TwentySevenLetters

Inbound 4 Book Signing

2010-01-15T17:36:00.000-05:00

I'm not in this issue, sadly, but I will definitely be at the event, along with the many very talented folks who did contribute to this lovely anthology.

Join Porter Square Books and the Boston Comics Roundtable for an evening with contributors to Inbound #4, A Comic History of Boston. Writers and Artists will be presenting their process and research from the individual stories. Signed copies will be available for purchase.

Location:
Porter Square Books (map)
25 White St
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02140-1413

Gingerbread Houses Returns With a New Website and a New Chapter

2010-01-06T02:18:00.002-05:00

Gingerbread Houses begins its fourth chapter tomorrow at its brand new home on the web, PictureStoryTheater.com. 2010 promises many new trials for the unfortunate family, as we enter into the next phase of our story. Gingerbread Houses is a self-contained graphic novel, and is now halfway through its two-year run in online serialization.

PictureStoryTheater.com will serve as the primary home for Alexander Danner’s comics inspired by fairy tales, fables, and children’s literature, and is aimed at a young adult to adult audience. In addition to Gingerbread Houses, PictureStoryTheater.com will serve as the archive for the original Picture Story Theater comics, which were illustrated by Bill Duncan and originally published on ModernTales.com. Danner’s more experimental, mainstream literary, and workplace-themed works will continue to reside at TwentySevenLetters.com.

Gingerbread Houses will continue to update at ModernTales.com and in Grug’s livejournal, in addition to on the PictureStoryTheater.com website.

In addition, the first two chapters of Gingerbread Houses are now available as a print mini, and can be purchased via PictureStoryTheater.com.

Gingerbread Houses is written by Alexander Danner (“The Discovery of Spoons,” “Five Ways to Love a Cockroach,” “Panel One”) and illustrated by Edward J. Grug III (“Love Puppets,” “Glorious Bounty,” “The Bizarre Life of Charlie Red Eye”).

A new page appears every Thursday at:
http://www.picturestorytheater.com
http://www.moderntales.com/comics/gingerbread.php

Contact Info
Alexander Danner
alexander@twentysevenletters.com
http://www.picturestorytheater.com
http://www.twentysevenletters.com

Edward J. Grug III
tedprior@yahoo.com
http://tedprior.livejournal.com/

Hey! A Press Release!

2009-12-17T00:01:00.001-05:00

A Multiplicity of Minor Milestones
For Immediate Release

After enduring famine, parental abandonment, forced labor, compelled gluttony, and the brutal death of their wicked captor, Hansel and Gretel made their way home, to the loving embrace of the parents who sent them out to die in the first place. Now, all that remains is to restore that feel-good familial harmony…

This Thursday, December 10th concludes the third chapter of Gingerbread Houses, and brings to a close the first year of our somber retelling of Grimms’ “Hansel and Gretel.” What’s more, this brings us to the halfway point in our story; the witch is dead, the children are home, and there’s a bag full of witch’s pearls hidden in the cookie jar. But what do you do with a deranged little boy who’s terrified of food?

From the start, Gingerbread Houses has been a self-contained graphic novel, with a definite end in sight. The coming year will bring the conclusion of our story, approximately on the series’ second anniversary.

Gingerbread Houses will resume regular updates on Thursday, January 7, 2010, with the beginning of Chapter Four.

Gingerbread Houses is written by Alexander Danner (“The Discovery of Spoons,” “Five Ways to Love a Cockroach,” “Panel One”) and illustrated by Edward J. Grug III (“Love Puppets,” “Glorious Bounty,” “The Bizarre Life of Charlie Red Eye”).

A new page appears every Thursday at ModernTales.com.
http://www.moderntales.com/comics/gingerbread.php

Updates

2009-12-11T19:55:00.000-05:00

My semester is officially over, which means that, aside from finishing up my grading, I have the next few weeks off. I expect to get lots of comics related projects done in that time. In fact, I’ve already started, and will have a few minor announcements to make in the coming days. Here’s what I have in the works for the coming weeks:

Launch a new website. This will happen in the new year, but I’ve been busily developing it for the past few weeks. More on that when the time comes.

Plan a series of print minis for Gingerbread Houses. The first one is already done, but I haven’t put it up for sale yet. That’ll probably happen this weekend.

Complete final revisions on Trouble Is, Book One. This is my top priority after finishing up my grading. It will still be a while before anyone other than Shelli sees the results of this, but I’ll feel very good about having it done nonetheless.

Revise the script for Uncertainty, a short story I’m doing with Tym Godek. This one has been on both our back burners for a couple of years now, but I think we’re finally going to get this one out in 2010.

I’ve got a couple of other artists I’ve vaguely talked about new projects with—I hope to nail down some specifics there, and start on new scripts.

I have a few non-comics projects to work on as well, including preparing for fatherhood (75 days to go!), so I suspect I should be able to keep busy this year.

The History of Boston - Finally in Comic Book Form!

2009-12-04T12:52:00.001-05:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The History of Boston - Finally in Comic Book Form!
New comics anthology showcases true tales from Boston's past and present
in Inbound #4, the latest from the Boston Comics Roundtable

BOSTON, MA (December 3, 2009) - Boston history has never looked so lively as in Inbound #4: A Comic Book History of Boston. This 144-page trade paperback features over 35 stories from dozens of contributors, all chronicling true tales from their beloved hometown. The book is the latest in the Inbound comics anthology series produced by the Boston Comics Roundtable. (View book cover and samples at www.bostoncomicsroundtable.com/inbound-4/.)

