A few months back, my good friend and comic-book-brother-in-arms Pat Kawula pitched me an idea about a comic anthology with "Video Games" as the glue to hold it all together. Now lemme tell 'ya, I enjoy a good comic anthology (see my past work on Unlawful Good as an example), and I told him if he followed through, to let me know and I would pitch a story.
As it turns out, Pat was good on his word- and the anthology Get in the Game was born.
I thought writing a story relating to video games would be easy- hell, I've only been playing them for the last 34 years of my life... so color me surprised when I had no pitch assembled WHATSOEVER leading up to the last day or two of open submissions. No pressure, right? As the hourglass ticked down to the last grain, I watched as friends and respected comics pros all jumped on board with the idea. Who would even illustrate this thing, if I could come up with a story worth telling?
And then, in the eleventh hour... clarity; perspective. The pitch went in, and here we are. I took stock of who was already on board with this thing- names like Seth Damoose, Jim McClain, Michelle Joy Gallagher, CR Warner, Brad Gischia, Emily Zelasko, Travis Bramble, Tara Maslowski- all friends in the business who I respect and admire. Add in a few other pros whose names I recognized but had not had the pleasure of meeting yet, plus a few friends for who this would be their first published comics work, along with the onboarding of the magnificent Drena Jo on editing duties and Dirk Manning writing the forward... and that damn bar is set HIGH.
So now all I need to do is find the right artist, right?
Right.
More on that soon.