Entry 183: ROCKSTEADY & BEBOP!!!!!

WHAT IS THIS? and WHY HAVE I POSTED IT?

Well this was drawn by my good friend, Ben Bates, and it is a variant cover for the ROCKSTEADY AND BEBOP issue of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles VILLAINS Micro Series.

And I'm posting it here because... I WROTE THIS!

That's right, I wrote the ROCKSTEADY & BEBOP comic! That's crazy right? I mean, I really doubt you could have seen this one coming. Maybe you're not surprised that I've ventured into the writing side of comics, but BEBOP & ROCKSTEADY? That, you couldn't have seen coming.

I've mentioned Ben Bates a few times before on this blog. In the last few years Ben has been one of the best things to ever happen to the Sonic the Hedgehog comics. He's also worked on Megaman, Star Wars Adventures, New Crusaders, My little Pony, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Though our published works are very different stylistically, Ben and I have a lot in common regarding our thoughts on the art of comics and the philosophy behind what drives us. Like I said, we're good friends.

How this comic came to be was: Ben heard from the Turtles editor at IDW that they were open to pitches for their upcoming VILLAINS micro series. Ben went to our mutual writer friend, Jeremy Barlow (They'll Bury You Where You Stand!) to see if he wanted to pitch something. We were all excited about this opportunity. I was excited because being close friend with these guys often means I can have some influence over their work and I was looking forward to throwing around ideas for Ninja Turtle stuff. But Jeremy had schedule conflicts and couldn't do it. That's when I said to Ben "let's pitch something ourselves. What have we got to loose?" Ben was thinking the same thing. Nether Ben nor I have ever written a comic for anyone other than our selves, so we thought our chances of pitching something and having it be picked up were slim, but we decided to try anyway. So we started brainstorming.

We didn't pitch a Rocksteady & Bebop story right away. We thought that maybe the B&R issue was going to be too important and that we wouldn't be allowed to write it. So we opted to write a pitch for the character SLASH.

Our first pitch wasn't excepted because it didn't fit with where the series was headed. So we wrote another Slash pitch. Again it was shot down. Bobby, the editor, told us that they were more interested in a B&R story. So we decided to give it a try.

Ours wasn't the only B&R pitch Bobby had gotten, and at first, it didn't look like he would be going with our story. After the three pitches we had done, if he didn't go with our story we weren't sure we would pursue it any further. But, he did decide to give us a chance! And just like that, we had the job and the pressure was on.

So yeah, Ben is drawing this comic, the story has been collaborative, and I wrote the script. 

I've got a whole lot more to say about this. It's been a learning experience, I'll put it that way. It's been positive. More about all that later.

Anyway, this is exciting, guys! This is a big deal for me... I hope it doesn't suck.

This issue will be out in October. Stay tuned for more ROCKSTEADY & BEBOP news!

Oh and here's the main cover for this comic. Our cover better represents what this comic will be like, but this one has our names on it which is cool to see.

Blogged and blogged!

PS-- AMNIA CYCLE-- first installment-- tomorrow