The brand-new Jump Leads audioplay series launches at the beginning of September. This is a reboot of the critically-acclaimed scifi-comedy webcomic of the same name, and stars the voice talents of Dino Andrade (Batman: Arkham Asylum, World of Warcraft, Hellsing Ultimate),Chris Dorman (8.13, The Meme), Marissa Meizel (Capsized, Rosie Dale) and… well, me! (Dalek Gary, Boomer’s Day Off, PortsCenter)
There’s already an exclusive teaser scene up on the Jump Leads website! The first episode goes up very early in September. You can be among the first to be notified by subscribing at one of these outlets:
You can also support the show by becoming a patron on Patreon! Any and all money collected from the Jump Leads Patreon is divided up among the cast and crew equally, and allows us to continue working on this ambitious project. If you’re interested in supporting the show, do please consider pledging. You can also help us by sharing and reblogging this post!
Thanks for taking the time to read this! See you in a couple of weeks!
Webcomics is a difficult field for me, in part because I have the artistic skills of a three-legged rhino, but it’s one I’ve always gravitated to because I’ve always been a very visual storyteller. I’ve been very lucky enough to work with artists who have helped to tell stories like Jump Leads, and when those artists find their time suddenly at a premium those stories have to end. Which is a shame, but there it is.
I loved working with JjAR on Jump Leads, and I loved, and continue to love, those characters and that universe (or multiverse). The story ended on a cliffhanger in the comic, mostly because that’s how that particular story was supposed to end, but even when JjAR stepped away and Mr. Phillby filled his somewhat sizable shoes to help finish that final story, I didn’t want to change the ending. Changing the ending would have been admitting that Jump Leads was over, and I wasn’t ready for it to be over.
In hindsight, I regret not changing the ending. I regret not giving our readers closure. Those who had stuck with the comic for five years deserved a proper ending, not what we gave them.
I want to bring Jump Leads back. I do. I’ve struggled with what form. If it were novels, I’d have written them by now. I struggle with writing longform stories. The words don’t form in my head when I sit to write. I have tried – there are unfinished drafts on my hard drive. I wonder why I don’t have the patience for it?
I keep thinking of doing audioplays. I could do that. In my head, Meaney and Llewellyn are British, but everyone else is up for grabs. It shouldn’t be too difficult to cast, right? Oh, but then there’s that whole “money” thing. Studio time, paying the artists, mixing, sound design… how do I cover all that? a Kickstarter?
In a perfect world I’d like to write comics again. But that has the same logistical problems. Time, payment, what have you. It’s a quagmire whichever way you look at it.
I did write a sort-of “Writer’s Bible” for a potential revival, though. Maybe one day I’ll be able to put it to use.
So! So. Lots to do in 2013. Launch PortsCenter. Write and film Dalek Gary. Commence work on at least two other webseries, and polish off a sitcom idea I’ve been sitting on since 2007. That’s not to mention the project I’m pitching to a production company this month – which reminds me, I need to actually start putting together my pitch. Wow. This year is looking pretty busy.
I want to get out of some bad habits, which means I need to let go of some things. This includes webcomics. I’ve been webcomicing since 2003. My first webcomic, Fried, ran for three years and updated sporadically – even moreso once I realized I actually hated drawing. The second webcomic, Jump Leads, has come to an unceremonious end in part due to troubled art schedules, and Deadlong is on hiatus for similar reasons (though we’re filling the hiatus hole with some new material starting later this month). Other attempts to start webcomics, including a project with my friend Ray, have not been particularly successful.
It’s taken me a while, but I’ve realized webcomics isn’t where I want to be and it’s not what I want to do. Not to say I don’t enjoy webcomics, but I’ve been focusing my energy in the wrong place, and it’s time to reassess. Once Deadlong is finished, I’m done. Out of the game. Deadlong will be my webcomic swansong.
I think, truthfully, that I’d prefer to pour my energy into video content, and I want 2013 to be the start of that. I plan on trying to produce original video content throughout the year, starting with PortsCenter , then moving on to other projects. I’m developing a webseries with Mac Beauvais that should be a lot of fun, and I’ll be working with Michelle Osorio on new projects for Kill9 including Dalek Gary and at least one other thing that’s still sort-of in the woiks.
