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![]() A NEW TITLE FROM CHRIS McKINLEYADULTS ONLY — RABBIT VALLEY® COMICS
You're smart, healthy, and surrounded by friends. You've got a good job, a
nice car, and you live in the city where anything goes. You've got
everything you could ever wish for. ![]() Meet Charles Albright, who's seen it all before—or so he thinks. Go with him to a place where love, sex, and everything in between seem new again, for a change. In Coyote River, an adult comic series written and drawn by Chris McKinley (artist of Associated Student Bodies), rediscover what it felt like before you had the world all figured out. |
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Teaser promo | Episode 1: "Great Wide Open" |
Episode 2: "The Straight and Narrow" |
Episode 3: "Don't Fence Me In" |
In case anybody's curious, I did base Coyote River Ranch (the layout and setting, at least—not the gayness of it all) on a couple of real guest ranches I went to with my family when I was a kid. Google Earth junkies like me will be pleased to note that there's now high-res imagery of both these ranches—Triangle X Ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyoming:
...And Elk Mountain Ranch in Buena Vista, Colorado, near the Collegiate Peaks:
Up till now, I've just been going by hazy memory from when I was 12 or so; but now I can see how these places were actually laid out, for example the oval-shaped loop of cabins at Triangle X in the lower right of the image, which the kids there used as a soccer field (which is why I put something similar in the comic, though I misremembered the exact shape).
This might not be of interest to anybody except me, but well, I think it's fascinating. So nyah.
...Oh yeah: Issue 4 is coming. I'm still laying out the pages and finalizing the plot points, but I intend to start pencilling pages within a week or so.
—Chris
The cover(s) are colored, the curly quotes are all made consistent, and everything's all shipshape to ship. Well, except that it's still "Coming Soon" to Rabbit Valley's online store, along with the rest of the Spooo Presents new additions. Keep an eye out for general availability within the next few weeks!
—Chris
Shading's done.
Boy, you know, shading used to be the briefest phase of doing one of these things. Once I was done inking, I could look forward to an easy couple of weeks of roughing in four or five pages a night with chunky blocks of gray. But now, somehow, shading has turned into as painstaking and time-consuming a task as the initial drawing and inking. Six whole weeks it took this time. Yikes.
But I'm happy with it. People are saying that it's already looking hugely more cool than even the previous CR issues, what with the deeper and richer shadows and the firelight effects and so on; and I'm definitely feeling more confident about things like mountains and buildings, though I did cheat my way out of drawing any horses in this one. I think I can attribute a lot of improvement to that Queerman thing I did a few months ago; it gave me lots of practice in lighting and shading techniques that I never would have otherwise had the chance to fool around with. There aren't too many glowy death beams up in the mountains.
Anyway: now I just need to come up with a front and back cover, and then this thing'll be done. At least until I get cranking on #4.
—Chris
Just thought everyone should know—I finished inking issue #3 last night. Jeez... took long enough, huh? I'm getting the feeling that there's a pattern forming here: if it takes place over the holidays, inking an issue takes me about three full months. More if it's a longer-than-normal issue, like #3 is: 40 pages.
I think it's worth it. This one's pretty crunchy. It's all character-development-y and stuff. Plus like eight consecutive pages of sex.
I've also written out the outline for #4, which is the end of this story arc, though whether it's the end of the series remains to be seen. Considering that I wrote it all up just this morning, and that it's all been filtered from brain to paper since seeing "that movie" (which wasn't the case for any of the previous issues), it's inevitably going to involve some slightly more maudlin moments than I'd planned previously, though also some aspects of various characters have been respectively roughed up and sanded down in order to tease them in certain directions that I think are necessary to keep this story both a) unique and b) competitively satisfying. (I'm going to be all the more sensitive to any similarities, no matter how slight or unintentional, for some time now... and in no small part because that damn movie really got to me.)
I'm rambling. Short version: #3 inking done, shading beginning, AnthroCon release. #4 outline done, and I shall now proceed to somewhat morosely ponder the future.
—Chris
I just saw Brokeback Mountain for the first time last night.
I just thought it was worth documenting that event, because otherwise nobody would ever believe that I didn't just rip it off completely in writing Coyote River.
Jeezum crow. Everything right down to the boss's trailer and the barrel-riding cowgirl. %^!#$^.
—Chris
Hey! Here's something I bet nobody saw coming (especially Lance). Go buy it and make the sexy time!
—Chris
I just finished the pencils for Issue #3. And look—I'm ahead of schedule by like six days from where I was last year! Considering that I did a whole other comic in the interim, that's more of a feat than it sounds like.
This issue doesn't have any Buck/Charles sex. No! Wait! Don't go! I don't mean there isn't any sex. In fact, and not to give away spoilers, there's more in this issue than in either of the previous two. Just not between the two main characters. I hope that's okay.
This one's mostly about character development, anyway, and in some perhaps surprising places. As for our protagonists, let's just say that it's a shame that the booking at the ranch is only for a week, because time sure flies when you're having fun...
—Chris
One of the largest clearinghouses for furry-targeted comics is Rabbit Valley, a Massachusetts-based comic-book publisher and seller with a big booth at Anthrocon. Proprietor Sean Rabbitt (yes, that’s his real name, and no, the irony is not lost on him) carries everything from innocent Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd work to more explicit titles — which, he says, are quite popular. Coyote River features the adventures of Charles and Buck, wolf and rabbit farmhands whose sexual adventures compromise their work on the farm. In Service with a Smile, a panther named Kaput encounters two randy “men” on his break at HickDonalds.Great—they made it sound even more like Brokeback Mountain than it is.
All material © 2005 Chris McKinley. All rights reserved.