The Emerald City

Book 2 pgs 1 - 5

2008-04-01T02:17:00.000-07:00

We pick off where we left off at the end of book 1 with the police investigating a murder scene at Judge Fare's house. Also enter modern day Jin, who seems to have moved up in the world a bit.

Book 2 Cover

2008-04-01T02:13:00.001-07:00

Book 2 was a bit more connected and flowed so much better than 1 in my opinion as the writer. Also once we start finally lettering these and getting ready to show people, we started coming up with the cover concepts. Drew will most likely be on the cover from start to finish, as long as we can pull it off ;p Anyways I hope you enjoy it!

-Kevin

And the Emerald City still rolls on!

2008-03-27T23:03:00.000-07:00

Wow, it has been a long while since we have updated the blog here. Life in general has been pretty busy for the both of us; but fear not (if anyone is reading) we have been plugging away at our work on the book! In fact we post our work a page at a time on a website called Drunkduck.com (I just added a link on the side). It is a webcomic site where we can get feedback and push ourselves to get this work done. I still want to have this blog so I will be updating here as well, now that I have a chance to do so.

Books 1 – 3 are finished indeed and Jason and I are thinking about using those 3 as a prologue of sorts. We would love to do it all in a graphic novel format! With book 4 underway we are actually producing NEW stuff, compared to books 1 – 3 which were all older works that we finally finished. I think you will see the difference from 1 to 2 to 3 in art and writing because when we started we had no idea what we were doing with the story and how to layout, or how to letter and so on. While proud of these books we both believe that everything we are doing now is just going to blow our older stuff out of the water! So stay tuned and thanks for all of the support!

-Kevin

Book 1 pages 28-29

2008-03-27T22:47:00.001-07:00

This is the end of book 1. Actually we have books 1 - 3 finished now. So now that I have a bit of free time we will be bringing them here to see as well!

Book 1 23 - 27

2008-01-06T21:18:00.001-08:00

Book 1 Pgs 18 - 22

2007-11-13T05:32:00.000-08:00

things getting wild now!

Book 1 Pgs 14-17

2007-11-03T03:08:00.001-07:00

here is the rest of the "preview" in context!

Book 1 Pgs 10-13

2007-10-22T23:17:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the delay with getting these up! Blogger.com was having some problems taking uploads! We are going to reletter all of book one, but I really want to get book one out to you! So I am going to keep posting pics even as I go back and reletter the other stuff! So as of now I continue to bring you Book one verision 0.7

Book 1 Pgs 7 - 9

2007-10-15T16:32:00.000-07:00

Moving right along here! Now you get to see the preview pages in context!

Book 1 pgs 4 - 6

2007-10-14T05:49:00.001-07:00

more pages!

Book 1 pgs 1-3

2007-10-14T05:21:00.000-07:00

We are so excited to putting our life's work on display! so enjoy!

Seattle's Aura

2007-10-09T21:05:00.000-07:00

The cover is a done deal, that seals the deal for all of issue one. Now it’s ready to be posted and then on to ya’ll to read. What a great feeling of accomplishment as the books are starting to come together. With book one ready to go and books two and three not far behind, we are unbelievably close to reaching a goal we set for ourselves in what seems another lifetime-washing down chicken wings with Mac and Jacks in Seattle.

Man I remember when I first moved to Seattle. My cool as hell Uncle Rob dove me to Seattle from SeaTac airport and then on to downtown. I remember coming over the hill from his house in Greenwood, and seeing the needle and the skyline set amongst these dark gotchicesque clouds and then there was this moon creeping amongst the clouds in the sky, glowing like some magical eye watching me, yet welcoming me into its domain. This memory is one I think I will always remember, and I tried to capture this feeling in the cover along with the bird that haunted Kevin’s childhood.

Well I hope the cover grabs you and pulls you in as Seattle did to me when I first looked upon her.

