Tag: Flying Glory and the Hounds of Glory

Thoughts on An Irish Marathon

On October 9, 2018

In 1909 my grandfather won the Belfast Marathon.

On Halloween of that year he left for America where he would run in both the New York and Boston marathons. Eventually traveling across country with his family to settle in Fullerton, California. Yet, our family has never been far from Ireland, having visited many times. We call it ‘Heaven on Earth.’

I have been thinking a lot about how far my grandfather traveled and ran through out his long life and how it relates to my own race of a job search.

Life is a marathon. Everything you do is part of that race, there are no sprints, and hundred yard dashes. Marathons are long races in which you have to pace yourself, there will be long straightaways, up hill climbs, and sharp hairpin turns that take you in unexpected directions or make it feel like you are running in circles and heading back the way you came. You have to be willing to keep at it for the entire run, ever focused on the goal even if you can’t see the finish line.

My marathon began when I was young and fell in love with comic books and television animation. I wanted to be a part of that! Run that race. After all the run to Hollywood from my home was relatively short, but I didn’t realize just how far that run would actually be. The slow jog through school was a struggle until I stumbled upon a university professor in art who understood what I was running for.

My first real milestone came when I was hired as a background artist on the pages of the first issue of SUPREME for Image Comics. I thought that would lead me on a long straight away working in the comic book industry, but a turn too soon had me going in another direction.

Miles would pass and I kept on running. Along the way I would meet another running nearly the same race as I. She became the love of my life. Together Shannon I would run and create the webcomic FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY which has become a major part of our race for many years and miles. Though Shannon’s race had already lead her to work in television animation production, we soon found a mile stone together writing episodes of an animated series in Japan called MIDNIGHT HORROR SCHOOL, though very few people have ever seen it in the U.S. Along the road we have both written short stories and novels, and I have been hired to do book illustrations. After running our race for what seemed like forever Shannon and I were finally married.

Last year my marathon lead me to working as an Associate Producer on an animated feature film. Again I thought I was on a straight away towards my goal. Unfortunately, it was a short run when the project got canceled. I learned a lot from the experience and hope to use my skills as I race for another production job.

I just passed my latest milestone having a comic book published in which I both wrote and illustrated the story. All-Star Pulp Comics #4, from Airship 27 Productions, contains my story “The DA’s Dilemma,” staring the Veiled Avenger, a heroine out of the Golden Age of comics.

Many times I have run long distances with nothing around and feeling very alone, no one to hand me a cup of refreshing water when I need it or provide needed encouragement and direction, and yet I refuse to give up. This race is too important to me.

Now, with thoughts of my grandfather, I have begun to wonder if my marathon race may lead me back to Ireland. I have discovered there are many great animation production houses in Ireland and if I got a chance to work with them my race would bring together two of my great joys; Ireland and Animation.

Marathons are, as I have said, long races and I am nowhere near being able to see the Finish Line. For all I know it hasn’t been installed yet. Just know that my shoes are tied and I’m still on the road. It’s time to run!

Kevin Paul Shaw Broden
October 6th, 2018

After #AnimateAugust

By kevinpsb4

On September 1, 2016

In Uncategorized

Wow!

Thank you all for following, liking, and sharing, all my #animateaugust sketch series of animated characters whether on instagram, deviantart, facebook, twitter, tumblr, or pixiv in Japan.

Really appreciate the support and encouragement.

It began as turning my

instagram

account into an art portfolio of my work in a more animation styles, as I’m use to drawing in a traditional comic book style (such as my webcomic Flying Glory and the Hounds of Glory –

www.flying-glory.com

), and to promote myself. So I decided to devote all of August to drawing characters from current animated series I enjoy and some I didn’t even know about.

This has become a really enjoyable experience and challenge, as I discovered what drawings people liked best, what worked in one picture and didn’t in another. Discovering what shows are popular, not only here in the U.S. but also around the world.

Images in this series got more likes and shares than any other post I’ve every made. That’s kinda thrilling.

