The official Descartes the Zombie production blog is now alive and kicking (pun intended) at IntelligentZombie.com.

Give it a click and check it out. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity, except for a couple of others I can think of, to follow the birth of a comic book from inception to that glorious Wednesday when it lands on the shelves of your local comic book store.

As time permits in the near future, most of the DTZ-related stuff will be moved from this site, to make more room here for other items of interest, such as:




And most tantalizing of all,

The evolution of Dierdre continues...

ITAWNICR (Incredibly Talented Artist Whose Name I Can't Reveal) sent me this first look at Derek tonight. And like the incredibly talented artist he is, he nailed it in one take!

Say hello to everyone's favorite intelligent zombie, Derek Hart (aka Descartes).

What? He doesn't look like a zombie? Just a good-looking kid from the Valley, ready for a night on the town?

You ain't seen nothin' yet...

And we're off...

UTSAG (Ultra Top Secret Artist Guy) sent me these first takes on character design for Mike and Dierdre, who are 2/3 of the core cast of Descartes the Zombie. Which, by the way, will probably be henceforth referred to on this blog as DTZ.

I'm loving this:

You go, UTSAG!

So I went to my LCS¹ last week, all excited and eager to check out two long-awaited comics: Archenemies #1 and Warren Ellis Black Gas #2.

They weren't there. Oh, it would've been fine if they somehow hadn't been set back for me by mistake. I was more than happy to just buy a copy off the shelf. No problem there, no sir.

But they weren't there. And I don't mean, they weren't there because they were all sold out. No, what I'm here to tell you is, they weren't there because my LCS didn't order a single copy for the shelves.

Now, I should point out before I go any further, that this is not a diatribe against my LCS owner, because he's a great guy and he's got a business to run, and I'm fairly certain that if he believed he might sell a few copies of Archenemies or Black Gas, he would've ordered them.

Diatribe, no. Lonely voice crying for help in the wilderness, yes.

A new book from a major publisher (Dark Horse) gets not a single copy ordered for the shelf. That just seems wrong. "But hey," you're probably saying right about now -- or possibly, now instead of the first time I said now -- "maybe you live in Podunk, Iowa, and it's just too small a market for anything outside of Marvel and DC. "

"There you go again," I would say in response. "I knew Joe Kennedy, and you, sir, are no Joe Kennedy."

And then I'd remember what we were actually talking about and say, "But I live in Little Rock, which I refuse to refer to in print as Little Rock, Arkansas, because after having eight years of Bill Clinton as President, I think the world should have a pretty good idea of where Little Rock is by now."

And then you'd say, "So? "

And I'd say, "Please, somebody, anybody -- help me get out of this tangential BS loop and back on topic..." And a couple of minutes later, I'd say this:

The greater Little Rock area has a population probably close to 300,000. So while it's not a New York or LA or Chicago, it's not exactly Podunk, either. And yet, of all those 300,000 people, evidently not one can be expected to walk into my LCS and buy a copy of Archenemies or Black Gas off the shelf. And because they can't be expected to, they won't get the chance to, because there won't be any copies on the shelf to buy.

Not ordering any copies of Archenemies doesn't entirely surprise me, because even though it is Dark Horse, it is a new title by a relatively unknown creative team. But Black Gas? Come on, we're talking Warren Ellis here. That's Mister Ellis to you and me. The guy has written more brilliant comic books in the last ten years than (pause as I search for a meaningful metaphor and come up empty) some really big number. Seriously. Here's the guy who pushes and pulls and prods and pokes to keep us just on the edge of our comfort level with what to expect from our monthly funnybooks, who invents decompression and then, after it's become de rigeur to write for the 6-issue trade, he hits us with Fell, where we get 16-page, complete stories every month. And he's got his name in the title of this book: it's not Black Gas, it's Warren Ellis Black Gas.

And a guy who probably knows better than anyone else what will sell in Little Rock and what won't, doesn't think he can sell one single copy of Warren Ellis Black Gas off the shelf.

The story in Black Gas is scary. But this little slice of cold reality pie is much, much scarier.

My ultra-top-secret artist is on board now for what is shaping up to be a pitch to Dark Horse's New Recruits program. All I am at liberty to say about this artist right now is that he absolutely rocks.

(And that, dear reader, is an understatement along the lines of "The Beatles? They had a couple of good songs.")

Okay, I lied. Thanks to Samantha at Dark Horse, I learned that New Recruits is not the way to go for this project. So, we'll be submitting via the regular Dark Horse submission process.

In the interest of helping any other aspiring creators who may find themselves in a similar position of reading Dark Horse's submission guidelines and then reading about the New Recruits program and saying to themselves, "Wha-- huh? Where am I? What day is it? Do I submit through New Recruits or the regular way?", here is an excerpt from the Dark Horse Creating Comics message board in which Samantha very kindly helped me make sense of this (and I quote):

New Recruits is the place to submit completed projects - projects for which you have completed most, if not all, of the work. It is better suited for one-shot projects, like single volume graphic novels or short stories. New Recruits submissions are reviewed annually... with the best submission(s) earning publication. Last year, we published the best of the best in an anthology called New Recruits, vol. 1.

Regular submissions, on the other hand, cover a much wider territory - writing samples, art samples, comic series pitches...etc. They are evaluated year-round, rather than at one point during the year. Use our regular submissions process if you want to submit work from a project that is unfinished, any kind of 'sample' of your work, or something you don't want to wait that long to have reviewed.

Please note that Dark Horse does not review unsolicited scripts, story ideas, or proposals pertaining to properties currently published by Dark Horse or any property not owned by the submitter. Such material will be destroyed without review.

So, there you go. If you want to pitch a limited series, as I do, you should use the normal submission channels.

Thanks to Samantha at Dark Horse for letting me quote her on this.

When, at the age of eight, Elton Pruitt authorized his mom to sell all of his comics at a garage sale, he thought he had outgrown them. Sadly, these included numerous issues of Neal Adams’ now-legendary run on Batman and Detective Comics.

Years later, Elton regained his senses and rediscovered his love of comic books. Around this time he also discovered a passionate dislike for Southern rock – Lynyrd Skynyrd, 38 Special, you name it – and proudly attested to its worthlessness throughout the halls of his high school in Searcy, Arkansas.

So it seems only fitting that his first published comic book story¹ would revolve around an apocryphal Lynyrd Skynyrd song.

Prior to his work in comic books, Elton worked as a copywriter for a small ad agency in Little Rock, where his pitch to Roller Funeral Homes of Arkansas (“We put the fun in funeral”) never quite caught on. His work for Five Miles Out writing the screenplay for their Immercenary video game was better received and led him into the fabled land of The Internet, where he has spent the last ten years programming custom web applications for Aristotle Inc.

Today – at the exact moment you are reading this, in all likelihood – Elton is hard at work on his next comic book project, a little something he likes to call Descartes the Zombie. Watch for it – and check out EltonPruitt.com² for more information on Elton and his ongoing quest to become the 22^nd century’s second greatest living comic book writer (after Drew Melbourne, of course).