I just discovered that I've made a rookie mistake on one of the Tales I'm drawing. Hell, this is worse than rookie-level; it's middle-school-level, the kind you make when you haven't thought thru even the basics of making publishable comics.
I've been drawing the pages in the wrong proportions.
Instead of 7x10.5, the pages on "Cruising the Love Boat" are 7x9.5. I've been poking away at these pages for months, and I didn't even notice that they were all vertically challenged. And to make matters worse, this is the longest story in the project: 14 pages. Some pages/panels are still very rough, but others are (or were) pretty much ready for inking.
Sigh.
I guess I'll go thru it all and resize panels to make them fit the standard proportions. In most cases my framing/composition isn't especially precise to begin with, so adding some more head/foot room won't hurt anything; if there are any panels where it would wreck something, I'll keep those the same height and resize the panels around them.
I may have to put the Tales on the backburner for a bit (as if they weren't already down to simmering), because I've just been handed a cool opportunity. Dale Lazarov, who's written a handful of hardcover gay erotic graphic novels, has given me a script to illustrate. He posted a message a while back saying he was bored and asked if anyone wanted him to write a script for them to draw. I bit.
I have the script now. He's calling it a "minicomic", but it'll be full-size pages; I guess "mini" comes from the fact that it's "only" 13 pages. He's only seen a little bit of my art, and he warned me that it could be a challenge to illustrate. In standard Lazarov style, it's wordless, which puts a lot more storytelling weight on the artist. It's also 4 interwoven scenes, involving 8 characters, each of whom has to be visually distinct. And hot. He wants me to do character designs for all of them – both clothed and nude – before proceeding, and if he likes what he sees, then we'll talk terms. So it could be a lot of work – and a distraction from my own stories – with no pay-off. But if it all goes well, it could be a combo of great exposure and some money.
I'm definitely going to take a stab at it. I have enough regrets in life without adding "Turned down an offer to collaborate with an established writer" to the list.
He wants some minor-to-major changes on three of the characters, and gave me a little more specific description and/or some examples of what he was thinking of for them. But he said that 5 out of 8 of them are good to go. Considering that I'm a total noob at designing characters to someone else's specifications, I figure that's a respectable percentage.
The good news/bad news is that my drawing time over the next couple months or so will be consumed by the project with Dale, which means no progress on my Tales. I've poked Zlatan about doing some more drawing, but he's taking some community college classes, which means I can't expect too much from him. :-w
But my health and finances have been stable enough over the last several months that I think I can risk spending some money hiring an outside artist or two to draw stories. There are a couple people I've had contact with about this in the past, so I'm going to drop them a line and see if they're still interested/available. [-O<
Meanwhile, I can keep writing, because I can do that (in fits and spurts) at my day job. :-\"
I just got an e-mail from Dale, saying that the revised character designs I sent him are good to go! (Well, he'd like one of them "more handsome", but apparently the guy as I've drawn him is good enough for a one-issue stand.) So he's sending me a contract to cover the collaboration.
Look, I have no delusions about my artistic prowess. I've known for a long time that I'm not the kind – or caliber – of artist that someone is going to look at and say "I want him to draw my comic!" Not when there are so many talented pencil jockeys out there who can produce better work in less time. That's part of why I write my own stories: I figure I'm good enough to translate my own ideas into images, and can do a pretty good job of it, thanks to my inside track into the writer's head. And it's why I've collaborated with other artists: I know they're better and/or faster than me.
Which puts me in a rather awkward and peculiar position here. It's not exactly "hired", because he hasn't mentioned any money up front. [Insert "back end" joke here.] And it's a digital-only (for now) 13-page one-shot, so it's not a huge deal. But this guy with a few hardcover GNs in print is actually saying that... he wants me to draw a script he wrote. It's not a huge statement of faith – worst case scenario for him is that I totally flake out and he gives it to someone else – but he apparently thinks it'll be good if I do it. :>
The folks on this site rather generously let me be classified as a "professional" despite the fact that I've never made a dime creating comics, I have nothing at all in print, only a few things online, etc. I did contract with Ozzy and pay him to pencil and ink Captain Miracle a few years ago, so in that sense I've already been "in the business", but that only proves that I had a friend with a functioning checking account. By any reasonable standard I'm just a wannabe. Except for this.
Of course I'm getting ahead of myself a bit here, because I haven't actually drawn a page of the book in question. But I know I can do it. And I'm going to. Which makes this pretty fucking awesome.
