SPACE and the Kickstarter blues

This blog has been a little lost in the shuffle of all the updating online.  And if this is your spot to catch up for all things T. then I’m sorry to have neglected you and will try to bring you up to speed.

Thing 1. Kickstarter

A majority of my spoons these days has been going to running the Kickstarter campaign for The Chronicles of the Tal Nor issue #1. You can view and donate to our Kickstarter here www.tal-nor.com/ks

It amazing how much time and energy one of these campaigns take.  In my case, unsurprisingly most of this time and energy is spent worrying.  Because this blog is a place of raw, unedited honesty, I’ll tell you that it’s not looking too good for our little Kickstarter experiment.  As of writing this, we stand at 30% with just 12 days yet to go.  We didn’t get off to the start I was hoping for and that is my fault. I underestimated how important the video is to a successful campaign.  Due to time constraint, budget constraint, technical difficulty and plan old poor execution, the first video I made wasn’t good.  More than that, it was straight up terrible.  We have since shot another video and my artist, Kelsea Jewell, has also made a video which is fantastic.  If fact you should head over to our Kickstarter www.tal-nor.com/ks and watch it right now. I’ll wait.

Welcome back, how great was that?  Not only is Kelsea Jewell incredible with the watercolors, but is funny too. She really came through, but I fear it’s too late.  You see the way Kickstarter works is that you have a window where your campaign is listed as new and most people who don’t know you that just check out the new comics, just watch the video.  Also the Kickstarter Staff, just watches the videos when picking what campaigns will be marked as their favorite.  They do this within the first 24 hours.

I’m also not the greatest at promoting the Kickstarter.  Asking for money has always made me feel uncomfortable.  I find it much easier to throw the link out there into the void of Twitter and Facebook than ask individuals if they would donate.  I know that 1^st time kickstarters get 80% to 90% of their funds from people they know. I just feel super uncomfortable with directly guilt tripping my friends and family into giving me money. Especially since most of them aren’t comic fans so the rewards are not something they will enjoy.

I also have periods of thinking that all I’m offering is really cool art and a mediocre story at best. I know this is my depression talking. In my moments of clarity I know that the story is solid and the dialog is actually funny at times. Know this because there have been some people who read the book wrote in to tell as much. How did anyone get a copy of the book to have written? Because I took it to Space!

Thing 2 - SPACE

One reason there was time constraint of the Kickstarter was because I wanted it to coincide with the Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo(http://www.backporchcomics.com/space.htm).  My sister, Kat LoGrande, and I split a table at this years show. I wanted to make a special edition that was exclusive to SPACE. My hope was the between the promo cards and comics sold I would drum up a big bump in donations to the Kickstarter.

First off let me tell you I had a blast at this year’s SPACE.  It was almost everything I wanted in a Con.  Our table neighbor was Jack Wallace of Disposable Fiction.  I’ve know Jack for years via email and have done a bunch of lettering for him.  You should check out his stuff at http://www.disposablefictioncomics.com/index.html

It was amazing to meet him in person and we got along swimmingly. It's always a fear when you meet people in person after only knowing them online, that you only work as online friends. I was super luckily that wasn’t the case with Jack or with Joel Cramer (http://www.joelcramercomics.com/) another creator that I knew only online . In fact all or the creators were awesome. I was able to reconnect with David Branstetter (http://strawmancomics.com/) and became fast friends with Kuroitenshi (http://kuroitenshi.com/).

The comradery and creative spirit was fantastic. So many great creators all in one room celebrating their love of comics and showing off their creations. What more could you ask for? Attendees, that what you could ask for more of, Attendees.  I don't know if it was the change in venue or change in date ( SPACE was originally set to be in April but when their original location closed suddenly it had to be moved to a new spot and to July) but there really wasn't much of a crowd.

I was able to make sales and actually had a pretty high sell rate per person I talked to.  Unfortunately I really didn't talk to a lot of people that were not also Exhibitors.  I joked that the same $20 traveled around the con each person selling to the next.  I would still do it in a heartbeat, I just kind of wish I didn't get so many exclusive SPACE editions of the comic printed.

