Greetings, readers. I have some announcements for today.
First off, the Sunnyville Stories mailing list officially launched and we had our first posting so be sure to sign up for it if you haven’t already. The signup forms are also on this blog (and hard to miss).
As of now, I’m looking ahead to Sunnyville Stories #15 titled “May Be A Price To Pay”. This will be the third story that is named for a song by the Alan Parsons Project (the other two being “Don’t Answer Me” and “Games People Play”). The main concept of this episode is that a game show is involved.
In this story, Rusty will be going on a game show called “Riddles of the Sphinx”. This show is a locally produced one that is filmed and broadcast from an independent television station in the neighboring town of Solton. I’ll have more information about the TV station and the game show itself in the future.
While the concept of the story is a game show episode, it will also involve the theme of greed. Many of us know how game shows offer all kinds of prizes like money, new cars, vacations, electronic equipment (TVs, stereos, etc) and so on. That is Rusty’s main motivation and unfortunately for him, greed will work against him.
This old joke (“Who is buried in Grant’s Tomb”) is meant to show the challenge Rusty has. Rusty is very smart but the problem is that the thought of winning prizes clouds his judgement. He’s not able to concentrate properly.
If Rusty just went on that game show and easily blazed through his competitors, that’s good for him…but bad for us. Conflict of some kind is necessary for a story. One of my inspirations was Charles Schulz of Peanuts and he did point out in many interview that you can’t create humor out of happiness. Conflict and trouble are needed for drama. While even I think some of this comic strips can be downers at times (but that’s another discussion), you need to have conflict of some kind for a story to work. The conflict in Sunnyville #15 will be both internal and external. The external conflict will be Rusty’s game show opponent (and I have yet to design the character). The internal will be Rusty’s distraction over greedily desiring the prizes the game show offers.
At the time of this writing, all that exists are two sketches, a handwritten story treatment and about one page worth of a typed script. I want to work on more concept art soon but the scripts will not see work until next month. I’m still burnt out from my recent ordeal and overload. As for the game show itself, all that exists is a concept of the host of the show.
The host of the show is named Charlie Sphinx. As you may have guessed from the game show name, the show will have an Egyptian theme. I’ll need to work up what the set will look like as well as refine the above concept. While the idea is right, the execution is awful right now – I want to have the host in a suit with an Egyptian headdress, not unlike a pharaoh. More sketches and costume studies will be released in the future.
That’s it for today, fans. Sign up for the Sunnyville Stories mailing list if you haven’t yet. Stop over to DriveThru Comics for digital copies of Sunnyville Stories. Copies of Sunnyville Stories Volume 1 are still for sale on Amazon, both in print and Kindle formats! While you’re there, be sure to pick up Sunnyville Stories Volume 2 and (if you love Gothic horror) Von Herling, Vampire Hunter! And now available is the latest installment of the saga, Sunnyville Stories Volume 3. Get them today!
Copies of all the above titles are available to the library trade via Brodart Company and to retailers from Ingram and Baker & Taylor (via BCH Distribution). Copies are also available direct from the publisher. For ordering information, contact maxwestart(at)gmail(dot)com or write to:
Different Mousetrap Press LLC, 1100 19th Avenue N, #108, Unit J, Fargo ND 58102-2269 USA
