Dirty Diamonds pitch thumbnails

Pitches, Projects

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Rough thumbnails and title treatment, along with character design exploration for Beth.

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Rough character designs for Beth (left) and David Bowie (right)

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Rough character sketches for Beth.

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Beth character sketch, inking example. I prefer a starker inking technique with no washes or tones. My work is created traditionally, with digital lettering and clean up.

SPX or Bust

Boston Comics Roundtable, Comics, conventions

Sometimes, in pursuit of our goals, we can fall into fabulous mishaps.

Take, for example, my goal to get 12 comics related rejections this year. When I saw that the Small Press Expo (SPX) was open for the lottery, I figured I’d throw my hat into the ring. An easy rejection and one that I didn’t need to think about too much.

Until I got a half-table in the lottery.

So, here we are. It’ll be my fourth ever con, my first really big one, and my first all-weekend long tabling experience. I’m starting to rethink if I’ll want to table at MICE in October.

I didn’t want much time to think about it and chicken out. On Sunday, I paid for my half-table. Yesterday, I booked my hotel room. Today, I put in for time off at work. I’m doing it. I’m going.

SPX is in six months. I’m incredibly excited, nervous, and trying to keep the imposter syndrome at bay.

Looking back on January and February

Projects

The first two months of 2018 are in the books.

January started off with a bang. I was laid up for a week and a half following a ruptured ovarian cyst at the start of the year. I was surprisingly productive. I completed a 16-page comic about my ordeal, called “My Ovaries Hate Me (And I Hate Them Too),” which will be premiering at the Somerville Public Library Con in May.

February continued the creative kick. I participated in the 2018 Ghost City Comics Festival, drawing and inking a five page comic in a weekend. My teammates were Paul Axel and Chas! Pangburn. We didn’t place, but it was a fantastic time full of drawing and learning loads.

In addition, I pitched to two anthologies in January, and received acceptances to both. I have a script and thumbnail deadline of March 15 for one. I finished the script and thumbs today (March 4), so I’ve moved on to pencilling.

I also got two rejections – the Ghost City Comics Festival, and a bid to table at CAKE. I have ten left to get before I hit my goal for the year!

2018 goals (comic-centric)

Projects

I’ve written these a few places, but want to have them centrally on my blog. Without further ado, here are my 2018 comic-centric goals.

  1. 12 rejections from cons/anthologies/etc
  2. A minimum of 6 zines this year
  3. 40 posts to my web comic
  4. Improve on inking and lettering
  5. Read more comics
  6. Work on my OGN
  7. More collaborations with writers

This year is going to be a blast. I’m looking forward to all of the drawing I’ll do, and my improvement along the way.

PLUS Brewed Awakening comes back *TOMORROW.* Have a teaser!

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Every day I’m tabling

Comics, Projects

Yesterday I had my first comic con tabling experience at the South Shore Comic Con, held in Cohasset, MA. It was a small, gentle con, filled with kids and their parents. I didn’t make the table cost back, but I did sell a few of my books, and made a few observations.

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Tabling with my friend Kyri Lorenz (Dec 2, 2017)

While I was there, I made a few observations that will help with future cons:

Know your audience

Having not been to the con before, I didn’t know how child-centric it would be. My work largely skews older, due to language and themes surrounding mental health. Parents weren’t super interested in supporting my work, but older teens and young adults were.

Mark whether comics are child friendly

This, I found, is the biggest question that potential customers asked. They wanted to make sure that they could give their children my work. Kitchen Witches is my only all-ages piece at the moment, but my husband and I are working on a children’s comic for a con in April. I’ll be sure to color code or otherwise denote which pieces are kid friendly for future cons.

Colorful covers sell well

This ties back with knowing the audience. I found that people expect a higher level of production value, even with indie cartoonists. I’m not confident in my digital coloring skills, but it’s something to work towards in creating eye-catching work.

Fan art of licensed characters sells well

This really isn’t for me. Unless I’m drawing a Captain America book, I probably will not sell prints of Cap. Stickers maybe, maybe a sketchbook, but not full out prints.

I also had a great time buying pieces and supporting local artists! Check out my haul.

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My haul! Books by Jerel Dye, Dave Ortega, Jesse Lonergan, Kyri Lorenz, and Raul the Third. Plus the cutest little robot climbing a hill, by Jerel Dye.