Coming Soon... "Lobo: the Hunted and the Hunter".
Get EXCITED!
The true story of a famous wolf and the impact he would have for saving the American West is coming soon…
Its still VERY early to talk this project up just yet, but it gives me great pleasure to introduce to you what I hope will become one of the most impressive and meaningful graphic novels I will work on in my career. For a book that is still in its infancy, that’s saying a lot.
While I was running the Kickstarter campaign for Master & Apprentice: ACT I back in April 2021, I was contacted by another writer in the US, Robert Young, who pitched me his idea for a graphic novel about Ernest Thompson Seton and the infamous wolf Lobo that would come to define his life. After a quick read through the script, it didn’t take long to see the great potential and quality that this story can have. More so, it was a true story; not just in its events, but in the moral message of redemption, of the urgent need to preserve the wild places and animals of our planet.
"LOBO: the Hunted and the Hunter” tells the story of a fierce, cunning, and fearless wolf known as “Lobo” that harassed rancher’s livestock in the Currumpaw valley of North East New Mexico in the late 19th century. Try as the ranchers would to stop Lobo and his small pack from laying waste to their cattle, nothing seemed to work. Then along came Ernest Thompson Seton. Seton was a skilled artist, naturalist, and wolf hunter, having even published a short pamphlet about the skills and knowledge needed to hunt and kill the clever animals. Seton took up the task of hunting the wolf in late 1893, but as he skilfully laid his traps and poisons, he found that he had met his match against Lobo. After exhausting nearly every option at his disposal, Seton comes up with a tactic to defeat his foe, one that is grimly successful.
But Seton’s experience in New Mexico and with Lobo changes him. He sees a beautiful, wild country rapidly being depleted from the advancement of industry and agriculture. He comes to see Lobo as a symbol of the wild places and animals disappearing from their native habitat, many on the brink of extinction. Seton eventually becomes an outspoken advocate for conservation and protecting the American wilderness. He dedicates his life to writing about his experiences with wild animals, as well as developing programs for teaching skills and stewardship to young boys, and was one of the early founders of the Boys Scouts of America.
Though Seton was fairly famous in his day as a writer and artist, he has somewhat fallen into obscurity over time. Robert and I intend to retell this fantastic story in a beautiful, rich, and dramatically visual way for a new generation of readers. For the moment, we are optioning the book to publishers, hoping to find a good publish home for this story, someone who is as enthusiastic and excited about it as we are. But, baring any major publishing deals, we are planning to run an extensive crowdsourcing campaign in 2022. Crowdsourcing has shown that for graphic novels, it is often THE best way of attracting fans to your work AND raising funds to help get it into production. Plus, its also a great opportunity for fans of mine and Roberts to get exclusive copies of the book, featuring unique rewards and other material that would be excluded from any print run done with a publisher.
Its still a little early to say or show much else about this project, but hopefully this is enough to peak your interest in another awesome book coming soon from Invisible Ink Studio.
