There was a rough one done for an old fanzine, and manystills I took from the film for reference. That helped but I had to do a bit of invention too.
Like what do those guns look like beyond the barrel? I ended up basing them on an image of an old Norwegian Whale Gun! Looked like a primitive revolver that might plausibly be able to be made into a repeater.
I ended up leaving out the flap shields that we see around the upper part of the cart in WHITE HEAVEN IN HELL, it felt like it was going to get too busy and the AD agreed.
I’m not sure if they will end up using my numbering system, they have it both with and without, this version was meant to function as a guide for them with the option to use it if they like.
I really enjoyed doing the research. It’s been ages since I watched those Screened three of them while working on this. Enjoyed the comics as well when they came out in english as a teen. So this is definitely another fun feather in the cap gig as a fan of genre entertainment. :)
I don’t think I’d want to do more rigorous technical diagrams, but more illustrations of this sort would be fun!
I’m tabling all weekend – sorry they don’t give us table numbers but it’s in the main tent, at one of those you see without numbers on them in the floor plan I think. They have me on the map listed as Spilt Ink!
Just noticing I missed posting the pre-event news here?
I’ve been bad about keeping the home base site updated!
Well, here’s the latest, cross posted from Spilt Ink and Patreon…
Ok so first, I spent a good part of three months planning the second edition of the Salon BD MTL!
That was two weeks ago today, on the 28th, and it went extremely well all in all I think!
Thanks to everyone who came out to it and our sponsors, who all participated in the unique experience of filling a room with doodlers! Our round tablelist had great chats I hope to be able to post the audio of soon. I think they, the featured artists and the crowd had fun doing a bit of Jamming, and quite a few pages were completed!
By the numbers!
* Approximately 130+ attendees, Guests and Feature artists included, passed through the Salon doors!
* 55 pages of Comics Jams were started and completed, another 11 left half done.
* We recorded two hours of round table talks.
Hopefully lots of attendees got to make new comics art acquaintances in the local scene. My hope for the Salon is to be an artist oriented comics event. Festivals and conventions are very market focused, the Jam is about the cartoonists getting our of our studios and into an environment we can share and learn from each other in.
When I hosted the Monthly Comic Jams that was often the goal as well, now that I teach I feel like holding the Salon’s periodically is a good fit.
The information sharing aspects of the event could be expanded on a bit I think next year. I didn’t end up doing it but some of the guests and I had talked about giving presentations as well. We might try that.
The venue was a great fit, if not always a comfy one. We’ll have to think about that but for now the aesthetic of Theatre Sainte-Catherine Café-Bar is perfect. They were very helpful the night of and were enthusiastic about the night. I think it’s very likely we’ll use the space again, though we did strain the capacity with things getting a bit packed for most of the night! With a bit more forewarning the stage can be set up smaller next time making more room for tables and seats. And we’ll plan for tickets earlier in advance too.
It’s going to take a bit to go through all the material created by the Jam, but these 6 are a few examples of the best! Something I forgot to do was make sure everyone signed their panels! If you recognize your own or a friends work, drop me a line and let me know! I’d be happy to add credits!
The free booklet/program for the night! You can download a printable copy from here!
Look for it there, right between Marco Rudy & David Cutler, two tables from my mentor Ty Templetonand in spitting distance of the infamous Rob Liefeld! Say what you will about the guy’s art but I hear he’s a gent, so look forward to making the acquaintance. If nothing else I owe him thanks for his part in the invention of Image comics! There will be a bunch of other freinds and roll models there so looking forward to it!
I’ll have Dream Life with me, and Therefore Repent! Along with prints and some original art. My Con sketches will go for between $40 and $80 or so, subject to and depending on complexity.
I’ve totally fallen behind on updating my blogs!
Things have become pleasantly busy with drawing,
and teaching, keeping me more than occupied.
But still, overdue!
I submit my messy studio
as proof of business.
How is everybody? I’m well. I’m planning an event in Montreal – sign up here to get news about that – There will be news very soon hopefully re guests and things, things are falling in place. It’s to be a night of Jamming and Jawboning for cartoonists and lovers of the form in Montreal.
In other news, The Patreon got off to a nice start but a year in has held stable for a while. Partly due to my intermittence in promoting it I fear. And a recent shift to mostly lower level pledges means the total has gone down a bit in fact, slightly offset by the dramatic decline of the Canadian Dollar recently.
Patreon is in USD, so I get a nice boost from the exchange rate.
Still though, I’d like more pledges for sure. The current goal is to get to $350 a month, most of my rent. That means about a 175 pledges at $2 each. Could take fewer if folks pledge more and I have a few reward tiers for that to encourage it. I’ve taken out formal “teaching” as I find that hard to do online. I teach privately at my home though, contact me if you’re interested. But there’s still the option to get postcards or convention sketches!
I did this fantasy illustration as a commision for one of my patrons recently. I’d be glad to do something for you if you pledge too! Once a year you’ll be able to request something like this for yourself or another for a consideration of $15 a month. That’s just 180 a year, a pretty good deal for original art to your specifications.
