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!

Welcome to the Strange

There are times when I'm able to step back and realize something about myself as a reader and watcher of media. Ever since I was little I've loved stories that were bonkers. What do I mean by that? I've always loved things that went into the realm of the strange and got a little bit creepy. I think that Alien might be the first example. That film really moved me when I was little. It also got me into a ton of trouble when I drew a picture of the chestburster in my second grade classroom (and later the Predator ripping out someone's spine). I never had a cap on what I could watch when I was little, and I think that really gave me a head start in terms of enjoying film, TV, and literature.

Now that I'm older I keep gravitating toward those stories that have a bit of science fiction, a bit of mystery, and just a touch of horror. Grant Morrison's Animal Man, Doom Patrol, and now The Invisibles have really inspired me to explore the strange in my own comics and writing. There's only so many times that you can write one person fighting another, but creating situations where people fight ideas and face the horrors of reality is just as fun to write, if not more.

The last thing I want to do is copy anyone's style. That's not my aim. I don't want to be the next anyone except myself. My goal is to just tell the kinds of stories that I enjoy and share them with readers. If that means telling stories set in situations similar to the work that Neil Gaiman, Warren Ellis, or even Morrison have done, so be it. I just think it's interesting that I never noticed how big of a part these writers have played on my subconscious and how it's affected the way I approach a story.

I've always outlined a story completely and moved from point A to point B in my own mad scientist kind of way. But now I'm thinking more about how I can make the comics medium work to the best of its ability on the page, doing things other media can't, while remembering that writers like Gaiman, Ellis, and Morrison are there to show me that there is no set way of doing things. You have to carve your own path in anything that you do in life, and I've woken up today with a big hammer and chisel.

And after reading that last sentence I want to assure everyone that it's not a morning wood joke.

Most people say write what you know. And that's true to a point. But I think it should be amended a little. The way it should be said is "write what you love." Because you could know a lot about a subject and no one else would want to read it. When you write about something you love the passion comes through on the page and it resonates with everyone that reads it. Not everyone will love it, some might hate it, but it'll be the purest form of what you put on the page.

That goes for any and all creative endeavors that you set sail on in the ocean of imagination.

I hope that this inspires someone the way that those writers and countless other artists have inspired me to share my musings with the world. Because in the end that's all we're really doing. We're sitting around the celestial campfire and sharing stories on a global scale.