Glenn Møane

An update, a new project and a couple of plugs

2011-11-30T17:56:00.000-08:00

Good evening. It’s been a while since my last post, blah blah blah. As mentioned before, I only feel the need the need to post when there's news to be told or announcements to be made. Here’s what I got so far:

Partners is done. If all goes well I’ll find a home for it soon, either for a print or digital release (hopefully both). There has been some interest, but at the moment I have no idea which way it will go. In any case, the book will be available for the audience to buy sometime in 2012, one way or the other. It's been a long ride, so I’m more than eager to send this baby out into the world, and a little curious about what sort of reactions it will get.

Remember "The Standard"? Of course you don't, as it is an 8-pager I wrote about last year and showed only a panel of. That's about to change, since it was recently picked up by a publisher which will release comics through digital outlets like the iPad. More details to follow as soon as I have them.

Which brings me to what I’m working on now, my most ambitious project to date: A short story collection. Inspired by Tim Lane’s excellent Abandoned Cars, I’ve set out to create something in the same vein; a collection of noir tales in black and white, written by me and illustrated by various artists. The number of stories isn't determined yet, but I'm thinking around ten. A few scripts are written already and one story, "Christine", is completely done at this point. I think I've mentioned this piece before and here's a preview page from it, illustrated by the talented Predrag Ivanovic:

Predrag has previously worked for publishers like Desperado, and I'm pretty happy to have him on board on this thing. The timeline for this project isn't set yet, but I hope to have most of the stories in the can in six to eight months or so. Besides me, it all depends on the artists I choose to work with and the length of the stories (the longest story so far is 14 pages.). Rest assured, I'm going to give each of them plenty of time to do their best.

In addition to "Christine" and "The Standard", the book will feature tales such as "Positive", "The sad demise of Pat Denton and his kin" and one which working title is simply "Bad man". With these yarns I hope to delve into the depravity of the human condition within the parameters of the crime genre, and I do wish that that one or two of them will turn out good. If nothing else, I'm confident that some of them will cause a few eyebrows to be raised. Expect more frequent blog posts in the coming months, where I will preview artwork for this book as it finds its way into to my inbox.

Plug time: Instead of wasting time reading about comic book projects that are months away from completion, you should click this link and add the product in question to your cart. If you do so, you can expect a very promising first issue of a new series to be sent your way. And hey, there’s nothing better, is there? Written by Scott McClenaghan and Alex Williamson, and illustrated by none other than J.M. Ringuet (Transhuman), Remnants is what I would call a supernatural cop thriller, but I have a feeling that I’m going to have to throw that definition away when the second issue hits. In any case, you should pick it up, as well as check out the creator's website.

I also wanted to tell you that I discovered the writing of James Ellroy this year. I was about to go into how I devoured and absolutely loved his L.A. Quartet, and how these books continues to inspire me. I was also about to describe the awe I felt after finishing American Tabloid, and how I can’t wait to begin reading the next book in his Underworld USA trilogy, The Cold Six Thousand. But since time is money, I figured I’d cut it down to this: You should read James Ellroy.

There. Till next time.

A minor status report

2011-07-28T11:16:00.000-07:00

My initial plan was to call this post “Not dead yet”. This was on Thursday. On Saturday that title sounded pretty tasteless, even though I’m sure Anders Breivik wouldn’t mind if I was taking a stroll where the bomb hit the day before. But I wasn’t, and from where I live I only got to hear a loud bang. Now almost 80 people are dead thanks to this right-wing nutcase and my country will have to deal with the trauma for years to come.

In this perspective, writing about my comic book projects seemed kind of pointless. But for us to not go on as before will give this asshole the satisfaction he so desperately craves. I for one am not willing to see this happen, so I’m posting this small update anyway.

The coloring on the glorious 68-page monster that is Partners is done, and it’s looking mighty fine too. I hired the talented Russell Vincent Yu to do the job, and here’s a few panels showing what he brought to the table:

I will be looking for a letterer very soon, so the book should be completely finished in not so long. It’s weird to think that it’s over a year since I wrote the first page, but there you go. I’ll bring more news on this book when everything is settled.

