Writer with publishing connections looking for artist!

[ComicWriter]

Hey Guys

I’m looking for an artist who is willing to try and bring a project to life; one that I have been working on for some time now. If something good comes out of our cooperation, we will split the profits 70-30, with the artist getting the bigger piece of the pie. If we realize that it is not working out for us, we can publish one episode online and agree that we had fun working on it.

About me: -I am a Ph.D. student of political science, and as such I have written a lot of academic work. But writing fiction has always been more than a hobby to me. I have taken classes (at my university) on how to write a successful comic-book script, in order to turn my developed story into comic-book form.

About the project: -The project is serious and aimed towards a mature audience. The plan is to develop a successful comic-book series. It would revolve around the main character’s regression to his past lives. I will give you more details once we get into the discussion, but for now, here is a rough outline of the overall idea (which takes the juice out of it, though.)
-The main character will have to face the horrors of his past lives by stepping into a sort of a past-life regression machine. He will do this as a part of deal he made with a mysterious older businessman who calls himself ‘the archeologist’. The deal was for the main character to go through this process of past life regression in order to get ‘the archeologist’ to clear his name of a serious crime that was attributed to him, but which he did not do. It is not clear to the main character why he is being asked to go through the process of past-life regression, but it is obvious that the archeologist is very interested in the main character’s past lives. After experiencing the horrors he has done to other people in the past, as well as the horrors that have been done to him, the main character starts to question the meaning of existence, and starts to question his morality. Was it him who had done all those horrible things in his past lives? Does it make him an evil person? What is the meaning of this life if he will simply come back again?

What is expected of the artist: -The artist is expected to draw and color relatively well. I am ready to work on the story with the artist and more than willing to hear his ideas regarding how the panels should be set. The artist will have a lot of freedom to be creative, as I will not have strict guidelines on how the drawings in the panels should look. You’re the expert, make it look good by using your own style.
-However, the artist must guide his drawings so that all the dialog which is meant to be on one page, is incorporated into that page. I will try to make each episode exactly 100 pages long, so it is important that the dialog is tied to the page number which I assign to it. However, the panels can be shifted according to the artist’s preference, if necessary.
- It would also be nice if you could show me some of your artwork once you contact me.

Contact: If you are interested in discussing the project to further detail, or if you want to start working with me right away, please write to me at jovica.blogger89@gmail.com or simply reply to this post. I check my email and this website at least once in every 3 days.

