If you're thinking about self-publishing. . .

. . .you need to read this.  It's written by Jim Zub, the artist behind SkullKickers.  I can't recommend this article enough:

http://www.jimzub.com/?p=1953

READ IT.

Diamond Distro. Plus a silly sketch

(Sorry about the quality-quick pic with my phone)

If your new to the comic world, or if you just focus on comics when you’re in the comic shop, you are probably new to Diamond Distribution.  If you’re not, you most likely know, that they are practically the sole distributor to almost all the Comic Shops across the United States. They also have a strong international presence, however I’m quite frankly not sure if they are as strong in those markets as they are in the United States.  Simply put, if you want to mass market your comic and get as many stores carrying your product you will be dealing with Diamond.

While I’m not normally for monopolies, from what I’ve seen and heard Diamond, may be the exception rather than the rule; I have seem them be very quick, efficient, and most interestingly to comic retailers fairly understanding and compassionate (Not something I typically see attributed to big business).  I have heard some standing complaints; they typically use an in store POS (Point of Sale) system and occasionally I’ve heard some retails gripe about some of the details, but the fact that they even provide the POS (as to my understanding)  is great in the first place. I have discovered something I don't like which I'll get into near the end.  In short I really like Diamond and that’s how I want to proceed, and it's not like I really have a choice anyway.  There are a few other distributors out there, and I’ll try to list them in a few.

Now I’ve brought up some information on Diamond before, Day 13 specifically if you want to go back and look at that one (which is about funding) , but never gone into much detail.  So here we go. I’ll try to go through some basic terminology that you’ll need to know as well.  Such as

Vendor.  This is what Diamond is going to consider you if you’re putting out a comic. The comic book stores that sell your product are resellers or retailers.   So the first thing you’ll want to do is spend some time here: http://vendor.diamondcomics.com/public/default.asp?t=1&m=1&c=2&s=244&ai=29178

Which is Diamonds Product Life Cycle. Read this till your eyes bleed, as you’ll need to get familiar with this.  One of the more important parts is the Product time line, which shows (on average) the time from your submissions package to when you finally get paid. In this case 6 months.

One of the things that we’ll and I mean WE have to research is the Terms of Sale. This is more or less how much we are selling to them, they are buying and then reselling for.  To be honest, some of this doesn’t entirely make sense to me YET.  As the comic gets back on track and I get closer to getting it completed, I’ll post my findings on things like their Net30 terms, discounts, and the like.

One of the other things, as long time readers know, will be looking up on how Diamond markets our product.  I personally don’t have the cash to do a one pager.  Period.  Getting the samples made to send Diamond, and then put it a short run ( I have revised the figures from previous.  Realistically I’m looking at only selling around 400-500 if I’m lucky, unless I have a snazzy plan. . . which I do, but more on that later).   Diamonds marketing information can be found here:

Markekting and Promotion through Diamond:

http://vendor.diamondcomics.com/public/default.asp?t=1&m=1&c=2&s=245&ai=36074

As for other distributors, there used to be a cool one called Haven  (http://www.havendistro.com/) however at the time I write this, I think they may have gone under.  Check in once in awhile, see if they're back up if you're making a comic. Some other options: http://www.lastgasp.com/, 

Finally popgun chaos wrote an interesting article on Distribution a few years ago, that you may want to read. It has some good points against Diamond, and how the monopoly effect the comic industry: http://www.popgunchaos.com/2010/11/29/the-direct-market-of-comic-book-distribution/

and while I said I like Diamond, which I do, I do have a few problems with them.  For instance while writing this post I discovered that you now need to put in 2,500 units  in sales or they may pull your book, meaning really only the big two (well 4 really) will be able to easily get on this.  I may be given inncorrect info however, so we'll see when I start really dealing with them.  As soon as I know I'll let you guys know. 

Well folks I hope that helps.  I am getting back on track, despite not working one but TWO Post Production PA jobs at the same time.  Oh, and my disgusting 'horder'* neighbor moved out so the Roaches that were starving in her place decided to try to find food in mine.  So that was fun.   Anyway upward and onward. . .wow, that was cheezy.   Hows about, “be excellent to each other”.

Trevor

*http://ocd.about.com/od/glossary/g/Hoarding.htm

Guess who's back in the ring. . .

 

I might get knocked down, but never out.  My apologizes to everyone for the large amount of time between posts. No excuses, even if valid.  You should have legitimate posts regarding both the comic and the comic process by the end of the week. 

More on the way.

I should have an update for you guys soon.  Seeing as the show I'm working on got cancelled, and I totaled my car in a nasty little accident, so I've had a bit too much on my plate as of late. However next two days or so I should have something for you.  Keep in mind with all this stuff happening, on top of an insane work schedule (which will only get more hectic as I have to shut the show down) if I can get this comic out, you guys definitively can.  Now get to work. 

