Latest news

City of Emerald, City of Dust!

Mon, 8 Mar 2010 23:54:16 -0800

Hey, gang — time flies, eh? How ‘bout we skip the part where I vow to update this site more often and you pretend to believe me? You good with that? Cool, me too. So here’s what’s up —

I’ll be a guest at the Emerald City Comic-Con this weekend (March 13-14), shaking hands and kissing babies. If you’re in the area and planning to hit the show, come by and say hello. I’m sharing a table with the ridiculously talented and affably ridiculous Jeff Parker; I’ll have copies of my latest books for-sale, and many amazing tales to tell about my life among the cave-dwelling polygamists. At sea.

It was at last year’s ECCC that I met the fine folks at Periscope Studio and joined forces with them soon after — I look forward to seeing what this year brings. And to meeting YOU -- seriously. Let’s have a drink and raise a toast . . . to VENGEANCE!

October Parkour!

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 23:50:53 -0700

Just popping for a quick update and a little house cleaning around here, with a longer entry to follow later. It’s been a busy few months!

~ I’ve joined Periscope Studio — the largest working group of comics professionals in North America. I’ve mentioned before that isolation is one of the few downsides of working from home, so it’s nice to have a place to go now, especially one so upbeat and full of creative energy. Once a week or so I grab my laptop and hop the city’s light rail to the Periscope offices downtown, and spend the afternoon working in a roomful of extremely talented colleagues and friends. It’s hard to beat.

~ I just wrapped a kick-ass project with Dark Horse Comics and filmmaker Morgan Spurlock — scripting an 80 page graphic novel set to coincide with the fifth anniversary of Morgan’s award winning documentary, SUPER SIZE ME. More info to come, but I can say that if you’re a fan of fast food gross out stories and CREEPY/TALES FROM THE CRYPT-styled anthologies, you’ll enjoy what’s coming.

~ As usual I’m barely keeping up with my next STAR WARS graphic novel schedule, so that’s been keeping me up nights lately. I’ll hit the deadline with another quality script … once I figure out what it’s going to be! This is the most agonizing step of the cycle, or at least I make it so. Once the story’s outlined (and approved, of course), figuring out the pacing, breaking down the scenes, and writing the dialogue is the fun part. I just drag myself through broken glass to get there. One of these days I’ll find an easier way. Ha!

~ PRAY FOR VENGEANCE is on hold for a while. In the meantime, I’ve begun work on another original piece called ALIVE IN DEATHRIDGE, which I’m envisioning as what a Pixar horror movie would be. I might be on to something…

~ To reduce redundancy, I dropped this site’s old HOME page and set this one up its place — updated the CREDITS page to reflect some recent and upcoming releases, and posted some current photos. That should hold for another few months, yeah?

That’s it for now. More soon-ish.

What Did I Tell You About Listening to that Gun?

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 20:00:06 -0700

Just before heading out for Comic-Con, Dustin and I got the lettering in for “They’ll Bury You Where You Stand!” our short story collaboration set to run later this year in OUTLAW TERRITORY vol. 2. I printed up a few copies to pass around in San Diego and build some interest in our next project — a five issue miniseries in the same vein tentatively titled PRAY FOR VENGEANCE, PRAY FOR DEATH!

Everyone who’s seen this story loves it, and it’s easily the most important work I’ve done, personally. Growing up I had love/hate relationship with Westerns — other people loved ‘em, I couldn’t stand ‘em — and it wasn’t until later in life that I discovered the amazing and terrible things the European film makers had done to our precious mythology. That turned me on to European graphic novels (again, a radical departure from the standard American use of the medium), which forever changed my storytelling sensibilities and what I wanted to do with my craft. More than anything else I’ve done so far, this is a distillation of everything I love and my voice comes through clearest here — it’s rewarding and a little surprising.

