Hey, so this is the final couple of days for my Dream Life Kickstarter, For the home run i’ve set an $8k Stretch Goal, If in the last days we can reach $8000 everyone gets an 8″x10″ print of ‘Wild Thing over Montreal’, along with ‘Record Head’!
Best way to make it happen, aside from or even if you’ve pledged yourself, is to share the news! Post your own tweets, RT mine.
Tell folks about the digital deal – 6 of my books in all as HD PDFs & CBRs, and SadOceanSpaceBear’s Dream the Dark Dream to listen to while you read.
Or encourage them to preorder Dream Life | a late coming of age. They can get the full suit print option, Dream Life and 3 issues of Revolver including Vol#3 which has the first bit of Dracula: Son of the Dragon in it. My new project with Mark Sable. And i’ve got a whole whack of art up to bid on, ranging from $75 for Sea of Red [cheep because it's parts of pages, i did that one in pieces] to $250 for some of the new work, and i think my best, on Dream Life itself. If anyone wants to help in a BIG way and get some of my work for their wall along with the book, prints, and the music too, now’s the time to do it! Below is a thumbnail gallery of the pages and pieces on offer.
Hey folks! The Kickstarter is near it’s end, I’ve set up some unlockable interactive stretch goal rewards you might want to check out, to help me make it to the west coast and print more books!
So, yeah, in the last leg of the successful Kickstarter to print my next graphic novel, If you can manage to time your pledges to hit the mark that puts my kickstarter over one of three stretch goals, I’ll draw your deepest darkest dreams for you. Or alternately bright and silly ones are an option.
These “dream sketches” will be reproduced as one of a set of postcards included with physical rewards, so everyone wins! And if your winning pledge includes a copy of Dream Life, I’ll send the original sketch to the lucky backer with their book! Alternately if they go all digital they only need cover the postage to get it.
“Dream Life | a late coming of age” book one is my first long form solo work. An unconventional narrative–what i’ve been calling neorealist comics. It tells the story of five childhood friends, loosely based off peanuts archetypes, as they confront derailed expectations, reality checks, ethical & physical traumas, and loss. It showcases some richly drawn and hopefully narratively subtle pages, designed to lead you through and show the story in a lyrical fashion.
A labour of love since I finished “Therefore, Repent!” with Jim Munroe in 2007, the project was delayed by the usual grab bag of artists’ banes. Health and economics, etc. I’ve been chipping away at it committedly if not slowly at times, and posted the work as a webcomic for a while. Earning me two nominations for it in the Joe Shuster Awards [2013 & 2011]. Completed now, “Dream Life” will be officially Launched at TCAF 2014 in Toronto this coming May, and toured across Canada after–exactly how far depending in part on the success of the Kickstarter!
The Kickstarter campaign ends March 31st.
Some notable responses to the work so far that i’ve been lucky to get in the last few weeks. This first is from a friend, and one I know my original collaborator at the early conception of Dream Life, Jonathan Sugerman will be happy about as he’s a fan of Joe’s!
“Salgood Sam is a gifted draftsman. In Dream Life you can see he’s enjoying himself immensely drawing every page of this sprawling story. Beautiful stuff.” – Joe Ollmann
“Those of us not blessed (or cursed) with an active sleep imagination can fill the gap with Salgood Sam’s pitch-perfect simulacrum of the oneiric state, “Dream Life”.”
“Those of us who love and cherish our involuntary interior rambles can enjoy more of a good thing, by diving into Salgood’s universal trance adapter “Dream Life”.”
“Those of us who like to stretch out on the couch and become immersed in a compelling story terrifically told and beautifully drawn can scratch that particular itch as well, via Salgood Sam’s powerful virtuosic graphic novel “Dream Life”.”
“The rest of us will just have to get along as best we can.” – Jim Woodring
“I recently read Salgood Sam’s new graphic novel, “Dream Life”, and it is sensational.
The story is thrilling, heartfelt and heartbreaking. And the way Sam presents his narrative (a long-overdue-coming-of-age story), weaving events, past and present with a large cast of characters is evocative of a dream and a tour de force of comics storytelling.” - Batton Lash
103 backers, $3,908 pledged over the initial $3,000 goal. $1092 to go to reach the next stretch goal! Pondering practical things I can do and asking for help…
Made a little clip calling for a hand getting the word out for the stretch goals. I might put up some more art, and I’m pondering if it makes sense to set up some specific retailer rewards now. But in general I think mostly what this needs is more eyes! I’m doing my bit to get those, and I’m asking for your help in that too.
I’ve got a good number of books left before we hit the caps, lots of art, and several affordable digital options including one that for just $10 gets you Dream Life, five issues of Revolver, and SadOcensSpaceBears’ Dream of a dark Dream in mp3 format! And that lets me print two copies of my book AND you’ll get all your files within a week of the end of the drive!
Why go for the stretch goals? well the 3k lets me print 200 copies and visit about 6 retailers along the Windsor to Montreal transit corridor. That’s great, but a modest launch. Already we’re looking at improving that, here’s what the goals represent.
$5000 = 500 books, and the tour goes to Ottawa, Quebec city, out to the east coast to make one or more stops there. Maybe even able to jump across the border a little to upstate NY and Vermont. Pop over to Detroit when I’m in Windsor.
$10000 = 1000 books, maybe a few more as they start to get a lot cheaper to print. And i can entertain taking the tour west of the great lakes, ideally all the way out to British Columbia! Possibly to Seattle, and other major american cities like New York City, Chicago?
This is a little speculative, I’m still working out the details but I travel on the cheap so at least some of that is doable if I can find retailers and accommodations to accommodate. I wish I drove, being a city boy and conscientious objector to fossil fuels most of the time I’ve never learned and get around via bike and mass transit. But it would be handy right about now. I will make due though.
