The comic is coming along nicely…..well not to nice. Carlos has been hard at work writing while I’ve been penciling. here’s a panel form page 4 of the Dark New World zombie comic. Just a taste of the carnage of new landscape found in Las Cruces after the zombie infestation.

In this new chapter of Carlos Parra’s “Dark New World“. You will be introduced to many new characters. Enter “The Carnies“, a group of marauders who have survived the initial zombie infestation that hit Las Cruces, NM. “Sometimes the monsters do have smiles on their faces.” Here are my first character design sketches of  ‘The Carnies” for the upcoming zombie comic book. Carlos wanted the feel of  “A Clock Work Orange” mixed with creepy looking carnies. I was given sketch samples of their different pained faces, from there I designed their looks. At this point, the Carnies as individuals do not have names. Which I think actually makes them a bit scarier.

I’m currently workings the first few pages of the comic book. The Carnies are making a huge impact in the lives of the survivors. In the future I will post some of the sequential page thumb nails, but not too many. Don’t want to give away the  story.

Carnie in a zombie outbeak

Dark New World has always been showcases and hyped  very well in Las Cruces. The Newspapers have always giving the movie a lot of press from the casting to the premier. But last Monday I was interviewed for a well known magazine called Living In Las Cruces. This was a little different, because I able to plug the comic book. I feel like a kid talking about Christmas and the presents I’ll be getting when I talk about comics. There is a special place for comics in my heart. Anyway after the interview I started sketching a carnie and then playing in Photoshop So here is a teaser of my rendition a Carnie in DNW. When I created the Carnies, I had inspiration from my favorite media’s; Comics and Movies. So there is a little… I better wait until the comic comes out. Enjoy!!

Finally cleaned my office and added a drafting table top so I can Illustrate the Alternative covers to the Dark New World Comic!

Drawing COMICS!!!!!!!!!!

Apple, Painter X and a Wacom

Toys and Swords

Here are some quick sketches I’ve done of some zombies. To help keep the Dark New World zombie comic book fresh and new, I decided to sketch out a bunch of zombie faces. This way I can pick and choose which ones I want to use in the comic. I don’t just want a bunch of stereotypical bland zombies. My goal is to have over 50 different zombies already designed for the comic when I start penciling the sequential pages.

I’ve been looking at people to get ideas for the different looking zombies. I’ll be at the mall or the gas station, making sure to look at the characteristics of all the different people. So basically I’ve been people watching and re-imaging them as zombies.

I’ve tried to make them retain some of the human characteristics, but still bring the horror I feel when I think of zombies. With some rotting flesh, biting jaws and dead eyes. I’ll be posting more of my zombie sketches in the weeks to come.

- Ralph Contreras

I meet with a great client this afternoon and learned a bit of Chicano History today. The client informed me about the Brown Berets, what a wonderful opportunity to introduce this to the readers. One of our new Heroes in Dark New World is Chicano and served in the military. I’m kind of thinking of including this into Dark New World.

It’s official! The critically acclaimed independent zombie horror film “Dark New World“ by writer/director Carlos Parra will continue it’s story as a comic book. The comic will be written by creator Carlos Parra and penciled/digitally inked by Ralph Contreras. The story will take place after the events of the original film. We’ll see some familiar faces like Sam & Kat, and the introduction of new characters to the Dark New World mythology

This website/blog was created to keep all fans of the DNW story up to date with the progress of the comic book. We will be posting new developments to the story, character design sketches,  script updates, and the latest news about this exciting new comic book.

We’ve also set up a Fan Mail Page where you can message us your thoughts of the comic book and it’s characters. Don’t forget to go to to our Store section, where you can purchase the comic book and all the other cool merchandise for the DNW comic.

So check the site regularly as we’ll be updating it often with all the cool developments to the ongoing Dark New World story.