Sneak peek at Hallo Spaceboy

Comics, conventions, Hallo Spaceboy, Projects

Hallo Spaceboy is chugging along! I’ve finished inking and the first round of digital clean up, most of the way through lettering. All that remains is adding the spot colors, making the cover, and layout.
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Hallo Spaceboy will be 24 pages of story, broken into three movements.

I drew an inked all 24 pages in roughly two weeks, which I do not recommend doing. I ended up exhausted and close to sick. Next time I’ll plan better.

Hallo Spaceboy premieres at the Small Press Expo on Saturday, September 15.

 

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.

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.

Taking stock

Boston Comics Roundtable, Comics, inktober, Projects

It’s difficult to believe that 2017 is nearly over. True, there are five or so weeks left. But in the last 47 weeks, I’ve had an incredibly productive year for comics.

Let’s take a look at some of the highlights:

  • Edited Spellbound vol. 2 and oversaw the art direction for the cover
  • Attended the Graphic Memoir workshop at the Center for Cartoon Studies
    • Made my memoir comic Starman
    • Met incredible cartoonists from around the country
  • Created five mini-comics/zines that are available for purchase
    • Anxiety Diaries vol. 1
    • Anxiety Diaries vol. 2
    • Anxiety Diaries vol. 3
    • Kitchen Witches
    • Immature Language
  • Launched a (now on hiatus) web comic.
  • Took part in Inktober and created the Kitchen Witches comic
  • Tabled my first con (MICE in Cambridge, MA)
  • Had two pieces picked up for anthologies
  • Received two rejections for anthologies

There’s still a month left, and I think it will be a productive one.

I’m designing/co-editing Spellbound, Volume II: Modern Magic

Boston Comics Roundtable, Comics, Projects, Spellbound, Volume II
legalizemagic

Legalize Magic by Oliver Tacke // cc 2.0

Not content with one project of a literary bent, I’ve somehow found myself roped into working on an anthology with the Boston Comics Roundtable, the Boston-area indie comics creator group.

Spellbound II is “Modern Magic.” Where tech meets hex, touch screen Ouija boards exist, and the WiFi fairy is the godmother we all need.

My role will be selecting the comics with my co-editors, and designing/laying out the book itself. I’m very excited to be part of this project. The BCR releases excellent anthologies. The aim is to have the book in hand by early June, just in time for the convention season.

Specifications:

Dimensions: Trim 7” x 8.5”, image safe area 6.5” x 8” — no bleeds
Color: Black & White or Grey scale
Page count: 1 – 6 pages

Submission information:

Please send a complete script and at least the first page in tight pencils to spellbound.anthology@gmail.com.

Important dates:

3/3 – Script deadline.

3/31 – Final art deadline. Expect us to bug for updates before this deadline.

Beginning Samizdat

Comics, Samizdat

In the beginning, there was a joke. A ‘literary vigilante’ who is a Batman for the written word. Stopping bad poetry in its tracks, correcting split infinitives and terrifying those who dared submit to a literary magazine without a cover letter. As the editor and art director for literary magazine Far Off Places, Annie Rutherford and I had seen it all and longed for a force to at least make sure prospective writers included a cover letter.

But from that joke came the inkling of an idea, of a female driven comic book adventure we have titled Samizdat, after the Russian underground newspapers. Written and illustrated by women, starring women as the heroes and villains, this endeavor would give us the stories we wanted to see. Intelligent women using their brains to solve problems, with a literary bent. Drawing inspiration from the Kindle deleting 1984, from the ‘death’ of print media, and the closure of mom and pop bookstores, we developed the basic premise for Samizdat. Such is our love letter to stories, to adventures, to Edinburgh.