"You Can't Go Home Again" - Kenny Porter & Jim Towe (One-Page Comic)

Here's a comic that Jim Towe and I did for The Prompt, a comic book challenge and experiment created by Nic J. Shaw.

The Prompt - Tumblr

The prompt was to create a single page story that revolved around the theme of coming home. I decided to take it into a Twilight Zone kind of direction.

I hope you enjoy it!

Project Updates 6/11/2014 (Bluster, Western Comic, and More!)

Hey Everyone!

I know that I’ve been missing for a while, but I’ve got a few good excuses.

My first excuse is that I was attending conventions. I went to C2E2 in Chicago and Motor City ComicCon in Michigan. I had a fantastic time and got to meet some incredible creators. I was even asked to speak on a panel with writers Amy Chu, Christy Blanch, Shaun Manning, and artist Reilly Brown. We talked about making creator-owned comics and self-publishing, and we also answered questions from the audience. Let me tell you something, Amy Chu puts on a fun panel. If you’re ever at a convention and she has one of these lined up then you should definitely attend.

From left to right:
Kenny Porter, Amy Chu, Shaun Manning, Christy Blanch, and Reilly Brown

I was listed as a guest for Cherry Capital Con in Traverse City, Michigan, but unfortunately couldn’t attend. This leads me to my second excuse -- horrible food poisoning. It took a trip to the emergency room, my caring girlfriend, and a viewing of The Lego Movie to get me through the ordeal, but I came out alive.

Since then I’ve been working on Bluster with Andy Budnick and a top secret Western comic with artist Jim Towe, which we plan on putting on Kickstarter. I'm also writing as an intern this summer for Cosmic Book News, where I write the "Alternative Comics Beat" column. Keep your eyes peeled for those projects and Alt Beat articles!

Bluster is still on schedule and the first two issues should be done soon. Andy has almost finished the art for the first issue and is only a few pages away. We won’t release the first issue until we have the second issue locked as well. Then we’ll throw the first one up digitally and follow with the other three issues monthly.

I hope everyone out there is reading fantastic comics this summer. Preferably with a cool beverage, outdoors, and with friends. I know I’ve been doing it often.

Keep your eyes peeled, there’ll be more news to come!

(And more regular posts)

Short Comic Book Stories - Back to Basics

I’ve made a promise to myself that I won’t start any more huge projects until Bluster, The Dominoes, and a new secret project are wrapped up. In that time I do want to work on my ability to write short comic book stories. It’s been a while since I wrote a short, but I remember how useful it was to learn to tell a full story in a quarter of the pages that standard comic books usually have.

The best part about writing is that you can choose your mentors. The even better part of choosing your mentors is that you never have to meet them. I’ve learned just as much from studying other people’s work as I have from talking to actual writers. In order to sharpen my short story skills (until I can take a Comics Experience course I’ve been dying to enroll in) I decided to pick up All-Star Future Shocks from 2000 AD.

All-Star Future Shocks from 2000 AD

Some of my favorite creators have shorts between these covers. Including Grant Morrison, Neil Gaiman, Peter Milligan, and Frazer Irving.

I wanted to share this because it’s important to go back to basics and sharpen your skills for projects down the road. Making a mini-series or original graphic novel is fun, but there’s still room to dabble in short comic book stories or strips in order to experiment with narrative and characters.

Project Update #2: Bluster

Andy Budnick sent me the fifth page of Bluster #1 today. Holy shit! I love the attitude that Olive Robinson has in that panel. Not to mention her incredible Ghostbusters t-shirt.

I get more excited about this project each time he sends me a page.

More updates soon!

Bluster - Page 5

Project Update: The Dominoes #1

Hey everyone! I just thought I'd share these awesome pitch pages that I worked on with artist Jim Towe and colorist Jon Alderink.

The pitch is for a mini-series I developed with Jim called The Dominoes.

Here's some of the info on the project as well as a cover and pages 11 - 15 of the first script.

The Dominoes

“Life is strange, evil is stranger, don the mask, and face the danger!”

A 4-Issue Mini-Series by Kenny Porter and Jim Towe

Premise:

Roxy Shultz, a young college girl, wants a life outside of her mother’s shadow. But when a creature bent on ridding the world of free will attacks her city, Roxy is enlisted by a group of cosmic avengers called The Dominoes in order to save reality.

