This episode of the podcast I take a question from Andrew J. Hawthorn, who asked about “Narrative techniques or figurative tricks you can only do in comics?”
Tricky question to answer with JUST words. I’ll give it my best go but for sure this podcast will have a youtube version shortly, with some visual aids. And check out the description texts here for links below. Right off the top, you’ll find page Page 89 of Dream Life, “The roots of violence” on the left, and “A last dinner”, page 68. Both typifying two very different approaches to unconventional page layouts, structurally, and thematically. But each applying the kind of non linear collagen like sequences that do away with conventional panels altogether.
As always, you can become a patron of the arts and subscribe here! Great news, the Patreon campaign has gone over $100 a month! Very encouraging to hit that mark at two months! I’ve just cleaned up the page a bit and set up a custom video playlist of my best stuff for the first page on patreon.
Thanks again to Andrew Walsh & Troy Carlson, my newest patrons, along with Michelle Darwin, Emil Underbjerg, Tim Moerman, Ian Hodgkinson, & Shannon Becker! Plus, two secretive souls who will take no public thanks, but have it most assuredly. Merci beaucoup to you all!
This is the fifth episode of my regular podcast project. The plan is to keep them short, and topics will be partly whatever i’m thinking about, partly requests from listeners. Mostly about making and reading comics for now but not exclusively.
Music in opening is a mix up of Nasa Space sounds, over Sadoceanspacebear. A bit of Diggin’ On Comix by Dr. John closes out the show. Performed by Mac Rebenault, Richard Crooks, Wilbur Bascomb and Steve Burgin
I had a chat with a fellow cartoonist on NYE, thought i’d do a short distillation of some of my thoughts from that here.
Also welcome and thanks to my newest Patron, an old friend, Tim Moerman! :D Tim and I go way back to the old days of The Monthly Montreal Comix Jam!
Thanks again to all my patrons, get a few more notes and check out the patreon here!
Here’s the fourth edition!
I wanted to get one more in
before the end of the year.
I get into more detail answering one of Jed Alexander’s questions from the last episode.
I skirted over a bunch of stuff I did in other fields of the arts from comics. One I mentioned in passing, was animation. I get into more detail about how I got involved in the work and some highlights of my experiences.
Hello friends, it’s been hectic as I’ve been focusing on Dracula and trying to get Revolver Four out asap, and getting the final batch of Dream Life books out the door? Taking too long, not helped by nasty cold bug last month. Back at it now, playing catchup… sooo late late late.
The only upside of being sick is I got a lot of writing done, including a workable draft of the Patreon page text I’d been meaning to attempt to write since signing up in the summer. Important bit of business as it’s planned to be a key aspect of the market presentation of Revolver Four. The issues will still be available as individual downloads, but with #4 I wanted to offer subscriptions of some kind, and then had a better idea.
It was a good call. Just a few days in I’m already up to $30 pledged a month from my first three patrons! I look at this as a slow and steady thing, that does not need huge numbers to work. So that’s an inspiring nice early start for me. Already time to thank some Patrons!
One wished to be anonymous. Thanks very much for your patronage. Shannon Becker. A long time fan from back in the days of Saint Sinner [she had proof!]. And Ian Hodgkinson! One of my Dracula Kickstarter backers in fact! Thanks for the faith in me Ian!
Thanks to all of you! :)
I have one in the works. But no pitch video so far. I noticed a number of comics related patreon pages without them and doing fine. So not rushing that. I am doing a regular patreon podcast, and the 3rd episode is mostly a discussion of the campaign, you can listen to that here.
_________________________
Here’s pitch text!
Welcome to The Spilt Ink Patreon!
Hi. My name is Max, aka Salgood Sam. An artist and storyteller. For the last 20 years I’ve primarily made comics and drawn for a living. I also sometimes work as a Designer, Editor and part-time Art Teacher.
I’m developing a patreon clip for my youtube channel, but for the moment I’m just going to post a trailer for my latest book. Dream Life | a late coming of age,above. For the significance of that, read ahead to“The First Goal is $350 monthly”. And for an audio version of some of this, I’ve posted a launch episode of the podcast! I explain in text below and in the podcast what I’m hoping to accomplish.
