Free Mars

Free Mars: Ashes2Ashes

PAGE ONE

Ziggy’s Club, Jovian Sector, Amazonis Prime

By the ice-tides of Europa, it is great to be back! Happy Friday, Marsers. It’s a very nice feeling to type “PAGE ONE” again! Thanks for sticking with us during this hiatus. I will say, we were able to accomplish quite a bit during the break. With the help of Ape Entertainment and a very successful Kickstarter, Free Mars is back, full-speed, with our second book.

Ashes2Ashes is going to be a little different that Riot Girls. First, it is considerably shorter. We’re looking at coming in around 40 pages total. Now, as a writer, it is a curse and a blessing. It is great to have a very definitive page-count. I have planned and planned, written and re-written, knowing exactly how much story-telling space I had. With the first book, we started without a solid pre-determined length and I think that lack of defined scope might’ve made for some dramatic changes in the pacing. Nothing fatal, but sometimes slightly jarring. Now, with a completely mapped-out plot and finished script, we hope to improve upon our last book.

For Nic, it means more work as I’m attempting to pack a little more into each page. But, as you know, Nic thrives on extra detail. This first page is no exception. He brings us back to Ziggy’s and the Jovian Sector of Amazonis Prime. The place is a little more posh than when we last saw it. Though I guess the last time we saw it there had been a fusion bomb blowed-up in it….

And Nic has done an amazing job here in the evening wear competition. I sent Nic a bunch of pics; I tried to identify an individual fashion-sense for each Sister. Nic translated all that to some beautifully characterful dresses. I think he won the Free Mars Challenge on Project Runway.

So here we are again. Think of this book as an episode. Riot Girls was the two-hour pilot, now we have the first installment of our show. Vikki, Sam, Vexx, and Veruca (I really did just realize that that is a lot of Vs) are back. Kessler too.

I’m gonna be a little self-indulgent with this first music-pairing. I’m really digging Green Day’s Uno! and Dos! right now. I think there’s some vintage Green Day here, but also some interesting new directions. Kill the DJ is one of the best songs from the first LP. I think it also goes nicely with the red carpet line action in this first page.

Nice to see ya again,

Dave