Zombie Dick-Issue 1-Page 1

Life ambitions.

Most of us have 'em. They're usually unreasonable.

For instance, I'd LIKE to:

a) Become a world-renowned painter
b) Train to be an Astronaut in Russia and go on a space mission
c) Design and direct my own AAA-title videogame
or
d) go to Tibet, study Shaolin martial arts for several decades, and learn how to stand on two fingers and do headsprings...

...but I most likely WON'T, because I live in the desert of the real, and not the Matrix.

A somewhat more reasonable ambition of mine is to make my own comics.

I've entertained this idea for years, but up until very recently I haven't had the artistic or literary chops to pull it off. I've also been studying hard at high school and university most of my life, and have had little time to spare for such a demanding endeavour.

This year, I had no excuse.

Having graduated, I suddenly found myself with enough free time to actually start my own project, and finding a publisher was the last boot my backside needed.

The result of this metaphorical butt-kicking is "Zombie Dick".

To explain Zombie Dick to you, I first need to explain the nature of my publisher. They're a tiny little speck of a quarterly 'zine (perfect for a tiny little speck of a comics creator like me), based in Brisbane, which publish small antholgies of-and I quote-"sci-fi/horror/bizarro" art. I needed to rustle up something for them quick to meet their March deadline, and thus Zombie Dick was born.

Simply put, Zombie Dick is about...well...a Zombie Dick ("dick" in this case being an old slang term for "detective"), an undead private eye who takes cases of a sensitive and often supernatural nature. I'll tell you the rest of the story when I've finished writing it.

If you come to Zombie Dick looking for a well-rounded, intricately crafted whodunit in the vein of Sir Conan Doyle or Dorothy L. Sayers, look elsewhere. Zombie Dick is a trashy, vulgar, blunt little piece of pulp comic fiction...and that's good enough for me. The publisher I submitted it to primarily distributes messy, dark, surreal, oftentimes bloody and weird material. Zombie Dick fit the bill.

As for the above picture...you're looking at the first page of the first issue of the first volume, titled "Seven Parts Murder". Each issue is going to be about six pages long (although the second issue, as you'll see, is longer).
Since I'm still very new to this whole comic-making shebang, I'm working with a basic six-panel format, exclusively in Photoshop (which is considerably easier to edit, write in and draw on than a tangible bristol board).

Be warned that the writing and plotting is a little spotty, and the art (which is very rushed) is far messier than it should be.

Also be warned that future pages of Zombie Dick will contain significant amounts of gore, coarse language, and Demons.

And zombies.

Part 1 of 6.

Link to issue 1, page 2: [link]

Drawn in Adobe Photoshop CS3 in one day.

Zombie Dick is (c) of me, myself and I.

-SB969