For those of you new to it, Patreon lets you support creative types like me via a pay-what-you-can sliding scale financial considerations–You can change or cancel your pledge at any time.
The very short pitch is I’m looking for patrons from as little as $2 monthly, to as much as you feel comfortable pledging! You can even pledge less than $2 if you just want to help out at a minimum with a monthly tip. I’ve set up a range of rewards to accommodate a lot of possibilities. All limited in availability to keep fulfilment from swamping or profit from obscuring the core goals of making and publishing great comics and other creations! And if enough of you choose to support my work in this manner, everyone will get to read all of it, digitally for free!
Ok, here’s a slightly longer version.
Over the last couple of decades I’ve financed my personal projects* via grants, investing portions of my freelancing income, selling a decent number of books and art now and then. And in the last few years crowdfunding has become a serious factor with three modestly successful endeavors so far. More than 20 years and I’m still learning, especially since I’ve been pursuing self publishing more.
*I should note, my personal projects don’t JUST include comics, though most of it is comics or comics related now!
I’ve also been experimenting with formats, webcomics and other digital modes, attempting to move with the changing market and find what suits me best. A diverse range of platforms seem to be the road to go, but what’s missing still is a bit more stability and a simple way to get my content to readers without paying too much of my two bits in fees. I could get a lot more done I think if I could just simply resolve that set of problems. It’s in that hope that enough of you choose to pitch in a cup of coffee’s worth a month on this page, and make it happen!
A few years back I started working on re-booting Spilt Ink–a boutique self-publishing imprint first launched back in 2002 for websites and small press zines and active ever since–as a more focused, dedicated venture to publish my own serialized solo anthology Revolver Quarterly, and possibly all my future books!
Why Revolver Quarterly?I think a print ready, digital anthology series is best suited to my style of comics. It’s a format and strategy I’m passionate about. And Patreon seems a practical and appealing alternative to traditional subscription models, and includes a viable distribution platform for patrons as well.
If you dig it and want to help keep it all happening,
pledging $2 monthly will make you my Patron! Only $24 a year! [All prices on Patreon are in $US dollars.]
I have two Phases of Goals planned.
PHASE ONE
WORKING TOWARDS $1250 MONTHLY.
For the minimum pledge Patrons will get digital subscriptions to Revolver Quarterly, and be members of The Spilt Ink Patrons club! The club will grow to be an extended suite of digital & print ready publications. Not just my own comics, but also publications related to the websites sequentialpulp.ca, theitalianmachine.spiltink.org, and dd.salgoodsam.com. From the start it will include Revolver Quarterly Vol One, Two & Three, and Therefore, Repent! And free to read online already is Sequential Pulp Vol One, Two & Three. I hope you stick around for coming issues of Revolver and more, but out of the gates you’ll have 260 pages of comics waiting for you to read!
The First Goal is $350 monthly! When we reach it, my newest graphic novel Dream Life | a late coming of age will be added to the library of books patrons can download anytime!
The Second Goal is $650 monthly, and if we achieve it, along with getting more comics done faster thanks to seriously taking care of most of my expenses, I’ll make the 20 min patreon podcast bi-weekly.
The Third Goal is $950 per month, and I’ll be so happy when this happens I’ll throw a Comix Jam Party! You’ll all be invited virtually.
PHASE TWO
WE REACH THE 1250K MONTHLY GOAL!
At which time, Revolver and the ENTIRE Spilt Ink digital line,
will go PBS, or if you rather, Open Media!!
100% digitally free!
It will take just 625 generous patrons $2 a month to unlock this goal.
Obviously the main reason for charging for my work is simply to make a living – it is already how i do it generally as a freelancer. But doing it on my own terms and just for my own projects is what Spilt Ink is all about. And my experience with books like Sea of Red,Therefore, Repent!& now Dream Life, Is that I think i have atleast that many potential fans and readers out there? Maybe…
Fingers crossed. I think people enjoy the idea of helping make cool things happen and introducing others to something we like by making it easy to get at.
I’ve never really liked adding adds to my sites to try to make it all pay for itself. We tried it on Sequential for a while but were never happy with the results either financially or aesthetically. So I don’t take that seriously as an option. It’s a lot of work, a whole job, getting The Right advertisers and managing that. And it looks so much better without all that noise on my sites.
