Posted in: Comics | Tagged: andres salazar, howard chaykin, Jose Pescador, kickstarter, pariah missouri

Mashing Up the Old West

Published Sun, 15 Sep 2013 17:00:09 -0500

Andres Salazar writes for Bleeding Cool:

My name is Andres Salazar. I'm a storyteller. Right now I'm neck-deep in my new book called Pariah, Missouri. Part Huckleberry Finn part X-files it's a mash-up of some of my favorite stories and ideas all set in Antebellum 1857 Missouri. It's Steampunk without the punk, but a good dose of religion, folk magic, bounty-hunters, slaves and demons. It's the A-team with Hiram Buchanan an undercover Pinkerton, Nellie a feisty courtesan, Jean Lafitte a practitioner of vodoo from New Orleans and Toro a Mexican/Comanche bounty-hunter as they ferret out evil.

I used to work for a guy named Howard Chaykin, you might have heard of him. If you haven't you need to stop reading this and go read American Flagg. First day I met Howard I showed him my work. He said, 'This doesn't suck, you have a good line, but you're not a penciler.' He knew I wanted to write and I could be an inker but if I wanted to make my own book I'd need to find a penciler. So like any smart person I listened to Mr. Chaykin and I got myself a penciler. Enter stage left Jose Pescador.

Every page of Pariah, MO is painted in watercolors. It's something I've wanted to do since the beginning. I wanted that old-timey feel and keep the color palette down to a minimum. We've just finished volume 1 and set it off to the printers. Even made a fancy-pants hardcover complete with my commentary throughout the story as well as extra pages with additional epilogue, behind-the-scenes art, production sketches and reference pictures. It's the blu-ray of the book. What's great is backers to the Kickstarter will not have to wait for their book, we are shipping these puppies in Oct! How's that grab ya?

I just finished the script for volume 2 and working on the watercolor art now. It should be ready for print in May 2014. If all goes well, each year we will pump out a volume.

I'm doing something special for all the Bleeding Cool backers. If we get another $1,000 in the Kickstarter this weekend, I will put all the Bleeding Cool backers on the "Uber-backer" list which will give them an exclusive 16-20 page prelude story, not available for purchase.

I got some new Stretch Goals which will include a radio drama and a card game. It will be an exciting story for the next 30 days to see how we progress through the campaign. I will be posting videos and updates often so backers really get a sense of the behind the scenes of what it takes to make a comic book. Please become a part of our team!