Jason, you're probably not the most "technically" proficient illustrator, it's true. But you know what man? You've developed a style which is uniquely your own, and you can tell a story. That, in my (maybe not so humble) opinion is worth it's weigh in cross-hatching. Maybe even double.
Can't wait to see what you cook up - just make sure you make your deadline and listen to your collaborator and I think you'll be good to go. Remember, in comics illustration, there's speed, ability and agreeability. If you can provide two out of three, you're already further along than most.
Contract with Dale signed. It's a good contract: clearly written with mutually fair terms. The main points of it:
Shared copyright. I'd accept no less. Unless it was cash up front.
Author serves as agent with publisher(s). OK with me... it's his baby.
60/40 (my favor) on royalties for the first X units, 50/50 after that. So we're equal owners, but to compensate me for the longer hours I need to put into it, I get a larger share of the money until an arbitrary point where that's "paid for".
85/15 on profits from any not-comics merchandise featuring the art, which recognizes that it'd be the art that's being sold (not his story), but still gives him a cut for his role in its creation.
He owns the rights to the title, and failure to meet the September 1 deadline nullifies the deal. A bit harsh, but understandable. That's nearly 6 months, and I can do 13 pages of art and a cover in less than 6 months. I proved that to myself when I did Fetus Christ last year.
So it's official: "Everybody's Doin' It" is a thing. Expect headlines on Newsarama, Comics Alliance, Bleeding Cool, The Beat, and Ain't It Cool News, any day now.
Well, it's officially official: Dale just announced thru assorted social-media channels that we're doing a 13-page comic together. Now I'm not just legally committed; I'm Facebook committed!
Thought A: a Kickstarter campaign could be a good way to raise money to keep the Tales in production with other artists while I draw "Everybody".
Thought B: a Kickstarter campaign would be a lot more likely to succeed if I wait until after "Everybody" is out, lending me a higher profile and more credibility.
I've been focusing most of sequential energy into the art for "Everybody's Doin' It"... which I enjoy doing, but it isn't as creatively satisfying in the same way. So lately I've taken some time off to work on a few Tales scripts:
"Lead Us Not Into Temptation" is from the bad old days, when I was trying to alternately fit in / blow the lid off the local fundie not-so-liberal art college, in which I tried to befriend a Bible-throwing closet case. (There's a sequel "Deliver Us From Evil" in which I give up and try to destroy him.)
"Oral Beach" is from the good old days, when I was with Jay, in which we visit a nearby gay nude beach. These "relationship" stories are some of the most difficult ones to write, not because they're less "spicy" than the others, but because they're a bit painful to remember.
"Before / After" is from the present and near future, in which I am working on getting back into shape.
I realized recently that I'd been avoiding writing stories from when my late partner Jay and I were together. Other than the story of our meeting, one episode from that time which he wasn't part of, and the story I just wrote about the private gay beach, it's been a hole in the timeline. Not that hard to understand, I suppose: remembering can be a bit sad. But there's also been some hesitation to "exploit" Jay as a character. Which is actually ridiculous as I think about it, because despite being a bit shy, he was an exhibitionist at heart, and certainly would've gotten a kick out of being featured in comics. Come to think: I have a few self-portraits he painted that would be great to work into a story.
Of the two of us, Jay was the fine-artist. Also a bit of an alt-comix snob, though I managed to persuade him that there were good superhero comics too. He did a few short autobio comix, though I have no idea what happened to them.
I sort of used his art previously, adding half-assed thumbnail reproductions of a few of Jay's abstract paintings in the background of this page Zlatan pencilled for me.
I just propositioned a cartoonist. He's been doing something that's similar to this project in some ways, published on the web and with a collection in print (so he's ahead of me in a few important ways). We were both participating in a discussion on a forum, and based on some of his comments, it dawned on me that one of the scripts I've been sitting on might be something he'd be into. So I sent him a private message introducing myself, explaining what I was up to, and asking if he'd be interested.
But this was pretty quick. He's interested! I need to polish the script and send it to him to look over, and we need to talk money (which has always been the part of relationships I hate). Apparently approaching strangers while drunk is still a good way to hook up.
This is why I shouldn't post while still drunk: I am not clear.
I propositioned him to do the comic online... the comment about the bar was complaining that unlike hooking up in person, where I know right away if I'm gonna get lucky or get shot down, I had to sleep it off and wait for an answer.
(I did meet Zlatan at an all-night diner a couple years ago, but I didn't ask him to draw something for me until the next day. )
Comments
I've been drawing the pages in the wrong proportions.
