“You haven’t bought me a Valentine’s Day card have you?”
“Er… no”
“Good. I haven’t got you one either”
And that’s how you know you’re in the “happily ever after” part of life.
Rendr
Well that turned out to be way more useful than I expected. I was introduced to people by people I knew. At least two solid work related contacts (neither of which directly comics related but certainly drawing adjacent). Hopefully one will turn into some sort of regular thing we’ll see.
My wife is very strongly of the opinion that people locally need to know I exist for them to be able to hire me for things (i maintain living and working in one room away from humanity is the perfect basis for a career). But I can’t deny she’s got a point.
But man my social battery runs down quick. Thankfully I can largely rely on other people to introduce me and that’s been useful
Something like normal service resumes tomorrow. See ya, wouldn’t want to be ya!
The photo is the queue – in miserable never ending rain. Luckily the rain seems to have decided to take today off, but then we’re headed for sleet and snow.
Yesterday I went to Rendr, and pretty much did everything I set out to do. Met some people I knew would be there, gave out some copies to Terran Omega to those people, and met some people I knew from a few years ago who might be looking for an artist. And chatted to director for animation for Cartoon Saloon.
I mean every one who saw Terran Omega was impressed which was very gratifying.
There’s a few meet and greets today, it’s a weird one because I know really that I’m asking the wrong people for the wrong thing (Step 1. Show someone my comic. Step 2. Ask them how I can get this into animation … step 5 Profit)
Though, really what I’m trying to do is increase my visibility locally, so if someone thinks “I need a comic/storyboard artist” my name is immediately the one that springs to mind.
More of that. Also, man I have so much work to do.
Because I’m a freelancer, and an idiot, I thought Rendr was the weekend, and it is. Sort of, but it kicks off today at 4. What THAT means is I have a lot less time today than I thought. So just a quick note to say, say hello to me if you see me, I look like the photo above.
Here’s where I think I’ll be focusing my attention (and if I can I’ll be everywhere all at once, but this largely is where I’ll be trying to get to!)
Comapred to a comic convention I like that it has a very distinct “Meet and Greet” – feel like that’s something comic cons could benefit from.
And that’s it, a full comic issue of Terran Omega Complete! Yes, I have the printed comics, and yes, the page was drawn a week ago, but I mean it’s now all free for anyone to read on my patreon
I can’t believe I didn’t blog that the comic came, it came in the post! Uploaded files on the 5th, arrived on the Monday – that’s a two day turnaround! INSANE! and it looks great! (I mean seriously, this looks like a proper lovely comic!)
So what’s next?
Well, Terran Omega The Ghosts of War is a full 48 page graphic novella. At least as originally conceived, but I’ve had to sit and think about what I would do if I were going to do more Terran Omega. Partly this is in response to the fact that I’m putting together a pitch deck for film and tv and they want to know what happens next, partly in the event that a publisher picks it up they too will want to know what’s next. I had a couple of story ideas, nothing firm, but certainly not some big over arching pitch.
But I do now.
I pretty much know how it ends, and why it ends and how we get there. I have some notion of the spine of it, and where that all leads to (And some of the short stories that will happen along the way)
Will I ever actually get to do any of it? I don’t know. I would say if after the Ghosts of War finish and the next project I do on Patreon is another Terran Omega graphic novella then that’s a positive sign for it. It’ll mean that there’s been enough sniffs of interest that it’s worth pursuing further.
If I go with an entirely new thing (and I have an idea for something – something very different) then it’ll mean that Terran Omega the Ghosts of War was a great fun thing for me to do, but we’re gonna put it away now do something else.
I mean a 5 year plot sounds amazing until you realise you’ve got to do it one page per week when that will turn one year of that plot into 6 years of a weekly plot (so you’re 18 years before you’d ever get to do it! HAH!)
We’ll see.
This weekend, though, I start tackling the second issue of Terran Omega.
A valuable lesson learned: because the issue one page count is 25, when I do a second issue my original 48page graphic novel idea won’t work because I rely on the page turns to do double page spreads and the next issue has to start on a single page. Odd numbers on the right, even numbers on the left. Page 26 – as was if the next page was a graphic novel is on the right, but if it’s a single issue, page 26 becomes page 1 which means my double page spreads are all off by one page. So I’m going to have to inject a new opening page. Which is good, actually! I’ll use that page to just set the scene, something nice and peaceful. You know, just before it all comes crashing down!