Inbound #4: A Comic Book History of Boston has already been hailed as "an unexpected and delightful assortment of Boston lore" by Jane Clayson, radio host of WBUR's "Radio Boston." The stories are fresh takes on some of Boston's most fascinating history that rarely makes its way to dusty textbooks and walking tours. Ever heard about the book bound in human flesh at the Boston Athenaeum? What about the true and surprisingly sympathetic tale of Ponzi Scheme inventor Charles Ponzi? From revolutionaries to pirates and heroes to thieves, this collection brings them all together into a single, thrilling volume of shared history.

The book is a great gift for both history buffs and comics lovers. It's available online at the Boston Comics Roundtable website (www.bostoncomicsroundtable.com) and in many comic book and traditional book stores in the Boston area, including: Million Year Picnic, Harvard Book Store, New England Comics, Brookline Booksmith, Comicazi, Hub Comics, and Comicopia.

To hear the WBUR interview with Inbound editors and contributors, as well as the radio dramatization of Cathy Leamy's "The Old Howard," go to www.bostoncomicsroundtable.com/2009/comics-on-the-radio.

Contributors for Inbound #4: A Comic Book History of Boston include Matt Aucoin, Matt Boehm, Eric Boeker, Baldemar Byars, Susan Chasen, Will Clark, Ellen Crenshaw, Brad DeRocher, Franklin Einspruch, David Fernandez, Samuel Ferri, Tim Fish, Bob Flynn, Jaime Garmendia, Joel Christian Gill, Lawrence Gillette, Raul Gonzalez, Erik Heumiller, Richard Jenkins, Dave Kender, Kevin Kilgore, Braden D. Lamb, Cathy Leamy, Ron LeBrasseur, Line-O, Jesse Lonergan, David Marshall, Dan Mazur, the MCC, Troy Minkowsky, Lindsay Moore, Shelli Paroline, Steve Polackawicz, Matthew Reidsma, Roho, Aya Rothwell, Joshua Santa Cruz, b.k. Smith, Dirk Tiede, Carl Tsui, Dave Unger, and Jen Vaughn.

*

The Boston Comics Roundtable is an independent organization of comics creators in the Greater Boston area. It was created in 2006 to unite Boston-based artists and writers in the spirit of camaraderie and professional development. More information about its publications, its members, and local meetings can be found at www.bostoncomicsroundtable.com.

###
Contact info
------------------
Dave Kender
Boston Comics Roundtable
dave@bostoncomicsroundtable.com
www.bostoncomicsroundtable.com
www.theragbox.com

Pre-Order Inbound, Issue 4: A Comics History of Boston

2009-11-17T17:42:00.000-05:00

Issue 4 of Inbound, the anthology of the Boston Comics Roundtable, is now available for pre-order! Our biggest issue yet, number 4 is an educational romp through the history of the great city of Boston. Reserve your issue now, and spread the world!

The Boston Comics Roundtable presents
Inbound 4: A Comic-Book History of Boston.

38 tales from Boston’s past, as written and drawn by local independent comics creators!

Since 2006, the Boston Comics Roundtable has been bringing comics artists and writers together to collaborate on Inbound, a twice-yearly anthology of “Comics from Boston.”

Now we’ve asked this diverse pool of comics talent to choose their favorite characters and incidents from local history. The result is “A Comic Book History of Boston,” an entertaining tour through three centuries of important social and political events, bigger-than-life personalities, and colorful New England lore.

From Shay’s Rebellion and the great Molasses Flood, to Charles Ponzi’s original “scheme” and Mark Twain’s disastrous encounter with Boston literary society, to the 1970s busing crisis, the Gardner Museum heist and many more, the “Comic Book History of Boston” is an opportunity for readers of all ages to take a fresh look at our historical heritage and be introduced to the area’s thriving independent comics scene.

Setback

2009-08-28T01:06:00.004-04:00

Before I moved, I printed out copies of the script for Gingerbread Houses, as well as another substantial project. I read both documents thoroughly, marking them up for revisions. I made some of the revisions at that time, and set my notes aside to finish after the move.

Of course, now I can't find my notes. Not all of them anyway--more irritating than not being able to find anything is the fact that I can find all the marked up pages for sections of the projects that I already revised. But I can't find the part that I set aside to work with later.

So, anyway, I'm proceeding with my revisions, but it's annoying to have to figure out solutions to problems I already solved once before. But at least I'm getting some writing done again.

Projects Update

2009-08-16T19:15:00.002-04:00

I've been remiss for a number of weeks now--no new Simpleton strips, no blogging, and no announcements. Gingerbread Houses has continued to update weekly, thanks to Grug's diligence, but on the writing side, I haven't been nearly as productive as I would like for a variety of reason:

It's summer. Hot weather always kills my ability to write.

I have a heavier class load for the second summer session, which takes more of my time. And I have an 8:00 AM class twice a week. Early mornings also consistently kill my ability to write.

I have another treatment for my thyroid cancer coming up. It's a precautionary thing, not a major concern. But preparing for it is an issue: I have to go off my thyroid meds (which causes fatigue), and I can't eat any iodine, which means I have to cook all my own meals in order to avoid iodized salt. So that's been an additional time suck.

And, most importantly, Brandy and I are having a baby! Since we're only just into the second trimester, this hasn't actually been a time consuming issue, but it's certainly been a mental preoccupation.