“Music on Swan Lake”Duchess Swan and Sparrow Hood from Ever After Highreceived 27 notes on Tumblr, and 24 likes on instagram

“Is her destiny to be forever alone” of C.A.Cupid also from Ever After Highreceived 39 notes on Tumblr, and 26 likes on instagram

In the process of doing these sketches I discover shows I knew nothing about:

Miraculous Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir (a sketch that got 63 views on Pixiv).

LoliRock

Regal Academy (which I felt awkward about after drawing all the Ever After High princesses).

I also drew characters from:

Monster HighVoltron Legendary DefenderDisney’s Descendants’ Wicked WorldDC Super Hero GirlsStar DarlingsMy Little PonyEquestria GirlsGlitter ForceWinx Club

Some people wanted me to color some of the drawings, others gave me a suggestion of shows I had missed out on, and others wanted me to draw one of their original characters, (I might do that in the future, we’ll see.) I am contemplating doing commission work, but don’t know how that works or if anyone would be interested.

Anyway, as I said, it was a great experience and experimenting in art styles I’m not use to working in. I hope to do a lot more of it, and I’d really love to be able to work on any of these shows or ones like them.

I plan on expanding my portfolio of work, drawing more of my own character sketches, designs and animation art experiments, but from time to time I’ll sneak in another drawing of some of your favorite animated series characters as well. I have an idea for another Monster High sketch, but it maybe a while and will probably give it more time than the ones I did this past month.

Again, thank you all for your supportive likes and shares, and encouragement.

See you around the sketchpad.

Best,

Kevin Paul Shaw Broden

Four Names of Professional Creativity

Celebrating 15 Years of a Webcomic

By kevinpsb4

On June 30, 2016

In Uncategorized

Celebrating 15 Years of a Webcomic by KevinPSB4

Though only a few months have passed for Debra and her friends, the webcomic FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY have been around for 15 years.

FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY (www.flying-glory.com) is the story of ambitious Debra Clay who’s grandmother was the wartime super heroine FLYING GLORY. Now the teenager always looking for ways to promote her rock bang, The Hounds of Glory, is thrilled to discover that she has inherited her Grandma Elsie’s super powers. Once she’s convinced her friends to put on costumes as part of their performance, a new team of super heroes is formed even if they didn’t want to be. Because they are soon fighting super villains between, and sometimes during, their rock concerts.

Be sure to pick up FLYING GLORY FLASHBACK a special 15th Anniversary edition that my co-writer Shannon Muir put to get. It includes all the song lyrics she wrote for the series as well as character bios. (amzn.to/293eI1L) Only 99cents.

Fashion Design for Flying Glory

By kevinpsb4

On February 10, 2015

In Uncategorized

Sometime ago JList posted the anime/manga meme image of a girl in a turtleneck sweater withe a keyhole front. It turns out that there is a lot of artwork of girls in these sweaters showing off their assets. Since then a lot of artists have done their own interpretation of the sweater. So, without doing the overt sexuality of it, I wanted to do something with the sweater with my FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY characters.

The band’s costume designer Krystal Wexler has been shown some art designs by Eddie Farmer (Capt’n Plunder of the Villains of Vengeance – stage villains during performances). Eddie is totally into Manga and Anime and designs his own Costplay outfits. So he designed a keyhole sweater based on the internet meme and Krystal liked it enough to make something for Debra (Flying Glory) to wear.

It doesn’t have the same impact as other girls wearing it would. But that’s the point. Not every super heroine can be Power Girl, and they shouldn’t be.

Anyway, enjoy. Then goes visit the FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY webcomic at www.flying-glory.com

Wonder Con Anaheim, 2012

By kevinpsb4

On March 19, 2012

In Uncategorized

Had an enjoyable three-day weekend at WonderCon in Anaheim.

Got to see a lot of my fellow writers and creative people from comic books, animation, and novels. Went to a whole bunch of panels about working in different industries as a writer, learning how best to promote our work, and getting to see how some authors are promoting their books and themselves.

No matter how long I’ve been at this, there is ALWAYS something more to learn.

There were three panels on animation writing, each with their own special tone and subject. From selling a series, tales from the trenches, to what it takes to tell an action adventure story in animation.