A lot of the culture of the web is built around the idea of open media. And at the same time, my experience from crowdfunding is there are also lots of people who are willing to put a couple of dollars on something they like. A tool to address that dynamic is exactly what Conte and company have built here with Patreon I hope, which is potentially pretty amazing.
If my Patron base can become a viable solution to earning a living, you’ll make it easy to give it all away online so everyone can enjoy it with you!
I’ll still be selling print copies of things, after all I like paper and getting to sign books! But I’ll be more than happy if this works In the long run and a large portion of my readers are digital. You could help make that happen by pledging and joining The Spilt Ink Patrons club.
The Patrons blog includes exclusive video & blog posts, zines of comic jams, live drawing sessions, sketches, and deals on material goods I sell on my site. Premium rewards Include postcards, physical copies of mybooks, handmade things?Art lessons, original art & commissions!
There’s more info here about
the planned contents
of Revolver Quarterly,
check out the rewards
and goals, and thanks for
considering becoming
my patron!
That last is of course my personal site, there’s a lot of work up in there. Animation design work is documented in this set of galleries. I only mention one job on the episode but then thought better of listing it all off. You can find pretty much everything here.
Here’s some photos of the work in progress! Think that was the most standing i’ve done in a while. Been some time since I worked on a mural or painted. This time was three days, two full and a half wrapping up the work. Your legs get a good workout!
The main piece is on the inside of the main work area, the lobby is on the other side of it, with entrances on each end.
From the POV of the main wall, THIS is the right entrance wing to main wall. Very cool.
The staff seemed to enjoy the show as well. kept to themselves a fair bit, but clearly pretty excited by it. Folks taking their bike in to the room they have set aside for them will see this first thing every morning. — with Rupert Bottenberg, Raphaele Bard, Tyler K. Rauman and Mc Baldassari.
From the POV of the main wall, THIS is the left entrance wing to main wall. I did my version of old school Guilala coming in the door. Was my first bit of graph, as the others called it I think. Gave him Gigan mandibles, because.
From what I saw most people who don't bike or work in the front offices, will see this when they show up for work. — with Rupert Bottenberg and Tyler K. Rauman.
Media center wall. Vegetable head fueled workers have their tentacles in all the things.... — with Raphaele Bard, Tyler K. Rauman and Mc Baldassari.
And back in the Ad dept wall we left a cyber wolf hunting rabbits.. — with Rupert Bottenberg, Raphaele Bard and Mc Baldassari.
Also was nice to get to know the other artists a little bit. Would love to work with them again. Reminded me of the old monthly jams. It all came out really amazing & fun to do. When you’re up close to it it’s hard to say, but after the drop sheets came away, it all looked pretty great. I can see why Ruppert loves doing this work so much. The whole crew were pros.
For me it was nice to make it through the whole thing physically well. I’ve worked on something with them three times now.
First jumping in for a few hours during Henge, the En Masse project @Nuit Blanche 2011, which happened to be the night before I went under the knife for cancer! That was good for the mind and I knew I wanted to do it again.
And I did a year later as part of a huge team that worked together on a room at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. That time unfortunately I was wrecked from a severe bout of gastro and probably the onset of diabetes. It was hard to even hold my arm up for long! Ug.
This time? My stamina held out pretty well! All three days. Yay! And 48 hours later nothing to terrible has happened so it’s officially not a jinx.
Oh and I’ve confirmed I was using stupid brushes before, having picked up a proper set this time. So much better. Loved laying in the big lines with a freestyle paddle brush! Makes me want to prime something. And remember i’ve got a couple unfinished things hidden away…
Must stay on things with Dracula, just working on a new page now. But for sure up for doing it again too.
Hey, by the way. There’s a Patreon campaign for Spilt Ink in the way.
UPDATE: I have my table number now, I’m going to be at booth 2738! And look for the school I teach Dynamic Drawing at, Syn Studio, at table 2629 in Artist Alley. The floor plan is here on the Con’s site, and posted bellow is one with our spots highlighted!
