April 17 2013

1. The puppies are growing quickly. This is all to the good! In a few weeks they will not need to be fed every four hours, which will mean that we can stop feeding them in the middle of the night.

It’s like having infants again. Or, no, it’s like toddlers.

Okay, no, it’s like that window of time in which K was a toddler and M was an infant, and we could not take our eyes off of either of them for an instant and they would split up and take off in different directions.

Yes. It’s like that.

2. I am working on plank variations in my workouts. Elbow plank, arm plank, one-arm plank, one-leg plank, plank with feet up on a bench, plank with one of my kids sitting on my back.

3. The Eisner Award nominations have been announced. Congrats to all the nominees!

As I mentioned on Twitter, this is truly a golden age in comics — because of the vast number of deserving works that did not get nominated. Comics these days are so good, so wonderful, that there are just not sufficient awards to recognize them all.

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February 6 2013

1. Yesterday did not go as smoothly as I’d hoped.

THAT SAID.

2. My family is eating about three bunches of kale per week. Also, I am sick of apples.

3. Sarah Monette has an excellent essay in this month’s Apex Magazine. Welcome to the Reformation, Bitches.

4. The plan for later today involves turning in passport applications for me, J, and the kids.

5. It also involves the beginning of Spanish lessons for the adults in the family, in addition to the children.

6. Which reminds me that, at one point in my life, I owned a copy of Isabel Allende’s The House of Spirits in Spanish, the which I could just barely read with a dictionary and a full working knowledge of the English translation. Pretty sure I donated it to the Goodwill at some point.

7. Today is New Comics Day, and I am excited for new comics. I am pretty much excited for new comics every week, because every week holds some title or another that makes me really happy.

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What my Local Comics Store clerk thinks of digital comics

So I went to my LCS yesterday — The Source Comics and Games, Falcon Heights, MN, can’t recommend them highly enough! — and removed six titles from my pull list.

This is not a ton. As the gentlemen who assisted me pointed out, my pull list on their computer is two-and-a-half screens long. But I expect to remove two-to-six titles every week this month. I expect to cut my pull list in half.

I chatted with the gentleman in question about my concerns. He agreed that it’s a conundrum — The Source keeps their back issues in a WAREHOUSE that they rent. In long boxes, on shelves, alphabetically by title. They are two years behind on their bagging and boxing. Just like me.

He said that whenever they file something, they have to shuffle the existing titles along in the boxes. Get a whole bunch of Batman back issues and you’re shuffling issues through the whole alphabet. It’s a pain. There’s no easy solution.

I said that I was buying the X-Men and Avengers titles digitally. But then we talked — where’s the cut-off? I am of COURSE going to buy Captain Marvel in floppies. I know how crucial that is for a new mid-list title. I also know that buying Uncanny X-Men digitally is not going to get the title cancelled. (But is it going to lose Kieron Gillen his writing gig if scads of folks move to digital Uncanny on his watch? Does that sort of thing happen? I don’t know, and I like and respect Mr. Gillen and would hate to see his tenure on Uncanny end prematurely due to a drop in single-issue sales.)

But what about New Mutants? It’s an X-Family title, it’s on issue 42 this month. It’s been involved in lots of crossovers, it seems to have legs. But it’s not Uncanny X-Men. Does switching to digital hurt that title?

How does this work for Dark Horse, or other companies? I still have Alabaster and Dark Horse Presents in my physical, LCS, pulls. But I didn’t even buy Chew until I got my tablet and signed up for Comixology. I’m not going to start buying it in floppies now. How does my digital purchase of Chew, and Locke and Key, help or hurt those books?

We talked, the clerk and I, about this conundrum. He didn’t have any answers for me. There’s a clear low end of sales, that needs to be pre-ordered in physical single issues. And there’s a clear high end that can withstand digital sales. But we don’t know about the mid-list.

I’m not sure what titles come out next week. I expect I’ll log onto Comixology in the morning, buy a number of digital titles, and then go cancel those orders at my comics store.

As problems go, this is really a trivial one. I’m actually quite grateful that I don’t much have problems worse than this. But in the aggregate this is a problem the entire comics industry has. I’m certain that eventually digital comics will be a significant portion of sales. I’m just not sure how it’s going to come about.

