My First Comic Book Story: Checkmate for KILLER QUEEN

It’s here, it’s here, it’s finally here. You may recall some time back that I announced my authoring of a story, “Checkmate”, for the KILLER QUEEN Anthology from Red Stylo Media based on the discography of Queen. The song I chose to base my story on was “White Queen (As it Began)” off of the Queen II album from 1974. Orignally, I’d planned for a Sergio Leone style western, but after a few email exchanges with my editor, Enrica Jang, I made the decision to transfer this tale of revenge to the noir genre and I am so pleased with the result!

Here’s the description for “Checkmate”:

Taylor is a hardened detective with blood on his hands. He tries to be a good cop, but he’s forever haunted by the one case he failed to protect those in most need of his help. When a beautiful killer resurfaces, ready to settle old scores, Taylor is reminded that right and wrong can’t always be black and white!

 

Intrigued? Maybe a preview of the art by Bobby Breed with lettering done by Mark Mullaney is in order as well?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There we go. That should seal the deal! Well, if you feel so inclined, you can purchase the individual story here or you can pre-order the full KILLER QUEEN Anthology when it goes to print in October. Do yourself a favor and bring a little Queen into your life. It’ll do ya good! And if you’re so kind as to purchase my story, any feedback is most appreciated.

 

Killer Queen Update: I Haz An Artist!

Yes, it’s been a while since I’ve updated the blog. Emerald City Comicon and life in general tend to get in the way of regular writing from time to time, but I plan on making up for that in the future.

So, to tide you over, I thought I’d share the identity of the artist I’ll be working with on my story, “Checkmate” for the Killer Queen Anthology.

And the artist is…Bobby Breed!

You can find his work over at deviantART, which might give you some more hinst as to how my story, based on the song “White Queen (As it Began)”, might look.

This Announcement is a Killer! A Killer Queen, That Is

I told you I’d have an announcement to make soon and here it is. I will be contributing my first professional comic book story to the Killer Queen Comic Anthology for Red Stylo Media!

Here’s the official synopsis:

KILLER QUEEN is a collection of comic art and stories inspired by the discography of one of the greatest bands in the pantheon of Rock-n-royalty, QUEEN! This year, the artists and writers were challenged to turn their stereos up and take inspiration from Queen’s prodigious, diverse catalog of music. All the art and stories are original works inspired by a theme or premise in a Queen song, sometimes by the band itself.

Killer Queen is the latest anthology series from Red Stylo Media, following previous anthologies like Poe Twisted, Shakespeare Shaken, and Unfashioned Creatures (an anthology inspired by Frankenstein). In addition, Red Stylo also publishes a number of other graphic novels and comics like ORPHANS, City of Walls, TORCHBEARER, and Azteca.

I’m thrilled to be participating in such an awesome premise that got me to dive headfirst into the deep cuts of Queen’s discography. The first draft has already been written and sent off, so I’ll be editing soon enough, I suspect. As for what the story is about? Well…how about I give you the song it was inspired by for now?

I’ll be providing updates when I can, but I really wanted to let everyone know because this will be fulfilling one of those bucket list things by getting a foot in the door of the comic book industry as a writer.

Killer Queen will begin to roll out stories digitally in September with the book edition following in October. You can also keep up-to-date on the project by following @red_stylo, checking out their Facebook page, or the Killer Queen Facebook page as well. You can also follow me on twitter, where you’re more likely to get more frequent updates.

Once again, I’m over the moon about contributing to this anthology and I can say from now on that Queen is what made me a comic book writer. How is that not awesome?