On the up side, I'm going into the last week of the summer session classes now. Then I get two weeks mostly off (still have to do some prep work for Fall classes) before the fall session starts. My fall workload will be heavier, but won't start as early in the morning, so that should balance in my favor. And hopefully the weather will begin to cool off in a few weeks as well. Plus, my treatment will be done in just another two weeks, and then I can go back to a normal diet and start taking my pills again, which should have me in better spirits.

Despite all this, I have accomplished a couple of things. I did some revisions to the script for Gingerbread Houses, which I think will make the current chapter even better than it was. And I revised the opening pages of Trouble Is, to set a better tone for the rest of the book. I still have to follow through on revising both these projects, but I expect to do all of that in the two weeks between the end of summer and the beginning of fall. I hope!

After that...I might bring Simpleton back. It's a low-priority project, but it is a good way to keep me working between other things. On the other hand, I may just go ahead and start a something new and big. It's been over a year since the last time I started something new and big, so it seems about time.

New Simpleton: What I've Learned so Far

2009-06-17T01:42:00.002-04:00

Today's Simpleton offers a mini-essay on things I've been thinking about as a result of producing Simpleton itself. Mostly it's about photography and my lack of skill in that art.

There have been a few other Simpleton strips since I last linked from the blog here, but they weren't very good. I might not go so far as to say today's is good either--but it's purposeful, and that's a definite improvement.

On Experimentation & Collaboration

2009-06-10T21:47:00.001-04:00

As those of you who read my comics know, I don’t tend to write very many traditional linear narratives. In larger works, I also tend to steer clear of identifiable central protagonists. I like non-linearity, I like fragmented storytelling (including linked short stories), and I like ensemble casts.

As many of you also know, I’m currently working on a book with Shelli Paroline called The Trouble Is. Trouble Is is different from much of what I’ve done before. Oh, thematically it’s similar—a precocious girl, a spectral companion/competitor, an overwhelmingly incompetent (though well-meaning) parent. A lot of the same stuff I played with in Portraits of Nervous Children and Amy’s Picture Stories. But structurally, it’s a whole other beast.

You see, The Trouble Is is a linear narrative that tells a single straightforward story revolving around a clear central protagonist. There’s nothing experimental about it.

In other words, it’s a huge experiment…because I’ve never done these things before.

I felt much the same way about Panel One. Sure, that strip had plenty of formal play, and metafictional goofiness, the sort of stuff that gets a comic branded as experimental. But for me, those traits were my safety net—to me, the real experiment of Panel One was just the simple act of doing a daily humor strip. That’s the part I wasn’t sure I could pull off. That’s the part I was trying to gain a better understanding of.

But there’s one big difference; unlike Panel One, I really truly care whether or not The Trouble Is turns out to be good. I want this to be a good, fun, rewarding book. I want people to be glad they’ve read it. So it’s not enough to just play around with these traditional storytelling techniques; I have to actually succeed at them.

Now, I’m pretty confident I can do that. I’m pretty confident that I am doing that. But there have been some bumps along the way. My tendency toward ensemble casts gets me in trouble: I wrote in too many secondary characters (I’ve since cut one of them out entirely); I kept the protagonist’s Mom at the foreground of the story well past the point where she should have faded into the background (some reorganization of scenes has mostly solved that); and I haven’t kept my main character active enough in her own story, instead over-relying on the quirkiness of my supporting cast (this has improved, but I’m still working on it).

I’m learning a lot from this project. I’m becoming a better writer. And sure, after this I’m still going to want to do some crazy non-linear experiment—but I’ll do it better for having spent some time honing my abilities in basic techniques.

But just as important as seeing the value of practicing basic craft is this: WRITERS: LISTEN TO YOUR ARTISTS. They may not be writers themselves, but they still know what they’re talking about at least as often as you do.

Because, the thing is, while I’m sitting here pointing out the errors I’ve made in scripting this story, the bits that didn’t work or that went off in the wrong direction, I’m not telling you about problems I found. I’m telling you about problems Shelli found. And Shelli’s been great: she’s honest, she’s critical, and when she doesn’t like something, she lets me know. And sometimes I’m resistant. Sometimes what she’s telling me completely contradicts my own Great Idea. Sometimes I feel like she’s missed my point completely.

But then I go home and I mull over her comments. I sit with them a while. I think about what the consequences would be for the story if I took her suggestion, made a few changes. And usually I realize that the main consequence of taking her suggestion is that the story actually gets a little better. The characters get more interesting. The tone gets less glum. And then I start to realize that my original Great Idea was actually a Pretty Sucky Idea disguised as a Great Idea. And then I go back to my script and start revising, and improving, and reorganizing, and suddenly I have a much better book than I started with.

And that’s really the goal of collaboration after all—to make a really good book by taking the best parts of what each person has to offer. Not just by doing the part we’re good at, but by helping each other see when we’re not doing our own best work.

And that means always being honest.

And that means always listening to criticism given honestly.

MoCCA 2009

2009-06-08T23:15:00.001-04:00

I’m not going to do a big recap of MoCCA, since many others will do a better job of it than I would, but I just wanted to add a few thoughts to the discussion of the new venue. There have been some very strong reactions to the Armory, mostly negative. The two specific complaints worth noting:

The Armory is ugly and looks like a gym.

The Armory is oppressively hot and lacks air conditioning.

Both of these complaints are entirely accurate, and should certainly be taken into consideration in choosing next year’s venue. But I would like to offer a couple of counterpoints to these complaints:

The Armory is much easier to navigate than The Puck Building. I wasn’t exhibiting this year, and spent all my time wandering the aisles—which I was able to do at my own pace, without getting bogged down in narrow, clogged walkways. This made browsing much more pleasant than it was in the tight aisles of the old venue. And it was also very easy to find out of the way corners to have a conversation or pull up a spot of floor to sit and eat your lunch. I find tight crowds very stressful—the new location was much easier on me in this regard.

