Answering to History

Issue #3 of editor and cartoonist
Shing Yin Khor's "Blood Root" anthologies.

 In 2014, I created Jezinkas, a 17-page comics adaptation of a Bohemian folktale about witches who stole people's eyes.  It was in response to a call for intelligent horror stories to be included in Blood Root #3 by Sawdust Press.  Blood Root is a really great anthology and, though the print version is sold out, you can obtain a pay-what-you-want digital download of the book HERE. 

Jezinkas is my only fictional comic in print, to date.  It was fun story to build because I got to draw things like people turning into wolves, owls without eyes and other visually astonishing scenes that don't occur in my life naturally.  The best part, though, was that I didn't have to check and double-check facts, scour and question my memories or consider the impact of my work on people who might be effected by my telling of a real-life story.   

Illustrating Rock History 

Enter comics journalism.  I love the Pacific Northwest's rich music history. When nostalgia drove me to illustrate the building that once housed the OK Hotel, lovers of the now-defunct music venue urged me to draw more.  

Panel from the history comic
of Hollywood's Club Lingerie.

I began interviewing people connected to the OK and drew my first history comic.  It was terrifying because I didn't want to misrepresent anything.  Not all details can be verified.  People had different versions of the same night or notorious story.  I chose to frame episodes as either my own personal take or in the context of "this source said..."

It's how I came to comics.  I created two more venue histories - for Albuquerque's Dingo Bar and Hollywood's Club Lingerie - and now I'm working on an abbreviated comics history of a 4th venue for publication soon.  I haven't been able to reach everyone I wanted to vet, but I'm doing my best to be true to facts and the spirit of the club's history.

My Story Is. . .Well. . .My Story.

Autobiography may share nonfiction status with comics journalism, but I'm coming to it with a little more confidence.

I don't have to research the plot points, for one thing.

Panels from my comic
chronicling the history of the
Chicago Picasso

I will proceed very, very carefully in choosing how to frame where my life intersects with others, though.  And I will never adopt the voice of authority in reporting on historical moments.  There are tragedies in my life, for example, that effected A LOT of people, and everyone involved experienced those events in their own way.  Or, as anyone who has been through a break-up can attest, different people have different views on shared experiences. 

The best thing I know to do is present my story as my story - personally impactful, potentially flawed and ultimately vulnerable.  But I feel that the insights I have encountered are worth sharing, and the story has been pressing me to be told. 

Girl On The Road posts about comics, publication and community on Tuesdays.

The Anthology Game Part 2

I have great news regarding anthology publication this year.

 

In November of 2013 I became determined to get comics short stories published in anthologies.  I figured this would keep me drawing regularly, get my art out there, sometimes bring in money and ultimate make the case for signing a book deal on a graphic novel.  This post is an update on an earlier post about starting my adventures in publishing that can be found here.

I'm working with a super-secret comics collaborator to create a
story for Rock is Not Dead.

My efforts have resulted in acceptances from nine different projects:  one local weekly paper here in Seattle, two United States publications and six international journals.

Here are some updates you might be interested in:

Canadian Anthology "Rock Is Not Dead" is seeking more stories inspired by rock songs!

One of the publishers I am working with - Canada-based 11th Dimension Press - is putting together an anthology of straight-forward prose as well as comics short stories inspired by rock songs.  NOT ONLY THAT, but they will be having independent bands cover the songs and put out an accompanying CD's.  It's a short turn around, but pitch your stories.

Here is the link to the 11th Dimension Press call for submissions.

 

Only 2 MORE DAYS to pre-order The Strumpet.  Eight dollars gets you A LOT of story! 

The Strumpet is an anthology of women cartoonists that publishes in both England and America, and is currently edited by a fabulous cartoonist in her own right -  Ellen Lindner.  It features over 50 pages of work by 18 female artists.

This is Issue #4 of The Strumpet and it is themed around women's friendships.  I LOVE this because so much of what is represented in the media are not reflective of women's voices or actual experiences around friendship.  The story I created for The Strumpet is the most difficult work of art that I've tackled to date, because I had to smoosh dacades worth of friendship into three pages to tell the story of my friendship with fellow female artist and carpenter, Lisa Mei Ling Fong.

Check out The Strumpet Kickstarter page here.   And if you miss out on the Kickstarter, it will eventually be available on Ellen Lindner's Etsy Page.

Free or "Pay-What-You-Can" International Anthologies

While several of the anthologies I'm working with are still in the process of being published, I have works running currently in two publications that you can access for free.