So all to say, i’m very happy we passed the all or nothing line, but I want to do this right. And we’ve got the time left to get there. And we’ve gotten this far with really, not a hell of a lot of people when you think about it? 103 now, at this rate we could reach 10k it with probably 300 or so backers. So backers pass the word! Lets get more people on board!
Thanks for your pledges and support and all the things, l love you all to bits. Here are some relevant links: My twitter. The Facebook page for Dream Life a late coming of age, The official site, though it’s in a bit bare bones at the moment. The free preview on Issuu, embeddable and sharable.
Now here’s me butchering the only song I know all the words too, because I had a typo in one of the reward tiers promising a singing event.
Someone suggested this might be scaring off people!
har har! :)
And with still a little more than half the drive to go too.
We can make 5k for sure, and maybe even more!
Thank you to everyone, and Paradise Comics
who put us past the first and most important goal!
It’s alive! I just launched a new 28 day kickstarter to finance my new Graphic Novel,
the long awaited Dream Life | a late coming of age.
I had it up as a web comic for a long time as part of the TX comics group, it earned me a Webcomics Creator nomination in the Joe Shuster Awards a couple times -
For the new book launch, I have a 61 page preview for download or viewing via Issue.
The old pages have been edited and such, so I’ve taken them down on the main site but you can still read them here on Facebook and here on Google+. I kind of like the full screen experience on those pages better anyway.
Thanks to everyone who left comments on the old posts, it was really nice having some kind of feedback when i was posting them that way. It ended up being ill paced I think to the format, so I was not surprised it seldom got a lot of traffic, but some days a good 50 to a 100 people would come and read the whole story! And some of you left very encouraging and flattening notes. You guys helped me keep feeling positive about this project through many darker days and hopeful what I was doing would find a wider audience. Also thanks to Larry Cruz who helped me come up with a great way to describe the narrative style I’ve been trying to develop with this story. I’ll be continuing to use this for some time I expect! :)
“Dream Life is one of those weird comics … It’s more like an orchestral piece, only you allow the artwork, rather than the music, to buffet you through the emotional highs and lows of each movement.”
[link] - Larry Cruz - One Punch Reviews – 4 out of 5
I’m working on getting up a gallery of art that will be on offer as a reward to post in the next day or so. Already two of my 90′s era pages are taken! Encouraging.
I’m going to be working on the two covers so i can get dummies of each version of the book made soon, the limited run of 90 books for the Indiegogo backers, and the Launch edition for TCAF and beyond.
I’m going to be contacting some other shops including those that have stocked Revolver in the past, but right from the start I can say it will be available at The Beguiling, The Dragon, and Strange Adventures.
But that said I really hope I can entice to get the books direct from me via this kickstarter! You can get a full sweet of all three issues of Revolver, and Dream Life for just $50 and help get a nice handful of copies made for the big launch! The same set of books, and a couple more issues of Revolver, AND a downloadable copy of a really cool album [more to come in a separate post about that shortly!], are also on offer as a grand digital option!
So close to getting so many things done, I kind of feel like there’s a brick about to fall on my head or something!
Just being dramatic but after all the hurdles getting this stuff done. Still some big one’s left to go too…
Got the last of these scanned a couple days ago, inking them by now. The rest of the book is done. These six wordless pages go in the middle, to help give PJ some room to breath as a character. She has one of the most intense narratives in the book. I’m hopping this will help put some of the pieces in place. Looking, here, think it works.
Have to get them done tout de suite! Inked and tones. Also got edits in from Mark for Dracula and the rest of revolver three. Some writing and curating to do too for the backers edition of Dream Life. Get some new quotes. Boy it’s all going to be tight! But once the art’s in the bag i can start some big wheels rolling. [Time shifted post].
With books coming in the spring and everything, I’m going to try to get back into posting here more regularly. Maybe even like this, transitioning a lot of my activity from social networks blogging to here about all and sundry that interests or provokes me.
It seemed almost like a message when I saw this “How Much Time Have You Wasted on Facebook?” app from TIME.com. I plugged in an estimate of my daily average here out of curiosity, it took a while to do its thing. lol. I use it to promote my work often so not “wasted” I feel, but the app says 108 DAYS, 7 HOURS, & 33 MINUTES Since Sep 15, 2011. And I’ve posted 10,865 things to my feed in that time? Does that include my other four fan pages there [1][2][3][4]? Rough estimates that makes about 10 to 11 posts a day av. Sounds about right anyway.
I’ve been reluctant in the past to post “off topic” on my own site so much, keeping it mostly about work. But I think I’ll try diversifying things now. So here’s some stuff that I’ve noticed or had thoughts about in the last two days, and some work.
While I’m to my knowledge Ashkenazim on both sides of my family, and considered a full blooded Jew under Jewish law. I am also an atheist who was raised outside of the temple entirely. Never had any indoctrination at all.
I’ve always felt an outsider everywhere, and it started in part from realizing when I was a kid that Jewish tradition suggested that my being raised like that meant that to some, I’m a gôy. In the original Hebrew it means a Jew ignorant of the Jewish religion, as well as a non-Jew. So potentially that’s me.To some orthodox minds anyway. I would point out I’m not ignorant, having read about my heritage and been present some family events of a religious nature and enjoyed them for their social merits.
In the past and often today, many Jews like to think of themselves as above or immune to racism. But that’s hardly the case. No one is. And a lot of traditional doctrine, like that bit I just mentioned, always rubbed me the wrong way for its intrinsic race based nationalism. To my mind racism=nationalism=racism and I loath both, you know? And I see both as artifacts of culture, not real in any material way other than the way we deal with the idea of them.
A Israeli friend of mine recently lamented that if we were in 1800′s France, he would be supporting Herzl and I’d be opposing the movement. It’s possible, assuming I had the same philosophical leanings. I can understand the Jewish quest for homeland at that time. But If my mind was the same as today, I’d reject his racially driven world view. Though at that time it was pretty much most of the worlds world view. But If I had my modern mind, I’d be fighting the illusion of Race at home in Europe, rather than promoting a colonial idea that what involve the displacement of another ethnic group in order to make us feel safer–but in the end putting us in greater peril I think.
