![]() ![]() I moved onto other projects, becoming an artist in the videogame industry, occasionally flirting with the resurrection of the Shihodo property in one form or another. Unfortunately, the line editor ended up leaving-taking their catalog of optioned works with her-and within a couple months she’d disappeared into the dark recesses of another publisher in New York. Nonetheless, it made the rounds to the publishers, and secured an option from the new author imprint of a major publishing house. Completed in 1992, it was as epic as ever, edgy as hell, with all the hallmarks of so-called cyberpunk literature of the time, but a decade past Gibson’s Neuromancer and swimming in borderline toxic twentysomething attitude. While I exercised my humor in the Zingo comic strip in local Bay Area newspapers, Stilt and the Shihodo gang occupied a series of epic, dystopian science fiction graphic novel projects, which, for a variety of financial or timing-related reasons, were never ultimately published.įinally in 1991, after moving to Seattle-away from my contacts in the Bay Area comics world-I decided to take a break from writing an action-horror series and novelize the script for the most recent manga-style graphic novel that artist Mark Cordell Holmes and I had attempted. Stilt began as a doodle at a friend’s kitchen table, and ended up leading a motley crew of martial arts action heroes in various graphical incarnations.įor reasons only my fellow writers know, good characters become an addiction, and these made up a crazy roster inspired by too much 1980s Japanese animation and an obsession with Frank Miller’s Daredevil and Wolverine runs. The SAKURU property (formerly Shihodo, formerly Inner Circle, formerly The Underground) has been in development in one way or another since about 1982, when a martial arts vigilante called Stilt appeared in the underground comic publication, Zingo Magazine. He also creates book covers and marketing art for fellow authors and corporate clients, and has done voiceover work for Microsoft and the Seattle Seahawks Pro Shop.Widowed to cancer in 2005, Downing remarried in 2009 and currently enjoys an empty nest in Port Orchard, Washington, with his wife, a nihilistic cat, and a flock of unruly chickens. The father of two adult children, Downing spent several years in the videogame industry, working on games such as Spider for the Playstation, Allegiance for the PC, and Casino Empire. He has written for stage, screen, comics, audiodrama, short-form and long-form, interactive and narrative, in a career spanning three decades. His first feature film, a supernatural thriller entitled Project, was included in a PBS young directors series in 1986. A fixture in the Seattle indie film community, he is the co-creator of the superhero-comedy webseries The Collectibles, and the screenwriter behind The Parish and Ordinary Angels (which he also directed). Todd Downing is the primary author and designer of over fifty roleplaying titles, including Arrowflight, RADZ, Airship Daedalus, and the official Red Dwarf RPG. Now this band of outcasts, misfits and freaks must trust the patronage of a powerful CEO to uncover the dark underbelly of a world where doing the right thing will get you killed, and greed is god.įrom Todd Downing, author of CALICO KIDS and the AIRSHIP DAEDALUS series, SAKURU is an epic manga-influenced cyberpunk street opera where future tech and dystopian society meet the eternal struggle of community, family, and humanity. Using their wits, grit, and a brotherly bond, a social crusader with chemically-altered DNA, an ex-cop with a conscience, and a scrappy mechanic assemble a rag-tag team of specialists from across the social spectrum and the globe. When a new drug floods the streets, some local vigilantes find themselves caught between protecting the innocent and the blind greed of corporations seeking total control. In the cold, uncaring shadow of a crowded city, the forgotten claw out a meager existence.
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