Thanx for your thoughts,
Jason

Issue 1- Cover

2007-10-09T16:59:00.000-07:00

Well now that concept cover is a finished cover. I cannot express how happy I am with it. This cover perfectly expresses what I try to put into words throughout our story. Oddly enough there is a bit of history to the “bird” that Drew is drawing. When I was about 13 or so I tried my hand at making comics. Needless to say I felt comfortable making the stories but had the artistic skills of a wounded mule deer. Of course The Emerald City has nothing to do with the comics that I embarrassingly drew, but that is not to say that some of the characters I made so long ago have not been reinvented by Jason and me. But back to the point; that bird was apart of a comic I drew and I showed Jason, who in turn made fun of me for 10 years. But I think both of us know how important the dreams we had when we were kids are and even through the hazing we decided to mask my lack of artistic talent by having a kindergarten kid draw it on the cover. Jason almost was able to nail my style of art, but I still think his looks better!

Last month we showed this cover off in rough, unfinished form. With our covers we want to have Drew conveying a theme of the comic through his drawings. Also, we want to feature Seattle on all of our covers. We think this is very important for the identity of our series. We hope you enjoy it, and again please give us your thoughts. They mean so much to us!

-Kevin M. Jones

A Murder in Review

2007-10-04T17:14:00.000-07:00

Wow, first of all let me say thanks for everybody who took their time to click through our work and to my friends who have been offering loads of support. One thing we really want to have is feedback. Let us know what you think! We are trying some different things with wording and of course Jason’s great art and my writing. How is it? What do you like? What do you hate? What scene grabs you? And so on… Feedback is so important to the creative process; it allows us to hear what our “readers” want; but, enough of this begging for comments stuff (for now)!

These scenes were so fun to make for me as a writer. First of all it presented my first challenge of writing in our comic and that was establishing character tones with our police characters. I really hope that you could get a decent feel of what kind of people the police are from their interactions with each other. I think Jason nailed the overall theme of these scenes in his; like he explained in his post Richard and Ai are talented young detectives embarking on a very unusual case. Both of them are looking for some logic that fits within the rules of the world as they know it; the only problem is they can’t find it. One thing I love about these characters is that they are going to be thrust into some very strange situations and will have to deal with it on a very normal level. How often is that you do your job and you come across the “impossible”? That is what they are going through on this first case and it hardly gets any better from there on out.

Another thing I really loved about these scenes was the use of the camera for the flashback of the Furhmann murder. The detectives watching the murder unfold from the different angles on the camera with no sound and their comments on what was happening really sat well with me when the idea of the scene came to me. As Jason said we have book 1 – 3 done, and they are full of great scenes where we put lots of thought in how to form them. But I will always have a special place in my heart for the camera scene in book 1. One of the reasons for this is because of the great working relationship that Jason and I have. I remember going over the book and Jason being so excited because he got the chance to really cut loose and go all out with action in these scenes. When we layout books and we have a huge action sequence I usually just step back and let Jason do what he does. Every now and I say something like “it would be cool if he smashed his head into a pillar.” And he takes my one panel suggestion and turns it into something fantastic. It is amazing how well we click on some of the details and the overall concepts we want to get out in our work.

The great thing about showing these scenes is that when I look at them, I know that this is just the smallest slice of our story. We have so many great characters and what I believe unique concepts. I am really excited to get this book out there. I really hope you enjoyed looking at the preview. We hope that we can touch more people with our life’s work soon. Thank you for reading and again drop us your thoughts!

-Kevin M. Jones

The Art of Murder

2007-10-03T19:31:00.000-07:00

The comic has really started to make its presence known through the blog. I have received some great emails. First, I would like to say thanks to all the well wishers. What we, Kevin and I, are hoping to achieve is to get some comments on the book- perhaps getting a good dialogue and or debate going… We are pretty hell bent in getting the book out for people to enjoy, and of course starting out; it is a little hard determining which paths lead to that goal. We have made a huge step in getting some pages up and worded on the blog. Though a huge step, it’s pretty minute when compared to a galaxy of decisions that await us. A lot of time is spent in getting the book prepared, we now are looking to how. Now that we have three books completed and almost worded, the excitement meets its arch enemy uncertainty… where is the next step taking us? There are many options and we have done a pretty good job piloting through the debris and garbage to safely arrive at destinations that have helped us on our journey.