Here was my brilliant idea, I would offer a special pre-release version of the comic that you could only get at SPACE.  The fact that it was an exclusive would be a selling point. Although to be honest, Kelsea’s art is the best selling point.  It worked for the people I actually got to talk to.  But now I have box of comics I really don’t feel great about selling, because if I did sell these comics elsewhere, I kind of feel like I was lying at SPACE.  But I don’t have any problems giving these away.  If you want a chance to win a copy of the SPACE exclusive edition. Go to the website for the comic and subscribe to the newsletter. You'll see the subscribe button on right hand side of the main page.  I'll pick a winner or winners if we get enough entries once our Kickstarter ends.

Like I was saying I loved SPACE and will absolutely want to do it next year.  I just need to temper my expectations and realize that I'm going for fun more than sales. Hopefully next year I'll have both.

Thing 3 – Day Job

Not to go into too much details, but sufficient to say my plate is super full at work.  I have a tone of stuff that needs to get done and done now. This is sucking up any leftover energy from the Kickstarter. Running low on spoons.

Thing 4 – Health stuff

I’m broken in a ton of ways.  Long time reads know this. I go to the doctors all the time. Some doctor’s office are great for being productive, but most aren't.

Thing 5 – The Writing Group

I love my writing group. They are amazing people. The two times we meet each month are some of the highlights of each and every month. Earlier this year I had the brilliant idea to produce a ‘zine with everyone contributing a short story 7,000 words or less. Wouldn't you know the deadline I set all those month ago would coincide with my Kickstarter perfectly? I've been try to read everyone submission and getting everything organized, but fitting it in with everything else has been a challenge to say the least.  And to top it off the internet at my house died last night. I'll be internet free until Friday night, I hope. Friday morning Verizon is meant to come and fix it. I’m posting this thanks to the free Wi-Fi at Wegmans. I have been getting stuff together for this project slow, but it is moving and I hope to make a big push tonight and this weekend.

Well that enough for now. Remember the Kickstarter can be found at www.tal-nor.com/ks Please donate, even if it’s just $1 every bit helps. Also passing it along to those that you think might like comics is a big help too. We have preview of the first eight pages on our site at www.tal-nor.com

Until next time, keep making things.

T.

Crawling my way back to the light.

Let's start off with some good news.  I received more pages from Kelsea! And of course they look amazing because Kelsea is very good at what she does.  I have already lettered these pages and there awaiting one last round of editorial inspection to make sure I didn’t slip any typos.  Our Day Jobs and other obligation have been acting as an anchor, slowing up down on this project, but head way is being made and like Sophie here, we’re running towards that goal.

I have taken the first five pages and put together a little preview of the comic for our newsletter subscribers.  I plan on sending out the newsletter tomorrow.  If you want to check out the preview, head over to www.Tal-nor.com and sign up before it’s too late or you will just have to wait like everyone else to see Kelsea’s amazing art.

While things have been going great on this project, emotionally things have been less than stellar.  I’ve been feeling over whelming self-doubt and the double whamming of Depression and Anxiety lately.  I’ve been really questioning if I have what it take in both temperament, work ethic and talent to make it as a writer.  Am I just fooling myself? Has anything good that I have done been just blind luck? Am I actually good at anything?  These are the questions that have been running thought my head.  I can hear the depression and the anxiety shouting NO and every negative thing I can come up with.

I’m trying my best to fight through these feelings.  Luckily I’m not fighting alone.  In fact I’m currently typing this draft in the waiting room for my therapist.  I don’t even want to imagine how dark things could get if I didn’t have this as an outlet.  If the thoughts and feeling I have described above sound familiar to you, please look into finding someone to talk to.  It's not a cure all, but it helps.  It will take the edge off these feeling and help you move forward.  The movement might feel like it’s a snail pace, but forward is better than backwards.