The one on action was I think the most informative and I learned something from. Animation, like comic books, is a visual medium and the story must be told with the pictures. However, in comic books a single page of 1 to 8 panels of art can also be filled with dialog balloons and the reader and take his/her own time to read it. The same sequence in animation might only take seconds on the screen and only the most pertinent lines of dialog can be used. It needs to be cut down and much as possible, and the rest of the story must be in the artwork and animation.

Another panel was on how best to publicize your comic book. We did a lot of this last year when we were promoting the 10^th Anniversary of FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY, but there is still more we should have done and perhaps in different ways. Again, being there was a learning experience.

We don’t usually go to the Big Event panels, or the ones that are solely promoting a publisher’s line of comics or TV shows, but a friend of ours is working on a major show as part of the new DC Nation block on Cartoon Network so we couldn’t miss that. The fan response to GREEN LANTERN, YOUNG JUSTICE and the DC shorts was quite positive.

Other panels included a SPOTLIGHT on comic book writer Mark Waid who told us more of his plans for Digital Comics. Since Shannon and I have been doing a webcomic for 10 years, there is a lot to learn from him on this as well.

Another panel on the book WOMANOLOGY created by women creators, veterans and new. A worthwhile project, endeavored, and book, check it out.

There were also panels on gaming, both video and table top, which was more Shannon’s thing as her own experience in both. She can tell you more about that.

[EDIT] We also had a great time at a panel on Voice Acting with some of the best actors currently working in the industry. I may write about this at another time.

You can find Shannon’s view of Wonder Con here: http://t.co/tAg1nab9

Our final panel of the three days was on YOUNG ADULT novels, and there were 9 authors on the panel talking about their work, but done in a very enjoyable way that the question and answers weren’t boring and cliché. Three of the authors got to announce that their books were at different stages heading towards Hollywood, the audience loved that though knew that anything could happen between now and then. We did see two very well produced trailers to promote a couple of the books. One of the books is already in production as a film. As both Shannon and I have our own novels out right now, it’s really great to hear what others are going through.

Speaking of our own novels, both of us couldn’t help but keep checking Amazon’s Author Central and Smashword’s Dashboard through out the convention to watch our sales rankings. Shannon had one of her novels up for free yesterday it was fun to watch it climb the charts to # 15 in Family Sagas. As for mine, CLOCKWORK GENIE is currently on sale for 99¢ so it was great to see it hope up the ranks a bit, and I was really pleased to see REVENGE OF THE MASKED GHOST get some sales even though I haven’t been promoting this week. Maybe someone bought both, was it you?

Over all WonderCon was a relaxing weekend compared to our normal experience at ComicCon International in San Diego. Our only real problem was the heavy rain Saturday morning, which was a problem for everyone else as there wasn’t enough parking for not only our own convention but also two others going on at the same time. A good thing we chose to take the bus down each day so didn’t have to worry about any of it. Go OCTA.

I came home from the convention last night to find out that ParaYourNormal had posted an interview they did with me. You can read it here. If you read the interview, you’ll also have a chance at winning a free copy of CLOCKWORK GENIE. Read an excerpt of the story at the end of the interview.

You’ll also find a link in the interview to BlogTalkRadio through which you’ll be able to hear the ParaYour Normal crew interview me live this Wednesday (March 21^st). Here’s that link: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/parayournormal

So having a nice relaxing time at the convention with my fellow authors, I don’t feel like this is March Madness. Of course once you all start buying my books that may change.

Kevin Paul Shaw Broden
Four Names of Professional Creativity

Brushing with Celebrity on the Floor

By kevinpsb4

On January 23, 2012

In Uncategorized

The other night as I watched the Golden Globes with all those celebrities passing across the television screen, whether they were winners or just happy to be nominated or just plain seat fillers, I was reminded of something that happened this past summer.

Each year I attend the San Diego Comic Con International, and when there is somewhere around 120,000 people packing into the halls its hard to remember a face in that crowd, but a face did come back to me all these many months later.

I headed upstairs to attend a panel, though no longer remember what it was, and the line of people waiting to get in was already wrapped down the hallway and around two corners by the time I joined in at the back.

