Looking Back… To the Last Man

Posted on May 12, 2008

Way back in the summer of 2004, I had an idea for a graphic novel about a man cutting a swath of vengeance across Texas. I called it To the Last Man, and I wrote the first half of it in an old notebook I happened to have with me while in San Diego. Once I returned home, I started refining the script.

A month later (this would be August) I had an artist contracted to draw the whole thing for just over $3000. I sent him the first quarter of his payment and waited. Month a later, I received character sketches (after bugging said artist for them).

Then my job canceled all available overtime, and I had to kill the project. Every now and then I really miss that $750.

I rewrote what I had of the script. The end was refusing to come together, but I didn’t let that bother me. I’d figure it out. Without an artist, I had all the time in the world. During this phase, To the Last Man took on a different flavor. While it was still a gritty revenge story, it took the occasional turn toward the fantastic, such as an Act Two action sequence involving our hero driving a ‘49 Mercury up against a pair of redneck survivalists with enough weaponry to take over a country.
It was awesome.

During all of this, I tried various artists who were willing to work on the project. Standard operating procedure went something like, “I’ll have those character sketches for you in a day or two,” followed by the artist’s disappearance or decision to work on something else.

So I changed my plan. With two months and change left before Comic-Con 2005, I called up Ben Dale, an artist I’d met the year before, and asked if he’d be interested in penciling and inking five pages for a pitch. He read the script and agreed. We hammered out a few details concerning what we’d expect from each other if the project sold, and two months later (and after some lettering by yours truly) we had a pitch ready for San Diego.

I hustled that pitch around to every publisher I could find. Oni, Viper, Boom!, Planet Lar, and everybody else who wasn’t Marvel or DC.

Every last one of them turned it down.

Eh, you live and you learn. The odds were again me from the start, anyway. I went back to the drawing board, getting more pitches ready. Those are tales for another day, however. We’re here to talk about To the Last Man. See, I’ve always been a little sad that nobody got to see it.

I think today’s a good day to change that.

Because I love you all, I am presenting you the five finished pages from To the Last Man.  Maybe they’ll amuse you or inspire you or make you wonder What the hell was this guy thinking?  Either way, I hope you get something out of them, because they’re all I have to show for a year of work.

Enjoy!

Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4
Page 5

Copyright 2004, Nate Southard.
Art Copyright 2005, Ben Dale.

Scratching at my brain fever

Posted on April 24, 2008

Recently, I’ve found myself spending a lot of time wondering why I do the things I do, why I live my life the way I live it. As I approach one month of sobriety (and wonder why I didn’t celebrate one month several years ago), I turn these thoughts over more and more.  There are questions I need to answer, and it’s about time I got my head out of my ass and started answering.

I’ve never claimed to be normal.  I’m just a guy, but I’m screwed up just like every other human out there.  I really want to get to the bottom of my various quirks, though.  I want to know why I freak out if I overcook a chicken breast the slightest bit.  I want to know why not finding a fajita marinade at Whole Foods ruined my entire Sunday.  I want to know why I hate myself everytime I buy something for my own entertainment.

Every now and then, I wonder why I hate going outside, why I feel a sense of doom everytime Shawna says, “It sure is a nice day to go out and do something!”  But I don’t want to go outside!  Why can’t I stay in and write?  Or sleep?  Or just not be outside?  It’s so outside-ish out there!  It’s horrible!

I swear, most of the time it feels like my brain’s on fire, like it’s itching and out of control and I have to do something about it.  But I can’t do anything.  I can only sit perfectly still and hate myself for not doing something!

Couple this with my need to write, and you have a recipe for disaster.  A day of not reaching my desired word count?  Disaster.  The suspicion I’m churning out crap?  Depression.  A friend of mine sells a story, a book, a comic, or a movie?  I’m happy for them, but I feel like a failure.  What have I done lately?  Why am I falling behind?

And the funny thing is, I’m having a great year.  Once I’m allowed to make announcements, it’s going to be incredible.  This is supposed to be my ignition year, and I’m scratching at my brain trying to figure out why I feel so pathetic half the time.

