Bowling Ball and Pinhead

Blog Post No. 470

Most of the artists I know don’t have a ton of extra scratch to pay for things. Sometimes when you’re making, say, a book, you need things like good looking covers. How does an artist pay for a good looking cover when they don’t have enough money to get a kindergartner to finger paint for them? That’s right, they trade for it. I was lucky enough to find someone to trade with in Glen Hawkes. He did the covers for Broadcast Wasteland, Break/Interrupt, and is working on the cover for the upcoming Snow From a Distant Sky. He’s not only a talented painter, he’s a skilled graphic designer, so he knows how to make a cover.

Changing Gears

Blog No. 366

The Fall Book Crawl is over, and I’m not sure what to do with myself. That’s a lie. I have a literally endless list of things to do, but no events scheduled anytime soon. It’s about this time (often sooner) that Christian and I sit down and put together a list of events for us to approach and/or plan in the new year. It hasn’t happened yet, however, and I suspect that the delay is down to simple priorities. I was laser focused on the novella, and he is knee deep in his next novel. I’m at a standstill with the novella, though, with the second draft finished and doubt. As Christian goes over Broadcast Wasteland for me (another distraction from his novel) and I finalized the title of the next novella (a little early, but I have to put it in the back of this one) I have the comic as my main focus. Scripts are a tricky thing to write. You’d think that with so much free space and mostly just dialogue to write, it would be way easier. In my experience it isn’t.

Some Random Updates

Blog No. 147

Things are moving quickly in the Adventure Worlds sphere. (adventureworldsblog.com) From the outside it sometimes seems like everything is at a crawl, but there is a lot going on under the surface that is keeping everyone busy.

No Light Tomorrow (the collection) is still in progress. We are up to our elbows in plans, communications, and searches. It is in the hands of an editor at the moment, so we are in a holding pattern. This will be the first time I work with a professional editor and the first time Christian works with an independent editor, so that’s very exciting, but a bit nerve-wracking. We have been working on the collection since last year, changing it, editing it, shaping the stories. The thought that someone I haven’t met could point out things that will make us do major rewrites is daunting. For now we are in a holding pattern, waiting for the shoe to drop. In the mean time we’ve been planning a big release event with some very special people, hunting for a printer (one who could possibly achieve the outcome we want without too much cost or stress), and brainstorming things that have grown well beyond the scope of the one small collection. We are even thinking about future or regular events for not only No Light, but everything we do and with the other local artists we work with.

The decline of newspapers = the decline of comics?

Blog No. 137

For someone who spent time in Journalism, I have never been a newspaper reader. There are the local independents I pick up when I see them, but while my parents were avid Windsor Star readers, I never picked up the habit. I ended up doing some work on the radio, but my journalism career ended in less time than it took me to get the diploma. I enjoyed the experience and it contributed directly with me now writing fiction (plus it’s where I met Justin, then Christian through him) but it wasn’t a passion of mine, and if I don’t have any passion, sloth takes over soon enough. While I didn’t read the paper, I did (irregularly) read the comics. For the most part (because I am a huge snob and super judgmental) I wasn’t much of a fan of what I read, but there were a few that stood out and kept me coming back. Calvin and Hobbes is a major one thought I was a fan long before I bothered with the funny pages.

Behind the Writing: Finders

Blog No. 96

http://adventureworldsblog.com/2014/09/15/finders-001/

The first strip of Finders went up on Adventure Worlds as a last minute replacement and it’s been getting a lot of great attention. I have to say, I’m really excited by that. It was first released as the anchor to our Zine. Christian and I were handling all the images and layout respectively, and it prompted us to have Christian draw the first comic and have it be a special treat for any followers of the site. The Zine was (other than Finders) a snapshot of Adventure Worlds, with previously posted stories. We felt that Finders would make it something special. And it worked. We got a lot of great feedback on the Zine, and the majority of it was on Finders. Some of the Drink and Draw crew even gave us some pointers on how to improve the layout of the comic.

Christian is Wrong, I am Right or Bla, Bla, Bla, Comics

Blog No. 79

I should start by saying that I didn’t read comic as a kid. As a teen I read some, but mostly at the suggestion of friends or when one was given to me as a gift. As an adult I have been tentatively wading into the comics water (I’m past my ankles now) learning lots and experiencing some. There is so much past and present, that it’s a difficult thing to commit to without going all in – and I just don’t have that kind of time in between my work and writing. I love the concept, I love the end result (in the comics that have blown me away) and I love the community. I know I will always be an outsider, or at best I may get the edge of my swimsuit wet, but writing a comic is among my long term goals as a writer.