Ring-a-Ding-Ding

Chaz may not have posted much here on the FWB blog lately but that doesn't mean he's been slacking. Quite the opposite. Not just being kept busy with ongoing client commissions, he's still been working away in his spare time on his new radical retelling of the epic Ring cycle. A recent rib injury his stifled output in the past week or so but he still managed to pull together some digital colouring over the weekend, using a mouse rather than his usual pen tablet.

So here's a rough colour mock-up of the proposed cover for the first book in the 'Ring' series of graphic fiction. The title is rubbish, as this work doesn't even have a proper title yet, but it gives a great idea of how the finished thing should look. This series will be seeing print as wellm as digital release, as all the interior artwork is in stark black and white only, so ought not to cost too much (even at Lulu.com's prices).

'Sword of Lochglen' - back in production

After the past year in which Chaz convinced himself (and everyone around him) that he had finally packed in drawing comics for good to concentrate on 'graphic fiction', a recent discussion with long-term Fenriswulf collaborator Frang has suddenly rekindled his interest in the historical Scottish satire, 'Sword of Lochglen'.

This bawdy, surreal and occasionally dark graphic novel features artwork by both Frang and Chaz, and the first two issues have already been made available in print, and digital format at the Lochglen webpage.

It's been over 5 years since Chaz lifted a pen to draw 'Lochglen', although Frang has since produced excellent work for the historical fantasy sequences which tell the tale of the narrator's romantic novel.



Greta Garbo - or just a humble teashop waitress? Hero William MacFaddyen meets secret admirer Rose in brand new panels drawn for Issue 3 of 'Lochglen'.

Expected release date: Spring/Summer 2012.

The Wish & the Will - on Wallpaper

Having twanged something in his shoulder early in the weekend, Chaz has been rather out of sorts lately. Weight-training may be one thing, but lawnmowers...grr (though it never helps that the grass is close to a foot long). In the meantime, to keep his hand in, he's come up with a few wallpaper designs based on characters from the Wish and the Will. 1024x768 only at this stage, but he may work on more as the series progresses. Enjoy!


Mr Jeth Sundancer


Miss Claudia


Captain Ssorg Ethdril Kthorn


King Paimon

Creating a Niche vs. Writing the Blockbuster

An author guest post, by David Mark Brown

Like all of us, I have made infamous decisions in my life which have long outlived their immediate effects. For instance, dropping off the football team to try out for cheerleader -- in a small Texas town. (You know, the land of Friday Night Lights and King of the Hill. I made alternate by the way, but was offered the job of mascot to save the town from scandal. And no, I've never fully recovered from the psychological effects of being a pubescent, wedgie-shield.)

One such decision I have made more recently has been to deep six my long held dreams of being a New York Times best selling author in exchange for pursuing a more attainable, double-digit salary as a professional niche-genre writer. When I say, "niche-genre" I don't mean science fiction or romance. I don't even mean paranormal urban fantasy or steampunk, the shooting stars of sub-genre genre fiction. Nope. In my case I'm referring to dieselpunk weird western alternate history pulp, with a twist of granola. (And yes, you saw the word western in the mix, otherwise known as the kiss of death).

I call it Reeferpunk, and it was what leapt from the fire once I finally developed the cojones to ask myself the million dollar question -- "What were you born to write?" Screw market forces. Forget the critics, the agents, the gatekeepers, Oprah. Throw away all the lectures given by snooty professors on how the short story is the only true form of American literature. Lose the personal desire to impress and mold society. Push Henry Thoreau off the docks at Walden Pond. And finally fly the double bird in the face of reason.

What can I write that no one else can? It's a matter of calling. I don't suspect that I've perfected the answer yet, but I'm closer than I've ever been. And it feels good.

A series of preliminary questions rattled around my brain before I could answer the big one. First was the simple question, "What do you enjoy reading?" When I first asked myself this simple question I was in the midst of my fifth rewrite on a novel that I would've never picked off the shelf (unless my reading club had dictated it).

I like science fiction. I like thrilling and speculative stories based on real human desires and characteristics put to the test in outlandish situations or alternate realities -- human stories in sensational environs. I like fast-moving yet brain-punishing fiction. I like Frank Herbert's Dune and Orson Scott Card's Ender's Shadow.

Then came the question, "What do I know?" I'm no scientist. I'm a liberal arts slacker through and through. I'm no Isaac Asimov (I can grow some wicked sideburns, but that's where the comparison ends). History and political science, those are within my grasp.



