-J

Not really.  We needed a Page 8 to get to Page 9, right?!  So, I got home last night and there on the table was a package for me.  My birthday was a few weeks ago, so that wasn’t it.  Then I looked at the return address:  Zazzle.com.  Z and I would have shouted but my wife and kids were sleeping upstairs and it was almost midnight.  So, instead, we did a little happy dance and I quietly did my Steve Martin imitation, “The new shirts are here!  The new shirts are here!”

I’ve got to say, Z and I are extremely pleased and impressed with the quality of the work.  We ordered the tank top, or as they called it the performance running singlet.  I don’t do much running, but I wanted the tank top like Gabe is wearing on the cover of “Mission to Mayhem”.  The graphics on it are top notch and definitely above what either of us thought it would be.  I mean, we’ve all ordered t-shirts and stuff from various places and quality is often lacking.  We didn’t want that.  And neither would you.  Again, I’m happy to say if you order something from us on www.vigil-8.com by clicking on the Gear link you will be, too!

Now…if the rain will stop, maybe I can get out on my motorcycle and get some shots with the shirt on.

-J

We knew our “hero” was going to be a regular kind of guy with a lot of tenacity.  Z had sent me the above sketch.  I wrote a couple pages of story just to start hashing him out.  That was August 14, 2009.  We went back and forth a bit with the story and began to create his background.  Who was he?  Why was he on his mission?  Hell…what was his name?  We knew he was going to have a military background and was definitely going to be into motorcycles.  Z and I had initially come up with the name Vigilant which morphed into Vigil-8.  A few months before the premier of the webcomic, Z and I had a meeting at my house to create character names, places, and stuff that will probably never be made public, but nonetheless is important to the story and characters.  We chose the name Gabriel.  A strong hero name, we felt.  During that meeting we also came up with the main antagonist, which will be revealed soon enough.  Page 6 was a teaser page to introduce Samantha.  Who is she?  Well, you’ll have to stay tuned to find out her ties to Gabe and what roll she plays in his life.

Z and I continue to enjoy the hell out of creating this storyline, characters, and…well, the pages themselves.  Every page is meticulously thought out down to the smallest detail, be it color, angle or expression.  We hope all of you reading the story enjoy it as much as we enjoy creating it.  Tonight’s page is going to be………

-J

Gabe Sees Her...

“She came outta nowhere. I couldn’t tell ya what she was wearing or what color here eyes were. All I could tell ya is that I noticed her from 20 yards. She was dressed in black. A color that just looked good on her. I liked the way she walked. The way she held her head up – not afraid to look anyone in the eye. She looked strong. She knew who she was.”

“And that, I think, is what attracted me to her. Cuz I didn’t know who the fuck I was at the moment. It’d been a rough night. Not just for me, but for some of the people I had dealt with. People who didn’t deserve a second chance. People who fucked up bad and got fucked up in return.”

“And this chick looked like someone who could fuck me up. Not in a physical sense. But fuck me up regardless.”

“I liked that. So, I walked up to her and told her so. I found out her name was Samantha. And that’s where our stuff began.”

So my cousin Z and I were hanging out together.  We’ve been pretty much inseparable since we were kids and it wasn’t uncommon that we’d be found together at a cousin’s gathering.  I had written a few novellas and brought them up to show Z.  After reading one of them, he looked at me and said, “Man…we should probably do a graphic novel with this stuff one day”.  I was pretty pumped about that as Z had just done some cover art for a comic book called “Chromium Man”.  But alas, I went back to Richmond and we fell out of contact.  No graphic novel came of that novella.  Which was a pretty cool love story between a guy and a ghost.  Oh, well.

I left Richmond in 1998 to come home.  Richmond didn’t have any of my family there.  They were either in Upstate New York or down in North Carolina.  So, Z and I began to hang out again.  A lot actually.  We started playing music and played a few gigs at that same seedy bar we hung out in years before.  Now, over a decade had passed since I even moved home.  Last summer, 2009, I happened to be flying a trip somewhere in the states and Z and I were yacking on Facebook.  We’d been hashing out a graphic novel concept.  We wanted it to be something about a vigilante type antagonist, but we didn’t want him to be the typical Spiderman/Batman dude.  We wanted him to be a little more real.  And there was another thing this character had to ride a motorcycle, since both Z and I ride.  So, this picture hit me when he sent it.  I immediately got into a stream of consciousness and began to write.  No thought.  No nothing.  Just writing.  I sent it back to Z with the pic.  That was it.  August 2009.  I’d estimate it took us about 15 years to actually do what we said we wanted to do…start putting together a graphic novel.  Luckily, we have a quick learning curve.  Hell, it took us less than a month to actually create this blog for Vigil-8.  We might actually be able to create world peace next week.  Stay tuned!

-J

-J

http://www.zazzle.com/Jetpat

-J