“Behind Enemy Linens” was a story that I wrote for Little Red Bird Press’ anthology titled BLOCKED. The idea behind BLOCKED was to tell stories about the world of online dating through sites such as Tinder and OKCupid, and specifically, the horror stories.

If anyone has followed me for any length of time, you may already know that I have a lot of horrible dating stories, so it was a matter of trying to decide which one I wanted to pitch. There was a submission process to go through so I looked for an artist to work with and attach myself through and began figuring what I wanted to do.

I decided to pitch a story about the time when a guy I was dating broke up with me over a blanket fort. I won’t get into that story in full here, but suffice to say that it was pretty ridiculous (and you can read the full thing in both script and completed comic form below).

I contacted Jenn St. Onge to work with on this project and she agreed to be a part of the story. Once we submitted, it was a matter of waiting to hear back to see if we were accepted into the project or not. Spoiler alert: we were accepted.

From there, we had almost a year to put together our script, the thumbnails, pencils, inks, colours, and letters. A very generous amount of time to complete our stories which were (if I remember correctly), a maximum of 10 pages long; my story was seven pages.

Since I already had the story in my head, it was a matter of pacing out the story and making sure that I could tell the entire thing in a coherent way. I wrote out all the major beats I wanted to hit and then figured out how many pages it would take to get there.

A guy breaking up with you over a blanket fort is a story that gets told a lot at parties so I was pretty familiar with exactly how I wanted this to go.

With my script, I included short character descriptions for the main characters which were me and the “Silver Fox”. Jenn had me on Facebook so I didn’t need to provide her with too much reference to be able to draw me. She had access to a ton of references. I provided her with photos and reference for “Silver Fox” though and gave her some images to work from (those images aren’t included in the script that you’ll see).

Outside of a few minor changes, I wasn’t given a ton of feedback here. Most of the notes came from trying to translate my script to the pages and ensuring that what I was conveying made sense to the reader. A lot of anthologies are ultimately pretty loose when it comes to editing, but there were definitely notes that helped make my script better than what I had originally pitched.

You can take a look at my final script here.

After the pencils stage was complete, Jenn started to get swamped as an artist with Jem and the Holograms, and other cool things. As such, she had to back away from the project with just one month to go before the deadline.

I got really panicky about the story and was sure that it wouldn’t be included in the book. I put a call out to artists to see if someone would be able to step in and work on the story, and thankfully one artist stepped up.

My pal, Katie Sawatsky easily has one of the most recognizable art styles that I have ever seen. She is a master of black and white comics, and she wanted to come on board, so she did!

While Jenn had pencils done, and Katie could’ve simply inked over what was there, Katie started from scratch with ONE MONTH LEFT to complete the work.

Katie knows me in real life so reference wasn’t really an issue. She hunkered down, and despite some hiccups along the way, we got the story finished at the last minute possible and turned it into the publishers.

The results of Katie’s work can be seen below. Some of the final lettering is missing from the sample pages here, but you can get the general gist of what it looked like and use the script (as linked above) to fill in the blanks.

In September of 2016, I entered Mark Millar’s talent search competition for a chance to write a “Huck” story within the 2017 Millarworld Annual. I had written an original script and submitted that into the contest. The prize was a writer’s page rate (as per Marvel/DC), being paired up with an up and coming artist for the story, and being published by Millarworld/Image Comics.

I submitted an entry for “Huck” and while I really enjoy that series, it was strategic in part. I thought that Millar’s fans would largely be drawn to bigger, more action-packed comics like “Kick-Ass”, “Nemesis”, and “Superior” etc. I had hoped that I was picking a property that wouldn’t have a ton of people lining up to write it.

I was SO wrong. “Huck” was the most popular of the properties by far and as I waited for the announcement to be made on who would win the coveted spot in the Annual, I started to realize this. Virtually every person I talked to about the project told me the same thing: “Oh yeah! I entered a “Huck” story!”

My anxiety was vast.

On December 16, 2016, I was out with a couple of friends and was frantically checking the Millarworld forums for any update on the winners. Finally, Millar posted up the names and I scrolled down. I didn’t see my name and was disappointed but okay with that. After careful consideration, I went back and looked to see who had won the “Huck” story and realized that I had been looking at the wrong thing. My name was there!

I was in a cafe with the aforementioned friends at the time and I stood up and started doing a little happy dance on the spot. A lot of heads turned and looked at me, but I can honestly say that this might be the one time where I didn’t give a crap about what other people may have been thinking. I felt amazing and validated and I was so excited.

