Hello everyone!
Thanks everyone who stopped by my table at San Diego Comic Con and signed up for my newsletter. If you are new here, here’s a run down of what I’m working on/what you might be looking for.
- The City Between is my webcomic about werewolves in the future. It updates Wednesdays. The current story is titled Glass Diamonds. It is free to read on my website, or you can follow my patreon to get it emailed to you.
- Blue Moon is a werewolf romance graphic novel I’m writing and Meredith McClaren is going to draw.
- Cautionary Fables and Fairytales is a kid-friendly folklore anthology series I edit and organize for Iron Circus Comics.
- Wolf and Bones Comic Club is a streaming show I do with my friend Bones Leopard. We are currently reading Berserk. It is live on my twitch Thursday, then I post the episodes on my youtube.
- You are the Chosen One is a fantasy comic that is exclusive to my patreon but is currently on hold until I’ve gotten a few other things off my plate.
I have two day jobs. One is as an editor for Seven Seas, so I’ll occasionally share manga I’m editing for them. I’m also the managing editor at Iron Circus Comics. I like folklore, fantasy, and especially like werewolves.
Now that I’m back from San Diego, I’m getting a short break before I head to Worldcon in Seattle. I’ll mostly be doing panels. Above I posted a schedule but here’s some more details.
- Table Talk 47 – Wednesday 7:30pm-8:30pm – Room 427: Six people can sign up to have a chat with me. You have to sign up in advance (The Worldcon site doesn’t have that up yet), so keep an eye out if you are interested. I’m willing to look at portfolios if one of the sign ups is interested.
- SF/F in Comics! – Thursday 1:30pm-2:30pm – Room 420-422: How have speculative fiction and fantasy been represented in comics? From Jack Kirby’s super-science, to Jeff Lemire’s android families in Descender, to fae crimes of Black Cloak by Kelly Thompson and Meredith McClaren, let’s explore the comics that tried to put the science first, or brought the fantastical to the forefront, and talk about how that drew us into those stories!
- The Indie Comics Panel: The Big 25% – Friday 9am-10am – Room 431-432: The “Big Two” comic book publishers control 75% of the market and get plenty of attention. If you’re curious about who makes up the independent comics market and where you fit in as a fan, this might be the panel for you!
- Kickstarter for Authors – Saturday 10:30am-11:30am – Room 443-444: Kickstarter is becoming a powerful platform for connecting indie authors with readers. Join our Kickstarter experts to learn what projects work best, how Kickstarter backers are different from readers on other marketplaces, and how to set your project up for success.
- Writing Comics and Graphic Novels – Saturday 1:30pm-2:30pm – Room 343-344: Comics are bigger than ever, and the publishing industry is wild for graphic novels and manga, but writing a comics story is its own skill—different from prose or a screenplay. Gain valuable insight about the medium of comics: pitching, script formatting, collaborating with artists, and common pitfalls many new comic writers make as they get their start.
- The Comic Book Sommelier – Sunday 3pm-4pm – Room 423-424: Comic books today: Even with sales numbers dropping and the distribution channel scattered and shredded, there’s never been a better time to be a comics fan. Why Marvel and DC are doing some of the best work they’ve done in years, probably under pressure from the strong stories of “second-rank” companies and the surge of independent comics publishers. This panel will cover some of the “inside baseball” of how things are going, then move to being an audience-led “comic book sommelier,” where we match an individual with a perfect comic title or two.
So it is a pretty packed week. I hope some of you can make it! I really enjoyed Worldcon last year, so I’m very curious to check out the programing at the show this year. I haven’t had a chance to go through the whole program but there are a couple I’m already interested in like Blueprint for Hope.
And I’ll still be streaming on Twitch:
- Tuesday at 8pm – 10pm PST – Art times
- Wednesday at 4pm – 6pm PST – Art times
- Thursday at 3pm – 4pm PST – Wolf & Bones Comic Club
- Thursday at 4pm – 6pm PST – Art times
- Sunday at 8pm – 10pm PST – Baldur’s Gate 3
All these streams will be on my twitch, so stop by!Bones is traveling so Wolf & Bones Comic Club is gonna be sporadic. They also think they have hit their limit with the violence in Berserk so we are lined up some different titles to move on to. We are gonna talk about the Dark Phoenix Saga, Bone, and then Rose of Versailles.
Prep for San Diego Comic Con took up most of my time this month. I posted some of the con photos online. The thing I took the most pictures of was the lego version of the convention center. It was really impressed with all the details. I ended up taking a video as I walked around it. I also took photos of cosplayers, but kept it to deeper cuts/rarer costumes. All my photos are up on my google drive.
I got decently ahead with Glass Diamonds, so this month I’m focus on writing Blue Moon. I’ve been stuck at the half way point for awhile. Meredith has been swamped with her Image series Black Cloak and her new book Meateaters (both of which are very good and you should check out), so it hasn’t been a big problem. I don’t want to hold her up though.
Since San Diego prep took up a lot of time last month, I didn’t get to check out too many new books this month. One the drive down to San Diego I listened to the audiobook of Fan Fiction: A Mem-Noir by Brent Spiner. It’s mystery about him dealing with an obsessive trekkie while filming The Next Generation. While not the best book, it was funny and he got the whole cast of TNG to read their dialogue in the audiobook. I’d mostly recommend it to people who are Star Trek fans and are looking of an audiobook specifically.
I also finally got a chance to read The Summer Hikaru Died by Mokumokuren. I watched the first few episodes of the anime. But it’s only available with subtitles and with I’d rather take in the visuals completely than try to read while watching. So I switched over to the manga. If you don’t know what this manga is about, it’s a romantic horror story. The titular Hikaru died in the mountains and has been replaced by a creator that not only copied his body, but also his memories. It is now experiencing being human for first time. The art really sells the uneasy intimacy between the main character and this fake Hikaru. I ended up reading 3 volumes and will get catch up later this month.
Lastly, I listened to the audiobook of The Tomb of Dragons by Katherine Addison. This is the fourth book set in the world of The Goblin Emperor. It picks up right where the pervious book left off. Thara Celehar ends up looking into why a cemetery has fallen into disuse and get it functioning again. It digs into who the elf kingdom views as a “person” and how to right old injustices. The end was a little abrupt. I assume it was because Katherine Addison is getting stuff into place for the next book, but still felt off. I did like how Celehar slowly learns to move beyond his self loathing, or at least starts too.
That’s it for this month! Thanks for your support and take care.