Now to my insanity report: These scenes with the coppers and the murder were a lot of fun to draw….especially the murder. It’s cool how Kevin set it up with the cops and their introduction by looking back on an entirely different scene (cool murder scene) to display their character traits and set a pattern for future books. Within the city an unruly mass of chaos is staring to unravel, and these cops are at the forefront of it all….it will be fun to see how they will transform with it.
So in drawing this scene in particular I attempted to convey this same idea…Now, besides McMillan, these are cops stuck in their duties. A homicide detective is far from easy, but in compared to what’s lurking in the shadows of the Emerald City well…So drawing these characters in this scene they carry an air of confidence, as they should- they are young, talented detectives. In the scenes themselves I tried to capture a sense of the gloomy environment coupled with the appalling murder of the officer. This shock is reverberated on the faces of the detectives watching the tapes and I wanted this to really be seen, and noticed in the art without having to exaggerate it with ridiculous facial expressions.
Just in these six pages this murder serves as a catalyst in really getting things rolling with the detectives. McMillan knows it as well. He is the only one really not faded by the murder; perhaps he knows what other horrors lay in wait for our developing detectives.
I think as far as the introduction of these characters goes, we did a pretty good job…not trying to toot my own horn or anything like that. We know it is just a preview, and it might be hard to get the feel of the story from just seeing these pages. Maybe the art looks funky in some scenes or the wording maybe seems jumbled or too much…..Let us know what ya think because we do appreciate all the comments and emails we have received and your opinion really matters because we can sit down and look at what we got from a different angle. Thanx again!

Jason

Welcome to The Emerald City (Part 2 of 2)

2007-09-29T22:55:00.001-07:00

Now to give you a quick set up of these next few pages; as we saw in the first set the detectives and Officer McMillan have just started their investigation. We left off with Detective Head giving Detective Yamamoto his feelings about Officer McMillan. Officer McMillan was unfortunate enough to catch a piece of Head’s editorial as he hustled up the tapes from the SPD parking garage. This natural lead to a very uncomfortable situation, but there still is a murder to solve and the investigation must go on.

As McMillan explained in the last page of the last set, he got the boys to edit the tapes into one continuous feed. Now our detectives get to sit down and see the grisly murder that happened hours before in their own parking garage.

We are pleased to show you this preview of book 1. Please write us some comments and tell your thoughts, the feedback means so much to us.

-Kevin M. Jones

Welcome to The Emerald City (Part 1 of 2 cont.)

2007-09-24T17:47:00.000-07:00

I am pretty excited we got these pages worded and up here for you guys to take a look at! This book/dream is something Kevin and I have worked so long and hard to create. Even though we had so much going on in our lives we have always worked on the book and kept grindin. This is the next best thing to having a printed copy in my hands. Seeing the pages worded and the book nearly complete is hella exciting. I am pretty proud of both of us, and I am proud to be able to present to ya’ll to read, I think you’ll dig it.

The pages you see up here are kinda experimental in the wording, but we wanted to get them up. So if ya want to comment on them that would really be cool. Other than that we just kinda want to put em out there, have ya’ll take a look, and hear what ya think.

So I am back to the board to finish up pencils and inks on the third book. As you fellow artists know it takes a buttload of time to get a page turned out. So enjoy these pages and I look forward to hearing about what ya think of the story, the art, and the wording. We will put the next series up after the first 3 pages had time to marinate, then we will say some things about the scenes after hearing what ya ‘ll think. As always, thanks a lot for visiting and reading. We really appreciate it.

Jason

Welcome to The Emerald City (Part 1 of 2)

2007-09-23T04:53:00.000-07:00

Here is the first set of pages that we promised! We are quite excited to present these pages to you. We have done some tooling around with the fonts and the general presentation (read as: sitting around and cursing at our computers), but they are not entirely set in stone. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! From the blog all you need to do is click on the page to make it bigger. For a quick rundown on what content you will be seeing on these pages check out my last entry to the blog. So really it is our pleasure to give you the first worldwide glimpse of the Emerald City.

