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Quick Hit

Thicker Than Blood – The Novel

9

September, 2018

Quick Hit

Thanks to some unexpected work around the house, as well as some intense writing sessions, I ran out of time this week to write a long blog post. But I won’t shirk my obligations to publish new work every two weeks. So this is a quick hit post to announce that Chapter 5 is now live on the novel page. It’s called Tía and it focuses on what happened to Maria after being rescued on the Rio Grande River. (And it starts with a bang, that’s all I’ll say.)

But that’s not all! I also rewrote Chapter 1, line by line, word by word. I chopped about 600 words off the length (yeah, it was too long) and tightened the prose quite a bit. So be sure to give that a re-read as well.

See you next time! – Billy

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https://www.billywitt.com/river/

The River

Thicker Than Blood – The Novel

12

August, 2018

Chapter 3: The River

The last we saw of Maria, she was fleeing in terror into the dark expanse of northern Mexico’s desert. Beaten and shot, she finally collapsed, unconscious, near the Rio Grande River. Days later she’s still there, unable to walk due to a severally injured ankle, and her battered face grotesquely swollen and disfigured. If she doesn’t find help soon, she’s liable to succumb to hunger, infection, or the elements. That’s when she’s discovered by a curious, and very young, heroine. Read chapter 3, The River, now published on billywitt.com/novel.

The Mighty Rio Grande

Established by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, the Rio Grande River has defined the border separating the states of Tamaulipas, Mexico and Texas, United States. Ever since then it has been a major focal point of immigration between the two countries. And it serves as the dividing line between the two families, sired by Victor Mata and Maria Benavides, that dominate this series of books. It’s a river that I have personally crossed, by car and raft, several times. My mother, who lived in an orphanage in Monterrey as a child, also crossed this river in a raft. She was 8 years old at the time. Her mother, who had left her two daughters at the orphanage while she started a life in Texas, had remarried and settled in Mcallen. My mother was loaded into a crowded canoe and paddled across the river by men she did not know. Eventually she was dropped off at a small church in McAllen where she was finally reunited with her mom.

Obviously this is an intensely personal story for me and Maria is largely based on my mother. She told me of her time in the Catholic orphanage during the 1940’s. It was a meager and sometimes brutal existence there. The strict nuns who ran the school would beat the children, sometimes badly, for even the most trivial offenses. And they had little to eat. My mother would sneak into the kitchen pantry in the middle of the night and eat dry oats because she was starving and that was all there was to eat. To this day she still can’t eat oatmeal. I plan to address Maria’s upbringing in the orphanage at some point in this book and you can be sure I’m going to use my mother’s memories to bring that story to light.

As Always…

Thanks so much for giving me a slice of your time to read this post and the book. Please leave a comment or share this post with your friends if you like my work.

See you in a couple of weeks! – Billy

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The Novel

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https://www.billywitt.com/harvey-rebirth/

Post Hurricane Harvey Rebirth of Billywitt.com

The Post Hurricane Harvey Rebirth of Billywitt.com

12

March, 2018

On August 26, 2017 Hurricane Harvey’s painfully slow crawl through southeast Texas reached Houston. Over the next 48 hours it sat on top of the 4th (or 3rd?) largest city in the United States dropping a truly biblical amount of rain. By the time the massive storm moved away, the entire region of almost seven million people was inundated by the greatest amount of water dropped in a single storm since records were started.

Home Evacuation

As a result of this flooding, my home office was filled with 2-1/2 feet of water. My family and I were forced to move out of the house and into a Best Western hotel room. My days were filled with traveling back and forth between the hotel, my day job, and my house to check out repairs and feed my dogs. I worked with FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) and my insurance company to remove and replace all of the wet drywall and insulation. Slowly my house came back together.

For most of this period I didn’t write or illustrate anything. I was consumed by anxiety and stress dealing with this rebuild. By December 2017, as the home started to look like a home again, I started getting the itch again. I desperately missed telling my story. But living in a hotel room with three other people made it difficult to do anything. So I had plenty of time to think about my website and my book, and I realized I needed to make a big change.

A Change of Direction

I had the opportunity to step back and look at my progress with “Thicker Than Blood”. I started making the book in the summer of 2016. By the time Hurricane Harvey hit in August 2017, I had succeeded in building my website and writing and illustrating the first three chapters of the book. I had never done anything like this, so I was learning as I went along. I hadn’t created any artwork of any kind for 20+ years, so my learning curve was daunting to say the least. During this period I had to teach myself how to draw people and backgrounds properly, how to ink comics, how to color, as well as learning how to write and pace a graphic novel. There’s a reason why publishers hire a team of artists to do all of these jobs. Each one of those skills is a full time job! I quickly realized that if I continued along this path, I would be an old man before I was finished. So I had to consider a couple of different options.