Outre Press out of Norway is a free online journal that features themed issues.  Issue #4 is "Silence" and can be downloaded here.  They ran a super sweet Creator Spotlight for me on their blog here.

While I only did a 1-page illustration for Outre, I created a 17-page rendition of a dark Czech folk tale for Blood Root #3, which also features work by Haan Lee, Ram V and Kishore Mohan.  You can purchase the lovingly designed print edition here.  You can also find free and pay-what-you-can titles from Sawdust Press here. 

Well, there is SO MUCH GOING ON in Seattle comics right now, and so much more in motion with anthologies, that I could keep writing forever.  However, until next post. . .



C-log posts on comics, publication and community that publishes on Tuesdays.

Kickstarting Comics! Release Party For Gone Girl Comics #2

Lots of News...

...at Gone Girl Comics central this last month.

• The Gone Girl Comics Kickstarter campaign closed at 260% funded.  I promised to do a breakdown of my Kickstarter experience, which I'll do at the end of this post.
• So, Gone Girl Comics - Issue #2 will be hot off the press this week.
• I was unable to attend the Short Run comics festival, even though I had been accepted as a participant.  This was depressing as hell, BUT
• I will be debuting the comic THIS THURSDAY, December 4th, at Couth Buzzard Books in the Greenwood district of Seattle.

Gone Girl Comincs - Issue #2 Release Party

The event is actually a poetry reading, called What's The Word, where I'll be performing spoken word, talking about comics and selling books.  If you are in Seattle, come on by, it starts at 7:30.  If you write, bring something for the open mic as well.  I'll be doing a feature set at some point in the evening.

In addition to having Gone Girl Comics Issues #1 and #2, I have copies of Blood Root #3 available.  It features my 17-page adaptation of a Czech folk tale, Jezinkas, as well as works by artists from India, England and New York.

Funny story--both the new Gone Girl Comic and Blood Root #3 have crows and ravens on the covers!  Total coincidence, but it makes me happy.

You can find the full event details here.  I'd love to see you there!
 

The Anthology Game:  Outre Press #4 - Silence

This FRIDAY, December 5th, Norway-based Outre Press will be releasing their 4th issue, FREE online at http://outrepress.com/ .       This issue is based around the concept of "silence" and I was invited to contribute an illustration.  I will have a free postcard announcing the new issue of Outre at my performance on Thursday night.

Outre did a "Creator Spotlight" for me, as well, which was sweet.

I have some good news regarding anthology publication, but I'm going to wait and share it a little bit later.  Check back next week for a full update on The Anthology Game.  (You can read my original post about why I'm engaging anthologies as extensively as I am here.)

So About That Kickstarter...

 

I am incredibly grateful to the amazing group of people who backed the Gone Girl Comics #2 Kickstarter campaign!  I've added a "Thank You" page on my website here.

I feel incredibly lucky that my campaign actually exceeded goal.  My original goal was actually a little too close to the bone to do everything I wanted to do.  

I promised to spill all of my secrets about running the campaign, so here are my insights, having never done it before:

• It's work.  Setting up, running, and following up on the campaign is amazingly time consuming, and it ate up a lot of the energy I had intended for actually drawing!  Theoretically, I could have temped for a couple of weeks and made the same money.  But what I loved about it is it gave me an opportunity to reconnect with people from many of my networks, and raise awareness about my new direction: Comics.
• Listen to your friends who have done it before.  Mine told me to raise my goal and set the benefit of a personalized drawing at a slightly higher benefit level.  I should have done both.  About the drawing:  people natural give at $25, it seems, so the drawing would have been a better incentive at one level up...and I have A LOT of drawings to do now (which is great, I love it, I will be so warmed up for my next story!)
• Double-check that budget.  I would have LOST money on the campaign if I had placed the goal as low as I originally planned--due to the cost of mailing printed materials.  I double-checked my actual costs, but still kept my goal minimal, because if I failed....well, first it would just look bad.  And I wouldn't have been able to print anything at all.  
• Do a better video than I did.  My decision to run a campaign was based on a sudden need in a short timeline, and I taught myself iMovie in one day to create my video.  It's not Oscar-worthy.  Should I ever do a Kickstarter in the future, I will get a videographer and do it right.
  
