Flash Trotter #1

By 2002, I was a college graduate with a “real” job (some might argue career) and fiancé and three actual comic books under my bed collecting dust (where they remain to this day!) Maybe this comic book thing wasn’t going to happen.

And then I figured: what the hell?

I started plotting and sketching Flash Trotter #1.

I had written little/short movies with friends before, but committing words to paper that other people would read and have an opinion about felt like “real” writing. This was the first comic-book that I wrote for myself.

Flash Trotter was a character that I had first come with daydreaming in high school chemistry back in 1996. I hated chemistry (and scientists of course!) and was devastated one weekend when I heard Indiana Jones confess to Willie Scott in “Temple of Doom” that he was a SCIENTIST!

So I day-dreamed/brainstormed: What’s the ARTISTIC equivalent of a globe-trotting, adventuring Young-Indiana-Jones-type?

I came up with Flash Trotter. There’s a little more to it than that, but I gotta leave somethin’ for interviewers/biographer, right?

The writing style is “barrowed” from old E.C. comics and is deliberately being produced for a younger audience in mind. So, yeah, it isn’t exactly Eisner-winning material, but it had a beginning, a middle, and an end, it set up a conflict and a resolution, it properly introduced the characters, and it has a good hook (in my opinion). It is what it is on a beginning-craft level, but even if the story’s goofy and full of adventure comic-book logic, the structure’s solid (solid-enough?) At least I got that much right straight out of the gate, and understanding the craft of structure has served me well since. I’m not claiming to be a master storyteller, but the hope is that some solid artwork can elevate/distract/misdirect a truly discerning reader. (Shit. Did I just say that out loud?)

So why am I posting these now?

Why not?

(coming up with a year’s worth of content is tough!)