Stuff about Frank and ideas and shit Part 2

Part two of me talking bollocks.

It's kind of weird with Bastard Son, because I think this is the first time I've written a comic script where none of my influences for it have come from literature. Don't get me wrong, there are many writers out there that I massively admire and have influenced me thus far in my style, but for this book, it's mainly movies, metal music and my own nightmares.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I'm a big fan of the 'Slasher' films, (as you can probably tell from the Bastard Son 'trailer'). However, apart from the aforementioned lack of character development in some films, there are a bunch of other tropes that I've just got really sick of, here are a few:

• Protagonists making stupid decisions that no one would actually make in real life when confronted with a blade-wielding psychopath.
• Unironic use of of teenage stereotypes. The jock, the loose girl, the nerd, the black guy and the final girl. We rooted for Laurie Strode in Halloween because she was a realistic character, a decent person and she got her shit together. She had more than one dimension.
• When you put the previous two points together, you find that you don't really care about/like the characters in the movie, this stops you rooting for them and therefore pretty much all tension in that movie is lost.

Now before you tell me that the above points don't cover all the important aspects of a horror film, I know they don't. For example, a good slasher flick needs a memorable antagonist, inventive kills and decent special effects, (preferably practical ones). On top of this, I haven't even touched on the importance of quality cinematography, score, acting and screenplay.

Since I haven't attempted a horror screenplay yet, I'm trying to iron out all the issues I have with tired cliches in comic form instead. Bastard Son is basically the horror franchise I always wanted to watch/read about.

Until next time, peace out fellow bastards,

Frank

P.S. Speaking of horror comics, here are some excellent titles that I'm currently reading:

Nailbiter by Joshua Williamson and Mike Henderson

Wytches by Scott Snyder and Jock

October Faction by Steve Niles and Damien Worm

Stuff about Frank and ideas and shit Part 1

For this post I thought I'd talk about how I came up with the idea of writing Bastard Son.

I was born in the early eighties and grew up in a small town in the Peak District in north west England. Due to the relatively remote setting of my childhood, I tended to watch most of my movies on television and tape them on VHS. My love of comics started when I was five years old and consisted of my mother buying me the UK versions of He-Man and Transformers comics. Later on, (early to mid 90s) I had to travel to a neighbouring town to buy non-sequential issues of Marvel and DC books. This was due to the fact that there were no specialised comic shops anywhere near where I lived and the newsagents I bought my books from just got random bunches of comics in every week.

My interest in horror I suppose was always there in the background, but it took a while to properly root itself. I was pretty skittish as a kid and always imagined the films to be scarier than they actually were. By the time I was in my teens, I had seen a bunch of the classics, Halloween, Evil Dead etc. Obviously, I thought these were great and wanted to find more of that calibre, but again, remote town...blah blah blah. The dwindling of my enthusiasm wasn't helped much by how incredibly shit the 90s were for horror movies in general.

By the time I was in my late teens/early 20s, (circa 2000), we had DVDs and I had moved to the great city of Liverpool. From then on, I discovered Dario Argento, Stuart Gordon, Takashi Miike, Lamberto Bava and loads more.

I love decent horror in all it's forms, (I could spend hours talking about my favourite practical effects alone!), but I wanted to bring elements of all the things I love in my favourite horror films into one book. For example, I suppose Bastard Son is based on the lone antagonist slasher template. However, as much as I love Halloween and the Friday 13th franchise, I always felt more could've been done to flesh out the titular characters. As cool as Michael, Jason and Freddy are, I always wanted to know more about their backgrounds. Yeah, I was that annoying kid who always asked "but why?".

One thing I feel is really important in Bastard Son is that Ethan's story is told. Don't get me wrong, there will be an absolute shitload of over-the-top violent kills and enough blood to drown a mammoth by the time we are through, but yeah, story. I mean, what's the point in having a crazed maniac slicing massive fucking blades through other crazed maniacs if you don't know his motivation.... right?

Also, there will be a love triangle between Ethan, a werewolf and a vampire.

Not really.

That would be terrible.

Anyway, I didn't realise how long this entry would be and if you've got this far whilst sober, well done! I'll put part two up tomorrow and I'll continue where I left off.

Peace out fellow bastards!

Frank

P.S. Here are a couple more preview panels for staying with me.

Issue #1 Cover Preview!

Take a look below at the inks for the cover of issue #1. The guest artist is none other than fan favourite, Jacen Burrows! Jacen is perhaps best known for his work on 'Crossed' with Garth Ennis and 'Neonomicon' with Alan Moore, both for Avatar Press.

Personally, I have always admired Jacen's attention to detail and intricate line work. Additionally, the man is a long time horror connoisseur and quite frankly, (especially if you look at his work on 'Crossed'), no one can draw fucked-up shit like Jacen!

The scene on the cover, (which will be coloured soon), is a little insight into Ethan's dark origins, a subject that will be touched upon in issue #1. I don't want to give too much away right now in terms of story, especially with work on the book advancing so rapidly!

My next post will be up in a few days and in it I'll be discussing my influences for this book. In the meantime, feel free to contact us with any questions, or if you just want to discuss anything horror-related, I'm always down for that.

Peace out, my fellow bastards!

Frank.

Issue #1 Sneak Preview!

Below, we have inked and lettered samples of pages 1-3 of Issue #1. The script is by Frank, the pencils and inks are Marco's and Taylor has lettered them. The pages are in line to be coloured, (we're still settling on what kind of scheme we are going for). The images are cropped slightly, (due to me screen-capping them from a PDF), however, nothing significant is missing from the pages.

If any of you guys are longtime horror comic fans, there is a surprise coming up in a near-future post in the form of a special guest cover artist! Team Bastard Son have been fans of his work for a long time, so it's a real thrill to have him draw the cover for our first book! Keep your eyes peeled for an update!

Remember, our Facebook/Twitter links are on the Bio/Contact page if you have any questions/psychological observations.

Anyway, I'm off to drink copious amounts of caffeine, until I hallucinate even more grotesque scenes in my head that I can turn into some twisted script.

Peace out, fellow bastards!

Frank

P.S. If you like all things horror, check out my friends at Jump Scare. Jay and Dean have an excellent horror podcast out, available on iTunes.

Bastard Son Inks & Letters Page 1

Bastard Son Inks & Letters Page 2

Bastard Son Inks & Letters Page 3

Welcome to the official site of Bastard Son!

Bastard Son is a creator-owned horror comic, written by Frank T. Allen, drawn by Marco Fontanili and lettered by Taylor Esposito from Ghost Glyph Studios.

To get an idea of what the book is about, just wander your eyes to the sidebar on the right, where there is also a link to a seven page teaser trailer-type story. The trailer was written by Frank, with all the rest of the heavy lifting done by Marco.

There will be frequent content updates on this site, including news, gallery updates and even the odd completed page or two. If you want to follow our progress and/or contact us, our info is on the bio/contact page.

I'll be back soon my fellow bastards!

Frank

Variant cover concept for issue #1