I have been wondering about the details of his side of this story. I was around for the news when it first came around and recalled it being much less cut and dry than the recent tweets and backlash made it seem. Glad someone kept their notes. I’m well convinced Woody is a hard person to deal with or be involved with. No strike that, is really quite ethically compromised given who Soon Yi was when he started his affair. But It’s always felt a bit fishy the way Mia Farrow handled all that as well. Since posting this Dylan has now had her say, and i’m inclined to support her as a victim. But there is also the problematic nature of memory and vague nature of a lot of the incidents he’s accused of. But I don’t think she’s lying. In any case, bloody messy business.
Check out this clip here of him doing some of his magic. This is really deeply zoomed in. Crazy details. It’s been ages since i tried Scratch-board techniques. Not since high school i think. Sam Agro said “Like a creepy Franklin Booth“. Agreed. gorgeous!
Scientists watch glowing molecules form memories in real-time!
Along with commenting on that posting, it inspired me to post about the breakthrough in active brain imaging along with this thought: For those that wish to promote the idea that our inner thoughts have a real impact in the outer world around us. I use inner and outer here pointedly. Because really, that’s a false dichotomy propagated by the way we perceive thoughts vs the physical. Good old Descartian dualism that seeks to elevate humanity and life by saying there is something other, special, about us that definitely separates us from the rest of the stuff and beasts and holds the promise of immortality for many.
Well, here’s my thoughts. Our thoughts have influence on the physical world in two ways. One*, when they lead to actions. Ok, obvious maybe but worth pointing out. Most of the time, even if you are unaware of how, this is what is going on. Two**, they are in fact properties of the physical world–of your neurons. They were never separate from the physical world in the first place. If you thought so, you were misled, like most of us at one time or another. To that end, look at this…and think about how as you do, it’s happening in your own skull as you form a memory of it.
** Having a thought causes other neurons to respond and all kinds of interesting brain chemistry to happen. They are not nonphysical things. Imagining them as something that happens in another place/space/without forms, this is a popular but unfounded idea. * A lot of the new age meme about the impact of our thoughts attributes the consequences of subtle behavioral interactions and body language to the supernatural. It is unlikely that you never show any of your negative or positive feeling on your face, stance, or the way you interact with others. Depending on how observant and sensitive people are to that they might know you feel in general terms good or bad about them, or they may just have a gut feeling about it. But one way or another most of the time they will pick up on something even if only subconsciously. So, intentional or not, a lot of your thoughts lead to actions, including pointed inaction and intentions even unconscious ones. And all that has an impact.
Well written. Resonates with my own thoughts witnessing how age anxieties mess with the minds of most women I’ve known. It gets to guys too but not nearly as intensely. Also this struck me due to the fact I once witnessed a few older female comic creators whose work I admired, go from trying to armor themselves over their mixed feelings of being seen as elder ladies, not getting noticed as much, and being catty about Molly who one of them had sat next to at a show. She did not approve of the 20 something Molly’s penchant for corsets and bustiers.
Personally I’ve always been of the mind to, and encouraged my partners to try to age gracefully. Fit as we can manage, into whatever decrepitude inevitable entropy has in store. My hair has several silver strands now. I like them. They have been earned.
Speaking of HBO crime stories, I have been most impressed by True Detective. Very tightly written so far. And the cast is killing it. More please.
Ok, lets get into the work….
Dream Life pencils | I like making unexpected places pretty.
Right now I’m “penciling” my the final few pages for Dream Life book one. It was supposed to be done a year ago, but last Feb I had some test and found out I’m Diabetic. At the time i said little, I was not sure what it would mean or how it would impact anything other than my penchant for surgery coffee and energy drinks was going to have to come to an end. It runs in the family, so not a total shock. It had me worried for a bit but I responded to meds well, and between diet and an increasing amount of exercise I’ve been doing really well with controlling my levels.
At the time though, I was about to enter crunch time on Dream Life and I realized something I was trying as a short cut for doing the tones wasn’t cutting it and I’d have to do some of them over – and that there were things I wanted to fix with the story that I’d only just noticed in the last round of edits. I only had under 20 pages of 160 left to work on, many mostly done even. But in the time left, and with the news about my health, a hard bird to make it for TCAF 2013 was out. Not unless I wanted to risk some serious health problems. At 42 [now 43] and having dodged a bullet with cancer, I’m not screwing around with that for anything. So I put off Dream Life of a bit while I got other commitments done, and got healthier. And this month I’m wrapping up that last bit of the book finally. I have to say, I do like me some delayed gratification.
One of the bits of new work I’m doing is a scene I’ve had in mind a long time. It’s a long scene that exploits place and a lot of public art to tell a story about a person. Posted to the right here is a page from a scene of PJ walking through the city having just arrived, reconnecting with the town and internally resolving some heavy stuff from earlier in the book. On the left is the bottom later page from the end of the same sequence. I’m working in red felt tip pen here. For pencils I use many different things, whatever my mood calls for. Sometimes it’s even pencil!
This panel background, the one with the trees painted upside down on the overpass structure, is from photo reference I took of public art on the Gardiner Expressway in about 2008 or so. Rodney Graham‘s Tree Portraits wrapped around the pillars beneath the Gardiner Expressway, creating an inverted forest within a concrete jungle. [1][2][3]. The last location in this scene is set in a nearby space inspired from some other public art too. Found near the Toronto Music Garden, in the Spadina Quay Wetlands. I changed it to suit the story with PJ, from what looks like a small factory building to a house.
