Mark sends me an email two days ago (Mark Smith, not co-worker Mark) whose subject reads, “Oh Shit!” The body of the note is simply this link.

See, this is the problem trying to get working in this business. You can work for years on something, do a good job, turn out a great script, only to have someone else swoop in with a similar concept and effectively render all your effort useless.

I’m not saying that Blood & Dust is now hopeless. But we’d been developing a comic book as well. My hope was that if we had a completed book, my chances of getting the movie made would be that much better. Mark had been diligent and resourceful (both inspirationally and financially) in getting this thing off the ground and we got an artist to do the work. Unfortunately, all of this was over a year ago. This artist has been very slow in the production of the book. It should have been out by now. He wrote us recently saying he was near completion, but with the arrival of The Wicked West, the situation gets a little muddier.

On the plus side, I’ve got a completed script and almost two completed companion treatments. I’m way ahead of the game. But sometimes, as we’ve been seeing with the delicate skin, all it takes is word to get out that another vampire western is coming to foul up plans for your own.

The jury’s still out. I’ve yet to get in touch with Edgar about this. The case may well be that it won’t threaten us at all, but it’s this sort of thing that lands on my back like a plummeting cinder block and puts grit in the joints of my hands when I sit down to write.

Luckily, if I get really down about it, I can just look at this picture. The kitten belongs to Renata, Rocket Video customer extraordinaire. She brings her kittens in whenever she rents. In this picture, Sara holds “Copa.”

Not pictured is the kitten’s companion, whose name happens to be “Cabana.”