Artist Co-Creator for Queer Retro-Cyberpunk/Horror Graphic Novel

Description

I’m a Toronto-based writer looking for a sequential artist and genuine visual co-creator for SLEDGEHAMMER, a queer retro-cyberpunk/horror comic series spanning 1986 and 1999, with manga/anime influences.

I already have a detailed 20-page outline, so the major characters, story arcs, themes, and overall structure are well developed. However, I’m deliberately not looking for an artist who simply executes a finished script. I want someone who is interested in helping shape the visual identity of the project through character design, page composition, atmosphere, pacing, transformations, environments, and visual storytelling.

About SLEDGEHAMMER

SLEDGEHAMMER is a psychologically driven science-fiction/horror story about identity, desire, intimacy, transformation, and the temptation to escape the self.

Thematically, it explores loneliness, alienation, sexual shame, obsessive desire, unstable identity, fear of intimacy, idealization, and self-reinvention. At its core is the tension between transformation as liberation and transformation as self-erasure.

The story also has a strong visual fascination with beauty, the body, technology, and the point where something seductive or transcendent begins to become disturbing.

I’m particularly interested in artists drawn to:
cyberpunk and science fiction

psychological mangahorror and body horror

queer characters and themes
expressive character acting
cinematic sequential storytelling
manga/anime-influenced visual language
transformations and heightened body imagery

The finished artwork does not need to resemble conventional manga. I’m more interested in finding a distinctive artist whose work can handle both quiet psychological scenes and large-scale science-fiction/horror imagery.

The partnership

This is not a paid page-rate position.I’m looking for a reciprocal creative partnership rather than a traditional writer-for-hire/artist-for-hire arrangement.  For SLEDGEHAMMER, I’m offering the artist/co-creator a 50% revenue share if the comic is sold, licensed, published, optioned, or otherwise generates income.


I also recognize that producing sequential art requires an enormous amount of work. I don’t want an arrangement where an artist spends hundreds of hours bringing my project to life while I contribute only a script.

If you have a comic, manga, graphic novel, or other story project of your own, I’m happy to write, co-write, script, edit, or help develop your project in return. That reciprocal side of the collaboration is important to me.


The goal is for both creators to have work they care deeply about and to use our strongest skills to help make each other’s projects happen.

Before substantial production began, I’d want us to clearly document credits, responsibilities, ownership, and revenue-sharing terms so expectations are understood by both sides.

Starting small

I am not asking someone to commit immediately to producing an entire series.I’d rather begin with:

character and visual development → several test pages → a short sequence or sample chapter.  That allows us to see whether our creative instincts, communication styles, and working habits are genuinely compatible before either of us takes on a major commitment.


There is currently no hard production deadline or weekly publishing schedule. I’d prefer to establish a realistic pace together.

The initial goal would be to create a strong comic/graphic-novel proposal and sample that could be used to pursue publication opportunities.

About me

My background is primarily in screenwriting and fiction. I hold a BA in Film Studies and completed postgraduate training in Screenwriting.

I’ve developed multiple feature-length screenplays and completed a queer YA supernatural novel that has received manuscript requests from literary agents and interest from an independent publisher.

My strongest areas as a writer are:character psychology • dialogue • structure • theme • atmosphere • cinematic pacing. 

I’m comfortable receiving notes, rewriting, brainstorming collaboratively, and changing material when another creator finds a better solution.I’m much more interested in finding one artist whose creative sensibility genuinely connects with SLEDGEHAMMER than simply finding someone available to produce pages.


If the themes and visual possibilities of the project appeal to you, I can share a shorter synopsis first and, if we seem compatible, the full 20-page outline.