May has been whirl wind of shity luck and shity decisions.  I have mismanaged my time so much.  I can’t help but use myself as punching bag over it.  I should have so much more done.  I also have had to deal with the stress of not one but two car misshapes.  The first was a pot hole deciding to rip up my tire at 1:30 in the morning while I was driving home.  The second was someone deciding to open there car door just as I was pulling into a parking spot.  As we all know breaks are not magic and even a car moving slow can produce a bit of force.  Luckily everyone was fine with the exception of my nerves and bumper.  The damage to one of those things was just cosmetic.  Now I get to field near daily calls for insurance agents asking me to recount what happened.  I think I have told my tale to three people at the other guys insurance company and at least five people at my own insurance company.

I also have my yearly review at the old Day Job.  I have been there going on 12 years now and before every review I’m sure I’m the worst employee ever.  I feel like now that they are taking the time to sit down a look at my performance, they will realize that an untrained bonobo could do a better job than I do and for a lot less money.  These feeling inevitable doom have as of yet been unfounded.  But I feel them every year none the less.

Now it's time to go into the office and work on these feeling.

I feel a little better.  I still have a lot of work to do on me and my anxiety and my depression.  Every day I put in the work, and I hope it gets better.  Sometimes I make progress and sometimes I back slide a little, but I guess the point is to keep trying and keep working at it.

Just like making a comic.  Speaking of comics, my editor posted a little update to the comic book website.  Please give it a read at www.Tal-nor.com

Be well and keep making things

T.

Flash Fiction Friday, The Confession

After a couple weeks off, I’m back with another installment of Flash Fiction Friday.  I’m doing my level best to get a new story out each Friday, but the last couple of weeks, I’ve been running around like a mad person working on the comic and other projects.  Also I’ve had a couple ideas for stories fight me and not want to come to fruition.  Luckily along came writers group and the prompt “Your spouse or significant other has been leading a double life.”

Before we get to the story I want to share with you a bit of awesome news.  I was interviewed over at http://comicbookreviewer.com/   This is the first email interview I have ever done and I think it came out really well.  One thing I found that I like about doing an email interview is that I can send it over to my editor first before submitting it.  Knowing that there won't be any stupid typos because of my Learning disabilities make me feel much more comfortable about sharing the interview.  Let me know what you think.

Now without farther ado, today Flash Fiction Friday,  

The Confession

“Shelia, Shelia, come in here!”

“Coming.”  Shelia jogged in from the garden, slipping off her dirt caked shoes and weathered gardening gloves.

“Yes dear?” She said as she strode into the living room.

Shelia, what is this?” Trevor held up a black garment bag.

“A garment bag?” Shelia shrugged.

“Cute,” Trevor pulled a thin chain mail tunic out of the bag. “You know what I’m talking about.  I found this, while I was cleaning and there was some sort of bow and arrows behind it, only they looked weird, like the tips were all wrong.  What are you into Shelia? How long has this been going on?”

“OK let me explain, Remember when you went on that business trip to the Czech Republic.”

“Shelia that was three years ago!”

“Don’t yell at me, you wanted to know, so let me talk.” she should back at him.

“Fine, I’m sorry go on.’ Trevor crossed his arms, letting the chain mail fall to the floor with a gentle crunch of aluminum on aluminum.  Shelia stared at it, examining how the light reflected off each tarnished link.

She continued “Well, I was bored one weekend and Sally came by.”

“Ugh.”

“Hey, I know you never liked her, but she my sister wife, so be nice.”

“Anyway, Sally came by and said she saw on Facebook how I said weekends were so boring with you out of town.  She told me she knew of a fun event out at the park.  Oh Trevor you should have seen it, all that armor, the swords, and everyone in costumes and robes.  It was amazing.  They let me join in right away.  I started going just on the weekends but soon I was going every night.  I tried to stop once you got back, I really did.” 

“So this is what you been doing on all those business trips of your, Shelia.”

“Yes,” Sheila dropped her head and let out a deep sigh “I’ve been Larping.”