-Kevin M. Jones

Pages Coming Soon

2007-09-20T18:52:00.000-07:00

But before we get these pages up; I thought I’d take the chance to kind of layout what you are going to be seeing from these pages. We are going to put up 6 pages in total in two sets of threes from issue 1. These pages are going to focus on the characters that we introduced earlier (check out their bios if you haven’t yet): Detective Ai Yamamoto, Detective Richard Head, and Officer McMillan.

Basically these six pages are what get our police involved with the main storyline. What you get to see in the first part is shadowy murder about to take place in the parking garage of the downtown Seattle Police Department. Following that you will get to see homicide detectives starting their investigation of the bizarre and grisly murder.

The detectives quickly discover that this is not your usual murder case as they are sifting through the evidence. What they keep coming up with seems to be impossible. One person manhandled their way into the police parking garage and proceeded to murder a police officer with their bare hands. Something about the evidence tickles the brain of veteran police officer McMillan. He predicts that this is just the very beginning of something really bad; something he has already been through once.

A few of my personal thoughts on why we decided on these pages out of 30 page comic:

For myself I thought these pages were important to show not only because the police play such a big role throughout the story, but because they are one of the few mundane characters in the story. We have a few more “everyday Joes” who play pretty big roles in the story, but none as big as the police. I really like this aspect of writing for them because they are finding stuff that is really abnormal and really frightening. It is true that they are homicide police and have seen some really bad stuff, but as the story goes on you get to see how the “normal” people react to and handle these situations. Also I love the art in these scenes it makes me so happy to see some of my ideas ripped from my mind and put on paper without a misstep. Everything to how the characters interact with each other has been captured beautifully by Jason. Speaking of which, these scenes also really show off the working relationships and personalities of our police officers. The first set should be up here shortly; sadly regular life has slowed us down a bit, but they are coming real soon. Thanks!

-Kevin M. Jones

Rest In Peace Robert Jordan

2007-09-16T19:37:00.001-07:00

I know that this is a comic blog about a comic book that Jason and I have been making, but today one of my real life heroes passed away. I have always been interested in being creative, but never really knew which direction to channel my creativity to. I started reading the Wheel of Time series when I was 14 years old. Before that I had hardly touched a fantasy novel, and because of my “troubled youth” reading wasn’t high on my priority list. But his series pulled me in, and I can really say was something that kept me from falling all the way into the abyss. He made that much of an impact on me and I never met him. His writing style was exciting, and dynamic; something I do my best to emulate within my own writings. In our series we use a number of characters to tell a story, something I really got from Robert Jordan’s writing style. I wish I could have told him in my own words how much his writing meant to me and millions of other people. Today I felt like I lost a childhood friend and mentor.

I would like to extend my condolences to his family and close friends.

Thank you for everything

Rest in peace

-Kevin M. Jones

The Art of Kurt McMillan

2007-09-12T22:47:00.000-07:00

I remember when Kevin first brought me his idea of McMillan and told me about him and what he was thinking. At first this character idea of someone like Ving Rhames popped into my head. I did up some drawings but it didn’t fit at all. We talked more and McMillan’s Irish roots really accentuated his character and personality. After Kevin ripped up the rejected cop’s character and power bombed me I stared seeing things his way｡｡｡ and things seemed to write themselves. McMillan’s’ character was pretty unchanging. After that power bomb incident, the drawings of McMillan and his personality stayed pretty much the same. He has become one of my favorite characters both to read and to draw. He’s a bad MoFo. Why he isn’t always a major character and is often pushed outta scenes by a certain officer, we’ll call him Head, he is very important to the police and their investigation in the city. Even Head knows that. Kevin does a great job with his character and his dialogue, and I want do his boy justice with the art.
What I like drawing about McMillan, ya know beside that whole being a bad ass with a bad temper thing, is that he not a hero type character. He is always doing is job, his police work behind the scenes, not aspiring to be a lead detective or some glory cop. He has been in Seattle for along time and has seen things that others couldn’t begin to fathom, yet that doesn’t hang off his neck like some special medal or trophy. He has nothing to prove to anybody yet it seems everyone wants to learn from him….if it wasn’t for that reputation of his. So when drawing him it’s a bit different because he is this cop who is this fantastic character- yet I have to draw him buried into the background to make room for lesser characters who think they are important. That is challenging for sure. Besides that, McMillan is a cool looking dude and I like drawing his temper, his reactions with people he respects and those he doesn’t much or not at all. And like Kevin said before, McMillan fits in perfectly with the other two detectives, Ai, and Head.
I really enjoy reading their story and of course drawing them, so I hope you will as well. We will be putting up an actual scene from the first book focused on these three characters so that you can get a chance to form your own opinion, and hopefully tell us what ya think! Thanks a lot for being on our site and revisiting.
Jason

