You see, in Europe and Asia, comic books are a highly respected art form. Millions upon millions read them daily, weekly or monthly. In Japan, there likely is not a single young man who has not followed at least one title. Step onto any bus or train and you will sen men (and women) of all ages reading manga.
In the United States, the originating country of the art form, comic books are near death. Readership is at an all time low, despite comic book movies that gross hundreds of millions of dollars. It would seem print is dead. Newspapers, magazines and comic books are all cancer ridden and starving for life.
Thankfully, the medium has a few breaths left in it and it is for that reason I developed VENGEANCE. No television series or film possesses the storytelling methods needed to truly capture my vision (and that of artist, Chase Conley, the designer of Vengeance). Splash pages, inner thoughts and narrative, the ability to create frames of nothing but a white background with a piece of action at its center. Comic Books rule. Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, Next Men, Miracleman and Walking Dead prove it.
My first comic book was G.I. JOE #21 from March of 1984. That is the famous silent issue. It had no text. No dialogue. No thought balloons. No narrative. Just images to tell the story. It blew my little mind out the back of my head.
Here we are, 26+ years later and I have self published one title (Killing Time #1) and have been hard at work on two others.
The Kung-Fu STAR will see the light of day throughout Europe through BUDO Magazine in late 2010.
VENGEANCE is special. Chase Conley and I have been working on it for nearly four years and we are unwilling to compromise. We hope to share with you, via this blog, how it is coming together and why you should care.
Matt Stevens is a writer and independent filmmaker living in New York City. He wrote, produced and directed the short film, OBSESSIONS: The Bryan Rearden Story, which garnered Stevens the Independent Spirit Award at the 2002 New York International Film Festival, where the film received a standing ovation. His second short film is the still in the works, DEATH, which he will finish "whenever the hell I decide to."
Mr. Stevens next project is the biography of Hong Kong movie star and martial arts master, Sifu Vincent Lyn. In the works for over six years, the bio is now in the final stages of editing and will be released in 2011.