Still not enough time to do Yesterday In Social Media, but one thing I will say is go watched Small Prophets, Mackenzie Crook’s new BBC Show. I love the pacing and atmosphere and this should be great!
Rendr is on Friday and Saturday so today is gonna be sit and draw stuff, and then gonna be mad busy trying to network over the next few days, if you’re about wave hello!
look I’m running late. It’s been a day. I mean a good day.
I have no time for much else today but I didn’t want to skip a day on the old blog. Largely I spent it popping in to various comic shops in Belfast to talk to them about Terran Omega. Because at some point id like it in retail. When that is, I’ve no idea. How that is? likewise. But firmly of the opinion that luck is preparation meets opportunity.
So, last week went a bit loopy, if you recal my original plan was:
This week
Mon – Three Inks (F&McB 6,7,8) Tue – Two Inks (F&McB 9,10) Wed – Ink Covers (war story 5 & 6) Thur – Pencils (F&McB 1,2) Fri – Pencils (F&McB 3,4) Sat – Terran Omega Page 25 Sun – Put together pdf of Terran Omega issue 1
Alright, to recap, planned on a lot more paying work last week than I managed. On the other hand I did rapidly bring forward the schedule for printing Terran Omega issue 1 – In fact, I should have 100 copies in my hand later today!
Once I got the invite for the Rendr Festival it became obvious my best way to make use of the opportunity was to have business cards and copies of the comic to hand out, so that’s that what happened. Something of a miracle I got that all done. But it did rather mean putting the hold on paying work for a week.
So, this week it’s back to the grindstone, I’d really like to finish the F&McB part 3 so I can invoice and get those war covers inked. Then pencilling the next lot of invoicable work.
This is life as a comic artist, panic panic panic.
In the speed of putting Terran Omega print together I spotted one typo (just one? yes, for now).
I hate that it exists and will beat myself up forever about it, but it does mean that I’ve got a proper reason to reprint it via a kickstarter (SIGN UP ON MY NEWSLETTER TO BE NOTIFIED! )
On the plus side, I actually think the cover and graphic design and logo all look fantastic and can’t wait to see it in print (hopefully the colour will look good!)
Kickstarting the Numbers
Let me let you in on a secret about the kickstarter – like I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but here goes:
I’ll be setting a target of £300 – this should cover printing 100, plus sundry envelope costs, and the price of the comic will be £6 – which means, best case scenario I can make £300 – assuming costs of each issue is £3 (with packing bits). Now, that means posting 100 comics, and I don’t know how long that will take but I can guarantee it won’t be worth doing for £300.
(And then Kickstarter take 10%)
So, my real target has to be something like £4k – which on the cover price alone is impossible, so I have to figure out various worth while tiers and price points to make it possible.
I just haven’t figured out what they are.
What I’m trying to do is figure out a way to make doing this whole project pay a page rate of £200 per page – which is a a piddly rate for script, pencils, inks, colours and lettering (let alone cover, and graphic design).
At that rate this 25 page comic should cost me about £5k (again, ignoring the cover and sundry bits and bobs)
If I can somehow make £3-£4k on this, and then a similar amount when I eventually do a collected edition, then boom! I’ve made a sustainable way to do creator owned books (for me)
The collection (which is realistically at least a year or two out) I’d love to have all of the art, three versions of the strip, the script and all sorts. A real grab back of how this story was made. But we’ll see. But it will also feature me selling the original art which might be, ultimately, the only way to make it pay.
But maybe this is all wrong think and I should just focus on the end goal which is getting nice looking comic for me in my hands, I mean, on that front it’s already wildly successful!
I mean, I guess it feels like, past a certain age, it feels like there’s always a brand new muppet show – The Muppets Tonight, The Muppets and The MuppetsNow.
Not counting, too, the films (with the 2011 The Muppets movie in particular being the best – 2011! 15 years ago! Holy smokes).
But I guess what’s different about this one is it’s largely a return to basics. Just do the old show as was, with new guests. We watched it and enjoyed it. I mean, not as funny as nostalgia would have you believe and I suspect it could never go as weirdly avant-garde as the original muppet show. Youngest son T watched it after watching the muppet show and I looked in on him, during a bit where a famous (in the 70s/80s) dancer was ballet dancing with a bunch of felt horses, in an abstract slightly hallucinogenic way – asked him what it was like “peaceful”.
