Tiny Wizards – Comic Preview
On the final day of Dragon Con 2019 I was trawling around Artist Alley and happened to stop for a chat with a writer named Eben Burgoon. He told me about a new project he was working on called Tiny Wizards with Dean Beattie.
Tiny Wizards
The basic pitch – tiny wizards in fast food joints battling for supremacy. Well okay then. I have to say that initial idea put me in mind of Sir Terry Pratchett’s awesome Nome trilogy. That’s no bad thing. Those were my first Pratchett books as a child and hold a special place in my heart.
I’ve been keeping an eye out for this one appearing since that day so I’m happy to say that it is funding now on Kickstarter.
If you are interested, you can hop over there and if you back at any level you can check out the first five pages as a preview. I’ve seen them and I am really looking forward to the rest of the story.
Going deeper
Eben told me that the first issue will set up a lot of the “world” the wizards live in from both the perspective of the full-size non-magical people to the tiny wizards and their Game of Thrones struggles for power. The King that made the decision to bring the realm of Kepta Duona to the human world has lost the confidence to keep the peace.
It will also feature McNugget golems, ketchup packet soldiers, and family betrayal. What more could you ask for.
The initial five pages are really fun with a slightly darker edge thanks to Dean’s art. It kinda put me in mind of early 90’s Nickolodeon shows like Ren and Stimpy or Rocko’s Modern Life.
Interview
Wanting to get a little bit more into things, since I don’t have a full comic to review, I sent Eben some questions which he kindly answered.
Where did the idea for Tiny Wizards come from, was it time spent on the road going to conventions?
You nailed that. Over the years, I’ve been fortunate to drive up and down California a so.many.times. The state is just massive (Ed. – try walking it!) and along the way there are often these really odd and quirky middle of no-where spots along the major freeways. A couple that I know had a lot of direct influence were Bravo Farms and Casa de Fruita. On the way back to Sacramento from pitching B-Squad to Starburns Industries in Burbank — my friend Mike and I stopped at Bravo Farms which is this little roadside town that’s cobbled together quirky rustic oddity. There are tree houses, odd collections of glass bottles, and even a strange tree surrounded by Tonka dump-trucks. They sell specialty cheeses, boutique sodas, fudge, and all sorts of knick-knacks.
Casa de Fruita is this complex of truck-stop meets theme park outside of Hollister California, and its a gas station, fruit stand, diner, hotel, and they all have a “Casa de Diner” “Casa de Burrito” “Casa De Hotel” — there is even a little park area with a little miniature train for kids to ride and you can pan for gold as “Casa de Sluice-a” — it’s a strange little place, but my wife and I make a habit of stopping there on road trips back from my parents house in San Luis Obispo.
How did the collaboration with Dean Beattie come about?
Instagram I’m sure. With my past comic, B-Squad, I was always on the hunt for artists that sort of fit in this “under-discovered” category. Dean was one of the artists that got on my radar rather quickly. Fairly sure one of the first illustrations that got me to click “follow” was an illustration he did of Captain Quint from Jaws paired with Captain Haddock from Tintin. Something about that just sung like a siren to me and I’ve wanted to work with him ever since.
I took some of the money I’d saved up and got Dean enough coin to start on Tiny Wizards — admittedly that was awhile ago. Life has a funny way of disrupting even the best laid plans. I’ve gone through a lot of trials and tribulations in the last year or so, some big ups, some big downs. The world is back to normalizing and I’m ready to give Tiny Wizards full attention it deserves. And Dean’s been incredibly patient through all that and fantastic to work with. I found Dean to be enthusiastic at every turn of the corner and he and his illustration work has made Tiny Wizards a sanguine experience for me. I’m very thankful he loves the spirit of the concept as much as I do.
In the KS campaign you reference Game of Thrones, The Witcher, Willow and Lord of the Rings. Would you recommend Tiny Wizards for anyone who is a fan of those shows/movies?
People who are fans of the fantasy genre will enjoy Tiny Wizards for different reasons, but it’s definitely not that hardcore fantasy experience as much as jamming a lot of the tropes and such into my mad blender and hitting milkshake. I love all those things and they’re definitely going to play influence — Sword in the Stone, Arthurian legends, Chronicles of Narnia, and Harry Potter, too. I’ve consumed all those things and I don’t have any doubt they’ll inform what I want to do as much as what I don’t want to do. Same with Honey, I Shrunk the Kids or Small Soldiers have likely been part of this milkshake. Ultimately, I aim to have the series arrive at a place where it’s not feeling super derivative of any of one of those things — it’s it’s own beautiful chubby unicorn of high fantasy and magical realism.
In the KS campaign you say you want to be like a pixar movie or box of legos, with something for people of many ages. What is the sugested age range of the book? (I don’t want to recommend it as all ages if it’s going to be more Game of Thrones than Willow.)
The Game of Thrones of it is in that there are royal houses that begin to adopt the corporate language of the fast food joints and those forces will struggle against each other, form alliances, and break them. The intrigue of the royals, but in settings that are decidedly not regal. The ultimate language and content is definitely going to be more The Sword in the Stone than Game of Thrones. The idea of Legos or Pixar is far more about how single adults completely enjoy Lego, but are still ultimately found and marketed toward kids. I’ve always loved how a Lego box says range of ages 12-90+. Tiny Wizards’ll probably be PG, like Star Wars or Indiana Jones at it’s most violent or frightening-est.
I’ve had a look at your stretch goals, they are pretty ambitious. Can you tell me any more about the cassette and the role-playing game levels that might encourage people to back?
Stretch goals should be ambitious, right? We could do some really amazing things and over the years I’ve really got the connections to make some of them come to life sooner than later.
The cassette tape would be produced with the help of Starburns Industries, the Burbank based animation studio. The publishing arm SBI Press produced over 2 dozen cassette tapes under the watchful curation founder Simon Oré. They produced incredibly rare and boutique cassettes like Dan Harmon’s rap album “Your New Father”, a tape to help encourage pot plants to grow, and an improvised audio book with people like Neil Gaiman, Greg Proops, and Jeff Davis — to name a few.
The cassette tape of Tiny Wizards would be an audio performance and companion to the first book and we’d get some voice talent to read the story alongside the book. Just like those nostalgic book-on-tape read-alongs many of people in their 30s-40s had as kids.
The RPG would be made in collaboration with a game designer to either create a campaign setting for a popular game system(s) or just make our own game up — this way early fans of Tiny Wizards could make their own wizards and have their own burgers adventures battling sentient ketchup packets and Chicken Nugget Golems. Subsequent issues of Tiny Wizards would always feature a playable adventure setting. Frankly, I love board games and role playing games — I feel like the world of Tiny Wizards is a perfectly setting for a humorous night of gaming with friends.
This place so reminds me of a town in southern CA I visited when hiking the PCT – Clare
Kickstarter
The kickstarter has 18 days to go and they are sitting around 50% funded as I write. I do think this is one that needs to get funded. There are some great perks available. Regular readers of my comic posts will know I’m a sucker for a good kickstarter t-shirt. Eben and Dean have gone one better than that. Tiny Wizards SOCKS! You can also tailor your own perk levels. If you want extra books, the shirt or socks, you can add on to any other tier. There are also stretch goals aplenty should they get that far (and they are pretty ambitious). They include some really neat bits and pieces like upgrades to a larger format and hardback.
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