The official Craig W. Chenery website

So why “Comicones”?

The idea of “Comicones”came from the ideal of equality. We live in an age of

repression. People are judged and ostracized for their gender, their race, their choice of or lack of religion, their sexual preference, their political stance, their age and their appearance. But beneath all of that, we are the same. We’re all made of the same organic structure. We all think and feel and love. In our purest form we are made of the same building blocks

“Comicones” is a celebration of equality, but also of uniqueness. At the heart of every Comicone is a cone and every cone is the same. The cone represents our skin and bones, our organs and muscles, our building blocks at their most basic. It’s the details that make us unique.

Every character starts as a cone. Some become heroes, some superheroes, some villains. Other’s become princesses, while others become Timelords. Some Cones are “Weird”, while others are “Thrilling”. There are demons, sheriffs, dancer’s and bounty hunters. Each one the same, but at the same time, unique.

Come celebrate the world of equality and individuality with “Comicones”.

It’s been a odd week. My laptop has been shipped out for repair and I’m a bit lost without it.  I had no idea how much I was attached to it. I use it far more than my phone.   Hopefully it should be back in my hands tomorrow.   Naturally an idea for a new story has materialized and I’m currently scribbling notes down in a notepad.  Eewww, paper! What’s that?

Yours primitively, 

CWC

Following the awful start to the year, I have finally been able to hit full stride with my creating.  

I finally wrapped up the final draft of “Don’t Make Me Come Down There”.  It’s about 9,000 words shorter and a lot tighter than previous drafts. I have submitted to a horror publisher I have admired for a while. The book is a tough sell. It’s too gory for humor publishers and too humorous for horror publishers.  Still, I am proud of the final book and fingers crossed it finds a home.  

I have also jumped into Comicones with both feet.  What started as inconsequential doodles for my daughter, has grown into something bigger.   Much bigger.  I have created well over a hundred characters so far, spanning multiple franchises and it’s becoming what I hoped the Butch G. Cat could have been.  As most of my ideas for that project were scrapped or rejected on principle that they were simply mine, I can bring this project to light on the manner I had hoped for Butch G. Cat.  I have free books in development as well as dozens of new designs.   I’m very pleased to put my stamp on this.  The new website is currently in development and I will be launching it in the coming weeks when I have figured out some animation issues.  It’s nice working on a project when I’m not getting steamrolled for presenting ideas for no other reason than they were mine.  My eventual goal is to reach out to the franchise owners in the hopes of gaining official licensing. That is a lofty goal, but hey, aim high or don’t bother. Once I’ve built up the world and shown there is value there, who knows where it can lead.  I have a franchise mission statement I am tightening up.

As far as writing goes, I have two books in active development. “The Sentinel War” and an unnamed book on internet etiquette. 

Yours creatively,

CWC

2017 is off to an awful start. Last Monday, Tera’s mom passed at the tender age of 56.  Her death was very sudden and unexpected and has shaken our family to its core.   Death is becoming an all too frequent part of life these days. Julie was a good woman. She was a fantastic grandma and loved Lily unconditionally, We had only just got back from Disneyland the week before. Had I known it would be our last vacation together I would have done so many things differently.  

Her passing reminds me how fleeting life really is and when my number comes up, I can only hope I have achieved the most I can.

Rest in peace, Julie. You will be greatly missed.

Yours lovingly,

CWC

In order to make “Don’t Make Me Come Down There” the best book it can be, I’ve submitted it to a test audience to get feedback on it.  I did the same thing with both “Blood Splatter” and “The Comicon and Convention Survival Guide”. It’s been a few weeks and the reviews have started to come back.  This is one of the hardest parts of writing.  Of course I like the book. I’ve spent years working on it, but how will the rest of the world feel when they read it. Will the jokes work? Is the plot enjoyable? Are the characters interesting?  All I could do was wait with baited breath.

During this time, I started working on the screenplay adaptation of the book. Because, that makes sense right? Writing the script for a book I haven’t sold? Well, to be honest, it was more so a writing exercise to keep the creative juices going.  Converting a novel to screenplay is no mean feat.  You take hours and hours of a story and condense it into 90 -120 minutes, or if you’re The Hobbit, you drag it out over three movies.

During this project something interesting happened.  I edited the first act of the book to be more concise and get to the zombie outbreak sooner. There was a lot of character exposition, but a lot of it really didn’t add much to the characters, so I edited it down. I’m about twenty pages away from finishing it.

In the past two weeks, I’ve had eight reviews back on the book and they have all been extremely positive.  It’s a wonderful experience hearing how they have been affected by the character journey’s.  However, one comment seemed to be unanimous.  It’s a bit slow in getting started.  So I’ve decided to revisit the story and tighten the first act.  It isn’t easy editing your own story when you have become attached to each scene.  But the kicker is I’ve already edited this act.  In the screenplay.  So the novel which inspired the screenplay is now inspired by the screenplay.  I’m hoping to have both the book and screenplay completed by the end of January.

Yours excitedly

CWC