COLLEGE FOLLIES WAS ACCEPTED BY COMIXOLOGY!!!!

The title says it all. I got my acceptance email from Comixology! I honestly don't know any more than that at this point. They'll let me know when it's ready for release.

Today's my birthday and to have my lifelong dream of having a comic nationally distributed come true is one helluva of a present! 

I've got a long night at work but it's great to know my hard work on the comic has paid off. 

Thanks for all your support guys! The comic will be released soon!

Tales from the Con!

So just got back from Winston-Salem Comic-Con a couple hours ago. I sold a few copies, traded a couple copies with some of the other creators there and had a few people take my fliers. Chatted with a few folks. Everyone was very nice.

I got put on the very last row facing away from the entrance, with no other creators selling their comics near me, so I'm not how that effected my foot traffic. I did have fantastically talented artists on either side of me who were also pleasant folks.

And congrats to Juan Gray who won the rare original black and white version of College Follies #1!

Things I learned:

Be prepared to adapt your display. The table, provided by the venue, was much, much narrower than I thought it would be. I had every inch of it taken up by merchandise or signs. So I didn't have room to work on the cover for issue four, which was honestly a big disappointment to me.

Be prepared to cover your table. The tables where old wooden tables that had seen their better days to put it politely. I planned to use just a table skirt, but seeing how the tables looked, I had to literally run out and get a table cloth at Family Dollar to cover it up. I'll have time to order a real proper table cloth for next time, thankfully.

Allow a crazy amount of time to set up. I got there a little over an hour before they opened and thanks to my table covering emergency, it wasn't enough. It's better to get there uber early, just in case.

Don't count on anyone staying after close. I was hoping to do some networking, shopping and seeing if any vendors or creators might want to buy the comic. That didn't happen. I had a few minute window right at 5 I was able to talk to a few creators real quick (kinda the comic creator versions of speed dating) and do a couple trade, but that was it. Within half an hour, 95% of anyone who had a table was gone. So if you want to do something outside your booth, do it before the show, just in case everyone evacuates quickly.

I also had some sign and display malfunctions, which I'll be fining tuning for next time. And I got some experience talking to some folks.

So with experience under my belt, I'll be fine tuning things for a bigger, better, more stream lined College Follies experience at the next con.

College Follies Convention Booth Preview

Not much to say about this video, I just wanted to make sure it was on all my social media sites.

So I'm done with everything I have to make, print out or create for the convention. Just need to get money from the bank so I can make change, make some adjustments on my Square settings and...that's about it. Looking forward to finally going to this thing. See you tomorrow!

Page Three Ready! Never Stand Behind A Power Ranger Doing Something Dramatic!

Here's page three for issue three with commentary below...

So this is a pretty straight forward page introducing Psychoboy as Lavender Ranger. 

We start with a series of quick close ups building up to his introduction shot. This is a pretty common technique used in Power Rangers and in anime too to build up tension for the reveal of a character. It seemed like appropriate melodrama here.

The explosion when he says his name is something that sometimes happens on the show. Sometimes it happens on introductions, morphs or when a bunch rangers get together in a team-up episode. In some episodes, background explosions seem to happen just randomly during fight scenes. It's an odd technique to emphasis dramatic moments on the show. It's so much fun to make light of there's even been jokes about in the series itself. 

So Psychoboy is the team's special, super powerful sixth ranger who always joins the team later in the season. His outfit is, of course, modeled after Tommy the Green Ranger, Power Ranger's original sixth ranger and I got to say that shield he wears can make pretty much anyone look bad ass.

So this page is done and will be on display in my little art book at my table at Winston-Salem Comic-Con on Saturday.  I'll be wrapping up my con prep this week and actually get back to my regular schedule on churning out issue three after the convention.

Until I wish everyone happy background explosions!

Super Rangers, Font Replacement Is Ours!

Since I now know Comixology will not except pages with comic sans as the font, I'm using a new font from here on out on new pages. 