Main Characters:

Roxy Shultz: A community college student and aspiring painter, she’s conflicted about her future and is pressured by her mother to follow in her footsteps of academia. She just wants her freedom and to do something that matters.

Martha Shultz: A tough as nails English professor who wants her daughter Roxy to have a stable life, by force if necessary.

Slate: A demonic creature with a grin that can never frown. He’s determined to take away free will from the Earth, then the universe. He has a deep hatred for The Dominoes and a mysterious past.

The Dominoes

They’re a group of supernatural masked avengers that travel by dimensional gateways and fight threats to reality.

Strut: The current leader of the team. He’s more worried about others than himself and his ability allows him to take massive amounts of damage. His ability to lead is waning, and he’s worried their next fight could be their last.

Gavel: Strut’s right-hand woman and a hard brawler. She’s exceptionally strong, both in mind and body.

Gritty: The moral compass of the team, Gritty can see the truth in the universe and can read people’s auras.

If I had to compare the book to anything it'd be like a mix between Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and a rock album with mod blended in there.

This scene picks up right as the main character, Roxy, first meets The Dominoes face-to-face when they confront Slate in a clothing store.

Cover

Page 11 of Issue #1

Page 12 of Issue #1

Page 13 of Issue #1

Page 14 of Issue #1

Page 15 of Issue #1

Hope you all enjoy the pages!

In The Works -- Craig Farmer: Astronaut! OGN (Kenny Porter and Jim Towe)

This is a project I'm working on with Jim Towe, an artist from Grand Rapids, Michigan. It's about an astronaut who has essentially become a glorified space bully and wants to redefine himself as an explorer. But if he wants to explore space like the men and women before him then he'll stand against the military organization that sponsors him and a crazed space tyrant bent on taking Farmer's head as a trophy.

We're doing the story as an OGN at the 6 x 9 size.

Promo Images

In The Works -- Bluster (Comic Book Mini-Series by Kenny Porter and Andy Budnick)

Bluster

A while ago I posted about a comic book project that I'm doing with artist Andy Budnick called Bluster. It's about a family that takes in a super powered escaped convict. While the family is imprisoned by the choices that they've made in life, the escaped convict is escaping imprisonment from the hand he was dealt genetically.

Here are Andy's pencils so far:

Page 1

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4

Updates - 12/19/2012

The Wonderful World of Pitching

It's been a while since I updated this site, but I wanted to keep everyone who has been following my aspirations this far in the loop.

What do I have planned for 2013?

Each New Year's resolution that I've made has been related to my career in some way. This past year it was working for a publisher. I worked for Visionary Comics for just over seven months and it was a wonderful experience.

This year's resolution is to have an original title published. How I'm planning to do this is by working with artists that I trust and respect on multiple pitches this year and getting them out to as many eyes as possible.

Right now Kendall Goode and I are working on a project that we're both very excited about. I don't want to spoil the story just yet, but the premise is wrapped around our love for Super Sentai (Power Rangers/Kamen Rider) from Japan. It'll be a celebration of the genre as well as playing on it a little. It's a lot like Invincible and how it played off of Superman.

Andy Budnick and I are going to be working on a space mystery that I've come up with after reading Planetary by Warren Ellis and having my mind blown. It's similar in tone, but I've had an idea for a space exploration story for a while that would fit the mood I've been put in by Ellis' work.

Brandon Williams and I are doing a manga-inspired story that, like the Super Sentai project, will both celebrate and poke fun at the genre. Anime and manga heroes tend to have a very similar arc, and I want to move that story out of its comfort zone and give that kind of character much more cerebral problems than tournament manga tends to do.

So that's the basic plan! As the projects come to light I'll be sharing them with everyone. I've also got a screenplay I'm writing, a novel I'm working on, and writing for Sequential Review and Cosmic Book News. Needless to say, I've got a lot on my plate.

Good thing I'm hungry.

Violent Skies - First 7 Pages

We're nearing completion of Violent Skies for pitching this fall, and the artwork looks fantastic.

The story is a science fiction/action/thriller that deals with a supernatural gun-for-hire named Vincent Fox. He works for crime syndicates in order to find his abducted brother, who was taken by the world government decades ago.

The pencils and inks are by the incredible Kendall Goode, and the coloring was done by the masterful Paulina Ganucheau.

Have a look!