Up Next, the Second Story!

With the first story done, I'll soon begin working on the second story for the series.

The stories were usually conceived of and plotted in no particular order. When I was pitching the series to comic publishers in 2000, I had to plan out what would be in the first few issues. The first completed story "Natural Wanna Bes" actually ended up being the second issue in the planned series. The plan was to introduce the college cast in the first issue, and then in the second I'd introduce the "at home" cast that Stickboy would hang with when not in school. "Wanna Bes" would introduce his best bud Psychoboy and a back-up story would introduce Stick's ex-girlfriend, Dino.

After I ended up completing "Wanna Bes" for my senior project and submitting it to publishers in 2000, I decided to go ahead and do the planned back-up story that would accompany it. Entitled "Everyone Says I Love You (Even Though I Really Wish They Wouldn't)," it's the complete opposite of  "Wanna Bes," which is a grandiose story dealing with the current events of the time. This is a more grounded. slice-of-life story about Stickboy walking his ex-girlfriend to her car and the strangeness that ensues from it. It's semi-autobiographical, based on something that happened to me and it's a lot of fun. I think it really shows the range of the series, how every story is different.

The story, which is five pages long, was mostly penciled with several panels left to draw on the last page. I'll be adding a new cover, title page and back cover since this little short will have its own release as a .99 cent digital comic.

So there you have it! Next up is an anti-romantic comedy 13 years in the making!

First issue: The Lessons Learned

First off, I'm very pleased to say that all the technical issues with the Amusedom version of the first issue have been ironed out. It's good and ready to go. I'll be waiting on a response back from Comixology before I schedule a release date, but it feels great to have it done.

And now, here's what I learned from making issue one:

Pencils- It's hard to draw when you haven't done it in awhile and I've lost a lot of years I could've been honing and improving my skills. That's my mistake. I should have never stopped making comics. Now I got to play catch up.

Inks- Similar to drawing, very hard to get used to doing again. Inks are especially hard because of the precision required. No erasing, no backsies. Wite-Out can only help so much. You really have to be a surgeon with an ink pin to create lines precise enough to hold up at the size Comixology wants it to. Lines that look fine in full size print required major work for digital.

I was pretty comfortable doing the computer touch ups and I'm going to experiment with the Wacom tablet I just got today to see if I can ink the pages digitally.

Color- This was really interesting since I've never worked extensively in color. The first thing I discovered is that color is sometimes relative and defined by the colors around it. A specific color may look dark on one panel and faded the next depending on the colors around it.

I also learned that color can tell as much of the story as any word or line can. It can have its own meaning, themes and humor just like any other part of storytelling.

Letters- I relearned how to use Illustrator to letter. Didn't really discover too much new about lettering itself other than how awesome it is to drop out the lines on logos since it'll show up on a color background (like I did with the CNBC and NIN logos).

I'm hoping I can figure out a way to do lettering in Photoshop so I don't have to buy Illustrator at home but that remains to be seen.

Submitting to digital comic sites- Read up. Do your research and be prepared for half of it to go out the window at some point. Be ready for anything and don't be shy about asking for help.

With issue one behind me, I'm taking few a days off of work to rest and recuperate before I get started on story two. I'll still be blogging during that time, so keep your eyes on this spot.

First Issue Submitted!!! Part 2

I can already say that within  a couple months you will definitely be able to buy the first issue on at least one site. No one is more surprised at that than I am.

The second site I submitted to was Amusedom. It's a smaller, less streamlined site, but I'm in good company on there with Moebius and Joe Jusko galleries, Asylum Press, Heroic Publishing, Elephant Men and the amazing M3. I heard about the site at Heroes Con in Charlotte from the creator/writer of M3, Erica Schultz. I thought it was just a site you could submit for free and it would just give you a bigger cut of the sales than Comixology.

After getting around technical difficulties (thanks to some Twitter advice from Mrs. Shultz) I was able to finally upload my pages last night...and much to my surprise they just automatically became a digital comic! There is no review process. You just upload your comic, set the price and your portion of the sales go to your Paypal account.

I was amazed! Now it's not ready to go just yet. There are some technical issues that will require me to re-save and re-upload the files. In theory I should be able to iron those out this weekend, if not, definitely in the next few weeks. 

An early release like this wasn't planned. I'm taking time off for some recuperation starting the later half of next week. I'll be breaking in a new Wacom tablet and Photoshop Elements on my personal laptop that will hopefully make the whole creative process easier. And I'll be starting on the second story very soon. 

