In the sword and sorcery nightmare, the mages won, Jason is a prisoner, and his love’s life hangs in the gulf between what the magi demand and what Jason can give.
In the sci-fi nightmare, fish aliens and talking cats are drowning the world. Jason Byron and his love are scheming for a way to escape the planet before they are pulled under the waves.
In Our Dreams Awake is the story of both nightmares spinning out of control. What horrible dream is Jason trying to wake up to?
***
In Our Dreams Awake comes from co-creators John McGuire and Egg Embry. The third issue of this 4-issue mini-series features two dreams, the first illustrated by Edgar Salazar with the second by Rolands Kalniņš. With covers by Jose Garcia and Rolands Kalniņš, this is a comic written for fans of love stories, dreampunk, steampunk, and cyberpunk, this series promises an engaging mystery with amazing artwork. This story is about love and loss and asking the big questions:
Who am I?
Where do I belong?
Who do I love?
***
IN THE FANTASY DREAM, Jason and Laura must face the consequences of their defiance of the Magi laws. In the aftermath, Jason reaches out to his one-time friend to perform one more magical ritual for him.
IN THE CYBERPUNK FUTURE DREAM, Jason Byron finds himself in the hospital, as much a prisoner as a patient. But his final plan to escape the planet with his love is still in motion… if one of his enemies doesn’t finish him first.
Who can say what dreams may come? Each Jason Byron works for an unseen love. Their guiding light is making their worlds better for those who hold their hearts. But can these dreampunks make their dreams come true?
***
After two successful Kickstarters, we have been working hard to get this issue ready for public consumption. We hope you’ll join us on another great comic book adventure!
As the title says, I will be in Athens this weekend behind a table at FLUKE from 10am to 5pm (so basically all day). For those of you unfamilar with FLUKE (from wikipedia):
“FLUKE Mini-Comics & Zine Festival is an annual comic festival in Athens, Georgia, United States, focusing on alternative comics, minicomics, zines, underground comics, and graphic arts.”
A couple of year ago I was able to get a table and had a great table mate (which was random) and overall had a great time. They have moved to Live Wire Athens (after spending many years at the 40 Watt), so I’m interested in seeing how the set up and overall day goes. It is a convention that is really focused on staying small and providing an outlet for creatives of all sorts.
I will also have my printed out copy (from my home printer, not the official print of the comic) of You Must Be This Tall To Ride #1 for anyone who wants to see what the full comic looks like… though any spoilers are on you at that point!
So if you are in the area, swing by and hang out for a bit with me at FLUKE!
“You Must Be This Tall To Ride” is the story of a family who inherits a run down amusement park. What they don’t know is that each of the various lands: Cartoon World, Weird West, Space Pirates, etc. are actually portals to another place, another universe!
When a game of Hide n Seek results in the youngest getting lost, they are going to need to find a way to traverse worlds and get their brother back… all before Mom and Dad get home!
“You Must Be This Tall To Ride” is a Young Adult Comic Book for fans of the Old Dungeons and Dragons cartoon, The Goonies, The Never Ending Story, or any Kids of Bikes style stories.
This past weekend I had the pleasure of tabling at the Atlanta Science Fiction and Fantasy Expo. This convention is something very special within the Atlanta comic/gaming/nerd stuff scene. For me it has really signifiied the beginning of the convention season allowing me to shake off the cobwebs, show off the new comics I’ve been working on, and actually interact with real-life human beings!
When I was younger it always felt like these smaller conventions were little diamonds in the rough. The larger conventions are their own beasts where many times I’ve felt like I don’t want to spend too much time at any one table or booth. First there is so many things to potentially see, but the second is that you don’t want it to be a case where you cost someone another sale.
But with something like the ASFE, it is a more personal convention. As a creator, we’re all extremely happy when anyone comes up to our tables to look at our works and have a conversation – about anything, honestly. As I mentioned to one such gentleman, being able to chat with someone not only introduces me to new people (and potentially new fans) but also helps to make the time fly by. Plus, I was able to see and talk to some friends that I might not get to see but once or twice a year.
On top of all of that, I shared a table with Robert Jeffrey II which allowed us to catch up on our lives both on the writing side but also some of the personal side of things as well. You’d think after spending the better part of two days chatting we would have run out of things to talk about, but I feel like we really didn’t get into much on story side of things… that might fill another two days!
