Gary Scott Beatty's "Jazz: The Tiki Room" Story Now in Free Online Magazine

Xeric winner Gary Scott Beatty's "Jazz: The Tiki Room" story is featured in the free online magazine MuskegonOnline.NET this month only.

The story, in a modernist retro style, follows jazz pianist Dean Fontessa as he pulls together -- then splits apart -- a five piece combo for a club recently decorated in that happening, new style called tiki. Spin a Miles vinyl and enjoy, dig?

MuskegonOnline.NET
Find the story at the bottom left under the "Fiction" heading. Click on "Jazz: The Tiki Room, written and illustrated by Gary Scott Beatty," click past the ad ("Advertisement. Click here to continue to the article.") and you're there.

Gary Scott Beatty is editor and publisher of Indie Comics Magazine, 64 pages of the best story and art from today's independent comic book creators. His "Jazz: Cool Birth," a murder mystery in a 1957 jazz club with art and typography based on '50s album cover design, earned him a Xeric Foundation Grant. He colors, letters and produces comic books and magazines for a diverse range of companies and has written for Comic Buyer's Guide.

"Through study of album cover design, television program title artwork, and common illustrations used in everything from health booklets to instruction manuals from the ’50s, I attempted to pull readers into the late night jazz clubs of 1957, feeling the music through the visuals," said Beatty.

"Ignoring paint and ink magazine illustration, a left over style from previous decades, I concentrate on the combination of flat and painterly used by artists working with T-squares and triangles, tracing paper, ruling pens and brush, preparing work for rotary letterpresses and similar hands-on intensive printing methods."

Beatty and dozens of other indie comic book creators can be contacted through Indie Comics Magazine.com.