So my project for the rest of the year, in addition to all the writing and home stuff I’m determined to do, is to get my head screwed on straight.  I need to become functional.  Something close to normal.

And I need to stop scratching at my brain, wondering why it’s on fire.

“Captain Jinkies” Available for free!

Posted on April 7, 2008

Happy Monday, friends and neighbors!  It is with great pleasure that I tell you my short story “Captain Jinkies” is now available in the latest online edition of Dark Recesses Press.

“Jinkies” is my evil clown story.  I think just about every horror writer has an evil clown story up their sleeve.  I tried to do something fun and more than a little off the wall with mine.  I hope you enjoy it.  I’m especially proud of this appearance, as it marks the first time I’ve made the cover of a mag and been the lead story.

So click right here and read “Captain Jinkies!”

The Burden of Patience

Posted on March 7, 2008

Let me start by apologizing for the recent lack of any real news (this sentence reminds me that I should also apologive for my many attacks on proper grammar).  Trust me, I’d love to tell you about all the incredibly exciting things I’ve got going on right now.  There are, however, a few problems…

1) There’s not much going on.

2) It’s not that exciting.

and 3). The burden of patience.

See, over the last year or two, I’ve really tried to make it a point of doing things the right way.  I treat conventions like work (fun work, but still work) instead of a week-long party, I don’t go spouting off on message boards about certain “writers” (term used loosely) even though they might deserve the occassional drubbing, I try really hard not to be annoying, and more than anything I try to keep myself from announcing things that shouldn’t be announced yet.

But the problem is that I get excited about what I’m working on.  I think any good writer should get that sharp thrill from their work.  The trick-and it’s a damn hard trick-is to keep that excitement below the surface.  I want to tell people about the stuff I’m writing, and it usually ends up embarrassing me.

Case (well, cases) in point: since I started this blog, I’ve probably talked about close to ten comics projects that have fizzled out, disappeared, or blown up in my face.  I should have kept my trap shut, but instead I blabbed.  Now, you might be wondering what happened to Saint James or To the Last Man.  Well, one went through three artists over as many years and the other went through five artists without the script ever getting finished.  Then, I stopped liking comics and decided to concentrate solely on prose.  Now, I love comics again, but I’m keeping my feet in the prose world because I don’t have to sit around begging artists to turn in pages that way.

See what I mean?

So I’ll try to come up with other things to write about here.  There will be much fun and entertainment, and I won’t announce anything until it’s ready to be announced.  How’s that?

Have a good weekend, everybody.

Now Available at Horror-Mall

Posted on February 20, 2008

Horror-Mall has recently started carrying all of my graphic novels.  If you’ve been looking for a chance to pick up one or all of them, here it is!

Drive

A Trip to Rundberg

Brian Keene’s Fear

The Idea Stampede

Posted on January 28, 2008

Well, it’s a new week, and I’m still forced to hold off on telling you any good news.  Everything is too shaky right now.  With any luck, the coming weeks will hold good news like a strip club patron clutches a fistful of singles (thus goes the worst simile I’ve ever written).

In the mean time, I’ll tell you about something fun that’s been happening lately.  Every now and then, I get a stampede of idea, just a bunch of stories popping in my head at once.  I can maybe hear them approaching like a subtle thunder in the distance, but I never have time to fully prepare.

See, I write pretty fast.  Not Jim Moore fast, but pretty fast.  I do not, however, write fast enough to write each story as it pops in my head.  I’ve got to queue them up in my brain and make each wait its turn.

This isn’t as easy as it sounds (does it even sound easy?).  There’s a notebook next to my bed full of ideas.  There’s a word file on my desktop full of titles and descriptions of upcoming stories (five of which are novels-nevermind that I have to sell the first four, still).  I have close to a dozen short stories that currently consist of a first paragraph followed by a few sentences of description.  That’s more than a little clutter created in the pursuit of storytelling.

But the ideas keep coming.  Sometimes the stampede slows down a little, but it always picks up again.  All I can do is type away and hope I get caught up.