A personal need for digital comics

I got home from work yesterday and did some cleaning. I shelved books and removed piles of stuff from near my computer. Then, I turned my attention to my comics.

I hadn’t put my comics away in nearly two years.

As a friend pointed out on Twitter, some of those piles were, um, structural.

After four episodes on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic I had conquered the shelves.

The upshot is I have five grocery sacks of comics that I need to file and put into storage. I have two-and-a-half grocery bags of comics to give away.

There are a few, um, problems. Erm. With this.

I need to make better choices about what comics I’m buying. If I’m giving away or recycling a third of them? That’s … that’s a lot of money. Now, it’s true that some are titles I took chances on, deliberately, and they didn’t pan out. But others were books I bought out of inertia, long after I was interested in them. I should stop doing that.

I’m keeping two-thirds of them. Why? What am I going to do with them? Where am I going to put them? The comic book storage drawers I bough five years ago are nearly full. I think the five bags are going to fill them. Now, I could get a bit more room if I go through the drawers and cull. But that’s only a couple more years at best.

The storylines I love, I buy in trades. I re-read the trades, I lend them out. Once the floppies are in storage, I never look at them again. I mean, theoretically I could re-read them. But … but I don’t. It’s a pain to go find the issues, and a pain to put them away afterwards.

Am I keeping the floppies for my kids? Well, they could read the trades. I’m definitely not keeping them for value. [laughs quietly] God, no. I’ve read these comics. The older ones I’ve read and re-read endlessly. They are tattered and yellowed and much, much beloved. They don’t have collectible value.

I could just be keeping them because I loved them so. But in that case, why am I keeping decades of recent titles that don’t have nostalgic value?

I think I’m mostly keeping the floppies out of inertia. And … inertia is not a great reason to keep twenty long boxes of comics. It’s just not.

If comic floppies are disposable art, then I need to dispose of them. If I am buying them as books, I need to buy the trades and stop buying the floppies. But there are two problems with that approach. For one thing, not all comics come out in trades. For another, smaller mid-list titles will get cancelled if people don’t buy the single issues.

Digital comics would help me with this. I could buy the single issues as they come out, and delete them. I could then buy comics I wanted to own in physical form either in singles or trades. I need digital comics. I have nowhere to put physical issues anymore.

But here’s the thing. I love my local comic store. The Source Comics and Games has been very, very good to me. They have bought copies of all my works, selling them to the local comics crowd. My kids have sort of been raised there, in a way. The Source orders and stocks anything I ask for. In addition, they are a community center — they host fundraisers, signings, movie nights, and have open gaming nights multiple times a week.

I don’t want to stop giving my money to The Source. But I can’t keep buying all these single issues. I don’t know what the answer to this is, yet.

January 13 2012

1. Last night I got home from circus, put the kids to bed, made a snack, watched my gaming group play Dominion, and then … cooked lunches for the week.

I did not have a plan. I did not have a recipe. I chopped the garlic and the onions, put them in the pan, then opened the refrigerator and figured out what I needed to use before it went bad. Fifteen minutes later I was putting cumin-chili-lemon tofu with rainbow vegetables into the fridge.

I think I can no longer say I don’t cook.

2. I am still very very happy about this cover for X-Men Legacy #260.1, from this week.

Rachel. Raaaaaaaaaachel. That is totally my girl there. In the red. With the face tattoos and the leather and yep. My girl, there.

3. My convention schedule for the coming year is solidifying. I will be at:

C2E2, April 13-15, in Chicago, IL.

Wiscon 36, May 25-28th, in Madison, WI.

CONvergence 2012, July 5-8, in Bloomington, MN.

I hope to be at Worldcon, aka Chicon 7, August 31-September 4, and I have pre-registered for it. But I don’t have the time off from work yet. The others are assured!

Layout, graphic deisgn, and pdf help.

As I mentioned on Twitter, I’m looking to pay someone for a spot of layout and graphic design work.

I have a number of comics that I’ve written, with art by different artists. I’d like to put together my work into a portfolio book. This would involve taking jpeg and other image files and put them in order in a pdf for my printer. The files may need re-sizing — in fact, I’m certain they will. The finished book would be somewhere between 50 and 80 pages long. I haven’t actually counted, yet.

In addition, I’d need a small amount of graphic design work. I need a cover, and I’d need the introductory text I write to be placed into the document somehow.

