The Greatest Race - Outline, Pacing, and Full Script (Patreon)

Sometimes you get weird and wonderful opportunities in this business.

After working on Samurai Jack and Dungeons & Dragons, I have a great relationship with the gang at IDW. They know about my background at UDON and the experience I had there working with Japanese clients, so they asked if I'd be interested in producing a 32-page 'manga' story for New Balance shoes in Japan to be illustrated by legendary mangaka Kia Asamiya (Silent Möbius, Martian Successor Nadesico).

It was an ad project, but they wanted it done in a big and bombastic way and I'd get to work with an artist whose work really grabbed me back when I first started getting into manga in the early 90's...

Okay, sign me up.

I dug in and wrote a dystopian future sports story with manga-channeled "Gambate!!" over-the-top achievements. It's ridiculous but also an unabashed homage to all kinds of different manga sports stories.

Anyway, New Balance just posted it up for free on their website:

https://www.newbalance.com/nbrunning/ 

along with an animated teaser trailer that I didn't know they were producing:

https://twitter.com/newbalance/status/1080098126038515717 

So that's a pretty surreal way to start my 2019.

Attached here is my original outline for the client, a pacing breakdown and the full script you can look at side-by-side with the finished comic to see how Asamiya-Sensei interpreted the script on the finished page. Keep in mind that the pages read manga-style, from right to left.

Enjoy!