But that also means redoing the ones I'd already finished on issue three. Being an action oriented Power Ranger parody, the dialog is more sparse so this was quick and merciful to do. It also gave me the chance to go back and correct something that was bothering me on the early pages. 

When I originally was trying to do the "show text" for the title and credits for the "episode" of Super Rangers in the issue, I couldn't find how to do drop shadows on the text. The outlines I used instead on the white text didn't look that great and were hard to read. So after some researched I discovered how to do drop shadows. Not only is the text more legible, but it's also a dead ringer for the text used on the show, which makes me all kinds of happy. 

For those who've been keeping track, I am supposed to be working on convention stuff for this Saturday and that's exactly what this is, since I plan to have the cover, title page and first three pages of issue three for people to browse through. 

And now...on to page three!

Still working on con stuff...

Still working on stuff for my booth at the Winston-Salem Comic Con on Saturday. It's a bit of a production. I literally ran our of printer ink and double sided tape last night. I still got a lot of work to do so this is going to take up most of the week.

  

Ideally I'd like to have all the pages I've done so far on issue three (the Power Ranger parody issue) including page three in my little art book on my  table. So I'm going to try to finish page three and quickly re-letter the existing pages of issue three. This shouldn't take long, but it's just hard to squeeze everything in. Hopefully I won't get slammed at work again and will have time to do all this.

Anyway here's some bits I've gotten done of my set up...

Getting ready for Winston-Salem Comic-Con!

So work on issue three is delayed a few days since I'm trying to get all my materials ready for my booth at the Winston-Salem Comic-Con next weekend. I'm making signs, a booklet of finished pages and hopefully a display of my covers and such. I'll make a video of my set up before the convention hopefully.

The con is April 26 from 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Admission is $1.  It's at the Bolton Home and Garden Building, 421 West 27th Street, at Gate 9 of the Dixie Classic Fair Ground in Winston-Salem, NC. I'll be selling print versions of issue one (both regular or variant covers) for $3 and prints will be $5.

One I thing I want to clarify on the giveaway for the original College Follies #1 from 2000, I'll be doing the drawing when the con finishes, but I'll be informing the winner via e-mail and then mailing out the prize. So you don't have to be at my booth right at 5 to get it, I'm pretty much counting on having to mail it to the winner anyway. Each item you buy gives you a chance to win! If you can't make this con, I'll be doing this at other conventions too.

My plan, since I'll be sans electricity and can't do anything on issue three, is to work on pencils for issue four, like the cover, variant cover, etc. So if you do get to go, you might get an advance glance at what I'll doing for issue four! Hope to see you there!

Issue One Re-Submited to Comixology!

Alright so issue one has been re-uploaded to Comixology with all instances of Comic Sans replaced. Glad to have that over with. Hopefully there will be a quick turn around since it's already been looked over once. Since they described it as "tentatively accepted" except for the font, hopefully you'll be seeing College Follies on Comixology soon!

Re-Fonting Finished!

It's a bit later in the week than I'd like for making this post but work has kept me busy.  I just got through with the final pages of font replacement on issue one. All instances of Comic Sans have now been replaced with another font. I'll look over the last few pages to make sure nothing got messed up and will be sending them off probably this weekend. 

Page Three Colors Ready! Things Blow Up...In Color!

So page three for issue three is colored. I'll be finishing replacing the font on issue one for Comixology on Wednesday or Thursday. Then after that I'll letter this page and wrap it up.

 

Back Into Action! Page Three Inks Ready!

Since I have to wait until the middle part of next week to wrap up font replacement in issue one for Comixology, I went ahead and finished inking page three of issue three last night. I'll be coloring it today.

