I promised some behind the scenes stories here and it seemed to me like the best place to start is by telling you how Daniele Serra and I came to work together. So here it is, our origin story!
The first comic book script I wrote was a story called, JACK JR. It was about a modern day Jack the Ripper copycat. I rewrote and resubmitted this idea to just about every publisher that would take open submissions. I got a lot of kind rejections, especially from Penny-farthing Press. They actually bothered to give me some very useful and constructive feedback. I also got one of Erik Larsen's famous rejection letters. It's a good thing I don't take these things personally.
Eventually, a small publisher called Septagon Studios, responded favorably. But they wouldn't take on a project without an artist attached. They did, however, help to find artists. They asked a couple of guys to do sample pages and while they were very talented artists, I was young, arrogant and picky. So we kept the search going. Eventually, I think Septagon got annoyed with me for constantly passing on brilliant artists and just sent me a list of people to reach out to.
The list actually had about 15 artists that I really liked. I sent out a bunch of emails, but didn't get too many responses. It was surprising to me that I essentially had a publishing deal and couldn't get any artists interested enough to answer an email.
After a couple weeks of silence, I started to think JACK JR. was dead in the water. Then came a solitary email.
"Hi Nick. Did you get my last email?"
The sender was Daniele Serra. I immediately click on his website link because I sent so many emails that I couldn't remember who I was dealing with. "Holy crap! He's amazing!" So I email him back.
"NO! I DIDN'T GET YOUR LAST EMAIL!!! WHAT DID IT SAY?! WHAT DID YOU SAY!!???!!!
So now JACK JR. has an artist and Septagon is ready to move forward. They tell us that they will have their lawyers draw up a contract and then we can get started.
In the meantime, I had heard about DC Comics' new webcomic imprint, Zuda. I had decided that I would be the first winner and the first Zuda creator to have two series on the site. I was very serious about this. I wrote two 8 page scripts and for whatever reason, had no problem finding two artists to work on them. One of those artists was so slow, that I wasn't even able to submit the comic until the third or fourth contest. The other artist ghosted me until I sent an email asking point blank if he still wanted to do the comic. "I'm sorry, I just don't get it."
At the same time, Septagon is dragging their feet, so I asked Dani if he'd like to take a shot at this little story called PRAY FOR DEATH.
JACK JR. never happened and I'm pretty sure that Septagon Studios never even published another book after that anyway. But PRAY FOR DEATH was accepted into the second Zuda competition. I said I would be the first winner of a Zuda Competition and I maintain that I technically was. They made up the first competition entirely with solicited submissions. The second competition was the first to include open submissions. Dani and I won a contract with DC Comics to complete our story. It was an education for sure and an amazing experience.
Dani and I worked together again on a vampire story for the MONSTERS AND OTHER SCARY SHIT anthology, he illustrated two MONSTER ELEMENTARY stories for me and we collaborated on a new story with the name JACK JR. to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Zuda.
PARY FOR DEATH is currently funding on Kickstarter. The original pitch art for JACK JR is included in the book as well as the all-new, completely different JACK JR. story. Check out the campaign at:
brokenoarcomics.com
Thanks for reading. Check back soon for more stories about P4D and Zuda Comics.
