Script Samples

Below are samples of Kevin Brown's script from our upcoming documentary graphic novel What Follows Is True...Crescent: The Baker Years.  These pages give a rich description of the town in which much of the story takes place.  It also provides a look into part the creative process that goes into this type of project.  

What Follows Is True Script Sample

Living Dark by David Hunt and Kevin Brown

Check out the trailer for the film Living Dark coming soon to theaters by David Hunt and What Follows Is True writer Kevin Brown. 


"Based on the popular "Ted the Caver" Internet urban legend, The Living Dark tells the story of two estranged brothers, reunited for their father's funeral. Attempting reconciliation, the brothers stumble upon the sealed entrance to a nearby cave, where they are slowly forced to confront the true, nightmarish cause of their father's death." -BD



http://newfilmsint.com/promo/livingdark_teaser.html

America's Five Most Haunted Hotels

The Crescent Hotel is now ranked among the five most haunted hotels in the US.  For more information, be sure to visit http://travel.yahoo.com/p-interests-40782813

Thanks So Much!

Just like to thank Steven (Brent) Douglass and everyone at River City Comic Expo for having us out.  Also great seeing our friends Dusty Higgins (SGL: Publishing Pinocchio The Vampire Slayer), Mitch and Elizabeth Breitweiser (Marvel Comics: Captain America, Hulk) and of course What Follows Is True co-creator Kevin Brown (Death Roll, Ink On Wood).  

Thanks to everyone who picked up a copy of my book DomestiCATed: Paths Once Crossed.    If you weren't able to make it out the book is available thru Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/DomestiCATed-Paths-Crossed-Sean-Fitzgibbon/dp/0741465361/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320616296&sr=8-1 
or thru iTunes at http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/domesticated/id476099259?mt=11&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

RIVER CITY EXPO

Just a quick reminder that we'll be signing books this weekend and discussing the up and coming documentary graphic novel at the River City Comic Expo.  For more info please visit 

http://64.246.32.70/~river/

http://lyriacomicexchange.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=13116&sid=8d79c9cdd01e53cc18810bf5c02749ee

http://www.conventionscene.com/2011/09/26/river-city-comic-expo-november-2011/ 

About The Creators

Contributing writer Kevin Brown has had Fiction, Non-fiction, and Poetry published in over 100 Literary Journals, Magazines, Anthologies, and Best Of… Anthologies, as well as having multiple stories turned into Audio Performance Productions.  His two collections of short fiction, Ink On Wood and Death Roll, were published in the Fall of 2010 by Virgogray Press and Lame Goat Press, respectively.  He has won numerous writing contests and competitions, such as the Midnight Sun Fiction Competition, the Touchstone Fiction Contest, and the Baucom-Fulkerson Memorial Award.  He is also the recipient of several fellowships, including the Walton Fellowship for Fiction, the Lily Peter Fellowship for Fiction, and the Arkansas Arts Council Individual Artist Award.  He was nominated twice for the Best American Short Stories, a Journey Award, and three Pushcart Prizes--the most prestigious prize given for short fiction.  He co-wrote the screenplay Living Dark: The Story of Ted the Caver, that was made into a film in 2006, and worked with Linda Bloodworth (creator of Designing Women) on a television pilot, which he helped pitch to FOX, HBO, ABC, NBC, and CBS.  He recently completed a short novel, Invisible Bodies, and a new collection of short fiction entitled, Pulling Wisdom From My Teeth.

Artist/Writer/Creator Sean Fitzgibbon has exhibited work along the east coast and throughout the Midwest.  His work has been displayed in galleries and universities such as the Ellis-Nicholson Gallery in Charleston, South Carolina, The University of Arkansas Anne Kittrell Gallery, Fine Art Center Gallery, and Mullins Library, NWA Community College Shewmaker Center, Collumbia College in Columbia, MO, The ACO Smith-Kelly Gallery among others.  Upcoming exhibits include solo exhibitions at the Pittsburg State University Gallery, Jasper Community Art Center in Jasper IN, Old Firehouse Art Center in Longmont, CO.  


