New Tenured Writer - Perry Kent

The year of transitions continues as your friend and mine, R.A. Wonsowski, is stepping away from our merry band to focus on other things.

Ray, you've been an unwavering member of Thought Balloons for a good, long while, and I know I speak for everyone when I say that things simply will not be the same without you.  Your thoughtful feedback, excellent scripts, and warm demeanour will be greatly missed.  It's been a true pleasure having you aboard for so long and we wish you every success in your upcoming endeavours.  Don't be a stranger, my friend.

Of course, as this post title indicates, we are also welcoming a new writer to the family, the one and only Perry Kent.  Attentive readers will remember his stay with us back in October and we're thrilled to have him come on in a more permanent capacity.  At the time, he described himself thusly:

Perry Kent is a writer who lives in the Pacific Northwest. He has been making up stories his whole life and has been putting pen to paper since the first time he fell in love with a book. After recently discovering that people actually want to read some of his stories, he has been earnestly clacking away at his keyboard. Still fresh to the cutthroat, swashbuckling world of serious storytelling, he hopes to be putting his work out into the world any day now. When he makes brief forays onto the internet he can be found on Twitter () stalking other writers and comic creators.

Ray, it's been a slice.  Perry, welcome aboard.

New Tenured Writer - David Press

Every group has its share of comings and goings and this week sees another round of that for the Thought Balloons crew.

As you may have already noticed, Derek Adnams hasn't been around these parts much of late, and that is because he has had to take his leave to focus on other comic book projects.  Of course, we're sad to see him go, but we're very excited to discover what treasures he's currently whipping up with his various collaborators.  It was a great pleasure to have you along, Derek, and we hope you'll keep visiting from time to time.

Happily, as you may have already gathered from his lovely script this past week, your friend and mine David Press has agreed to join our gang full time.  It's been a true delight seeing his play-at-home scripts these past few months and to have him jump on with the Writer-in-Residence program, so we're only more excited to have him stay on as our latest Tenured Writer.  His scripts have been a joy to read and we're all rather eager to see what stops he'll be pulling out in the weeks and months to come.

David's bio, for those who may wish for a further refresher:

David Press lives with his librarian/musician wife in New York’s Adirondack Park. By day he teaches writing, comics, and film at Paul Smith’s College. Currently, his nonfiction writing has been featured in North Country Living Magazine and the Adirondack Daily Enterprise. Dave has been obsessed with writing comics since he was thirteen-years-old starting with Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo’s run on The Flash. He’s currently revising a novel called Emerson, which follows two high school students who realize that their writing can alter reality. He is a graduate of Brooklyn College and St. Bonaventure University. He leaves his notes at davidpress.net.

So thank you once again, Derek, and welcome aboard, David!

And don't forget for those reading at home, you too can play along by posting in the comments for each week's Why? post. We're always happy to see new faces, so don't hesitate to consider throwing your hat into the mix.

New Tenured Writer - P. A. Nolte

It's happening again.

The Thought Balloons family got a little bigger this week as you may have noticed P. A. Nolte threw down his first official script for Red Hood week, and he's started his tenure with a cracker of a piece.

We had such a good time with him during his residency that we asked whether he might be interested in staying around a little longer, and as you can see, the answer was a resounding yes.  We're happy to have him coming along for this ongoing ride and eagerly look forward to his efforts down the line.

You may recall him well from his previous stint on the site, but let's go over his bio one more time, shall we?

Who Are You?
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P. A. Nolte. I cover art with words.  

Why Comics?
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I love the collaboration. And the exploratory nature. And the rules. Which sounds stupid, but is totally true. If you're going to go exploring, it helps to know the constellations so you can orient yourself. If you're going to make comics, it helps to know the 180° rule so you can orient your readers. But, once you know what plants to leave alone, or how to use a page-turn effectively, there's no wrong way to go. And, if you're lucky, you get to do it with someone who shares that same passion for exploration as you do.  

Where Can One Find You?
 --------------------------------  

I'm on Twitter () and Facebook ( and ), I pop up over at David Brown's Fifth Dimension Comics from time to time, I just finished letters on Eric Palicki's Red Angel Dragnet, and I hope to have a new project or two of my own see release by the end of the year.

Welcome aboard once more, my friend.

New Tenured Writer - Derek Adnams

We've talked a lot these past few months about what Thought Balloons is.  It's a place to experiment, a place to learn, a place to grow.  Just as important, it's a place for friends, both old and new.

Today, I'm happy to announce that one of our newer friends, Derek Adnams, has graciously agreed to join the Thought Balloons family as a Tenured Writer.  You surely remember his excellent (not to mention recent) few weeks as one of our first Writers-in-Residence, which obviously did much to endear him to us, but what we've loved just as much has been his sustained enthusiasm as he's played-at-home for pretty much every single week's pick these past few months.  He's thrown down some quality pieces, and we're excited to see what he brings going forward.

But enough from me, I'll let Derek introduce himself once again:

"Derek Adnams remembered that he liked to write comics in 2012.  Since then, his short stories have appeared in anthologies by Pross Comics, Indie Comics Magazine, Stache Publishing, GrayHaven Comics and Outré Press.  He won the uCreate Comics 2013 Script Competition, which led to the publication of his 24-page one-shot SUITZ: Riot Act and he co-wrote Average Jo #1 for Hound Comics.  2015 promises to be his best year yet as a published writer, with over 70 pages of anthology work set to be released by publishers including Charlton, FutureQuake Press, Fat Cat Funnies and Free Fall Press."

Welcome aboard, Derek.

Don't forget that you too can play along at home by posting in the comments for each week's Why? post.  We're always happy to see new faces, so don't hesitate to consider throwing your hat into the mix.

New Tenured Writer

I bring you some good and some bad news.  The bad news is that both Shaun and Brian have had to step aside from their Thought Balloons tenured writer positions.  Shaun has been with us for a while, having joined under the reign of Ryan Lindsay.  His contributions to the site have been both numerous and well written.   Brian was with us only a short time, but wrote some tight scripts.  We would like to wish both well in their future comic writing endeavours.  

And now for the good news - we have a NEW TENURED WRITER (obviously.  It's the title of this post).

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome former play at home writer ARBY MOAY to the team.  Arby has posted scripts in the WHY section for a while now, so when a position came up he was a natural to join.  But that's enough from me, I'll let Arby introduce himself:

"Arby Moay is an aspiring comic book writer and novelist from the Philippines who dreams of one day going into outerspace because it seems like it could be fun. Having recently graduated from university, he is still currently looking for a good computer job, and is being very picky about it.

He's been a lifelong fan of Batman and Robin, growing up in the 90's along with the animated series, watching it when nobody's around because the 'rents and nanny banned him of doing so (they think the show's too dark and violent). However, his relationship with actual comic books has only been for a little over a year, taking interest when he found out that his favorite novelist at the time, Neil Gaiman, wrote a Batman comic. About Bruce's funeral. Arby's been broke ever since.

You can find him on , and on . He also has a webcomic called Sims University (currently in limbo) which uses the PC game Sims 3 as art, because he doesn't know anyone who isn't too busy to draw for him."

Don't forget that you too can play along at home (and maybe step up and become a tenured writer as well).  Simply post your one page script in the current week's Why? post comment section.  Feedback guaranteed.