03.10.2010 -- Norm Breyfogle, well-known "Batman" artist, talked a bit about his experience drawing the illustrations for Stephen Pytak's novel The Wild Damned on Episode 91 of "Where Monsters Dwell" broadcast on CHSR 97.9 FM. Here are a few of Norm's comments about working on the illustrations for the book. To download the entire program, log onto http://wheremonstersdwell.ca/ The show was hosted by Mike and Remy.

Norm: The stuff I'm doing right now for Archie is counterbalanced by work I'm doing for Mazz Press.

Mike: Mazz Press?

Norm: Mazz Press. I'm drawing illustrations for a prose novel called The Wild Damned.

Mike:"The Carrion Crow," I believe, is the monster in that book.

Norm: Exactly. He's the main villain of the book.

Mike: Tell us about the book. Who's this by?

Norm: The author is Stephen Pytak. I did a number of full-color illustrations for his second novel, which was called The .40 Caliber Mousehunt. And he wanted me to do more for this novel, his third novel. I haven't read the novel yet, but Stephen gave me a really good feel for what the illustrations were to be. In fact, he draws the illustrations himself on computer and sends me these things that are definitely more than stick figures. For each illustration, he's provided a whole bunch of reference material. He's very detailed about what he wants in all these characters. So I don't even need to read the novel before I do it. So I've drawn all these illustrations and I get a good feel of what the novel's about. And Stephen told me a little bit about it too. It's really detective noir/horror. There's a psycho going around with a crazy, skull-like mask killing people and there are a number of people that are kind of revolving around him like moons revolving around a planet. Some of them are neurotic or psychotic to some degree. They're all definitely flawed, noir-type characters. And they're all interacting with him in various capacities.

Mike: So the illustrations, are they going to be black and white? Are these full color?

Norm: They're drawn in black and white. And Stephen will have a copy of the black and white drawings. And then I add full color to them as well, in a traditional manner with brush and pigments. Then he gets them both, and the originals as well. So he can do anything he wants with them, in black and white or in color.

Mike: Are you also doing the jacket?

Norm: Yes. One of the illustrations -- I don't know if Stephen has decided yet exactly which one -- will undoubtedly be on the cover.

Mike: Do you know when the release date is for this?

Norm: It's December. And the two Archie titles I'm working on, they're being solicited for July, I believe.

Mike: O.K.

Norm: But it's really interesting to be working on these two different projects. I mean they're totally different. You can't get much different from a horror/noir concept and Archie. From one to the other is...heh heh. I guess I like it because it shows my range.

Mike: Definitely.

VERY COOL! We'd like to thank Norm, Mike and Remy for the mention. Norm is quite correct. We're aiming to have The Wild Damned out for December 2010. It's not because of the Christmas holiday or anything like that. That's just probably the earliest we can put out a quality product. Norm is working to have all of the artwork done by mid May. While we're not sure what we're going to put on the cover, we have a pretty good idea. But we're going to keep that under wraps for now. For updates, check back here, or http://www.mazzpress.com

ABOVE: Norm Breyfogle's preliminary sketch, "Enter, the Carrion Crow" for Stephen Pytak's The Wild Damned. BELOW:This is a close-up of the concept sketch of "Enter, the Carrion Crow" by Stephen Pytak. This one served as a diagram to offer Norm Breyfogle further insight into Stephen's vision for the illustration.