Almost a full year after I entered the Mark Millar Talent Search contest, the Millarworld Annual arrived in stores. An event that also happened to coincide with my birthday. I received a lot of positive feedback for my story from Mark, comic fans, avid Millarworld readers (and others who applied to the contest), and critics– which all made my heart soar with happiness.

My story was eerily apt for the time. Hurricane Irma was wreaking its destruction, and my story (titled “Home Sweet Huck”) was about a family who lost everything in such a storm and how Huck helped them pick up the pieces and put their lives back together.

I’ve rambled a lot so far and I apologize but I wanted to give people an in-depth look at what it is that I did in order to get into the Annual.

I’ll get into what I submitted in order to earn my place as well as go into some detail about the process of returning my script into the final piece seen within the Millarworld Annual.

FIRST THINGS FIRST
First of all, I followed the instructions provided to me on the contest page. I made sure to include everything that they required, such as my signed submission contract which, aside from the script entry itself, was incredibly important. I cannot stress enough: MAKE SURE YOU READ AND COMPLY when it comes to what you need for submissions. Some folks running contests like Millarworld cannot legally even look at your entry unless you have the right forms signed so this is very important.

THE PITCH
Next, I sent in my pitch and script. I can’t honestly remember if a pitch portion was required but I decided it would look better to include something that encapsulated what I was trying to do with my story.

I included the following:

And finally, I included my script. I have not included the original script, but you can get the gist from my pitch vs the final script (included later on) that my story changed significantly from start to finish.

The core of my story remained but over time with the help of Mark and his/my editor, Rachael Fulton, the mechanism in which I told the story changed. Characters such as Casey, Nana, and Papa were eliminated and replaced with simply Mr and Mrs Walker as well as various other townsfolk.

Take a look at my pitch here.

THE PROCESS
After I received word that I had won the “Huck” spot, work began on fixing up my script and getting it to its Final Form.

Mark sent along a message with what he liked about my script, and made note of what stood out about it for him, which was wonderful and validating.

From there, Rachael Fulton took over primary correspondence with me and worked with me.

Initially I had written in characters like Nana, Papa, and Casey. Casey was the granddaughter of Nana and Papa – she was curious about how they came to have the big beautiful family home that the story is set in. Her Nana and Papa then tell her about how a terrible storm ruined the original house that was in place and Huck helped them rebuild and give them a home just after Casey’s mother had been born.

Both Mark and Rachael thought this wasn’t a great well to tell the story and took away from the core of the story. Since the stuff with Nana, Papa, and Casey bookended the Huck stuff, I cut that away and instead rewrote the script so that more of the Huck story was focused on.

In retrospect, it was something obvious that I should’ve done intuitively but sometimes you just don’t have the self-awareness at the time to realize.

Another thing that Rachael worked with me on was my panel count. The Millar way of things is 5-6 panels per page, maximum. I had a few pages that had more than this, and had really crammed things in. I thought it had worked, but I can see how trying to have fewer panels on the page, especially for a relatively inexperienced interior artist, would work much better.

Cutting off the Nana, Papa, and Casey portion of things allowed me to give breathing room to everything else. I was able to move around some panels and spread out the dialogue.

There were minor dialogue tweaks and suggestions that we worked at, but Rachael was patient and wonderful at offering up solutions to any problem areas that we came across.

I make it sound like there was a lot to fix but honestly, all of these things were done over the course of 2-3 drafts with minor edits spread over the course of those.

The final script can be seen here.

It should be noted that I didn’t work directly with my artist. I found out once my final script was turned in that I was paired up with the amazing Jake Elphick but I didn’t get to see any of his art until the book was literally in my hands on the day my comp copies arrived.

As an editor myself who works a lot with up and coming talent (via Toronto Comics Anthology), I understand not wanting to integrate inexperienced comics writers with inexperienced comics artists. You don’t want the editor’s feedback clashing or any unhappiness along the way. While I wish I could’ve been kept in the loop with that along the way, it makes complete sense to me.

THE FINAL THING
Finally, the comps arrived on my doorstep and I opened up the FedEx box to hold the final product in my hands for the first time. I was completely floored with how amazing it had all turned out.

“Home Sweet Huck” acted as the finale for the Annual and I could not be more grateful to every single person involved with the process.

Mark Millar, Rachael Fulton, Jake Elphick– everyone who I got the chance to work with was an absolute star and I’m beyond happy with how it turned out.

I have no doubt in my mind that Mark and Rachael elevated my script well past what it originally was and made it into a perfect portfolio piece.

You can see my story below:

Facebook-f Twitter Instagram Goodreads-g