I could see myself getting better and I realized that the reason JMD was teaching me the way he was, wasn’t because he wasn’t interested or didn’t want to hurt my feelings it was because he "saw a natural talent” in me and wanted me to develop that on my own – so that’s what I’ve been doing.
That brings us up to date, or well just about...
About a week ago I was watching a huge number of martial arts movies to help improve my cartography abilities for my storytelling when I was reminded of Alex’s words again; they stuck me out of the blue and stopped to think.
I thought to myself, how can I get my own work, creating a super-hero style comic book that isn’t blatantly a copy of other major labels. It's hard because all the good idea’s have been taken. I wasn’t about to give up though, this would be my ultimate challenge!
I wanted to create not just impressive characters with flashy powers but people that you could relate too. I had to create a world, a world where these super powered people could exist, could interact and do it in a way that would hold true to the paradigm while still standing on its own two feet.
It took me a few sleepless nights and a lot of scrap paper but I eventually came up with my idea and Indestructible Comics was born.
I wanted to start by keeping everything in harmony, the main characters in the book I would called Fall Back Down would be normal people. The kind of people that have lives and strong motivations for their actions – but more importantly they would also be the only people with “super-powers” on the planet.
I won’t get into all the details, but I started putting together character profiles, writing scripts, short demo scripts (a skill I am still mastering) and started pitching the idea to friends and people who weren’t involved in “the scene” to gauge their reactions.
I had to come up with an idea and style of super-character that people could relate to, that would intrigue and ultimately interest them.
It was looking great; everything was planned out, organized and done… well almost everything. I was still missing 1 thing, and it was an important thing; I needed visuals. I sat around at the radio station all night last night doing the programming and thinking about how this was going to work.
I needed “human” characters, people that weren’t super-buff bravado spewing super-guys that would still slip into that style. The main characters have a lot of unspoken history between them and I need an artist that could capture their silent strength, or self doubt. I realized quickly that Alex was the man for the job.
I e-mailed him today enquiring about his availability and it is my hope he will help me bring to life these characters. It will be the first step down the road to the rest of my life, my first real book and I just hope I will have the money to cover his prices.
If any one is interested in knowing more about this concept or why I chose Alex as the artist of my choice for this job, I’d be more then willing to answer any questions.
Thank you for your time everyone.
I spoke to him the next day when he was in the stall and I figured out this was a really cool guy. He was easy going, fun to talk to and knew what he was talking about (thats rare) I was really glad to have been able to speak with him.
That’s the story of why I’m here today.
For the last few months of my life I have been working hard to realize my dreams and become a comic writer. It is my dream and life goal to one day work in Marvel and I’m willing to do anything to make that happen.
I remember when I spoke to Alex he told me that there was no point in going to the school I had planned to and that my real chances lied in having already existing work that Marvel could reference. I really took that in and kept down the same path I had been, taking pointers from my hero John Mark DeMatteis and doing my best to improve on my natural talent.
It’s not always easy doing it on your own and at times I wasn’t sure if JMD was being vague with his impute because I sucked or because he wasn’t interested.. or if he was just too busy?
But I continued on taking little pieces of what he gave me and I surprisingly improved dramatically. Each day I could see myself getting better and I realized that the reason JMD was teaching me the way he was, wasn’t because he wasn’t interested or didn’t want to hurt my feelings it was because he "saw a natural talent” in me and wanted me to develop that on my own – so that’s what I’ve been doing.
That brings us up to date, or well just about...
About a week ago I was watching a huge number of martial arts movies to help improve my cartography abilities for my storytelling when I was reminded of Alex’s words again; they stuck me out of the blue and stopped to think.
I thought to myself, how can I get my own work, creating a super-hero style comic book that isn’t blatantly a copy of other major labels. It's hard because all the good idea’s have been taken. I wasn’t about to give up though, this would be my ultimate challenge!
I wanted to create not just impressive characters with flashy powers but people that you could relate too. I had to create a world, a world where these super powered people could exist, could interact and do it in a way that would hold true to the paradigm while still standing on its own two feet.
It took me a few sleepless nights and a lot of scrap paper but I eventually came up with my idea and Indestructible Comics was born.
I wanted to start by keeping everything in harmony, the main characters in the book I would called Fall Back Down would be normal people. The kind of people that have lives and strong motivations for their actions – but more importantly they would also be the only people with “super-powers” on the planet.
I won’t get into all the details, but I started putting together character profiles, writing scripts, short demo scripts (a skill I am still mastering) and started pitching the idea to friends and people who weren’t involved in “the scene” to gauge their reactions.
I had to come up with an idea and style of super-character that people could relate to, that would intrigue and ultimately interest them.
It was looking great; everything was planned out, organized and done… well almost everything. I was still missing 1 thing, and it was an important thing; I needed visuals. I sat around at the radio station all night last night doing the programming and thinking about how this was going to work.
I needed “human” characters, people that weren’t super-buff bravado spewing super-guys that would still slip into that style. The main characters have a lot of unspoken history between them and I need an artist that could capture their silent strength, or self doubt. I realized quickly that Alex was the man for the job.
I e-mailed him today enquiring about his availability and it is my hope he will help me bring to life these characters. It will be the first step down the road to the rest of my life, my first real book and I just hope I will have the money to cover his prices.
If any one is interested in knowing more about this concept or why I chose Alex as the artist of my choice for this job, I’d be more then willing to answer any questions.
Thank you for your time everyone.