Dublin City Comic Con

Was at Dublin City Comic Con this weekend, well, the Saturday (the Sunday was mother’s day and ended up staying home for that)

Was good to be at a con again, I suspect it’ll take me to go to a few to find my feet at the things again, covid having done a number on everything really. Met some new friends (hello Alan and Ellie) and to my suprise and delight, actual fans. (Not as suprising to me as it was to my son who was also there)

Anyway, did some portfolio reviews and gave some advice, so, to the best of my recall, here is some of that self same advice:

If you want a career in comics, make sure you have three months worth of living expenses in the bank at ALL times. Any less than that and you’re in trouble. Here’s why – if you’re looking for work, it could take month. If you get the work, could take a month to do it. Once you finish and invoice for it, could take a month to pay – simple. Three months. Though, to be perfectly honest, if you can, you owe it to yourself to bank six months at all times, this industry is HARD.

If you’re a writer with a submissions package, figure out what your end game is, I think some people see the submission’s package as some sort of “if I built it they will come” but it really helps to know what your goal is. A graphic novel with a publisher? Pitching short stories? Self publishing?

And honestly, in many many cases all you really need is a single page synopisis of the complete story (including any exciting twists and turns and plot twists it may contain – you want the reader to know it’s got twists, but you want the publisher to know what those twists are) and maybe six pages of written story comics. If you’re pitching to a publisher, some will also want six pages of the story drawn, but it will depend and you may find yourself with an accepted pitch where they love the story but want a different artist (surprise! this has happened to me more than once)

Some lettering no/nos – if you’re lettering yourself good lettering will rescue a comic and bad lettering will destroy it, if you’ve a budget pay a letterer and if you don’t then try and learn how to do it right – plenty of good resources (I’d avoid names like CLINT and words like FLICK – and the unfortunate sound effect UNTSS UNTSS UNTSS which went behind a moon and read like an entirely different word! make it UNZZZ UNZZZ UNZZZ)

If you’re starting out and you’ve a partner who has no real interest in comics but wants to support you, draw a comic and show them and ask them to describe what’s happening in the unlettered comic (and don’t give them any hints) where they get it right, you did a good job! well done! where they get lost it’s confusing and you need to fix that!

Black placement on a page – try and use blacks to help tell the story and direct the reader’s eye – sure, it’s important to get light sources right, but also you can make up light sources! comics are super flexible that way!

Establishing shots are important, in a scene where two characters interact you’ll need to show the reader at least ONE panel where we see them both together, without that it’s hard to know if we’re cutting between scenes or if there’s any connections between them at all.

Writers: for the love of god, start small! Write one page complete stories, get an artist. “I’d like this to be an eight page miniseries” – ME TOO! But realistically, big names can’t get eight issues of a miniseries out there, it’s a hard market. You’ll have more luck with a graphic novel, and even better luck with short stories. You cut your teeth on short stories, those are the things that build your craft muscles up quick (to mix some metaphors)

Finally, if you’re after advice and that advice takes a long long time, because you’re not really clear about what you’re trying to do and then after 45 minutes say “well, I’m really trying to make a six issue miniseries about an NFT character” do not be surprised if whoever you’re talking to folds their arms, gives you a stern look and tells you they’re not that interested.

oops.

Slightly big oopsy doo there, I connected the blog to my patreon and did not anticipate 150 blog posts coming across. Yikes. Apologies if you were thinking I’d gone post crazy. Don’t think it’ll happen again (but then I didn’t think it would happen in the first place)

My studio is located facing the outwards at the front of the house, behind me my bedroom and my son’s room. So I heared what I thought was my son come up the stairs when the following took place:

me: “hello Thomas”

Wife: “It’s not thomas, it’s me”

Me: “Oh. I’m heading out at 3 for a walk with Jim”

Wife: “3? that’s earlier than you thought”

me (thinking) “that’s a weird way to respond to that”

me “Yeah. just the usual”

wife “Do you need any money?”

me(thinking) “Why on earth would she offer me money?”

Turns out she was having a conversation with Thomas (also going out at 3) and I couldn’t hear him, but I could hear her.

Speaking of Thomas, owing to the appearance of the Sidemen on netflix (which I keep mispronouncing to sound like spider-men) we’ve resubbed to netflix. So we’re cancelling paramount+.

One in one out for streaming for me from now on. Though even when you do cancel you end up with around a couple of weeks of streaming on credit (easily the best thing apple ever did for subscriptions, and I’m quite sure no company would’ve ever let you do that – have you every tried to cancel an adobe subscription early? madness)

Our tv watching is so diffuse now we’re all watching different things, nobody watches anything together, and honestly, it makes me a little sad. Sitting watching quantum leap with my brothers was one of my fav things growing up as a teen. Or star trek, even. Shared watching was great.

Another fine example of technology doesn’t always make things better.