Even without more of those though, still 175 patrons giving just 2$ pledges monthly seems like a reasonable number to hope for in my audience? Certainly from some of the stats I’ve looked at, many can afford it! So I hope I can entice a few more in time! And I think it’s well worth the deal. Free access to a digital library of all my independent comics and bonus patron’s only content shared to the patreon blog!
I think getting a bit more focused about my posting regularly on my site blogs again would help for sure, both comics but other things too. I’ve probably been spending a disproportionate amount of time with the community on Facebook and neglected these platforms. Partly it’s due to mostly working on comics I’m sharingintherough–lots of process but have to hold back final work on for now. Ironically if you are a patron, you get to see that all sooner. But for now only Kickstarter and Patreon readers get to read Dracula first.
I’m doing a fair bit of posting and instagramming for my classes, and editing my teaching sites for Dynamic Drawing, and Making Comics. And there’s other stuff I could share too, work on commissions and things or just a bit of Blogging. But time is the shortage. I fear it’ll be sporadic this summer at best.
A Bastards Tale is currently holding up Revolver Four, I got it started but then hit a problem….basicly involving how to representmyself, and my dead father in the story! That sounds more dramatic that it is, but it was a tough problem and I ran out of time to get it done, had to get back to drawing Dracula some more, get a big chunk of Dracula done if not rap it all up before I can go back to it! Probably the latter as really, it’s much too late already.
Frustrating but making comes is often about deferred pleasure and keeping and eye on the long game.
So that’s it for now, I’ll post about my thing in April in a week or so…check in here or sign up to the list if you want to come to my MTL comix Salons!
Art here is from it. First three of eight pages and a peek at a bit inside me! Read it and a whole mess of other great things by pre-ordering the book here! It’s going to be pretty gorgeous I think, a little oversized, full of awe and exploration! Check out the site here to get a look inside!
psst, also, if you were my Partreon, you could read it now! And the first half of Dracula Son of the Dragon, Dream Life, and all three issues of Revolver digitally! ;) Some of the rewards for pledging on my Patreon page!
Starting to plan for my packing, and considering which prints to make for the show!
Here’s where to find me at VanCAF next weekend, the 23rd and 24th of May! I will be in the back of the front room in the Round House, at table B7! Looks like I have it all to myself, so i’ll be sure to bring some art to spread out, i’d like to sell as much as I can, it’s an expensive trip! If you have something specific you’d like to buy from me let me know before Wednesday! And if anyone wants to order a commission in advance, let me know!
I sent Dream Life on ahead via Can-Par [ouch, new prices…!], and i’m going to pack a handful of older titles, a few copies of Therefore, Repent!, and random Revolver’s, though i’m really switching to push that as a primarily digital and POD book. Will be making some prints and postcards.
Hey folks! i’ve been busy and haven’t updated this site in a bit! goodness, where to start. Ok, HEADLINE NEWS FIRST!
I’m a guest at VanCAF this year, but I don’t have the means to buy a plane ticket! I need to raise about $700 asap, I’ve been adding a lot of new art to the store for sale, and have set up a coupon code deal. Enter VANCAFDEAL at the checkout, and get %10 off. I’ll post the current selection below the rest of the post.
It’ll help me get to BC a lot faster, but if you generally don’t want orriginals or feel it’s out of your price range, have a look at my prints and merch at Society6! I’ve been updating the line there too lately. Lots of cool new ways to get my art now, on T’s cups carpets and even shower curtains even! Crazy, and a decent cut works its way back to me too. Have a look see here.
Other things new!
There’s been four episodes of my podcast since the last one I posted here. You can subscribe using this rss for your feeder, or via Mixcloud. Also lots of new posts on YouTube too! Nearing 1500 subscribers!
Things on Patreon have been improving! Slowly, but we’re up to $130 a month now, with only 15 patrons! It’s hard not to like that ratio. I’ve added a couple of new reward tiers, and created a new dedicated patron pitch vid. You can watch that right here!
Didn’t have one before, made a few attempts but never liked them. It not easy, this asking business. This is the first one I’m good with. Had fun with the B&W filter, think the graphic look goes with my comics imprint brand of Spilt Ink! Let me know what yout think?
Patreon is a great direct way to support the creation of my comics and art, even a basic pledge of $2 a month can help, and the more people that do the more and better comics I should be able to make!
Ok, here’s ALL the art currently for sale. Don’t forget, Enter VANCAFDEAL at the checkout, and get %10 off.
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!
A while back I did an exploded gun diagram for Dream Life | a late coming of age – by the by did you know I’m republishing it as an all ages webcomic on Tapastic? Catch it here! – I reconfigured that diagram for the version I used on my book, but happened the original version caught the eye of Eric, an art director at Criterion!
There was a rough one done for an old fanzine, and many stills I took from the film for reference. That helped but I had to do a bit of invention too.
I ended up leaving out the flap shields that we see around the upper part of the cart in WHITE HEAVEN IN HELL, it felt like it was going to get too busy and the AD agreed.