A lot of Dream Life is set is a semi fictional version of Toronto. In that I am basing it on real places but take liberties liberally to suit my storytelling desires. As I was walking the route from my script for this scene, taking location shots for reference. Passing through his inverted forest seemed perfect. it echoes the earlier scene that happens in a forest under trees, and just generally evokes a lot of appropriate things about PJ in this moment. Been looking forward to drawing it since I was there taking the ref shot in 2008. Originally had planed to used it much later in the story. Part that would not fit in this first book. But after realizing I was going to have to break the story up to get it done and publish it, I felt PJ’s narrative was weak as is. So I found a way to bring this forward, and in a way make it far better and more meaningful as well, I hope.
The sudden passing of a kind stranger.
I was going to leave it at that for this post. Plenty NO? And I felt unsure if this was something I had any business posting about here. But then looking over the post not mentioning this in my journal entry from the last two days seemed far to conspicuous.
See the thing is I didn’t really know Debra. From the sounds of it I wish I’d known her better. Only met her a few times in her capacity as a volunteer at events and at Kevin’s shop once I think, or maybe twice. Through the years I’ve gotten to know Kevin Boyd well professionally but didn’t have much knowledge of his personal life. I only recently learned of Debra after he opened his comic shop I think. And probably a lot of what I did know of her came from Facebook. So far I had learned she was involved along with some other mutual friends in Toronto’s comics scene, as a lawyer, volunteer, and shutter bug. And one of the core founders of a regular saturday night ladies night at the lounge. Always active it seems, she posted a reminder for their gathering saturday, and then took a nap and never woke up.
It was almost totally random seeming. Young and very vial person many people I know knew suddenly was no longer there. Word today was SUDEP, Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy. I’m informed by Kevin that no one really knows what it is, what happens. Just that it does. 50.000 times a year on average! I had no idea.
As the publisher for Sequential I posted her death notice for our site and asked a friend of hers, Rachel Richey who recently joined the team to pen a personal remembrance we’ll be putting up in a day or so. The shock-wave of regret and condolences after Kevin posted of her death on Facebook January 26th has been a little epic. The impact of her enthusiasm disposition and volunteering extended well outside of the Toronto Comics scene, online and via all those who had met her at events.
Reading some of my other friends and Kevin’s laments of her sudden passing, It’s certainly made me ponder mortality and life more than a few times over the last two days, and think I missed something not having spent more time around her.
An official final posting was put up on her profile, it read…
Debra Jane Shelly, aged 39 (April 23, 1974-January 25, 2014)
Our precious Debra passed peacefully in her sleep on Saturday afternoon from an epileptic seizure. Debbie will be forever remembered as a genuine and kind soul with unparalleled wit and a spectacular smile. She was the adored daughter of Scott and Susan Shelly of Oakville, ON. Debra was the loving partner of Kevin A. Boyd. She was the world’s most cherished older sister to Karrie Shelly Singer (Dave), Cristie Shelly Schultz (Mark) and Greg Shelly (Laura Waters). Debbie was a doting aunt to Caleb, Noah, Liam, Ana, Sidney, Kaitlyn, Michael and Lauren. We will miss her dearly….
[redacted ceremony info as i don't think it's really for the public as much]
Debbie was a ray of light in all of our lives- please feel free to come dressed in your most cheerful colors in tribute to our sunny girl. In lieu of flowers, donations are appreciated to Epilepsy Toronto in Debbie’s honor here.
So right this second I’m constructively procrastinating a bit before starting in on the last 6 pages of Dream Life. Check out some glimpses of that on Instagram here. The FB page could use more likes too. The last six are a final, all new scene I decided to add after a proofing of the book. And then it’s actually done. O_o
Looking ahead there’s going to be a lot I have to do still!
I start a new session of my Dynamic Drawing class as well, teaching once a week. Looking forward to it but an added challenge. Meanwhile I’ve got some back mater to curate and write for the backers edition for the indiegogo drive. Cover for that is already mostly done, and the template for the Launch edition. I’ve also got Revolver vol 3 completed, it’s going through final proofing and edits. I think I may rewrite the forward once again. But a lot of stuff is getting, done. It’s a nice big pile. Scary too sometimes.
The plan is to have them all printed and present at TCAF. A launch proper for Dream Life my latest graphic novel, along with a full suite of self published Salgood Sam, with Revolverone to three. Financing all that, definitely a challenge on the current income. Scratch that, probably not on.
I’m thinking I’m going to try the killer app that is a kickstarter style drive as pre-sale and focus point of a big promotional effort to get word out about the books. Have some number crunching to do and a lot of planning. Some quality time with a calendar too. Probably have to do it in two months time latest! So while getting the packaging wrapped up and teaching! Hah. Ok, this will be fun. Hey anyone tells you self publishing is no trouble…punch them.
No not really, i’m not into violence. But kinda…
So no call to action for that just yet, but expect one. In the mean time, I would like to encourage to you pick up the first two Revolvers. And now to show off a little of the art from both Dream Life, and Revolver Three. Please share this with people, help raise the flag?
Dream Life has been a really,
really long running labour of love.
The story of five friends. Dreams, drugs, & denial all failing to weather the arc of life unscathed. Each coming to terms with lives peter panned, and in danger of going off the rails.
It’s received some recognition as a web comic, and support from both grants and crowdfunding! Damn I feel like I really milked a luck goat on this one. It is in fact, not even the whole book I had in mind. So I really hope people like it, so I can make the second half, or two-thirds almost I suspect! That would be wonderful.
The Launch edition will be a 161 pages of story, B&W, 8″x10″ trade paperback. My longest work to date, and most significant solo effort. Not necessarily important to anyone else but me, but I’m pretty pleased with that. :)
This spread comes from a scene in the later half I really like. It’s a work of contemporary fiction, with healthy doses of magic realism, & influenced by cinematic neorealism. There’s a Pulp Fiction inspired subplot, and several interwoven storylines. I hope it to be an engrossing and lush reading experience.
I’m so glad I drew Rob Ford into this shot a year ago or so, very fitting.