The Armory wasn’t any hotter than the upstairs portion of The Puck Building, which suffered a terrible greenhouse effect. Yes, it was wonderfully pretty up there, but it came at a price.

Food was readily and easily available. More than anything else, the thing that frustrated me about The Puck Building was that it took me forever to figure out where I could get a quick meal that was both good and cheap. At the Armory, finding a great sandwich was as easy as crossing the street. I had a terrific Cuban hero at Latin Thing on Saturday, and an odd but tasty Asian-fusion pork sandwich at Baogette on Sunday. Both were affordable, fast, and easy to find, and I heard rumor of other wonderful places I could have tried if I’d just gone one more block around the corner. Food options are a vital consideration, and The Armory has it all over The Puck Building on that count.

BCR in The Phoenix

2009-06-04T12:24:00.001-04:00

The Boston Comics Roundtable was featured in The Boston Phoenix today. Read the full article here.

Most of the work done by the Roundtable's members "has an indie-comics look," Kender concedes. "But I sometimes wonder whether we may be pushing away people who are into mainstream comics, like superheroes. I see people drawing in cafés and I strike up conversations with them and find out they've drawn for Marvel or DC or Image Comics. And they've never heard about our group. I'm trying to bring in as many different genres as I can."

New Simpleton in which Lives are Lived!

2009-06-01T14:53:00.002-04:00

Huge new Simpleton update today--this one took several days to put together, and is compiled from a whole bunch of Neal's Underhunt strips, chopped and reassembled, with some additional details added. It's a big multi-linear infinite canvas, and it's probably a complete mess, but I like it anyway.

Unfortunately, I'm having trouble making my content management software display it the way I want it to--it's insisting on laying my ad bar over the comic. Fortunately, there's some big white space in the top right corner of the comic, and I think I've managed to push the ad bar far enough that it's not covering any real panels of comic. Hopefully that's consistent across different browsers & OSes.

New Book by Steven Withrow

2009-05-31T23:58:00.004-04:00

News via my good friend and past co-author on Character Design for Graphic Novels, Steven Withrow:

Secrets of Digital Animation -- August 2009!
by Steven Withrow

Now available for preorder through Amazon.com and other online bookstores is my book Secrets of Digital Animation from RotoVision and Rockport Publishers.

This book was quite an adventure to create, and I hope it lives up to the hype of the jacket copy:

Secrets of Digital Animation sets out to demonstrate and showcase a range of cutting-edge work, new techniques, and influential practitioners within all forms of contemporary animation, from anime to flashware, and from animated shorts to machinima, offering creative hints and tips from the genre masters. This book offers young practitioners, and those interested in broadening their skills, an insider’s view of the fast evolving work of animation; showcasing professionals and their creations, working methods, and inspiration, along with jargon-busting explanations and easy to follow demonstrations. Stunning examples of finished work are shown alongside conceptual drawings and works in progress. The book contains practical advice and case studies that explore the professional techniques behind designing innovative characters and fantastical worlds, and bringing them to life.

Thoughts on my own prose, as I'm revising

2009-05-31T15:29:00.001-04:00

So I’m sort of working on a novel. Not a graphic novel—an actually book-length piece of prose. I don’t know if I’ll actually finish it or if it’ll be any good when I do. You may never get to read it, and that may not be any great loss. But I’m working on it.

As of right now, the book is 41 pages, beginning to end. Obviously, that’s a bit short, but that’s typical of my writing method; The first draft of Parens. was only 45 pages, and it nearly tripled in length during revision. My first drafts tend to be the skeletons of my story, which I then hang layers of meat on until it’s fully realized. I also tend to have long stretches of ignoring projects between drafts—this draft of my novel was completed two years ago, and I’m only just getting around to reading and revising it for the first time now.

One of the reasons I was drawn to plays and comics and stopped writing prose fiction a number of years ago was my feeling that I could write some pretty good dialogue and interesting characters, but that I wasn’t that great at narrative description. Sure, comics requires visuals, but I just need to communicate those visuals to the artist—I don’t have to evoke them for the audience. Of course, one of the things I made myself do, once I started writing comics seriously, was create several silent stories that relied entirely on visuals—that was the origin of the Amy stories—so that I wouldn’t become over-reliant on the techniques I was already good at. I wanted to grow.

So now I’m writing prose fiction again. And I’ve noticed something interesting about how my writing has changed since I last worked in this form—I don’t write nearly as much dialogue as I used to. In a lot of my early stories the prose was just a bridge between sequences of dialogue. But now I’ve gone to the other extreme—I find I’m writing practically no dialogue at all in some of my stories. The current 41-page draft of my novel includes only 22 distinct lines of dialogue, including an instance of “oh.” The first “I’m going to make some coffee” doesn’t appear until page seven, and is the last for several pages as well. And where I do insert longer conversations, the bulk of the dialogue comes very near the end, as the story is just about to wrap up.

What’s more, I’m actually enjoying the prose I’m writing—as I said, it’s been two years since I wrote it, so I don’t have that new project bias that makes writers love their most recent work. I don’t remember a lot of my details, so my rereading allows me to be surprised by what 31-year-old me did with this piece of writing. And I’m finding that my descriptions are more evocative than they’ve ever been, and funnier than I tend to give myself credit for besides. It’s still a very rough draft, of course—but I still like it. I’m happy with what I did, and am excited to take it further.