Another thing I want to do that’s important to me is to the stand-up into a proper paying gig. I need to do that, which means I need to get serious about it. I need to hone my craft, I need to get better at working off-book, and I need to actually book some actual gigs. In addition to this, I want to develop an hour of material over the course of the year which I’d like to debut at GMX Vol. 5, assuming they want me back.
Time to stop being passive. Time to stop expecting the new year to be a better one, and time to start making it so. Here’s to making things, and here’s to you. Happy New Year.
Once a year, every year, I re-read The Writer’s Tale. According to Russell T Davies’ foreword to the book, Steven Moffat said of this book, “If you still want to be a writer after reading this, you probably will be.” I always, without fail, finish my re-read creatively charged and itching, itching to write. No, not even when I’ve finished reading it. Before that. Long before that. Less than 100 pages into the book, and I’m yearning to be at my computer, tap-tap-tapping out a script, or a short story, or some other manner of thing.
The Writer’s Tale is responsible for a good chunk of writing. It’s responsible for dozens of Ficlys, for huge swathes of Jump Leads story. The last time I re-read the book I knocked out two Jump Leads scripts that, owing to current artist-related circumstances (JjAR had to step away from the comic due to freelance commitments, leaving stand-in artist Mr Phillby to finish what will in all likelihood be the last Jump Leads comic story ever), will probably never be seen.
This year, re-reading that book for, what, the fourth time?, I find myself wanting to return to those characters, to revisit them and give them new adventures. But I can’t. The comic is done. Jump Leads is no more.
…Or is it?
See, last year I wrote an audiplay adaptation of the first Jump Leads story, “Training Day”, with a few to recording it and using it as a jumping-off point for a series of brand spanking new audio-exclusive Jump Leads adventures. I talked to Dino about recording it, I spoke to Adam about playing Llewellyn. I spoke to rather a lot of very excited people about the prospect of giving Jump Leads a soft reboot and continuing the adventures as monthly audioplays… or maybe weekly serialized ones, like old-school Doctor Who.
But those plans fell by the wayside. Whatever happened to them? It wasn’t so long ago – January, as I recall – that I was frantically emailing people about making those audio adventures. What happened in January that–
Oh yes. I got a job. I got a job working for a wonderful company – Quantum Mechanix – working with people I loved spending time with, and serving as a cog in a machine that made the shiniest, most wonderful geek candy.
Except this month – July, nearly three weeks ago now – I left QMx. Not by choice, mind, but a necessary decision. Since then I’ve been remarkably busy, launching and continually writing Deadlong, relaunching the PortsCenter Kickstarter (it’s at 22% right now, if you can believe it!), preparing for my appearance at GMX in Tennessee, and working on another incredibly secret but tremendously awesome project I can’t really talk about yet… and that’s all before the other two webseries I’d like to develop if PortsCenter gets funded.
But there are still a few hours left in the day, and I really want to write for these characters again. Surely I can squeeze another project into my schedule. I can feel Jump Leads stories pressing at the temples of my head – stories I wanted to write, but didn’t, or couldn’t. Don’t they deserve a second chance? Don’t I owe it to myself to write them?
Or am I just being self-indulgent? Should I take that creative energy and channel it instead into Deadlong, a project that deserves my full attention? It’s a dilemma.
Perhaps this blog post is a load of old wank. I don’t know. It does feel good to get it out of my system, though. And I still have that itch…
In July 2007, Jump Leads began its very first issue. In May 2012, it will be wrapping up its last.
This decision doesn’t come easily, or lightly, or any other words ending in ly, but it feels like the time has come.
We had a phenomenal first couple of years. We went from nearly no readers to tens of thousands. We published our first book. We attended three comic conventions worldwide including San Diego Comic-Con. However the last two or three years have been difficult, and it’s been tough to maintain that growth and momentum for a variety of reasons both personal and professional.