There were three guys just ahead of me, two were standing and a third was sitting on the floor (I know how he felt, read my blog on how much my feet hurt at the con). When I joined them they were in a discussion of DC Comic’s New52. At that point in time we only had a vague idea of what was coming, each expressing their own opinions and how to do it better (fans you gotta love us).

Anyway, as the conversation lulled and changed, I eventually had an opportunity to talk about FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY. If you’ve been reading my blog for any amount of time, you’ll know that FGHOG is the webcomic, which I illustrate and co-write with Shannon Muir. Click the link to the right to check it out; we’re currently celebrating our 10^th Anniversary.

I was carrying with me business cards, some for myself, and some to promote the comic. They are small and can easily slip into your pocket (which you’ll discover cleaning out your luggage when you get home, or turned into a mashed ball of wet paper when you pull it out of the washer), but they seem to work. What really worked for me was that I included a QR Code box on the reverse side of the card. (QR Code, you know, those strange little boxes filled with even smaller white and black boxes). People could use their ‘smart phones’ to scan the code and pull up our webcomic. If nothing else, it was a conversation starter.

While standing in line, it hadn’t started to move yet; I gave a card to each of the three guys I had been talking with. After explaining about the code on the back, the one sitting on the floor pulled out his phone and scanned the card and checked out a few pages of the webcomic.

I got a polite “Cool,” from him.

One problem I have at conventions is that name tags hanging from their lanyards and always turn backwards so I never can see a person’s name. Not very helpful.

All I knew was the color of the nametag told me he was professional like myself. So just as the line began to move I asked him what he does? Figuring he’d be an artist or something.

He looked at me and simply answered: “I’m an actor.”

The line moved on and I didn’t get a chance to ask anything further. I had this feeling from his expression that I should have known who he was, but was also glad that I didn’t know.

So, here I am, months later and watching the Golden Globes when it hits me.

I am more then ninety percent certain that the man who had been sitting on the floor, who took my business card, and looked at my webcomic, was the actor Seth Rogen.

Could be wrong of course, watching him now on the stage, and thinking back to the convention, he could have easily disappeared in to a crowd of geeks and nerds, and someone like me would never have been the wiser.

All the same I have to have a little thrill from this…

Seth Rogen thought FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY was “cool.”

Influences to Glory – Writers and Artists

By kevinpsb4

On January 6, 2012

In Uncategorized

Earlier today I was in the midst of a Twitter conversation that brought up our earliest comic book influences.

Every artist, and writer, has their influences. Not all of us will agree as to who the greatest or the worst, the most dynamic, narrative, or the worst is. But we all know who influences us.

For me, it goes nearly to the very beginning of reading comics. I had already read through a digest reprint of JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #100 (written by Len Wein, another important influence to me), which introduced me to the world of the DC Universe that wasn’t the SUPER FRIENDS of Saturday Morning Cartoons.

Here was not only the Justice League of America, but also another team that called themselves the Justice Society of America. As a little kid, all I knew was that these were alternate takes on what I thought were well-established characters.

Over the next few months I would beginning to pick up other comic books. One comic was THE NEW TEEN TITANS by Marv Wolfman and George Perez. The second was an issue of ALL STAR SQUADRON written by Roy Thomas and among many artists was Jerry Ordway.

These two books would truly build my view of the DC Universe. The Teen Titans very ‘science fiction’ based modern stories with highly detailed artwork, while All Star Squadron showed heroes in the midst of World War II and had heroes with magic based powers.

For a while I believe that Earth 1 took place in the modern day, and Earth 2 in the 1940s, so that even when they did a cross over story they were coming from two different points in time. I soon learned that wasn’t true.

Anyway, back to my influences.

For writing, I couldn’t have picked any better writers to follow than Marv Wolfman and Roy Thomas. Yes, I’ll hear people mention who they believe are better with more complexity to their writing, but for me these two men were the foundational influence to me that everything grew from.

Where Wolfman knew who to emotionally grab me in one story and then tell great actions sequences in the next, Thomas knew how to handle dozens of characters sometimes at once. Thomas also knows everything about what I was learning to call the ‘Golden Age’ of comics, and spent time in every issue telling something about it all.