All my writing life, I’ve always felt that there is great value to working in more than one form—lessons that can be learned in one kind of writing that will benefit you in another. So much so that you can grow in skill in a form that you’re not even actively working on. My best achievements in one project always happen while I’m working on a different project. And I’m really pleased to discover that this has held true through my absence from prose.

Or, at least, that’s how it seems to me now. I could re-read this piece again next year and discover I hate it. I’ll just have to wait and see.

MoCCA

2009-05-29T22:54:00.002-04:00

I will be attending MoCCA next weekend, but will not be exhibiting this year. I'll probably carry a few copies of Bring Your Daughter to Work Day and Parens. around with me though, so if you should happen to see me around and feel compelled to make a purchase, I will happily accommodate!

It's been a while since I last attended a con that I wasn't exhibiting at. I'm looking forward to actually seeing some panels and making a better survey of the comics other folks are selling. Of course, I usually count on being chained to my table to keep me over-spending--without that shackle, I will be much harder pressed to resist temptation!

Unfortunately The Boston Comics Roundtable got shut out of tabling this year--MoCCA sold out crazy fast! The good news is a couple of our members, Cathy Leamy and Charles Snow, had already secured a table of their own, and so there will still be copies of Inbound available.

New Page of Gingerbread Houses

2009-05-28T15:17:00.001-04:00

Gingerbread Houses moves steadily along -- page 19 posted today, and we're now in the final sequence of Chapter Two.

New Simpleton

2009-05-27T01:19:00.003-04:00

So far, I've managed to keep up a pretty good pace with SImpleton -- I haven't missed a Monday update yet, and I've updated most Wednesdays as well. Including a new one today! This is the second Playwright strip, and I've already made a third that will run in a couple of weeks. While I'm okay with these becoming a semi-regular thing, I do need to be careful not to become over-reliant on these--they're fun to do, and I really like the conceit, but letting myself get into a comfortable rhythm with one particular structure would defeat the purpose of this series. The whole point is to make myself try different approaches, so I need to not repeat myself too often.

Presidential Biographies

2009-05-22T16:36:00.003-04:00

I've never read many biographies. I've always been a very fiction-oriented person, and where interests do extend into non-fiction realms, I've always been drawn more to science and technology than to personal or political history.

So, naturally, it makes perfect sense that I've now decided that I need to read one biography for each US President. I suppose it's not totally random--certainly though the past couple of presidential elections, my interest in politics has increased considerably. But more and more of my fiction ideas are tending toward concepts rooted in historical events, so it's time I started giving myself more solid grounding in the subjects that are inspiring me.

First up: John Adams. David McCullogh's tome is on its way to me from the Wilmington Public Library at this very moment.

And yes, there's a reason I'm starting with Adams -- the Boston Comics Roundtable is working on its fourth issue, which will be on the theme of Boston history. I still need to script something for the issue, and I figure I might as well combine my current research project with my upcoming writing project and kill two birds at once by reading about a president from the Boston area. Otherwise, I do plan to go in order.

So--who has recommendations of particularly good presidential biographies I should read?

MeCAF 2009 Con Report

2009-05-18T23:58:00.001-04:00

This past weekend I attended the first annual Maine Comics Arts Festival, organized by Rick Lowell of Casablanca Comics, and what can I say? It was possibly the most fun I’ve ever had at a comics convention! First off, it was located right in downtown Portland, which is one of my favorite places to spend a short weekend vacation. Lots of nice little shops (including Casablanca itself, which was already one of my standard stops when visiting), plenty of nearby places to eat, and the city stays active late into the night, with plenty of live music and good places to get a nice locally brewed beer.

The pre-show began Saturday night, with a ferry ride to Peak’s Island, where Rick hosted con exhibitors at the Peak’s Island Inn with complimentary appetizers and beer (courtesy of sponsor Shipyard Ale). It was a pleasure to be treated so generously—our participation in the show was clearly appreciated. After the first wave of exhibitors left (we had to exit by ferry, so there was no gradual tapering off of festivities) I shared a table with Rick, my good friends Shelli and Braden, Kean Soo, Zack Giallongo, and another gentleman whose name I didn’t catch. We had a delightful conversation about Muppet comics and TV shows of our youth (who else remembers the creepy yet touching moment when Red Fraggle, trapped in cave-in with Boober, and slowly running out of air, turns to her friend and asks the immortal line, “Boober…what is it like to die?”) I was particularly glad to finally have a conversation with Zack—for several years it’s seemed odd that I keep missing him, considering he seems to be friends with all my other friends. And now that I’ve met him, I regret that it didn’t happen sooner—he’s excellent!

I followed up the Peak Island party by joining several other members of The Boston Comics Roundtable at Novare Res, a “beer café,” which has a beer menu considerably longer than most restaurant’s food menus. (The Smuttynose Chai Porter is a real one-of-a-kind, and quite good. I recommend it.)

The convention proper started the next day at 10:00 AM at the Ocean View Convention Center, literally right on the water—with two full walls of windows facing the bay, letting in lots of sunlight, and nearby doors propped to admit the fresh ocean air, it was about as cheerful and well-lit convention venue as I can imagine. And that good cheer was only compounded by the youth turnout—I’ve never seen so many kids at a comics convention, clearly having a good time. There was some complaint from exhibitors that if they had realized the audience was going to be so kid-heavy, they’d have planned their exhibition materials differently, and there is already some discussion of taking the heavy youth presence into account when arranging the table distribution next year. That said, though, it was really good to see an event so welcoming to younger readers—it was the best kind of outreach, and kids and parents alike seemed to appreciate it.

