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Dallas Comic Con Fan Day - this Saturday!
Antihero Comics will have a booth set up for the event. Please come by and pick up your copy of Some Other Day. I will also be selling copies of Exit 126 and Brian Kelly's Francis and the Vegas Tramps.
This Saturday, January 3rd from 11am to 5pm Richardson Civic Center 411 W Arapaho Road Richardson TX Admission: FREE!
Last night, Melissa, my sister Liz, and I met up with some friends at Dave & Buster's. We also took our camera. [click here]
Okay, I'm a little late with my weekly Comixtreme column. I've been busy folding and stapling my comic book. And coincidentally, this trauma is the subject of my article.
The process of producing a comic book can be a real pain in the ass. However, I think the indie folk derive a certain sick pleasure out of this grunt work. It makes for a nice war story: "When my first comic book came out, after my stapler gave up on me, I pushed all the staples through by hand until my fingers bled. I watched the entire Shogun mini-series while folding each page of my mini-comic. Now, I automatically fold anything that's handed to me." Sick, huh? Admit it, you like the grunt work too. [read the column]
I absolutely love James Sime's weekly column on CBR. Last night, I finished stapling a batch of mini-comics to be submitted for the Isotope Award. Melissa braved the US Post Office to mail it in. Sime's words were encouraging. [read the column]
And if you're making mini-comics, you're making those comics without any of the factory-installed safety features. You've got no power steering or anti-lock breaks and in the city where they built your car, they don't even know what an airbag is. You've got the top down, your seat belt off and you're barreling down the sequential art highway with the stereo turned up to ten and the gas pedal nailed to the fucking floor. You could've stayed at home like all the others and wrote about the state of the comic industry on the internet from the security of your bedroom, but instead you're blowing through small towns, risking life, limb, and the wrath of the local authorities and you are living the state of the industry.
The artwork for Some Other Day is finished. Brian Kelly did an amazing job on this project. I spent late hours this past weekend working on the overall design of the book. I love design-- almost as much as writing. It's exciting to put together a product that looks good. Hopefully I've done that. The photoshop files will go to the printer today.
Last night, I helped co-host Fanboy Radio (episode #119) with special guest Mark Waid. For all my alleged "indie-intergrity," yeah, I geeked-out a bit. Thank you Scott for letting me join in on the fun. It was also cool meeting Oliver Tull-- great guy.
Tom Kurzanski sent me the character sketches for Antigone. His artwork on this project is absolutely amazing.
I received confirmation last night. We will have a booth set up for the Dallas Comic Con's Fan Day on Saturday, January 3rd. A limited edition of Some Other Day (i.e. prior to the official first printing) should be available for purchase at this time. Brian Kelly is working hard to finish the last few pages of artwork and the cover. We're trying to get Some Other Day finished before the Isotope Award submission deadline.
Also at the booth, Melissa will be selling some of her comic book collage art (examples: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Other news: This Sunday, December 14th, I will co-host Fanboy Radio with special guest Mark Waid!
If you visit the site, post a comment. I'm always interested in who (if anybody) visits antihero comics.
By the way, completed inked versions of the Some Other Day preview pages are available now.
Thankfully, the wonderful folks at comixtreme have not fired me for being so infrequent with my antihero column. They have welcomed back their prodigal with open arms. This week, I give a little bit of advice concerning genres.
When we understand the genres we operate in, we also become more self-aware of the cliches that plague each genre. Cliches are the bane of storytelling. The audience can sense them coming from page one. They do nothing to excite and move an audience. Cliches remove the audience from the created story world and make them think, "Been there. Done that." [read the column]
I stayed up until 2 in the morning working on a script re-telling Antigone. Since I've taught this tragedy to my students for the past four years, I'm already fairly familiar with the content. I want to create a "goth surrealist" vision of this myth. It's been a lot of fun (and a real challenge) to twist and obscure everything, to plot out a visually compelling script.
Technically speaking, Antigone is an easy story to convert to a comic book format. Since not a lot of action takes place within each scene, any given scene can be condensed to 4 to 6 pages. Sophocles' work has a beautiful sense of word and image economy. I will post the script for the prologue on the website soon.
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