Well, it’s officially been ten days since Kim and I got McMarried. As is common with middle-aged couples, who collect AARP coupons, we’ve been enjoying carefree days of ziplining, parasailing, nude skydiving, and – obviously – zorbing. New readers are thinking “Sweet mother of the immortal possum, these folks have got it going on!” Everyone else knows I’m lying between what’s left of my teeth. Still, it’s nice being married even if it’s more “Netflix and chill” than “Getting tossed out of perfectly good planes.”
Okay, enough happiness. Onto the stuff that justifies my existence.
There are two cool things happening right now. One I can speak freely about and the other I need to keep three lawyers on speed dial while having a representative with a stun gun near me at all times. We’ll tackle the first one first.
Fans of the rollicking multiverse known as Legends Parallel will be thrilled to know that we are back in production. I have rewritten the script for Issue 4 and it is wending its way across the ocean blue into the hands of the legendary artist Leslie Tejlor where he will begin the arduous process of turning my scribblings into art. Since Leslie doesn’t speak much English, and I don’t speak any Hungarian, we have learned to use emojis, sample graphics, and we’ve even stooped so low as to use Google translate. Yet, somehow, we not only communicate, we get along quite well. Our safety net, his daughter who teaches English, has been removed from our arsenal as she got married and moved to Finland. Nevertheless, we seem to be doing okay.
You may have noticed the word “rewritten.” Back in the halcyon days of yore I wrote twelve issues which compiled a single story arc. The overall story will not change but a lot of things have happened since then. You may have heard about the pandemic and some low-key political stuff. While Legends Parallel (cool teaser video via the link) has taken most of it’s social commentary shots via allegories and metaphors, something that will not change, it would be foolish to ignore the world around us.
Also, while some people have micro-focused on the sexuality in the books, more than expected understood we were using boobs and dongles (yes, those are the Latin terms) as flash grenades to obfuscate the deeper messages. Simply stated, we wanted the gist of it all to sneak up on people and force them to go back and re-read everything to see what they’d missed. And, surprise, surprise, surprise, according to the reviews, it actually worked.
There is much to ponder here in terms of thought-provoking issues of race, sexuality, culture and society’s attitudes to history and relationships.
You want anthropological context and sociological commentary? This has jugs of it.
But, yeah… BOOBS.
– Zak Weber – Sci Fi Comics Nexus
Okay, onto the one I have to be veddy veddy, thanks to Elmer Fudd for the verbiage, careful with.
Back in January I spoke with one of those silly humans who makes money making movies. He thought there might be value in packaging The Brittle Riders (another cool video teaser via the link) to producers and seeing if any would like to have some fun and make this a movie or TV show or something cool like that. In an effort to keep it from feeling like Bill & Bob say so ergo it must be, we enlisted the help of a few other industry professionals, i.e. producers, writers, directors, etc., and sent them the Omnibus edition.
To understand how odd this was imagine a conversation that begins like this; “Hi, my name’s Bill and you don’t know me but I need you to read a thousand pages of my mental breakdown, write a critique, and get back to me in a couple of weeks.”
Against all odds they did just that. When the dust settled, and the reviews had been tabulated, they had given The Brittle Riders a 97.92% score, out of 100%, as far as its ability to be adapted into a film related project. The majority of films rated via this method land a little closer to 60%. Suffice it to say we paid heed.
And thus did our quest begin.
While finding enthusiastic professionals is a feel good moment, we needed to talk to someone who was used to tossing around a hundred million dollars, or so, at a project and finding out if they could justify moving this dystopian fun factory up a level or two. Long story short? Apparently this isn’t a bad idea.
A very unique tone and world, reminiscent of GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY meets a MAGNIFICIENT SEVEN/DIRTY DOZEN – type set up, but with a look, flavor, and lexicon all its own. In a world where studios and streamers are looking for IP that’s expansive, both narratively and in terms of ancillary possibilities (prequels, offshoots, video games, etc.), (The Brittle Riders) certainly seems to offer up a number of possibilities.
– Garrick Dion – Producer
Drive
Joker
Nightcrawler
All righty, time to pay attention.
While Garrick, I can call him by his first name as we’re basically BFFs – well, close enough for Hollywood, liked the project he hasn’t cut a check yet. However, just having his review changed everything. Suddenly people who couldn’t be bothered to hire me as an unpaid intern were intently interested in all things McSciFi (all sorts of cool video teasers via that link).
One company has even begun developing 3D renderings of the characters (sample graphic included below) to see if they can justify making an animated series out of it. While nothing is written in stone, hell – nothing’s even written in flowing sands at the moment, they have joined the slowly growing pantheon of companies that are showing an active interest in foisting The Brittle Riders on an unsuspecting populace.
Another thing that has happened is we’ve begun, with the help of people who know what the heck they’re doing, actively creating a treatment for a pilot. Since there is a pilot being considered that indicates a series can (SHOULD! GOSH DARNIT!) follow, it gives you an idea of where the focus is at the moment.
Given the fact that Black Adam took over a half a decade to get in the pipeline, and it had Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson behind every aspect of it, we have to be pleased with the progress we’ve been making, and we are.
There’s more coming, and I will update what I can when I can, but, until then, be fierce like the dino at the bottom of this message and stay safe and sane until we meet again.
