How to Gage A Show

Well Stunmptown Comic Fest is now past you have to as a vendor wonder "how do you gage a successful show?". Well years ago if you had asked me I would have said that if you make the money back on your project and the cost of your table then you were heading in the right direction.
But now a couple of years in the business I realized that maybe that isn’t all and really if you think about that is very short sighted as well.
I sit back as I drink my coffee think of all the people who did stop by and picked up the business cards that I think I only have five of left. And the email list that grew like crazy and finally the REAL professionals that stopped by the table. The comments that most people wouldn’t have really heard because they were to excited by the fact that so and so is talking to me.
Long conversations with these people make me hopeful that artistic community will be soon joining has much to offer me and I hope that I can add a little spark to them.
I think I, we, had a VERY successful time. Now on to Seattle and unknown territory.

The Woes of Printing - part 2

Today is one of those days when you wonder whether or not you made the right choice. And of course that statement is in reference to my digital printer back in Florida. Show has fallen in the valley in springtime and gives this moment great reflection.
I still really like the product that they put together but I think that if I were to plan far enough in advance have everything edited before I send off the burned CD of books and paying up front, (including shipping and handling I could still work with these guys.
But is the effort really worth it?
That's the question.
The Shows for both Stumptown and the Emerald City ComiCon will still go on but will the company? Lack of response to any question to reassure a vendor that “your books are on their way” is a bad way to run a business.
Hopefully for their part they get their act together and get this mess figured out.

The Process of Making Comix

Well so true so true. I had simplified the process of making comics but today I had really broke down the process of making comic books with one notable exception, the initial spark for the story. That one is as hard as asking why there is air. It is one of the most common questions that any artist has been asked sitting behind a table.
But it is not the easiest to answer. How to make is a slightly better question.
At http://blackbox13.deviantart.com/ I went ahead and placed a number of images of how I make Johnny Vega, Man of the Future.
It’s a 13 step process but I am sure that there is a couple steps that I am missing. So please don’t hold me to this process just yet.
But I believe this closer than most other artist are willing to share with others.
I’m not afraid, ask away.
Isn’t that why we are all here?

The Process of Illustrating

The images that are being shown here are those of the third issue of Johnny Vega, Man of the Future. It is placed as a three step process which is really a very simplified way of showing how these pages are put together. Currently I am trying to adapt a method of illustrating without the usage of a solid black eclipse line around the figure or anything else. The idea comes from watching Samurai Jack for the last couple years and the collected DVD sets.
Disney had been pioneering this method for animation for years. It makes the animation sequences look and feel seamless. And ultimately that is what I am wanting Johnny Vega to be. A CGI animated feature. And I said it here first, so mark my words when he gets popular.
The first image is the actual hand drawn image of what I thought the cover should look like and be representative of what was going to happen in the story. I scanned it in and then re scaled it to fit a comic book templet that I have already made in CS2.
The second image is actually the finished (or nearly finished) cover for issue three superimposed over the pencil sketch. to see how close I follow the initial image. I think that most artist try to stay as close to the original idea as possible because if you rework and redraw an image over and over again you loss the flavor of the piece you’re working on.
The third image is more the finish product that will show up on issue three.
And there you have it. I’ll break it down to other parts down the road.

New things from Black Box Comix

Well things are going well for the kid here as I continue to throw out the virtual net known to all as "The Internet". Such an amazing thing of work. Now if I can generate sale from it. I was talking to my web designer friend of mine that says that he'll be working on get the updated Black Box Comix website up before I go up to Portland at the end of this month.
Since he quit his job, he is working on getting the material up and running so this site and a couple of others would start connecting with several new, and potentially new comic collectors of my work. Years ago, I would never thought about this being the way I would do things but life has and is changing that. I'm happy about that.
These are some of the other
www.blackboxcomix.net
www.myspace.com/bbccomix
http://blackbox13.deviantart.com/gallery/

The two images are one of Johnny and Jade. She is actually the last person Johnny will be involved with as time and this character grows. The other image is that page 1 issue #2 of Johnny Vega, Man of the Future. This is a preliminary page as the editing on the book hasn't happened yet but I can tell you this that issues three and four have already been laid out and are awaiting the editing touches of L. Rowan Watson.

Stumptown Looms closer and closer

Well one of the two books that I have been working on has been completed. And that is good news for me and to see if the guys at Ka-Blam will pull through. If you have been reading these blogs you already know that I've had some problems with getting in touch with these guys. The customer service issue has been a real pain in the butt. But things look like they might be turning around here for that. The black box comix website is really the only other thing that I has to be done (or least I would like to be done) before I move to Portland.
I have recently opened an account on deviantart.com. Spreading the artistic comic web as far as I can to see what I can gather up.
At least that the plan anyway.
The image that you are looking at is a two page spread of pages 2 and 19 for Stumptown mini special. I have high hopes for this book to generate interest in books, especially the color Johnny Vega books. But from the looks of it I don't think that I am going to have any problems selling that book at all.