The Mice Templar Myth and Legend

The Mice Templar - ProphecyJust after Heroes Con I received an email from Bryan J.L. Glass offering me an exciting opportunity. Bryan (together with Michael Avon Oeming) writes The Mice Templar, a 24-30 page monthly comic published through Image Comics. Tim Daniel, who had been writing the Myth, Legend & The Mice Templar articles in the back of each issue had been unable to commit to the second storyarc of eight issues. Seven of these needed articles discussing the parallels between the story elements and real world myth and legend. Bryan threw the bone at me, being very upfront that this was not paying, and he needed it within a week. Bryan is full of energy and optimism that was infectious at Heroes Con, and it came through just the same in his email. I couldn’t refuse.

Leanne and I had accidentally left several books behind at the hotel in Charlotte. One was Mike Maihack’s Cow & Buffalo, the other two were issue #6 of The Mice Templar, and the Sketchbook with bonus story. So suddenly there was a mad rush to obtain new copies ASAP along with reference material for the myth side of the article in time to read AND then write the article. However, it was done. It was delivered. And it is history. So starting with issue #2 of the Destiny series, I’m a part of The Mice Templar team. What’s even better is that Bryan asked Leanne to provide the pinup to accompany the article. Leanne showed him two roughs for two different ideas. He liked both so much that he said he would print both if she could get them done in time (by this point just three days). Somehow, Leanne managed it, and so now, our first contributions to The Mice Templar series are accompanying one another. Aw, how sweet! :-) Thanks, Bryan!

The next batch of articles are some very interesting subject matter for me personally, just like The Mice Templar book itself. The first series “Prophecy” is now available to buy in trade and is a great way to jump in if you missed this ship when it first sailed in 2007. The first issue of the second series “Destiny” will be coming out on July 29th. I urge you to pick up a copy of Prophecy and get up to speed. Chances are high that you’ll enjoy it immensely!

The “Sovena Red” Project

Sovena Red promoI’ve scripted many comics in the past eight or so years, although none ever saw completion as both my time and Leanne’s time was extremely limited. Leanne is a superb artist, driven by her love of pop-culture, action adventure, super heroes, Power Rangers, Street Fighter and the like. It’s been clear since she started drawing superheroes in her early teens that her path as an artist would lead in the direction of comics, action figures and video games. However, the risks involved in taking the plunge as a full time professional artist are enough to make even the most optimistic curl up into a little ball.

It’s been tough trying to synchronize my desire to write, and her desire to draw because of day jobs and Leanne’s commitments to much better projects. But we both hold out that someday we will be able to bring to life a few of the stories we’ve been dying to tell.

So, with that in mind, early this year I decided I was going to go ahead and do my own comic. I would pay for the thing myself and make it as professional as possible. An interesting thing about my Sovena Red project is that it was not my first, second, or even third idea for my first ever completed comic book. I started out with my strongest idea, which I believe has the most potential for a series (thinking big like any naive newcomer would). It would have been a super-hero detective series with an interesting angle. It seemed to be the idea that would generate the most general interest as an Indy title.

However, Leanne and I both agreed that we wanted this particular title to be a collaborative one where we helmed the project together as husband and wife. Owing to her busy schedule, Leanne would not be able to start on it until 2010. We agreed that I would come up with an alternative project and use another artist.

It was difficult to settle on a secondary comic project that I didn’t desperately want Leanne to draw. I tried various ideas, each of which I loved, but ended up putting on the back burner in the hopes that someday Leanne could be the illustrator. Finally, after scripting several different projects, I settled on developing a comic around a child superhero I had created sometime back in 2003, named Sovena Red.

The ‘all ages’ adventure style of Sovena Red’s pre-teen / teen super hero subject matter would have suited Leanne’s cartoony open style perfectly. So heading into this sort of a book without her at my side meant I had to find someone else in whom I had the confidence to deliver that energy and characterization that was vital to the story. After a couple of false starts, I stumbled across John Amor.

John is from the Philippines, speaks perfect English, hosts his own comic book podcast, and gave up law school to dive into developing his comics career. He’s partially color-blind which has led to his great strength as an Inker making his pieces punchy and burning each panel into your retinas in a strangely pleasurable way.

Originally I had ran my 4th comic idea by John before I settled on Sovena Red. At the time I was leaning towards a zombie project which would blend cartoonish elements with this well established genre. However, I knew in my heart that it was a bit too indulgent and that the cartoon element might marginalize or alienate traditional zombie fans. The irony is that I don’t know whether Sovena Red would strike a better chord or not, but of the two projects, I could only afford to truly invest in one or the other. Sovena won because it would provide me with the perfect example of the sort of story I’d most enjoy writing if, as a bottom line, it only ended up being a portfolio piece. Back in the late 90s my goal was to become an animation script writer, and that drive towards all ages stories never left me.