From Idea to Script, The T. Perran Mitchell Way

Bit of house keeping, if you haven’t seen it yet my comic book project, The Chronicles of the Tal Nor has a new website, www.Tal-Nor.com.  If you get a chance please check it out.  Now strap in, this is a long one.

Over the last several months I've been getting more and more involved with comic book creator groups on Facebook.  They're basically a bunch of people all who want to make comics and want to support other people that make comics.  It's one of the places you go if you're looking for a Letterer or have a process questions.  Speaking of looking for a Letterer, if you're in the market for a Letterer, I currently have room in my schedule for a couple of projects.  My rate is $10 a page and I've very flexible.  Basically I'll keep working on it until you're happy with what's on the page.  You can find my lettering portfolio HERE.

Okay enough shameless plugging, back to the topic at hand.  One question I've seen come up over and over again is how to start out writing a comic book script.  What are the actual mechanics that go into taking an idea and writing it into a script?  The truth is, there is no one way of doing this, because there is no one way a comic book script looks.  They can range from a simple plot paragraph, a bulled list written on the back of an envelope or a 280 page epic description of every last detail, emotion and panel layout with diagrams.  Every writer does it a little bit different and many write differently for different projects.

I know on the surface this seems crazy, why isn't there a standard? Why is it so different? The answer lies in the audience of the script and the process of making comics.  The comic book scripts intended audience is only two or three people.  It's the Artist doing the illustration, the Editor(sometimes) and the Letterer(sometimes).  After the art is finished the dialog almost always need a slight rewrite, it's just the nature of the beast.  So time, in the case of Stan Lee's work at marvel, the dialog isn't even written until after the art is done.  In cases like that a second document is created for the Letterer to use to place the dialog into the art.  That one of the nice things about lettering your own writing, you get one last rewrite.

Because the script is primarily between the artist and the writer, it only needs to work for those two people.  As they work more and more together they can even develop a bit of a short hand for different types of views and actions.  This is why writing a script without knowing the artist is one of the more difficult things in comics.  You need to be able to write it so that any artist will be able to follow along without too much trouble.

At the end of the day the script is just the starting point.  This the frame work of a conversion the artist, writer and editor will have about what the book will look like and how it will read.  Just today I received an email from my editor asking if we could change something about a characters outfit.  She listed out the reasons why she wanted to make the change.  I thought it was great and actually worked much better than what I had written.  Now when you read the book later this year, you won't know what I had originally and I will look smarter than I actually am.

Since every script is different I can't tell you the right or wrong way to write a comic book.  What I can do is show you how I write a comics book.  I'm going to take you step by step of how I go from having basically nothing to a script that I can hand off to an artist.  If you see something you think will work for you try it out.  If you see something that doesn't make sense, ask me about it.  I love taking about process and how stories work.  For this I'll be using "I Hate When They Run" a five page comic I wrote introducing the character of the Rytier Kat Zang.  It might be helpful to read the story first then continue.  Don't worry it's only five pages and you can find it HERE for free.

THE BIG IDEA

When starting out I just brainstorm what I want to write about.  I try to come up with either an idea I want to explore to a situation I think would be interesting.  Then I pick the characters that will be in the story.  Sometimes I'll start with the characters first, but either way the next thing I do is flesh out the characters.  I use a character work sheet to describe any new characters that will be in this story.  Existing character will most likely have some form of the worksheet already done for them.  You can download a blank character work sheet HERE.  This document is a handy reference for both me, the artist and the editor.  It contains all sort of physical, historical and psychological details about the character.

Once all the characters are fleshed out I'll start thinking about why I want to tell this story.  What am I hope to accomplish, what are some of the key points I want to get across to the reader.  Basically, what's this story about, which is different than what happens.   These serve as goals and something to keep in the back of my head.  Sometimes I hit the mark, sometime I miss it and the story turns out to be about something else once I'm done writing it.  For "I Hate When They Run" I decide I wanted to create a confident introvert who loves books and uses a bow and arrow.  I wanted the story to show her personality.  I also wanted the story to convey some of what a Rytier in the Tal Nor does.

