Dark Lightnin' Try #2

I understand that life gets into the way of making comics, and I think that is what happened to the second try of Dark Lightnin'. The artist, Josh Templeton, has a family, and does other comic book work such as inks and colors, so he doesn't have that much free time to collaborating on a project. With that said, he said he was willing to get things going with Dark Lightnin and he seemed very excited. Within a few hours of sending the synopsis and previous character designs, he sent the character designs that you see above to me. I told him, lets do this!

Weeks pass, and I continue to ask if we was ready to start. I sent the first pages of the script and the overall flow of the story (some writers may say, a first draft without dialog). The weeks go into months, and I start to get disappointed. I'm not blaming Josh for not being a part of the project, it just sucks because I seen the potential of this series. Oh well, hopefully try #3 works out better.

For some fans, that may seem like a negative, but the truth is that comic collaborations don't always work. Before I commissioned JC to do Parallel Dilemma, I had 3-4 artist collaborations that did not work well. It's working as a writer in comics. Not all artist are motivated to get things done (not saying Josh wasn't, other artist I have worked with). Comics are a hard business to work in, and you need to be patient on certain projects, especially if you believe in them. I believe that Dark Lightnin' would be a breath of fresh air in comics, so the project will continue.

For writers who get into situations like this, don't be discouraged. I have had a few artist pass on this project, and that's OK  None of them said they hated the project (PLUS for me), they just had other projects going on (which is true, I didn't know they had other creator owned projects going on). I even had both artist who turned down the project, look into their schedules to see if they could make time, which I didn't even ask of them. But they couldn't.

It turns out, with Josh not being able to do this project at that time might have been a blessing. I started a few other projects, and things are progressing. I have started this project again, while working other projects, but since I just finished writing 2 children books and a few short scripts, I can open up my plate more. Hopefully I can dish some more stuff for you soon...