Calgary Expo 2014

Despite coming home with money in my pocket, I *made* no money at the Calgary Expo this year. I did, however, get to hang around in the world of comics for four great days, sell books to old friends who came by to support, new friends who came back and bought more and everyone in between. There were people who'd never heard of the story, excited to read it and people who've read the story, excited to read more.

Calgary has the most fantastic, tight knit comics community, with a roster that's both incredibly impressive and amazingly welcoming. I made no money, sure, but I felt like a pro at the Expo and sat at the "grown up's" table at the bar afterwards, plus Mike Costa said he really liked Wolf Hands and bought me a beer, nothing wrong with that.

Comic Book Therapy Interview

Wolf Hands only has a few more pages to go before the first story is over, crazy. The response has been fantastic too, for something coming out of nowhere from creators with no real name for ourselves, we've managed to get quite a few people to check out the story.

We've also had a nice write up from Geek Stampede, 

and a nice interview with Comic Book Therapy.

Wolf Hands!

Please visit WOLF HANDS COMIC to see my latest project. Season one of Wolf Hands updates a new page every Sunday for 13 weeks.

http://www.wolfhandscomic.ca/

Page One

The Flood

After years of struggling to get various projects off the ground, it turns out nothing gets a project moving faster than a full moon.

The progress with the anthology continues to be slow, painfully slow. The cover is done now though, a fantastic piece by the amazing Riley Rossmo.

As that continues to build, the next project also pokes it's head out. A web comic with artist Nick Johnson, that we've had on a slow boil for a while, waiting for his schedule to clear itself up. Slow boil until a week ago when Nick emailed me telling me that June 23 was going to be what is known as the Supermoon, the closest the moon will be to earth this year. AKA the perfect time to launch a were-wolf comic. Not to mention that it is exactly 13 weeks away from the local Comic and Toy Expo, giving us just enough time to collect all 13 episodes of our first season in print for the show. A plan that couldn't be better if we actually planned it.

And so, from slow boil to full speed in a week, the flood gates have opened and the most exciting project I've worked on gets ready to say hi to the world.

Awesome.

 

Putting Together an Anthology

or, Nobody is as excited about your ideas as you are.

The latest thing I've been working on is a horror anthology. I liked putting Don't Be Afraid into an actual comic shop so much  that I decided I'd try to do a couple of issues over a year. The goal is to start in October and put out three issues over the year and a forth one next October. Four issues doesn't seem like too big a task and I've got plenty of lead time to deal with problems, I've even got a good story telling device that I'm happy with, let's do it! What's that? No one is sharing my vision here? Anyone...

Not that NOBODY cares, it's just a really tough sell. At this level the deal is basically If I ask you and you're interested, if you can find a way to get your story drawn by someone, you're in. Simple enough, but you also have to take into account that the writers I contact aren't illustrators and have to find someone to work on their stuff. Even if they get the most dirt-cheep page rates they can get, I'm still basically saying "hey guys, who wants to spend 300 dollars?".

The project is continuing to move forward, the final product ending up differently than I'd imagined it is still a possibility, we'll have to wait and see. My art is finished, at the worst I'll still have a ten page mini comic with my name on it.

Spreading The Love: Giving Away Comics Is Awesome. part 2

So, how did it go? Well, like most Halloweens up here, the weather is the real enemy. The 31st was really cold  and that hurt the overall turnout, so we still have a few issues left over, not a lot, but not everything was handed out. The response seemed pretty positive, we made little bags with a comic and a candy, so they got the best of both worlds. Overall, I liked it a lot, I will definitely do it again next year.

 

Sorry this simple post took so long to put up, I've been pretty deep into my next project, an anthology series that I'm heading up. I just got the rough pencils for my story this week, every thing's been moving really fast, I'll put up a more detailed post soon.

Spreading The Love: Giving Away Comics Is Awesome. part 1.

This past summer, the time had finally come for something I never thought I'd do. I sold some of my comics. Not a lot really, less than I wanted to, but we had a garage sale and a big section of it was some of my comics.

I noticed a kid looking through my random $1 box, he'd look at them, then go see what his parents were doing, then come back, then find them again, back and forth a few times. I knew he was really interested. I assume his parents were teaching some lesson about the importance and value of money because they really needed to be worn down in order to finally give this kid a dollar. As he looked through the box, judging each comic only by the covers, I could see myself digging through boxes when I was younger, no idea what I wanted until I saw it. I knew what needed to be done.

"Special sale right now, 4 for a dollar." When they all pulled away in their van, his mom said out the window that I made his day. That felt great but what felt even better was the fact that he had made my day too.

With my daughter now old enough to have a birthday party to go to at least once a month (or more, it feels like), my wife and I have unintentionally fallen into the habit of putting in a comic book with whatever else is being given as a gift. I don't know when it started, but it's been pretty consistent, an issue of Superman Family, old Tiny Titans back issues, the Green Lantern kid's series, boy or girl, everyone gets something.

So when I saw that you could get mini-comics just to give away at Halloween, I ordered big. After enjoying spreading comics through birthday presents and garage sales, I was really psyched to see what handing them out for Halloween felt like.

Sold in bundles of 20, I found a friend I could talk into splitting an order with me and for $15 each we got ten copies of six different books, hopefully something for everyone.

 

I also love the idea of handing out Basil Wolverton to the kids in my neighborhood.

 

 

No idea what the reaction will be, we'll have to save that for part 2.