Option A was to hire other artists out of my own money, with me serving strictly as the author. It’s possible to find artists willing to work for free as they build their portfolio. Or to hire freelancers from other countries who work very cheaply. But working with people in this ad hoc fashion, in what promises to be a very long project, can see a lot of turnover. And I don’t have the experience to project manage so many different people and their work. Not to mention I didn’t know if I could pay all of these people. So I settled on option B. Changing the project from a graphic novel to a standard fiction novel format. It’s a big switch, but it allows me to focus solely on building my story. I’m still going to sketch out some scenes and characters, but no more than 2 or 3 per chapter. And they wont be clean, finished drawings. Think of this more as an illustrated book, a hybrid of graphic and text only novels.

Billywitt.com 2.0

To commemorate the change of direction, I’m going to redesign the website. Its going to be a simpler, author-centric website, focusing on the writing instead of the illustrations. Working part time after work and on the weekends I’m going to rebuild my website just like I rebuilt my house. Once it’s built, I’ll start posting the new chapters and sketches. I’ve already written three chapters of the revised novel and I cant wait to share them. Thanks for reading, and I hope you’ll check out the relaunch of this website in a few weeks.

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https://www.billywitt.com/the-boss/

The Boss

The Boss

14

August, 2017

Carlos was able to pay off his debt to the boss on the previous page. Unfortunately for Carlos, that debt was paid via power drill to the head.

Tensions Mount

Meanwhile, Victor takes the time to tell his two captains, Vick and Fernando, his plans for the organization. But it seems like there might be some tension between the two. Go to the graphic novel web page in order to see the full page. Or you can click this link to be taken to the full page directly.

Hiatus

I’m going to take a break from making new pages for awhile, maybe a month. Once a year I try to take some time off, not to rest, but to study and improve my artwork. Among other things, I’ll be studying methods for improving the quality of my backgrounds. I’m also going to redesign the front page of my website and create a dedicated page for a Spanish language version of the book. That means going back and translating all of my previous pages. I may also make a few webcomics (Millenium Man is calling me). But I’ll stay in touch, posting new artwork to my facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/billy.witt.art/). Follow me there to keep up with my work. But I shall return! Probably by early October. Thank you so much for visiting and reading my graphic novel. And please let your friends know about my work by clicking on the share buttons located on this page. – Billy

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Unexpected Visitors

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Unexpected Visitors

Chapter 3 – Page 5, “Unexpected Visitors”

11

June, 2017

Vick discovers that some unexpected visitors have already arrived at his parents home.

Fernando Returns

Fernando has come to the Mata’s compund to discuss with Victor the problems he discovered in Tampico. Victor thinks this presents a great learning opportunity for Vick, who doesnt seem so sure about that. Go to the graphic novel web page in order to see all of the published pages. Or you can click this link to be taken to the new page directly.

Victor Sr.

A little insight into Victor Sr.’s personality and motivation here. He’s a lifelong criminal, yes. But he was raised on a farm by honest parents. Even though he rejected that life, he grew up with a romantic sense of family and honor. He sees his role as that of the beneficial plantation owner, using his wealth to provide for his family, employees, and locals.

He badly wants his son to be prepared to take up the mantle of leader when the day comes for him to retire. So he never passes up an opportunity to point out an area that Vick could improve.

Page six should be posted to my Patreon by the end of this week. In that page we find out who the other visitors to the compound are. I’ll see you in a couple of weeks. – Billy

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https://www.billywitt.com/family/

The Family

Chapter 3: The Boss – Page 4

28

May, 2017

The Family

In the previous page, Victor and Vick sat down to talk about the family business. But now Victor has some questions about his grandchildren. And Vick doesn’t look like he’s comfortable talking about one of them.

The Grandchildren

Vick’s two children are young adults. His son, freshly graduated from the University of Texas, has joined his father’s crew and is learning the ropes. Vick’s daughter is still attending school, but she is developing a rough and tumble reputation. Go to the graphic novel web page in order to see all of the published pages. Or you can click this link to be taken to the full page directly.

The Characters

I wanted to take a moment to talk about the characters in this story. This is a large story with an equally large ensemble of characters, So far you’ve met Maria, Victor (young and old!), Fernando, and Vick, as well as a few minor characters. Over the course of the next three chapters, I’m going to be introducing several other characters (including old Maria).

