30 Characters Challenger: Martin Brandt

| October 25, 2010 | 1 Comment

My name is Martin Brandt and I love making characters. I live on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, where I create comics, doodle, and work as a desktop engineer in our nation’s capital. I’ve been creating characters and writing stories for as long as I can remember. My early years I spent writing game story lines for friends to play through and coming up with imaginary scenarios to act out. I would also write and doodle my own comics with friends in school. As I progressed through school I turned to writing prose and including people I knew in my stories. It is amazing how addicted people become to their imaginary adventures. Eventually I would learn that this building block is fundamental to the writing process. Writing what you know, who you know, makes things believable and really takes them to that next level. When people identify with what you write it draws them in and they can’t stop reading.

Returning to games I spent my spare time designing game systems with friends and scripting demos together that would never see the light of day. All the while I continued to write stories and doodle characters. This lead to the creation of my first graphic novel, Grim Furry Tales: Seeds. Originally a game idea, my wife pushed me to write more. The project evolved around me and I honestly had no idea where it was going till I held the book in my hand. The return to creating comics hooked me. I instantly came up with the idea of doing a zombie anthology, a genre my friends and I love, Grim Crew Presents: Dead Future was born. The best part of working on comics for me has been the great people I’ve had the pleasure of working with.

Last year I jumped at the chance to join Tyler’s 30 Character Challenge. This year I used characters I created to enter Small Press Idol 2010 with artist Silvina Rinaldi. Our story Stitchwork won cover feature for Mysterious Visions anthology. Recently a doodle on my facebook wall turned into collaboration with Jason Stephens on a new title called Kidthulhu. I’m no “A” game artist but I plan to have fun here and expand the characters in Kidthulhu, Grim Furry Tales, and whatever else comes to mind. Beyond that I enjoy watching other people’s creations come to life and look forward to seeing everyone else’s madness spread across the page.

Dead Future Cover work by Paul Petyo

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  1. Tyler James says:

    Welcome back, Martin. Hope you and the fam have fun participating this year.

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