Revolver is an ongoing personal anthology series. I’m currently offering it in both print and digital modes from my site here. The first two issues are already live, and the third as I said is in the can.
So far Revolver has been a critical success, but slow seller, in part because there is only one me and I still have to spend most of my time drawing. Not to beat a dead horse but that’s something you could help with big time! Find me on twitter here, and RT about the books!
Revolver Three is going to be an exciting one for me, as it contains two all new stories, drawn mostly in just the last half a year.
I’m starting a new series of short works to collect, caled A Bastard’s Tale. Here on the left is a page from that. They run together but are meant to work as short stories too. Tailored to the anthology series format. It’s a memoir, about my father Lionel, and growing up in a counter culture.
My first attempt at something this intensely personal, and frankly scares the shit out of me eh? Hah. But I feel like having thought about it for a long time, I’ve finally found a way into how I would enjoy sharing some aspects of that story. I was thinking of it at first as JUST a book just about Lionel, my father. But I realized in the end my way into that story was via my POV, so that would be an honest way to do it and it provided me with a good starting point finally. Often a big hurdle, that first step. A Bastard’s Tale is going to be fun as I have a more open pallet in terms boundaries on my drawing styles and techniques.
The bulk of the third vol of Revolver will be given over to something else, completely different…
Dracula Son of the Dragon
In early 2013 Mark Sable and I had a successful Kickstarter to finance the production of the artwork for a new story, Dracula Son of the Dragon. A 60+ page novella, first in a series of 4, that i’m serializing in B&W in Revolver in quarters as I complete it. Part historical fiction, part horror fantasy, chronicling Vlad the Impaler’s transformation into the vampire Dracula.
Revolver Vol Three marks the launch of the series with the first installment. Backers for the Dracula Kickstarter are digital subscribers for the most part, who get an early bird link for their digital subscriptions. So i’m really keen for them to all get their first look at what their support helped get done. That’s 300+ subscribers already! The final colour printed collection of Dracula Son of the Dragon is going to be late, but at least it will appear in some form at TCAF 2014 in Revolver three!
While the two projects are very different, there is also an interesting synergy between the these installments of both, featuring a young boys relationship with his father. Unplanned but cool. There’s also an assortment of pin ups and comic jams again, I really tried to curate an enjoyable reading experience. I want Revolver to be the best of me. Something I can hold up with unqualified pride of craft.
I included an informal query about the digital subscription when we started collecting info from backers, and so far i’m very pleased with the number of thumbs up! So thanks for that, and your amazing support!
So that’s what’s up with my comics and stuff! A lot eh? Tell me about it. And tell your friends too OK?
Read the first 100+ page preview of Dream Life and then share it with your friends, with word of it’s pending release! I can’t do this stuff for long without you, the readers.
Thanks and cheers!
I’ll try to post more often.
max
Latest bit of work for Imago, illustrated engineered and edited by me, Ange J Murphy directing.
pondered some more complex ideas but we ultimately kept it elegant, simple, and under 2 min. Bit hectic getting it done but a fun little project!
The play is intense, a classic revenge story. Literally, based on the story of Philomela, found in Book VI of the Metamorphoses of the Roman poet Ovid. It was cool Imago wanted looser work from me, i’ve enjoyed the opportunity to experiment with a broader approach to the art here. I really like doing gestural work but there’s seldom call for it in my freelance contract work. Check out information about the play here, and get tickets to see what’s sure to be a powerful piece here. Play runs October 9 – 19, 2013, at the Centaur Theatre.
This past Sunday was my 43rd birthday. I don’t much like parties for my birthdays. It’s not actually a negative thing. I just realized along the way I liked introspective birthdays or spending the time with family or friends but NOT being the reason or point of the gathering.
This year I planned nothing but lots happened. The saturday night before I met some friends and new acquaintances at a bar downtown, an after convention party of comics pro’s and guest stars. My favorite and really prefered part of any comic con. This time didn’t even in fact go to the convention, just the after party. It was a nice night and i came away with a copy of Becky Cloonan’s latest self published book, Demeter! Looks really good. :)
Sunday was actually a little bit of a work day, in the afternoon we met with a client Ange and I are working on a video for. It was productive and we had a nice walk after.
We’d had lunch before after Attending in the morning my cousin Julie’s daughters naming ceremony, her Zeved Habat.
We didn’t see a lot of little Lyla Rachel, but what we could was heartwarming.
A large Modern Orthodox Jewish ceremony. Lyla Rachel looked cute and slept through the whole thing it looked like.
She was brought into the room by all the women of her family.
Passed from grandmother to aunt to cousin to grandmother who held her while her parents conducted the introduction of their second daughter to their extended family. Julie tells me they named in part after my father, her uncle [Lionel]. It wasn’t I think an intended birthday gift, but a lovely one nonetheless.
I probably distinguished myself by my attempted dedication to respecting house rules. Not being religious I of course forgot to bring a kippah with me – I have a few now actually, from weddings or family events like this and i’m pretty good about remembering sometimes. But, it’s not often really the first thing on my mind honestly. Couldn’t see any near the entrance, where often you’ll find some.
So I improvised with my scarf.
Didn’t get too many looks, but one older fellow had a great laugh with me at my expense. It was abandoned soon at the show was over and we went downstairs, but I kind of like the look! ;)
Our side is a pretty big extended mostly lapsed Jewish family, we have many cousins. But Julie’s husband Ilan’s side of the family is impressively large and I think mostly filled a banquet hall with their troops alone! Lovely folks that i’ve met so far. Though watch out around a buffet!
Also saw my aunt and cousins which was nice.
One was Alan, a cousin from my father’s generation who gave me a copy of the amazing book he just published of his father’s work. “A Colourful Life – The Art and Drawing of Josh Silburt”. A catalog of his professional cartooning and paintings.
This is the site he set up as well as part of the long-term project of keeping his father’s work in the public eye.