THE BIG PLOT POINTS

Now that I know what sort of story I'm writing and who will be in it, I can get work on what is going to happen in the story.  I start this process with a blank piece of scrap paper.  I make a bullet point list of the things that will happen.  When plotting "I Hate When They Run" I made the following list of bullet points

• Reading a book
• Wanted criminal comes in
• Kat confronts him
• He runs
• She chase him
• Shoots him off his horse
• Takes him to the wronged parties
• Deals out justice
• Goes back to her book.

With this list, I'll, and I know this sounds a little silly, but I'll shut my eyes and try to see the story in my head.  Sometimes it will come as little bits of movies, but more often than not I'll actually sort see the page is my head.  This is where I decided the title and that I need to start off with the chase.  Once I had that I'd back fill the beginning via flashback.  I'll then put down a much more details plot.  It's a list of nearly every action that will happen in the story.

I take that list and I make little slashes between the bullet point to represent page brakes.  Sometime I'll move things around a little to make sure that my pacing is sound and that things are falling on the correct page turn.  It helps to make the last few panels on the odd number pages a little bit of a cliffhanger, so the reader will want to immediately look at the even page when turning to the next set of pages.  It helps keep them for accidentally reading ahead.

It is at this point I actually start scripting.  My scripts use the following format:

PAGE NUMBER (number of panels)

PANEL 1

Description of the panel and the character states of mind.

Nation Box

Text

Character dialog

Text

Then I put a page brake in to the script.  This way each page of the comic always begins on a new page in the script.  I find that make it much easy to read a visualizes.  In the description I will not only place what the character is doing, but why they are doing it and what there state of mind is, what they are feeling.  I try to rarely tell the artist what the expression on the character face is, but trust them to know what someone looks like when they are sad but trying not to let anyone know and falling just short of that goal.  The artist is the expert at what people look like and how an image should be composed.  It's best to get out of the way and let them do their job.

The rough draft of the script will than sit for a few days.  I like to say that its marinating.  During this time I'll do my best not to think about the comic and work on something else or nothing at all.  I'll read more and play more video games.  What I'm trying to do is to a degree forget what I wrote.  I want to be able to come to the script with as fresh eyes as I can.

Now that my mind is a little clearer and eyes are a little fresher, I reread the script.  I like to print it out and take a red pen to it.  Once I have mark the heck out of the script I'll make those change.  I make two or three passes like this polishing up the action, language and grammar the best I can.  After these changes are made I give it to my Editor

EDITORS, THE UNSUNG HEROES OF COMICS.

The truth of the matter is that if it wasn't for my editor, this comic would not have been made.  And If I did manage to get it made, it wouldn't be half as good.  Rose takes me script and reads it over a few time, than we sit down together and she rips it to pieces.  Anywhere there is inconsistencies, errors or awkward phrasing she find and lets me know.  She is very nice about, but doesn't pull any punches.  If there is anywhere that she has a questions about, I do a rewrite to try to make it clearer.  Only after the editor says its done, do we have a finished script.

And that my very patience reader is how I write a comic book script.  Thank you for sticking with me through this long post.  This is just one way of writing a script, but I hope you found it enlighten and useful.  Please let me know your process, while this works for me now, I'm always looking for ways to improve.

Until next time, keep making things.

T.

I Hate When They Run page 4 and more

Here it is.  The penultimate page of I Hate When They Run.  I hope you have been enjoying it so far.  Next week not only will we be unavailing the final page, put we will be doing it on the Official Tal Nor website.  That's right www.Tal-Nor.com won't just forward to you to my blog but will go to a real live site.

Creating the website has been a challenge due to not only the fact the last time I created a website I used notepad and was about how I was excited to see Sheryl Crow on her 1999 tour (It was a hell of a show by the way).  It was also a challenge because I've been so busy with everything that goes on during the holiday and things really being really busy at my day.  I've been stealing a bit of time here and there to add a little content at a time.