Quick Rough

Thought I'd put up a quick rough. This is actually a 'workout' piece.  What I mean by that is I don't have the amount of time to pencil as much as I'd like.  Drawing is a skill, and as such falls under the 'use it or lose it category'. Since I'm limited on time because I work in television, I try to do one detailed practice drawing before I start drawing for real.  So this is a rushed drawing that I inked in. Under that criteria, I'm okay with it.

It's of the Suicide character fighting of the zino horde. . .whiiiich I guess is kinda obvious.  Man I need to get some sleep. 

Day 31: Flats (no not women's shoes) [cc/zf]

I've mentioned before that I'm most likely putting out my comic in black and white first, and then color second, when I release it digitally.  The reason for this is that it's cheaper to put out the physical comic in B&W, and honestly I'm not the greatest at color.  But then again this is all about the learning experience so I thought I'd give folks a Valentines Day 'treat'.

When it comes to starting the coloring process, most industry experts will use flats.  And what are flats you ask.  Think of it like a palette for choosing colors, and if you're working with an expert colorist, a way of saving time and heart ache as the the colorist will know what your looking for.  A friend of mine used to do flats for a certain comic company that starts with I, wink wink, so I think I'll try to badger him into doing a much better article than I am.  Also DC Comic's book; Guide to digitally drawing comics, while focusing a lot on creating everything in a digital space (which requires the expensive but awesome tablet interfaces) can be a great help as can 'Digital Pre-Press' for comics.

But I created something for a really basic example, a zombie that for obvious reasons loves turtles:

 Now you may want to look at the lined art.  One thing I personally have a problem with is closing off lines.  What I mean by this is that I don't connect all of my lines, so when I use the paintbucket tool in either Gimp or Photoshop that I flood the entire 'canvas' of the peice.  So this time I tried to keep the shapes simple and basic, and connect every open space.  The result was it took just a few moments to create the finished flat.  Which looks liiiiiiiike:

Now in no way would I consider this anywhere near a finished colorwise, BUT it shows whats great about using flats: I don't like the way the belt buckle looks.  I know to change it.  Also with the color in, I now know that I need to take the right side of the torso and fill that in better.  So in a word, if you're doing a color comic USE FLATS (technically you'd have to in the long run anyway) but use them as a tool to check and see problems about your art and composition. 

Still stuck at work (on Valentine's Day yeesh. My wife's going to be really thrilled) so if I can I'll post so more updates later.

Day 30 (I think) Roughs for covers(ZF and CC)

So thought I had the scanner at work uh, working. . .but apparently I now can't get the contrast to work correctly. As such I'll try to rescan these at a later date.  I'm putting up now, so people really new to the process can see how I approach design from abstracts (which didn't scan at all -was using 4h & 6h lead so no surprise) to thumbs to roughs.  You may see some arrows and such by the notes.  It's how I mark what the intended flow is for the readers eye.  Certain shapes and shape combinations tend to draw a viewers eyes in specific ways across the page. But more on that later.  Here we go.

Here you can see I want the Mikey character (the velicoraptor with a shotgun) leaping into the fray.  I dunno, just seems bad @$$ to me, and that 7 year old view of what's cool and not applies to this kinda comic. . . the upper right corner is where I had the basic blocks out of the form and movement. From there I went to really quick thumbs.

Here's the quick sketch of Mikey. Still playing around with the arrangement of his body, and you can see I'm trying to form a rough idea of where the rest of the focal points, in this case a horde of infected zinos may be placed.

and here you can see I'm trying to work through how I want to place the horde of zombies that will make up a large swoop of the cover.  By setting up a wall of zinos I'm also creating a block that will have the readers eyes hopefully follow the arrow, and therefore see the title.

It's all about the sneaky.

Hope that helps.  I'm still at work and honestly pretty tired so I may come back and edit this a bit more coheriently later.  If you have any questions or comments, please leave the in the (not suprisingly) comments section.  I'll answer all questions as soon as I can. Oh, and sorry about all the typos. Tired.

Quick sketch toss up: Zombie Compy. . .Zompy!

Hrmm. . .maybe the scanner may be working again. Not great, lost some detail, but serviceable. 

This was a character design sketch for the Compies that appear on page 2.  A lot of the Dino's I'm drawing I'm actually not too familiar with so hence, I need to the design sketches (like an animators style sheets for them).

As a side note, still working with a friend to create an animated show. If you want to take a gander at our efforts:
http://www.wix.com/thehomeshow/the-home-main#!__site
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/The-Home/144254018995904?sk=wall

Most of the sketches (not the coloring) are mine. 

Anyway: ZINO ART!

Day. . .Whatever:Playing to your Strengths and Challenging your Weaknesses (CC)

So the scanner is STILL acting up, but I'm in a bit of a financial crunch, so I'm still plugging away, but it may be a bit or two before I get some of the art up.  Trying to though.

As a large chunk of this blog is, in essence a diary of what I personally encounter while creating this independently produced mess of a comic, I thought today might be a good day to talk about how I try to a) play to my weaknesses (apparently one of which is spelling and grammar) and b) things I'm doing specifically to challenge myself with this project.

