Talking Earp

It’s time to discuss this in a little more depth.

As has been previously announced, I’m writing a new webcomic. It’s called A Wicked Little Town and it’s about Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. It takes place in Dodge City, during the year before they lit out for Tombstone. It’s being drawn by Keith Perkins and shall be published at Weaponizer.

That’s what we’ve released so far.

What else can I tell you? Well, I’m glad you asked.

The project started a few months back. Keith and I had decided that we wanted to work on something together and I was casting about for ideas. We wanted to do something short, four or five pages, maybe a little science-fiction piece.

This is when I discovered something. Writing a short comic is not at all like writing a short story. There’s very little space to work with. I just couldn’t come up with anything interesting to say that would fit in five script pages.

I talked it over with Keith and he agreed that we ought to take a whack at a bigger project, something with a little meat on it. So, I went back to the drawing board, or, more precisely, back to the drawer where I keep all the notes about story ideas that I’ve come up with over the years.

Two jumped out as being good ideas for a graphic novel. I’m not going to tell you about one of them, because we may go back and try it someday. The other involved Wyatt. I’ve always thought it interesting that every story I’ve read or seen about Earp focused on gunfights. Earp was a lawman. He didn’t just shoot people. If someone committed a crime, Wyatt had to figure out what happened.

If someone committed a murder, and nobody was sure who did it, Wyatt would have to investigate it.

So why not do a straight forward, traditional, murder mystery, with Wyatt as the detective? It seemed obvious to me. Keith liked the idea, and when I mentioned it to Bram at Weaponizer, he liked it, also.

So, the planning began.

A Wicked Little Town is serialized graphic novel. It has a beginning, a middle and an end. It will run, weekly, in five page installments, at Weaponizer, beginning sometime in March.

Before it debuts, Weaponizer will be releasing the first issue of their print magazine, Weaponizer Quarterly. The magazine will contain a six page prologue / teaser story called Loyal Friends and Good Company. That short story will not be reprinted on the web. It will only be available in the magazine.

Until the story is finished, that is. Upon completion, A Wicked Little Town will be released in a single volume graphic novel. The prequel story will be included. As an added bonus, even though the weekly comic will be in black and white, when the graphic novel hits, it will be in full color.

More on that as time goes on. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy A Wicked Little Town.

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