Or hope I don’t get caught up.  Maybe it’s more fun that way.

A Big Sale!

Posted on January 11, 2008

I found out yesterday that my short story “The Message” will appear in a future issue of Cemetery Dance.  This is a huge deal for me.  Cemetery Dance is one of those Holy Grail career goals I’ve set for myself.  I couldn’t be more thrilled right now.

I’ll update you all on the situation once I have dates and details.

Muy Mal returns

Posted on January 9, 2008

I’ve written about Muy Mal in the past (check out the original review here).

For a quick rundown, I’ll tell you that Muy Mal is the brainchild of the incredibly talented writers Mike Oliveri, Weston Ochse, and John Urbancik.  It’s a site full of free fiction revolving around a world much like ours, but one where magic never completely died.  There’s everything from horror and fantasy to gritty criminal dramas and Republic Serial-style adventure… and it’s all free.

Well, in the after math of their end of the world crossover Cataclysm, the boys are back to close out the world of Muy Mal for good.  They even updated the site’s look (and it’s a beautiful site, probably should have looked like this from the start). 

Go read.  Get caught up and learn the whole story.  There’s some incredible stuff there.

Preparing for Battle

Posted on December 28, 2007

I tried.  I mean, I really tried.  Thing is, after a week of not writing on this bastard I started to get antsy.  When I realized 2008 was still half a week away, I decided I couldn’t take it anymore.

So here I am.  Welcome back.

I wish I could tell you December has been a mad rush of book contracts and publications, but I just can’t.  I’ve had some really hopeful signs, and a new retailer has picked up all the Frequency Press books (look for them on Horror-Mall real soon!), but that ever-elusive deal remains just out of reach.

Unless you count that one thing, but I’m afraid to talk about that until something is signed.  Maybe before my birthday.

So this leaves me preparing for battle in 2008.  I remember a few years back when Warren Ellis proclaimed the next year The Year of the Shithammer.  While I don’t really plan on having that kind of year, I want 2008 to be a big step forward for me.  And I think it will be.  Things are looming on the horizon, and I think they’re going to get better as the year rolls out.

Of course, there are speedbumps along the way.

For instance, I just found out last night that two members of my super-close writer support group aren’t going to make World Horror in March.  This means I have to work harder to put myself out there.  I can’t follow these folks around and act like I know what I’m doing.  Instead, I have to dive in head-first and prove I know what I’m doing.  Dammit, that’s hard for a shy-as-all-hell guy like yours truly.

So, battle. 

2008 should prove very interesting.  If not, I’ll just cut and paste this entry next December.

Rocketing toward 2008

Posted on December 20, 2007

We’re less than two weeks away from the end of the year, and I couldn’t be more excited.  As incredible as 2007 was, 2008 promises to be even bigger.  I can’t wait.

In the past year, three new short stories have hit the public.   “Insomnia Is My Only Friend” landed in the first issue of Horror Literature Quarterly back in April.  Two months later, “Johnny Hall’s Amazing Vanishing Act” appeared both in prose and as an audio recording at The Late Late Show.  Wait another two months, and August saw the publication of a new Rundberg story, “Of Cabbages and Kings,” in The Dead Walk Again!

Not a bad track record, if I do say so myself (and this is my homepage, so I do get to say so myself).

Depending on publishing schedules, I should have at least four stories published in 2008.  That will tie my most productive year (2005), but I really think I’ll be able to top that because I’m writing better than I ever have.  We’ll see how it goes.

In the past year, I finished two novels and wrote the first draft of a third.  I’ve never felt so productive, and it’s my sincere hope that I’ll be able to show you at least one of these books soon.  Keep your fingers crossed, and I’ll do the same.

In the coming year, I have quite a few projects to fill my time.  One of them, a secret project with some other writers, should be ready for World Horror in March.

Finally, I bought a house with Shawna this year, making me both a homeowner and an official homebody.  Couldn’t be happier.

I’ll see you guys in 2008.  Have a good December.

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