Hey Errybody! Today’s a HUGE release day for the League of Reluctant Adults (and friends).

Richelle Mead, Dakota Cassidy, and Juliet Blackwell ALL have new releases that YOU MUST BUY NOW. NOW I TELL YOU.

Go to web sites, peruse, and then GO BUY. I can’t wait to read Richelle and Juliet’s latest, and Dakota’s coming out with something totally new with her first Contemporary Romance. Imagine how funny she is with the supernatural? Now take all that snark and apply it to the idea of an ex-trophy wife? Seriously? Wear diapers, people. You have been warned.

As an added layer of pimpage, the lovely Mario Acevedo has graced my blog with a guest post. Yay! For his graphic novels are coming out today, too! FUN!

Say hello to Mario!

Mario’s Guest Post

I’ll admit, I got lucky. A lot of us fantasy writers dream of getting our stories picked up as a comic book or graphic novel. Well, it happened to me.

Last year, I was contacted by IDW Publishing. They had read my urban fantasy novels and asked if I would like to have a comic book treatment of my detective-vampire Felix Gomez. Would I?

The interesting part was IDW didn’t want an adaptation of an existing story but a spin-off with an all-new tale. In fact, they even picked out a line from my first novel, The Nymphos of Rocky Flats, and suggested we build a story around that.

This is an excerpt describing Felix’s first assignment between the time he became a vampire and then arrived at Rocky Flats.

“Besides the Blanford case, there was another assignment that told me you were the man for this. The Han Cobras.”

Chinese heroin smugglers. Ruthless. Invincible. Killed three Federal Drug Enforcement agents, not to mention dozens of foreign cops. Invincible. Except against a vampire.

The next step was pulling my literary agent into the conversation and hammering out a contract. In the meantime, the publisher offered the portfolios of several artists for the panel and cover art. As an artist myself, I thought it was presumptuous of me to pass judgment on artists with professional credential far better than mine. The publisher made it easy, and the two artists he suggested– Alberto Dose for the panels and Pinturero for the covers–were perfect.

Here’s another sample, Elf Embryo, that demonstrates Pinturero’s freaky awesomeness:

I was contracted to write the scripts for four comics and since the concept was mine, to provide guidance to the project. IDW provided sample scripts and comics for reference. Additionally, I had to turn in an author’s bio, promotional copy, and a detailed synopsis of both the overall story and each comic book story. My editor did a thorough job picking through the synopsis and offered suggestions to improve the story. Comic scripts are different from screenplays in that the artists want a lot of detailed descriptions and you can include interior dialog (“thoughts” which are shunned in screenplays). The script can be as long as you feel necessary but you’re limited (in most cases) to twenty-one comic pages to tell your story. The most fun was writing classic lines such as:

BLAM! Ka-POW! BOOM!

Another difference from my previous writing experience was how collaborative the process was working with a comic book publisher versus a traditional book publisher. With traditional book publishers, sometimes it seems that even as the author, I’m out of the loop in a lot of what happens with my novels. That wasn’t the case with IDW as they were constantly cluing me in. They would submit pencil drafts of work-in-progress for my comments. (Which were minor. Alberto Dose in particular has been doing comic books for a long time, and I respected his interpretation of my script.) Another difference was the brisk production schedule. In traditional publishing, you can expect a year–or longer–from the time you submit a manuscript and publication. IDW wanted the first comic on the street in less than six months after I’d turned in the script. And another big difference between comic books and novels publishers, IDW asked for cover ideas and actually ran with my ideas!

For example, for the cover of issue #2, I suggested that the artist incorporate a crow (used by vampires as messengers), Hei Men Dao (a rogue vampire shaman), Qian Ning (the love interest), and separately, Felix involved in a shoot-out.

Here’s the first draft.

We kicked the concept around and Pinturero came back with:

Closer but Felix wasn’t there yet.
On the third try, Pinturero nailed it. Awesome. My favorite. Felix at his bad-ass best.

Here is a sample of panel art in pencil form.

Alberto Dose was also contracted to provide alternative covers for all four issues. Here’s his take on issue #2.

And what’s the point of having vampires and ruthless gangsters if you can’t include a little kinkiness like topless bondage gear and ball gags?

The four issues of the comic book have been bundled into the graphic novel, Killing the Cobra: Chinatown Trollop, and is out December 7. The embossed cover is amazing!

On sale at your local comic book store, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.

Thanks Nicole. Give my regards to Jane True.

Happy fanging!

Mario Acevedo
http://www.marioacevedo.com
http://www.biting-edge.blogspot.com

Will do, Mario! now all y’all, get to shoppin’! 😉