Archive for ‘web comics’
252 items.
So many of you have been asking me how to get your hands on the new @$$hole! collection, and I can’t say that I blame you. Unfortunately, distribution was a bit of an after-thought when printing this first book. A learning experience, to be sure.
So there are a few options available at the moment, and more will be forthcoming down the road. Currently if you live in or near Ann Arbor, MI, I recommend checking out The Vault of Midnight. In the local section you will find several copies of my book prominently displayed. If you can’t find it, ask someone who works there for it. They’ll be able to bring you right to it.
I’ve also been taking the book on the road with me, first to Reactor and then to Mid-Ohio Comic Con. I usually have some extra copies around, so if you’re in Chicaog just drop me a line and I’ll meet you somewhere. I have not tapped into local Chicago distribution opportunities just yet – I just haven’t had the time. Soon, though.
For those of you who are further out, the book will become available on the internet very soon. I don’t have a store set up on the website, but I will make it publicly available for purchase somehow. More on that after I’ve had a chance to review the best options.
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@$$hole!: Laura’s 21st Birthday is the story of a slacker who’s so lazy, he forgot his girlfriend’s 21st birthday. Desperately taking his demonic Japanese roommate in tow, he must over-come his mall-o-phobia and dive into the depths of retail hell to find her the perfect gift. This teen-rated tale has some hilarious humor, and even some of that mushy stuff.
The book is 50 pages and runs for $6. You get:
- an awesome 41 page story
- an afterword by the author (hey, that’s me)
- several pages of original content appearing only in this book
- a forward by the fabled “Josh from TokyoPOP” himself, Josh Elder
Please also help spread the word by telling your friends. If they like it, have them buy it – and refer them back to my website.
Thanks, gang!
”Comment
See, he’s not such a bad guy. He adopted her kids! Of course, he didn’t know that at the time or that he was even serving their mother until a few pages ago, but perhaps his tone and attitude has changed a bit.
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I’ve gotten a table at Mid-Ohio Comic Con (October 3-4 in Columbus, OH) with Rival Angels creator Alan Evans. We’ll be hanging out with The Dreamer creator Lora Innes, and several other comic creators. Not sure on any speaking schedule while there, but I’m working on it. More to follow.
So I posted on twitter the other day about having completed my outline and beat sheet for the latest Temple story, and had a few questions pop up about what a beat sheet was and how to use it. A perfectly rational question, since I hadn’t used a beat sheet before last year, and really didn’t even know what it was called until early this year. I figured that this could be a good opportunity to talk a little about my writing process. It’ll be surface level at this point, and if people find it helpful / useful I may turn it into a series of posts.
Please note that this is just the process that I use and have found that it works well for me. It’s not reflective of what the pros do (no two writers follow the same process), although I’ve found that many of my professional writing friends sometimes use similar tools. This isn’t gospel – I just hope that it helps some people out.
STEP 1:
Come up with an idea or story. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you writers how to do this. 
I’ll come up with themes, characters and motivations. Basically, everything in the “pitch package.” I can go on for days on just this step alone, so perhaps in a later post….
STEP 2:
Typically after I have an idea for a story in my head or some scenes that I want to use, I create a “beat sheet” of the events of the story. I use it to help edit the order of events in my story, to help create the 3-act structure, etc. This is usually a very short document that consists of notes of events, maybe locations or some brief dialogue that I think is relevant. I’ve read a few online resources that have more detailed beat sheets, but they all seem to agree that it is a very short snap-shot of the events in a story. It helps me maintain the beats in the story, since I tend to write very rhythmically.
However, the “beat” in “beat sheet” refers to the beats within your acts. I’m sure I don’t have to go into three-act structure here (every story has three acts: beginning, middle, and end), so I won’t go into it. But the purpose of the beat sheet is just to get a snap-shot of your story, see where and how it flows, where it’s weak, and adjust accordingly. Unlike a script, this is a document for me, the writer. I can write it any way that I chose, and sometimes it’ll vary from story to story. It’s just a great quick reference for me to use – and it can be very fluid and evolve as I continue my writing process.
Here’s an example of a working beat sheet from the upcoming Temple prequel, Assassin.
