Book Excerpt: Explorers of the Unknown
February 25th, 2010 |I should have good news to share next Tuesday. Please keep us in your prayers. Till then, another book excerpt. Toodles.
Explorers of the Unknown
About the book:
Explorers of the Unknown, the fan-favorite comic book from underdogs Matt and Nathan Roman, is about to hit its 100th issue To celebrate it’ll be switching from a monthly release schedule to a weekly one The only problem is, nobody told Matt. This is the situation Matthew Roman finds himself in upon returning from his honeymoon. This and his brother sleeping around with half the town’s female population. He’s, at best, agitated, and that’s putting it mildly. And thus begins our tale of two brothers, comic books, and newlyweds. . .
CHRISTIAN FICTION
Chapter 1 after the break.
Chapter 1
“I’m going to kill him. I’m going to rip him to shreds. No, wait, I’ve got something better. I’m going to pull his entrails out through his nose and then wrap them around his neck, choking out whatever little life might be left in him. That’s what I’m going to do. I want you to imagine the most painful death possible and you may come close to imagining what I’m going to do to him,” Matthew Roman stormed into the offices of Awesome Comics. He was oblivious to the presence of the three people sitting in the lobby, one of whom was the new intern by the name of Sam Donavon. But even if he had been aware of the people, it was unlikely that Matt would have tempered his rage-filled monologue.
Jillian Fields effortlessly slipped out from behind her front desk and into Matt’s path blocking his entrance into the bullpen. She held up “While You Were Out” messages. “You have messages.”
Matt looked at Jillian and then at the messages. “I’m on a warpath here, I have no time for messages.”
“First,” Jillian continued, ignoring him completely. “Joe Turner called, said he had that ‘thing’ for you. He wouldn’t elaborate, so therefore I was forced to imagine the most absurd and potentially disgusting thing possible. Does your wife know that you’ve ordered a life-size photo of Princess Leia? In the metal bikini?”
Matt peeked around Jillian at the empty hallway. Then he looked at Jillian. Then back at the width of the hallway. Jillian was by no means a fat woman, and Matthew himself was equally lacking in girth, but there was no way he could get past her without some kind of physical contact, which, of course, would lead to all sorts of awkward and potentially legally incriminating circumstances. He pushed the glasses back up the bridge of his nose and said, “Can this not wait? There is blood to be spilt. And Joe Turner did not get me a life-size photo of Princess Leia.”
“Interesting,” Jillian went to the next message. “Second, speaking of your bride, she called. She said to turn on your cellphone and that it negates the point of having one if you’re not going to keep it on. Third, Joan Phelps called and wants you to call her back immediately, she said it was urgent,” she paused to double check the date. “And that was from a week and a half ago. So you should probably take care of that before killing anyone.”
“Murder between brothers always takes precedent over everything else. So please move.”
“You’re making a scene,” Jillian said.
“Yes, I know. That’s the whole point.”
She looked around him at the three people sitting in the lobby. “He’s not really going to kill his brother.”
Matt turned around. “Yes, I really am going to kill my brother.”
Jillian pointed to the skinny redhead sitting on the edge of the sofa who looked like he was about to pee in his pants from fear. “This is Sam Donavon. He’s one of our new interns. It’s been his lifelong dream to work here at Awesome Comics. You’re scarring him for life.”
“With enough therapy he can get over it. Now move.”
Jillian stood firm, folding her arms. “I’m sorry. This isn’t up for discussion. I’m not letting you pass until you give me your solemn word that you will not kill your brother.”
Matthew folded his arms. “I outweigh you by, like, sixty pounds. Probably more. There is nothing you can do to keep me from achieving my goal,” he paused and then added with emphasis, “I’ve been working out.”
“I don’t care,” Jillian said.
“That’s nice. I don’t care that you don’t care,” Matt said. “You’re not the hallway monitor. Now, move.”
“You’re a Christian. Doesn’t the Bible have some specific rules about killing? Like, you’re not supposed to do it?”
“You’re an Atheist, you can’t use the Bible to support your arguments. Now move.”
“No,” she stood firm. “It would seem that we are at an impasse.”
“No, actually, we’re not. I’m your boss. Move.”
“No, actually, you’re not.”
“Yes, actually, I am. You’re my secretary, ergo, I’m your boss. So, move.”
“I’m not your secretary,” Jillian said.
“You’re not?”
She shook her head. “Nope.”
“Don’t be silly,” Matt said. “You just gave me my messages.”
“I’m an administrative assistant to the bullpen.”
“Who is also my secretary.”
“No.”
Matt scratched the back of his head. “Really?”
She nodded. “Really.”
“Whatever. I’m on a bloodletting quest, I don’t have time for these trivialities. Now move, my thirst must be quenched.”