Good news for Dream Life, we moved a nice chunk of books at the show in Toronto, including adding three new retailers to our distribution efforts! Hope to match that in Montreal at least in part. I have some home court advantage maybe, so that might help? Any rate, It’ll be primarily Dream Life, and prints on hand. Thinking about making some coupon code/gift cards for my digital comics? We’ll see if i can spare it the brain cells in the next few days.
If you want to buy some art from me, check out this page and order in advance, to pick up from me at the show? I’ll have some art there as well for sale. And if you’d like to pre-order a copy of my book to pick up at the show, buy it via this link and in the special instruction, mention you’ll be at the show, between now and the 12th, and i’ll make sure to have one ready for you there! I’ll be doing personalized portraits in the copies at request.
I’ll be up for doing commissions too, if you’d like to reserve one in advance the limit will be 4 done before the show! Contact me about the details.
I mentioned that I was able to utilize the closing hours of FanExpo, to present Dream Life to a few retailers in the Toronto area and persuade them to stock a hand full of copies of the first [Launch] editions! Here’s the list of my new good friends. :) Thanks for taking a chance on my book guys!
The venerable and recently reborn Silver Snail! Had a nice brief face to face with George about doing things in store in the near future. This would be fantastic. And with the copies he took from me that means i’m stocked at both stores now, assuming Ottawa still has one left.
The guys at Gotham Central in Mississauga seem really enthusiastic about supporting Canadian creators! Got a lot of interests I intend to follow up talking with them about, and they took 4 copies from me for their shelves.
For independent distribution, via a one man operation done when I have time over the summer, so too bad! A solid start anyway, in a long game.
So, i’ll see you at the Montreal Comic Con? Watch my twitter for the announcement of my table number, and i’ll be around the Syn Studio table as well at some point, and they will know where to find me too.
Steven Gilbert with his personalized copy of my book! Thanks Steven!
I have a floor plan now! Here’s how to find me @ FanExpo 2014!
When you enter the main hall of the South building, after going down all those elevators as I recall, the artists are all in the far left side of the room. And I’m in the back row against the far wall, at P6B. It’s behind the artist ally. Just after the Raid Row and around the bend. I’m bringing prints and original art with me to sell, and some of my books, mostly just Dream Life | a late coming of age. I may have a few Revolver‘s with me but not many. I am going to have an offer to take an order of a bundle of them from me direct if my square works — need to look into that — and i’ll ship them to you no cost! I’ll be there Friday and Saturday for sure, Sunday if those two go well. Watch my twitter feed for updates! Cheers! See you there PS: you can still make sketch request reservations still, I take Paypal!
Hey so I’m a guest at Fan Expo this year! Learned a bit last minute, hence the late announcement.
I’m going to be at table P6B, FridayAug 29th, Saturday the 30th, and if things go well Sunday the 31st.
I’ll be presenting mostlyDream Life, the late notice means I don’t have time to re-stock Revolver Three for the show. I might have a few but to keep things simple I’ll focus on the new Graphic Novel. I will have my prints though, and art!
I usually get a hand full of sketch requests at the show, so I thought i’d also put out there the option to pre-reserve up to 8 sketches.
It’s a good option for you as I tend to do better work at home in my studio too. Contact me if you would like to commission a convention sketch. I’m charging $40 for each.
Also you can pre-buy some of my art here, purchase here on the site and we’ll arrange for you to pick up the work at the show.
I’ve been pretty active on the new Spilt Ink blog, and generally trying to be regular about updating. The old home site is overdue for a catch-up though!
Generally always interested in selling it but right now it would be especially helpful, so check it out and if you order something, I’ll throw in a copy of my comic Revolver vol 3 with a sketch and thank you! In most instances shipping is included in the price, for sure in the US, EU and Canada.
Posted on spilt ink originally: There’s a listicle by Alison Lang called “How to Crowdfund a Graphic Novel (without Losing Your Mind and Alienating People)” [pg 22], that came out of a nice long chat I had with Alison the week of TCAF 2014 about fundraising for Dracula and Dream life.
I was expecting that, but was pleased to find a review of Dream Life in my comp copy as well!