Instead of 7x10.5, the pages on "Cruising the Love Boat" are 7x9.5. I've been poking away at these pages for months, and I didn't even notice that they were all vertically challenged. And to make matters worse, this is the longest story in the project: 14 pages. Some pages/panels are still very rough, but others are (or were) pretty much ready for inking.
Sigh.
I guess I'll go thru it all and resize panels to make them fit the standard proportions. In most cases my framing/composition isn't especially precise to begin with, so adding some more head/foot room won't hurt anything; if there are any panels where it would wreck something, I'll keep those the same height and resize the panels around them.
2:3 ... 10:15 .... 7:10.5 ... 2:3!
I have the script now. He's calling it a "minicomic", but it'll be full-size pages; I guess "mini" comes from the fact that it's "only" 13 pages. He's only seen a little bit of my art, and he warned me that it could be a challenge to illustrate. In standard Lazarov style, it's wordless, which puts a lot more storytelling weight on the artist. It's also 4 interwoven scenes, involving 8 characters, each of whom has to be visually distinct. And hot. He wants me to do character designs for all of them – both clothed and nude – before proceeding, and if he likes what he sees, then we'll talk terms. So it could be a lot of work – and a distraction from my own stories – with no pay-off. But if it all goes well, it could be a combo of great exposure and some money.
But my health and finances have been stable enough over the last several months that I think I can risk spending some money hiring an outside artist or two to draw stories. There are a couple people I've had contact with about this in the past, so I'm going to drop them a line and see if they're still interested/available. [-O<
Meanwhile, I can keep writing, because I can do that (in fits and spurts) at my day job. :-\"
Look, I have no delusions about my artistic prowess. I've known for a long time that I'm not the kind – or caliber – of artist that someone is going to look at and say "I want him to draw my comic!" Not when there are so many talented pencil jockeys out there who can produce better work in less time. That's part of why I write my own stories: I figure I'm good enough to translate my own ideas into images, and can do a pretty good job of it, thanks to my inside track into the writer's head. And it's why I've collaborated with other artists: I know they're better and/or faster than me.
Which puts me in a rather awkward and peculiar position here. It's not exactly "hired", because he hasn't mentioned any money up front. [Insert "back end" joke here.] And it's a digital-only (for now) 13-page one-shot, so it's not a huge deal. But this guy with a few hardcover GNs in print is actually saying that... he wants me to draw a script he wrote. It's not a huge statement of faith – worst case scenario for him is that I totally flake out and he gives it to someone else – but he apparently thinks it'll be good if I do it. :>
The folks on this site rather generously let me be classified as a "professional" despite the fact that I've never made a dime creating comics, I have nothing at all in print, only a few things online, etc. I did contract with Ozzy and pay him to pencil and ink Captain Miracle a few years ago, so in that sense I've already been "in the business", but that only proves that I had a friend with a functioning checking account. By any reasonable standard I'm just a wannabe. Except for this.
Of course I'm getting ahead of myself a bit here, because I haven't actually drawn a page of the book in question. But I know I can do it. And I'm going to. Which makes this pretty fucking awesome.
Can't wait to see what you cook up - just make sure you make your deadline and listen to your collaborator and I think you'll be good to go. Remember, in comics illustration, there's speed, ability and agreeability. If you can provide two out of three, you're already further along than most.
- Shared copyright. I'd accept no less. Unless it was cash up front.
- Author serves as agent with publisher(s). OK with me... it's his baby.
- 60/40 (my favor) on royalties for the first X units, 50/50 after that. So we're equal owners, but to compensate me for the longer hours I need to put into it, I get a larger share of the money until an arbitrary point where that's "paid for".
- 85/15 on profits from any not-comics merchandise featuring the art, which recognizes that it'd be the art that's being sold (not his story), but still gives him a cut for his role in its creation.
- He owns the rights to the title, and failure to meet the September 1 deadline nullifies the deal. A bit harsh, but understandable. That's nearly 6 months, and I can do 13 pages of art and a cover in less than 6 months. I proved that to myself when I did Fetus Christ last year.
So it's official: "Everybody's Doin' It" is a thing. Expect headlines on Newsarama, Comics Alliance, Bleeding Cool, The Beat, and Ain't It Cool News, any day now.I sort of used his art previously, adding half-assed thumbnail reproductions of a few of Jay's abstract paintings in the background of this page Zlatan pencilled for me.
At least at the bar I get an immediate answer.
I propositioned him to do the comic online... the comment about the bar was complaining that unlike hooking up in person, where I know right away if I'm gonna get lucky or get shot down, I had to sleep it off and wait for an answer.
(I did meet Zlatan at an all-night diner a couple years ago, but I didn't ask him to draw something for me until the next day.