There were some great talents at the show, which really made me wish I wasn’t on such a tight budget. All very indy, with lots of cool looking minis and self-produced books. The Center for Cartoon Studies had a great display, which I didn’t linger too long in front of, for fear that I would be too tempted to part with my limited cash. And I very much enjoyed chatting with my table neighbor, Sam Costello, who had some nice looking print editions of his Split Lip horror series.

By sheer volume, though, The Boston Comics Roundtable was biggest presence in the room—with five tables, we spanned nearly the entire length of the convention hall. You can see our exhibit in this photo by Aya Rothwell. Shelli’s artwork is in the extreme foreground, and in the far back, behind Braden’s hat, you can see my wife Brandy in a white shirt, standing behind my table. Everyone in-between is a BCR member.

I didn’t make very many purchases—it’s frustrating that convention season is in summer, when my personal funds are the shortest—but I did pick a quartet of Zack’s Novasett Island minis, as well as the first two issues of the Underburbs, which as been repeatedly recommended to me. My only other purchase was an official, ridiculously orange, con t-shirt. I don’t usually wear t-shirts with images on them, but I liked the sea monster. Also, I have an odd weakness for ridiculously orange t-shirts, and this was the most ridiculously orange t-shirt I’ve ever seen.

Sales for those exhibitors selling more adult-oriented material were generally pretty slow through the first half of the day, when the kids were really out in force. As the day went along, though, the audience got progressively older, and sales seemed to pick up. Personally, I actually did a little better than I have at my last couple of shows, especially with my big-ticket textbook.

The con was just the one day, ending at 5:00, which seemed like just the right amount of time for a smaller show like this one, though I was still sorry to see it end. The last thing I did before shutting down my table was to head back into the exhibitor lounge to get one last cup of coffee—yes, there was enough free coffee provided to exhibitors to last the entire show. That alone wins my heart. Then we packed up, and Brandy and I headed to David’s Restaurant for some of their exceptional clam chowder (a culinary must anytime we’re in Portland), then headed home again. I’ll certainly be back for the next one—even if I hadn’t sold anything, it was such an energetic and fun con that I would gladly come back next year. It’s the sort of con that sends you home really excited to get right back to making comics.

Who's Hungry?

2009-05-18T12:23:00.002-04:00

Via Steven Withrow, here's Who's Hungry, a short student film retelling "Hansel and Gretel." It's an especially dark and violent version, but very well done, and quite faithful to the structure of the original story.

Maine Comics Arts Festival

2009-05-14T03:37:00.002-04:00

This coming Sunday I'll be exhibiting at the very first Maine Comics Arts Festival in Portland Maine, organized by the excellent Casablanca Comics. As usual, you'll be able to find me tabling with The Boston Comics Roundtable. If you're in New England, you should come to the show!

Buy My Book!

2009-05-11T15:21:00.002-04:00

I've got copies of my full-length play, "Parens." back from the printer and ready to sell. Buy it here!

"I will not embellish and I will not romanticize. Frankly, this is simply not a story of romance--it is a story of love. And the two haven't a thing to do with each other." -William

Parens. is the story of Brook and William, a wife and husband, the impressionable student and the lover of language, who now speak only through voice recorders, their lives encoded in battles over grammatical minutia.

It is also the story of Eloquence and Bill, the two children who ferry these messages back and forth, always bouncing from one parent to the other, struggling to find their place in a fractured family.

Weaving forward and back through three pivotal days, Parens. reveals a chain of events that will force Brook and William to finally confront the state of their family and to make the most important decisions of their lives.

97 pages, 5.5" x 8.5", perfect binding.

Con Report: Massachusetts Library Association 2009 Graphic Novel Mini Conference

2009-05-11T04:14:00.004-04:00

Last week, the Massachusetts Library Association held its annual professional conference, which is notable for comics fans in that the final day of the conference included a Graphic Novel Mini-Conference organized by Robin Brenner of No Flying, No Tights. This included a full day of panel discussions related to the comic book industry, as well as a handful of graphic novel exhibitors in the exhibition hall, and a couple of interesting events throughout the rest of the week. I wasn’t able to make it to all of the events, as I wasn’t a registered attendee. (Technically, I shouldn’t have been at any of the events, but well…you know…nonchalant whistle.)

On the whole, I was quite impressed with the quality of the presenters arranged for the show, and very much enjoyed the panels I observed. Brenner is to be commended on the job she did arranging these events for the conference.

But perhaps the most important note to take from this is what it says about the role GNs are playing in libraries currently that the conference organizers felt it would be profitable to arrange a full day’s worth of graphic novel events at a conference not in any way specific to comics or other areas of geek culture.

A particularly nice facet of attending comics panels at a non-comics show is that the presenters, even the most famous of them, aren’t inundated with fans, which makes it possible to pursue a real conversation with just about anyone.

I attended two panels in full: The State of the Industry and Graphic Novel Creators Panel.

State of the Industry Panel
Moderated by Robin Brenner and staffed by Brigid Alverson (MangaBlog, Good Comics for Kids blog), Calista Brill (First Second), Ali T. Kokmen (Del Rey and Villard comic imprints of Random House), Dave Roman (editor, Nickelodeon Magazine comics, creator Agnes Quill, Astronaut Elementary), and John Shableski (Diamond Book Distributors).

