Lucid Walking: The Dreaming Writing Competition Entries

Posted onMay 21, 2011September 30, 2013

Folks, I’ll be attending GenCon in Brisbane from the 4th to 7th July. Enthusiasts, see you there!

In Odd We Trust: Is out in bookstores and Amazon, and has been since the 24th June. The book has gone back to print due to requests from Amazon, Borders and Barnes and Noble, so that’s probably a good sign (cue baffled reactions from Koontz fans who can’t grasp the idea of a “comic”). I also have a Publishers Weekly interview with Brigid of Mangablog in regards to the book. Thanks to Brigid and Publishers Weekly.

The Dreaming Writing Competition: TOKYOPOP finally announced the winners last Friday, and now I get the honour of posting all winning entries up for everyone to enjoy. I’m cross-posting the content of the TOKYOPOP announcement post, complete with comments and all.

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First Prize: The Sketch Album by Conda V. Douglas, Boise, Idaho
Comments: I awarded this because it gave me the creeps—an admirable achievement considering I wrote the story that it’s based on! It’s a fantastic idea, and executed quite well. The other stories were also very good, but I had to give this one the top prize because of the ‘creep’ factor, which I think is crucial because The Dreaming is a horror story after all.
Second Prize: An End by by Chelsea M. Smith (18), Woodlands, Texas
Comments: This was probably my favourite one in terms of writing style—I think it has the best writing out of all the entries (my personal opinion, and I’m biased). I also like the interpretation of Amber’s ‘state of being’ too. I only wish the reader was told the content of the paintings that Amber had in the suitcase—that is my only complaint (because I wanna know badly!)
Third Prize: Retrospect by by Xandria L. Johnson (14), Ocala, Florida
Comments: I liked how this one took the perspective of Miss Anu—it does a pretty good job of exploring her as a character. I loved the way the story ended. It also mentioned some things about the art I never noticed myself, despite having drawn the book!

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And here are some of the wonderful honourable mentions:

The Coffin by Elizabeth Napoletano (26), Cicero, Illinois
Records Keeper by Allegra Condiotte
The Cost of Living by Sarah Lamb (28), Houston, Texas
Walking in the Dreaming by Jasel Cantu (26), Lincoln, Nebraska

Thank you to everyone who entered this writing competition. Your entries were all so very fantastic, and I hope you all continue writing. It’s certainly inspired me to attempt writing prose again.

If anyone else has an entry they’d like to be posted up here, please post your email address in the comments, and I’ll contact you to get a digital copy of your story. I think we’ll all love to read the stories – I for one am darn curious about the stories that didn’t quite make “the cut”.

All 6 finalists, please post your email address (again) in the comments, or email me to organise the prizes. I’d like your mailing addresses for sending the prizes to. I’ll be giving out copies of the new “In Odd We Trust” book, and original art from “In Odd We Trust” for the top 3 winners (unless you don’t want art from that, please let me know).

Lucid Walking: Comics for Telepaths

Posted onMay 21, 2011September 30, 2013

First Review for In Odd We Trust: Coming out on the 24th of June (at least on Amazon.com), this book just got its first review. It’s in the Icv2 glossy magazine (so not online), and it’s a great 4-star review.

I quote: “The pairing of Dean Koontz with Australian manga-style artist Queenie Chan was a match made in graphic novel heaven. Together, they tell a great story in a genre halfway between Psyche and Nancy Drew, with marvelous dialogue.” I’ll be posting my long-awaited post on “In Odd We Trust” once I run it by Del Ray’s publicity agent David, so please keep an eye out for that. Here’s also an interview with me about the book on Jazma Online, done by Allen Klingelhoets.

Comics for Telepaths: And onto what else I’ve been doing for the past year. I’ve just recently wrapped up a long-running comic work, a fantastical techno-space opera which ran bi-weekly for the past year in Telepathy Tales telezine. For those unaware of this story on the telestream, I posted the first page of it up here.