Reflection on Head

2007-09-12T21:46:00.000-07:00

Richard Head is a pretty cool character to draw, because it gives me a chance to work on his smug facial expressions and his sometimes childish body language, but at the same time drawing him as an overall confident and intelligent man in his actions. Richard Head’s original drawings aren’t too much different to what he has become today. He went through some massive overhauls in his character. I think Kevin said in his earlier post that originally, Head was supposed to be this jerk, but that’s changed, and one of those major changes is that I wanted to add this sort of uniqueness to his face that portrayed his now cunning personality and ability. I didn’t want him to be that TV pretty boy cop…cause he ain’t -but he is a veteran and he is hard, and I want his face to reflect the times he has seen(see his bio), hence that mugging look he’s always sporting.
What also is interesting is drawing the interactions with him, and the other cops (Ai, and McMillian). It’s a lot of fun and very challenging to draw his traits. Kevin has done a great job in creating these different personalities through his writing, and the interactions change depending on the situation and/or when talking with different characters. So I wanted to capture it with the art. Trying to bring out the tension, or trust or whatever happens to be going on in the scene or with whom. With the police a lot of time might be spent in discussing the crime scene or trying to figure out what the hell is actually happening in this city, and its crucial to draw to fit this dialogue, and present it in a way that’s both, of course, compatible with the scene and character personality, but also to create an incredibly interesting panel to look at. It might not be an action scene, fight scene , or one of those scenes where everybody is standin’ around flexing in ridiculous poses talking about fighting。。。。 I want to present this dynamic activity that pulls the reader into the story, because you never know when there might be clues or crucial scenes that let the reader join in the police story, and help to give each reader a different take on what is indeed happening. Sorry but we wants to make ya’ll think! Hell, that’s important in any great story, or movie, and I think comic books need to recapture that once again. These cops are great tools in that sense. Shit, their characters aren’t perfect, but like with officer Head here you can see they are true to who they are. Richard Head gives a cool perspective to the story, and while being a bastard he really works well with Ai’s style of police work.
Jason

Last But Not Least McMillan

2007-09-11T06:20:00.000-07:00

There is something about a tough Irish street cop that just feels right. Being Irish from my mother’s side of the family (everyone laughs when I say that like I am telling a joke.) I just feel a special bond with this character. During the creation of our characters we have bounced names and ethnicity off of each other, but Kurt McMillan was one of the few characters that I had clearly envisioned from the very start of it all.

I like McMillan because he is a tough cop; all of the greatest fictional cops are tough bad-asses. You have Inspector Yuen (Tequila) from Hard Boiled the movie, Bud White from LA Confidential, Alonzo from Training Day, William 'Billy' Costigan Jr from the Departed, and the list goes on and on really. Most of the tough cops are not slick, one-liner type of guys; they just kick booty. But on the flipside that doesn’t mean they have an IQ of double digits. McMillan is unique to write for because he likes his station in life, he has no motive to move up; just he lives for grunt police work. He is a guy who believes in doing things right as well. He has high morals for innocence bystanders, but once you enter the war of the streets his morals change. Looking at him in relation with our other two officers of the law it makes for wonderful blend of dialogue and perspective.

We wanted to give you a taste of our police force in Emerald City because the story starts with them. And now that you have read all of these boring, long-winded words of mine we are going to get into the good stuff, actual pages with our police in action. Thanks for checking out our characters and check back shortly for some pages! (more rambling from me included!)

