Hey kids! I have a special announcement to make!

Remember when I participated in the Bill Counts October Game last year, in which I did a new finished piece of art every day of the month? In case you've forgotten, you can check out the gallery here as a refresher.

I'm planning on participating in it again, because I really got a kick out of doing it last year despite how torturous it got to be from time to time. Also I'm a horrible masochist. I'm something different this time around, though...

This year I'll be drawing a complete 30-page comic called Shouting at the Void.
I've been slowly plotting this thing out since the idea hit me early last month. Shouting at the Void is about an android hitman named Mint who lives in the desert city of Los Azules, where the appearance of a mysterious portal starts to shake things up in his life.

Every day of October I will draw a new page and post it online, over on the Facebook page for the game, on deviantART, on my art Tumblr (where you can see a couple of other early mock-ups), and on this site as well. To hopefully make things easier, each page will be drawn on smaller paper, 6x9 inches, which is the size of my medium sketches that I do at conventions, and the size that I drew the above concept piece. This is also the size that comics genius Moritat draws at these days, and is slightly larger than the size I print my zines at, so maybe when it's all over I can do a printed copy to sell.

In addition, I already have the story written out, and am in the process of breaking it down page by page as a script and still working on design stuff. If I have time, I'll be thumbnailing the pages out too. The idea is that if I get all of this done in advance, all I'll really have to worry about is drawing the pages themselves when next month hits, and I'll theoretically also be able to work on the final chapter of Other Sleep at the same time, yeah?

My only REAL concern is, well, um, see the new banner at the top of the page? That's an x-ray of my mouth. The "suspicious area" in the corner there is apparently a cyst or benign tumor that's been developing INSIDE of my jawbone. They're gonna have to cut that out, obviously, which means surgery. HOPEFULLY the surgery can be done this month. If not, well, we'll see what it's like to draw while doped up on painkillers, right?

So there you have it. A 30 page comic about an existential android hitman, to be drawn and serialized every day for the month of October. It's going to be pretty exciting, I think. I hope you'll all follow along when it happens!

Oh, also? Chapter 8 of Other Sleep will be up soon, some time next week I imagine. So I'll be definitely getting a head start on the final chapter before all of this begins. Still working on that art show for February too!

That's all for now. See you again soon!

[Brett]

So I'm participating in this little thing that the Nelson Fine Art Gallery in Johnson City is throwing, called the Bill Counts October Game. The rules are simple: create a new piece of art every day for the month of October and send it in before midnight. The pieces will be posted on the Facebook page I just linked to. If you miss a day, though, ALL of your work is removed. So, you know, NO PRESSURE. I'm one of up to 25 artists participating, and I think there's 18 so far who have signed up. I've been working on sketching out a bunch of ideas for stuff I want to do.

There’s a conflict in my brain when I’m thinking of ideas and making art, that of my desire to be a super detailed illustrator like Geof Darrow/James Stokoe/Moebius/Brandon Graham/etc. VS super clean design work like the Designers Republic/Brian Wood/Ashley Wood/etc. Some of these sketches are me attempting to find some kind of happy medium between the two. I mean, I guess that's always been a struggle of mine for some time now, but this is the opportunity to REALLY focus on it.

The only other preparation I’ve done is saving a SHITLOAD of images from Tumblr, deviantART, and other places as inspiration.

My initial plan was to just do a drawing every day, on 11x17 paper or some such, and leave it at that. But that’d get boring, so I’m going to do a lot of digital stuff too, I think. I know after the first week I’ll probably hit a wall of exhaustion and will turn lazy and sloppy, but hopefully I’ll be able to push past that into some new, more interesting territory in order to keep from being bored and giving up. Desperation may force me to get more creative, yeah? That's my hope, anyway.
It’s going to be difficult, because I still want to get work done on Other Sleep as I do this, working my job, and maintaining a healthy social life with the girlfriend. It’s a daunting thing to think about yes, but I think it can be done.

I don't know whether I'll be uploading everything here onto this site or not, maybe they'll get their own gallery once it's all over with, provided I don't die or go mad in the process. Everything's gonna be posted on that Facebook page for sure, and I may throw everything onto my Tumblr as well, so if you're interested in keeping up with it, those are the two places to watch.

LET'S DO THIS. ART OR DIE.

[Brett]