Because of Roy Thomas and the All-Star Squadron, I quickly became infatuated by Golden Age, and I saw out reprint books of the original stories (there was no way I could afford the originals, but I found the stories I wanted).

As with most young comic readers I soon began to create my own characters. But I didn’t want to create them in my modern world. I didn’t fit in a New York that I saw through George Perez’s detailed art. I created my characters influenced by Jerry Ordway that I felt had a more ‘realistic’ style. His faces were and are great.

(Imagine my thrill later when Ordway was hired to ink Perez’s work on CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTH. The two were so perfect together.)

(SIDE NOTE: I would also discover in the back issue bings the John Byrne issues of FANTASIC FOUR, and I bought as many as I could afford over several years of collecting. The greats of these were those where Byrne’s art was inked over by Jerry Ordway.)

So I’m creating my own characters, refining them, turning them into something more than just sketches on a page. I gave them names, and origins, not just the basic how they got power origins, but why and who the characters are with out powers.)

I was looking towards Roy Thomas and his interpretation of the Golden Age, that I began to emulate.

Three characters that I developed the furthest were The Torchlight, Speedstar, and a heroine I called FLYING GLORY.

I have written stories about all these characters, and as you all know, I took FLYING GLORY the furthest.

I’ve told the story already as how publishers were interested in a FLYING GLORY comic, one really liked the story that I told, but eventually it became clear that I couldn’t sells a Golden Age story when I was pitching it.

So with the help of Shannon Muir I updated the Flying Glory character, made her the granddaughter of the original and gave her a group of friends that supported her. THE HOUNDS OF GLORY.

Our webcomic FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY, currently celebrating its 10^th Anniversary of being online. Everything that I put into a script I owe to Marv Wolfman and Roy Thomas, and each panel of my art is so greatly influenced by Jerry Orway and George Perez (though I’ll never be able to draw hi details and crowd scenes).

Thank you Mr. Ordway, Mr. Perez, Mr. Thomas, Mr. Wolfman for you have made me the comic book professional that I am today.

Kevin Paul Shaw Broden

Four Names of Professional Creativity

The Lyrics of Glory

By kevinpsb4

On October 10, 2011

In Uncategorized

As you know, Shannon Muir and I are celebrating the tenth anniversary of our online comic book FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY.

The story involves a team of teenagers who have chosen to put on costumes and be super heroes to support their leader Debra Clay who discovered she has inherited super powers from her grandma who was the World War II heroine Flying Glory.

On top of that, the team is also a rock band, first starting out performing for their high school and in local concerts. Now they are FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY; and their heroic actions have brought more attention to the band and their music.

And their music is our music. Or rather, their lyrics are Shannon’s lyrics.

One of the ways that we try to make our comic book unique from other super hero comics, or web comics, is that at least once per issue we include lyrics to a song that the band performs. All the songs that have appeared in the comic book over the last ten years have all been written Shannon Muir.

Music as part of an action adventure is how Shannon and I got to know one another.

When we were younger, and she lived thousands of miles away, we both enjoyed watching an animated television series called JEM AND THE HOLOGRAMS.

Originally created to sell dolls, JEM was a well-crafted television series that had and still has an audience and fandom of boys and girls, men and women. Developed by writer Christy Marx the series dealt with a wide range of topics both fun and serious beyond the simple adventure.

As a young teen watching such a show, Shannon did something I never would have had the nerve to do. She wrote to the production company and was soon in contact with Christy Marx herself to learn about the show and writing for animation. Marx soon became Shannon’s mentor and friend.

I would later meet Marx online, and then at a science fiction convention. Whatever I said must have impressed her enough because when Shannon was ready to move down here to Los Angeles she asked Christy about me. She must have said something nice, because we’ve been together for over fifteen years.

The reason I bring this up is that Shannon and I have not intended to make FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY a copy of JEM AND THE HOLOGRAMS, it’s quite different, but Marx’s influence is there.

One such influence is the inclusion of a song per story. There were usually two songs, I believe, per episode of JEM.

In our current issue, as part of our 10th anniversary celebration, Shannon is including three songs as part of the story. The next song page will appear next week.

