Tag: newsletter

Firstly, everyone I have a kickstarter going on! If you want to grab a print copy of Murky Water, head on over and back it!

Thanks to everyone who stopped by my table at Emerald City. I hope you all had a good weekend! 

If you signed up at Emerald City here’s what I’m working on:

• The City Between is my webcomic about werewolves in the future. It updates Wednesdays. The current story is called Shards of Reflection. The forth story in the series, Murky Water, is what’s crowdfunding right now. 
• Blue Moon is a werewolf romance graphic novel I’m writing and Meredith McClarren is going to draw. I’m doing my best to finish the script soon. 
• You are the Chosen One is a fantasy comic about 23 kids who got the same prophecy dream. It’s currently only readable if you back my patreon. It’s on hiatus until I finish writing Blue Moon. 

My day job is as an editor at the manga company Seven Seas and the indie comic publisher Iron Circus Comics. I like folklore, fantasy, and especially like werewolves. 

This month I’m mostly focused on my Kickstarter and banging that promo drum. 

I probably won’t have time for much else because I’m also busy moving this month. It won’t be too big a move (just to a bigger apartment in the same building I already live in) but still time consuming. 

This months werewolf movie Late Phases. If you wanna join me and my discord on Sunday, March 24 at 5pm PST pop on over by clicking here. 

As always I’ll be streaming art on Twitch. My schedule is currently the following:

• Tuesday 8pm-10pm PST
• Wednesday 8pm-10pm PST
• Thursday 6pm-9pm PST (during the Iron Circus Geekshow)

Geekshow was kinda on pause the last few months because Spike had a health emergency. She is feeling better. So we can jump back to it now. 

Last month I’ve been doing the rounds to promo my kickstarter by jumping on a lot of podcasts. If you wanna here me talk about my stuff I was on:

• Transcending Comics: From Folklore to Futuristic Fantasy with Kel McDonald
• War Rocket Ajax Episode 670: Fantasy or Scifi?
• Geek in the City Issue 724
• Comics for Fun and Profit Episode 888

In most of them I talk about the City Between. But War Rocket and Ajax we kind mostly just talk about pokemon and where is the line between Fantasy and Scifi. My answer is that fantasy runs on metaphor/vibes and scifi runs more on rules. But I always like hearing other people’s answers. 

Like I mentioned above I’ll mostly be doing promo and moving. During my streams I’m gonna try to get ahead on Shards of Reflection before drawing the last setting for the video game I’ve been doing art for. We finally picked a name for the name. It’s gonna be called Teething. 

The last scene is in a store. So gonna have to draw a lot of stuff on shelves. But I think I can get it done either this month or early next month. Then I can start giving Blue Moon all my extra attention. 

While working I’ve mostly been watching youtube videos. A lot of them were about explaining competitive pokemon but I did really like Broey Deshenal’s video about Saltburn. I always like her videos even if I don’t agree with them. Mostly because I like how she digs into filmmaking as an artform and focuses on movies that aren’t the big blockbuster hits. I’m also someone who spoiling a movie makes me want to see it more. (Like Sorry to Bother You‘s trailer made me think “That looks fun. I’ll check it out eventually” but then someone told me the big spoiler and I IMMEDIATELY rented it.) So even though she didn’t like Saltburn, her video made me bump it up my movies to watch list mostly because I want to see if I agree with her or not. 

Only other thing that has been getting my watch attention lately is Delicious in Dungeon. If you don’t know what that is, it’s about a dnd style party venturing into a magic dungeon. They can’t afford rations so they are eating the monsters as they fight them. There is a lot of fun cooking bit and talk about how a monster ecosystem would work. It’s just a lot of fun. And it’s full of great facial expressions. 

That’s it for this month! Thanks everyone for your support!

This is crossposted from my newsletter which you can sign up for here

Hey folks, my biggest thing happening for me this month is I’ll be launching a Kickstarter for Murky Water. It will launch Feb 19th, click here to get an email as soon as I hit go. Get ready!

Also I’ll be at Emerald City Comic! My booth is 20201. I don’t know where that is because Reedpop hasn’t put a map up for Emerald City. Honestly, I’m super frustrated with Reedpop. There get worse and worse every year. I don’t know what I can do about it. Something has gone wrong with my table there every year. I always gotta make an angry phone call to them. I’m gonna try to work out next year at the show this year.

This month my discord is gonna be watching Dog Soldiers! Join me and some other folks February 24th at 3pm PST to hang out and watch some werewolf nonsense. Join in here!

As always I’ll be streaming art on Twitch. My schedule is currently the following:

• Tuesday 8pm-10pm PST
• Wednesday 6pm-10pm PST (changed the time)
• Thursday 6pm-9pm PST (during the Iron Circus Geekshow)

Bones and I are still planning to stream some video games but we both got to get stuff off our plate.