As someone who often hears about many of the issues discussed in these sorts of panels at comics shows, it was interesting to hear these same topics addressed between publishers and librarians, with the conversation less tailored to the interests of creators and fans. Conversation stayed largely on interesting practical matters.

In discussing current trends, webcomics were just about the first thing mentioned. Mention was made of webcomics putting out books that have pre-established audiences, as well as traditional book creators beginning to put their works online to bring in new readers. Some discussion was also made of publishers beginning to look to portable appliances like Kindle and iPhone as markets for paid content. (Librarians are already looking at ways to make use of the Kindle—more on that in my discussion of The Technology Petting Zoo below.)

Kokmen mentioned a related experiment where Del Rey gave away large numbers of the first volumes of long-running series, as a way of roping new readers into buying the rest of the series. He was very pleased with the experiment’s results. Overall, there seemed to be much support for the business model of giving large portions of content away for free as a route to building a large (and paying) audience long term. “Whats pretty clear ISN”T happening is that it's stifling sales. Giving it away for free encourages people to pursue it further.”

Alverson addressed the challenge, for librarians, of locating and recommending good online comics content for kids, since the reference resources don’t exist yet. The value of keeping handouts of lists of age-appropriate webcomics was mentioned. The challenge for librarians trying to identify good kids’ webcomics was part of the inspiration of her “Good Comics for Kids” blog on the School Library Journal website.

Brill pointed out a particular lack of comics aimed specifically at kids in the 5-7 year old age range.

Roman also mentioned the (not at all surprising) fact that comics based on existing media properties are a much easier sell to kids than original comics creations. He’s had real first hand experience through Nickelodeon Magazine, where he has run both original and media-based comics. Kids are far more likely read comics if they already know the characters from TV.

Shableski pointed out that kids don’t tend to recognize the term “graphic novel.” Kids just call them “books.”

One of the more interesting discussions pertained to the issue of age ratings. Roman pointed out that labeling comics as “for kids” tends to kill sales—retailers are far less likely to order it, because comic shop customers won’t buy it. Hence, the creation of the “all ages” label. This reluctance to labeling comics with age ratings isn’t news to long-time comics readers.

According to Brill, though, the exact opposite is true for traditional book publishers and traditional book retailers—retailers organize their books by age ratings, and parents make constant use of those age ratings, so any book labeled “all ages” is impossible to sell. Highly specific age ratings are essential to traditional bookstore sales. Kokmen seemed to agree—while his imprints don’t put age ratings on western books, they are very diligent about age-rating manga books, and seemed to think that the practice was a big part of the success manga has had in bookstores.

Since libraries also sort books into age categories, and often need to be able to make on-the-spot recommendations of books they haven’t necessarily read, librarians seem to have an interest in the practice as well—it was pointed out, however, that the ratings don’t necessarily need to appear directly on the book, so long as the information is available through the publisher’s web site and promotional material. This is particularly important when purchasing and cataloguing the books.

Other topics discussed:

First Second has a long production schedule—18 months is standard for a full color book, only a few months less for a black and white book. As a consequence, they plan their lines out very far in advance—they’re publishing schedule is planned ahead for more years than you can count on one hand, according to Brill.

Publishers pay attention to prominent librarians’ blogs, and look to librarians for feedback on production & marketing issues. Librarians were encouraged to make a point of attending comics conventions (many already do) where they can get face-to-face discussions with the publishers and editors. This is particularly effective for comics publishers, since they tend to have small staffs, allowing librarians to get the ear of top-level people.

Official MLA live-blog report, Part 1, Part 2

Graphic Novel Creators Panel
Moderated by Robin Brenner and staffed by Dave Roman (Agnes Quill, Astronaut Elementary), Stan Sakai (Usagi Yojimbo), Chris Schweizer (The Crogan Adventures), Gail Simone (Wonder Woman, Birds of Prey, etc.), and Raina Telgemeier (Babysitters Club, Smile).

This panel was a little lighter, focused more on the usual creator anecdote type stuff, rather than real practical matters. Still, it was a lively and fun discussion. The audience was a bit sparse for this one, but it was the final panel of a week-long conference, so it's not surprising that a lot of people just wanted to get home.

Some topics touched upon:

Writing for mainstream (re: superheroes) leads to developing an audience faster than doing your own thing, but most folks enjoy having total control over their creative work.

Collaborating is most fun when your collaborator is an established friend. Schweizer particularly stressed that he wouldn’t be eager to work with someone he doesn’t know, but at the same time, he realizes that sometimes his own art style isn’t what best suits a particular story idea he has. When that happens, he’ll look to his friends for a potential collaborator, but he’s very picky. Simone, of course, works with new artists more regularly than the other creators on the panel, and enjoys the experience—but even she says that if she isn’t friends with her collaborator at the outset, she usually is by the time the project is done. Roman and Telgemeier had the most unusual collaboration experience—their artist on the X-Men manga they recently wrote is Indonesian, and ~~doesn’t speak English, so they’ve never even spoken to her. Instead, they’ve worked more closely with the translator.~~ [EDIT--I seem to have confused two different stories from Roman. The artist on X-Men does speak Engligh, thought they've still worked with her indirectly, via an editor. It's one of the Avatar comics artists who Dave communicates with via a translator.]

