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Posted by:

HeadPress

Date:

October 9th, 2008 12:25 PM

Header:

Author Looking for a Collaborator for Graphic Novel

Bulletin:

Gang....I was sent information by a novelist who has an idea for a graphic novel and was searching for an artist that wishes to work with him to bring it to market. Here's the particulars (his contact information follows):
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Dear Mr. Luedke:
Thanks for the advice. I haven't sold the novel in any sense yet, although a major publisher (DAW) gave it a second read awhile back - I've worked on it on and off for quite some time. For a long time, I've had the feeling it would make a better movie and then I realized that perhaps a graphic novel would be the best venue.

Facts (I know for sure, as of now)

1. The graphic novel would be part of a series, which would lead from genesis to revelation of a world.
2. Each novel would be around 200 pages long.
3. Ideally, I'd prefer color, but I could live with black and white.
4. I would split compensation 50/50 with the graphic artist (this is probably simplistic, but I figure they bring it to life, while I conceive it, so that's 50% each).
5. It would be a science fiction/fantasy fantasy novel in the sense that the reader wouldn't know it it was natural law/technology or magic, until the ending (Gene Wolfe comes to mind here).
6. Given enough time and coaching, I think I could sell this BEFORE the art work really got going. However, I might need a frontispiece or two, and I even have one or two in mind.
7. In a nutshell the concept is simply a re-casting of the myth of the Fall, in which angelic powers rebel and are overthrown. They are literally thrown to the "edge" of the expanding cosmos, and on the border with chaos, they are resurrected out of their wreck, but they cannot remember the splendor they fell from. In order to know who they once were, they create a world, and dominate it, trying to use natural laws to achieve a vehicle (the planet) and servants (men) who they can use re-create the heaven they fell from.
8. I have a strong poetic ability (not bragging on this one, as you'll see from following admissions), and not so strong ability to craft a "contemporary" fantasy novel that would appeal, nor do I have the innate ability to read a market. So, this is why I've gravitated towards a graphic novel, since it opens the possibility of exploring a world in a different medium besides that of "what is the Robert Jordan crowd reading nowadays"? Besides, it might introduce some manga readers to something in Milton's vein.

If you know anyone who is interested in something this ambitious and off the wall, I would be eternally grateful to you for any recommendations or further advice. I am an evangelical and orthodox Christian, who is interested in pressing the issue of art in a way that secular audiences could respond to but would overwhelm them in the same way they like to think their art "overwhelms" us. Here is a link to my only published story: http://www.dkamagazine.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=3297&sid=288a55080b95
3bd71b0d25031a2eacb7

Sincerely,
Matthew Smallwood

Contact me at: cathasach71854@gmail.com

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