I have been buried in Seven Seas manga editing this month. Honestly it left me kinda exhausted. But I did more reader question comics. If you got one let me know.

I’m almost done with my videogame art. Now that Seven Seas is gonna be less crazy, I’ll get it finished this month. There’s just a setting left. Having one less thing off my plate will be a relief.

I’m trying to set up my promo for the Murky Water kickstarter. Honestly, I’m kinda worried about it. I’ve mentioned before that social media really burns me out faster than anything else. This got linked in a comic discord I’m in and it honestly felt very true to me. And with twitter falling apart it seems to just be getting worse. Kickstarter promo is a lot of work. So I’m hoping I can still get mine over goal. I’ve also been watching my patreon decrease and I know that is partly because the economy is bad and times are rough for everyone. But it is also because I haven’t really had time to push patreon to new people unless it’s at con. So fingers crossed. Please back my patreon and buy my book when it’s on kickstarter. 

One to more positive stuff! Today I reached one of my fitness goals! I did 100 squats in a row! Now I’m gonna work on core strength more. Eventually, I’ll be able to do all the One Punch Man work out. I have been liking getting up in the morning and doing it first thing. Kinda good at waking me up.

I was gonna start to do little mini reviews. But Seven Seas basically gave me double the workload in January. So I haven’t had time to dig into that. I will probably wait until after my Kickstarter to start doing. Ya know, get videogame work out of the way before adding a new thing. 

Anyway, next month’s newletter, I’ll have a bunch of podcasts to link you all to. Thanks again for your support! Have a good one.

Hey all! I hope you all enjoyed your New Years Eve festivities (or got a well rested night in). Usually this time of year I try to plan new year. But since several things still aren’t done, I’m tending toward mostly just finish those things. I gotta do these things:

• Finish art for the videogame I’m working on (which is almost done. I just gotta draw two or three more settings
• Finish writing Blue Moon
• Write the next City Between story

Once I got those three things knocked out I can get back to You are the Chosen One. So they are my goals for the year. 

Last year, I also made a resolution to get in better shape and I’ve been more or less succeeding. It’s slow but steady progress. I’m gonna keep sticking with it. 

I also am gonna try to make a dent in my two read comic pile. By pile I mean whole shelf. So that might be the trickiest one. In past years, I tried to read a comic every day. I’ll try to at least read 100 pages a day. But if I can’t I’ll stick with it, I’ll switch to a graphic novel every Saturday. 

December was mostly full of prep for the end of the year and holiday stuff. My discords full moon movie this month is The Company of Wolves. We’ll be watching it January 25th at pm PST. If you want to join, hop in my discord. 

As always I’ll be streaming art on Twitch. My schedule is currently the following:

• Tuesday 8pm-10pm PST
• Wednesday 6pm-10pm PST (changed the time)
• Thursday 6pm-9pm PST (during the Iron Circus Geekshow)

Also me and my pal Bones might start streaming videogames again on Saturdays. So stay tuned for that.

December was pretty quiet but I posted several reader questions/answers. You can ask one here if you got it.

Thanks everyone for your support! Have a good new year. 

Real quick Dec 4th (day I’m sending this out) is the last day for international folks to get something from my store in time for Christmas. For folks in the US that date is Dec 13th. But I’m still reworking my store. Right now all the shipping prices aren’t correct. Right now everything is a flat rate that is the average, so I’m under charging on some products and over charging on others. My pal Kevin who made the site is helping me figure out a plugin that will charge by weight instead. Hopefully, that will be finished up by the end of the year. 

This month I’m busy doing inventory to be ready for next year. So between that and the holidays, not much public stuff going on. I’m still doing movie night in my fan discord on the full moon. So if you wanna join me and some other folks for Werewolf Santa on Dec 26th at Noon PST pop in here. 

I answered some more fan questions but other wise things have been quiet. 

As long as it’s not a spoiler I’ll answer. So post any questions you got here

I’m still working on Blue Moon’s script. I’m still kinda frustrated that I’m not done yet. But after looking over everything I did this year, I realized I’ve edited A LOT of books for Seven Seas this year. Here’s a picture of all of them

That’s too many books! Fortunately, I only have two scripts to edit for Seven Seas in December. 

So this month I got my to do list:

• Get pages for The City Between ahead enough to update over the holidays without interruption. 
• write Blue Moon
• draw the last two settings for my werewolf videogame
• Write two crowdfund video scripts of Iron Circus

That last two shouldn’t take too long. 

Also, before the Writer’s strike I was writing about stuff I recently watched or read. I need to get back to doing that. I might change how I do it though. Whenever I did my end of the month round up, I always had more to say about the stuff I watched or read at the end of the month since they were fresher in my memory. So I might post smaller reviews/thoughts on my site’s blog and then just collect them here at the end of the month. 

I’ll have a bigger post next month after I decide on stuff. Thanks for your support everyone. 