Luckily Square Space, our web host is super easy to use and even if it doesn't look exactly how I imagined, it still looks great.  There are a few little tweaks that have to happen here and there but for the most part it ready to roll out.  To be honest, part of the reason I announced here is to make me publicly accountable for launching it in time next Wednesday.  Hopefully it will be enough to help me fight of the final anchor that has slowed this all down Depression.

I have written about it here before and it is a constant in my life.  The best analogy I can use is it's like a tide caused by thousands of unseen moon, giving it a maddening unpredictability.  Out of nowhere a wave of sadness will hit me and try to pull me down with its powerful undertow of feeling of inadequacy and anxiety.  Make no bones about it, what I'm attempting to do, become basically a publisher in a few short months is not easy and a hell of a lot of hard work.

Once more I'm lucky.  I have a bunch of supportive people around me.  I have job which will provide some of the funding (more on that in future posts *wink*, *wink*) and provide me with the health insurance so I can seek the help I need to battle these demons.  I have a few friends who don't have this luxury.

The thing that I found that has helped me deal with all of this is working out.  Since December 9^th I have go to the gym everyday it has been open.  This means the only day I missed was Christmas day.  I have been working out off and on, mostly off since I was in college.  I found that if I missed a day, it would spiral out of control and it would take me months to get back into the habit.  What I have come to realize is that if I can make an excuse not to go, I will.  Which is kind of odd because I do like going to the gym, I like working out. Recently I realized the only way to make it stick is to simply not except any excuse for not going.  The gym is open 24 hours a day.  I can find the time. And so far I have.

Now on to what you have all been waiting for, Page Four: (you can read from the beginning HERE)

I Hate When They Run part 3 and a look to the future

Here we are, on the last day of 2014, at the half way point of our story. I hope you have been enjoying it so far.  Before I share page 3 with you I would like to give you a little peek inside some of the plans and goals for 2015.  I don't know if I will reach all of these goals, but I'm going to work very hard to get as many cool things to you as I possibly can.  Here are the things I would like to do:

1.  Publish at least 3 issues of The Chronicles of the Tal Nor in both print and online
2.   Have a table at S.P.A.C.E. and SPX
3.   Launch Tal-Nor.com
4. Have The Chronicles of the Tal Nor available in at least 25 comic book shops across the country
5. Work out a fair subscription plan for The Chronicles of the Tal Nor, so it will be delivered to you each time we publish.

That is just a taste of what I hope 2015 will bring.  I'll be writing a more detail year in review this weekend.  To see the our story from the beginning click HERE

Until then, enjoy this week's installment and keep making things.

T.

I hate when they run part 2

Merry Christmas eve, today I have the second installment of our tale of Kat Zang, Ryteir of the Tal Nor.  If you haven read part one or would like to see it all together please click HERE.

I hope you have a wonderful holiday and I’ll see you back her on new year’s ever for part three.

Till next time, keep making things.

T.

I Hate When They Run

Now that the printed copies have arrived, I'll be serializing my newest comic book story I Hate When They Run.

This first installment includes the cover, credits page and the first page.  Each Wednesday I'll be posting the next page of the story.  The pages will be collected HERE on the blog.

This story takes place in the same world as Dangers of the road, which can be found HERE.

I hope you enjoy reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing.  I also have to hand it to my collaborators Kelsea Jewell and Rose Petrecz, they made my simple little story ten times better than what I originally wrote.  Rose helped me tighten and clarify my script, so that when we pasted it off to Kelsea she didn't have too many questions as to what I was trying to say.  Rose also was instrumental in the artist search that led us to hiring on Kelsea.

Kelsea's brilliance is self-evident just by looking at the art.  Besides being an amazing artist she was also a fantastic collaborator, giving us a ton of options and options on the charters and story.  Both her and rose gave me invaluable feedback on the lettered pages making this not only the best thing I have written (so far) but also took my lettering to a new level.

Without any farther comment, here is I Hate When They Run.

T. 

In other news: A Comic Book Question

Today was filled with all sorts of bad news.  My hope is that all protests are peaceful, productive and move us closer to a more just world.  A world where all people are treated with the dignity and respect they deserve.  I have more feeling on current events but they are mostly half formed and still need thoughtful consideration.

