Oops! Sorry about that, folks. I didn’t realize I hadn’t posted on this bad boy in a while. But I’m back now, so no worries.
Yes, I realize that I never get comments on this blog so I’m probably only writing this for an audience of one. But that won’t stop me from talking to, uh… myself!
Anyway, speaking of gorillas… I wrote a story quite a while ago featuring a gorilla named Kongo and his miniature (seriously… the dude is tiny) human sidekick Bud. Kongo and Bud are the protectors of a metropolis called Jungle City. An artist, and pretty good pal of mine, named Dario Carrasco designed the duo and asked me to write a story about them that we could potentially turn into a webcomic called Banana Gang. Unfortunately, Dario wasn’t able to do the art for the concept, and the artist we did find for it eventually had to pull out for a variety of complicated reasons. Another half-finished project that is pretty much the story of my comics career.
Not that I’m bitter about that or anything…
Heh.
So ANYWAY… here’s the original design Dario did:
Pretty cool, no? Kongo and Bud are basically like Batman and Robin. They swing around Jungle City righting wrongs and battling the forces of evil. Kongo is the muscle and Bud is the brains of this particular outfit. The series was designed to have elements of fantastic action and comedy. Jungle City was created as a place where humans and animals with human-level intelligence live and work together in harmony.
I wrote a few strips featuring the cast of Banana Gang. I planned to start off the webcomic by having Kongo interview for his sidekick position, so I went with that. Hilarity and tomfoolery ensued. Again, the webcomic never went anywhere due to lack of artist, but Dario did ask me to write a 6-page preview story of Banana Gang to potentially entice artists and perhaps bring new life to Kongo and Bud. This was back in the early half of 2006 so, as you can imagine, it never amounted to much. However, Dario did find an artist to bring the 6-page preview story to life and I’ve been told that it will see print in an upcoming anthology put out by Dario Carrasco called Comics for a Cause.
It will most likely be released at some point in 2009. The announcement featuring my name in lights is HERE. Yeah, I know it says 2008, but due to the challenges inherent with independent publishing, I’d say 2009 was a much safer bet.
It’s an honor to have my story included in Comics for a Cause. The proceeds from this latest edition are being donated to a Children’s Hospital in Calgary. When the book is actually made available I’ll be pimping the living heck out of it. Expect to hear more about this as soon as I have anything else to share.