Hey folks! First things first, Indiginerds is currently crowdfunding. It has made goal but we really want to get it to the 35k stretch goal as soon as possible. When we hit that, Iron Circus will be able to donate copies to indigenous libraries and schools. It will help indigenous kids see themselves in stories and it gets the indigenous artists in the book a raise. November is National Native American Heritage Month, so it’s the perfect time to back something like Indiginerds.

November is pretty quiet otherwise. Alina will be a guest on Geekshow for a crowdfund end countdown on November 16th. And I’m going to do my usual streaming. 

I’m still gonna be answering readers questions in comic form so, if you have one post it here!

Watching Wolf Guy last month turned out to be a bust because of technically difficulties. The full moon movie watch parties have been tending toward horror lately. So for a change of pace, next one will be a comedy. On November 27th at 5pm PST, please join me and some other fine folks while we watch Teen Wolf the movie (not the MTV tv show). Click if you want to join.

I’ll also be doing my usual streaming

As always I’ll be streaming art on Twitch. My schedule is currently the following:

• Tuesday 8pm-10pm PST
• Wednesday 6pm-10pm PST (changed the time)
• Thursday 6pm-9pm PST (during the Iron Circus Geekshow)

Stop by!

The big thing from last month is I started answering reader question. Here’s a look at it. 

As long as it’s not a spoiler I’ll answer. So post any questions you got here

This month I’m gonna try to finish Blue Moon’s script. My work load from Seven Seas is kinda light, so gonna focus on getting that out the door so Meredith can start drawing it. That and get ahead on The City Between.

After Blue Moon is done, I’m gonna write the next City Between story. It’s called Glass Diamonds and will be about Rebecca and her next client. Shards of Reflection is about half way done, so I need to make sure Glass Diamonds is ready to go sooner rather than later. I’ve been fiddling with some concept art for it.

Once those two things are off my plate, I’ll finish up the art for my werewolf videogame and get back to You are the Chosen One. 

While doing all that, I need to sit down and build a crowdfund for Murky Water. I’ve been putting it off because there was a paper shortage. So the cost of printing had shot up. I was hoping to wait it out and I think things have settled down. Obviously they are still higher than last time I printed a book because of inflation, but it’s as cheap as it’s gonna get. 

I was also waiting a bit because I wanted to see how the crowdfunding landscape shakes out. About two years ago I wrote about Kickstarter saying they would try out block chain. At the time I said I wasn’t gonna use them and was looking into Indiegogo and Zoop. Since then, Crowdfundr and Backerkit got into the crowdfunding landscape and Kickstarter has walked back blockchain (sorta). 

The problem almost all the non-kickstarter crowdfunds are having is no one browses their websites to find crowdfunds. It means all your crowdfunding success depends on the fanbase you already have and spreading the word on social media. But social media is currently falling apart. Part of my duties at Iron Circus is making the schedule for all the crowdfunds. So I’ve seen first had as social media referrals become smaller and smaller. Which makes crowdfunding harder than ever, especially if people aren’t browsing the site in general.

I was considering using Backerkit which is what Iron Circus has been using lately. But I won’t recommend them to the average creator. Backerkit gets around the no browsing problem by having a robust advertising service. Which seemed promising at first, but myself and several smaller comic artists quickly learned the Backerkit will only run those ads IF you’ve already hit goal. So all their promo help is designed around you already being super successful. Like after the first day, Backerkit turned off ads for Indiginerds and didn’t turn them back on until after it hit goal. So while they are good for Iron Circus, who’s projects usually fund in a day or two, they would be pretty useless for me. My projects usually fund in the last week if not that last few days. 

Also, since I’ve built several backerkit pages for Iron Circus, I know that I find their back end UI obtuse. I lose a lot of time trying to find stuff when I build those pages. But if their ads had been more useful, I would have sucked it up. 

As for Kickstarter’s end of things. I said the sorta walked back using the blockchain. Basically, the guy who pushed for it was forces to leave. I forget if he was outright fired or if he left on his own. But either way, after that Kickstarter said they were still open to maybe using blockchain in the future but wouldn’t put any resources into it until a benefit is proven. And since their blockchain plans were mostly all buzzword gibberish before, that means they won’t be using it anytime soon. I’m still annoyed they won’t swear it off, but that seems the best they are gonna do. So whole crowdfund landscape in my mind is:

But with social media falling apart and none of the crowdfunding sites having a lot of browsing going on, I’m like 90% I’m gonna have to go back to Kickstarter. It’s really frustrating. 

I also got to figure out what to do about international shipping which is it’s own mess. The post office has been gutted so badly that international shipping has gotten wildly out of had. Like sending one of The City Between books to Europe now costs like $25. It’s ridiculous. So before this crowdfund happens, I need to figure out what I’m doing on that end. 

Anyway, thanks everyone for your support as usual! Especially those who back my patreon. Shit is rough out there for indie artists right now.