RKTBlog

About three years ago, I started up a weekly webcomic called The Fantastic Mr. Grant about the adventures of an inventor and his eight-year-old niece.  A lot of love went into it, and I was very pleased with the pages that did come out.  Ironically, my last entry was the one that finally got noticed.  Just as my audience was beginning to find me, I found myself tapped out.

I found myself tapped out financially and emotionally, not creatively.  The story was just getting interesting, but my bank account was running dry. I just couldn’t draw a weekly webcomic under the stress of making ends meet.  I suck as a starving artist.

So Mr. Grant died before he was even born.

Well, at least the webcomic did.  You see, Mr. Grant was never intended to be a comic… or more accurately, it wasn’t intended to be just a webcomic.  The story was always something more to me, one which wasn’t confined to a particular media.  At the time, webcomics just seemed to be the most convenient way to tell the story, but ultimately, I couldn’t quite find the rhythm.  

Even as the webcomic was going strong, I was busy pitching the story to DNA Productions, the animation studio which my partner worked at.  It was a good pitch too!   There was a great energy in the room, and the studio owners responded with enthusiasm.  That day was one of the best of my life, even though it didn’t go any further than that.  

Only a few months later, the studio announced it was going under.  After a grueling, stressed-out summer, my partner found a new job, and we made our trek to Portland, OR.  It was difficult to be uprooted again, and it did nothing for the pocketbook.  I spent a year doing little else but searching for a job, until finally landing at a video game production company called Liquid Development.  I’m still not rich, and I still don’t have much time, but having the job buys at least a little time to begin working on my story again.

But this time, I’m writing a screenplay.

Lest you think the script will suffer the same fate as the comic, I’ll let you in on a little secret.  I’ve already written over 120 pages, and I’m almost done with a first pass.  Granted, it’s still got a long way to go.  Those 120 pages aren’t terribly good, but I’ve never written 120 pages of anything in my life!