My Little Short Story, "The Shed"

I'm a little behind in posting this, but during last October's APE (Alternative Press Expo), a short story of mine was published in a comic anthology, SIREN. I collaborated with an illustrator and good friend of mine, Bret Hobbs.

Years ago during one of my productive writing periods, I wrote a short story about a young boy who became friends with a shed. Yes, that simple. It was always a story I wanted to return to and luckily for me Bret was in need of such a story. I revised it, handed it over to Bret and only yesterday did I finally see the finished and published product!

The book is beautiful, and I feel so lucky to have "The Shed" in the same book alongside the illustrations of really talented artists:

Frank Lin

Carissa Susilo & Edward Ko

"The Shed" takes place in the small town of Los Arbolitos where a young boy named Tano leaves from school each day to visit a shed. He becomes friends with the shed in the sense that it's a place where his green toy army men can march into battle and rest when wounded, and where he can spend his evenings being the General before he hears the yells of his mother calling for his return. Sadly, the story ends with the collapse of the shed and the isolated death of Tano.

Here are just a few pages from "The Shed" that Bret and I collaborated on. If you want to see the rest and read the story, buy the book!

(Click images to enlarge)

The theme of each comic or short story had to deal with being lured and caught in a different way. "The Shed" was perfect for this theme as there was a definite example of little Tano being lured into going inside a shed that stood like "a viejo, waiting for the desert to collapse him down to his knees".

Again, the book is awesome and recommend anyone that's into comics and great illustration to grab a copy of SIREN. It's available through the website here.