She threw her hands up and stepped out of the way. “Fine. But I’m not cleaning up. I’m not the body remover either!”
“How was your honeymoon?” Nathan asked, not looking up from the drawing board as Mathew barged in.
“It was great. We saw some sights, we did some things, we had lots of sex and then we came home to find that my brother had committed me to a weekly release schedule for the build up to our one hundredth issue,” Matt replied. “So, yeah, you know, other than that, it was great.”
Nathan turned around in his seat.
Where Mathew Roman was of average height, narrow shoulders and thin build, Nathan Roman was obscenely tall, broad shouldered and stocky build. Mathew kept his hair longer and often had a neatly trimmed beard. Nathan had a buzz cut and was consistently clean shaven.
“What exactly constitutes as a lot of sex?” Nathan asked casually. “Once a day? Twice a day? Three times a day? Did you get sore?”
“More then average,” Matt replied.
“I have no idea what’s average. My average is probably different then other people’s average.”
“Hey, I know, let’s talk about something that’s not involving my sex life?” Matt suggested. “Like this release schedule you’ve committed us to.”
“What’s the big deal?” Nathan asked. “You’ve done weeklies before. We both have. You’re doing one now.”
“Well, beyond the fact that you didn’t consult me beforehand, Explorers of the Unknown isn’t a weekly comic!”
“But we have done it weekly before,” Nathan pointed out.
“For three or four weeks,” Matt said. “Not ten!”
“You normally script ahead,” Nathan said.
“Are you just cycling through your excuses here?” Matt asked. “Sometimes. Sometimes I script ahead. But I’ve been planning a wedding for the last three months and I’ve been on a honeymoon for the last two weeks. I am exactly one month ahead. One month. We cannot do this. We haven’t even done an outline for the next year.”
“Yes we have,” Nathan said.
Matt paused. “Excuse me?”
“We’ve done an outline.”
“No we haven’t.”
Nathan paused, chewing on the eraser end of his pencil. “We haven’t?”
Matt shook his head. “No.”
“Well,” Nathan tapped his fingers on his legs. “We’ve got ideas.”
“Yes, we have ideas,” Matt conceded.
“So we’ll be flying by the seat of our pants.”
Matt folded his hands and took a deep breath. “I am going to talk to Phil now and then I will come back here and bludgeon you repeatedly. I am doing it in this order so as I don’t have blood on me when I talk to my Editor-in-Chief, for that might make me look crazy.”
Matt turned and walked out of the cubicle. Nathan hurried after him.
“Phil liked the idea. He really liked the idea.”
“Phil likes anything that he can build an event out of,” Matt replied over his shoulder. “And besides, you can’t draw that fast.”
“I was going to get Peter to help out with the backgrounds,” Nathan said.
“And?” Nathan prompted.
“And what?”
“Having Peter help out with the backgrounds isn’t going to make this move any faster,” Matt said, rounding the corner.
“He does draw pretty quickly. The guy’s practically a machine,” Nathan said.
“We should have discussed this beforehand,” Matt said.
“We did.”
Matt stopped cold and turned around. “We did?”
Nathan nodded his head vigorously. “Yeah.”
“Oh really? And when did this alleged conversation take place?” Matt asked.
“It was at DragonCon,” Nathan said.
“DragonCon last year?”
“No, DragonCon two years ago.”
“Okay, well, that doesn’t help your argument. It was two years ago!”
“And we discussed the possibility of doing an event for our one hundredth issue,” Nathan said.
“Again, it was two years ago!” Matt repeated. “And we said nothing about doing a weekly!”
“Well, that’s sorta true,” Nathan conceded.
“There’s no ‘sorta’ about this,” Matt said.
Matt walked into Phil Marr’s office. The Editor-in-Chief of Awesome Comics was a forty-five year old native New Yorker with a slight penchant for hyperbole.
“I don’t know what he told you,” Matt pointed at his brother, “but it can’t be done.”
Phil Marr, who was just barely overweight and shaved his head regularly, stood hunched over his desk looking over pages from Gatekeepers. He looked back and forth between the two brothers. “Excuse me?”
“There’s no way Explorers of the Unknown can go weekly for ten weeks,” Matt said. “It is not possible.”
“Okay, I don’t want to get in the middle of something here, so I’m just going to pretend you two just didn’t walk into my office,” Phil said. “It’s your comic, you guys can do whatever you want. You’re the ones who are about to get a million dollar movie deal out of these.”
Matt’s face went dumbfounded. “Huh?” he turned to his brother. “What?”
“Yeah, Joan called,” Nathan said. “There’s apparently some interest in the movie rights for EotU. Serious interest. Like, bidding war kind of interest.”
“And you didn’t tell me this before because…?”
Nathan shrugged. “You were yelling at me.”
******
