Brandon M. Easton
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Brandon M. Easton is a comic book creator, most notably remembered for working with Dreamwave Productions on the short-lived title Arkanium. The series, which was originally slated for a 12-issue run, was shortened to 8-issues, and then to 6-issues.
Easton was not informed of the changes in the book because of alleged miscommunication with the production staff at Dreamwave. Easton continued writing the series as if it was going to have the original amount of time to develop. After Easton finished issue #4, Easton learned that Arkanium was to be shortened. He was forced to go back to completed scripts to condense almost five issues of material into only two issues. Since Arkanium was going to be only 6-issues, the story had to be dramatically altered in order to have it make sense for the readers.
Arkanium was cancelled on the basis of low sales after issue #5 was released.
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[edit] Fallout
With Arkanium cancelled, Easton lobbied heavily for more work from the company. During the Arkanium incident, Easton was commissioned to write one issue of Transformers: Armada for distribution into the national comic book retail program known as Free Comic Book Day. Since Easton was a life-long fan of the Transformers comic books and TV shows, he considered it a dream come true.
Despite positive responses from the target audience, Easton was not given any more work from the company.
Easton set his sights on getting work at other established comic book companies like Marvel Comics and DC Comics, but editorial decisions and a shrinking marketplace hampered Easton's chances at achieving more work in the industry.
[edit] Creator-owned work
Easton adapted a previous screenplay of his into Shadowlaw, a four-issue limited series to be released sometime in early 2007.
Easton recently reported that Shadowlaw has been viewed by several prominent publishing companies. After going through 5 previous artists, Easton met with Kansas City-based colorist/penciler Scott Kester who shared many of his artistic and pop culture influences. Scott had been the first artist Easton met who actually was excited about the project and wanted to see it through completion.
According to Easton, other artists were unreliable, lazy, amateurish, or incompetent. Scott seemed to be honest and hard-working, qualities that Easton wanted in a collaborator. Recently, Scott and Easton travelled to the Wizard World Comic Book convention in Chicago and received positive reaction to the new art in the proposal and are currently making the decision of what publishing deal would be best for all parties involved.
[edit] BIO
Brandon was born on May, 31st, 1974 in Baltimore, Maryland. Raised by a single mother in a lower-middle class family, Brandon learned to value educational success at an early age. Using his Army veteran grandfather Joseph as a role model, Brandon did not allow any negative influences from his neighborhood to distract him from his goals of going to college.
When the crack cocaine epidemic hit Baltimore in the late 1980's, Brandon saw his neighborhood turn into a drug-addled warzone practically overnight. As a side note, Baltimore's violent and widespread drug problems have been the subject of several TV series like Roc, The Corner, Homicide: Life on the Street, and HBO's The Wire.
The drug problems in the city deeply affected his family (Easton does say that none of his family members indulged in the crack scene), and Brandon was unable to cope with the reality of the situation, working long hours in part-time jobs and spending as much of his free time as possible with his inner circle of best friends.
In 1992, Brandon was accepted to Ithaca College in Ithaca, NY as an undecided major. Because of various familial problems at the time, Brandon was practically alone in college; having to deal with financial aid, large student loans, and a racially hostile campus where he was one of the few African-American students completely on his own with no support from home or otherwise.
Easton originally wanted to go to Ithaca because of the school's reputation as having a fantastic communications program, however, Easton was never able to afford the high costs of the film program, and his GPA fluctuated several times, rendering him inelligible for admission to the film school. Despite a few years of problems on campus, Easton eventually decided upon the Sociology major and graduated in 1997.
Easton then moved to Boston, Massachusetts in the summer of 1997. Seeking better career opportunities, distance from his familial problems, and pursuing a relationship with a woman he dated in college, Easton felt that he had no place in Baltimore anymore. Easton lived in Boston for a few years, working as a web-reporter, newsletter editor, and video store clerk, before deciding to apply to Boston University to pursue a Master's degree in filmmaking.
Easton was accepted into Boston University's screenwriting MFA program in the Fall of 1999. Finally able to study filmmaking, Easton managed to network with alumni who currently had solid careers in Hollywood. Easton graduated from the program in 2001.
Easton stayed in Boston for a little while longer, working at the Boston Herald newspaper as an Arts & Entertainment reviewer and as a computer consultant at Harvard Business School. Soon, Easton realized that he wasn't going to be making any tremendous career leaps staying in Boston. Finding Boston to have a vicious racist culture with a lack of overall opportunities for writers, Easton decided to move to New York City in February of 2002.
Since then, Easton has been working as a public school teacher, first for three years in the Bronx, now in Harlem at the Thurgood Marshall Academy.