• Communicate personally.  I was surprised that 15% of my funders were actually strangers who found my project through the Kickstarter website.  The rest of them were almost entirely people I sent personal messages to, inviting them to back the project.
• Don't freak out too early.  I tried really hard to NOT be annoying in how I communicated about my campaign.  I attempted to not just hammer social media to death, but post every now and then and send about 10 emails a day.  Half way through the campaign, I panicked and sent out about 140 emails.  It definitely spiked my donations, but I'm not sure the results would have been any different if I had kept it slow and steady.  I think I even lost some potential backers because they saw I hit my goal already, early.
• The 30% idea:  Several blogs I read say that if you hit 30% in the first half of your campaign, you're golden.  I don't know if it's true, but if you can line up for-sure backers to cover 30% on the front end, it can't hurt.

I have A LOT of people to thank.  I was even going to thank everyone who shared the video, but it's actually impossible to keep track.  I do want to give a shout out to inktart.org and The Comics Grinder for running articles on my campaign.  It was really an intense experience, and I'm excited that it resulted in printed books that people can hold in their hands and enjoy!

Thank you!  Until next time...

C-log posts on comics, publication and community that publishes on Tuesdays.

Kickstarting Comics! Gone Girl Comics #2 Takes Flight.

Cover Image for the Kickstarter video.
Come on over to the campaign site and check it out!

Last week, I started a new chapter in my creative life.  I launched a Kickstarter campaign for Gone Girl Comics #2.

It was something of a last-minute response to the theft of my portfolio that I wrote about earlier.  I planned to partially fund the printing of Gone Girl Comics in time for the Short Run comics festival here in Seattle with the sale of the artwork inside.  With that gone, and time ticking (Short run is November 15th!) I decided to bite the bullet and launch the campaign.

 

And so it began: Gone Girl Comics #2 and & The Lost Originals! 

It launched exactly one week ago, and - as of this morning- is funded at 60% !!

 

The internet is rife with articles on how to run a Kickstarter, and Kickstarter themselves offer excellent "How To" guides, but my super-secret weapon is the expert advise of fellow cartoonists who have run significantly larger Kickstarter campaigns and lived to tell the tale.

I promise to spill all my secrets about running a successful Kickstarter campaign.  If my campaign is a success.  I still have two more weeks - until October 27th @ 10 PM Pacific Standard - to find out. 

What I CAN tell you already is this:

For a once-upon-a-time Slam Poet
I  had a rough time with my
video voice - over.

• I simply didn't have time to get a videographer, so I taught myself Garage Band and iMovie and made my own video.  Should I ever crowd fund again, I will get some professional help.
• I set my goal realistically, but did a cost-benefit analysis.  Glad I did, or I would have LOST money on meeting my original goal due to the cost of mailing printed material!
•  I have been sending out personal emails and FB messages to folks every morning, asking them to support.  I'm keeping track of people who share my video as well as those who give.  Non-cash supporters will be thanked as well

I did do one unconventional thing, which is launch my Kickstarter and drop off the grid for three days - no phone, no internet access.  I was OK with it.  I figured, no need to make a pest of myself at the beginning of my campaign, and when I come back I'll see if the campaign has legs of it's own.

Happily, on my return it was nearly 50% funded, and so now I will be here, at my computer every morning for a designated amount of time.  Designated, because otherwise this will eat up my entire attention span, and I won't get any drawing done. 

The cover from Blood Root #3.
I have a 17-page story in this issue,
and am offering it as one of the benefits
in my Kickstarter campaign.

So come on over to the Gone Girl Comics #2 & The Lost Originals Kickstarter page.  With you're help I'll write about the successful campaign in two weeks.  And you know you want to have an awesome comic published with your name on it!

A Quick "Anthology Game" Update

 

Back in July I wrote about beginning my adventures in seeking publication credits, in a blog I titled "The Anthology Game."  At that time I had three comics accepted for publication in anthologies.  Now I'm up to 8 new projects and hope to have some stunningly good news on that front SOON.

Tune in next week and I'll give you the full story, including listing new calls for submissions that I am aware of as well as what I've learned moving forward so far.

C-log posts on comics, publication and community that publishes on Tuesdays.

Serbian Anthologies, Stolen Art & Other Stories

The poster I designed for Seattle Busker Week. 
Check out their full schedule Here.

If you hadn't noticed, Gone Girl Comics has been....gone, for a late summer hiatus.

Much of is has had to do with the unusually sunny weather here in the Pacific Northwest coinciding with being given access to an honest-to-god log cabin to renovate in a huge forest on Whidbey Island.  This is amazing, because I am a below-poverty-level artist right now and the gift of a rugged but amazing place to escape to is beyond surreal.  I have spent weeks cleaning and repairing the cabin, and harvesting huckleberries and wild chanterelle mushrooms.  Which leads to extensive, long baking and cooking sessions.

