Project: Weird Wild West Title Reveal!

Presenting: Alban of the West!

Hi, everybody! I’m finally able to reveal more about Project: Weird Wild West. I’ve been teasing so much about this project for several months, so what better time than for the fiftieth (50th!) post of this newsletter?! Time flies. While the Comics Book Club discusses A.D.: After Death, you can learn this!

The actual, official title of this comic is (drum roll) The Passion of St. Alban of the West. I describe it as “a horror western that combines Christian iconography and American mythology to create something wholly original.” It’s my latest collaboration with my CyberSync team of David Escobar on art and Buddy Beaudoin on letters.

I care a lot about this project, and wanted to design a logo especially for it. I reached out to Winston Gambro, an artist I’ve met at several cons. I know he’s done a lot of excellent design work, both for mutual acquaintances and established professionals. When he agreed, it felt like the last member of my dream team had come aboard.

I sent him my synopsis and some reference material, and he came back shortly thereafter with six possible designs. I was floored! I went with the one below because I felt it best matched the atmosphere and brought together the disparate elements mentioned in the logline above. After a couple of tweaks, like a different font for the word West and flipping the cross, it was perfect. Voilà!

That upside-down cross isn’t for shock value, but is a key part of the main character’s origin. I could go on all day about how I developed this title, how I was inspired by Catholic hagiography and bizarre tales of the Old West, but I’ll save that for another time.

When I first approached artist David Escobar about this project, he offered to do some design work while I put the finishing touches on the script. I sent him a character biography and several references, and he took no time at all getting back to me. Presenting to you, dear readers, Alban of the West:

Let me know what you think in the comments! I’m very excited about how this project is coming into existence. Feel free to share this post to spread the word about The Passion of St. Alban of the West. Thanks again for everything!