Remember in January, when I mentioned Magnus Aspli’s The Vessel of Terror? It’s finally available for pre-order now, and you should definitely reserve a copy. I have read the first chapter, and this is good stuff.

That is also true for Paul Allor’s Clockwork anthology. Paul is a fellow writer whose short stories in this first volume are illustrated by a variety of great artists, and it can be pre-ordered here.

Help these creators out, and I’m sure your karma will be even better off than before. Unlike the karma of Anders Breivik.

Spring!

2011-03-23T06:04:00.000-07:00

It seems to be on the way, finally. The snow is slowly melting away here in Oslo, and I can leave my scarf at home when I go out. T-shirt season is still a few months off, but beggars can’t be choosers and all that.

Comic books? Things are on the move there too. I've hired a colorist for Partners, and I will show some of the results when I post next time. There is also some other news about this project, but I will withhold that information for now, at least until everything is absolutely certain. But I can say that I'm pretty pleased about this, so take that as you will.

I'm also about to shake the dust off Homecoming, to see if I can't get this comic completed over the next couple of months. Some pages still need to be colored and the dialogue will have to be revised and lettered before I'll have a complete book. I suspect that this book will also be published via the print-on-demand route, but at least it will be available and I'll be glad to see it off.

Right now I'm working two different stories, Christine and Glory. The first is a short story about a man, the woman he likes very much, and the differences between them. The latter is a tale about two lifelong criminals and how their friendship ends. Before I started writing, I didn't know that I was so interested in the dynamics of friendship and relations, but I see now that this is something I touch upon in almost all my stories (so far). I suppose the trick is not to repeat myself, so we'll see how that goes.

Then there's The Hit. I've mentioned this story once or twice here and in a couple of interviews, without going too much into what it's about. It's a simple story at heart, but for some reason it's been real hard me for to pull off. The first draft was terrible, and there are plenty of scenes that have been revised, omitted and inserted since then. As the title implies, the story concerns a mafia hitman, who is having second thoughts about a job he has said yes to. This is 100% noir and I’m also trying to throw in a comment about the Western world as well, though this will not be as important as putting together a good story (Though it is fun to answer "research" when people ask me about the Zygmunt Bauman books I’m reading). I really want to have a final draft of this script before the end of the year, and I will work hard to make this happen. I may finish a one-shot or two before getting to it, but I'll get there. After that I will have to find a suitable artist, which is a whole job in itself.

Overall, things are heading in the direction I want and it's also a great time to be a comic book reader. Garth Ennis is writing the hell out of The Boys (Check out the scene between Hughie and Annie in #52. I would kill to write that kind of dialogue!) and Drawn and Quarterly has just announced a new book from Chester Brown. It’s called Paying for it and will deal with the Canadian author's first-hand experience with prostitutes.

If you ask me, I couldn't think of a way to end this post on a lighter note.

New year resolutions, etc.

2011-01-02T15:44:00.000-08:00

Another year, another dollar (Or kroner in my case).

2011 is already here and the politest thing to do is to wish you all a happy new year. I just looked over my blog and found out that I created no more than five different posts in 2010. That's not much. And they concerned three one-shots and a couple of shorts. One of these one-shots have seen the light of day (in the first half of 2009) and one short was published recently ("Published", as in available through print-on-demand). The rest of these stories will see the light of day later.

You know, sometimes I wish that I had a handful of books ready and available before launching this little weblog of mine. Talking about American Sinner and other projects that are months away from seeing completion gets tired in the end, and one would want to keep up potential reader interest too. Now, neither me or my collaborators could foresee the problems that we've encountered on the way (Like health problems on both my and the artists end, lazy colorists and mudslides), but still.

If have one resolution for 2011 it is that I will see more of my projects completed, whether it's short stories or one-shots of various length. That means finishing scripts on time (My hands are in much better shape now than they were a year ago, so hopefully I got that covered this year) and being picky when it comes to collaborators.