 

 

Raiders of the Lost Font

Still replacing all the Comic Sans in issue one for Comixology. Got four more pages down last night. Very close to scrubbing all the offending font from the entire issue, but unfortunately I won't have access to the computer I originally lettered it on over the weekend and I don't want to go between computers due to compatibility issues. So the final re-fonting will have to wait until Wednesday or Thursday, when I can wrap this up and finally declare issue one done (again!). I'll be working on issue three in the meantime this weekend.

 

Comic Sans, I Will Hunt You Down...And Replace You.

Alright, so the epic effort to replace every bit of Comic Sans in issue one continues. Got 5 more pages knocked out yesterday. 

Working On the "Sans Comic Sans" Version of Issue One

So now I'm changing the font on all the word balloons in the first issue for Comixology. This is going to slow me down on working on issue three for the next week or two but getting on Comixology is a priority. I got five pages down yesterday.

Replacing Comic Sans isn't the exciting most thing in the world, so I'll just leave you with this panel this re-lettered panel of Jesse Jackson....

We need to ban Comic Sans too, Jesse!

COMIXOLOGY RESPONDS!!!

So at long last Comixology responds to my submission of College Follies #1...and I have been tentatively accepted....and rejected. Confused? Good, I shouldn't be the only one.

So I opened my email yesterday and, after a five month wait, saw an email entitled, "comiXology Rejection." Fighting the urge to curl up in the fetal position under my desk, I clicked on the message.

A few paragraphs in and I read "Your submission has been tentatively accepted." What??? Really??? Awesome!

But then it goes on to say "however there are issues with your submission that need to be resolved prior  it being fully accepted." Well, okay, it must be some sort blaring problem that will be quick and easy to fix.

The problem?

"Lettering not up to industry standards: Comic Sans"

So I don't have a picture of my reaction but this panel of Stickboy should give you an idea of the look on my face...

The email had links to sites that sell and also give away fonts. So after I looked it up, apparently using Comic Sans causes an automatic rejection from Comixology. If this was mentioned anywhere in their guidelines I certainly didn't see it. 

I've had a lot of feedback on that first issue over the years. At no point has anyone had complaints about the kerning or the shape of the letters. But, hey, it's their site. 

So glass half empty, I now have to go through word balloon by and word balloon and change every bit of dialog (plus the logos) in the first issue. I'll have to eventually do that for everything else too. This is time I really didn't want to take out from working on the third issue. Plus, the letters are part of the comic, which is kind of time capsule of its era, so Comic Sans seems appropriate for that.

Glass half full is that I found a newer free font through one of their links that's very close to Comic Sans  so the look shouldn't change much and it won't require too much work to make sure all the redone text stays in its balloons. And after I do this, it sounds like I have a good chance of getting on Comixology. 

Let me repeat that they did say I was "tentatively accepted" except for the font. So potentially once I get this done the world's biggest digital comic distributor will pick me up, which would be amazing and a dream come true! Stay tuned kids!

College Follies at Winston-Salem Comic-Con on April 26

You got to excuse the spartan back drop in the video. I woke up with some inexplicable upper back pain yesterday and wasn't up to setting up a shot so I just laid the camera down on my kitchen table and shot. I think someone was stabbing the heck out of a voo doo doll of me somewhere. The video is all me talking off the top of my head, but I eventually I get the job done.

So like the video says,  I'll be one of the creators at the Winston-Salem Comic-Con on April 26. It's at the Bolton Home and Garden Building, 421 West 27th Street, at Gate 9 of the Dixie Classic Fair Ground in Winston-Salem, NC. I'll be selling print copies of the first issue (and the variant edition) for $3, prints for $5.

Buy something and you'll be entered for a chance to win one of only 50 copies of the black and white first edition of College Follies #1, printed in  2000! Each purchase gets you one ticket in the drawing. The more you buy, the more chances you have to win. At the end of the convention I'll draw to see who wins. I'll  only be giving these out in special occasions, like this so it's a rare opportunity to get a little bit of history.

So come by, talk, buy and see what I'm working on. I look forward to meeting whoever can make it out there.

