Dream Solver

Dream Solver signed with Markosia!

2011-09-11T16:26:00.000-07:00

We’ve been looking for a new publisher since Insomnia Publications ceased trading and are excited to have such a great new home for the book. We would like to thank Harry Markos for picking up the book and for all his help and support.

We also are pleased to announce that Matt Gibbs has come on board as Editor.

We will be posting new artwork from the book as it progresses, so check back for more updates or subscribe to this blog using the link on the right and we’ll send you news and updates by email.

Ebook preview online!

2011-04-13T09:32:00.000-07:00

Finally the Ebook preview is up and online. You can read it here:

We'll have more news and updates soon, hopefully with some pages from further on in the book.

Betsy & Leonard

2011-03-26T09:03:00.000-07:00

The Dream Solver preview is now ready and will be online soon. Meanwhile, filming is about to start on Betsy & Leonard, a British comedy directed by Bernhard Pucher, written by Luke and starring Ryan Davenport and Sharea-mounira Samuels.

You can follow the film on Facebook, Twitter and You Tube.

Extras are needed for a club scene in Elephant & Castle on Wednesday March 30. If anyone would like to get involved, you can find out more here.

True Grit: Mean Business

2011-01-31T10:27:00.000-08:00

Chris has just finished working on a True Grit comic that was commissioned to accompany the international release of the Coen Brothers movie.

Adapted from the novel by Charles Portis, it was written by Dan Light and Benjamin Read with art by Chris and lettering by Jim Campbell. It’s available free on Comixology and as a free download from the official movie site.

Preview Cover!

2011-01-16T16:44:00.000-08:00

We’re putting the finishing touches to the Dream Solver preview and will be posting it online soon. In the meantime, we thought you’d like to see the art for the cover:

We’ll let you know as soon as the preview is up, so check back to find out where you can view it, or subscribe to this blog using the link on the right and we’ll send you news and updates by email.

Ebook preview coming soon

2010-11-22T17:05:00.000-08:00

We’re currently putting together an ebook preview that will feature the first twenty pages of Dream Solver, plus a new cover from Chris. We’ll let you know when it’s up and where you can view it. But as a taster, here are a few of the panels that will be included:

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A new addition to the team

2010-09-18T18:21:00.000-07:00

We are very pleased to tell you that Lauren Anne Sharp has joined the Dream Solver team as letterer. Lauren is the colourist of Kronos City and Quarantined and the editor of the Survival Stories anthology and we are really happy to have her on board.

We'll be posting some new preview pages from Dream Solver shortly but in the meantime here is another preview panel for your viewing pleasure.

Insomnia ceases trading

2010-08-31T13:39:00.001-07:00

We’re sorry to announce that Insomnia Publications has ceased trading, which means we’ll be looking for a new home for Dream Solver.

In the meantime, a group of writers and artists who were due to have books published by Insomnia are putting out an anthology of short stories entitled Survival Stories. You can order an advance copy and get original pin up art or a portrait drawn by Chris by pledging funds via KickStarter. All profits will go to the Comic Book Alliance.

Dream Solver: The Things Within

2010-05-22T14:33:00.000-07:00

So this post was intended to be written ages ago! I don’t know what happened. I wrote up the whole post, got my partner to check it over and was given a two page list of things to change. I’m afraid the list beat me down and this post fell behind in the ‘To Do List’, but nay more!

This post was going to be written up and shared no matter how long it took me, so here I am, finally.

You know the way that people you meet, events that happen to you or situations you find yourself in become so etched in your mind that they end up being replayed or worked into your dreams? Well, with the construction of Dream Solver, I have been aiming for a similar effect.

Last year, I attended a lecture by the mighty Dave Gibbons. He went over his design planning process for The Watchmen and explained how he had thought about the panels on more levels than simply showing an action or following a narrative. It made me realise that, as a comic artist, you can do so much with panels.