(Have decided to try and burn through the last series of Star Trek Discovery, which I liked the first series of, and it got more and more weirdly convoluted each series. Star Trek: Brave New Worlds is a banger though)

One of the things that became obviously harder over the pandemic was the need to cook two meals every single day for a family of four. I suppose we could get away with sandwiches at lunch but even then you’re still cooking at least seven meals a week, 31 meals a month and 365 meals a year (and double those numbers of a sandwich isn’t going to cut it). Obviously, It can’t always be spag bol. Though it frequently is.

And I actually enjoy cooking, but it’s time consuming. One great thing about being in the new house (over a year now) is getting the new kitchen complete with dishwasher. It’s only small, and we frequently need to run it twice a day, and god knows what that’s doing to our electric prices, but suddenly a big chunk of the dishwashing burden is removed, and you have more time to cook.

So, to that end I’ve been trying to do one from-scratch side dish every so often with a regular meal, and seeing what new things I can do. At the moment I’ve had a right old go at Hassleback potatoes (almost no hassle at all and so pretty!) and potato dauphinoise, a little more work, and need some basic ingredients, but actually pretty simple and very nice, especially with steak (or chicken … or any big chunky main thing)

Anyway I grabbed both recipes from the bbc here: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/dauphinoise-potatoes (I find about 250 cream and 250 milk with three large potatoes does three/four people comfortably) and https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/hasselback-potatoes (it calls for garlic and rosemary, I just did mine with a bit of butter and again a big ol’ baked potato) and actually if you’re doing a nice dinner, I do recommend doing both kinds of potatoes cus it’s pretty easy and dead impressive…

And despite spending two days traditional paper and ink, I’ve gone back to digital. This constant oscillation between these two states annoys me more than you’ll ever know. I lack the space to give over to both fully, and even traditional is tight for space, but it’s so much more satisfying to draw a GOOD line with ink, and yet I’ve got to face facts, I think my digital inking is better than my pen and ink…

Work Journal 13/March/2023 – 26/March/2023

Forgive me father, it has been two weeks since my last confession.

This sometimes (no, I mean, this frequently) happens. My record keeping gets sloppy as I slow down and things are a little less structured and more chaotic.

Let’s take the 13/March – 19/March Dred Judge Dredd strip for Rob Williams, episode 1 (of 8) decided to go analogue with the inking of this… that was, it turns out, a bad call. Pure greed on my part. I can sell Dredd pages. Unfortunately I’m just no longer equiped (literally, physically and mentally) to draw on paper any more. I just wasn’t happy with the results. I was getting no-as-good-results drawn much slower and for no real positive outcomes. So, two pages in I abandoned it and went back to digital. Monday/Tuesday I managed to do two pages, like cleaving the art out of stone. One page of inks per day. Then Wednesday I inked three pages digitally. Thu I finished it. But then had a whole bunch of corrections to do to Bad Magic – a hat band that had got progressivly larger as the strip went on, needed to be pulled back a bit.

Thursday I had three scripts on my table and I had no idea which way to proceed. So I planned out which I’d do, then abandoned that plan immediately, and instead started on another episode of the Leopard from Lime Street. 

I think I have two more episodes of that to draw then it’s on hiatus, sadly.

Outside of that all, we had a wall yanked down and replaced with a fence. I bought a house and this is the start of me trying to make it my own. I’ve wanted to do this since we bought the place, and as my wife likes to remind me, I was out chatting to those guys all the time (I thought they enjoyed it! I just needed the company)

Nice to watch people who know what they’re doing, do stuff I know I’m not even remotely capable of!

WE BUILT THAT WALL!

Anyway, also had visitors to the house that week or so too. So in all bit chaotic.

Total completed that week: Inks 1 page, pencils 9 pages.

The next week – 20/March/23, the builders were still building and I’d got in to a slow, but reliable pattern. Really I operate on a two page thing per day minimum. Two pages of pencils or two page of inks. That way I can reasonably say I can do one completed page per week, and I can predict about six completed pages per week. OF COURSE, I’d like to go faster (and often do) but also life throws the odd random factor in your face and you’ve gotta dodge it.

This week has just been me finishing the Leopard from Lime street, and starting a new 10 pager for Ahoy with Paul Cornell. Featuring goofy cryptids. 

I didn’t find time this week, though I should have (and might do so tonight) to sketch out some character designs for this image pitch I’m planning on (which I’ve had to scale back from 16 pages – a full story – to doing six pages – a “pitch” amount, because… well… time really)

This week’s work was Inks 6 and pencils 9.

This month to date, I’ve drawn 37 pages of inks and 21 pages of pencils. Which… wow, slightly surprised by.

Year to date: 107 pages inks, 115 pages of pencils.

Putting me on course for 428(ish) pages this year, if I can keep it up. (I don’t think I can)

Anyway, next week’s plans are: finish this ahoy strip, and see if I can find time to do this Image pitch and then MORE DREDD.

(SHH! TELL NO ONE… I have a story about the below first page – which won’t see print for blooming ages, so please don’t spread this around – but I’ll tell it to you all next week.)