Chrysalis, Vietnam by Old College Comics

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CHRYSALIS, VIETNAM

ERIC BRYAN & SOLOMON WILLIAMSON

And they are as my soul that wings its way Out of the starlit dimness into morn: And they are as my tremulous being—born To know but this, the phantom glare of day. -Siegfried Sassoon, “Butterflies”

CHRYSALIS, VIETNAM ERIC BRYAN WRITING

SOLOMON WILLIAMSON ART

D.CASTR COVER GRAPHIC

www.oldcollegecomics.com

Chrysalis, Vietnam. Winter 2013. First Printing. Chrysalis, Vietnam is published by Old College Comics. Copyright ÂŠ 2013 Eric Bryan. All rights reserved. Chrysalis, Vietnam (including all prominent characters featured herein), its logo and all character likenesses are owned and trademarks of Eric Bryan, unless otherwise noted. Old College Comics and its logo are trademarks and copyright of Old College Comics. Except for short excerpts for review purposes, none of the contents of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the express written permission of the copyright holders. All names, characters, and events in this publication are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, or actual events, without satiric intent, is coincidental. Printed in the USA.

Afterword: The book you just bought came so close to not happening. The original concept came to me sometime around April or May of this year, after having become infatuated with Garth Ennis’ Battlefields, and Jason Aaron’s The Other Side. I wrote it in a night and promptly began looking for an artist who could take it on. I found Solomon Williamson. I first ran into Solomon at a comic workshop at the Comic Bug in Manhattan Beach. He was in from out-of-town, for a reason I can’t recall, and showing off some superhero work he’d done. He showed a few of the Old College guys and I his work, and truthfully it didn’t do much for me. We kept in contact though, and he’d tag me on some of the work he was doing. It was then I came upon a landscape drawing he’d done of a sort of strange dinosaur creature crawling onto jungle land out of a lake or lagoon. Then he had my attention.

Based purely on scope and texture, I thought he would be the right guy for the job. After seeing page one, I knew for sure. So we pushed forward with Chrysalis, pages coming in steadily, the pencils and inks fantastic. Then things slowed. I got worried. Completely independent comics can be tricky. Deadlines are generally set well in advance, and teams are generally working for little to no pay. Because of that, life has a tendency to get in the way. Understandably, work-for-hire indie comics are not going to take priority over day jobs, relationships, families, or really anything most of the time. Unfortunately, for Solomon and I, day jobs, relationships, families and really anything all decided to make getting this book out very difficult. It got very tense for the last few weeks before publication, and was not completely ready for the finishing phases until less than twenty four hours before going to press. As a writer, you feel kind of help-

less, as your job, the easiest one, was done months ago. You get frustrated, stressed, and angry over things not going to plan. I am fortunate though, to have had the stellar pages Solomon sent, and the support and expertise of Mike Pallotta’s lettering, to get it done and done well in the eleventh hour. I’m finishing this with about 45 minutes left until absolute deadline (so maybe I wasn’t done after all), and no matter what the circumstances of how this book came to be, I am grateful to my team for their hard, tireless work in getting this out. I’m grateful to see this story in print. I’m grateful it’s a small enough print that Garth Ennis will probably never read this and subsequently sue me. I’m proud of this story, and happy you decided to chance it instead of putting your money towards a Tom Jane autograph or kiss at Jimmy Palmiotti’s kissing booth. It was hard, but it was worth it. -Eric Bryan

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