This cup of coffee and I are currently recovering from a long but successful weekend in Seattle for the Emerald City Comicon. Thank you to everybody who came by and said hello! It was a much-needed morale boost for me, here at the tail-end of this Winter of Ultimate Suck.
Thank you especially to everybody who asked me (often aggressively!) when the first Family Man book will be coming out. The answer: as soon as possible. I’ve got several requests out for quotes, and as soon as I receive one that sounds good, I’ll kick into pre-press mode. It’s going to be a lot of work to get it into shape (Dylan of 2006 didn’t quite know what she was setting herself up for…) and I’ll be taking preorders/Kickstarter to help cover the costs.
On to other business:
My lovely friend, sometime-collaborator, and all-around champion YA author and youth librarian Sara Ryan is tackling an excellent project.
She’s in the process of writing a graphic novel to be illustrated by Carla Speed McNeil, and, being a good person, decided to ask all the artists at Periscope Studio about their pet peeves when it comes to comics writing.
I chimed in. I write for myself, I’ve written for others, and I’ve drawn scripts from other people as well, so I am just full of annoying advice!
My first item:
1) Don’t say “Have fun with this!” Unless the writer actually knows what I find fun. “In this panel, we see an elegantly-dressed 18th century intellectual riding a dragon” would, for me, be fun. For somebody else, eye-stabby.
Those of you who’ll be at the Emerald City Comicon this weekend will get first crack at these sweet little 5×7″ giclee prints from my Heifer International series. Come get ’em at Table F-07!
They are easy to frame and easy to love, and they won’t go on sale at my store until after the convention.
If they do well, I’d like to gradually release the whole series in print form and donate a percentage of profit to Heifer. So stop on by!
Heeeey it’s a page. Another bruiser of a week, gang. April! April will be the month where things start to go my way! Oh well, at least Luther seems to be doing well for the moment. We can be confident that will end soon.
But, most importantly, I’ll be in Seattle this weekend at the Emerald City Comicon. Come visit me at Table F-07, right next to Erika and much of Periscope Studio.
I’ll have some snazzy new prints to sell – many featuring cute animals! You want them, I know you do.
And now we’re back to full story pages; a piece from the past. Woo, even a few weeks off and I feel rusty! Soon enough we’ll get back into the present day (well, present day circa September, 1768…) and see what Luther’s up to.
Meanwhile, in case you missed it this past weekend, Erika Moen and I, under the supervision of Bill Mudron and Katie Lane, recorded two solid hours of talk about comics, working as a freelancer, and several other topics beside! I’m editing the podcast version, but you can also view the video Ustream version right here on Erika’s channel. Plenty of questions answered about Family Man!
If you check in here but once a week, please also make sure to keep an eye on this journal or my Twitter feed as I sell off original watercolors (every day possible this month!) to raise money for Heifer International.
And lastly, on the afternoon of the 5th I’ll be at the Legends of Webcomics open house here in Portland with Meredith Gran, Aaron Diaz, that jerk Erika again, and Luke Mahan, selling all sorts of fun and exciting things and, surely, being delightful. Details here!
Hm, I wish I had a little more time to fidget around with this one, but a rampant cold, a sudden and violent rush on Grammar Nerd stickers, and preparing for APE got in the way. But regardless, this page is a change of pace even from all the pace-changing that’s been happening of late. So close to the end of the chapter, guys! Sooooo cloooooooose.
APE! You’ve heard all this before, but just in case you missed it – I’ll be at Table 440 with Kate Beaton l’infame. Topatoco have carefully delineated where we will be on this handy map. Thanks, lads! Bless them and their ways.
I’ll be there all weekend, with the last thirty or so copies of the first printing of Bite Me! (plus special deals for those who pre-order the 2nd printing) and all kindsa merchandise and original art and also I will do sketches for a low low price until my hands fall off. I also have work up at the Cartoon Art Museum.
This is my last convention of the year thank goodness, and it looks to be a very fun one. I’ll see some of you there!