As in the earlier industry panel, the issue of creating for kids came up, and how the different creators consider their audience. Schweizer commented that he isn’t writing specifically for kids, but does consider that kids are reading the books. This is mostly an issue when dealing with violence—he wants to include enough violence to give an accurate representation of the time periods he’s writing about, but he isn’t looking to make it gruesome, so the worst of it happens of panel. Of course, there’s no stopping kids imaginations—he described receiving a letter from a young boy, who commented that his favorite part was when “the mean pirate” got his head cut off. While said pirate does die in the book, the death is not on panel, and know details are given about how he died—the boy provided that information himself. Roman pointed out that as an editor at Nickelodeon, he receives constant feedback from the kids themselves, which has made him increasingly conscious of his audience.

In describing her scripting process, Simone commented that a 22-page comic usually requires upwards of 50 pages of script. (This was particularly striking to me—in my own scripting, I follow a strict rule that one page of comic=one page of script.)

There was some discussion of adaptation—a member of the audience asked whether the creators had read a novel that they felt would make a great graphic novel. Most of the creators seemed to feel that it’s pretty rare that a novel could be profitably adapted into a graphic novel. Schweizer pointed out that what he tends to enjoy most in prose novels isn’t specifically the plots so much as the language—so if you’re going to change the language into visuals, then you’re losing the aspect that drew him to the novel in the first place. Simone further pointed out that efficiency requires that a prose novel will have to be substantially abridged to create a graphic novel, and the more you abridge it, the more pointless it seems to adapt it. Telgemeier, of course, has done significant adaptation in her Babysitters Club books, and enjoyed the process—especially since the original novels are all out of print, so her adaptations have allowed new audiences to discover those stories. Roman pointed out that Telgemeier’s adaptations benefited from fairly simple abridgement—the original novels tended to include a lot of repetition of visual details, which is unnecessary in a visual form.

MLA Live-Blog Report

Also of interest
Get with the Program! Teaching, Programs and Hands-On Demonstrations using Comics
Stan Sakai and Chris Schweizer
Discussion of the educational value of comics, including building literacy skills, such as vocabulary and reading comprehension, as well as teaching storytelling skills. I only caught the last ten minutes or so of this presentation—Sakai gave a live demonstration of thumbnailing a comic page by prompting an audience member for details of what she did on her way to the conference, which he drew out sequentially for the audience. Sakai is a very warm and entertaining presenter.

MLA Live-Blog Report

Graphic Novels 101, with John Shableski and Robin Brenner
Introductory level discussion of comics for librarians looking to address them in their libraries. Largely a history of comics, from Ben Franklin to the present day, followed by a discussion of issues librarians face in dealing with graphic novels. Resources for librarians were discussed, including another discussion of age ratings, and systems for cataloguing graphic novels, such as shelving non-fiction comics by standard Dewey call numbers, rather than lumping all GNs together.

MLA Live-Blog Report

Earlier in the week was the “Different Ways of Storytelling,” panel which included cartoonist Lynda Barry and non-cartoonish Thrity Umrigar. I wasn’t able to attend this panel, but you can read the MLA’s official live-blog report. Apparently, Barry commented at one point that her most reliable source of income is “selling stuff on eBay.” This comment seemed to be made in the context of the decline of comics in alternative newspapers.

MLA Live-Blog Report

The Novel World of Digital Storytelling
Elizabeth Thomsen
Not specifically about comics, but addressed a number of tangentially related storytelling forms, and other experiments in popular online creative activity. Topics addressed included fan fiction, machinima, blog-to-book publishing, collaborative storytelling projects, six-word memoirs, and a recent phenomenon in Japan of school-age girls writing stories via cell phone text message (some examples of which have since become best sellers). Webcomics came up briefly, specifically addressing Brian Fries’ Mom’s Cancer, and the fact that it became a published print work after being completed online.

MLA Live-Blog Report

Exhibition Hall
Unfortunately, I didn’t see much of the exhibition hall. I only attended the last day of the four-day conference, so a number of exhibitors had already packed it in before I arrived. What’s more, since the show had a designated lunch time, the exhibitors mostly went for lunch all at the same time—specifically, right during the time when I was in the exhibition hall, so I mostly got to see a bunch of empty tables.

One particularly interesting table was The Technology Petting Zoo, where I got to see a side-by-side comparison of the original Kindle and the Kindle 2.0. The display on the 2.0 really is everything they say it is—noticeably better than the original, when I first saw it, I didn’t realize it was an actual functioning device—I thought that the default graphic of Mark Twain that it was displaying was a paper insert on a mock device. So, I’m officially impressed. I don’t like the odd flicker you get between page turns, but I’m sure that’s something that will improve quickly in future iteration. My wife and I were split on which was more comfortable to hold—I preferred the slimmer, evenly balanced 2.0. Brandy preferred the more ergonomic and rubberized original. But, it’s worth noting that the original is only ergonomic if you want to hold it primarily in your left hand—Brandy did. I didn’t.

I spent most of my time chatting with Roman and Telgemeier, since they’re always lovely people to chat with. I also had a nice conversation with Brigid Alverson, and got to briefly say hello to Chris Schweizer. Later, I had opportunity to chat with Callista Brill, as well (recognizable from Mark Siegel’s Scott Pilgrim review from Unshelved), who was very excited about The Eternal Smile, Gene Yang & Derek Kirk Kim’s very new book. As I mentioned at the beginning, one of the great things about this sort of show is how accessible the comics creators are. I didn’t talk to Stan Sakai or Gail Simone, but I probably could have—I just felt awkward doing so, since I haven’t read either of their work. (I did buy the first volume of Usagi Yojimbo from the conference fundraiser table, though.)

Simpleton: Diagramming the Comic Strip

2009-05-11T01:17:00.001-04:00

I've got a new piece up in Simpleton today: Diagramming the Comic Strip. This one features art by Neal Von Flue.