Finally, the biggest thing is that this is a convention that is FREE to the public. Given its location in Northlake Mall, it made it very easy for people to come in, walk the various areas of the con, and stop by as many tables as they would like. It being FREE is not only a great thing to get people to come in, but I’d like to think that if someone was looking for various activities around Atlanta… it might swing the pendelum to going to the ASFE!
***
A reminder that I am currently running a Kickstarter for my latest comic book: You Must Be This Tall To Ride #1.
“You Must Be This Tall To Ride” is the story of a family who inherits a run down amusement park. What they don’t know is that each of the various lands: Cartoon World, Weird West, Space Pirates, etc. are actually portals to another place, another universe!
When a game of Hide n Seek results in the youngest getting lost, they are going to need to find a way to traverse worlds and get their brother back… all before Mom and Dad get home!
“You Must Be This Tall To Ride” is a Young Adult Comic Book for fans of the Old Dungeons and Dragons cartoon, The Goonies, The Never Ending Story, or any Kids of Bikes style stories.
Last weekend was the Dice + Diversions Convention held in northwest Atlanta. Last year we gave it a shot and had a great time. Considering all the conventions I end up going to for Roleplaying purposes are these huge places with crazy attendance numbers, having a smaller 3-day con in your backyard is a great change of pace. In addition, this year the group won’t be attending Gen Con do to a bigger trip for my wife and I at the end of the year (gotta conserve those PTO days), this was a perfect opportunity to go play some games in a more intimate setting.
Daggerheart
We actually had played an earlier version of Daggerheart a couple of years ago at Gen Con. I remember enjoying the game well enough with its use of the Fear/Hope rolls where there is definitely an additional tension placed on the gameplay as the players begin gaining Hope points – which allow them to use some of their more powerful abilities and help their allies. On the other side is every roll can potentially give the GM a Fear point. These allow him to effectively introduce new complications into the story. However, the biggest place these normally come into play is during combat. Since there isn’t a specifc Initiative or Battle Order, the GM can spend a Fear point to have the Bad Guys jump the line and get an attack or two in on the characters.
This time around we got to play as teenagers who found themselve as new recruits in a joint school among the various powers of the world. Of course, our group were more Outsiders than not which meant that it was only a matter of time that we were going to find ourselves on the other side of some school bullying in the cafeteria. Which means that a food fight is bound to happen!
After navigating that, we got onto the adventure proper which involved traveling to another world/land and trying to find our way home without getting killed in the process!
One thing I did notice this time is with the number of Fear Points the GM has acquired by the end of the session, the combat can end up something like this:
Player A attacks
GM uses a Fear Point – Villain 1 attacks
GM uses a Fear Point – Villain 2 attacks
Player B attacks
GM uses a Fear Point…
While it ramps up the threat level, it can also very quickly lead to a situation where the PC group suddenly is only getting 1 attack vs. 2 or 3 attacks from the Bad Guys. I’d be interested in seeing how various tables handle it.
Cypher System
In some ways I feel like the Cypher System does its best to facilitate just enough to assist the GM in moving the narrative of the game along. Which allows it to be used in a number of settings and adventure styles. Our game had us a Deep Underwater Engineers and Marine Biologists involved in trying to figure out what lay at the bottom of the ocean (somewhere off the coast of New Zealand).
The nice thing about the adventure was that the first part was very mundane, which was nive because it gave us all a chance to get our feet underneath us in regards to not only the game system, but also our characters and how they were going to interact with each other.
However, that slower start led us straight into a more dangerous and horrific reality that not only were we not alone at the bottom of the ocean, something might be looking for way to ensure that we didn’t make it back to the surface… ever.
CBR+PNK
We ended the day with a good old fashion romp into a Cyberpunk Horror game of CBR+PNK! It was definitely my favorite game of the day as the GM really leaned into the gonzo aspects of the setting while allowing us to retain as much character agency as possible. This began with him giving us some choices on what exactly our mission was going to be. We chose a rescue mission.
And then we were in the mix, getting dropped onto the planet via a capsule screaming to the ground at terminal velocity! Then it was a quick cut into the moment where we had rescued our target but now were being chased by his captors. It was one cinematic moment after another where you didn’t know if your character was going to have a chance to catch their breath.