Fortunately, I found an angle on Sovena Red which gave the story that extra ‘je ne sais quoi‘. That’s me trying to sound cultured and witty. That ‘something extra’ that is hard to describe was the added narrative hook in the form of a fairy tale perspective on a spandex hero.

John provided me with character designs that brought the supporting cast to life and made the project start to feel tangible. After a few unforeseen delays, John was finally able to start working fully on Sovena Red and so far his pages have been nothing short of stunning. Now I’m finding myself starting to question the very need for a colorist as the side effect of the strong inking is that the pages work perfectly well in black and white. Unless I can find the perfect colorist who can really blow me away, I’m fully considering the possibility of withholding colors for a possible deluxe edition sometime next year.

My plans for Sovena Red are initially a straight to IndyPlanet publication, followed by a TPB which I will pitch at book fairs, and a Manga digest format that I will pitch at Anime conventions. Depending on the strength of a grass roots promotion I will consider pitching it to comic book publishers as well. My bottom line is that Sovena Red is my first comic book and it goes straight into my portfolio of published work. Hopefully someone will genuinely enjoy the story and the character and then my work will have been done.

Oh, and if you are interested in Sovena Red and would like to contribute a pinup or sketch then I would love to hear from you.

Hiring a freelance comic book artist

I’ve seen many “how to” guides and advice columns on the internet about how to go about handling the production of a comic book. One of the best is Steven Forbes Bolts and Nuts column at the excellent Project Fanboy community website. However, this column is primarily from the writer / publisher point of view. I’d like to devote today’s blog to helping artists (specifically colorists although the guide should apply to all forms) successfully gaining employment. I’m offering this advice because I can’t believe how badly the majority of applicants need the help.

Cat says WTF?Try thinking about things from the POV of your potential employer. They want someone who will give them a professional service at the agreed upon rate, and deliver the product / service by the agreed upon deadline. They want someone who is trustworthy and sticks to their word. Someone who is willing to work with them to give them what they want. If you actually want to have a shot at getting hired as a penciller, inker, or colorist then you not only need talent and experience, but a bit of initiative helps. Do your research on the project, engage the writer / publisher in a conversation about it and about yourself. If you are a sociable person then that will help give you an edge, although it will never beat good references from reputable sources.

I’m not meaning to sound like a jerk about this, but if you could see the low quality of the submissions and the brevity of the emails from most of the applicants you would roll your eyes along with me. If you want a job, then make it clear to your potential employer. You’re not applying to a machine. It’s a human being that makes the decision to hire you, so be personable as well as doing some research. I gave a link to this site about the Sovena Red project. I’ve thrown you “a frickin’ bone”. Take that tool and use it to help your chances. I am offering to pay you my money for your work, but you are up against 100+ guys and gals who want that money too. So what are you going to do to stand out?

I’ve used DigitalWebbing.com a couple of times in the past four months. Back in April I advertised offering a paying job for a penciller, inker and colorist. I received well over 100 emails in the space of a couple of days. Later I posted to test the waters for a letterer and received a handful of responses. I will have enough pencilled and inked pages from John Amor soon to get the coloring machine in action so last Saturday I posted a new advertisement on DigitalWebbing.com for a colorist. I’ve received around 60 applications in the last 3 days. Here’s what I have learned from all of this…

1.) 80%+ of the responses will fail to read the advertisement correctly.

2.) Very few will bother to proof read.

3.) I’d say approximately 50%-60% of all the responses are artists who over value their services and are charging a page rate that is not remotely competitive.

DigitalWebbing.comLet me elaborate. The artist will shoot off a generic response with frequently inappropriate sample art. What do I mean by inappropriate samples? Well, in my case I specified that this project was an ‘all ages’ Marvel Adventures style book. Sending me gritty, shadowy, horror style renderings isn’t that smart. Okay, so that’s all you have at the moment and you are confident you can branch out into all ages if necessary. Congrats. Just know that you’re forcing me to use my imagination in regards to what your all ages work would look like. I’ve also been sent sample pages which involve pornographic images. Look, I don’t have a problem with mature content, but I don’t think it’s in your professional interests to use this sort of work as a sample unless the job you are applying for involves this sort of content. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. And I’ve actually had a LOT of this sort of material submitted to me… for a project that is all ages! Come on guys. Think about this for a minute!

