Well, let me first mention that my trip to New England Webcomics’ Weekend was a relentless success. Except for not being hired at Halfpixel, or getting caught in a love triangle with Danielle Corsetto and Meredith Gran, everything that I hoped to accomplish did. 

A ton of my favorite WebComicers were there and then some. I managed to get a picture taken with many of them, so that’ll be included within my next couple of posts. Looking at some of the other posts about NEWW, I realized that I didn’t travel the furthest to get to New England, but I imagine I was probably in the top 10. The road trip from Georgia to Massachusetts was a big undertaking. I estimated driving about 2000+ miles and the 18 hours there and back were no joke. Once returning home and spending time with the Mrs. and girl, I passed out about 6-7pm on Monday to wake on Tuesday morning (since I take the squirt to school every morning) believing it was Monday. This state of mind occurred most of the day as I went to work, got home, etc. without realizing it til late afternoon. Today is Wednesday and I’m still a bit sleepy, but apparently doing better then some of the other Comicers out there. Many of the people that attended, came home with the case of the Con Cruds (a form of cold that can only be passed in closed environments, from geek to geek).

(Courtesy of Z.F. Comics) Dawn, Tim, Casey, Chuck, Me (on bottom)

One of the individuals that caught this illness, was one of my two main reasons for attending this meet up. A recent addition to the STCommunity, I got to first meet Dawn Griffin of ZF Comics. Every bit as cute, sweet, and lovable as her comic, meeting Dawn was not only a top priority, but it was an honor and a privilege to get to know her better as well.

I met the second of the “3 Amigos” next in the form of Tim Collins from a little comic you might know as Bullfinch. My long considered Webcomic B.F.F., Tim and I formed an online friendship about 6+ months back when we were both even more green then we are now. If I had found out Tim was unable to attend, there woulda been a good chance that I would not have gone. Knowing he was coming was a large part of why I considered the trip in the first place.

While this trip was about meeting more established Webcomicers, getting my chance to meet Tim and Dawn in person changed, in my mind, my feelings of “I’d like to go” to “I’ve gotta make this happen”. In the next two posts, I’ll talk to you all about all of the pros I’ve met, pictures I’ve taken, and sketches I’ve received. This first post, however, is dedicated to the important friendships I’ve solidified, and a couple that have just begun.

While I expected this trip would be about us “3 amigos” I partnered up with 2 others that, in their own way, made this trip not only unforgettable, but made me feel lucky to have gone. I got to first talk to Chuck “Don’t call me Zach” Egan of Surviving Retail, within an email to figure out a hotel room I could stay in for my trip. While I ended up having to switch slightly my boarding plans, I made sure to stay in the same hotel as him (since the original plans had him roomed with (previously mentioned) “Wacko” and “Dot”. Chuck is a tall, thin, quiet, friendly, dude that’s easy to get along with. Imagine me then reverse it, you’ve got Chuck (except I’m a dude too).

Chuck rode up from Philly with his other roomate, and young lady that I’m still convinced doesn’t like me named, Casey Conan. Unlike the other four, Casey doesn’t have a webcomic. She’s “only a blogger”. Strangely she’s a pretty (and pretty too) good artist, but just seems to lack the confidence to take that particular step. She’s wonderful writer with her own blog called BarGeek. She has the best write up (that I’ve seen) of the N.E.W.W. located here, so check it out.

So with Voltron united (yup, I’m the black lion), this concludes my first of 3 posts pertaining to N.E.W.W. 

-C.

Many of you already know of Dawn Griffin, creator of ZF Comics. I’ve recently come across extremely busy times with a new job, school, STC (of course) and a couple of new commissions that I’m having a hard time providing the added content to the site that you’ve gotten used to. So I put the call out to a couple of my comic buddies. Below is a write up of something Dawn’s been working on for the last several months.

Adventures in Kid’s Book Publishing

If you’re a cartoonist, you have probably thought about illustrating a children’s book. I took 2 kids book classes in art school that I loved. A decent writer/cartoonist can create a kids book, it’s just getting a publisher to pick you that’s the pain. That, or knowing you will have a long, rocky & expensive road of self-promoting, while trying to draw/write NEW books for your series. It’s tricky.

Well, about 3 years ago, my mom approached me with a script from a coworker of hers who wrote some stories, but needed an artist. I figured, what the heck. The story was cute, it had a moral, and was relevant to little girls today, plus she had a good 3 or 4 other ideas for future books. The writer & I tooled away with character designs and over a couple months, I hammered out the first book, “Abby’s Adventures: Picture Day”. Abby loses her tooth the morning of her school picture day, and innocent cute hilarity ensues as she tries to find ways to hid her gaping hole in her smile (including sticking a mini marshmallow in there, lol). We were both very happy with the final piece and packaged it up for publishers, optimistic and probably naively so.

Then reality sunk in. Big publishers do not want a “package deal”. Publishers want writers to send in their work, and illustrators send their samples, & then they get to play puppeteer and match ‘em all up. This of course leads to some writers not being very happy with how an illustrator depicted their character, but at that point, the writer has no say. The old “You want it published or not?” deal. (My writer has friends in the business with this very issue- 8 of 11 books she’s not happy with). It’s very similar to some of the headaches that comes with being picked up by a syndicate. “You want to play in the big leagues, you gotta play by our rules– we know best, not you”.

Fast forward 2.5 years, and out of the blue, my writer stumbles on a small publisher who loves the book, the series. She has 2 girls, who adore Abby and want MORE! Just from 1 book! A flurry of reformatting the book, size adjustments, logo changes, and other revisions.. And POOF. It’s on amazon.com and target.com, and listed with Barnes & Noble. And I have a pile of stories to illustrate, haunting my every spare moment. The thing with a series is, you cannot leave people wanting more for too long, or they lose interest. So, these next books in the series need to be cranked out ASAP. All I have to say is thank goodness for coffee, red bulls, and my flex-time work schedule. Oh, yeah, and my love for cartooning!

“Abby’s Adventures” is still in it’s baby phase. It could take off with the right promotions and advertising… And if I can friggin’ get these new books done quickly enough. We’re finding some promotional ideas will only work once we have a fanbase, and others are simply too expensive and time-consuming. It’s all about baby steps, and word-of-mouth at this point. But it’s a start, and there’s nothing more flattering than a rave review from a 5 year old who wishes Abby were her best friend!