As the session continued, we all got to see that this game was going to potentially have some casulties. But that’s the thing with mercenaries, you go into each job hoping that it is going to be the LAST ONE, but then you get a limb blown off or your back broken, or you have to bribe way too many enemies to possibly have any coin when you get back home. So yeah, you survive… but now you just need One More Job…
While we were only there on Saturday, everyone we talked with/gamed with/interacted with all seemed to be having a great time, and I feel pretty confident that we’ll be back next year!
***
One friendly reminder that I have a new comic coming to Kickstarter in a couple of weeks: You Must Be This Tall To Ride (which you can see the Map of the Amusement Park at the beginning of this blog)! The Prelaunch Page is now LIVE (click on the banner below), so go and check it out, hit that “Notify” button to be sure and get your copy on Day 1!
When your family inherits an amusement park from a long-missing Uncle, it turns a potentially boring summer vacation into what could be the greatest summer of all time!
However, when a game of Hide and Seek finds their youngest cousin lost in a huge run down estate, it is suddenly up to the rest of the kids to find him before their parents get home.
But what do you do if there is more to this place than you could ever imagine?
What if the various worlds and rides are portals to something else?
What if they are doorways to other realms?
How far would you go for Family?
You Must Be This Tall To Ride comes from creator John McGuire. The first issue of this young adult comic features art by Ivan Rehzi. With covers by Ivan Rehzi and Amauri Morales, this is a comic written for fans of the Old Dungeons and Dragons cartoon, Stranger Things, The Goonies, The Never Ending Story, or any other kind of Kids on Bikes style stories then this is the story for you.
This week I approach another one of those birthday milestones: 50 Years Old. It’s not middle age… no, I’m now considered a Senior in some camps.
I’m not sure how I feel about that. However…
Ten years ago, I wrote a blog post entitled 40 Things You Might Not Know About Me on the Tessera website. In honor of this milestone, I decided that was a decent enough idea to do again. I actually started making notes about various ideas for this blog post several months ago (because trying to write a brand-new set of unknowns about myself is not a task to do the night before posting). Since these are a bit more than just a singular sentence or two, I’m thinking this will be a multi-part blog series throughout the year to get to the total number. And maybe a better description might be “Little stories of my life”, but that doesn’t roll off the tongue.
#1 – Talk to Me
I have no ability to extract myself from a conversation.
I revealed this to my parents on New Years Eve. They had no idea that this was a problem.
If YOU are willing to keep talking with me, then that’s what I’m going to do. I have missed Doctor’s appointments, been late to dinners, had my wife blowing up my phone (which I had stupidily left at my desk) because I don’t possess the innate ability to say “Yeah, that’s great. Look… I got to go.” You come to my front door, and I need to hide and not answer you, otherwise that’s like 30 minutes to the rest of my day suddenly gone.
I think I’m trying not to hurt someone else’s feelings. I figure if they are willing to share their thoughts with me, wouldn’t it be rude not to listen?
This year I’m trying to make an effort to speak up a little quicker (maybe only 15 minutes instead of 30!).
I am not good with tools. I’m not good with putting things together.
Actually, that’s not entirely fair. I’m decent to good with putting things together… until you get to that last 5-10%. That’s when things go off the rails.
We needed to replace seal at the base of the toilette near our entryway. I got out my trusty Home Depot book, grabbed the iPad to watch some how-to videos, and off I went. I’m not sure how long I spent in that tiny little room (if the book said 1 hour, it was probably 4+ hours), but in the end I had everything done… until I went to get the throne back into place.
It wouldn’t lock in.
No matter how hard I tried to do it, no matter how much I checked the book or the internet, it wouldn’t work. Finally, after hours of that, sweat coming off every pore in my body, more foul language used than anyone ever knew existed (I was channeling my grandfather for sure)… I called a plumber.
It took him less than 2 minutes to finish things. Literally. And his words were “You got it 90% there.”
#3 – Just Pay the Money Already
Part two of this was when my wife ordered a pantry closet for the garage.
Now, I’m a dumbass, but I should have jumped at the option to have it built by someone else for whatever the fee might have been. Instead, my cheap side kicked in and said “I can do it!”