And I would very much like to see to one (or all) of these projects picked up by a publisher. Of course, I could go out all the way and self-publish. It would certainly cost me, but at least I'd have my work out there. But I would hate to put out something that's mediocre, and I feel that I need a "nod" from someone in the business telling me otherwise before seeing a book of mine on the stands (Now the critics may tear it to shreds later, but I'll worry about that then). And getting a thumbs up from one or more comic book publishers would ensure me that the work is worth something. I've gotten some encouraging words from various editors, telling me that they would like to see more submissions from me, so I will be crossing my fingers over the coming months.

Which brings me to Partners. The story touches upon some of the same themes as American Sinner, but it's a lot lighter on the gore, which makes me think that it will stand a better chance than my first book. Plus, it's about dirty cops, mobsters, and gruesome murders, which I'm sure will appeal to some portion of the comic book audience (I'm looking at you, fans of Punisher Max, 100 Bullets, and Criminal). And as mentioned before, Elias Martins is doing more than good work on the book. Take a look at these three panels, the first showing our two police detectives doing an errand for mob boss Angelo Fabiano.

The troubled Marty Fontana is making a public scene.

And here we see Vincent Santora practising his skills with the bat.

I'll show you more teasers over the coming months, and I can't wait to see these pages colored. As for "The Standard", we're still looking for a place for it, but it will have to wait a while. The reason is that we've submitted it to the Eagles Initiative, and one of the criteria is that each entry has to be previously unpublished. So we'll have to wait till our story is out of the contest before we put it anywhere else. No, we don't expect to win, but the chance of having the story be read by these fine people was too good to pass up.

By the way, Project Fanboy did a review of the Incubator Press anthology not too long ago. The reviewer Jeff Haas had some very nice words to say about my story there, which brightened up my day at the time. Thanks, Jeff.

I'd love to write more, but time is running short and I have to get up in the morning. But I won't close off before I've delivered another plug. In November, I praised the literary skills of China Miéville. This time I want to point you in the direction of fellow Norwegian and comic book writer Magnus Aspli. Magnus will have a cool book coming out from Markosia soon, called The Vessel of Terror. It's a Lovecraftian thriller about the dangers of the sea, and you should check it out immediately, as well as Magnus' other projects.

And that's that. We'll talk soon, people!

November already?

2010-11-04T06:49:00.001-07:00

By golly, it's true! So another three months has gone by, which means that it's time for another update on what's going on in the exciting world of Møane.

First off, the one-shot Homecoming is on a indefinite hiatus. The colorist took the money and ran off in the middle of the job, letting down both his studio and me. I'll hire some other to do the job instead as soon as things are sorted out, but it's not a priority right now. So, a word of advice to the writers and editors out there: Do not hire Marcio Freire to color your book.

As for Incubator Press, I'm glad to announce that the first of their many anthologies is finally out and can be purchased here. As mentioned earlier, I have a little story in it called "The Gathering", illustrated by Enric Simon. A horde of zombielike creatures are heading towards a small town, and the people left behind there are figuring out what they should do about it. It's funny that the book should see its release just days after the TV premiere of the The Walking Dead show (which actually impressed me a bit), so maybe that will help it somehow. Either way, I can promise you that this is the first and only time you'll see a story penned by me featuring zombies.

"The Standard" is completed, and was rejected by the editors of the Digital Webbing Presents 2.0 anthology in September. Perhaps this was because of the story's political undertones or that the anthology is more oriented towards the sci-fi/adventure genre. In any case, me and Adrian believe we have a strong little 8-pager on our hands, so we're going to look for another home for it. Unfortunately, crime anthologies are few and far between these days, so we may also just put the story online somwhere.

Partners is coming along nicely, and a third of the pages are completed at this moment. There's not much else to say about it, except that Elias is doing a helluva job on these pages and that I'm pretty certain the end result will look nothing less than great. Here's a panel of the two main characters, Stephen Vaveli and Joe Lombardo, standing outside one of the finer cinemas in the city:

Yes, the name of the movie theatre is a small tribute to Brian Azzarello's excellent western series. I always thought that its title would make for a great name for a porn theatre.

Other than that, I'm in the process of plotting out several other one-shots. They're all crime stories one way or the other, in the sense that the things happening in them are illegal or should be. One story in particular is about a controversial subject that is dividing the American people, and I'm really looking forward for that book to see the light of day.