As I've stated before this isn't my first attempt at creating a comic.  The other efforts were mostly stopped as I felt that I didn't have a quality enough product to send out; that it was too rough, too amateur level.  And of course there was the a fore mentioned "Abraham Lincoln; Zombie Hunter" that got killed when 3 to 4 different similar ideas suddenly flooded the market. Which is a shame as I really liked that one.  Maybe I'll dig through my old stuff and put some of the rough inks I had on it up, we'll see.  The drawn out point I'm trying to make is this; all those failed attempts were a good thing, because I got to see what my personal weaknesses were in the process of comic creation.  These are as follows:

-Heavy handed with inks and use of dark spaces.  Need to lessen crosshatching, it may have worked in art classes, but comics have unique rules due to how reproduction works. Perhaps need to study up on far more. Alternatively, I can attempt to ink digitally.  While it would save time, I have however never (really) tried this process. Could look far worse.
-Lettering.  I suck at lettering.  BAD.  Knowing this however, when writing the comics, I kept this in mind.  If you go back and look at the pages of script I provided last year, it shows I'm keeping this in mind. Characters dialouge on the page is short, sweet, to the point.  It helps that I picked a genre that is tailored to quick, precise statements (anyone quoting Shakespeare during a firefight with zombies deserves what they get).  While I typically prefer to have a heavy story especially through inner character dialogue, I'm keeping that to a minimum until I'm confident I've learned enough to do a really good job at the lettering process. Note to others:  Please never use comic sans if you're producing a digital comic.  I've picked up some indy comics that have been using it and just. . .ugh.  There are plenty of free fonts out there and available.
-Perspective.  This is a big one with me, which sucks because it's one of the most important things possible in conveying a scene.  Instead of drawing pin-up shots all the time, I should have focused more on practicing backgrounds.  In fact a lot of people that complain, that they can't get into the comic industry, despite how well they draw their characters suffer from this.  It's great you can draw an amazing picture of 'Super-Duper Man' but if he's flying over a city that looks like it's made of cardboard boxes how interesting is that.  So how do I get around my lack of experience. I knew it was a problem after all. . .well lets see, I have LARGE creatures (Dinosaurs) that take up most of a scene.  A TRex (even a zombie one) does seem to hide a lot of the background. . .It's a cheat, but for now, one I'm okay with.

This discussion does bring me to the next part however. . .Challenging yourself.

To start, let me say that Green Lantern is my favorite comic (or was till DC's reboot.  Not a huge fan but I digress), but back in the day I would have never wanted to work for it.  Actually I still wouldn't until I felt I was really ready for it. Why?  Because of the insane frame of references the comic has; billions of alien races, all different, in unique exotic locals,. . .hell, even a GL's weapon makes anything anyone can imagine. Penciling that just seems. . . intimidating.  And I realized recently that fear is because I never challenged myself (artistically at least).

BUT that's good (challenging yourself that is) because that's how we grow as artists.  Tell you secret. . .before this comic it had probably been about 10 years since I drew a dinosaur.   While I like them, I was always drawing humans, superhumans, humanoids, etc. Because that's what I thought I needed the most.  What I should have been doing, is looking at everything I could that made me go "How do I draw THAT?" and then doing it.  Despite what I said about the perspectives above, I AM really forcing myself to get into the background and dig it out.  I still 'cheat' when I can. . .obviously with as long it's taking with the updates to the blog, my day job is hectic as all get out and busy as @#$@#$@ (Hollywood Reporter actually ran an article about the show I work on and how hard it is to work for it. Keep in mind I've got the bottom of the barrel on the show, and you could reasonably say I have one of the more 'unique' jobs in Hollywood. And that's saying quite a bit.)  So anything I can do that saves me a bit of time, and gets another page done is a god send in my book, but still, I'm using this book not only as a learning tool, but as a way to bring my skills to another level.

So that's today's babble;  know what your weakness as an artist, writer, whatever ARE.  Think for ways to either work around, or even use them.  And most importantly challenge yourself, because it's the only way you're going to grow.

"But you don't have to take my word for it"-Levar Burton (who rocks btw).

Zombie Dino goodness coming soon.

-Trevor

Why so long on the updates?

First off, I'm really sorry it's taken so long.  Usually to wrap a television show it takes about a week of very uncontrolled chaos.  This had/IS going on way too long. It took about 2 months to get everything wrapped and show delivered to the parent company, then a week or two ago the EP wanted to change the Pilot and we all had to come back.  I 'technically' had some vacation time, if  you consider a vacation being called in on random days and answering questions constantly. . .yeah, I personally don't either. 

Essencially the Day Job burned me out to the point where I would just drink some Whiskey and pass out when I got home.  I'm in the office right now as I write this, as we're gearing up for season two.  Yeesh.  However after the initial insanity passes, the begging of the show while in Post isn't too bad, so I'm going to try to push through and get this bad boy done.  I do have some art but I left it at home.  I'll try to scan it in when I get home if I'm not too dead on my feet.

Again, thanks for sticking with me, and I should have some more info and art for you soon.


-Trevor