Shannon has now assembled all her songs written for FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY, as well as songs written for another series she developed called ENCHANTRESSHAWKE. Along with the lyrics to over fifty songs, she has also written an extensive history as to where each song came from.

Her songbook is entitled FLYING GLORY FLASHBACK: Celebrating 10Years Of The Lyrics, Words, and History Behind The Webcomic

It can be punched in both paperback book or as an ebook.

To all the fans of FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY as well as those who like music and to discover where lyrics come from, I encourage you to support Shannon and purchase her book.

Thank you all for putting up with this little promotion.

Best

Kevin Paul Shaw Broden
Four Names of Professional Creativity

What will we make of the New Year?

By kevinpsb4

On December 29, 2010

In Uncategorized

The year 2011 is only a couple of days away.

Was it not just yesterday that my family and I were eating specially made snacks and watching the Times Square Ball drop on television to usher in 2010? Heck, it was only yesterday that we were all running around worried about Y2K.

So with the New Year this weekend my blog, like so many man others, must provide something to celebrate it. There’s an unwritten rule, (or it’s written on someone’s blog). Should I write an End of the Year Wrap Up, or the proverbial New Years Resolutions? Neither sound very enticing, but stick with me and lets see where this takes us.

What will the New Year bring? More importantly, what will we bring to the New Year?

That really is the question, isn’t it? What are we going to do to make the New Year better than the previous one?

A year ago I had written a novel as part of Nanowrimo. Once completed, I set it aside and wrote the first draft of a second, much better novel. Now, a year later, I am nearly finished with a fourth draft of the novel. In this next year, I WILL finish it, find an agent, and have the novel published. You’ll all buy it, right?

A year ago I was unemployed. I’ve been unemployed for several years. Today I am employed in a short term, part-time job that I thank God for every minute of the day. In the year to come I WILL BE employed in a full time job. My desire is to be working at one of the animation or television studios, preferably as a scriptwriter. Even if I cannot have that, IT MUST be in the Burbank/Glendale area. It must be there so I will be near my fiancée.

Three and half years ago we became engaged. I called her from Ireland to make it official. Now in this coming year, I WILL do everything possible so that we will be married. We will marry in the eyes of God, of family, and friends.

FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY will continue as we celebrate it’s tenth year as a webcomic. I will continue to write the REVENGE OF THE MASKED GHOST and find a conclusion.

I know not how any of this will be accomplished; with God’s guidance I intend to do everything possible to make them all happen.

Everyone is welcome to help.

Hey, a year ago I could barely manage to post my blog annually, now I have something up practically every week. I even have a regular following. Thank you all.

Have a blessed New Year, may it be everything you make it, and accomplish all you set your mind to.

Kevin Paul Shaw Broden
Four Names of Professional Creativity

A change in the weather, a change in the Deadline

By kevinpsb4

On November 4, 2010

In Uncategorized

Hey, look, it’s Thursday evening and time for my weekly brain dump of a blog.

Thanks everyone who has been taking time out of your busy schedules to read my rambles. I really appreciate it.

This blog was always supposed to be about my writing and about my career. Sometimes, however, it became a place for me to vent and complain. I don’t want that to happen regularly.

A few weeks ago I wrote about my job search and how it hadn’t been going well, so I have been devoting a lot of my time to writing and drawing the webcomic FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY, my novel, my serial REVENGE OF THE MASKED GHOST, and this blog and pushing to keep a deadline for each one of them as if I was on a paid assignment.

It looks like my deadline schedule is about to change.

I have a job.

(I can hear you all cheering out there. No wait, that’s a cricket outside my office window.)

Yes, that’s true, I have a job. Or rather a short term, part-time job between now and this coming February, but it is a job.

I praise God for this job as I would any other.

Being a part time job of only twelve hours a week I should still have plenty of time to write. Hopefully I will find someone who will pay me to write, but I’m still going to write no matter what.

Which brings me to the shifting of my deadlines. I don’t want to really change anything, but know something has to give a little.

Each new page of the webcomic will still be posted on Sundays, and this blog should still be able to make its appearance each Thursday (as you can tell it doesn’t take much brain power). As much as I don’t want to, am going to post the serial every other week. Not only will it ease up my schedule, but I’ll be able to improve on the story.