Josh Silburt married one of several sisters, another of whom is my grandmother. Both he and another of their husbands were professional cartoonists at one time. Something I was told often by my grandmother. Doing sports and political cartoons for the Canadian press. She always made a point about how he moved on to become a very accomplished painter too and I grew up with many of his landscapes on various relatives living room walls as a kid.
The book is a comprehensive archive quality coffee table tome. Alan tells me he’s planing a launch event in Toronto in october for it. Didn’t plan to be but might just have to try to book a few days trip down to attend that. Here’s a look at the inside.
“Revolver is the very type of comic i want to make, filled with poetic short stories of dreams and loneliness, visually stunning and unique, with just the right mix of reality and fancy.” – Farel Dalrymple
A few nice words from friends always makes promoting a new book easier!
After a short delay Revolver is back.
Print on demand copies will be available soon but for now I’m focusing efforts on a digital first business plan for Revolver – Still want it to be a physical book for myself and those that want it, but going digital first makes getting it to you the reader a lot easier. The POD edition will be available in October.
So here we go, Revolver Quarterly Vol.2, the digital edition! Grab your copies direct from salgoodsam.com here. Other than a few cents for paypal all funds go directly to supporting the creator!
¢99: 28 pages, 7″ x 10″, 200 dpi . PDF & CBR copies bundled in a 50.5 mb zip file. No DRM.
The feature story in this Vol. is Honolulu Lorie’s Lava Love Lounge and Poodle Emporium!
Seven pages inspired by the rhythms and themes of the great Tom Waits, whom I’ve long admired. And some scumbags, old friends I knew from Toronto but mostly from and still in Windsor Ont.
Early draft was scrawled on napkins and band flyers in various bars in the ‘90s while Waits’ music filled my ears.
Also found within, illustrations, a cut scene from my graphic novel Dream Life, and a pair of images created for Occupy Comics.
Some old Comic Jam pages in back, along with an article about my personal history with Jams.
All my downloadable books can be found here, including Revolver One.
So on to Dracula.
Thought it was time we shared a public update.
Work on Dracula son of the dragon is well underway, I’m penciling away and every 4 pages I’ve been finishing one page to work out the specific style guide for the tones and colours. I’ll probably tweak things as I go but it’s coming together pretty good so far I think. Mark was surprised with the pallet, he expected fewer colours. It’s more broad than the pilot for sure, but still very limited and plan to keep it that way. Next one I do like this will be something more neutral I think. We’ve got action and moody down here I think. Picked two showy splash pages to ink first and color, so as to have something to show off. This is the first shot of Vlad Tepes in the story, and the other is of Hunyadi being unseated by Vlad’s father Dracul in a jousting match in Nuremberg. Like our facebook page to keep up with things on Dracula.
Dream Life!
Here’s the whole book in InDesign. The pages with the yellow tint are roughs for a scene i’m trying to make up my mind about adding. Did the thumbs weeks ago, scripted it tonight, think i have to do it. It feels needed.
Got to get the rest of the lettering done too, about 20 pages worth i think to go over, but some of that is silent or has minimal text. But knowing that got to watch i don’t put it off to long too. Doing some of it tonight next.
6 more to do washes on too i think. Boy this book has been a crap ton of work. Close though. Nice to look it all over like this in ID. End is within reach!
The blank pages in the back are for the extras the backers are getting in their special editions, there will be 20 pages of them! Ok. Back to work for me,
Hey so i’m excited to announce i’m teaching a drawing class this fall, 10 classes at Syn Studio in Montreal, emphasising the physicality of drawing from technique to capturing motion and energy in your art.
Some unconventional aspects will be moving live models, field trips to events, and even a free 1hr T’ai chi class [included in base cost] to help you get into thinking about how your body and joints work both for tool use and relating to bodies in motion. Followed by an hour of drawing the T’ai chi instructor!
I’m hoping it proves to be a fun and engaging class! I’m happy to hear we already have a few students signed up, there’s still spots for open so consider joining us for it!
~
Dynamique Drawing
First class is Saturday the 5th of October 4:30 to 7:30pm.
Class dates are all at the same time.
Oct 5, 12, 19, 26
Sept 2, 9, 16, 23, 30
Dec 7th, final class.
Year end party & exhibit TBA Early Registration price is $410.
Regular registration rate is $470. *Early Registration Deadline: August 7th at 11:59 P.M.
The RSA animates helped to popularize this style of presentation, I’ve just started experimenting with the approach and enjoy it quite a bit.
It’s ideal for communicating ideas clearly for just about any client, and viewers seem to enjoy watching cartoon art drawn on camera even just for its own sake!
I can provide full services from development of the script to final posting and hosting on Youtube or other video sites.
Contact me about rates for your next viral video project.
Music is “Instrumental“, by Sinphonic from Man Vs Himself [1997]
Used with thanks to the talented George Westerholm and co.
That’s the magic number right? :) less than buck now gets you my critically acclaimed 1st issue of RevolveЯ Quarterly on ComiXology submit! I’ve matched that price for the copies you can purchase from me directly here on this site.
Been debating how to handle the series now that it’s on Comixology. I’d like to lower any barriers with price point, but it does not make a lot of sense to sell 52+ pages for 99 cents. So i’m going to switch to a page count with Vol 2 on, more in line with it rather than try to sell the issues for more.
Starting with Vol 2 Revolver will be 28 pages. Vol 1 is still the same, but from now on the rest will be that.
A bonus is this makes getting it out more regularly a lot easier too. I had planned to have a larger version of Vol 2 out awhile ago now, but this first serious venture into self publishing has been challenging. Resistance/reluctance from retailers for independent books is strong!
Customers have been enthusiastic, I sold many copies at TCAF this year, readers have been awesome. But It’s very hard to get meaningful numbers of retailers to pick up an independently distributed book – a few amazing shops have but not many. And right now I don’t have the capital to back roll something for Diamond so looking for workable solutions to this.