So in the middle of all that, I'll need to figure out what the best way to let everyone know when the first issue is out and how to link you guys to it. I'm still deciding when the best time to release it will be.

Amusedom's digital comics are similar to Comixology just without the guided view and I don't think they have a mobile app. The site is relatively small and a bit dated (they've got MySpace and AIM on the share options). It's no substitute for a larger Comixology release but it definitely is a good way to get it into the hands of readers.

 

Right now I'm thinking about waiting to hear back from Comixology. If they reject me I can use just hit a button and the comic goes online anyway. If they accept me, I might go ahead and go live with the Amusedom version to give people who want it early access.

So give just give me a little more time and the first issue will be to you guys in all its digital glory soon! 

First Issue Submitted!!! Part 1

Movies aren't released, they escape. The same holds true for comics. 

I've looked over the comic several times. I made a last round of corrections on things that, honestly, are so small they probably won't even be seen by readers. I could touch up it forever, but at some point you got to say "done" and release it, knowing it's a good comic and that it's far, far better than it's ever looked before.

The comic has been submitted to Comixology, the biggest digital comic site there is and the industry standard for digital comics. It'll take months for them to review it, and then convert it for their site and app if they accept my submission. If they take it, it'll be converted into guided view, which will givers viewers the option of seeing the comic one panel at a time and lets you navigate between panels with the press of a button (or a swipe of your finger or stylus). Though not designed for guided view, the comic should be pretty much perfect for that with its panel layout.

So submitting to Comixology was a long, but easy process. I'd been making the comic all along with Comixology's requirements in mind, so the pages were already in the right format. I had to include square images of my company logo and of myself, but since I already made both images specifically with Comixiology in my mind, that was a cinch.

I also had to make a new square image for the series itself. You can see some of the images I considered on the side. The group shot from the College Follies Facebook page looks good, but just wasn't legible when shrunk down the to the size viewers might see it at on Comixology (it may appear at roughly the size of an avatar when listed with other titles). The yelling Stickboy one I also liked, but I didn't think it was as immediately, unambiguously readable as the one I went with below.  

I'm also submitting to one other site, but I'll deal with that in a later post as I'm trying to figure out what's going on with it at the moment.

NEXT: Submitting to Amusedom!

The official series image I submitted.

The College Follies "Get Them To Like Me On Facebook" Challenge

So I've been working on the comic for a little over three months now and I'm pretty much done with the first issue (and getting ready to submit it). During that time, I've been on social media interacting with potential readers, trying to get followers.

I've had a good response on Google+, which I'm enjoying a lot. I've met some really great people through the communities there.

On Twitter, I'm doing okay. I'm still figuring out Twitter out as I go.

But Facebook, it's a problem. I'm getting very few likes no matter what I try.

Which is a little discouraging.

But I've got an idea.

I'm going to let you guys figure it out for me in my first contest:

The College Follies "Get Them To Like Me On Facebook" Challenge

Whoever comes up with the best way to get people to like the College Follies Facebook page wins.

The prize will be a printed copy of the first and only College Follies issue printed in 2000. This is the comic I'm currently touching up, coloring and turning into a digital comic. Only 50 copies were printed and the orginal files for it have been lost, so if this story ever goes to press again, it'll be using the touched up files I'm working on now. So this is a rare chance to get the issue as originally done, unedited, warts and all.

The rules are simple:

1. Like the College Follies Facebook page at facebook.com/collegefollies

2. Do something to get people to like the page.

This can be anything you want.

In my Facebook and Google+ posts for this contest, I'm going to include some art from the comic you can add text to and turn into promotional images, but there's plenty of  other art on both pages and this blog you can use to create images to plug the Facebook page.

You can also create your own images or you don't even have to use images at all. It could be some text you post, a verbal plug, a video you make, a yard sign, sky writing...anything that gets people to like the page.

3) Document what you do and share it to the College Follies Facebook page.

For images, text or video you post online somewhere, sharing a link or post should be easy. If it's something in the "real world" just document it in some fashion to prove you did it and share it to the Facebook page.

The contest will run until the College Follies Facebook page gets one hundred likes. That may take a week. That may take a year. However long that takes is how long the contest lasts.

Since it'll be hard to tell how many likes I get from a specific entry, I'll be judging them subjectively based on what I think is best, in other words what I think is the most creative, appealing and effective entry.

The winner will be announced via this blog and all the other College Follies social media pages, including Facebook, so be sure to check my updates for the winner.

And that's it. I look forward to seeing what you guys come up with. Good luck to everyone.

Back Cover Done! Issue One Finished!!!