Before I go I'd like to plug a novel I read recently: The City & The City by China Miéville. It's the first book I ever read by Miéville, and it blew my mind, to use a worn out expression. It's one part murder mystery, one part political drama and one part social commentary, among many other things. It won the Hugo Award for Best Novel just a few days after I finished it, and I reckon it's well deserved, even though I haven't read many of the other sf novels that came out last year. So check it out for a literary high.

There, plug finished. See you soon, friends.

Read American Sinner for free, general updates

2010-08-04T16:50:00.000-07:00

Ah, another blog post, three months after the last one. I have no idea how many of you who check in on this site on a regular basis, but I can only imagine how disappointed you must feel when you see that there's no new posts from me. So I wish to apologise to both of you. Thing is, I don't feel the need to write anything here if there's not anything new to talk about. Fortunately, I have a couple of things to communicate to you now.

First off, you can now read American Sinner for free here. Yeah, I decided to put the book up as a webcomic at ComicFury. This will hardly affect the book's indyplanet sales, and since the publishers have expressed that there is just no market for a book like this at the moment, why not put it out there for free? So to those of you who haven't checked it out already: There's no excuse now. You're welcome.

As for Homecoming, I'm still waiting for all the files to come in. This time the book has suffered delays because of the coloring, but we're getting there. I'll probably start working on the submission package next week. Here's a teaser from page 11:

The guys at Incubator Press have hit a few snags too, and their first anthology title, Food Chain Book 1: Tipping Point should have come out some time ago. But according to editor Willie Freeman, the only thing missing now is a decent cover, so let's cross our fingers for a release date soon. Enric Simon was the one who illustrated my little story, and I'm pleased to say that his pencils managed to convey the mood I was hoping for.

There has also been a change in regards to Partners, which I told you about in May. Unfortunately Marcelo Salaza had to walk away from the job because of a broken arm, but it was then handed to Elias Martins, who previously have worked for Arcana, among others. The one-shot, about two police detectives in the service of the mob, is probably the best thing I have ever written and it will clock in on around 50-60 pages. I'm pretty excited about this book, but who can help it when one are presented with pages like these every week:

And there's more. I've made another attempt at a short story, this time in the hope that it will be included in the new Digital Webbing anthology, Digital Webbing Presents 2.0. I have partnered up with Adrian Rodriguez and his nice, clean illustration style is currently doing the job on a story called "The Standard". The genre is noir, of course, and the story is about certain events that take place in the pretty suburbs of the town Magnolia:

Looks like a nice place, right? The story takes a closer look at one of its residents, and we see how his actions will affect himself and the rest of the community. If the story is accepted by the DWP editors, then great. If not, me and Adrian will still have a pretty decent 8-pager to show people.

That's what I got for now. I'll check in later when there's more news. Till then, read American Sinner, and if you feel like it, tell me what you thought of it in the comments.

Reviews, submissions and new projects

2010-05-06T15:20:00.000-07:00

Howdy.

First some words about American Sinner. I sent it out to a few more reviewers in January and the results were more than positive.

Karyn Pinter at ComicsBulletin.com gave it three and half bullets out of five. She praised the concept, thought that the writing was okay and that the art did the job and not much else.

Richard Vasseur of Jazma Online gave the book four stars out of five stars. He found the characterisation of Frank and Kevin to be frightening and was more positive to Edson's pencils. This review also led to an interview with yours truly, and I got to answer some questions about the characters and snuff films in general. I wish I had sent him another picture though, but too late to worry about that now.

Carl Doherty of Shelfabuse.com liked the comic and gave it seven points out of ten. He found the book to be "undeniably well written, and more than adequately illustrated", making the review the most positive one of the bunch.

The most critical review came from Bruce Cashman, in the third issue of (the most excellent) SP! Nexus Magazine (Page 60), but he still gave the book three and a half stars out of five. He thought the story didn't lead anywhere productive, though he did misunderstand from the get-go, thinking that American Sinner was the first installment in a series of many Frank Manning adventures. The hardest blow for me was that the book reminded him of the Hostel movies. That hurt, Bruce.

So overall the book has been received very generously by the critics. Since this was my first comic book I had no idea on what to expect, but I'm happy it went over so well and it inspired me to do more books.

