OUT OF THE GUTTER (3) “That Kind of Hunger”

OUT OF THE GUTTER (3)

“That Kind of Hunger”

David Hontiveros / Brian Balondo

[Contained in TRESE: BLOODLINES Volume 1]

For the record: while “That Kind of Hunger” may be the first Solo Fr. Matt story penned by me that you’ll be reading, this isn’t the first Solo Fr. Matt (SFM, as opposed to a DEVIATIONS X-Over/team up) script that I wrote.

When DEVIATIONS launched at last year’s NovKon (in the Far, Far Away Time of the Long Ago), I had already completed first drafts of “Congrego” (aka DEVIATIONS issue 2) and “A Higher Decision of Instinct,” my first crack at a SFM tale, and a closer look at the ways in which the Mercy Seat operates.

But shortly after the Secret HQ event (thanx so much to all you mighty fine folk who dropped by for that), Budjette asked if we could launch the FATHER TRESE title with a more Fr. Matt-focused story.

I had a number of other SFM story ideas bubbling under the surface, and the one that rose to the top was “That Kind of Hunger.” (Or, as I referred to it in the script, the one with Fr. Matt, a couple of demons, and a bunch of rich A-holes.)

Under the “more Fr. Matt-focused” directive from On High, the rest of his Trinity are mentioned, but are firmly kept off-panel.

So, for those of you who may want to see more of Frs. Bronze and Alloy, as well as some other fresh Hilasterion faces, you’ll need to wait for whenever the originally-issue 1-but-now-going-to-be-issue 2 SFM script gets drawn and scheduled for release.

And any dangling plot threads visible at the end of “That Kind of Hunger” will likewise need to wait to resurface sometime in the hopefully foreseeable future...

(Thus are the wages of one of the other directives from On High, the “each issue needs to be a one-and-done.”)

And while the main bulk of the pages were drawn during lockdown by the mighty fine Brian Balondo, the “Hunger” script was indeed written back in the Long Ago, before all this tragic insanity descended upon us…

In a related aside, a first draft of DEVIATIONS issue 3 (“Liberatio”) is also already in Budjette’s Inbox, and DEVIATIONS issues 4 (“Deviatus”) and 5 (the double-length “Pestis”) are very nearly at the “first draft good to go” stage.

Meanwhile, on the SFM front, a particularly angry script, the bulk of which was written during the depths of lockdown (working title: “No Such Thing”), is also nearly at “first draft good to go,” and a script that picks up where “That Kind of Hunger” leaves off (working title: “Beyond the Rivers of Cush”), where we see the fallout of that bloody night at Olazo Elementary School, is gradually formulating at the back of my mind…

All these scripts of course, subject to scheduling based on the release plans from On High…

(Pssssttt… if you want to see these sooner rather than later, then bug Budjette on that newfangled thing called… “social media”? Did I get that right?)

I should also probably mention that the current working title for the SFM book is SANCTUS, and though it’s technically the “Solo Fr. Matt” book, it’s also meant to be a guided tour of the much wider stage upon which the Mercy Seat and the Malevari wage their ongoing war, so we also get to meet a whole lot of other Mercy Seaters in SANCTUS, as well as a host of other characters who color Fr. Matt’s life.

Okay.

I should be posting another OotG text piece soon (what was originally meant to be included along with “That Kind of Hunger”, if its initial release had been in floppy form).

In the meantime though, I’d like to acknowledge the following, for soundtracking the lettering process of “That Kind of Hunger”:

BAUMUSIK

808 State, Best Coast, Depeche Mode, Electric Owls, Propaganda, Rammstein, Ben Salisbury & Geoff Barrow, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Visage, and Xmal Deutschland

And with that said:

Stay safe.

Stay sane.

you can’t drink just six,

Dave

TRESE: BLOODLINES Volume 1 contains both

“That Kind of Hunger” (art by the mighty fine Brian Balondo) and

“Iunctura” (AKA DEVIATIONS Issue 1; art by the mighty fine Marvin del Mundo).

TRESE: BLOODLINES Volume 1 is now available for preorder at the Avenida website.

And while you're down Avenida way to preorder, it would be greatly appreciated if you also check out the Indies section, where you'll find more Dakila in these 'Verse goodies...