Small Press Idol

One of the many things I’m doing at the moment is I’m part of a team to compete in the Small Press Idol. SPI is a contest where you go through several rounds of judging and voting to get your concept in a four issue mini. There are also other prizes involved, but I’ll get to that later.

You can follow along with the Rounds at – http://www.smallpressidol.com/2010/BlackSarah.htm

Round 1

You submit your idea/pitch and a rough cover design. I hate pitching idea. I almost get like a sullen child when I have to do a pitch. I don’t wanna. Heh, I can make excuses all day long but it’s just my frustration with the basic format of “the pitch”. You have to distill you core concept in a few words. When I make projects I don’t think that way. I don’t think of stories in a way where you can compare it to a meeting of two existing stories, for example “Die Hard meets Big Lebowski”. That’s a common trend in Hollywood and seemingly everywhere because it’s a easy way to describe to a potential reader what the story is about. I’m not saying I make complex stories that defy classification, I just don’t like classification much at all. Yes I do like the use of genres but that is very broad and so doesn’t bother me as much. Ah, look at me making excuses again.

Round 2

You submit character designs and biographies. I kept wanted to do something different with the bios to make them stand out, but nothing too weird or wild where the readers wouldn’t get it. On another SPI pitch I did years ago, I tried to do this format of a bard telling a tale about the characters. Problem was I didn’t really run it by the artist/creator first so there was art for all the characters but not the bard character that I put in. So with this pitch I tried using quotes to show the character in a more natural conversational way. But for a more dramatic flair I tried to write poem about the story to give it a more old school feel.

Round 3

You submit 4 pages in sequence. They don’t have to be the first 4, just 4 pages that give a good feel for the story. Current the pages are being drawn, colored and lettered. We’re trying color straight on pencils for the look and because it cuts on production time.

So once we get the pages up, the 3 judges will vote on it. But also then people can vote daily for their favorite comic idea. I would love for everyone to vote on my project, but at least check it out and vote on one of the projects. This is as indy as you can get, so it’s good to get behind it and support it as a whole.

I just realized I went this far without really talking about the project. Partly is because per the rules of the contest we really can’t give out more content than what is posted in the contest. What I can talk about is the influences to Legend of Black Sarah.

Mainly it’s more grim and gritty fantasy like Robert E. Howard, The 13th Warrior, and the Warhammer Fantasy RPG. The actual genesis came from being annoyed that Red Sonja always says that lame bit about she dresses sexy to distract her male foes in combat. Of course the Legend of Black Sarah grew from that initial idea as I fleshed her out and realized what makes her and her story is the details. As a reader myself I need a little bit more realism in my fantasy to maintain my suspension of disbelief.

So here’s to the Legend of Black Sarah making it to Round 4 !