Hello all of you who've been checking out the blog and the podcast. Thanks so much for stopping by and giving us a read and a listen. You're probably wondering who we are though.
My name is Kurt Christenson. I am a writer and have been working on breaking into comics for the last ten years. In that time I've taught myself lettering and production ends of putting together a comic, as well as anything and everything I could about sequential art.
I am currently finishing up a novel that I have written over the past 6 years when I went from living in a suburban prison to moving to NYC and all the insanity that went with it. It's called the Tower of Brahma and I have been posting a chapter a week up every Monday for the past year. My latest and most favoritest chapter, #61 - Inferno, is now up.
I've also been working on lettering a 200+ page graphic novel called Legend of Liquid Fury, drawn by the mad genius named Chris Chua. This has been a labor of love, frustration, anger, bliss, beauty, and an unbelievable ride through the comic industry as we talked to every professional creator we could. You can read the first act over at TenTonStudios. You can also keep up with the progress of new pages and see some behind the scenes stuff over at the Liquid Fury blog.
Speaking of TenTonStudios, Chris & I were two of the founding members of this collective of artists that are slowly beginning to dominate the comic book world. From Marvel to DC to Image to White Wolf, these guys have been working it hardcore to make it as working artists and they do it well.
About a year ago, I was laid off from my job as a paparazzi photo editor, and at the worst time considering the economy. It was then that I decided that I needed to take my writing career seriously, and within a few weeks Tim & I had started a blog and a podcast.
We met up every other week or so and began recording. We tried to get some webcomics going but they stalled out. Tim found StripGenerator and began our ongoing webcomic Write Club Funnies which I took over a few weeks ago. The content and guests, and our comfortability recording, grew with every post.
Last Fall we attended King Con and interviewed a few creators we knew or got to know through friends. They were all making moves and getting published. We met some up and coming creators, and I saw that spark, the glimmer in their eyes as they attended their first convention with work in hand. And I remembered.
I thought back to New Years Day 2001 when I decided I would write comic books after a decade of being a voracious consumer of them. I just wrote scripts for myself, which turned into writing them for money, but the books would never be released. So I started my own book with a fresh from Kubert School Chua, and for years we toiled away.
Somewhere along the way, it became work, with no payoffs, and very little recognition. It seemed fruitless and comics were a burden more than a joy. I stopped reading them, I began to hate making them, and I guess I didn't want to have a complete book and fail so I began to self-sabotage, to doubt, second guess. Bad luck and pitfalls blossomed all around me. I had failed by not finishing anything.
But my story isn't over yet. As I approach the tenth year at making a go of this, I aim to redouble my efforts, using this site as a platform to keep my head in the game. It's not too late to make it happen. And as I look around I see others picking up where they creatively left off and forging ahead.
So thank you to all the creators I have met over the years who have had a kind word, a friendly smile, or an insightful anecdote that has helped me continue to do what it is I was put on this Earth to do: create stories.
And if I can help anyone else out there take just one more step towards their creative passion endgame, well that's really all I could ask for.
Keep at it.
K
