Heaps going on this week, including Authority and Star Wars, but first up… Rombies!
The Rombies one-shot and The Example are both being offered through Diamond this August – meaning I now have five comics coming into comic stores in August… and that’s even with Invasion skipping that month.
Rombies has been flying along. I’m really happy with the last script I turned in and Skye is about to rip into the series proper. All of this momentum has seen a fair bit of pimping by Gestalt Publishing.
Rombies now has an official website – ROMBIES.COM – which currently has a violently-brilliant new image by Skye Ogden to check out.
An announcement this big had to come with a shiny, new look, and I’m happy to say it does. The website has been transformed and it is now the perfect place to announce that I am no longer just a ‘fill-in’ writer on The Authority. According to my editor extraordinaire, Jim Chadwick, I am now allowed to share this news with the world.
I’ve clearly been doing something right and the good people over at Wildstorm have asked me to stick around and finish the whole story arc. I couldn’t be happier about this. I’m still staggered and honored to be working on this title and I’m enjoying the hell out of it. This should be pretty clear when my run begins on May 5 with issue #22 and The Authority tackle Vampires… in space!
Written by TOM TAYLOR • Art by MIKE S. MILLER • Cover by PHILIP TAN
With the on-board rebellions subdued and attacks from the stowaways repelled, The Authority can once again focus on the nature of their voyage. Is the Carrier leading them to its home – or does it have some other, more sinister agenda? While passing through a vast graveyard of discarded spacecraft, the latest Century Baby detects a faint sign of life. The High goes off on a rescue mission, but what he brings back on board eclipses any danger they’ve faced so far.
Wildstorm Universe
32pg.
Color
$2.99 US
On Sale June 2, 2010
I also wanted to say a huge thank you to the wonderful Wolfgang Bylsma, Skye Ogden and Jake Gonzales who have worked tirelessly to create this new look to the website. Smell your screen, it still has that new website scent… SMELL IT!
Speaking of new, I’ve begun work on another new comics project which will be announced next month.
And, staying on the ‘new’, my wife is currently four days overdue with our second child… so this may be my last update for a while.
After happily announcing that I was the new writer of The Authority on Wednesday, I was then flown to Perth on the Thursday (Thursday morning… I don’t do morning) by Gestalt Publishing for Gestaltapalooza!
Comic Book Jesus posted about the night right here.
And the night was capped off with the announcement that our one-shot ‘Rombies‘ was just a teaser. Yep, Rombies is set to be a series! The Dead will walk again… in sandals.
The depth and breadth of the story Skye Ogden and I have planned was not even hinted at in the first publication. This story is tied to real-life historical events and crosses the path of real-life historical figures. It weaves through theologies and empires and leaves no one untouched, be they citizen, soldier or senator.
It will be fun.
A great celebration of the first five years of Gestalt also included a sneak peek of the incredible ‘Changing Ways‘ by one of the fine artists working on my upcoming Brief Cases, Justin Randall. Gestalt asked if I could provide a pull-quote for this incredible book. Which meant that I got to read an advance copy.
“Changing Ways grabbed me by the eyeballs and wouldn’t let go until it was done. The art demands you stop and admire every extraordinary rendered panel while the tension of this perfectly-paced thriller forces you to turn the page. Justin Randall balances beauty and terror on a rusty razor’s edge.” – Tom Taylor, writer of Star Wars: Invasion and The Authority.
Gestalt is Australia’s foremost independent publisher of comics and graphic novels.
Book Launch
Rome wasn’t built in a day… but it may crumble in one!
The Rombies book launch is part of Gestaltapalooza!
Can’t make it?
You can always buy it online…
We’re celebrating FIVE YEARS of Gestalt and we’d love for you to join us!
In preparing to launch Rombies, our zombies-in-ancient-Rome book, we realised that February 2010 marked FIVE YEARS since we first decided to start these shenanigans!
And so, to mark the occasion, we’re flying in the creative team behind Rombies:
Tom Taylor
Melbourne-based playwright who writes Star Wars: Invasion (for another publisher) alongside Gestalt titles Rombies, The Example, two stories in Flinch, and the upcoming Brief Cases.
Skye Ogden
Tokyo-based writer/illustrator responsible for Vowels, ‘The Daemon Street Ghost-Trap’ in Flinch and, of course, Rombies! Skye is also Art Director for Gestalt, responsible for our book design and trailer videos.
Both Tom & Skye will be discussing their vision and creative process and signing books!
Plus: LIVE MUSIC! Experience the musical stylings of Gestalt’s own Anton McKay and the immensely talented Tracey Read!
We look forward to seeing you there, and unveiling some of our plans for the NEXT five years — including the creepily beautiful world of Justin Randall’s Changing Ways…
Rombies will officially eat your brains on December 15 but the one-shot is already available for Pre Order over at the Gestalt Publishing site and at Amazon.com
Gestalt are having a sale at the moment so you can get quite a sizable discount if you order through them.
