The Spirit of Fire. This is the second pinup drawn by fan-favorite artist Gerald Parel for my Dynamite Comics series Intertwined (always with Fred Pham Chuong and Veronica Lopez).Which led me to think about a few things (as always)…
This piece of art came as a complete surprise, as Gerald only committed himself to draw one character of his choice. But he loved the designs and the series so much he had to play a little more with them. When so many wonderful creators contribute to your own little comic book project as did the artists we managed to get, it says a lot about what drive comic book people: passion.
Gerald, Olivier, Nick, Roland, Danica and others… They all chose to become artists for the love of art. For the love of the medium. These days, creating comics has become an easy and an increasingly hard thing to do. Because so many other people create wonderful comics everyday. Because the quality of the competition is incredible. Because the market has no soft spots for the underdogs. It’s a rough and tough business.
And all creators will tell you this. We enter the arena with everything we’ve got. We’re not sure we’re going to touch people. We’re not sure we’re going to be relevant. We’re not sure our voice is going to be heard. We’re not sure of anything!
I remember when I launched One-Hit Wonder at Image Comics two years ago. Two years. It seems like an eternity in comics. The landscape has changed so much. Marvel and DC are putting out more comics each month. Dark Horses still had Star Wars. Aftershock didn’t exist. IDW only dreamt about bringing back Rom SpaceKnight, Black Mask Comics was looking for their big breakout hit. And so on. It felt easier to launch a book back then.
I had a secret weapon: Ariel Olivetti. The superstar artist has pencilled the first two issues of my series and did all the designs. When I signed with Image, they wanted Ariel. I gave them Ariel.
For Intertwined, I didn’t have an “Ariel”. I have Fred. His talent is incredible. He needs to shine. We had a successful Kickstarter campaign. One we only owe to ourselves. After One-Hit Wonder, I didn’t publish another book because all my energy was sucked up by my relocation to the US. Intertwined feels like a new beginning. And that book can make a difference.
Nobody asked for it. Nobody wanted it. But it’s there. Dynamite Comics believes in it. Fred, Veronica and myself believe in it. And the Kickstarter backers trusted us too.
Now we’re about to enter the arena with that in mind. We’re ready to rumble. To set our world on fire. We’re giving new heroes to a world that has a lot and never asked for ours. But it’s worth betting on Intertwined. The book IS our secret weapon.
Behind the Kung Fu story, there’s a human story. There’s a tale about diversity. A tell about differences. About consequences for our actions. About life.
On October 5th, Intertwined will be out. We’ll share it with the world. And nothing will ever be the same*!
To be continued
*Sounds dramatic? Yeah… Well, what were you expecting, I’m a writer! ^^