With those reviews in mind I thought it wouldn't hurt to submit the book to some publishers. And so I did. And it didn't go very well.

First off, over half of the publishers I sent the book to didn't respond. Now, that may change in the future, as I know that some of my e-mails might not even have been read yet. God knows that fanboys wanting to make comics are not difficult to come by in this business. So I may get a few more answers, maybe a week, month or even a year from now.

Those that did respond gave me a very polite "thumbs down", though some used more words than others. One editor found it to be too heavy and dark, though he liked the writing and the art. Another editor didn't think he could exploit it much, since Diamond would probably not carry it because of the violence. At a glance, he said, it comes across as self-indulgent, and it would be difficult to make fans, retailers and Diamond to take a closer look at it.

This means that it's most unlikely that American Sinner will ever get a life beyond the print on demand stage. Now, this isn't so bad as I had never imagined getting my money back on the project, but I would have loved to reach more comic book readers with it. Next time, I guess.

Which brings me to Homecoming. The book is nearly completed, I'm receiving new pages every day now, and I've decided to submit it to various publishers before putting it up for sale at IndyPlanet. If any of them think that this crime drama has any commercial appeal and would want to take a chance on it, the book will find its way to the Diamond catalog and (hopefully) to the retailers. If not, it will share the same fate as American Sinner. Here's hoping for the former.

Before I go I might as well announce my new project. I mentioned The Hit earlier, which was supposed to come out after Homecoming. I'm about halfway done with that script, but it's been put on hold for now. The reason is that I'm writing on a new book, which will be called Partners. It is being illustrated by the very talented Marcelo Salaza, who asked me if I had any projects on my plate that suited his style. I came up with Partners, which will be around 40 pages in length. The tale is about two police detectives in a homicide unit and is loosely based on these guys. I'm having fun writing it and I can't wait to see the final result.

That's it for now. Keep reading good comics and check back later for more news.

Updates

2010-03-18T03:07:00.000-07:00

And by "next month" I meant this month, but you all knew that, didn't ya?

Anyway, things are going well again when it comes to my current comic book projects. First off, my story "The Gathering" will hopefully see print soon. I signed a contract recently, so I guess I can give you a few more details. The story will be featured in an anthology book (that will most likely be) called Food Chain 1: Tipping Point from Incubator Press. It's the first book in a series of three dealing with a zombie apocalypse, and new comic book writers were told to come up with "tales of survivors at the moment they realized we’d hopelessly lost the zombie war". I did, e-mailed it to the editors of Incubator Press, and got a reply telling me I had a slot in the book. So yay me. I haven't seen any pages yet, but I believe the story is completely illustrated and is being lettered at this point. I don't know the release date yet, but I'll be sure to post it here, as well as information on where you can order the book when the time comes.

As for Homecoming, it's been a long ride, but yesterday I got a few new layouts for the final pages in the book. Needless to say, I was very pleased, and I can finally begin to see some light at the end of this tunnel. I'm thinking May or June, but maybe it'll be sooner. In any case, as soon as the artwork is done I will go over the dialogue and hand the book over to a letterer. I'm also pondering about taking another publishing route than the one I took with American Sinner. Instead of just selling the comic through IndyPlanet as soon as it's done, I thought I'd show the book to some publishers first. We'll see. I sent American Sinner around to various editors in January, and I'll tell you how well that went later.

Before I go I thought I'd be a nice gesture to leave you with nothing less than a little teaser for Homecoming. Did I tell you that the pages look beautiful? They do, and if you don't believe me, take a look at the first one:

Yeah. See you later.

Good news, bad news

2010-01-11T07:57:00.000-08:00

Hello and a happy new year to all of you. I thought I'd deliver a quick update on my various projects.

First, the bad news: Due to some unforeseen events, Homecoming will be delayed a few more months. Yes, it sucks big time. I was thinking about showing you some pages from the book, but it doesn't feel right at this moment. Till it's finished, I will cross my fingers for all parties involved and hope for the best.