I spent the better part of two weekends putting this mammoth piece of furniture together. It was one of those things where you have to put various smaller pieces together first, and then you combine all those into the final product. Everything was going great at first, but then we hit the part where I needed to line up some holes (it was predrilled), but they were in the wrong spot (should have been my first clue). Something didn’t add up. I looked over the plans, looked at the wood. What was going on?
So I created my own.
When the wood was ready to connect, I realized I’d flipped the piece. It was on the opposite side from where it should have been. Which meant I did a whole bunch of work that I then had to undo.
Sigh.
#4 – Getting Shown Up By an 80-Year Old
Part three of this happened this past year when my wife ordered a table and chairs for our deck. Of course, they had to be put together. I know by this point I’m hosed. Something is going to go wrong. I’m going to screw up some piece. But the kicker was when she read the reviews and this one said the following (paraphrased):
“I’m an 80-year-old woman and it only took me 25 minutes to put together one of the chairs.”
It felt like I was being attacked. If it took her 25 minutes, it would take me like 10 times as long!
The first one came together, and it was just under 45 minutes. We had 6 total to work through.
I’m proud to say, the last 3 only took about 15 minutes each. So suck it 80-year old!
#5 – I’m a big Miami Dolphins fan.
If you have met me at any point, I have likely worn worn more than a couple of their shirts over the years out in public. Which sometimes garners two questions:
Are you a real Miami Dolphins fan?
I want to respond to this by saying, “We haven’t won a playoff game in 25 plus years. We’ve only made the playoffs about 5 times during that stretch. At one point, we won one game in a season and I WATCHED EVERY GAME!
So what do you think?”
The other question is always “Oh, are you from Florida/Miami?”
Now this is a reasonable question. But my story isn’t as simple as, “Yes, I grew up in Florida. Or I’m from Miami.” Neither of which is true. The reason is that when I lived in South Georgia (Waycross), the AFC games we got on the TV was almost always Miami Dolphins games. Which made it very easy to root for them.
That’s the story I tell. It’s brief enough, but I think it conveys the “why” pretty well. That’s the reason why they continued to be “My Team”.
It isn’t the complete story.
The real reason I’m a Miami Dolphins fan is the very first football game I remember watching was the 1982 AFC Championship Game (the “Mud Bowl”). I have no idea why I even turned on the tv to bother with it. Maybe we started playing football in the neighborhood recently? Maybe it was a rainy day and there was nothing else to do? That’s the part I can’t remember. I do remember the Dolphins won 14-0 over the NY Jets, and I became a Dolphins fan at that point.
I shudder to think what my fate might have been had the Jets won that game.
***
That’s a quick 5 to start things off. It might be a confession on my faults (even loving a team that keeps letting me down).
With the beginning of a new year, I like to not only take a look back at the previous year from a writing POV, but I also like to try and lay out what my upcoming year might look like. I set goals, hit some of them, miss others, and maybe get an incomplete on a few more.
Comic Books
The big idea in 2025 was trying to get multiple comics out through Kickstarter. One of the things I think/believe is that it hurts me to not have a somewhat consistent schedule of releases. Now, I see plenty of people in the comic space putting out a new comic nearly every month, and while that would be amazing (and likely a full-time job). I figured I would shoot for something a little more realistic for someone who had put out two comics in 2 years time. I laid out a scenario that at best I would target 3 potential projects. My bare minimum was to get Issue #3 of In Our Dreams Awake out.
In Our Dreams Awake
The two year gap between issue #1 and issue #2 couldn’t happen again. Talk about destroying what little momentum I might have built with the first campaign. So no matter what Issue #3’s Kickstarter was going to happen in 2025.
And it happened. Sadly the final version of the comic wasn’t completed until early Fall, which meant we ran the campaign in October and wrapped up at the beginning of November. But that was something that absolutely had to happen, and it did!
You Must Be This Tall To Ride
The other project that I was hoping to get out an issue of last year was You Must Be This Tall To Ride. And while I’ll no doubt talk a ton about what it is and where the idea came from, this comic is my attempt to have a more young adult comic rather than things that really are teens and up.
While I didn’t run a Kickstarter for this one, I do have the art for the first 2 issues completed. I’m in the process of securing a letterer for the comic.
The Crossing
Behind the scenes, script writing has been happening. There was a change in how we were going to present the story, so that caused Robert and I to put our heads together and make some adjustments. Issue #3’s script has been completed.