Sci-Fi Comics for Telepaths

The uninitiated may be wondering why this story involves both thoughts and images, when it’s generally believed that telepathy involves only thought-transference. Well, that was Telepathy 1.0 – this story was broadcast on Telepathy 2.0. If you’re a telepath and you’re still on Telepathy 1.0, you probably already know where to get the upgrade.

Many thanks to editor Henrietta Max, and for The Daily Telepath for giving it a 4-star review. Thanks also to Melandril Moose and Telepathy Tales for giving this story a permanent home in the Vorpal Tex. For those interested in the adventures of Mr. Alabaster Curly and Luci Dworkin, I just told you where you can read all the back issues of the story.

In terms of influences, this story was inspired by Michael E. Blake’s “Science Fiction for Telepaths” (1977), a story whose entire text consisted of: Well, you know what I mean. An extremely long and complex piece of science-ficton this was, yet ironically, it’s often referred to as one of the shortest science-fiction stories in existence (according to everything2.com anyway). Hey, it took me a whole day to get through it, you know.

TOKYOPOP and “The Dreaming” Writing Competition: Everything that can be said about TOKYOPOP’s situation has already been said, and my heart goes out to those who lost their jobs in the corporate reshuffle. I wish you all the best of luck for the future. As for “The Dreaming” writing competition, I apologise for the delays – the winners were suppose to be announced at the BEA, but since TOKYOPOP’s restructuring got announced instead, there is obviously some confusion. I emailed TOKYOPOP and Marco Pavia of marketing replied, saying that they’re planning to announce the winners soon, so thanks for all your patience. Hey, if all else fails, I’ll just post up the 6 finalists and the winners on this blog. Once again, I apologise to everyone who entered the competition for this. Your entries were wonderful and a joy to read, and I hope this can be sorted out ASAP.

It’s Been A While: Sleeping Chick

Posted onMay 21, 2011September 30, 2013

Sleeping Chick

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I like to imagine chickens breaking out of their eggs not because they have to, but because they find it so quiet and lonely in there. This flies in the face of common sense (as does this whole strip), but unlike us human observers, newly-woken baby chicks don’t quite know they’re inside an egg. It’s a silly thought, but apparently worth doodling something on.

The Dreaming: “The Dreaming” writing contest is over, the winners have been chosen, and thankyou to everyone who entered it! I will write a longer post about it later – picking the winners were an extremely difficult job and it deserves an LJ post all on its own. I believe the winners will be announced at the Book Expo America.

In Odd We Trust: The release date is in June, not July, so I shall post my penultimate “In Odd We Trust” post soon.

Move to Melbourne: The reason why I haven’t posted for so long is because I’ve been moving house to Melbourne (from Sydney) for the past 2 months. I’m still not done, would you believe. There is alot of catch-up posting to do.

The Strange One: Odd Thomas

Posted onMay 21, 2011September 30, 2013

Odd Thomas: Long time no update – I’ve been real overworked. For the record, I’m still working on the single-volume “Odd Thomas” graphic novel (just finished chapters 4 out of 7), which now has a name – “In Odd We Trust”. Dean Koontz came up with that name, and he’s also writing a fourth “Odd Thomas” novel, to come out just before this graphic novel I’m working on. Yes, Dean Koontz’s most successful trilogy of books is no longer a trilogy.

I promised long ago to write a lengthy description of the whole Dean Koontz-deal I’m working on, but I haven’t done it yet. It’s because up until the end of October, Dean was busy working on his novel(s) and didn’t have time to approve the last chapter script. Now that the entire script has been approved, I can finally tell you who did what part of the work. But I’ll save that for the big “Odd Thomas” post, which unfortunately is only coming out after volume 3 of “The Dreaming” in December.

The Dreaming: Yes, volume 3 is now coming out in December and not November. There’s a very good reason for the 1 month delay – the folks at TOKYOPOP had something to insert in the back and it needed time to get approved. As for what’s being inserted in the back of “The Dreaming” volume 3 – it’s a SECRET (though lord knows, I’ve blabbed it to enough people already. Whoops). Anyway, I haven’t yet posted up the chapter breaks, so here they are.