I’d like to work with someone I know — in this case “know” means either I know you in person, we’ve talked extensively on the internet, or you come recommended by someone who meets one of the first two criteria. I would also strongly prefer to hire someone who does this professionally or semi-professionally — someone with experience. If I don’t know you, but you can point to your portfolio, c.v., or online resume of completed projects, we can talk.

I will a professional their rate for this, with the expectation that I will get timely, professional work.

I’d like this done by October 31st.

If you meet the criteria above, you have the time, and you are interested in the job, please leave a comment here and I will email you for your rates and availability.

Comics and getting published

1. I’ve gotten art from two artists in the past week, for comics forthcoming. I’m not entirely sure WHEN they will be forthcoming, or in what format. I’m hoping that the revamp on my website will be done soonish. Said revamp with include webcomics, incorporate my blog into the new site, and be pretty spiffy — if all goes according to plan. Goodness knows I’m not at all thrilled about the *production* of comics per se. But I expect physical copies will also be made available for sale, once I get the money together to get them printed. It’s a step-by-step process; pay the artist, then pay for printing.

2. If you haven’t looked at Denizens for a while, more pages are up!

3. I’ve signed two contracts this week for paid writing. A short story, and an essay. Both are due to come out in the winter, and I will have details when said details are confirmed. But … Contracts. Signed. For paid monies, in exchange for writing. I am excited enough about this that I go all affect-less and bland and perfectly calm.

I’ve been writing original stuff for a couple years now. But I’ve been blogging since about 2004-ish, maybe? And I wrote vast, unimaginable amounts of fanfic for about two solid years. I figured it out, and between everything I was writing I was putting out about 2500 words a day. Surely, surely if I could do that, I could write my own stuff.

Now, that was a sort of unsustainable amount of writing. I don’t do that these days, having replaced some of that time with sleep, in-person social events, streaming video, books,and doing more things with my family. But the practice was invaluable. The RP comms — role-playing communities, wherein one writes a fictional character interacting with other fictional characters who are written by other people — taught me an incredible amount about how to convey emotion through dialog. The ficathons taught me how to write to a specific topic, an assignment, on a deadline. The gift-fics taught me to consider my audience. The beta-readers, or betas, for all my fic writing are some of the best editors I have ever met. Insightful, critical, questioning, with an eye for consistency and detail. They are, in fact, so valued that I have them read my original works as well. Without them, I wouldn’t have signed those contracts last week. (Thanks, guys!)

Going a little quiet

It’s February, so my month of absorbing media and jotting down notes is over. Time to get creative again and get some focused writing done. So things are going to be a little quiet around here, as any time spent writing on my blog is time not spent on comic scripts.

Decent news on the comics production front, though. I finally got organized and made up a spreadsheet detailing where different projects are in the production cycle. I have a new comic, Life Interrupts, at the printer’s right now, so that should be available for sale by the end of the month. And I just worked out a deal with another artist for a short comic called Dandelion. I hope :crosses fingers: to have that completed by SpringCon, on May 15-16th.

Email still reaches me, as always. And I’ll be haphazardly paying attention to Twitter. See y’all in a little bit –

Things of a Thursday

1. Is there any way to explain to a child that asserting one is good at something is not the same as being good at it? Probably not, since I happen to know adults who still labor under this misapprehension.

2. I should make a post about the Palm Pixi and why it’s working out for me. Hmm, I’ll put that on the list.

3. I watched the movie Trick ‘r Treat last night. By which I mean to say, I watched all the parts with Anna Paquin and none of the rest of it. Movies in which small children are in peril are no longer watchable by me. Nope.

4. I am not the best gift-giver in my family, not by a long shot. The kids got their presents from aunts and uncles yesterday — in them mail, so we just open them on arrival — and scored some awesome stuff. Including a gross-science-game which I intend to never play. Eeeeew! Full of slime and earwax and such. Luckily, Cavorter will play it with them. With them, and with enthusiasm.

5. There’s another tempest in a teapot going around the comics-related internet, regarding Marvel’s forthcoming Girl Comics. My remarks and reactions can be found at Fantastic Fangirls, but the gist is this: there’s no downside, here.

Uncanny X-Men brings the gay

Contains SPOILERS for Uncanny X-Men #508! SPOILERS.