Prose/Novels
To the outside world, nothing is happening. Nothing has been released, so it is easy to think that. However, I’m still working on my Fantasy series. I’m still plugging away at short stories.
Blog Posts
I’ve gone nearly 11+ years writing a weekly blog for TesseraGuild.com. Over that time, I’ve only missed a handful of weeks with a post. In 2025, the site crashed/was attacked/etc. Everything was lost. And rather than restart and rebuild, Amanda, Jeremy, and myself made the decision to go ahead and call it a day.
It was definitely a sad day, and I have a two-part look back blog to post very soon.
After that, I took a couple of months off from blogging before using my own website to start again. For now that is my plan going forward.
Conventions
I got in a couple of appearances in the early portion of the year, but didn’t manage anything later in the year.
Social Media
Like every year, I did some, could probably (definitely) do more.
Remember where I said 2025 I wanted to possibly get 3 comics out, and then I was only able to get 1 out (and technically we are fulfilling in 2026… technically). Well this year, I’m setting the goal to 2 comics. That should be doable, right (famous last words). If things go “perfectly” (whatever that means), then I could have a 3rd issue as well.
In Our Dreams Awake
The 4th and final issue will come out this year. We have all the art save for 2 pages, and we have half the colors finished as well. We’ll still need to get the book lettered, but all of that is very reasonable to complete. The target for the Kickstarter is early summer (and I don’t go to crowdfunding until the book is finished and ready to go to print).
You Must Be This Tall To Ride
Like I said before, the art and colors for issues #1 and #2 are complete. Once I get the letters done, I’ll be ready to present it on Kickstarter! I’m looking to have that campaign in early Spring.
The Crossing
With Issue #3 being finished (minus some edits), I am tasked with writing issue #4. I will have that done in this first quarter of the year, and then it becomes getting the artwork done and pushing forward on the comic series. I’m not sure if that will mean any kind of release this year, but I’d like to think we’ll be in good shape for something in 2027.
Secret Comic(s)
With the eye to having more releases as time goes on, there are two projects that I would love to see get some real progress made. One is an older project looking for a fresh coat of paint, while the other is a very new idea. We’ll see how things progress with In Our Dreams Awake #4 and You Must Be This Tall To Ride #1 to know how hard to push on either of these.
Prose Work
Like I said above… others don’t get to see what you’re working on until you actually release it. My currently have a number of things written:
Fantasy Series – This is my “big one”. I have 2 1/2 books written. This series is set to be a total of 6 books, and the original plan was to have at least 4 of them finished before I released one of them. I’ve had some other thoughts recently about that and still am trying to figure out what the right plan is for these.
Sci-fi/Romance – I have one more pass before I get an editor involved. Honestly, this is most likely the next prose release since it is a standalone.
Hollow Empire Novella(s) – 1 is ready for an editor. 1 is just started. The last one is still being outlined. I definitely want to have all 3 finished before I release one of them. I’d like to have these done before the end of the year for a 2027 release.
***
So that’s the game plan for 2026. I have some decent and, I think, achieveable goals. Hopefully when I write this blog for 2027, I’m talking about a bunch of successes for 2026!
After a long month of endless promoting and shouting out into what felt like the void during most of that time, In Our Dreams Awake #3’s Kickstarter finally came to a close. While we funded (yea!), and I definitely wanted to take a moment to soak all of that in (only 1 issue left to go!). However, in light of that, I wanted to do a post that was a Lessons Learned.
Because I feel like this campaign turned some of my thoughts upside down and has me scratching my head about other things. Maybe writing them down will help me make a little more sense out of what went down.
The Good
The comic got funded. I mean, that is the single biggest thing to come out of all of it. There are a couple of reasons why I do the Kickstarters in the first place. The main reason is to pay for the printing so that we can get the comic into as many people’s hands as possible. This is why we’ve set the Target to $500.
We had more backers this time than we had for Issue #2. The other big piece of this self publishing puzzle is to try and gain new readers each time we put out a campaign. That’s the only way all of this is ever going to completely work. Maintain the readers we have and add to them.
I expanded my digital footprint with appearances on multiple podcasts. This was something I have neglected in the past, focusing more on website reviews and spotlights. It really was great to be able to chat about not only the comic book but tv shows and other comics. And everyone was so gracious with their time, it couldn’t have gone better.