On a lighter note, I can tell you that I have little story coming up in an anthology book this spring. I'm not sure if I can say much more right now, other than that it will be 8 pages long and in black and white. It's current title is "The Gathering", and it will be my first comic book story with a fantastical element in it. And here I thought I'd stay clear of that stuff throughout my writing career. Well, there you go.

I'll check in next month with more updates for (hopefully) both these projects. Take care till then.

American Sinner - Another review

2009-11-09T05:47:00.000-08:00

It's been way too long since I wrote anything here. To those who care, I'm sorry. Some things got in the way, like health problems, work, etc. I still haven't sorted everything out, but at least things are in motion in terms of my next book, Homecoming. Expect some more info on that book soon.

Anyway, Calvin Daniels has posted a very nice review of American Sinner at his site. Calvin's reviews are a mixture of reviewing and interviewing, which meant that I got to say a few words about the comic, as well as plugging my upcoming books. So it's also my first comic book interview ever, how about that?

More later.

American Sinner - First review

2009-06-02T10:03:00.000-07:00

The first review of American Sinner is up at Comicmonsters.com .

I'm happy to say that it's very positive, so I hope that it will draw some attention to the book. Thanks to "Decapitated" Dan Royer for the nice words.

American Sinner - Order now!

2009-05-22T14:56:00.000-07:00

So it's finally happened. After almost two years, my first comic book, American Sinner, is available through IndyPlanet. Go check it out, and don't leave before you've ordered a copy. Good.

What is American Sinner? Well, for starters, it's a 48-page black-and-white comic book aimed at what you call "mature readers" in the States. It contains a stand alone story about Frank Manning and his cousin Kevin, who resides somewhere in the American south. When night falls, they roam around in the city, looking for women to star in one of their home made movies. I'm not talking about porn here, but snuff.

And that's the premise. Don't expect to find any likeable characters in this book. The same goes for moral or catharsis. It's just not there. I set out to write a bleak tale about two assholes and their movie business and I tried to handle the subject matter as realistically as I could. With a little drama and a little action, I figured I had something that was worth making a comic book out of. Let's hope I'm right.

It's been a blast seeing your own words illustrated by an artist such as Edson Alves. The first time I received a pencil sketch in my inbox, it made me a very happy man indeed. Then I knew that feeling that Bendis has been talking about in all those Wordballoon podcasts.

When setting out to create your first comic as a writer, I'd guess it's a little weird (or stupid, for that matter) to dive head first into the 48-page format. Most comic book writers start out a little smaller, submitting stories to various anthologies or creating minicomics with willing collaborators. Not me. I wanted to see American Sinner illustrated and I paid lots of dollars to make it happen. The thought of creating something smaller didn't even occur to me. Which just goes to show how inexperienced I was (and still am) when it came to creating comic books.

But one of my main reasons for creating the book was to learn about the process. You can only read so many books and websites about it before you have to do it yourself. And after years of just thinking about it, I decided it was time to say "go!". The experiences and lessons I've learned during the making of this book has been absolutely invaluable and I will definetely take them with me into my next project.

The other big reason for doing this was to have something to point to the day I decide to take my writing to a higher level. That means pitching projects to publishers. Then I can show them a pile of books with my name on them, which for better or worse, will show them my abilites as a storyteller. That's the way to go about it if you're to believe several pro comic creators. "If you want to write comics, create comics." It's as simple as that.

And since I've gotten a taste of it now, I'm not about to stop after my first one. I got two projects I'm working on right now. One is called The Hit and the other one Homecoming. The latter will probably see the light of day first, as I'm about to put the finishing touches on the first draft of the script. Then I'll hire an editor to look over it and then it's time to look for an artist.

But artists costs money. So once again, please click here to buy a cool indy comic book in the crime genre and you'll be helping me out a little in that regard. You'll have my eternal gratitude for supporting me and hopefully you'll enjoy the book as well. Thanks.

American Sinner preview

2009-04-15T01:06:00.000-07:00

My first comic book, and my main reason for starting this blog, is available very, very soon. It is an 48 page one-shot about a small snuff movie business, and it can be purchased at http://www.indyplanet.com/ when the time comes. Anyway, here's a little preview:

And yeah, I'm only the writer of this book. The one who's doing the illustrations is the very talented Edson Alves.