Anyway, today Kayleigh Donaldson over on bluesky linked to an article asking who should host the muppet show next, now, as it typical, I went straight to posting without reading the article, so didn’t spot they’d already suggested Alex Horne and Greg Davis, but I had the same idea and wrote an entire synopsis:
Alex Horne. But only as an emissary of Greg Davis who will turn up in the final seconds only for the show to end due to it over running. But the whole thing should be Alex making sure everything will go perfectly due to Greg’s outrageous rider.
Alex should do all of the songs/things that he thinks are rehearsals for Greg, but are actually recorded and meanwhile the muppets (each in turn) back stage should be trying to convince Alex they should be on taskmaster which of course Alex has no power over but they dont know that.
Then when Greg turns up and the show ends Greg of course is furious and the end of the show is pure chaos as each muppet is demonstrating a task while Alex is profusely apologising to Greg who is incandescent with rage while miss piggy quite fancies Greg all while doing the final number.
Look just let me write it.
And that’s it. Today writing a pitch deck for the Terran Omega animated series (I mean I might as well throw a coin in a wishing well, but a still it’s a good exercise and by doing it I’ve essentially laid out – at the current pace of drawing – about 9 years of work… so lets hope someone offers to pay me for it and I can do it much much quicker)
Picked my son up from work the other day. Let me tell you about my eldest son, N. He is very smart – three A-stars-at-A-Level smart, on-track-for-a-first-in-Computer-Science-at-Queens smart, wanting-to-do-a-masters-in-philosophy-and-more-than-capable smart. He’s clever. Unsure where he gets it from.
He’s working for a fintech (financial technology) company as part of his computer placement year doing his degree.
Picked him up in the car and says “Dad, someone tried to phish me today and I can’t believe I let them” (phishing is the attempt to gather personal information about you in order to, say, gain control of your bank details by pretending to be from an institution you would use).
“Tell me more, son.”
“They said they were from Boots Opticians and phoned from a Belfast number, and I thought it was ok because I’m due a boots opticians appointment”
“Ok.”
“They set an appointment for me for 4:45 and then said they just wanted to confirm some details, so they asked my date of birth and my address and then they hung up – I CAN’T BELIEVE I JUST TOLD THEM THIS”
“so … wait… maybe it was just boots phoning to confirm an appointment?”
“NO! It was phishing! I can’t believe it, I’m so wary of stuff like this, normally I’d’ve just hung up straight away but because I was expecting a call from boots, I just… ugh!”
“Again, maybe it was actually boots phoning to confirm an appointment?”
“NO! It was phishing – I looked up the number and all the numbers for Boots were english numbers”
“I know Boots will phone you from a local number but if you want to phone them then they’ll have on central number that…”
“PHISHING! I CAN’T BELIEVE IT”
“Well, ok, but it seems like they didn’t get that much information from you?”
“I KNOW, I WAS LUCKY.”
Anyway, the next day I got a text from him:
“By the way, I actually wasn’t phished and I have an appointment at 4:45”
I laughed and laughed and laughed.
And that, ladies and gentlemen is the difference between smart and wisdom.
I bet you thought I forgot about you, and, well, you’ll be right.
Pretty eventful day, I mean it started stupid early when my ibs flared up with stomach pain at 3:30 am, finally got a sleep at around 6, but then had to take wife to work at 8. After that came home, went back to bed, and then was up again for 11 and a zoom conferance call on screen writing for film and tv (this was useful, and happily well timed). Then a did some thinking on doing a kickstarter to terran omega (result: I’m doing a kickstarter for terran omega) then did a food shop, then got an indian then sat down and realised it’s 8pm and I’m exhausted.
Sometimes the day just gets away from you.
Oh update on the printed comic – it’s due for arrival here on MONDAY!
Some other thoughts:
I’m coming around to a manifesto of sorts for where I want to be in the next few years ahead. Creating one book a year for me and trying to find a publisher as well as writing up a pitch for film and tv. I’ve lacked ambition for a long time now (A LONG LONG time), because it’s largely felt like my main ambition in comics was Draw Judge Dredd for 2000ad and when that happened I’ve largely been floating along on that and just stumbling into one comic book project then another (and I have been lucky, they’ve all been projects I’ve enjoyed and that were well written)
I mean nothing will change for me and what I’m doing day in day out, but focusing on one new project a year, like Terran Omega, which can be developed means even if NONE of them get beyond their initial story at least I’ll have a bunch of different creator owned projects that I own forever each with a foundation that can be built on if I ever want to.