Then there is paid work.  The poster for Seattle Busker Week was part of that, and--if you are in Seattle, you can see artwork in The Seattle Weekly and also attend the festivities.  Combine that with drawing on intense deadlines for comics anthology submissions, and my blog schedule got thrown off a bit.

Image of "Chicago Picasso" in the SKULPTURA? anthology.

But behold!  The submissions have been paying off!  Not only have I been accepted for publications in seven new projects this year, but some of them are actually in print now, including SKULPTURA?, a comics anthology centered on Sculpture that I wrote about last month HERE.  My story "Chicago Picasso" is in it.

I was just informed that only 300 books were printed, and they were distributed to attendees of the 16th Biennial of Art Pančevo in Serbia.  So, it looks like my one contributors copy is all I'll have...and I'm going to cherish it and guard it with my life.

This image, which launched my
comics career, was among
those in my missing portfolio.

Unfortunately, I should have had the thought "guard it with my life" stuck in my head much earlier, as I foolishly left one of my portfolios at a restaurant in Downtown Seattle after a client meeting.  Though I noticed it missing just a few minutes later, when I went back to the restaurant (Tulios) it was GONE.  I filed a police report and have been checking online, where people sell art...in it was the original first page of "Chicago Picasso" along with some work that was very dear to my heart.

I created a Facebook album for the stolen images.  You can view it HERE.  If anyone comes across something--my style is fairly recognizable--do let me know!  But I fear these are gone.  Live and learn.

RETURNING TO THE POSITIVE, I look forward to posting more about new creative pursuits and anthology publications.  The next publications to come out will be Indie Ladies Comics 2014 - Blush, as well as an illustration I did for Outre #4 and then Blood Root! 




C-log posts on comics, publication and community that publishes on Tuesdays.

Blood Root: Free Download of Intelligent New Horror Comic

This week, an independent press out of Los Angeles introduced an awesome new contribution to field of contemporary horror comics.  It's called Blood Root, and it's being produced by Shing Yin Khor of Sawdust Press.

Shing is an artist in her own right, creating comics such as Center for Otherworld Science and autobiographical short stories, as well as fine art sculptures of creatures she calls "Gravebeasts."  The Gravebeasts are alarmingly cute despite their nomenclature (You can find images of them here), which seems to be Shing's driving aesthetic.

You won't find slasher fiction or torture porn in the pages of Blood Root.  Instead, Shing has curated works that represent "a very specific type of horror . . . slow, moody and psychological" consisting of "a bunch of strange little stories with amazing art and a diverse range of characters, by a similarly diverse slate of creators."

The title itself is the popular name of the flowering plant Sanguinaria.  "I wanted to name the anthology after something both sweet and sinister, and a pretty and poisonous flower fit the bill."  The stories themselves range in subject from seemingly shape-shifting sea creatures to Haitian Vodou traditions.

From "The Family That Eats Together" by James Neish

I contacted creator James Neish regarding his heartbreaking contribution to Blood Root.  (You can visit his Facebook artist page here.)  He said he "wanted to dedicate something to Hayao Miyazaki in his year of retirement, so this short comic is inspired by his work, which has molded my approach to storytelling through the years."  James currently lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia but met Shing when they attended school together in the Philippines.  

I've never met Shing Yin Khor in person.  I've only corresponded with her via the internet, regarding a story I submitted for consideration in Blood Root.  I'm already impressed, though, by her inclusion of truly diverse artists representing a variety of styles, from a variety of countries, and her professionalism in dealing with me as an artist is even greater inspiration for me to step up my game as a comics creator.
 
Blood Root Number One is available online as a pay-what-you-want (even free!) digital download here.  If you're like me, and enjoy holding stories in your hand in a print publication, you'll be able to purchase a beautifully printed edition for $8 here after the 4th of July.  Which reminds me of another vital bit of information:  Blood Root contributors get paid a healthy licensing fee for their stories, so know that your payment goes to supporting good artists!

I'll be writing about Blood Root again in the future, and I definitely want to further explore the idea of how the internet is creating a comics community without borders or boundaries.  So come back later and join me in exploring that topic.

Until then, go check Blood Root Number One out!

Quick Update:  I almost neglected to mention that this issue of Blood Root has a lovely, scientific illustration of the Sanguinaria plant by hometown Seattle artist Angela Boyle!