Finally came the questions, "Who am I? And what has made me what I am?" Born and raised in rural Texas, I grew up working on a ranch. I attended university in the midst of the Rocky Mountains at the U of Montana (the Berkeley of the Rockies) where the police were on record saying about marijuana, "it's so common we hardly try to stop it anymore," and the school paper published editorials on how to weatherstrip your dorm room so your R.A. would never know. I'm the Redneck Granola.

What more did I need to know? All I needed were the яичка ("eggs" in Russian) to put the answers together and write the royally whacked-out speculative fiction I've been called to write -- invent the niche-genre that is David Mark Brown. Maybe later in my career I'll be talented enough to write what others want me too. But for now I'm writing refried alternate-history about what could have become of the southern half of North America if cheap oil never got cheap (due to the birth of the evil nation of Texicas), and instead brilliant minds devised an early cellulosic ethanol from the wondrous cannabis plant. Mein Hanf! (Spanish, Russian and German in the same post!)

As for reality? Well, thank God for ebooks, the digital wrecking ball of the publishing industry. Current conditions seem perfectly suited for the self-published, super-niche ebook. Forums, facebook groups and hashtags on twitter make it easier than ever before to participate in cultural and literary ghettos of our liking. To survive as a professional writer of super-niche genre fiction all I need are the enthusiastic downloads of 15,000 fans.

New York Times? Not a chance. But at 70% of $2.99 for two books a year I'd rather have my 15,000 fans for fiction I was born to write, than a pipe dream and a job at Home Depot.

Will it work? It'll probably take a miracle. You could always download the book (available for pre-order now!) and find out for yourself.

Thanks for the cool post, Mark. And a big nod to Erin Mehlos for the crazy and utterly brilliant cover artwork. Chaz is currently reading a complimentary copy of Fistful of Reefer and a review will be forthcoming on this very blog in the future...

The Wish and the Will Episode 3: A Sneak Preview

Episode 3 of the quirky comical steampunk fantasy series is well under way at present. Chaz is working on bringing a wealth of new characters and increasingly surreal situations into the series, all of which combine to create an intricate weave of weirdness and wonder. Due to the epic scale of the work, Chaz has just hired long-time artistic partner-in-crime Mr. Frang to provide some art and design works of a technical nature, and we hope to be showcasing some of those on this very blog in the near future.

In the meantime, here's a sneak preview from one of the aforementioned scenes from Episode 3, wherein Mr Sundancer and Miss Claudia, in ever-desperate attempts to evade the clutches of the Constabulary, inadvertently find themselves on stage during a Royal Command Performance...for an excitable male-only audience.

The Wish & the Will Comes Alive on Facebook

While the silence in the Lulu.com corner continues to be deafening, Chaz is continuing work on the surreal fantasy digital e-book series, 'The Wish & the Will' (which at least doesn't require ISBNs to get out there). The series has already attracted some interest and sold a few downloads, so Chaz is understandably keen to keep the momentum going.

As such, he has recently decided to set up a fully interactive and in-character Facebook group for readers and interested parties:

The Facebook Group is here.

Currently the principal five characters are in the process of bickering among themselves as they struggle to get acquainted with the wonders of social networking, and take each other to task both on matters related to events in the books, and elsewhere. If time allows, Chaz hopes to expand the cast of Facebook personalities to include 'bad guy' individuals and even some of the strange and sinister Daemonlords who rule the fantasy world of Middengarth.

Cafepress deliver the Goods

I ordered a few bits and bobs for myself from the Fenriswulf Cafepress.com store the other weekend, and they arrived today. It's always nerve-racking when you first open a package of something you've created this way - suddenly you have crises of thought: will the printers have messed it up in some weird and totally unfathomable kind of way? Was my original source file formatted properly, and of a high enough resolution? Or will the quality overall be a bit disappointing - just a general kind of "bleargh" ?

I needn'e have worried. I'd used Cafepress in the past for a couple of T-shirts, one of them designed to promote the "Last Gas Pump" comic (available here), and their quality really impressed me. To be honest, the art has printed beautifully, on really high-quality glossy stock. Sure, they're not cheap - and I wouldn't like to have to use them regularly for stuff that wasn't a one-off or a present - but they definitely do deliver the goods, and don't seem to outsource to unreliable third parties the way Lulu do (that said, I'm still with Lulu for the meantime - they continue to hold the entire Fenris back catalogue to date).

The print of the mythical Princess Andromeda really blew me away. It's the first time I've ever seen digital artwork of mine reproduced profesionally, and I can foresee a few more before too long. It's almost worthwhile considering a Premium cafepress shop, to be able to sell an entire series of such things...maybe once I've been paid from my current book illustration job, and have some money to invest. I'm also looking ahead to getting some Fenriswulf-branded postcards or notecards produced for my next (as yet unscheduled) trip to a new bricks-and-mortar store to try to offload some produce...