The Bad
We actually raised less money on this campaign than we did for Issue #2. This was something I had worried about but hoped wouldn’t be the case. As I said above, we mostly would like to pay for the printing… BUT it would also be nice to help cover a little bit of the comic production costs rather than having to come almost completely out of pocket.
The Dead Zone was BRUTAL. For those who may not know, the pledges on a Kickstarter happen at the very beginning and the very end of a project. The Dead Zone is normally the middle weeks of a Kickstarter campaign is the time where pledges are very difficult to come by. On my other comic campaigns things certainly slowed down during that time. Maybe we’d get 1 pledge here or there with a couple of days having no one. This time we legitimately didn’t have a new pledge for most of those 2 weeks. Talk about frustrating.
The Ugly
Facebook Ads. I ran them for the first time on a project and realized I need to learn a whole lot more about how to best use them, what might work, what might not work. Everything.
More, More, More – If I want to reach more people, then I need to up my social game. That means I need to reach out to more podcasts.
Make better use of Linkedin more than I have in the past. I know I got at least one Backer from one of my posts there (and I only did 2 posts total). Some of my former co-workers might be interested to see what the heck I’m been up to.
More Kickstarter Update Spotlight Swaps – While I’m not exactly sure how much they helped or didn’t help in terms of new backers. I think it is another possible opportunity to put my comics in front of people who are already predisposed to supporting Indy Comics.
We don’t hand hold you on In Our Dreams Awake – What do I mean by that? The story is a complex one where our main character is living two different lives, and we just throw you into the deep end. He’s a painter? He’s a gang lord? Is this a fantasy or a cyberpunk comic? In my talks with people about the comic there was a bit of confusion from some as they read issue #1. Most got what we were going for, but for others it didn’t click until they got to issue #2.
It’s complex, but that’s the story we wanted to tell. We just have to hope the readers will trust us enough to deliver a satisfying conclusion in issue #4.
What Questions Do I Still Have?
That said, I feel like I did share more this time on Facebook/X/BlueSky/Instagram than I ever had in the past. So I’m not sure how to convert those posts into Backers consistently.
Kickstarter Spotlights/Reviews – I’m not sure how much these end up driving traffic to the campaign. It feels stupid not to do them because you never know when it’ll spark someone’s interest, but you’d be surprised how much time it takes to send out those email requests.
Video – I think our video is pretty good. But I also wonder if people need to see Egg and my faces to connect a person to the project. I truly don’t know what the answer is because I almost never watch anyone’s videos (maybe 1% of the time I click on them).
Substack – There are a number of people who do Kickstarter Spotlights on their substacks, but contacting them is a gigantic pain in the ass. You need to subscribe and then direct message them. And I don’t think any of them ever responded to that.
How in the world can I get Kickstarter to Love me? There is a badge Kickstarter can bestow on you called “Project We Love”. When you get this badge the algorithms are going to help you get a little more spotlight than you’ve had before. More eyeballs on the project. I heard that sometimes hitting your funding goal early will get you that attention, but that didn’t really happen on Issue #2. So at this point I’d love to get it, but I think I’m going to have to hold the Boombox outside the Kickstarter offices to have a shot.
Thinking about the Dead Zone – It seemed like there were more comic projects running campaigns in October. It makes me wonder if that hurt us as well. Maybe the algorithm likes Horror/Halloween comics more during that time period.
Maybe there is a conspiracy? I don’t know. Just more things to figure out before I run my next comic campaign!
This is a reminder that we are in the last week of the Kickstarter Campaign for Issue #3 of In Our Dreams Awake. At 11:59 PM on Friday night, we’ll reach the end of the road for this one. We’ve hit our initial goal of $500 and are moving toward $1000!
If you haven’t done so already, go to the Kickstarter Page and check out the project:
I’m not necessarily one to find/look for meaning in signs in my life. Oh, I’m not immune to it and have my own superstitions, but I don’t spend too much time considering it. However, whether I believe in them or not, there are little things in our everyday world which sometimes lay out a message you might be on the right track. Small reminders, universal beats to help subtly (or perhaps not-so-subtly) guide you. Maybe it’s something which has seeped out of your subconcious to help create the eventual path in the first place.
