Introduce Yourself

Let’s start at the very beginning, which I’m told is a very good place to start. Hi! I’m Jeff. You probably haven’t heard of me. I decided to start this newsletter to talk about what I’m doing to change that.

As I gear up for the Kickstarter campaign of my first comic book, WAYPOINT (launching March 24!), I thought I would document the twists and turns that led me to this point. It hasn’t exactly been a straight line from conception to campaign, and I’d love to share my journey. For this first entry, I’ll give you an overview of who I am and where my interests lie.

To make this fun, I’m gonna do this in a format I’m very familiar with from my music journalism work: an interview.

How do you pronounce your last name, anyway?

Truh-pell.

Tell us a little about yourself.

I live in the Los Angeles area with my lovely wife and a handsome cat named George. I’ve been in and around the entertainment business for twenty years now, with produced credits on animated shows like Ben 10 (2016) and Mega Man: Fully Charged. I’ve also contributed writing on music to Decibel Magazine and various metal-related websites like MetalSucks and Bandcamp. My interests include record collecting, board gaming, movies, comic books, anime, and yoga. I’ve been to hundreds of concerts in my life, mostly heavy metal. Varg Vikernes from Burzum once made a vaguely-threatening YouTube video about me after I wrote a review in which I called his terrible, racist TTRPG terrible and racist.

“Screenwriter” and “music journalist” seem like pretty different career paths.

Cartoons and music are two of my foundational interests. It’s no exaggeration to say that shows like Batman: The Animated Series, Animaniacs, The Tick, and Gargoyles shaped my love of storytelling (and my weird sense of humor) from an early age. I probably wouldn’t have gotten into comics without B:TAS or X-Men introducing those stories and characters to me. I didn’t start out intending to write for animation, but that’s where the work was so that’s where I wound up.

My love of heavy metal originated in high school, with a fateful listen to AC/DC’s Back in Black while in detention, but I started writing reviews in college to get free CDs (lol) and stuck with it because it allows me to exercise a more critical part of my brain than the creative writing does. It’s also a more consistent form of income.

If you’ve been in “the industry” for so long, why haven’t I seen your name in more places?

The brutal truth of the matter is that Hollywood is an extremely tough business. I’ve worked with some great people on some really cool projects, both original and adaptations. While I’ve been fortunate enough to get paid for a lot of it, none of it got made until I started working with the excellent folks at Man of Action on the animated projects listed above.

Is that why you decided to finance a comic book yourself?

Very perceptive question, me! I’ve enjoyed working as both a music journalist and screenwriter, but there’s a catch: none of it lets me tell my own stories.

Sure, writing cartoons lets me tell stories, and writing about music allows me to express who I am through my own critical approach, but they originate with other peoples’ work – either I’m working in a world somebody else created or talking about somebody else’s art. Hollywood doesn’t have a reputation for being a place to incubate original ideas. Comics certainly have their share of issues (wocka wocka) but if you want to do a science fiction story in a visual medium, it’s more accessible and affordable than trying to film a movie on your own.

Tell us a little about WAYPOINT.

WAYPOINT is a pulpy science fiction story about a disaffected detective who needs to solve an impossible murder on an alien space station or get sent back to Earth, the worst place in the universe. It’s four issues long, 22 pages each, and features fantastic art by Jakub Wisniewski.

Why do a science fiction detective book?

My interests vary widely (friends have expressed surprise that this isn’t a horror story), but I keep coming back to science fiction and pulp detective stories as my happy places. Although I love a bunch of different media, I was a voracious reader as a kid, and that’s where all my major influences come from. Asimov, LeGuin, Chandler, and Hammett all left their mark on me. The two genres meet at my all-time favorite author: Douglas Adams. I’ve read the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency books more times than I can count. If I’m going to do my own thing, I’m gonna do something I love. I don’t want to rip off Adams – wouldn’t even dream of comparing my work to his – but if this is how I intend to introduce my creative self to the world, it makes sense to do it through a story format that speaks so much to me.

What can we expect from these newsletters?

Obviously I’m gonna plug my upcoming Kickstarter (March 24!) a bunch. I’ll talk about the process that led to its creation and how the lessons I’ve learned from that can be useful for both future projects and for my readers to learn from. In addition, I have a fair amount of thoughts on the world and how it works, and I intend to share some – but don’t worry. The intention isn’t to have yet another newsletter filled with doom and gloom. Instead, I’ll be exploring what the Current Situation tells us about human nature and how we can apply that towards not being bastards ourselves. I also consume a lot of media. I’ll share my thoughts on what I’m watching/reading/hearing, along with general recommendations and playlists, etc.

One last question.

Okay.

How handsome is your cat?

Very handsome.

Is he smart?

No.

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