Recent graphic novels he's illustrated include Small Wonders, a comic series with a diverse cast of characters and subtle multicultural themes. http://smallwonderscomics.com/ and DomestiCATed: Paths Once Crossed.    DomestiCATed is made up of three dark short stories that follow a black cat as it ventures into the nefarious underbelly of human existence.  http://pathsoncecrossed.blogspot.com/.  Fitzgibbon has illustrated journals, books, magazines, and newspapers.  His recently did work for Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.    

ON THE AIR WITH RICHARD S DRAKE: Crescent: The Baker Years

Communing With The Dead

Most of my time lately has been spent working on commission projects and research for this documentary graphic novel.  Working on historical projects involves a process that is much like communing with the dead.  It seems that I've spent more time in the last few years with people that are no longer living than with those that are.  When my head isn't buried in my sketchbook, it's buried in old newspaper obituaries, articles, criminal records, microfiche, and cemeteries locating graves of people that are found in this particular book.  

Convention Scene

Be sure to join us for the River City Comic Expo November 5, 2011.  I'll be discussing my up and coming documentary graphic novel as well as signing copies of my book DomestiCATed: Paths Once Crossed.  The Expo will be at 1111 West Maryland Ave. Sherwood, AR (near Little Rock).   For more info please visit the Convention Scene at http://www.conventionscene.com/tag/sean-fitzgibbon/.   

The Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow

Recently I was awarded a residency at The Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow in Eureka Springs, AR to conduct further research for my documentary graphic novel currently in development. This was a fantastic opportunity to conduct interviews and compile more research. Thanks to Mary Jo Rose and all the Dairy Hollow staff, Carol Cooper, Lynn Jacobs, Keith Scales, Rebecca J. Becker, June Westphal, John Cross, the Eureka Springs History Museum staff, Crescent Hotel staff, Eureka Springs Public Library, and everyone in Eureka that has contributed information for this project.

"The Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow is a unique residency program for writers, artists, composers, architects, and chefs in the historic arts village of Eureka Springs, AR."

http://www.writerscolony.org/

Research for Upcoming Graphic Novel

This upcoming documentary graphic novel entitled What Follows is True: Crescent - The Baker Years chronicles the years from 1937 to 1940 of the Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs, AR. A man, Norman Baker, claiming to have the cure to cancer converted the hotel into a cancer clinic.

What took place during these years is unbelievable.

I've been researching this book for the last five years. My wife and I recently traveled to Baker's hometown of Muscatine, IA, to conduct more research. I've conducted interviews with local historians and librarians and scoured numerous special collections and databases. The information found has shed light on this highly controversial figure and taken this true story to dark places I never even anticipated.

These images are of drawings and page layouts for this book as well as research conducted at the Musser Library and Muscatine Arts Center in Muscatine, IA. I've conducted an exhaustive amount of research and we'd like to thanks to Sheila Chaudoin, Fred Kopp, Virginia Cooper and all the fine folks at the Musser Library, the Muscatine Art Center, and Greenwood Cemetery for their help

Crescent: The Baker Years (In Production)

Much of my time lately has been spent on the production of this documentary graphic novel. I thought I'd take the next few weeks to explain a bit of the process that has gone into this project. I first became interested in this story a while back while staying at the Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs, AR after going on an evening ghost tour. Among the stories of hauntings were accounts of ghostly nurses pushing patients in wheelchairs through the halls late at night. My first thought was why would many of the alleged ghosts be of medical staff and patients wandering a hotel's hallways?  My question was quickly answered when the tour guide began telling the story of Norman Baker, a fraudulent "doctor" who turned the hotel into a cancer clinic in the late 1930's. I found the story to be too unbelievable to be true. Skeptical, I ventured to the local library the next morning and learned that Baker and the cancer hospital were accurate points in Eureka's history. However, I was surprised to find that there were not any definitive books documenting these years of the Crescent's sorted history.

I decided to take on the project, and after exhausting the library of its resources, I began visiting the town's historical museum. I made copy after copy of old photos, microfiche, books, newspapers, magazines, letters, and any other related documents I could get my hands on. I scoured historical databases and interviewed people both face to face and by phone that have ties to the hotel and even Norman Baker himself. I spent much time at the hotel, doing sketches, shooting pictures and interviewing employees. I've recently been awarded a residency at Dairy Hollow Writers' Colony to conduct research and work on this project for and extended time in Eureka Springs. I'll explain more about the process from research to final work in upcoming posts.