STEP 3:
After the story is prepped in a beat sheet, I write down my cast of characters and make a few notes about their motivations in this story. What do they want? What are their goals and objectives? What drives them to push the narrative forward? Sometimes this step precedes the beat sheet, if I don’t know my characters very well or are introducing new characters into a story. But when it follows, I’ll typically go back to the beat sheet and make some tweaks and changes based on those motivations. This can go back and forth a few times until I feel very confident about the story.
Here’s an example of an outline for a short story that will be appearing soon in an anthology:
STEP 4:
At this point I take my beat sheet and make an outline, typically a page-by-page breakout of the events to overlay the story. The outline helps me further figure out pacing and how fast my story is going to evolve, and it can also help me figure out how many panels I’m going to be using per page, where some of the more dramatic moments are in the story, etc. This document tends to be a little longer and more detailed for me – an evolution from the beat sheet, if you will.
Sometimes I skip this step entirely, if I want a story to evolve more organically. But for a lot of the more complex plots that I’ve been using lately (like weaving together all of the events of Temple), I like to use this method.
STEP 5:
With the beat sheet and outline in hand, I’m able to start my script. Again, sometimes things change and evolve along the way and changes are made, but for the most part by the time I make it to the scripting stage I’m pretty comfortable with my characters, story, pacing, and plot elements.
I won’t go into details about how to write a script here, but if you’d be interested to learn more feel free to drop me a line and let me know. Maybe I’ll turn this into a series of blog entries.
Hikari 46
September 28th, 2009 |Posted In: comics, drunk duck, samurai, sci-fi, temple, the temple of a thousand tears, web comics, writing
DUH DUH DUN!
If you recall from the original Temple story, Seymour said that he “was more of a lover than a fighter,” and here’s why. The guy was forced to kill innocents, and then he went to the one place that he thought he could receive penance for his actions – and it turns out that we know that the very place is where the ones responsible have been all along!
Seymour is very confused at this point in his life, and we’ll find out more about that in his prequel story (which Olivia and I have already started working on). The next story is called “Assassin,” and it’s going to take place during and after this very story here. It’ll follow Seymour and Marielle, and fill in some more of the gaps that abound from the original story.
If you think Sophia is bad ass, just wait until you see some of the stuff that Olivia’s working on for this story!
@$$hole!: Blind Date 20
September 24th, 2009 |Posted In: blind date, blind dating, comics, dating, drunk duck, online dating, photography, web comics, writing
The waiter isn’t supposed to be coming off as entirely creepy here, which is what I fear he may be doing. There’s a purpose here to the way that every character is acting, and hopefully I’m able to pull it all off at the end.
I’m off this weekend to Pokagon, which is a state park in Angola, IN. My family goes here every year with friends of the family to enjoy what I call “camping with cable TV.” Sure we BBQ, sing songs by firelight, go on nature hikes and have a blast…but we stay in cabins with running water, electricity, and yes – cable TV. It’s not quite camping, but it’s not quite staying in a hotel either.
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In case you didn’t know, I’ve gotten a table at Mid-Ohio Comic Con (October 3-4 in Columbus, OH) with Rival Angels creator Alan Evans. We’ll be hanging out with The Dreamer creator Lora Innes, and several other comic creators. Not sure on any speaking schedule while there, but I’m working on it. More to follow.
Thursday night I headed out to Rosemont to attend Reactor 2009, a smaller convention that has been very anime-related in the past but this year had a little more diversity. I had been encouraged to attend by my good friend Russell Lissau (Batman Strikes!, Hope: New Orleans), and our friends Josh Elder (Batman Strikes!, Mail Order Ninja) and Steve Horton (StrongArm, WebComics2.0) were also in attendance as guests. This convention was also the premiere of the first @$$hole! collection, which sold pretty well considering the size of the con and the location that guests were placed.
Friday was the official start of the con, and usually it’s the slowest day for sales. I was sharing a table with Russell and Josh in the dealer’s room, and while traffic was pretty light the sales were pretty high. The crowd tended to be a bit younger, so budgeting may not have been on the mind – instead, they were buying up what caught their eye the first day. Many people bought the book based on the title alone, which saved me the effort of putting together a pitch for it the first day. Russell was giving me some excellent advice throughout the entire weekend, not only on table running and pitches, but also writing in general and con etiquette on the “other side of the table.”
