October O'Neill - Finished Colours

I don't know what I'd do without Brian Haberlin's digital art tutorials. Half the techniques I used on this piece were from a CD I bought between starting and finishing it.

Introducing October O'Neill

Among the myriad other things that happened at the Toronto Comicon two weeks back, I managed to talk MR Comics publisher Steve Ballantyne (and, I think, myself) into letting me write and illustrate a new horror title.

October O'Neill: Everyday Is Halloween will be a self-contained one-shot "pilot". We're following a TV model here; if we like the response, we'll go ahead and make it a regular series. Steve was confident enough in the sales of horror comics in general to greenlight this with an untried illustrator (as opposed to sales on crime comics, which is why I'm doing October first instead of The Vengeance Machine), but once I showed him an illustration of October in action he was completely behind me.
I've been trying out some concepts to decide the look and tone of the book while writing the script. This is a work-in-progress of an image that occured to me while I was writing. It'll wind up as a pinup or something in the final book. Attila's agreed to do the cover and and illustrate a backup story, and Ty Templeton's editing.

Technology is my friend

According to my webstats, somebody from Paramount Pictures navigated directly to the Night page on this site about three hours ago.

You guys at Paramount reading this? You are always welcome to drop me a line.

All Day BREAKFAST

Looks like the Kiwis have pulled the trigger on their option on my screenplay Hell For Breakfast, with literally days to spare before the rights reverted to me. I'm a little sad to see it go, but I'm not going to cry over a script I wrote a decade ago. I've got more irons than fires as it is right now. I guess I'm still in a state of shock that someone actually intends to make it.

At least this means that the calls I've been getting every six months for the past four years inquiring as to its availability will finally cease.

Keeping Up Appearances - Toronto Comicon 2007

I'll be at the 2007 Toronto Comicon this weekend, June 8-10, at the Direct Energy Center. Come say hi at either the MR Comics booth or my own table, AA15, (see map) next to the extraordinary Attila Adorjany and right behind After The Cape scribe Howard Wong. Hope to see you there.

- j!