This presents a dilemma in how to introduce all these characters in a way that allows you, the reader, to get to know each of them independently without getting overwhelmed with storylines. I could have thrown all of them together in one chapter and tried to sort out all of their individual backgrounds quickly, a la DC’s Suicide Squad movie. Instead, I chose to pace myself, revealing each character in separate chapters. Think of this as the Marvel approach, where they had introduced most of the members of The Avengers in their own movies before ever making the first Avengers movie. I think taking the time to get to know the characters, in the beginning, will pay off in dividends later on in the book.

Thanks for taking the time to visit, and I’ll be back in a couple of weeks. – Billy

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https://www.billywitt.com/homecoming/

Chapter 3, Page 2: Homecoming

Chapter 3, Page 2 – The Homecoming

1

May, 2017

In the previous page, we saw Victor Jr’s homecoming to his parent’s guarded, hilltop estate. His mother waited for him on the front porch, eagerly waiting to see her “little boy”.

Where’s Dad?

Victor Jr, henceforth known as Vick, is a large, muscular man with long, straight black hair and a long goatee. He has been heading the American operations of his father’s drug running organization in Brownsville Texas for the past 8 years. He travels back and forth from Texas to Mexico to consult with his father regarding the family business. This is one such visit. Go to the graphic novel web page in order to see all of the published pages. Or you can click this link to be taken to the full page directly.

Maria

I’ve had a few questions from people asking me about Maria, from the first chapter. She is alive and well, I assure you. We’ll be visiting with her more in future chapters. I am going to show her in the present day as well as in flashbacks, where we learn what happened to her and her son when she made it to Texas. I really can’t wait to draw these chapters, but unfortunately, there are only so many hours in a day.

Thanks so much for visiting! See you again in a couple of weeks. – Billy

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https://www.billywitt.com/chapter-3-debut/

Chapter 3 Debut

Chapter 3: The Boss – Debut

10

April, 2017

I decided to do things a little bit differently for this post. I was delayed in getting my latest page out. So to say sorry, I figured I would go ahead and publish the first page of chapter 3 for free everywhere. That means it doesn’t mean where you’re going to see my work (here or my Patreon page), you’re seeing the latest page of artwork. I’ll go back to my previous release schedule from here on out though.

The Boss

The chapter opens in the mountains outside of Monterrey Mexico. The mountains are shrouded in the night’s darkness, except for one mountain-top that glows like it’s noon. A walled compound sits atop the mountain. It is guarded by several heavily armed men. A lone truck approaches the gates, The driver has long hair, a goatee, and is heavily muscled. Go to the graphic novel web page in order to see the full chapter. Or you can click this link to be taken to the full page directly.

Back to normal

I decided to mix things up this week by releasing this page early. But I’m going back to my usual schedule after this, The down-side is that you won’t see the next page here until May. The next page goes back to being Patreon exclusive until the following page is ready. But if you sign up for my newsletter, I’ll be sure to let you know when the next page is published.

Thank you so much for taking the time to visit! I’ll see you again soon. – Billy

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https://www.billywitt.com/chapter-2-fernando-page-5/

Chapter 2, Fernando: Page 5

Chapter 2: Fernando – Page 5

2

April, 2017

I made you wait long enough. The last page of chapter 2 is now live here on billywitt.com.

Plata o Plomo?

If you’re like me, then you loved the Netflix show Narcos. For those unfamiliar with the show, the first two seasons focused on the life of Columbian drug kingpin, Pablo Escobar. Besides being a noted drug dealer and mass murderer, he is also known for this phrase, “plata o plomo”. Translated it means “silver or lead” and is posed as a question. If you were being asked this question, then it meant “Do you want to be paid or to be shot?”. Almost everybody replied “silver”. So Escobar would pay these people to turn their heads while he sold his dope. In return, they got paid and got to keep their life.

Carlos is faced with a similar situation in the last page of chapter 2. Except, in this case, his compliance isn’t going to be rewarded with cash, just his life. But only if he answers the question correctly. And what of his partner in crime, Miguel? Go to the graphic novel web page in order to see the entire chapter. Or you can click this link to be taken to the page 5 directly.

Chapter 3

The first page of chapter 3 is now live on my Patreon page. Just to give a little tease, I’ve posted a screen grab of the storyboard I made for this chapter below. Who is the man with the handle-bar mustache and round glasses? Visit my Patreon page to find out. I’ll give you a hint, the name of the chapter is “The Boss”.

Thanks for taking the time to visit, and I hope you enjoy my work. Please take a moment to comment on my work or even connect with me on Twitter or Facebook. – Billy

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Chapter 2, Fernando: Page 4

Chapter 2, Fernando: Page 4

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