After a fairly strong first day, we had dinner in the Green Room and then went to a panel and performed Mail Order Ninja for the attendees. Panel attendance seemed a little light at this convention overall, but there are several reasons why this may have been the case:
1) The convention rooms were in the basement, past the viewing rooms and dealer room
2) Many attendees were participating in cosplaying, and there may have been competing cosplay programs going on at the same time
3) Many attendees were hanging out in the lobby of the hotel, playing games or enjoying their new merch acquired from the day of shopping
4) Or the attendees just were not as interested in panels at this show as they are at other shows.
Whatever the reason, people still showed up to all of the panels and I greatly appreciate that.
Friday night a friend that I met at NYCC stopped into the convention. Melissa was planning to come into town to visit people anyway, and stopped in before hand to have a drink at the bar and catch up. It was great to see her again, since we had had so much fun hanging out at NYCC and while waiting for the plane after the show. Josh and Russell both knew her too, and we all had a great night chatting and catching up.
Saturday was the longest day of the con, and also had the lowest sales of the weekend. There are a few reasons this may be, such as the fact that I was on 3 panels that day, but I also think that many of the attendees were hanging out in Artist Alley that day. I had a few friends with tables in AA and they experienced the opposite of me in terms of sales: Friday was slow, but Saturday was strong.
My panels that day started at 1pm with a State of the Industry panel. Russell, Steve, Keith, and myself all talked about many of the changes happening within the comic and manga industry – many of the questions we fielded were related to distribution and the future of where comics and anime are going. It was a 2 hour panel with some excellent attendance.
After that, we had a quick bite of lunch before I attended my Writing for Comics panel with Steve. Since Steve literally wrote the book on writing web comics, we decided to make it more about the web. Which was great, since many of the attendees were interested in starting their own web comics or making their current comics better. Immediately after that panel, I attended my Sci-Fi / Fantasy: The Art of Crafting Your World panel. I had some great in-depth questions during this panel based on the stories that people were crafting, and I walked them through my process and success stories from having worked on The Temple of a Thousand Tears for so many years. Steve Yun (Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles) even walked in at the end of the panel (since I ran over and he was waiting for a projector for his next panel), and asked a few questions.
After the panels were done, I went to the table to try to sell for the last little bit that was left of the day, and then we packed up. We had a quick bite for dinner and went to the pool with Russell to relax before the night’s activities. Russell and Steve lead a heated game of poker with some of the other guests, while I was invited to GameWorks with many of the ACEN people in attendance at this show.
We had a few drinks at the bar, and then filtered out to play whatever video game caught our eye. Steve Yun and I played several shooting games together, one of which was constantly glitching (so bad that I’m impressed that we were even able to play the thing). Eventually the night ended and I got a ride back to the hotel where I promptly passed out.
Sunday I only had a single panel, and sales started to pick up a little. Especially for Russell, who out-sold both myself and Steve. Russell’s been doing this a lot longer than we have, and had some great tips to ways to improve our salesmanship. My panel was called “The World of an @$$hole!,” and it was all on the new book that I had just published. As for the other panels, attendance was light and some of the questions were really engaging. I very much appreciated everyone who showed up. After my panel, Steve had a panel and since attendance was also light for him, we all had a round-table discussion on comics and projects we were working on.
After the panels, we went back to the tables for the last few hours of the con, and then packed up and went to have lunch at a local diner. Russell was kind enough to drop Josh and myself off at the train, and then we all parted ways.
Reactor was a fun convention experience and a great place to premiere the book, especially with the help and advice of Russell. It was also a great chance to catch up with old friends that I don’t get to see a lot, and meet some new friends as well.
@$$hole!: Blind Date 19
September 23rd, 2009 |Posted In: blind date, blind dating, comics, dating, drunk duck, online dating, photography, web comics, writing
Working on getting the buffer back for this comic, I came up with a good sequence that leads into the ending. My only fear is that I’ve painted some characters in a light that it will be near impossible to redeem them from. We shall see….
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Reactor was a blast! I’ve posted a blog about it on my website (see link above). Next up is Mid-Ohio Comic Con (October 3-4 in Columbus, OH) where I’ll be sharing a table with Rival Angels creator Alan Evans. We’ll be hanging out with The Dreamer creator Lora Innes, and several other comic creators. Not sure on any speaking schedule while there, but I’m working on it. More to follow.
Hikari 45
September 22nd, 2009 |Posted In: comics, drunk duck, samurai, sci-fi, temple, the temple of a thousand tears, web comics, writing
Anyone else seeing some parallels here? Will history repeat itself…?