-Kevin M. Jones

Kurt McMillan

2007-09-11T05:56:00.001-07:00

Name: Kurt Matthew McMillan
Birth date: 05/14/1970
Age at the start of the series: 36
Place of Birth: Dorchester, Massachusetts USA
Height: 6’4”
Weight: 223 Lbs

Profile:

Born in the rougher neighborhoods of Dorchester, Kurt considered fist fighting a regular part of life. Kurt’s father, a member of the notorious “Winter Hill Gang”, was murdered by a hit squad from the Patriarca crime family. Kurt’s mother took over the duties of both the father and the mother; refusing to accept help from members of her late husband’s organization for fear that they might recruit her oldest son. From that point on Kurt tried his hardest to be a father figure for his younger brother, Christopher, and sister, Elizabeth. Kurt’s brother took the absence of his father quite roughly and dropped out of high school, but avoided going down the career path their father had chosen; instead Christopher McMillan chased his dream of becoming a professional boxer. Of course their mother wasn’t happy she had wanted all of her children to go college and escape the Irish ghettos of Boston, so Kurt felt it was his duty to his mother to attend college, which he did at Boston College on a football scholarship. Kurt never had much interest in academics but he was a competent student. He found his calling at a Boston Police recruitment drive and knew he was going to be a police officer. However, he knew that doing so in his hometown would lead to trouble do to his father’s former lifestyle so he looked for openings as far away from home as he could; he found his opening in the SPD.

McMillan is cut from a different cloth then the modern police officer; his superiors often describe him as a “throwback” police officer. Starting his campaign with the SPD Kurt was befriended by another hard-boiled officer of the law, the now retired Detective Ezra Drake. While Drake was known for having my tact than McMillan has shown with his time on the force, many of his cases have indeed ended with one vs. many firefights. Being taken under Drake’s wing hasn’t always been easy for Kurt, because Drake was successful on so many levels while Kurt doesn’t have any aspirations of glory.
Kurt has earned the respect of his fellow beat officers with his attitude towards doing the job, and for the fact that he will resort to old-fashioned head busting when he feels it is necessary. In his time with the SPD Kurt has served 16 suspensions for excessive force, but it still highly regarded for his efforts from his fellow beat officers all the way to the chief of police.

Hobbies and Habits:

McMillan is a very capable cook, and enjoys cooking as a way to escape from the pressures of work. He is also a huge fan of Noir fiction, which he reads almost daily. McMillan is famous throughout the SPD for his temper and for his inability to mask his feelings; he is known for wearing his emotions on his sleeve.

Behind Richard Head

2007-09-10T01:06:00.000-07:00

The character Richard Head is basically the childhood friend you had who is extremely smart and can be a good person but is pretty much a jerk. He by no means is a villain just a bit selfish and wants to climb the promotion ladder so badly that he tends to step on people to get up that ladder. But with that said I feel he isn’t bad person, just self-centered, and at times jealous of other people. He does believe in police work and is believes he is doing the right things; most the times.

One thing I wanted to do with him throughout the series as a writer is not to fall into that classic sitcom type of character who is a jackass and is very stupid. Richard Head is very bright and knows what he wants to do with his life. He just needs to manufacture a way to get there.

Throughout the process of the creation of Emerald City, the police have stayed pretty steady in their characters. But while Ai has stayed pretty much the same in her role and character, Richard Head’s role has changed so much as he grew deeper as a character. Originally I just wanted a massive jerk just to cause friction with other characters, but as our world grew and our characters started becoming deeper I saw how much more a character like Richard could offer to the storyline. In reality we know people like him; somewhat elitist individuals who often look at the world through a narrow scope not because they really don’t know better but because it makes viewing the world easier.

Richard Head is a fun character to write for because he can say things that maybe I have wanted to say in certain situations. He is Ai’s partner and outside of having an almost natural talent for police work they are as different as night and day, and this also sets up a lot of interesting and funny dialogue opportunities. I hope that you will get a chance to enjoy reading Richard in action as much as I have enjoyed writing his dialogue.

-Kevin M. Jones