Of course, the best part is focusing the vision with a kindred artistic spirit. Dustin and I have been friends for years, and long known we’re on the same comics/music/movies wavelength, but this is the first time we’ve built something together and it quickly became more than the sum of its parts. One of the best compliments I’ve heard so far is that the collaboration is so seamless that the story reads like it came from single hand. I agree — and I couldn’t have pulled it off with anyone else. I look forward to seeing what we do next … I just hope the rest of the world can handle it.

It’s been a rough year, professionally. Jumping into the freelance pool just as the economy was sucked down the drain made for a hard landing, but seeing work like this come together and be well received keeps me fighting and makes it all worth it.

We don’t have a release date on OUTLAW TERRITORY vol. 2 — but I’ll keep you posted!

Comic-Con a Gone-Gone!

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 19:27:54 -0700

Well, another one down — and it’s in the running for one of the best Comic-Con’s ever. Five days of seeing old friends and making new ones, of drinking too much and sleeping too little. This year I shared a condo a few blocks off campus with fellow pros Steve Lieber, Paul Tobin, and Colleen Coover, which was a nice change from the usual squatting in a former Dark Horse coworker’s cramped hotel room. Due to a snafu with the building’s Super, the four of us had to juggle a single electronic pass key to come and go from the space, but we coordinated like pirates in Somalia and made it all work.

So much happened over the five days I was there that I’m still processing it all … and still recovering physically from the grind. This writer’s life has made me soft; I stepped up admirably, but by Saturday I was completely wrecked. Apologies to the Australian friends who endured my swaying, drink-sloshing take on American politics at the Hyatt on Saturday night — but hey, you asked for it — and to everyone else who had to hear the same rant about the German Pirate with No Sense of Personal Space. He was real, dammit!

I’ll give a full run-down on the show once I’ve recovered. Which I’m hoping won’t take more than a month or two. Ha!

Comic-Con a Go-Go!

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:03:21 -0700

I can’t believe it’s time for Comic-Con already! If you’re going to San Diego and want to find me this weekend, I’ll be signing at the Dark Horse booth on Friday from 11:00 am to noon alongside my fellow Star Wars Adventures teammates Rick Lacy and Michael Atiyeh. Come by and say hi!

Otherwise, I’ll be floating around the show and taking meetings, and then hitting the bars after hours. If catching me is imperative, your e-mails go directly to my phone so drop me a line — barlowpdx(at)gmail(dot)com — leave your number and I’ll text you back.

And if you find me, ask me to show you the pages from Dustin Weaver’s and my Spaghetti Western short story, THEY’LL BURY YOU WHERE YOU STAND! They might just blow your eyes out the back of your head.

No Reward is Worth This!

Fri, 1 May 2009 18:16:19 -0700

I have a new book on-sale this week — Star Wars Adventures: Han Solo and the Hollow Moon of Khorya. The official release date moved around a couple times, so I wasn’t expecting to see it for a few more weeks … but it’s out now and it looks great! Expertly illustrated by Rick Lacy, Matthew Loux, and Michael Atiyeh, it takes place a year or so before the events in Star Wars: A New Hope and is a look at how Han and Chewbacca struggle to keep their moral code — and their partnership — intact when they’re constantly surrounded by cutthroats and thieves. There are double- and triple-crosses along the way and stuff blows up. Lots of stuff.

These Star Wars books are fun to write, especially the ones that take place during the Original Trilogy era, and they sell remarkably well. Which is nice — it’s always gratifying to know that your work is being read and enjoyed by a large audience, especially these “all-ages” stories that hit a young demographic that isn’t served particularly well by most of what the major American comics publishers are currently producing. Kids still love comics, you just have to give ‘em something they want to read.

Writing Star Wars is a double-edged sword, though, as I’ve learned this past year. It pays well, the books sell well, it’s fun … but it also labels you as a particular kind of writer to the comics mainstream and makes it a bit trickier to find other work-for-hire gigs. Which is strange — aside from a few extra hoops to jump through, how is writing for a licensed property like Star Wars really any different than working on company owned characters like The Avengers or The X-Men?

Whatever, I’m not complaining — it just makes you try harder to get your voice out there and noticed, and that’s what it’s all about anyway, right?