I intend to post the next chapter this following Tuesday, and then two weeks later.

Thank you for your understand and support. It’s really been great to know that people are out there reading my stories. Know any publishers or producers you could point my way? (Seriously: Does anyone need an assistant for a couple days a week?)

Would love to hear from you either here in the comments section or at my Twitter account: Kevinpsb00

Thanks, have a great weekend.

DEADLINES – “I’m going to make this one.”

By kevinpsb4

On September 23, 2010

In Uncategorized

Maybe this week I’ll actually meet my deadline and post this blog on a Thursday like I promised myself.

But worried I’m going to miss the deadline for finishing the artwork of my web comic.

Which got me to thinking about deadlines.

Since I’m “between” assignments right now, I have had to created self-imposed deadlines on myself or I wouldn’t get anything done.

Here are the deadlines I have set for myself right now:

Sunday – The latest page of FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY has been penciled, inked and approved and I post it to the web site.

Tuesday – The next chapter of “Revenge of the Masked Ghost” is posted to my note page on facebook (Which maybe moving to its own site soon.)

Thursday – I post my “Four Names of Professional Creativity” blog (hopefully this got posted on a Thursday).

Saturday – Study and Prep for the Sunday School/Bible Study I lead Sunday mornings.

You can find most of the links for these over there on the right, and if you’re reading this you’ve found it already and don’t need the link.

As I’m writing this I am also penciling more of the comic, and working on a novel. One thing I am good at is multitasking, but it doesn’t always help.

I need to have these deadlines, not only does it force me to get the work done it also keeps me thinking in the same mind set as I would when employed to do the work under even tighter deadlines.

If not for these deadlines I’d constantly be finding reasons not to do the work. It’s so easy to get distracted as is (thank you Twitter).

One of the hardest things for me to do is something I really need to do more of. That’s to write spec scripts (samples of my writing, either a movie, a television show, animation, or a comic book). If I know someone is interested in my work and wants to see a sample, or is willing to let me pitch for their project, I can write up a good sample in a short time. However, if I don’t have a goal like that it becomes hard to build up the energy to write. So I need to force a deadline and goal on myself to get it done.

It’s coming on a year now since I decided to participate in NANOWRIMO, National Novel Writing Month (http://www.nanowrimo.org/) I had a vague idea for a science fiction novel and so signed up for it. In Nano the writer has thirty days to write 50,000 words of a novel. You don’t have to complete the story, but the goal is to reach that number.

Surprisingly I reached 50,000 with a couple of days to spare, and actually finish the entire first draft.

The problem I did have with the story was that though I knew where it should end up, it was all over the place with far more characters then planned taking different paths to reach that end. Every so often I go back and take a look at it, there’s still something there but I have to rip it apart and workout a detailed outline to put all the parts back together again.

What made it even more frustrating was that about a week into Nano I had an idea for a completely different novel, which would have worked out a whole lot better if I had begun with it. But I had committed myself to the first story and was going to see it through. I paused long enough to write down about a page worth of notes on the new story and then got back to Nano.

Once I completed the Nano novel and feeling victorious I gave myself a few days off and then turned to the second story. And I surprised myself by having the first draft of it done by the end of December.

With Nano I was proved to myself that I could complete a major assignment under a deadline, and the second novel proved that it just wasn’t a onetime event. Though I didn’t have someone else counting down the days I pushed to get it finished before the end of the year, and I succeeded.

Lastly, as I approach the deadline for this blog I want to mention that a Deadline can also be considered a Finish Line of a race. Whether you’ve been given an assignment, or working on a personal project you run for that line. When you cross the finish line or beat that that deadline, if you’ve worked your hardest and done your best work, you’re already victorious. The acclaim, the fortune, the fame, that’ll come later.

And with that little gem I’m just going to make this deadline with about an hour to spare.

Oh, one more thing. I just finished the pencils on the comic page, so I will be able to meet the deadline for FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY as well.