Joel W. Vaughan gave me some high praise with the understandable caveat that being a ‘book one’, it really needs it’s mate to conclude and deliver on any promise. Something I fully intend to do.
“This latest work by the legendary Montreal-based artist Salgood Sam has been called “neo-realist,” but it might be more accurately referred to as “honest.” It follows the seemingly unrelated lives of five young adults in contemporary Canada, detailing everything from call-centres to drug-smugglers. It’s a stellar graphic novel…”
Posted on Dynamic Drawing originally:
I’ve been recording tours through old sketchbooks for my students recently,
I’ve posted two so far, and probably will make about ten in the end. Here’s the first!
Dracula art!
I’m in the midst of inking between every spare moment right now.
Want to get the next Revolver out to early subscribers in September!
Here’s a look at the pages in progress, don’t peek if you don’t want spoilers!
Here’s some Inking on Dracula! : Currently in production at Spilt Ink, for the next issue of Revolver Quarterly.
The current main feature, my collaboration with Mark Sable, “Dracula Son of the Dragon” is on my desk. Mark needs an update from me for our Kickstarter backers, so here’s the news of the moment: I’m aiming to get 15 to 23 pages done for this next installment, along with a short 10 page entry for A Bastards Tale. I’m giving myself about 60 days to do that. Most the Dracula art is penciled and ready to ink as of this post, so this feels pretty comfortably doable.
On the left here is a new take on the Seal of the Order of the Dragon. Based on historical examples, but not by any means Orthodox. Been making my Dragon’s more serpent like for one thing. Doing a lot of research for the era but also taking liberties for dramatic value & my own amusement.
Speaking of amusement, Revolver is going to host quite a contrasting set of narratives for the next 3 issues! A fictional coming of age for the historic Vlad Tepes, and a memoir of my own childhood, raised by bikers and artists. As the kids say, LOL! Byzantine vampire fantasy, and a child’s memory of the ’70s has been making for some wonderful visual research work.
I’m enjoying it. Exactly what I started the Revolver series to do. [the first instalments of both are available now in Revolver 3]. It’s a challenge, but i’m much happier working on different things over the course of a year, than a singular project for one or more.
I record what I do sometimes at the desk, and post it to youtube to share with students in a drawing class I teach. This clip is one of those done earlier this week.
Starts with a look through an old suitcase I used to use at zine fairs as a display stand for my books, that i’ve now stuffed with all the zines i’ve collected over the years that I still like and keep.
Thinking i’m going to start having Jam parties at my house, and I might bring it out for those for fun. Maybe take it to events in the future. :) A traveling zine library.
Then I get into some inking panel borders and one of the drawings. My hand gets in the way a lot, sorry about that. used the wrong camera angle.
The current proposed Spilt Ink publishing schedule for the rest of this year looks something like this:
Revolver 4 in September; Revolver 5 in December; And Vol.6 by the end of February 2015.
That will bring us to the end of the first arc of the first Dracula story line! Three more novellas like it are planned in the future, so be assured the Voivode of Wallachia will return to Revolver. But that first book/arc will then be collected and released to the Kickstarter backers who financed the production.
Plans are not final but it’s probable a version of the first book will then be made publicly available too, likely via Digital formats.
For Revolver Quarterly Vol.7: Nothing more to say publicly about the story that will follow Dracula in vol 7. But I will say i’ve been itching for a while, to do some Sci Fi. A Bastards Tale will probably continue for several more issues as well.
And I plan to bring back The Rise and Fall of it all again as well at some point–first seen as a short in Vol.1. Dream Life book two will also probably start being developed around then. But I don’t really expect to return to the story until late 2015 at the soonest. When I do, it will also be serialized in Revolver as well.
Still feel like I’m playing catch up after the trip to NY last month, closed out the first leg of the Dream Life tour.
I had some slow weeks after recovering from a pretty intense cold I picked up on the road. We were having a heatwave too, that didn’t help. And here in Montreal a lot of people went on the traditional summer “workers vacation” so not much was getting done outside my studio.
I just heard back from Lounak earlier today that the first batch of books I left with them–that were waiting on a passport renewal. and then the drivers vacation–will now head out this Wednesday! Yay. Was getting worried there.