To say the least, my work on Dream Solver has been influenced by other artists, not just in terms of considering the comic’s construction, but also from a stylistic point of view. Since this is my first comic and I’m fresh out of University, I seem to have taken on other stylistic influences like a sponge, including the work of the likes of Chris Weston, Brian Bolland, Dylan Teague, Guy Davis, Cliff Robinson, and any other artist whose comics and books I have found my face in recently.

Some influences are more apparent than others. One panel in Dream Solver is an obvious reference to Brian Bolland’s cover for The Killing Joke, but I really couldn’t help it; the guy is a genius and the cover of the Killing Joke is beautiful, only my panel doesn’t drip with as much menace as Bolland’s joker!

Other influences or homages I like to try and hide, or at least make a little more difficult to spot, so that perhaps a second read or a more careful look at the pages may reveal something you didn’t spot the first time. Happy hunting!

Dream Solver: New Promo Poster

2010-05-21T03:34:00.000-07:00

We've been away a while, as both Luke and I (Chris) have been hard at work making headway with the book. But we recently took some time out to put together a promo poster to take to upcoming conventions. So keep an eye out, as we will be trying to sneak the poster up onto any bare walls we can find.

You will be hearing more from us soon, as we are both preparing "behind the scenes" posts that will feature new panels and snippets from the book.

Dream Solver: The Preview

2009-11-23T14:54:00.000-08:00

A thought from the Artist before you go looking!

Its been a while since we promised a preview of the Dream Solver Novel, I've taken my sweet time with this little set, as you will find when you come to read the rest of the novel this particular scene is a very significant one. we begin with our protagonist deep within the calm state of sleep, as most of you will know from your own dreams, this calm exterior of the sleeper can often hold a troubled mind with dreams hard to tame, things may not make sense and no matter how you may try you dont always get the ending you want. this often leaves us questioning what the hell do they mean?........

As an artist and as my first break into comics i want to get this work right, give Justice and 2D flesh to Lukes imaginarium. So appologies for the lateness and any other lateness that may and probably will occur from here on in. but this stuff will be done right! This is going to be one hell of a ride with this book, when i was given the script i couldnt put it down and still find it hard to leave alone when i re-read for ideas for me its the sign of a damn fine story if ever i did get one!
anyway enough from me. go have a gander! there will be more on that horizon!

Dream Solver on PSP

2009-10-18T15:46:00.000-07:00

We've received some exciting news from Insomnia. Here's the official press release, which explains all:

Insomnia On Demand: Catch the RedEye on PSP™ (PlayStation®Portable)

In the blackest hours before dawn, when all good comic readers were tucked up in bed, the Insomniacs crawled into their dreams.

What were they whispering into the darkness? What did they wish for, lost in the sleep of the innocent?

No less than:

To be able read Insomnia comics anywhere, at any time
Take their entire comics collections wherever they went
To listen to their own music while reading
To navigate pages their own way
To find and buy comics easily and access content instantly from the PlayStation®Store

All this will be on offer for PSP owners in December 2009, with the opening of the Digital Comics Store on the PlayStation®Network.

Red Eyed and bushy tailed, Insomnia Publications will be standing proud on launch day as our critically acclaimed books take their place on the virtual shelves, next to world famous names in comic book publishing.

Insomnia Publications’ graphic novels will be presented in the store as single-issue length chapters, following the publication of the book. The first chapter of every book will be offered free to readers as a “taster” of the story.

Crawford Coutts, Managing Director of Insomnia Publications, says:

“We are incredibly excited to be partnering with Sony in the launch of the Digital Comics Service.

Insomnia is committed to nurturing the very best new art, new writing and new concepts in its original graphic novels and the unprecedented scope of this Comics Store will connect independent publishers and readers around the globe.

The help and guidance we have received from Sony throughout truly demonstrates their commitment to support the medium, the publishers, the readers and the comics industry itself.

Many of our creators are gamers themselves and so were delighted to hear that their work will be offered through PlayStation Network.”