For now though, sticking with what leeway I’ve made in the digital market – Comixology is coming up on a 100 sales since Vol 1 went up, I’ve sold a couple a week off my own site for a while now, and with my recent Dracula Kickstarter with Mark Sable I now have about 300 subscribed readers for vol 1 through 8!
A decent audience has been seeded. For now I have to focus on building on that and getting the next 7 issues out in a timely fashion.
This is the start of something big I hope, coming soon to Comixology is my next graphic novel Dream Life, and very shortly RevolveЯ Quarterly Vol 2 will come out digital first from my site and Comixology. And with Vol 4 my new series with Mark Sable will make its first appearance, watch for Dracula Son of the Dragon.
So i’ve been packing and preparing all week, in the morning i’m going for a haircut, and then catching a ride to Toronto for TCAF!
I have mixed feelings about the show this year. I’d hoped to have Dream Life ready for a sophomore presentation, but fell short of the mark on the deadline.
It was close but I’m just getting too old to kill myself anymore and I really don’t want to present something compromised for the quality of the art. Additionally really the backers from the Indiegogo drive should get it first so had to adjust my plans for the book. It looks great, just want to make sure it’s right. On the up side I have less stuff to carry and I do have a book new to the show. 40 copies of Revolver One, along with some prints, and 100 free Monster of Montreal bookmarks. Featuring the cover art for the upcoming Revolver Two.
I’ve set it up so I can live blog for the floor maybe, stay tuned. Follow my Instagram feed to catch the sights. And I tweet more often now thanks to a phone upgrade.
Part historical fiction, part horror fantasy, a comic book chronicling Vlad the Impaler’s transformation into the vampire Dracula.
An original comics series by Mark Sable (Graveyard of Empires) & Salgood Sam (Sea of Red, Therefore Repent! Dream Life).
UPDATE: WE MADE IT! Thanks to all our backers and everyone who helped make it happen! News and updates coming soon, in the meantime follow us on facebook for the latest.
The Story… We know the story of the Vlad Tepes, the so-called “historical Dracula”. But how did a 15th century “Impaler” become the world’s most notorious vampire? This first, heavily-researched book in this series will start with Vlad Dracula’s childhood. He’ll learn early, hard lessons in politics and betrayal as a young prince in his native Wallachia and Transylvania as a prisoner of the Ottoman Turks. Then, drawing from hints in Bram Stoker’s novel, we’ll begin to learn how Vlad became introduced the Dark Arts at the infamous Scholomance.
To survive his adolescence, young Prince Vlad believes he must kill in the name to serve the Holy Roman Order of The Dragon. But when the same Church that sanctified these deeds denies him access to Heaven, he’ll realize the only way to escape eternal damnation is the immortality that only the undead can grant.
Our hope is with your help, to use Kickstarter to finance the production of the first 60-page volume of Dracula: Son of the Dragon and publish a set of limited first run editions.
These will range from digital editions to hand bound leather tomes designed to evoke the 15th century printing of Vlad Dracula’s reign.
Part of your contribution will go towards compensating Salgood for his time drawing, toning and hand-lettering the story. The rest of the money we raise will go towards financing the manufacture of the first planed editions for backers, and cover the shipping for the same.
This will include four limited edition print versions of the book available exclusively for backers.
A drive-only black and white trade paperback “ashcan” edition with a generous amounts of support material making it 90 pages in all.
A first run full-color trade paperback edition.
A limited, Leatherette hand bound and letterpress style printed soft cover bound by Soundless Soliloquy.
And, an exclusive leather-bound, hand tooled and bound collector’s copy by No Bar Code Press.
These first editions of Dracula: Son of the Dragon will be self-published by Salgood Sam, using local artisans for the hand-made limited editions, and CreateSpace for the trade-paperbacks. The first print collections will be delivered to packers in May of 2014. A Separate retail edition will also be made available shortly after, sans the extra features that distinguish the special editions for backers.
Digital versions of the story will be serialized quarterly in Salgood’s RevolveЯ Quarterly, starting in mid to late 2013. (All backers over $15 will receive a 6 issues subscription to digital editions of RevolveЯ).
In addition, we’re offering a variety of perks, including original artwork, script consultation from writer (and writing instructor) Mark Sable, even the chance to appear in the book as a character!
If we are fortunate enough to surpass the first goal, our plan is to offer additional runs of the limited edition print books, and possibly to fund future volumes in this series.
GUEST ARTISTS: Joining us to round out the post card and print offerings, we have several talented friends lending a hand.
In random order for size each one awesome, we have commitments from…
Steven Russell Black
James Romberger
Robbi Rodriguez
Paul Azaceta
Kevin Mellon
Nathan Fox
and more TBA.
Please take a moment to share Dracula: Son of the Dragon with your friends on Facebook and Twitter.
Very soon i’ll be announcing
a kickstarter campaign for an upcoming project!
One of the fun aspects of it for me will be designing the hand made limited editions of the books, working with a couple of local artisan binders, Soundless Soliloquy and No Bar Code Press.
So far the broad strokes of the packaging are roughed out. Dimensions page count and cover materials. But I still have a lot of the details to handle.
I also have to come up with the packaging of Dream Life backers of my indiegogo campaign will get to very soon. That one is a trade paperback but I want to make it something visually fun and special. Pretty much have it done in my head but there are always things that come up in execution.
All this came to mind when some friends posted the following set of playful book designs on FB.
More about packaging than binding mind you, they are each a kind of absurdist literal take on the stories they wrap. The oldest is a very rare asbestos bound first edition of Stephen King’s Firestarter. Published by Phantasia Press in 1980 it originally sold for $300 each. 25 of 26 copies exist, with one ironically being lost in a fire. Recently one went on the market for $18,000! It’s quite handsome, and probably safe but still i’d probably keep it bagged just to be sure.