As close in on the end of the Kickstarter for Issue #3, I went looking through the old emails for the project, trying to find the little bit and pieces that I had long forgotten in the past 15+ years. The back and forth in the earliest of days between Egg and myself as we worked the story, bouncing ideas off each other, trying only to improve on the building blocks of the story each time. Those moments of inspiration where we began discovering things about the characters and what their goals may or may not be.
Sort of a…
Without the Marvel Part
***
Some of the things in the very original breakdown:
The first outline was for a 9-issue story. Talk about being overly ambitious on what we might be able to do all those years ago (remind me one day to tell you the 60 issue story I have for Moon Knight – if only Marvel would call!).
Jason Byron was originally an important man. He was not a simple artist just trying to live his life, but instead was going to be a Lord or Duke of some sort.
In the Cyberpunk story there was going to be something much more similar to the movie Office Space in regards to his job. I have no idea how that was going to work. Definitely no gangs. And no angry cats. No Drowned London.
Jason would have much more of a comprehension of what was going on between the Dream worlds very early in the process. As seen in issue 1, these two worlds are tied together by him, but as things begin to spiral a bit, those worlds can start to bleed over.
There was an assassination attempt on Fantasy Jason. I totally didn’t remember that one at all.
As opposed to splitting issues between the two Dreams, we’d spend the full issue in one before switching over to the other. At least early on that would mean no “flip-book” feel to things. I mean, we obviously had 9 issues to fill, so why not really deconstruct this story!
The biggest one was the quote from Henry David Thoreau. Egg discovered it somewhere and suddenly we had a proper title for the story.
At Christmas that year, I received a series of writing themed gifts. One of them were Post-It notes with the Edgar Allan Poe quote on it. It almost felt like they’d read our emails.
I was listening to Van Halen, and suddenly realized the lyrics for “Love Walks In” feels like they are describing Jason Byron’s whole problem…
Love Walks In – Van Halen
Contact is all it takes To change your life to lose your place in time Contact! Asleep or awake Coming around you may wake up to find Questions deep within your eyes, Things you’ve never realized
CHORUS
So when you sense a change Nothing feels the same All your dreams are strange, love comes walkin’ in Some kind of alien Wait for the opening Then simply pulls a string Another world, some other time You lay your sanity on the line Familiar faces familiar sights Reach back remember with all your might Ohh there she stands in a silken gown Silver lights shining down
CHORUS
Love comes walkin’ in Sleep and dream is all I crave I travel far across the Milky Way To my master I become a slave Til we meet again some other day Where silence speaks as loud as war And the earth returns to what it was before
CHORUS
Love comes walkin’ in
***
At the end of the day, the story is one we felt compelled to tell. In our email echange, Egg asked me a key question about the story:
“Is this a story of hope or failure?”
And I like my response, because even through all the tweaks and changes to the very first kernel of an idea, I think we’ve kept to this singular guiding light:
“The story, at its core, is probably a little of both (failure and hope). Hope that our lives can be brighter than they are but also failure in the risk of not living in reality. Plus, there’s the issue of what reality is truly. Is it what we perceive, or is it what others perceive?”
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Remember there is only two and half days left to back the project! And thank you for all the support up until now!
In Our Dreams Awake #3 is currently Live on Kickstarter!
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As a comic book writer, we are doing the best we can to take the thoughts and images in our head and describe it in a way where the artist can have some idea of what we originally meant to show up on the page. The amazing thing about artists, though, is they take that mess of words and somehow (through magic is the only way I can figure) create an image (or series of images) which end up being a way better version of whatever I had in my head to start. Those are some of the best days, when you open up your email to get a new page and it leaves you speechless. Where you want to go back to your script to see how in the world they made it so much better.
The Team Pencils – Edgar Salazar Inks – Genaro Olavarrieta Colors – Javi Laparra Letters – Alexander Lugo Writer – John McGuire
Concept This panel represents a bit of the calm before the storm. At the end of last issue, Fantasy Jason spotted this very same spacecraft in his (illegal) telescope. Now he finds himself commissioned to draw it. In so many ways, this is exactly what his curious mind truly wants to do. Somewhere inside him is a person who wants to see the strangeness in the world.
The very truth of things which cannot be obscured by those in charge.
Here we are with our artist sitting on top of a hill, trying to draw this literal alien craft as the workers go about disassembling it. He’s not sure whether this thing will be studied or destroyed, so it may be his pictures will be all there is left for anyone to know this machine existed.