Let us take a respite from the problems of the world and rejoice in good word.  And that word it, my comic book, I Hate When They Run, ships from the printer tomorrow.  I'm super excited.  They are doing QC on it today and should have a tracking number for me tomorrow!  I know it's just a five page story, but I'm really proud of it.  Also the art is amazing.

The plan is, once I have copies in hand I will serialize the story on this blog.  This is where my question comes in to play, on what day of the week would you most like to see new pages?  Please leave an answer in the comment section or shoot me a message via your favorite social media service. 

Physical copies of the comic are limited, but if you would like one please let me know and I'll try my best to get you one.

Let me leave you with this though, try to be kind to everyone you meet today, for your kindness might be the only kindness they receive today.

Till next time, keep making stuff

T.

Comics News

Coming Soon!

Comics, Zoloft and The Doubleclicks

            Hi, I'm going to apologize if this post is a little more incoherent than normal, I have been waking up in the middle of the night and have not been able to go back to sleep for the last three night straight.  More on that later, now for the first order of business, my current comic book project has moved on the next stage.  All of the writing has been completed and editor approved.  Let the artist search begin!  Actually it started Monday when I posted the following ad around the Internet neighborhoods where the artsy kids hang out:

Ad Title: Looking for someone to illustrate and color 5 pages plus cover (paid)

I have written a five page comic book script and I now need someone to draw and color the cover and interior pages. The story is in the fantasy genre and called "I Hate When They Run." It's the follow up to an 8 page story I wrote called "Dangers of the Road," which can be found here: http://oldmanmitchell.blogspot.com/p/dangers-of-road.html I'll be taking care of the lettering for this book.

The budget for art is $150 plus 25 copies of the printed comic. Once this book is finished I'm planning on creating an ongoing series based in this world. If things go well, I would like to use the same artist on the full book as this 5 page project. The first issue will be funded via Kickstarter and the pay will be more in line with industry standards. Before any of that can happen "I Hate When They Run" will need to see print.

Please send links to samples of your sequential work to yommer16@gmail.com

Regards,

T. Perran Mitchell

So far we have some really good candidates and some not as polished candidates.  Frankly, I was hoping for more responses, but maybe posting it up the week of New York Comic Con wasn't the smartest of moves.  I hope that things will pick up over the next week or so.  If you know anyone who might be interested and willing to work for my limited budget, shoot them my way.

Speaking of things happening over the next week or so, I started taking Zoloft on Sunday and boy are they not kidding about the side effects.  As I said in the opening, I have had a lot of trouble sleeping since I started taking it.  Sleep and I have never been easy allies, but this waking up in the middle of the night is no go.  Not only am I a zombie all day, but it make it really hard to tell what other side effects are from the meds and what is just lack of sleep.

UPDATE:  This is where I left off writing this blog post yesterday.  I had to go get my allergy shot and had all intention of writing more.  However the effects of the Zoloft and lack of sleep sent me into such a funk I ended up just watching some TV and talking to my girlfriend on the phone for a long while. Or I should say being talked down from felling disconnected, like the whole world hated me and everything was going fall apart.  Know that it was just chemicals in my brain creating an artificial feeling only helped so much.  Talking it out with her and hearing it from someone else made all the difference in the world.  But I still woke up at 3am this morning.

As soon as I got into the office this morning I called my doctor.  We agreed that the Zoloft experiment was a failure.  He told me to give it a few weeks then give him a call if I wanted to try a different anti-depressant.  I have a feeling that after this issue I have had with Zoloft and Adderall, plus all of the trails and errors with ADD drugs as a kid, I'm not going to be rushing out to take any more brain meds.

On to something a little more fun, Sunday night I saw TheDoubleclicks play at Melodies Cafe in Ardmore.  What an awesome show.  I had never been there and was (surprise, surprise) feeling a little down, so it took forever to get myself out the door.  I ended up arriving just a little bit before the show started.  Luckily I was able to get a seat right on the end of the second row, maybe 10 -15 feet from the stage.  I ordered some sweet potato fries and the guy next to me was nice enough to offer to switch seats so I would have a table for my food.