You can still make them out, so the cover is practical as well. Making it function in a commercial context and I suspect will lead browsers even take closer notice in the effort to make out what it says. Not just being an illustration of the subject the story it contains, as a curiosity I think it’s the kind of functional design that scares the money often, but like a whisper entices you to lean in closer for a better look. Congratulations to David for being able to get that one through. It’s the kind of design that you would probably not want on a new book trying to make a mark. But for a classic like 1984, having this version is worth the bragging points probably of getting a new copy.
And the perfect book end to the asbestos bound King book, is this copy of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, with striking paper along its spine and its own match! Kind of asking for it but all the same, witty. From what I can tell this one is just a concept design done by Elizabeth Perez for The Austin Creative Department. But I bet it would sell as a limited run collector’s edition if they took it to market.
All three are fun incarnations of the same kind of design principles. The sort I had planned to apply to the next book. Dracula: son of the dragon.
Thanks to Zack Smith, Vinnie Bartilucci & Hans Curtis for posting these on FB and making me aware of them.
So I’m most faltered and glad to read this paragraph. Making sure the books hold together well as a whole is a priority for me so glad to hear it reads that way.
Though muted and limited in palette, the art demonstrates a level of skill many comic artists can only aspire to. Perspectives are juxtaposed Escher-like adding to the alter-reality quality of each individual story as well as the collection generally. Revolver One feels like a cohesive whole.
Thank you very kindly. It’s funny also to me to realize that at 42 now, when I drew those I was thinking about men my current age often.
“The fictions unfold surreally. “Each day he awakes to another dream-like day,” reveals the narrator of “Pin City”. But these are not dreams of optimism; there is little joy to be found either in the text or the art work. What these stories do offer, however, is a looking glass to contemporary North American society where predominantly men above a certain age are caught up in a kind of hinterland between what they imagine life should offer and what the reality of their existence is.”
Yep that’s a pretty strong theme in that collection. I’d like to think that it can be read even more broadly. Not just about men. But that’s certainly true about most of them. I always saw Helpless as being more about the narrators life but the elderly man in that story is quite central. Misplaced was also co authored with the same writer and we reveled in making the child gender ambiguous and watching to see how the bias falls out. But regardless of that aspect universally I’d agree expectations and anxieties and displacement are the crux of those stories, one of the things I wanted to try to talk about. Nice to see it coming out on the other end. I’m still surprised as the first time the lack of Joy is such a strong impression. She’s not the first to note that. But then I suppose this might be a question of perspective? Hmm, wonder what that says about mine eh? Well we’ll have to make sure there’s some fun stuff in future issues, just not to be totally depressing! I think Misplaced and Wildthings are pretty upbeat though. But check this bit out…
One feature of the layout that really surprised and delighted me, as a reader and aspiring comic artist, is Douglas’ use of tangents to create intense dialogue between the external landscape of the city and the inner or psychological landscape of the protagonist.
What Revolver One demonstrates is that there’s more than one way of looking at something. We can observe society from a distance, objectively, but unless we put ourselves in the position of the protagonist in any of these fictions, we may end up trapped in not so much a dream world as a reality behind glass, unable to escape.
Nice. :)
I have a authors profile on good reads here, if you add me there i’ll send you a discount code for my digital books!
What a novel idea! Yeah I’m close to being done work on Dream Life book one, and have to scare up resources to print books.
I’ll be running a pre-order sale once the last page is inked, in March is the plan. Might try other things too. But don’t want to leave it till then and I am getting kind of broke right now. So lets sell some art and books why don’t we!? Yes lets. Studio is too crowded anyway.
To sweeten the deal, for the next 30 days [ends march 15th] i’m going to offer a free sketch with orders of 40$ or more, something comparable to this one I did at TCAF. Mailed to you either with your art if you buy art, or separately if what you order does not come directly from my home.
Ok, what’s for sale? I’ve added and will continue to add more Art to my store for sale directly from my site, here.
So far it’s mostly old work for hire stuff, with more to come. Will also be putting up pages from more recent books to. If the sticker price is a bit high for you i’m offering to re-ink some by hand, a smaller 9×12 rendering for a lower price too.
And I’m totally open to doing original commissions, from your basic convention sketch to things more involved. So those of you paying attention, if you commission a 50$ conventions sketch from me? you’ll get two! Or I should say a second smaller one too! Deal eh?
I’ve also got an eBay auction going right now, to sell off a 22 page lot of camera ready art from my unpublished ’95 Ghostrider 2099 story with Warren Ellis, “Horrorshow”. This is not the original art I did, but stats of the pages with the lettering pasted on them. The only real physical copy of the full story in existence. Individually not worth much I think but as a set I thought of value to a collector? Hope so anyway. Check it out and consider bidding here. The cover art from that [seen top left of this post] is on sale in my store here too by the way.
Also i’m still offer a 30% discount if you order 3 or more copies. Revolver is not yet in a lot of stores, you can get it at a few, and order it from Amazon. But bulk ordering from me is the cheapest way [free shipping, and 30% off] and it’s a very direct way to support and help promote my work. Convince two friends or more to pitch in and order the book! Make it four friends and you’ll spend enough to get a free sketch too!
FYI Revolver Two is running late but soon to be launched.
And last but hardly least, I’ve also just added a new color extended digital edition of my best selling 2007 graphic novel with Jim Munroe, Therefore Repent! Unlike any past digital version we released, this one has the pages tinted in the same kind of dark blue as the printed books. I’ve also added some new back mater consisting of 18 pages of rough layout art, design sketches, notes, and two new sections of script that was cut. You won’t find this extended digital version anywhere else for now. Just here! Price is $3.50, available In CBR or PDF, with no DRM.
Cheers, hope you see something that you like and help me get Dream Life published by buying some of my past art or books.
best – max
Debra Jane Shelly, aged 39 (April 23, 1974-January 25, 2014)
