It was a December to Dismember for me. The final, bloody issue of my Resident Evil series finally hit shelves, as did the spine tingling finalé of Telara Chronicles.
I actually started working on the Resident Evil book back in September of 2008, if you can believe it. First issue was released in March 2009 with art by Kevin Sharpe, who I really enjoyed working with. Starting with Issue 3, where the lives of the two main characters Holiday Sugarman and Mina Gere finally converged, Jheremy Raapack took over the artistic duties. I also really enjoyed working with him. The switch in art style took the book in a very different direction, but it kind of worked because the story moved from a sterile space station (Mina) and an Afghanistan like desert canyon (Holiday) to the steamy jungles of South America where zombies are running riot. Changing the artist reinforced the change in locales and the increasingly dire situation our heroes found themselves in. Now, more than two years later, the final issue is out. Going back and reading the whole series is almost like reading someone else’s work.
Telara Chronicles was a very different experience. Instead of waiting, waiting, waiting, it was HURRY! HURRY! HURRY! Especially for story artist Pop Mhan, who I ABSOLUTELY LOVED collaborating with and is working on Ender’s Game now. The Zero issue for SDCC ’10 was on an amazingly short time table. And once we moved from the Zero issue to the mini-series, things didn’t let up. We (art, edit, color, letters) were literally getting things in at the last possible minute. But I have to hand it to the folks over at Wildstorm, they know their stuff and can work a deadline. My editor over there, Jim Chadwick, is a peach. Hard working dude who made every step of the process as easy as it possibly could be. Of course, I can’t talk about Telara Chronicles without mentioning my dear friend Joel Gomez, who did the back up stories. We have been trying to find a project to work together on for evar! Finally did and he really did an awesome job.
The trade edition of Telara Chronicles will be out soon as well, bundling all 5 issues (Zero through 4) into a single book. Looking forward to that. But the edition I am most looking forward to will be included in the RIFT Collector’s Edition game box. It is a hardback that also includes all five issues. But it’s a hardback. Come on. You know that’s kinda cool.
So 2010 was a good year for me and comic books. Resident Evil. Telara Chronicles. And I also did a three part story for Square-Enix’ Nier game. I’m hoping 2011 will be even better.