Before my food even got there The Doubleclicks came on stage.  You could tell right away how happy they were to be at Melodies and how much fun they were having playing.  I always have a found the more fun a band is having on stage the more I enjoy the show.  I was really cool to hear the songs live and to get to hear their banter between songs.  I also enjoyed that the lead singer, Angela Weber, made sure to ask everyone to sing along for nearly every chorus.  After their set, I was able to chat with Angela for a bit and get some pictures with the other member of the band, her sister Aubrey.

Me and The Doubleclicks

Goofy face for the guy not knowing how to work my camera phone

It was a great time and I highly recommend going to see them live if your get the chance.  Here is a song they didn't play that night but is one of my favorites.

And just for good measure here is a song they did play and that I just so happened to also feature on my 2014 Summer Mix.  I'll be posting a track list of it and my other seasonal mixes soon. (I know I'm super behind on that)

One more thing before I go, I will be participating in the Extra Life 24 hour gaming charity event again this year to benefit Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.  Last year I was able to help raised over $1000 to help offset the cost of sick children whose families have trouble affording their treatment.  The event takes place Oct. 25th in to the 26^th. I'll blog more about it when it gets closer.  For more information and to donate, click the link below

http://www.extra-life.org/participant/TMitchell

Until next time, keep making things

T.

#i am comics

I started to write a post about my garden, but I put that on hold when I saw this video by Amy Dallen.

I had been following this story fairly closely and I was hoping mad at the treatment that Janelle Asselin received for expressing a fair critique of a comic book cover.  I have always found the idea that anyone should be excluded from comics offensive and I wrote about last year.

From that video I discovered the We Are Comics Tumblr and  was moved to share my story.  Please check out the site.  Below is what I posted.

Hi, My name is Tom and comic books, in a very real way, saved my life.  I was born with Attention Deficit Disorder, Dyslexia and I’m a host of other learning disabilities they didn’t even know about back in the early 80’s when I was diagnosed. As you can imagine this did not make for a particularly pleasant childhood.  Reading was incredibly difficult for me, but I was able to over come that because of comics. I could always use the actions of the characters as contextual clues to figure out what they were saying and what was going on. That is how I learned to only read but to love reading, both comics and prose.

My learning disabilities were bad enough that I bounced around the public school system for a few years while they tried to find a place for me.  Eventually my parents found a special school that was just for children with learning disabilities.  Even at this young age I was super nerdy in to all of the stereotypical nerd stuff (Star Wars, D&D, computers, etc) that combined with being bounced from special class to special class, I felt like I was never really able to connect to any of my class mates.  When I was sent to the new school for kids with learning disabilities a felt like even more of an outcast.  Comics are what got me through these dark days, especially the X-men.  I could relate to them, because they had to go to a special school too and they were awesome.  I love Colossus, his skin became steel and nothing could hurt him. I badly wanted to be that way too.

My parents fostered my love of comics.  I think they saw how much they help me.  At this school we would get weekly report cards, based not on our grades but our behavior (ADD being an impulse control disorder, making good marks was harder than you might think).  Each week that I got high marks my folks would buy me comics based on how well I did.  That was all the incentive to get perfect marks and make sure I got as many comics from our weekly trips to Comics and More in King of Prussia.

Now I’m 35 years out and I have just put out my first 8-page comic. The comic really more of a writing sample than anything else, but the manager at that same Comics and More like it enough to want to carry it in the store.  I get such a thrill seeing up on the shelf.  I can’t convey how much it means to me to see my work next to comics by some of the people who’s writing and art had such a profound impact on my life. My greatest hope is to write something that gives someone the just a fraction of what I got out of comics. I want to create something that everyone, no matter who they are or what they look like, can read and see them selves repressed in the art form that I love.

I’m here because of comics and I am Comics

#i am comics