Good news. Going to want to see the invoice from them for this batch, but this means the next batch should head out soon as well. I have classes to teach mid week, but probably next monday i’ll plan to make a run up to Lounak.
Though it would be nice to sell more books to help wrap up the last bit of shipping! unfortunately due to NY having been a bust when it came to sales at the shows – both cons there in June were super DEAD I found. Sold about 3 copies of Dream Life between them along with a few other bits and bobs. Most the other folks I talked to at both had the same story too pretty much. Bombs.
I ended up coming away $200 in the hole rather than with the average $500 profit that had come from many of the other shows/weekends on the tour. New York, Ottawa, and the second weekend in Toronto were all poor sales wise, but with NY being the worst especially, when you factored in the much more expensive tables and travel! I still came out in the black for the other two duds with just a few books sold, but not NY.
That was not good for the budget. It could have been worse — I was able to sell two thirds of the books I had on me to local retailers for decent wholesale rates sunday and monday before coming back. Covered most the losses and bumped the store listings for Dream life nicely in the process too! So I was happy about that. But fiscally it hurt my plan a bit. The shipping budget it just about $400 now, so coming out of NY -$200, not cool.
Covering the latest short fall will be doable, it’s not huge. As it turned out last week I learned I’d be covering for my friend and co-teacher at Syn Studio, Kelly Tindall. Doing a semester of his comics class as well as my regular semester of Dynamic Drawing.
The hours for that, selling some more books locally, and some freelance work in the works, i’ll be able to work it all out. But yeah, selling a LOT more books would be great for that and, just, in general.
It was over all good on the road, but online there’s been little pick up. I’d like to do more to get things going. Been writing retailers, have a few orders in the works. Also have some requests for books in town too at shops. Also been entertaining finding a way to set up in downtown Cafe’s, to sell the book during festival season?
I’m offering a summer reading sale right now, for the US editions. Need to get the word out more in general though!
[reminder kickstarter backers are getting signed first Launch Editions, printed on premium paper in Montreal. The books sold now from my site are the US editions, POD copies printed on good but coarser paper in the US, from CreateSpace.]
I’ve been reluctant to ask before everyone got their copy, but I’d really appreciate any help you can give me spreading the word about the sale, [ 0 shipping for physical copies and 10% off digital ] and generally sharing stuff about the book. To that end….
In other related news I had a chance finally to do some over due web work.
Thoses of you who’ve gotten your copies, I’d love to collect your reactions to Dream Life, to post on the site. Even if they are relatively short I’d appreciate it!
Also tell your favorite comic book or book retailer about it too! I can supply books to most places on the glob via the CreateSpace system!
Also the book is on Amazon, ComiXology, & Goodreads. If you can rate it there as well it would be a HUGE help boosting it’s visibility! Please help me pop it up the ranks?
And lastly, do you do a podcast or write for blogs? Chat me up about appearing on your show or check out the Footnotes section of Spilt Ink, and then write me some interesting questions? Some past interviews and reviews for my books can be found here on thepress page.
Ok, that’s the big ask for today.
Be my Street Team?
Thanks a lot!
I couldn’t have done this without you all!
#SummerReading: Dream Life a late coming of age. Read it in the parc under a tree!
Life is connections and causes you never see coming.
“I couldn’t put this down. Seriously. It’s a keeper. Salgood Sam has one of the most interesting,
unique voices in comics today.” – Mark Waid
$18 LAUNCH SALE!
For a limited time, buy the book directly from me via my site store, & pay no shipping! Or use Coupon Code “SPILTINK10” to get 10% off Downloads from my site!
Jennifer me and Robert at the Dragon, after hosting the first event on my tour! :) You can get all my books there.
Hey my comic is in stores now!
Over May and June, while Launching Dream Life and touring a little, I used the opportunity to get started with stocking the book in various brick and mortar retail outfits. 16 stores in 7 cites have the book in stock now, or did when i left them last!
And about 150+ copies have sold at events and cons – I’ve been bad at keeping track at those so might be give or take some.
In all with the stores and copies to backers so far, we’re coming close to 300 copies distributed? Good start but I want and need to sellmore! Sorry i’ll settle down now, but that’s just the way it is.
