Grand Design

This is a strange story. Not just the comic itself, but the story behind it. Grand Design is/was a playground for myself and a talented artist/one of my best friends, Max Malcomb. I was still finding my voice as a writer; learning how to script and how to craft a story, while Max was learning layouts and how to size things properly. We were lucky enough to find an inker in Watie Itcham and a professional colorist in Luca Romano; both of whom were patient with us as we grew and became close friends in the process.

We worked on the story for +4 years as we forged a weird, fascinating world that housed a bizarre and ambitious story. So far, I’ve written 8 full issues and our team has produced around 20 pages (without letters), none of which are ready to see the light of day alongside several concept pages and potential covers for Issue 1. But as time went on, our lives changed and progress on the series stalled.

Max has since moved on to bigger and better things, resigning as the project’s artists. He and I are still best friends and talk every week, but Grand Design remains in Limbo. I still toil away at the story, using it as a warm-up space when I need to get into a creative mindset for other, more pressing stories/projects, but the future of Grand Design remains unknown. Who knows? Maybe in the future, I’ll unleash the maelstrom of wacky pages we have tucked away.

In the meantime, I present the first three pages of Grand Design Issue 1 (unlettered) with the accompanying script pages.