Anyway that’s what’s what. If you want to find out when the kickstarter starts I’ll be letting people know on my email list first! SO SIGN UP NOW!
Make a business card(last time I did this was 15 years ago and honestly, I overprinted by a few hundred and gave away … like six… comics as an industry doesn’t bother itself too much with business cards) Print Business card (online service of some sort) Finish page 24(colours) and 25 (inks and colours) of Terran Omega. Edit Terran Omegaissue 1 for typos Send it to Mixam for print. (why mixam? I’ve used it before and know how it works and time is a big factor)
Typo edits! Ugh. Well, first I fixed all the stuff Ron and Scott pointed out (friends I used to do a podcast with, smart guys working in media in different ways)
Then I couldn’t decide on cross bar Is for small words (“IS”, “IT”) I’d make the case that for you could use them for two letter words, but the consensus is ONLY a crossbar I on first person single (or initial letters in an abbreviation).
Which makes sense, I guess. So I decided I’d go with the consensus, but it turns out I had, like a rank amateur, also included crossbar Is and non cross bar Is.
For those not in the know, Blambot explains it thusly:
Having done that, I then had to wrestle with bloody colour profiles.
From the get go I started colouring the comic with a CMYK profile, but just using one that clip studio had. In the past when I’ve done colours, I’ve done that an exported to rgb or cmyk and sent it to publishers and found that… well, they know what they’re doing and it usually turns out ok. But dealing with colours is a headache. I mean look at these two IDENTICAL covers:
CMYK Export with CMYK ProfileRGB Export with RGB Profile
You see the weirdness. Those pages are the same. It just comes down to how they were exported. Colouring in cmyk tends to make colours more muted, because print is more muted, but to compensate, you tend to sue brighter colours, more vivd colours – these come from using Cyan Magenta Yellow or Black since they’re purer. Green is a mix, on the computer RGB – RED GREEN BLUE – green is a pure colour. So you end up with here where the cmyk green is a nice muted green and the rgb green is a weird mutant green.
Anyway, I had to faff around with colour profiles and hopefully I got it right. Certainly the proofs looked good (but I’m looking at proofs for a CMYK printer on a RGB screen)
Then I discovered one of the golden rules of print (well, RE-discovered because I did know this) is that print books have page counts that are always multiples of four.
I’d figured this out ages ago, and then set my page count to 32. (25 pages for this strip plus four for cover – front and back – brought me to 29, next multiple of 4 is 32).
Then… started putting the document together and by the time I did that I was staring at three blank pages and thinking “why do I need those two blank pages” and deleted them.
This was, of course, stupid.
Mixam’s very impressive auto set up didn’t like it at all, and it took me a good few minutes to figure out why, and once I did I smacked myself in the head, called myself an idiot and inserted two new pages.
Mixam tells me the printed comics will arrive tomorrow – I remain skeptical but we’ll see.
What’s interesting is this feels like a real objective of the whole process. I wanted a print comic, and now I’m getting one. Done it!
I haven’t lost any money (assuming you ignore the time and effort to make the comic, which I don’t) and the cost of printing was easily covered by the relatively small patreon income.
Post Rendr I’ll have a think but I’m nearly tempted to not bother doing a kickstarter for the issue, because… we’ll … I’ve already printed it. But then a kickstarter would be so easy, but it would also be an insane amount of work for something that will not really earn a lot of money.
These books cost £2 to print, assuming I sell for £6 per copy, that means I’m making £4 profit per copy. So I need to sell 50 to cover the costs of printing 100.
If I sell 100 of them then I’ll have spent £200 to make £600 – which gives me a staggering £200 profit. (But now I’ve got to spend four days packaging and posting things and figuring out kickstarter – what a nightmare)
And actually you take something like 10% off for costs for kickstarter and it quickly looks like a lot of effort for not much reward.
I suspect the best bet is to skip that format for kickstarter and go to the graphic novel format where the profit makes more sense.
Anyway, look, I’m not making decisions right now. Post Rendr I’ll see how many copies I’ve got left, they’ll go to my patreon follower first. Could be this 100 copies might be the only print of this run that will ever exist.