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The first self-published book for @$$hole! premiered this weekend at Reactor (September 18-20) in Rosemont, Il. It collects the 41 page black and white story of Laura’s 21st Birthday. The book is going to be 52 pages and has an original cover, some new artwork, guest strips, an afterword by the creator (that’s me), and a forward by Josh Elder (Josh from TokyoPOP).
On top of that and all the tasks associated with printing the book, I’ve also gotten a table at Mid-Ohio Comic Con (October 3-4 in Columbus, OH) with Rival Angels creator Alan Evans. We’ll be hanging out with The Dreamer creator Lora Innes, and several other comic creators. Not sure on any speaking schedule while there, but I’m working on it. More to follow.
@$$hole!: Blind Date 18
September 21st, 2009 |Posted In: blind date, blind dating, comics, dating, drunk duck, online dating, photography, web comics, writing
And the waiter appears with the food faster than he appeared with the drinks. We’re getting near the end of this story (my goal is to cap it at 30 pages, if not sooner). I really want to start telling another story – preferably the nude beach story, but possibly also gearing up for the next birthday story arc. But then again, maybe I need a break from story arcs for a little bit…avoid the burn out. We shall see!
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The first self-published book for @$$hole! is coming out today, premiering at Reactor (September 18-20) in Rosemont, Il. It collects the 41 page black and white story of Laura’s 21st Birthday. The book is going to be 52 pages and has an original cover, some new artwork, guest strips, an afterword by the creator (that’s me), and a forward by Josh Elder (Josh from TokyoPOP).
“Why premiere your book at Reactor, and not something larger like Windy-City?” you ask. Well, through my many con appearances I’ve met several of the people who put Reactor together, and they have offered me the opportunity to speak at their convention. In fact, they’ve given me several panels to speak during throughout the weekend. Here’s my panel schedule, for all those interested:
FRIDAY:
8 pm – MAIL ORDER NINJA (A reading with Russell Lissau and Josh Elder)
SATURDAY:
1 pm – A special all-guest artist panel
4 pm – Writing for comics (Collaboration with Steve Horton)
5 pm – Sci-fi fantasy: the art of crafting your world
SUNDAY:
11:00 am – @$$hole! webcomic panel
On top of that and all the tasks associated with printing the book, I’ve also gotten a table at Mid-Ohio Comic Con (October 3-4 in Columbus, OH) with Rival Angels creator Alan Evans. We’ll be hanging out with The Dreamer creator Lora Innes, and several other comic creators. Not sure on any speaking schedule while there, but I’m working on it. More to follow.
@$$hole!: Blind Date 17
September 16th, 2009 |Posted In: blind date, blind dating, comics, dating, drunk duck, online dating, photography, web comics, writing
Seriously did a little research about the musical CATS, which I’ve only seen once. I figured it was a good place to reference it. Who would be your choices for her character?
Also, love the waiter’s head spying on the date….
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The first self-published book for @$$hole! is coming out at the end of September, premiering at Reactor (September 18-20) in Rosemont, Il. It collects the 41 page black and white story of Laura’s 21st Birthday. The book is going to be 52 pages and has an original cover, some new artwork, guest strips, an afterword by the creator (that’s me), and a forward by Josh Elder (Josh from TokyoPOP).
“Why premiere your book at Reactor, and not something larger like Windy-City?” you ask. Well, through my many con appearances I’ve met several of the people who put Reactor together, and they have offered me the opportunity to speak at their convention. In fact, they’ve given me several panels to speak during throughout the weekend. Here’s my panel schedule, for all those interested:
FRIDAY:
8 pm – MAIL ORDER NINJA (A reading with Russell Lissau and Josh Elder)
SATURDAY:
1 pm – A special all-guest artist panel
4 pm – Writing for comics (Collaboration with Steve Horton)
5 pm – Sci-fi fantasy: the art of crafting your world
SUNDAY:
11:00 am – @$$hole! webcomic panel
On top of that and all the tasks associated with printing the book, I’ve also gotten a table at Mid-Ohio Comic Con (October 3-4 in Columbus, OH) with Rival Angels creator Alan Evans. We’ll be hanging out with The Dreamer creator Lora Innes, and several other comic creators. Not sure on any speaking schedule while there, but I’m working on it. More to follow.