With the first Insomnia titles available right from the December launch, you will be able to:

· Unlock Cages

· Fall into Cancertown

· Dissect the bloody history of the notorious Burke and Hare

With a growing range of titles to choose from and the phenomenal scope of the Digital Comics Store, this is just the beginning..

Notes:

1. The Comics Store will launch on the PlayStation Network for PSP in December 2009

2. Official Sony Press Release

3. For further information, interviews and comments please contact Crawford Coutts, MD

4. Insomnia Publications can be found online at:
Website: www.insomniapublications.com
Blog: www.theredeye.co.uk

“Take my hand, we’re off to never never land...”

2009-10-01T15:34:00.000-07:00

Do you ever wake up wondering why you just had a dream in which you were standing in the middle of a swimming pool listening to an Armenian heavy metal singer deliver a lecture on Dr Who? Or wish you could figure out why you dreamt you were passing bottles of Bacardi Breezer to a cat through a letter box?

Dream Solver is a two-volume graphic novel about the mysteries of dreams and the secrets we might uncover if we were able to decipher their meaning. Written by Luke Foster with art by Chris Wildgoose and lettering by Lauren Anne Sharp, it tells the story of Ione-Rose Young, a 22 year old picture researcher and aspiring photographer, who after having a disturbing, recurring dream about seeing her own death, doesn’t know whether to dismiss it as just another weird dream, or worry that it’s about to come true.

Unable to shake the dream from her mind, she sets out to decipher its meaning, and discovers that by deducing the hidden meaning of her dreams, she can uncover shocking secrets about her family, her friends, and herself.

Volume One of Dream Solver contains four self-contained, but inter-connecting stories: Dying, Friends and Family, Childhood and Buried. In each story, Ione-Rose investigates a different type of commonly-experienced dream, with the help of psychoanalysis student and shoe sales assistant Danielle Carter. Like detectives trying to crack a murder case, Ione-Rose and Danielle hunt for clues that point to the dream’s meaning, follow up leads and even get led astray by the odd red herring or two.

Each time she correctly interprets one of her dreams, Ione-Rose unearths a secret from her past; building to her ultimately discovering why it is that she’s been having such vivid and meaningful dreams, while her twin brother Jacob never dreams at all.

The main characters are:

22 year old, tomboy-ish protagonist who lives in Canterbury with her twin brother Jacob and cat Phoebe. She wants to be a professional photographer and has recently taken a job as a picture researcher at Oberon Publishing, in the hope of getting some of her own photographs published in the company’s consumer and trade magazines. But her boss has dismissed her pictures as “holiday snaps” and is trying to get her to take a tedious editorial job on Cooking and Cuisine World.

She’s had vivid dreams since she was a child and has always been able to remember them in picture-perfect detail. As well as 100% dream recall, she has the ability to move lucidly through different levels of recurring dreams and pick up different clues about their meaning.

24. Dream Solver’s resident dream expert and boffin; think Giles from Buffy The Vampire Slayer except she’s an Essex girl who works in a shoe shop. She can usually be found in The Shoe Shrine in Canterbury city centre, where she helps Ione-Rose investigate and analyse her dreams, while getting her to try on shoes to make it look like she’s working.

Currently undertaking a part-time Masters degree in Psychoanalysis at the University of Kent, she does her course work on her boss’s computer during her breaks at The Shoe Shrine and keeps her dream theory books stashed in a shoe box in the storeroom, which becomes Ione-Rose and Danielle’s unofficial base of operations

22. Ione-Rose’s twin brother. He’s highly-sceptical about his sister’s belief that she can find secrets buried in her dreams, but is willing to help her and Danielle investigate the dreams anyway; vigorously denying that this is because he has a crush on Danielle. Training to be a Chartered Accountant, he contributes to the dream analysis with a healthy dose of pragmatism and an ability to spot and decipher numerical patterns.

That’s it for now. We’ll be updating this blog with more news about Dream Solver and artwork from volume one as it progresses, so check back for more.