My Lost Graphic Novel

Not many people know this, but there’s a good reason why my debut novel Storm Orphans is so fast-paced, action-oriented, and graphic. It was originally envisioned as a four-part comic book. A year or two before I wrote the book that’s now available on Amazon, I wrote a 100+ page script for a graphic novel and pursued an illustrator I could partner with on a sample. The idea was that if we could put together an impressive half dozen pages, we might find a good publishing deal to justify finishing the artwork.

Unfortunately, it was not to be. First, I learned the hard way that finding a talented illustrator willing to work for little-to-no up-front money is next to impossible. This of course isn’t a surprise, but it’s still immensely frustrating for an unknown and broke (is there any other kind?) writer who has a great story to tell but not the talent to draw it him/herself. Illustrating is incredibly difficult and time-consuming work. Those that are truly gifted at it are either in high-demand and therefore only willing to take on the best paying and/or highest profile of gigs, or they’re trying to make a living with what little paying work they can find while waiting to be discovered. 

Through a lot of searching and querying, I was lucky enough to find two different illustrators that gave the project a shot. The first, Marco Turini, developed a potential cover for the first edition (seen above) as well as three pages (seen below). Marco does great work and these pieces showed promise, but sadly, they didn’t completely match my vision and his schedule was simply too full to continue. The second, Jayant Mall, provided a killer concept piece (seen at the bottom), but the timing again became problematic and at that point I decided I was better off developing the story as the novel that exists today instead.

I still hope to develop a comic book someday. The medium seems well-suited to some of my ideas and I love seeing the characters and scenes I’ve imagined brought to life in pen and ink. Seeing recent work by the likes of William Gibson and Ta-Nehisi Coates just underlines how great the graphic novel medium can be if done right. Until then, here’s a peek at some of those lost drafts for Storm Orphans. I hope you enjoy them.