The artist, Skye Ogden, has also posted a nice look at his process in creating three pages from the book.
Click the image below for a look at Skye’s process.
A holocron will reveal a terrible secret. We will meet a strange but very important crazy person on Nar Shadaa. There will be blood aboard the Tsam’ Pah. And, while some stories will be resolved, others will be frustratingly left hanging until ‘Star Wars: Invasion‘ returns early in 2010.
But fear not. While ‘Invasion’ is away, we can still play.
‘Luke Skywalker and the Treasure of the Dragonsnakes’ (it really is a long title…) is out in January and is already available for pre order over at Amazon here or Things From Another World here.
‘Rombies’ is set to appear later this month through Gestalt Publishing who have also published Colin Wilson and my one-shot ‘The Example’ which you can get through Amazon or right here.
On the theatre front, my plays ‘Mystery Flight’ and ‘Falling, Praying’ have both been shortlisted for the upcoming Short and Sweet festival in Sydney and ‘Mystery Flight’ is set to debut at the stunning Chapel off Chapel theatre later this month.
Finally, I’ve recently finished writing another Star Wars related work (and had an awesome time doing so), which should be announced later this month.
The first official image for my new creator-owned series ‘The Deep’ was revealed at the Armageddon Expo in Melbourne this weekend and I’m very happy to share it here.
Art by Hugh Phiri, masthead by Skye Ogden (with a lot of input from others).
Here it is, people. The first look at the cover to the upcoming Rombies!
Many a late-night-skype with the brilliant, Japan-based artist, Skye Ogden, and a lot of back-and-forth emails, has resulted in this. Great work, Skye.
Rombies – one shot — Gestalt Publishing – coming very soon.
“We are incredibly happy to announce that Tom Taylor has been selected as a recipient of an ‘Emerging Writers Grant’ through the Australian Society of Authors and the Australia Council.
The total number of applications (226) was almost four times as high as the Literature Board
received last year in the Emerging writers category (58).
In very positive news for the medium, as well as ‘Brief Cases’, three other graphic novel proposals received funding.
This grant will enable Tom to put a lot of energy into Brief Cases and the book will be much stronger for it.”
I will also add that this grant will allow me to write this book while assisting us to eat at a time when we are expecting our second child (and all that goes with it). Woo Hoo!
A massive thank you to all of the selectors at the Australian Society of Authors, Wolfgang Bylsma, Gestalt Publishing and The Australia Council.
Skye Ogden, the creator of the gorgeous ‘Vowels’ (Chapter 1 of which can be read right here), has an epic story in his mind. And that story is set to escape his brain with the first installment of ‘Rombies’.
I would normally run a mile from a zombie story… and run a mile from zombies. However, after being asked whether I’d like to write the first instalment of this Roman zombies book, I woke one morning with horrible, horrible visions of a zombie infested Colosseum and, naturally, I wanted to share these horrible visions with the world.
Rombies is coming soon from Gestalt Publishing and three preview pages can be read right here.
“Ogden is an enormously stylish artist” – Publisher’s Weekly
Follow @TomTaylorMade
Tom Taylor has written plays that have been produced across four continents, from the Sydney Opera House to the Edinburgh Festival.
He has killed characters for DC Comics and created characters for Lucasfilm.
He has written comics which have been reprinted in French, German and Spanish but he can’t read any of them.
He has sung for thousands in concert halls and acted to tens in the smallest of black-box theatres.
He has sent Luke Skywalker on a quest and taught Darth Vader a lesson.
He has juggled knives for billionaires and eaten fire for passers-by on the street.
He has written for film screened in California and radio aired in Melbourne.
He has won many awards for his writing and lost many of his indoor soccer finals.
He is the father of two and the husband of one.
Tom Taylor Made
STAR WARS: INVASION
ISSUE 1 - OUT NOW
THE EXAMPLE
OUT NOW
STAR WARS: ADVENTURES
LUKE SKYWALKER AND
THE TREASURE OF
THE DRAGONSNAKES
OUT NOW
THE AUTHORITY
ISSUES 22 - 29
THE DEEP
2011
STAR WARS: INVASION
ISSUE 2 - OUT NOW
FLINCH
OUT NOW
STAR WARS: ADVENTURES
THE WILL OF
DARTH VADER
OUT NOW
STAR WARS: INVASION
ISSUE 3 - OUT NOW
STAR WARS: INVASION
ISSUE 4 - OUT NOW
STAR WARS: INVASION
ONLINE NOW
AT STARWARS.COM
STAR WARS: INVASION
ISSUE 0 - OUT NOW
ROMBIES
OUT NOW
STAR WARS: INVASION
ISSUE 5 - OUT NOW
STAR WARS: INVASION
VOLUME 2 - RESCUES
STARTS MAY 2010