The Script
Page 17 Panel 1
Jason has paint on his clothes, face, and has various sketches, scroll casings, and papers lying all around him. He has a sense of wonder and awe at what he is witness to. Magus move past him with pieces of the ship.
For this panel, the time is 13:00.
Caption – Early Afternoon.
Peter (caption) – It will eventually be dismantled, so we need accurate records.
Breakdown
Edgar and Genaro did a great job here really nailing this moment. The butterfly fluttering just above Jason provides a very relaxing moment in the midst of the overall craziness which is not only occurring in that moment, but really has been occurring since the day before (Issue 1) and is a bridge to what awaits our hero throughout the remainder of Issue 2.
He placed the papers on the ground beside him, so the reader can see that he has been hard at work for a little while already. And he has an in progress piece on the easel to his left.
On top of that, Javi’s colors are perfect here. The greens, browns, and blues put the characters and the reader at a sort of ease (hopefully).
And while I haven’t shown your the entire page here, the overall feel is much the same as Jason pours himself into this project. Maybe even forgetting for a moment that this craft from his dreams is actually real and true.
Lost in the moment. Lost in the painting.
***
The Kickstarter for Issue #3 is still going. Click the link below and check it out!
We’re still in the midst of the Kickstarter for Issue #3 of In Our Dreams Awake. If you haven’t had the chance to venture over to the page, be sure to do so. With this being the penultimate issue, things are beginning to spiral out of control for our Jason Byron.
In the process of trying to promote the Kickstarter, I’ve been talking to people about the book, telling tales about how we came up with the story, and it occurred to me that I had a very interesting story where one of our Backers directly influenced our comic.
If you have read issue #2 of In Our Dreams Awake, you may have noticed a few felines who have made their prescence known in the cyberpunk future beginning with this fellow:
But there is a secret story behind how Kiku-San, Hater of Carbon-Based Life Forms appearance in the comic book. For our issue #1 Kickstarter, we had a Reward level to Get Drawn Into the Comic! It is obviously on the higher end of cost ($200), but I’d seen other campaigns have similar levels – so it was worth a shot. Lucky for us we actually had two people select that level (the other is also a part of the Parliament scene – not the Crab Person!). So, we began to coordinate with them (get their information and image over to Rolands so that he could work his magic).
However, they threw us a curve ball. It seemed that they didn’t want their likeness to appear in the comic, but instead wanted to see their cat (or cats if possible). We weren’t expecting that, but Egg is not one to ignore a possibility. He immediately agreed, and then set to work on figuring out how to incorporate the felines.
***
As an aside, there are two things you should know about Egg Embry. He is not an animal person. Unless it is a comic book about frogs, he doesn’t want anything to do with them. He tolerates them when he is over at other people’s homes, but they are not for him.
The second thing you should know is that if there is an animal in the house, they all want to be best friends with Egg. I don’t know if there is a memo that the animals pass around. Or if maybe they can sense it on him, but they all make it their mission to break down his stern exterior.
***
Egg decided that the cats were going to be antagonists for dear Jason and Mikey. That they not only had a paw in the trade but seemingly were in control of which gangs did what and where. And if Jason did not agree, they were more than willing to get their fur dirty.
What amused me the most in reading the script for the Cyberpunk portion of the issue, was that if you’ve ever dealt with a cat, they can be extremely stubborn about how they deal with humans. You get on their bad side, and they have no use for you. You get on their good side… and the love will flow.
Sadly, Jason must take after Egg and not be a cat person!
Be sure that the cats also make an appearance in Issue 3 as well.
***
There is a post-script to this story. When trying to decide on what Rolands cover was going to look like, Egg landed on an homage to an Amazing Spider-Man Annual (#5). But then he had Rolands not only add the Backers other cats to the cover, as well as his wife’s departed furry friend (Rajah). He also put my two cats at the time (Westley and Inigo) who have since both passed over the Rainbow Bridge. But it feels amazingly fitting that they are immortalized on a comic book that they sat beside me and “helped” me write.
It’s why I’m always amazed by collaborating with other people… the end result will always be infinitely stronger than you could imagine.
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If you would like to help keep the story (the Dream) going for us, consider supporting In Our Dreams Awake on Kickstarter. And if you’ve already backed us, thank you for helping to make our Dreams come true!
