Monday, July 28, 2008

VIETMIME!! VIETMIME!!



Ok, I started working in a place in my hometown 3 years ago. I stumbled across an old friend working there. His name was, and if I'm correct, still is, Tim Schaiberger. We caught up and found that we both had families of our own and graduated, yada,yada.

A couple months into the job, Tim asked if I would be interested in drawing a graphic novel he had in mind to write about his father who was a medic in Vietnam. My first thought was "M.A.S.H." Different war, same idea, I thought. Being a wise ass, I said, "I kinda has been done. What if you put a mime in Vietnam?" We both froze and stared at each other.

A mime in Vietnam. Haven't heard of that before...

Since then, we have been brainstorming and collaberating and sketching, typing, inking, erasing, emailing like crazy. Because our individual schedules and lives, it's taken FAR longer to finish this project than we'd hoped. But it wasn't a top priority because it wasn't a paying job. Still isn't. But we still wanna finish it, and are VERY close. He and I are co-creators, he is the plotter and scripter and I am the co-scripter, penciler, inker, graphics and anything else art related. We have decided that our collaberative efforts would be named "Nutberger Ink (Nut for Nuttall, Berger for Schaiberger).

We will finish "Vietmime" soon. Very soon. At least the first issue. We figure it would run as a miniseries and put it together as a graphic novel.

It's action, comedy, and drama. It still tells of a medic nicknamed "Bacsi" (Vietnamese for "Little Doctor", or at least that's what Tim tells me) during the Tet Offensive. DISCLAIMER: We are NOT aiming for historical accuracy!! Parts of the story are taken from war tales Tim's dad would tell him before he passed. Most parts are just plain made up to make for a fun read.

If this sounds interesting to you, a story of a mime trapped in Vietnam during the Vietnam war, PLEASE COMMENT!!!! As soon as I have some decent scans of the artwork, I will post them.


Now, some of you might own a copy of the comic I did in college, "M.I.A.: Mime In Action". My instructor wanted me to do an original story, not one already worked on. So, I did the follow up to Vietmime, following the Mime some time after the original story during a new mission. That was written, drawn, inked and lettered by me. Tim was not a part of it, other being co-creator to the Mime. Which is why the story sucks. My writing is not quite as good as my drawing. Above is a page from "VIETMIME" and a flyer I started with our caricature I drew for promotion.
Wish us luck!

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