Kevin Paul Shaw Broden
Four Names of Professional Creativity

The Headache that Ended the World

By kevinpsb4

On September 2, 2010

In Uncategorized

This blog should have been posted early this afternoon, and it’s almost 9pm and I’m just now writing it.
I have been working on other things today; penciling the latest page of FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY (www.flying-glory.com), as well as writing more of my novel and starting a new story I’m hoping to post online soon.
But all of that got side tracked by a headache that hit me this morning and hasn’t really gone away tonight.
I threatened on Twitter to write about my headache if I couldn’t think of anything else…

I got that close to writing about how I have suffered with it for years, but I won’t go into that.

What I will do is go back to what I’ve been talking about the last few weeks. Taking things that life hands you and turning them into stories. The headache is one major example of this.
I’m really into time travel stories (a major Doctor Who fan, in all his incarnations), so I built this who epic story based around time travel. In this story my main character had to travel back a few days, during which he already existed. What would be the repercussions of such an event.
The easy out was that the time traveler could not be seen by his previous self, but he also had memories of an extremely bad headache a few days earlier and now discovered he had that because he was very close to himself.
So I always imagined that the reason I suffer such terrible headache is that sometime in the future I’m going to have my own time machine and come back and try to visit myself.

Okay, that was really silly and probably a waist of your time, would you like to have a time machine and go back and prevent me from writing this? Maybe you already did and that’s why I have this blasted headache. Thanks a whole lot.

Hey, at least I’m keeping my promise to myself and writing a blog every week. Doesn’t have to be good, does it? Going to go rest this head now.

Kevin Paul Shaw Broden
“Four Names You Need To Remember”

It never rains in Southern California… Ya right!

By kevinpsb4

On December 11, 2008

In Uncategorized

It never rains in Southern California… Ya right!

Our back yard is flooded, but hasn’t gotten in the house yet.

Boy this blogging thing is harder then I thought. 🙂

There hasn’t really been anything worth writing about, but always happy to do so.

The latest page of FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY went up this weekend. I am really surprised at my art sometimes. Some of my work, and certain characters come across absolutely terrible, while other characters hit the mark perfectly and I find emotion and depth coming from their faces more then I expected. Check it out at www.flying-glory.com.

This past week I submitted a series proposal to a comic book company. Can’t say anything in fear that it won’t happen, but if nothing else, I am building a positive relationship with the editors.

The Christmas holidays are upon us, and I have to think gifts for family and friends. We all know how it’s not that easy. We all promise to start making notes early in the year as we learn what he or she is interested in, but by the time the holiday’s or their birthday shows up we haven’t a clue what that idea was.

Other random thoughts before I sign off. I’m discovering that facebook and twitter are becoming more useful then I first thought they would be. I know I need to network more and this seems to be working out better then going to an industry holiday party.

Enjoy the holidays everyone, hopefully I’ll post again before the end of the year.

Development and ReCreation

By kevinpsb4

On April 4, 2008

In Uncategorized

Hi all,

Really didn’t want to take this long to get back to posting, but it happened all the same.

Here are a few things that I’ve been up to.

The final page of Issue 9 of Flying Glory and the Hounds of Glory. I’m currently painting the cover art for Issue 10 and hope to have it up with in the week.

I am also in the process of redesigning my website, but won’t post the link here until it’s finished. Will be really stressing my animation development and production work there.

Things seem to be going better in my pursuit for work. Though I not hired yet, I have been meeting with people from several different studio who are really interested working with me. Yesterday’s meeting could really turn into something fantastic. I also got to pitch another series idea and expect to hear back on it in a month.

Looks like I may be in a gallery show next month, will post all the appropriate information when it’s ready. Have to actually finish the art work itself first. 🙂

Speaking of art, as bonus for sticking with my quiet moments here, I’m posting drawing that will eventually be part of new website. I do most of this type of work, like I do the web comic, on my computer using Painter. So these “pencils” were actually done digitally, I will then “ink” it and paint it the same way.

When I wrote the Title line for this blog, I was thinking in one direction, and then I realized what I really wrote. Don’t know about the rest of you, but thought my writing and art work is done for a job, it is also done out of enjoyment. I love animation, that any hard job is also enjoyment. Creation is Recreation. What do you think?

Stick around, I hope to have more postings soon.

Best,

Kevin