Issue Three Cover Ready! Don't Touch That Dial!

So because of time restraints, I wasn't going to do an actual cover for issue three. I was just going to grab an image from the interior and blow it up and maybe use the Super Rangers logo for a little "Featuring Super Rangers" blurb.

 

But while I was writing the script with my taping of the original showing of "Green with Evil" playing from the first season of Power Rangers, I kept seeing the couple second-long "up next" filler commercials between shows.

 

And thus the cover below popped into my head... 

 

 

It's still reused art taken from Aqua Blue Ranger's intro panel on page two and Lavender Ranger's intro on page three, but obviously using photos to put them on TV required quite a bit of work.

 

Fox Kids Network (on Fox) originally aired the first season, hence the joke there. The photo is my own old TV combined with a pic of some old rabbit ears, which just seemed like the perfect touch.

 

The cover is meant to work with the rest of the comic, kind of acting as it's first panel (like in the covers of the original Watchmen miniseries). You see the "up next" message on the cover then go into the "Today on Super Rangers" narration on the inside cover, followed by the show opening, and then the episode begins on page one. Hopefully, this captures the feel of watching the show back in the day. It certainly was a lot of fun to do, at the very least.

 

Next, I'm going try to do a quick variant cover and get more work on done page three.

Inking Page Three...Exploding Salutations!

Started inking page three last night. This particular panel with Lavender Ranger's introduction will probably be repurposed as part of the cover too if all goes well.

Title Page Ready! Sing Along Kids!

The title page is done! Commentary is below...

 

 

This isn't quite as much work as a story page but it comes pretty damn close. It was put together piecemeal, but laid out on paper to make sure it could work before I even created the file.

 

We start with the world's laziest show narrator. Opening narration giving you a summary of what you were about to watch was the way Power Rangers originally opened when it aired. "Today on Power Rangers..." became as synonymous with the show as them yelling "It's morphing time!" It kinda sucks that it's not on the Netflix version of the episodes. There's no substitute for actually being there, kids. 

 

Anyway, since they showed footage from the episode as the narrator did the introduction, I pulled an unlettered image from the first page for the first panel here.

 

The rest is basically just imitating the show's opening, complete with theme song. If you've never seen it, search YouTube for "Power Rangers opening." You'll have more fun with this page if you can sing along.

 

I suppose one thing worth noting is that this is the only appearance of Lavender Ranger's weapon: the Chainsaw of Justice. Again, I think we need to petition Bandai to make it. Laser guns are bad influences on kids, so wouldn't we much rather have them play with brightly colored toy chainsaws instead? 

 

So next up with be more Lavender Ranger with page three and the cover!

 

Page Two Ready! Stickboy Morphs!!!

Alright so here's page two for issue three with commentary below.

This is possibly my favorite page I've done for a comic.

Panel 1- The morphing sequence is pretty much straight from the show. The terms are changed (from morphing to transmorphing) since this is a parody and they're Super Rangers and not literally Power Rangers. The pose is taken directly from the show and makes even Stickboy look bad ass, though God knows how he's keeping a morpher in the back of his swim trunks.

Panel 2- I love this panel. I LOVE lightening effects. They look great here. The show basically has a ton of lightening around them that covers everything but their arms, head and the morpher. Here I interpreted it as coming out of the transmorpher.

Panel 3- While the original Power Rangers just showed the scene in panel two and cut to the ranger morphed, I didn't know if this would be clear to the reader. I added an in-between scene to attempt to show the actual transformation into the ranger.

Panel 4- Monsters aren't only ones making terrible puns. The striking a pose and saying a line is, of course, a Ranger tradition. And Power Rangers just wouldn't be complete without the sound effects when they swing their arms.

Panel 5- Here's Psychoboy teleporting in. I didn't think the teleporting effect on the show would translate well into comics so I created my own and I think it looks pretty cool.

So next up, page three and...Lavender Ranger!