Main character’s name: Robert
Main character’s description: Robert is 31 years old. White, brunet with brown eyes, he has a tough guy attitude even though there is a good person within him. He is a prisoner when we meet him, with a worn-out face and a depressing look which cries out: ‘I am disappointed in life’. His beard is always 2-3 days unshaven, and he rarely shows a slight smile. Robert doesn’t like trouble, but he won’t back down when bothered by other prisoners. His best friend in prison is Juanito, who is his cellmate and a prison tough-guy.
Season 1 Outline
Robert is in prison (since he was 26, he is around 31 now) for a crime he did not commit. He is accused of murdering his best friend, a detective named Danny (Daniel). Robert was found at the murder scene the morning after the murder. He was sleeping on the sofa due to a high amount of drugs and alcohol in his blood, and was arrested at the spot by the police that found him. The evidence was quickly piling up against Robert, as the gun had his fingerprints and he was found intoxicated at the murder scene. The jury and the public had Robert convicted even before the trial started, as he murdered a renowned detective who himself solved a number of important cases. To make matters even worst, Robert is accused by the people closest to him for murdering Danny. They recall the fight and the disagreement that Robert and Danny had a few days before the murder took place. Although the fight/disagreement wasn’t too big, it is used by the prosecution to convict Robert who already had all the evidence going against him. Robert cannot remember the night Danny was murdered, and does not remember how he got at the scene. All he knows/believes is that somebody drugged him, most likely at a bar he went to (because he was sad about fighting with Danny, a lifelong friend). But he knows that he couldn’t have murdered Danny, no matter how drugged he was. This of course, is a weak alibi, and Robert is easily sentenced to life in prison.
The only person who believes Robert is Danny’s widow Patricia. She knows that Robert would never hurt Danny, as she is aware of their close relationship. She takes the responsibility of being Robert’s defense lawyer. This is interpreted by the public as if Robert and Patricia were having an affair, and thus provides the prosecution with another motive for Danny’s murder.
But in reality, Patricia is motivated to help Robert not only because of her confidence that he couldn’t have killed Danny, but because she believes that Robert was only used as an easy target to take the blame for Danny’s murder. She is eager to find who really is responsible for the death of her husband. Although Patricia doesn’t have enough evidence to prove Robert’s innocence at the time of the first trial, she starts an investigation of her own after the trial, which provides her with new interesting evidence. She manages to get a second (appeal) trial for Robert, finding some evidence that ties a third unknown person to the murder scene. The first episode begins on the day Robert is supposed to have the second trial. All the happenings prior to the first episode will be presented to the reader as the story develops (through flashbacks and memory sequences).
However, Robert is not at all optimistic about the appeal, having witnessed how everyone accused him of murder before even having a fair trial. He is disappointed in the system, and he has come to terms with the fact that a life sentence in prison is his future. Prison is dull, but he is in no danger from other prisoners (or the cops) due to the luck of having Juanito (one of the prison tough guys) as his cellmate and friend. The depressing atmosphere of the prison suits him, as he is disappointed in the world, in having all of his friends and even family turn against him and pin the murder on him. He appreciates Patricia’s effort to prove his innocence, and sees her as the only friend (outside of prison) that he has left. But he couldn’t care less about getting out of prison.
The story starts to develop and get interesting when on the day of the appeal, just before the trial, Robert receives a note from a janitor. The note was wrapped around a white pill. The note said: You know as well as I that the appeal isn’t going to get you out of here. Take this pill if you want to taste freedom again. ‘The Alchemist’. Sure enough, he didn’t care about the pill (which he thought was a senseless joke), or about the appeal. He throws the pill into the sink, wrapped in the note as he got it. His careless attitude doesn’t help him during his appeal, and he is sent back into prison.
However, at this point, Patricia starts to uncover even more evidence about the ‘third person’ in the room. She suspects that Danny was killed due to an investigation he had going on, which Danny would never talk about with her in order to keep her safe. Danny took on this investigation out of a moral obligation, even though he was forbidden to do so by his boss. Patricia starts to find out more about the case, and suspects that Danny was killed for investigating something dangerous. She suspects that government officials are involved. Patricia explains this to Robert, who now starts to feel really angry, as he understands as well as Patricia that some state/police officials imprisoned him and blamed him for Danny’s death in order to kill Danny and stop him from investigating this ‘dark area’. He tells Patricia to stop investigating, or else she’ll end up like Danny, and promises her that he will do something about it.
At this point, Juanito is killed by a prisoner he had a longer quarrel with, and Robert starts to feel very threatened without Juanito’s protection. The prisoner’s who were against Juanito are now after Robert calling him ‘Juanito’s bitch’. Robert now has two motives to leave the prison. He somehow manages to dig up the pill from the sink (feeling lucky that it is still there). In a desperate attempt to change something, he swallows the pill, which remained in an ‘ok’ condition due to the paper it was wrapped in.
By taking the pill Robert starts dying, and his soul starts to leave his body. He is taken on a surreal trip where he sees Danny. But just as he wants to talk to him, he starts waking up in a laboratory setting. There, he is greeted by ‘the alchemist’. The alchemist explains to him that the pill made his hart stop, and that he was actually dead for 24 hours. If he had been dead half an hour longer, his brain would have dissolved to a point where he would not have been revived. The alchemistexplains that Robert woke up in a top secret cloning laboratory, and that most of his organs have died off as a result of a 24 hour death, as well as his heart, as the pill caused him to have a heart attack. The alchemist continues to explain that the organs have been replaced by the sergeants of the laboratory. Since the brain is irreplaceable, the alchemist had a 24 hour period to revive Robert, and he had to use his connections to get Robert’s body out of the prison in that time. He used his connections to get the paper work done quickly, and then had a funeral for Robert which even Patricia attended (thinking that Robert was really dead). This was needed in order to make everyone know/think that Robert was dead, so that no one starts looking for him. Once this weird escape plan was carried out successfully, his body was dug up and brought to the lab where he was revived. During this time Robert had the ‘near-death’ experience where he almost spoke to Danny.
When asked by Robert why the alchemist went through such trouble, he told him that he needs Robert to go through a process of past life regression in order to help him ‘dig up’ something important. Robert doesn’t believe what he is hearing at first, but comes to terms with the unrealistic story. He realizes that he can’t just go back out there that soon, he would be treated as an escaped fugitive or a ghost. The alchemist also makes it clear that the only way he will let Robert go is if he complies with his demands. Robert is already presumed dead, so the alchemist can have him easily killed if he doesn’t comply. Robert realizes that working with the alchemist is the only way out of the lab, where he can start to investigate who really killed his friend and why. He agrees to be subjected to the experiments, where he enters a machine (like a tube which he lies in, full of purple gluey material) which sends him back to his past lives.
In the course of past life regression, Robert learns that he was:
1980-1944 Vietnam war soldier/veteran (who ended up homeless on the street)
1944-1903 Nazi Officer
1903-1869 Western Outlaw
The list continues…
Robert goes through the painful process of past life regression, where he witnesses the horrors of his past lives. He has mistreated people, and people have mistreated him. But Robert is still not sure what use this is to the alchemist. During the process of past life regression Roberts starts to question his morality, his values as a person/soul due to the events he witnesses. Among other things he learns is that in one of the past lives, Patricia was the love of his life, and he starts having new feelings for her once he gets back to his present life. He doesn’t go through the process of past life regression all at once, but keeps being woken up, due to the inability of a body to be in the machine for more than half an hour. But he can experience a month of his life in that half hour.
The story will be developed here, with a lot of interesting sub stories about his past lives, which all somehow connect to the present life.
At the end of the season, Robert realizes that the alchemist is after the ‘arc of the covenant’. This is a biblical box believed to have godlike powers. The alchemist and Robert were two ancient monks who have buried the box in one of their past lives. The Alchemist needs Robert’s memories in order to find the location of the arc. He believes that the arc can give him a power to stop being reborn, and to go into heaven (kind of like in Buddhism). Robert will explain to him (at the end of the season) that the only way to do this is to actually be a good person, and that the box is meant to be hidden. Then he kills him and wishes him a better new life. He kills him because he has by now found out with the help of Patricia that the Alchemist had Danny killed. He killed Danny for two reasons. One, Danny was on the track of his cloning lab (and spiritual research). Danny realized that the lab was used to test cloning in order to make a clone army. The alchemist was doing this in cooperation with the government, but he never told the government the true reasons of all of his research. His primary reason was the spiritual research in order to find the arc. So he had Danny killed in order to stop investigating about his secret lab (the government helped him with this, because it was not in their interest to expose the lab). But he had Robert framed for the murder, because the alchemist needed Robert’s memories to find the arc (as they were the two ancient monks who buried it).

In the second season, which is to be developed, Robert will meet a fortune teller who is able to send him back to his past lives through past life regression. The machine and the lab will be destroyed by this time, but Robert will still want to go back due to some unfinished business.