Different Eras

Just thought I'd elaborate just a little more about the process that goes into this documentary graphic novel. Rendering eerie environments is always a lot of fun and this project is particularly so because I'm drawing from sketches I did while visiting the Crescent Hotel and from old photos and other researched documents. Throughout the book I illustrate exteriors and interiors as it is now (top right and bottom right), as it was during the turn of the century (bottom left), and as it was as the cancer hospital of the late nineteen thirties (top left). We will also visit the abandoned, lurid halls of the hospital/hotel as it lay dormant in the nineteen forties. This is a good story and it is a dark story that needs to be told. I've chosen to tell it in the format I know best.

This is a work in progress but is scheduled to be completed in early 2012.

Rendering Interiors of the Crescent Hotel of the 1930's

These images are preliminary drawings I made of interiors of the hotel as it was during the Baker years. A great deal of research is involved in faithfully representing this late nineteen thirties converted hospital. Because of the heinous events that took place between these two years, Baker saw to it that there was not much photographic documentation of the buildings interiors. However, through much persistence, I've been able to locate the necessary information and visual references from town historians, old newspapers, the library, historical society and the hotel itself to faithfully tell this very dark chapter of Arkansas history in a graphic novel format.

Documentary Graphic Novel In Development

Here are a few of Sean FItzgibbon's sample drawings and under paintings for this recent documentary style graphic novel. The book chronicles the Norman Baker years of the Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. A great deal of research has gone into the production of this book.

The Crescent Hotel first opened its doors in 1886. The hotel closed due to financial difficulties. After reopening as a school and shutting down, it was purchased in 1937 by Dr. Norman Baker and opened as a cancer hospital and health resort.

Dr. Baker had the cure for cancer, but after a short time it became evident that only the new patients were seen walking the hospital grounds. Little did the patients know, their savior Dr. Norman Baker was not a doctor at all.

Though the Crescent Hotel is known to harbor ghosts of nurses pushing wheel chairs and sickly patients walking the halls at night, nothing in its 123-year history is more eerie and bizarre than the events that took place between the years 1938 and 1939.

Graphic Content

In October of 2010 Sean Fitzgibbon gave a visual presentation at the Hot Springs AR Documentary Film Festival October 24th at 1pm. He explained the process of creating a documentary graphic novel from research, story development, panel layout/storyboarding, media choice, and isolating key moments to result in an interesting visual narrative. He also discussed other documentary graphic novels and their relationship to film.

He feature progress on the recent documentary graphic novelWhat Follows is True that chronicles the darkest years of the Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs, AR.  The presentation took place at the historic Malco Theater Complex in historic downtown Hot Springs. 


The Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival is one of the first and oldest documentary film festivals in the world (second only to Amsterdam). In 2008, they had over 1,000 film entries, 400 of them representing 90 foreign countries. 

What Follows Is True

What Follows Is True: Crescent: The Baker Years is a fully painted graphic novel that chronicles the Norman Baker years (1938-1939), the darkest years of the Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.  Though the hotel is known to harbor ghosts of nurses pushing wheel chairs and sickly patients walking the halls at night, nothing in its 123 year history is more horrifying than the events that took place between these two years.  


We first became interested in the story after visiting the Crescent Hotel and going on their evening ghost tour.  The tour guide discussed the sightings that have made the hotel famous, but the most interesting story to us was not the ghost stories, rather the story of the doctor that turned the hotel into a cancer clinic.  


We decided to take on the project and found every item on Norman Baker and the Crescent we could get our hands on.  After exhausting the library of its resources, we visited the historical society and copied old photos and interviewed as many people as we could find that had ties to the hotel and Baker.    We began putting a script together using all the collected interviews photos and other research.  Storyboards were often drawn while scripting the book.  A portion of the story is a recreation of historical events based off our interviews, book and old newspaper research.  We strive for accuracy so this is difficult because the hotel and the town itself looked somewhat different than it does today.