Preview for NORMAL: "A Change is Gonna Come."

Without further ado, I'd like to introduce everyone to Ben and Mia.

These previews are panels from "A Change is Gonna Come" my first collaboration with the incredibly talented European illustrator [I just love saying that] Ander Sarabia, for the upcoming Eric M. Esquivel produced zine, Normal. Normal is a zine by creative people, for creative people [and everyone else, of course], looking at alternative lifestyles, the creative process, and other interests of people likely suffering from vitamin D deficiency. Actually, I can't back that last part up -- it might just be me who lives in nigh-constant fear of the sun.

For those of you who don't frequent places like CBR, I've clipped some panels from the comic, and stripped out the dialogue, so without giving too much away you can have a taste of what Ander and I have in store for Normal. Of course, there's only so much I can show you, as our freshman outing together [boy, that sounds like we went on a date] is only five pages long.

Ander's work is really beyond exceptional, and though I'd love to, I can't take credit for the level of detail he brought to these pages. It's amazing how much of the finished product ended up looking like the story I saw in my head, especially since we were under a mad time-crunch to get finished, which meant a far-less detailed script, and no time for the usual tweaks or coaching I'm used to during the process.

Still, the final pages turned out spot-on, and I can't wait for everyone to see them. Have to blame timing for it taking me this long to even get previews up -- first there were the holidays, then my computer trouble, not to mention I wanted to check with Ander and make sure showing off his work was okay [and big thanks to him for his input on what panels would be best to use, and for sending me such high quality images to work with for this]... I was even a little up in the air about doing this at all, because a little mystique goes a long way.

But a few people have been asking. And it's not exactly like I need my arm twisted to show off the cool things I'm involved in.

Taking the weekend to try and catch up on some things. Shot off a final draft of "VHS Generation" to Ander [not a lot of changes from the previous one], and he's already hit me with a few character sketches that just look great. Really excited about the look of protagonist for this one, and our e-mails have me branching out into the old mythology a little bit, digging up some concepts, ideas I haven't thought about in ages.

Have some things from other people to read too, which I always look forward to. Particularly in this case... I enjoy this person's work a lot, have for awhile, and I feel terrible I've had to put off looking at it for this long.

Final bit of trivia before I go: I named this comic for The Gits cover of the Sam Cooke classic. I guess you could just say I named it after the original song, but it's not really what I had in mind. Cooke's is a civil rights anthem which I think would be in bad taste for me to try and co-opt, whereas there's something about Zapata's that's still very personal, but in a more singular sort of sense.

And besides, the character's name is Mia. Not Sam.