This newsletter is a few days late because my grandmother passed away recently. I had just visited her a few months ago and she was relatively healthy and in good spirits for someone about to be 93 years old. But, about 3 weeks ago, my cousin informed me that our grandmother was suddenly in serious trouble. It turns out she had a cancerous tumor on her pancreas. Apparently, it had been there for a while and there was little chance she would survive much longer. Of course, we did hang on to the hope of a miracle but one never materialized. Over the last few weeks, all of the family gathered around her to try to make her final days free from pain and worry until she finally took her last breath. Rest in peace, grandma. You deserve it.
I THINK I CAN!
This is part 3 of the production journal for the GunEngine Zero project, which I plan to launch in April of 2022. See the previous newsletters to read about how it all started.
When last we left off, I had worked out a deal with Ian Waryanto to be the line artist for GunEngine Zero. He also suggested colorist Anton Bandi because they had worked together on Keith Gleason’s The Mighty Mascots published by Alterna Comics.
The first concern I had was to nail down Gunny’s look, specifically his head/face. As I mentioned in the previous newsletter, I wasn’t totally happy with what I had at that point so I wanted to fine-tune it.
Ian was able to get the look much closer to the “racing helmet” design that I had always imagined. The pattern of the lines on the top of his head were meant to emulate racing stripes while the pattern on his face were meant to give a sort of skull-like appearance.
Ian also sketched out his own versions of some of the characters and Anton colored them so that their design would be set if and when production of the book commenced.
Once the sketches were done, Ian and Anton worked on the first 6 pages of issue #1 which I could use to promote the book in the future crowdfunder as I did with the preview ashcan that I’ve mentioned before.
As far as story development goes, I had mentioned before about GEZ originally being my concept for a reboot of ROM: Space Knight and needing to create something more unique once I decided to instead develop it into its own thing.
The first change would be the name. The “T.O.M.” (total obliteration mechanism) name was meant to be a playful nod to ROM but I eventually realized that might be too close to the original inspiration and could get me into trouble, copyright-wise. So, I had to come up with a new name. Also, I wanted something that had a manga/anime vibe to it. So I eventually came up with “GunEngine Zero”. The meaning of the name will make sense once the story is told, so I won’t spoil it here.
The next aspect was to figure out what I was really trying to say with this character/story. Once again, as ROM reboot, it was just going to be a simple action story about a “white knight” against some evil, alien invaders. But once I started trying to develop it into something unique, a lot of new details started coming into focus.
To be clear, on it’s surface, it is still a simple story that can be enjoyed on a visceral level. But there are twists and turns and curveballs to give it more layers and give it, what I think, an interesting perspective.
What it has become is a story about preconceptions. Or as the old saying goes, “Perception is reality.” And how people are compelled to act based on those beliefs.
It also touches on the fervent tribalism that has overtaken the world today.
In the next newsletter, I’ll go into more details about the plot and show you more artwork I commissioned from other artists to serve as promotional material, which includes some amazing work by Joaquin Guerra. Here’s a sneak peak.
~ Michael T Gonzalez
SHAREWARE
Here’s a sketch I did with characters from a novel I was working on throughout junior high and high school. It was sort of a sci-fi/western about a guy who goes bonkers and becomes a time-traveling mass-murderer. I would often sketch characters from story ideas just because I liked doodling. I figured if I kept at it, I might be able to draw professionally one day. I’ve been so wrong about so many things in my life, it’s almost funny.
T-SHIRTS ON STORE FRONTIER
Click the image above to go directly to the store!
I’ve uploaded a bunch of t-shirt designs to Store Frontier that you might want to check out. I’ve tried Red Bubble, Teepublic and Teespring but they always had problems. Either the shirts weren’t printed correctly or the quality of the shirts were poor. I ordered one of the “Rainy Road logo” shirts for myself and the printing looks good and the fabric is nice. And they have sizes up to 3XL. If you have particular designs or colors (because they only allow me to set 3 colors per design) you’d like to see offered, hit me up and I can see what I can do.
GIVEAWAYS!
If we can reach 100 subscribers to this newsletter, I’ll start giving away random stuff, like comics (or sets of comics), posters, sticker sets, artwork (Oh, my!)
So tell your family, your friends, your enemies, your pets, your pet’s enemies and your social media followers to visit rainyroadmedia.com and sign up for the newsletter.
The more the merrier!