Retailers who would like to have Dream Life on their shelves can get it from me direct, i’m offering 50% wholesale for US stores and 40% in Canada. Shipping included for the US Trade paperback edition. Yep.
First editions of Dream Life book one – the books printed with funds from kickstarter – are available as well, but shipping is extra for those and for the most part won’t start until i’ve gotten the last backers copy shipped out. They also optionally can be personalized with sketches in the book plate and signed though. Write me to get a quote for either!
To my dear friends and readers. Hey, if you know about the book and have a favorite comic shop, tell them about it and this post! Show them yours if you’ve got it already or send them a link to see the preview? Help me get them to try it out! Seriously with the limited resources I have, this isn’t going very far without reader recommendations!
In a couple days you’ll be able to get it on ComiXology, it drops July 2nd on their site. And you can get it right now as a download here on my site – Use #CouponCode SPILTINK10 to get 10% off!
And last, for those who just have to hold the real thing, and don’t want to take me up on my Launch sale offer, here’s a list of the fine shops stocking as of this date [will update as new ones are added]. Several more in Montreal and BC to come soon!
The Dragon
55 Wyndham St. North, Unit T-19B, Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1H7T8
The Beguiling
601 Markham Street Toronto, Ontario, Canada M6G 2L7
Paradise Comics
3278 Yonge St. Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4N 2L6
Strange Adventures Comic Bookshops
Not sure which ones they put my books in but three locations –
5110 Prince St, Halifax, NS B3J 1L3 | 68 York St, Fredericton, NB E3B 3N5 | 101 Portland St, Dartmouth, NS B2Y 1H7
Midtown Comics NY
Again a small chain, I think all three locations will have the book – 64 Fulton Street corner of Gold St. New York, NY 10038 | 200 W. 40th Street corner of 7th Ave, New York, NY 10018 | 459 Lexington Avenue corner of 45th St. New York, NY, United States 10017
The Strand
828 Broadway, Manhattan, NY, United States 10003-4805
The Launching of Dream Life has gone ok, if not quite in the order i’d hoped! I expected to have more books shipped to backers by now – just about a quarter are so far, lots to go still. They came from the printers a week later so overlapping with my tour dates and travel. On the upside the travel has helped get a lot of books out to the cities I had the most backers in – Toronto and Montreal. And sales have been encouraging.
TCAF was pretty good. I think I sold about 50+? And lots of Revolver & Therefore Repent! too. We kept track day one when Ange was helping but I forgot to entirely on Day two. It’s nuts now at the show, so many people! And if I can I definatly need to spring for a bigger spot next time. Got too many books now! Would have sold lots more prints had I another few feet. Not such a bad problem to have unless you do.
Noticed Gawker user profiles have blogs today, so I thought i’d try exploiting that. Go comment, favorite or share it or something! :D Did a TV interview, will say more about that when i’m sure it’s going love. I was run down that morning, hope I didn’t come off as tired as I felt. I’m not too polished at answering things succinctly these days. Need to work on that. Reminds me I have two episodes of a show to edit soon as I can find a moment!
Dream Life: a late coming of age, on ComiXology was last modified:
by
Max
Check out the trailer and previews and buy my books for all your friends! :) FYI I have enough titles on CS now there that you can order yourself a whole set of my independent Spilt Ink publications there and get free shipping in the US I believe? go for all 4 titles! Dream Life, and Revolver Vol:One, Two, & Three! A quadfecta!!
Click the tour poster to read a free 61 page preview!
Murder in BC leads to an inuksuk in Ontario.
Charlie’s childhood friend is about to die.
Hitchhiking in BC PJ’s luck runs out.
Lionel is in crisis, time for love?
Leslie is a therapist and part time drug dealer.
It’s just occurring to her that she hates her job.
Dan’s six year old daughter thinks he needs to
grow up. She may have a point.
First in a two part story, 161 pages of cinematic, neorealist comics by Salgood Sam. Exploring identity, destiny, and life in a possibly ambivalent universe.
