Monday, August 20, 2012

BEHANCE ALBUMS






            You can visit my picture albums Illustration, Concept Art & Comics Projects on this link BEHANCE, the free website/Portfolios-on-line :

 http://www.behance.net/mikeratera

                Enjoy you visit !






Monday, August 6, 2012

New serie: STALAG-X




     I'm working on my new serie STALAG-X, a history of Space Opera genre, which began to organize in 2006 with the writer Kevin J. Anderson (author of the latest saga "Dune" into a novel, and many other titles, including several novels "Star Wars").
    Finally, six years later, we found an editor for the project ... that is becoming quite big that I have taken quite some time.
    Given the nature of the project and the market to which it is addressed, related posts STALAG X will make you directly in English.
   This first post is just to introduce the team that will work on the series, and explain a little what all this.
   These are the credits of the series and the team working on it:

        STALAG-X
        serie of 6 numbers in comic book format, which is also published as a graphic novel compilation.

       Written by: Kevin J. Anderson & Steven L. Sears
       Art by: Mike Ratera
       Covers art: Dave Dorman

      Editor: GESTALT Comics, the Australia's premier graphic novel publishing house.

       Links:
          
            Kevin J. Anderson: http://kjablog.com/
            Steven L. Sears:      http://www.pondalee.com/myworld.htm
            Gestalt Comics:      http://www.gestaltcomics.com/
            Dave Dorman:        http://davedorman.wordpress.com/

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     Fair to say that this will be a great adventure for me, next to these two writers and making my way into a new territory in Australia and the Anglo-Saxon public !  
    Soon you will see here the concept art for the characters of the serie !    

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       I leave here the presentation of the project and explanation of its origin, by Kevin J. Anderson. Source: http://kjablog.com/?p=3077  ( from the blog of Kevin J. Anderson):

        I am very pleased to announce a major new science fiction graphic novel, STALAG-X, a project I’ve developed with Co-Executive Producer and scriptwriter of XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS (among many, many other things). Gestalt Comics, the largest comics publisher in Australia, will be publishing the graphic novel.
       STALAG-X is a gritty story of human soldiers trying to survive in an alien concentration camp, and one mysterious prisoner who calls himself “Joe Human.” He cannot allow the vicious aliens to win ... but because of his own dark past, he doesn’t dare allow himself to be rescued either.
      I’ve known Steven Sears for most of my professional career, and we’ve wanted to work together for a long time. We developed ideas over the years as pitches for TV shows, but when we hit on STALAG-X, we knew this was The One. Steven’s background is in writing and producing film and television, which meshed very well with my background in writing comics. We have already completed the first three (of six) scripts, and are working on developing STALAG-X as a television or film property as well.     
    Enter Gestalt. Steven and I had the idea developed for STALAG-X, but last year when I was one of the guests of Supanova touring Australia, I got to know Wolfgang Bylsma, publisher of Gestalt Comics. In fact, I got to know him as a friend before I knew what he did for a living. As I looked at the Gestalt publications, I grew more and more excited: these were high-quality books, not cookie-cutter comics, and even eclectic. Gestalt seemed like it might be a good home for STALAG-X.
Later, at San Diego Comic Con, I showed Steven some of Gestalt’s books, and he was equally impressed. We both agreed that we wanted to talk with Wolfgang about this project, so we met with him, let him look at the material. As we had hoped, Wolfgang was hooked, and soon thereafter we all decided we wanted to work together.
    Since we were at San Diego Comic Con, I suggested the legendary Dave Dorman as our cover artist. Dave did all the covers for the Young Jedi Knights series, as well as my short story collection DOGGED PERSISTENCE, and we have been friends for a long time. I talked with Dave, told him the idea behind STALAG-X, and he also agreed to hop aboard.
    We had already worked with comic artist Mike Ratera to do concept sketches, and Gestalt has just signed Mike as the interior artist. As you can see from the samples below, his work is incredible and powerful.
   We don’t have a release date yet for the first issue, probably sometime in late fall. I’ll keep you up to date, and I hope you’ll follow the series. STALAG-X is one of our best ideas.
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