Prairie Hounds

Behind on work, so just quickly putting an old piece online and running off again this week.

Today's fear-inducing figment of my imagination is... Prairie Hounds, short horror story set in the Wild West. One of two stories, along with The Abandonment of Point Hope, originally written for a contest to be published in Arcana Studio's Sundown, Arizona.

Meghan's Madness.

So, for this week's presentation, I was planning on reworking the pitch for Meghan's Madness, my SPI project with Alejandro Aragón.

Sadly, just this week Ale has had to leave the project in favor of actual paying comic work. I wish hiom the best, but that does mean I can no longer participate in the rest of the competition, and I haven't been feeling very inclined to rewrite the pitch. Guess you'll just have to make do with the original, previously presented on the official SPI website:



Written by Niels van Eekelen
Drawn by Alejandro Aragón

Meghan and Clarissa have been best friends for almost as long as Meghan can remember. And for as long as Meghan can remember, there has just been one little problem. No one but Meghan has ever seen Clarissa, or heard her speak.

Clarissa knows things Meghan doesn’t, and she sees things that Meghan couldn’t possibly see—so clearly, she can’t just be an imaginary friend or a psychotic hallucination, right? Right?

But the thing is, Clarissa has always asked Meghan to do things, and Meghan has always done them. They used to be little things, pranks that harmed no one. Then they began to escalate, and now people are getting hurt. There’s a reason for everything she asks Meghan to do, Clarissa says.

Meghan is getting scared. Of what Clarissa will ask next. Of being caught, and being locked up again. Most of all, she is scared for her own sanity. But she just... can’t... stop.

Here, have some character designs and an alternate cover layout too:

Updates & Please (be ready to) vote for Meghan's Madness!

I really should update this thing more regularly. Mind you, the occasional blog update here is still a gargantuan improvement over any previous site I've had, but I want there to be a steady flow of at least some kind of content, so that you loyal readers who come by here so faithfully (you know who you are (me)) are rewarded.

There's plenty of ranty columns I could write, some prose serials I'm considering and a bunch of old work that might not be too horrible to let people see. The problem, of course, is time. Not that my translation work and making sure Meghan's Madness keeps on track to SPI-winning victory is really taking up all my time--but the rest of it keeps being stolen by the Great Procrastinator. Really nasty demon, that. That's a really bad curse for a freelancer to have, of course, and I am consulting many witchdoctors to try and find a way to get rid of it. Or, y'know, I will, when I get around to it.

So I'm not guaranteeing service, but I'm going to do my best to have something new to show for you most weeks. This post notwithstanding, most updates will come on Wednesdays, keeping up with the tradition of New Comics Day.

Hm... I've been wanting to do an expanded version of the Meghan's Madness pitch--if I manage to make it good, I'll post it here as well as on the official Small Press Idol thread.

Round 2 voting for SPI will be done by the public, and should open up around the end of the month. Needless to say, there will be linking here, and positively anyone's support will be greatly appreciated!