“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 who love and cherish our involuntary interior rambles can enjoy more of a good thing, by diving into Salgood’s universal trance adapter. Those 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.” - 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, 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
“I couldn’t put this down. Seriously. It’s a keeper. Salgood Sam has one of the most interesting, unique voices in comics today.” – Mark Waid
Author Biography
Max Douglas (born 1970). Since approximately 1996, he’s worked under the pen name of Salgood Sam which is derived from a reverse spelling of his name.
His recent work includes the graphic novels “Dream Life | a late coming of age”, “Therefore, Repent!” with Jim Monroe, and “Wonder Woman versus The Red Menace!” A holiday special of Ghostbusters, “Tainted Love” with Dara Naraghi, A story with Mark Sable in the Eisner winning “Comic Book Tattoo”, another of his own in “Popgun 4″, and work in both “Awesome 2: Awesomer”, and “Sea of Red”. To name a few.
He lives and works in Montreal, with three cats and his partner and teaches art part time. teaches art part time.
I’ve been active on the instagramtwitter and facebook, but clearly i’ve put off updating my main site too long!
So, things that have happened: The Kickstarter was a general success! Books got printed, i’ve had a number of launch events and started to get backers copies out to them.
As all kickstarters to there was a small budget issue, made the mistake of thinking my printer was quoting me the price with tax. Didn’t catch the problem until the Kickstarter was half done, my bad. But I mostly just printed a few less books to take the bite out of that. Still was a bit of a problem, the discrepancy wasn’t insane but started looking for ways to run things on less $. Was already planning to talk to them about it but it motivated me to get in touch, so i’m pleased to be working with my friends at Studio Lounak to ship out the books via their infrastructure, that’s going to let me do a lot more with less. Will be taking them the first batch of books to go out next week.
I’ve also used the problem as an excuse to try to get as many copies out in person as I can, one on one or at small gatherings. Something made more possible by the fact about a quarter of my support in the crowdfunder came from Montreal and Toronto. My home town and current city of residence. That’s worked out quite well, putting a more personal touch on things for some supporters. Wish i could do that for all of them really. Money saved on shipping aside it’s really great getting to meet people. Sometimes just in passing, on other occasions my visits have lasted an hour or so as we talked about whatever.
The tour portion of this adventure is about half way thought as planed so far. Earlier in May I had my first official launch event at The Dragon in Guelph. Then there was the madness of TCAF 2014, followed by events in Kingston and Montreal.
All wen’t pretty well all things considered. Though i’m acutely aware I could use at least one if not two assistants to help plan and promote all this stuff.
The following weekend I’m Back in Montreal tabling at FBDM, which will be my first time exhibiting at the home town comics festival. Also nice as it’s just blocks from my home. The FBDM runs the 30th to the 1st of June, but i’ll just be tabling the 31st and 1st.
Then the 7th, i’m in Ottawa. I’ll be at the Comic Book Shoppe on Bank street, and i have a table at the small press book fairthat i’ll check in at for the last couple hours. My friend Liliane Menard will be taking care of things for the first half of the small press show there.
And then on June 14th and 15th, Mark Sable and I have a table at the ReedPOP NYC Special Edition show. He’ll be there both days and I’ll join him at the table on Sunday. Saturday, to maximize exposure for Dream Life, i’ve got a small half table at the New York Comic Fest. Bit nuts doing two shows the same weekend but I found out about the festival after and suspect from the guest list it’s the kind of event I NEED to have Dream Life at so he ho, lets go!
Late June I’m going to try to make it out to the east coast of Canada, but nothing is finalized and I think after doing shows ever weekend till mid June, i might need to stay home for a couple of weeks to recover first!
I’ve done a couple podcasts in the midst of all this. Tired and rambly, I think I talked too much but you can catch them here, and here.
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!
This episode of the podcast I take a question from Andrew J. Hawthorn, who asked about “Narrative techniques or figurative tricks you can only do in comics?”
Tricky question to answer with JUST words. I’ll give it my best go but for sure this podcast will have a youtube version shortly, with some visual aids. And check out the description texts here for links below. Right off the top, you’ll find page Page 89 of Dream Life, “The roots of violence” on the left, and “A last dinner”, page 68. Both typifying two very different approaches to unconventional page layouts, structurally, and thematically. But each applying the kind of non linear collagen like sequences that do away with conventional panels altogether.
