Posts Tagged ‘the dreamer’
5 items.
Carl speaks with the strange white creature guy.
And there’s a review of Iron Man 2 up, you know. 
Plus, I just did a guest strip for The Dreamer.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
-Margaret Mead
Monday, January 11th is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. To participate, we formed the Comic Creator’s Alliance–a group of over eighty comic book creators (both web and print) who volunteered our artistic talents to raise money and awareness for this cause. You may not know it, but there are currently 27 million enslaved people worldwide- more than double the number of enslaved Africans during the trans-Atlantic slave trade. UNICEF estimates that 1.2 million children every year are sold into slavery, most of it sexual. The US Department of Justice estimates 16,000 victims of human trafficking are brought into the United States every year. Unlike slavery in the 19th century, what is happening today is happening in secret. So it won’t end until awareness is raised, and people like you and me take a stand.
So here’s what we did: each creator contributed an original drawing of one of our own female characters, and combined them into a single wallpaper image. The wallpaper features characters from The Phoenix Requiem, Girls with Slingshots, Earthsong, Looking for Group, Shadowgirls, Marsh Rocket, The Uniques and three IDW Publishing titles: Fallen Angel, The Dreamland Chronicles and The Dreamer, and lots, lots more! Donate today to download this unique, once-in-a-lifetime wallpaper. The Donations Drive will last for two weeks, from January 11th – 24th. All proceeds will be split evenly between Love146 and Gracehaven House- two organizations working on rehabilitation of victims and prevention of this crime.
To learn more about the Comic Creator’s Alliance visit www.comicalliance.weebly.com. To learn more about the problem, visit http://love146.org/slavery. (Note: contains adult themes and actual accounts of sex slavery.)
Comic Review: The Dreamer
Writer / Artist: Lora Innes
Publisher: IDW
Website: www.thedreamercomic.com
Plot: Beatrice is your average teenage girl who wants to get the lead in the school play and to date the cute boy. But when she falls asleep she dreams about living a life during the Revolutionary War. As she delves deeper into the life of the characters fighting to create an independent nation, she starts to question if she truly is dreaming…or if there’s something else going on.
Lora Innes is the twice-Harvey Award nominated (and winner of multiple other webcomic awards) writer and artist of The Dreamer, and also a good friend of mine. Her pages are absolute gold, and you can see her style evolve even within the first six issues collected in her first trade from IDW. The characters are interesting and believable, the dialogue is delivered realistically, and the level of detail put into the outfits – in both modern times and the past – are absolutely spectacular. Whenever Bea dreams is when this comic shines, and it’s a fascinating and historical ride.
Lora balances tense dramatic scenes, action, and even a little comedy into the mix for a story that spans the ages. By the end of the first book you want to know not only what’s going on with Bea and her time-spanning dreams, but also how her trips may affect her in the present.
Lora has also just started a charity auction (which includes Thom Zahler, Barb Jacobs, Alan Evans, myself, and about 50 other creators) to create a wallpaper to help raise money to put a stop to human trafficking (AKA: modern day slavery). She has some frightening statistics and a personal story about it on her website, so be sure to check it out and help contribute.
In anticipation of premiering the first @$$hole! collection, I was looking for local conventions to help promote the book and that could be a good fit with the audience. Enter Mid-Ohio Comic Con (MOCC), held at the Greater Columbus Convention Center Hall E in Columbus, Oh. I knew that I had friends in the area and some friends interested in attending the con, so I booked my table and made some arrangements and headed on down….
FRIDAY:
After work, Alan Evans (Rival Angels) picked me up in his car, and we headed off on the 6 hour drive towards Columbus. Alan and I have been friends for a few years now, having first met on Drunk Duck and eventually hanging out at a Wizard World Chicago. We eventually pulled into the driveway of two of the coolest people on the planet: Lora and Mike Innes. Lora is the Harvey Award nominated creator of The Dreamer from IDW, and her husband Mike designed her website. I first met both of them at the same Wizard World that I first hung out with Alan, but again I’ve known Lora for a few years from online. They were waiting for us to arrive at 1am local time, and we stayed up a few hours catching up.
SATURDAY:
In the morning we had bagels, and then took off for the convention center. Alan and I went and set up the table, while Lora and Mike went to set up theirs. Alan and I were in Creator’s Commons (usually called “Artist Alley”) next to many talented individuals. The first day was kind of a slow day for sales for me, but I was able to push Alan’s books quite a bit. The show has a lot of family and youth attendees, and @$$hole! is a very teen-rated book. However, I had some sketch cards to tell the kids about, and was doing commission sketches to help make up the difference from the books sales.
At one point Alan offered to watch the table and I wondered around and found some of my friends, writers Paul Storrie (Robin Hood, Gotham Girls) and Bryan Glass (Mice Templar). I also made it around to the Comic Related table, where they were handing out cake!
Mice Templar creator and Harvey Award nominee Bryan Glass poses in his booth (photo by comicrelated.com)
The Dreamer creator and Harvey Award nominee cuts the first piece of cake (photo by comicrelated.com)
The evening wore down with a local musical guest followed by a costume contest, and then the convention ended for the day. After the con, Lora, Mike, Alan, Paul, Bryan, his wife Judy, and myself all went out to dinner at a local micro-brewery. Many laughs were had, and then we called it a night early. We were all still exhausted from the previous late night when Alan and I arrived. The plan was to watch some Firefly and relax.
Upon getting back to the house, we started talking and never got around to watching the TV show. Instead, we watched videos on youtube and laughed our way through the evening well past when we had planned to go to bed. One of the videos Lora pointed out was a hilarious bit about George Washington (not workplace friendly for language):
SUNDAY:
After breakfast, we all piled into the car and headed back to the con. The crowd was heavier that day, and we had a panel at 12pm on Making Webcomics. Several people actually approached the table and asked Alan and I about the panel, where it was located, and what we would be talking about. My buddy Steve Horton (Tierra, Strongarm) made an appearance for the panel, which consisted of Lora Innes, Alan Evans, Wes Molebash (You’ll Have That) and Thom Zahler (Love and Capes). The panel went pretty well, but like most of the web comics panels that I’m on we could have used another hour or so to talk.
After the panel, Alan and I went back to the table and started selling like fiends. The last sales of the day really picked up, as everyone was out trying to make deals before they left. Several people commissioned some sketches from me, and I even participated in a charity piece to benefit Relay for Life.
After the con ended, Alan and I went for ice cream with Lora and Mike. After that, it was time for the 6 hour drive home.
Overall, Mid-Ohio was a fun experience and a great time to see old friends and make new friends! Alan and I are already talking about attending next year in November for their 30th anniversary show.