It ain't over the til the fat lady sings or the skinny boy begs you to follow him on social media!

The original stand from 2000

The filler ad for the back cover is done! For the image of Stickboy, I took the original inks I used for a tiny promotional stand I did back in 2000. Little Stickboy (shown on the right) actually did sell a few copies of the comic at Heroes Con in Charlotte back in the day. 

Here I've repurposed the image for an ad begging for followers on my social media sites. The "Begging Stickboy" image was done quickly and sloppily back in the day so he required some clean up before he got blown up.

Filler ads, especially on back covers, are pretty common in comics as advertisers have gone elsewhere to promote their products (and, heck, Comixology doesn't even allow paid ads in their comics). This one I plan to reuse for the back cover or inside back cover of future issues (it's one less page I have to make for future comics).

So at long last the entire comic is done, cover to cover! Issue one is finished! I've still got to look it over and submit it, which I'll be doing in the next few days...

Inside Back Cover Finished!

The inside back cover is done!

This is the inside back cover as it existed in 2000, just colored with inking touchups. This is inspired by the back cover (or sometimes inside covers) of books or trade paperbacks. I used artwork I had laying around and wrote a couple paragraphs. It was a quick way to fill space but, man, I love this page! The top has a disclaimer in it that's a great gag, but I won't show it here since it would spoil the ending of the story.

The big image is the initial Dark Knight Returns homage image I did back in the day. It was nice to get it in there. Of course, I have a much better version up on my personal Facebook page, which I've already detailed in a prior post.

For the author shot, I think that's a reworked self portrait I made for my student website. That bio is of course, circa 2000. I'm no longer a college student and, sadly, I also no longer have a nifty girlfriend. I do, however, still have a cool comic collection. 

Just got to do the back cover and I'm done! 

Letter Page Done!

The letter page is done! 

The letter page is a time honored tradition of comics, publishing readers' comments, fan art, etc. And part of that tradition is, since a series won't have letters before it's published, filling the first letter column with an editorial of some sort, whether it's just talking about the creators, the direction of the book, how the series came to be or just about anything else to fill the space.

So it's an absolute thrill to have my letter page become a part of the digital release. It features my editorial on Columbine that ran in the print comic in 2000 with a new section at the end talking about the digital College Follies series.

An additional change was that the original "MAIL TO" went to my actual home with my (now defunct) student website and email at the bottom. This needed to be changed since I no longer live there anymore (I was living with my then-inlaws, who probably don't need to receive any more mail about this comic). Because email has become so prominent now I've included my email instead of a physical address. I will say I miss seeing a full mailing address at the top of the letters column, but such are the times we live in.

I plan to have a regular letter column, regardless of if I get letters, as a way to communicate with the reader and let them know what's going on with the series (something I feel is sorely missing in many modern comics). But I do hope I get letters once it's released. And if I get any attached with crayon pictures of my characters drawn by little kids, my life will absolutely be complete.

Page 15 Done! First Story Finished!

 

Darn straight Stickboy!

 

So page 15, the final page of the first story, is done! That one panel is the only finished image I can show without giving the ending away, but lets just say it's really good and was always my favorite part of the story.  And, no, Stick and Psycho don't drive over a cliff Thelma and Louise style.

 

But a finished story is not a finished comic. As anyone who's ever laid out a publication knows, there's no such thing as a comic with 15 interior pages. Pages are printed on the front and back of each sheet so there has to be an even number of pages (16 in this case). And since I had a cover and inside cover (title page) I had to have a back cover and inside back cover. This is true of the comic when it was printed in 2000 and remains true even now as I turn it into a digital edition.

 

Thus, I've got the following pages to do:

 

1) Letters page (taken up by an editorial)

2) The inside back (with an old author bio and a humorous disclaimer)

3) The back cover

 

The first two will be scanned, in but should require little work to color/update for this new release of the issue. For the last one I'll be creating a brand new house ad  plugging College Follies on social media, which should be relatively easy too.

 

I've also got to make some very minor corrections on some of the pages and proof the comic. Though the comic was thoroughly proofed back in the day and I've been looking over and reading over it during the entire process, mistakes could happen at any point in the process. I want to get this right. 

 

I plan on getting a lot done next week. All this may be knocked out within the week and I'll be submitting it by the weekend  or I may be submitting it the middle of next week.

 

Either way I'm super glad to be in the home stretch on this incredible creative journey and look forward to the next one, as I finally finish the second College Follies story after 13 years!

Coloring Page 15

I started coloring page 15 yesterday. Hopefully I'll finish the whole page later today.