The Voyage Home was always going to be the end of an era for the comic; the end of the status quo and the beginning of a new arc. A new season, if you like. With the end of this comic specifically designed to serve as an act ending, it feels only right that we part ways here. We’ve made some changes to the script so that the story feels less like an abrupt ending and more like the true end of a chapter.
But what about now? Well, there are still a few pages left of The Voyage Home, and we’re going to try and deliver them to you at a rate of roughly one a week, if we’re able. I still want to record a couple of those Jump Leads audioplays, too. Beyond that I have no idea, but I hope you enjoy the rest of the ride with us.
With the .com domain sort of imploding I’ve had to move the site over to a .net domain instead, which has involved a fresh install of WordPress and a bit of tricky jiggery-pokery to get the old posts moved over here, but they’re all there. Go on, scroll down a bit and have a look. I won’t mind.
But anyway, I’ve taken this opportunity to reinvent the site a little. I’ve given my Resume a bit of a polish, and I’ve added a page about the SoulGeek Singles Nights that I co-host with Dino (they’re great fun, by the way – if you’re ever in the area, feel free to pop by). I’m sure I’ll think of more stuff to add, but for now this seems like a good start.
2012 is going to be a busy year for me. Between PortsCenter, the Jump Leads audioplays I’ve been putting off for far too long, and a handful of other projects, this is the year I try to break out of my rut and do my own thing. Whether or not I’m able to make a success of it is entirely on me.
Jump Leads was created out of a desire to write something a bit like Doctor Who and a bit like Red Dwarf. In fact writing for both of these shows sits firmly atop my “lifelong dream” list. Now, with the future of Jump Leads in doubt, I find myself robbed of a dream I didn’t know I had – seeing the comic through to the end.
“The Voyage Home”, the current story which has been staggering its way onto the site for over a year now, was originally to be the first in a five-story arc. That may yet happen. Right now, though, I think we’ll be lucky if we get to finish this story at all. There are possibilities, and a few artists have stepped forward, but even if we only get to finish this story it pains me to think that the future I have for these characters, which has existed in my head for the last four years now, may never be realized. That’s quite upsetting.
The prospect of losing Jump Leads has me feeling a little lost, truth be told. I’ve been quite upset this last week or so, and I think this may well have something to do with it.
As many of you know, I’ve been quite heavily connected to SoulGeek for the last three-or-so years. I’ve helped site founder Dino Andrade coordinate convention appearances, I’ve helped to organize the Singles Nights over in Van Nuys, and I even co-host them with Dino (it still baffles me that Dino credits me as “creator of JUMP LEADS” when it’s a webcomic with a small audience, but who am I to argue?). Over the last few years I’ve become close friends with Dino and his better half, Casey. They’re family. I love ’em to bits.
I feel very strongly, very passionately, about what Dino is trying to accomplish, and what he’s already accomplished. I may have a personal bias – I met my girlfriend on SoulGeek, and I’ve made many great friends through the site – but I am completely behind what he’s doing. He didn’t create the site to “cash in”. He does what he does because he genuinely, genuinely wants to see geeks like us be happy. I think that’s fantastic, and I feel very privileged to have been allowed to contribute to that.
For those who are interested, SoulGeek will have a presence at the Long Beach Comic-Con this year. Dino will be there at booth #941, along with an absolutely cracking guest list that includes the likes of Walter Jones (Zak from “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers”), Gregg Berger (“Transformers”, “Men in Black”, “Halo Wars”), Alexis Cruz (“Stargate SG-1: Children of the Gods – Final Cut”), Richard Epcar (“Transformers”, “Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe”). Then there’s Dino himself, of course, who has voiced characters in “World of Warcraft” and “Brutal Legend” among others, although my favourite performance of his is definitely his turn as the Scarecrow in “Batman: Arkham Asylum”.
I might even be there myself, if I’m able to go. Might be my last chance to attend a convention with SoulGeek for some time, so if I can squeeze myself in I’ll be there. And you’ll continue to see me at the Singles Nights, of course – who else is going to bring Rock Band, after all?