What about providing me with the key information I requested. The vast majority of applicants will not do research on the project even when a link is provided. And if you make it a requirement of the advertisement for them to respond to key points, a good portion will fail to do so regardless. Why? Clearly because they are not professionals. I hate to say that and offend these people, but failing to read the requirements of a job posting is failure at the first step.

But wait, there’s more!

Can an applicant do any worse than failing to acknowledge the requirements of the job ad? Apparently, yes.

If you don’t proof read your email and double check your links to your online portfolio / gallery are working then you just invalidated your entire application. I am looking at too many applicants to have the patience for your mistakes. If you promptly followed up your erroneous email with a quick message providing the correct URL then hurrah! No harm done. But it’s those people that don’t even seem to know they are messing up that make me shake my head in bewilderment. Do you want my money or not?

Oh and while I’m at it, for god’s sake, figure out how to get a proper website or blog. Don’t use Flickr and Photobucket. They just make you look amateur. AND because of their temporal ‘fly-by-night’ nature they make you look shady. At least one scam artist I have had the misfortune of meeting has used Photobucket as his online gallery, and he is now infamous online for running an art scam. If I hadn’t wised up and gotten lucky then he would have stolen my money. Don’t associate with the amateurism that a Flickr and Photobucket account gives you. If you are trying to make money professionally as a freelance artist then present yourself thus. The cheapest and simplest solution is a free online blog. I don’t care how you figure it out, whether its through a friend or through trial and error, just GET ONE!

It’s even sadder when an artist responds with samples that clearly show their level of rendering experience is still far from professional level AND YET they expect to make a higher page rate than their professional peers. I’ll give an example. Professional pay for a colorist working for a studio with money is in the $50-$60 dollar per page range. I offered to pay $30-$40 dollars per page for colors (a low rate, which I acknowledged in the advertisement) but explained that this is a 3 issue mini-series so this means more money in the long run. I knew this meant that the standard of samples from the applicants would be mixed and the majority would not be good enough, but I knew that there would be at least a couple that I could filter out. Here’s what happened…

Most responses priced themselves at $40 in order to get the most out of my offer. Understandable. However, when one guy who has worked for Image (and is actively working on Image titles right now) contacted me and was willing to work for a page rate of $35 in order to keep his plate full as a full time professional colorist, how do you guys charging $40 and more feel? Now in this case the guy may have enough work lined up to take a lower rate, but when there’s a guy out there at this level offering his services for such a bargain price, how in the hell can you expect to beat him if your own style is not nearly as refined yet and in the $40-$50 dollar range per page?

It defies logic. The bottom line here is that there are some guys on DigitalWebbing.com as well as PencilJack.com who simply are not professional standard but seem to think otherwise.

Admiral Ackbar says it's a trap!Keep in mind the following. With my very first project (Sovena Red) I dealt with a scam artist passing off other people’s work as his own who was then running off with the 50% upfront and switching aliases. See my early blog posts for more details. Then I got screwed around by my back up cover artist who did one evening’s work on two rough layouts for me and then wanted to charge me $50 bucks per additional rough. There is a dangerous mix of greed and egotism out there in the business world and comic books are no different than any other business. Just as artists can get screwed out of getting paid, writers can lose their money to fly by night jackasses, and uncompromising, egotistical jerkwads.

I no longer ‘trust’ or take people at their word and am more than aware of at least one scam being run out there. In fact, I laughed out loud on Saturday night when one of the fifty or so responses to the colorist ad I posted was ‘Ron Runstrom’ (the alias of scam artist Josh Hoopes). Obviously he has not yet heard the news that Rich Johnston has exposed him over at BleedingCool.com as he’s still trying to fool newbie writers and publishers into giving him the fairly standard 50% upfront so he can then drop off the face of the Earth with their money. In my advertisement on DigitalWebbing.com I was very clear that I would ignore all applicants who did not follow my guidelines to the letter, and Ron (Josh Hoopes) sent the same generic email as he had to Rich Johnston and myself in the past months. The sad thing about Josh is that he can very easily drop the Ron Runstrum alias and create a new one and keep scamming people out of their money. I hope this guy gets arrested ASAP. Someone needs to kick this guy’s ass and help set a precedent to discourage scam artists from these fraudulent schemes.

One guy who responded to my first ad back in April questioned my request for references, shrugging it off as being unusual on my part and only offering to provide them if I still insisted. After feeling like I was being schooled by Mr. Knowitall, I responded by telling him that I wanted references because this was a paying job.

Sorry for turning this into a rant, but I really think freelancers over at DigitalWebbing.com need to hear this and think about their approach to job announcements before firing off a hurried and brief email. Of course not all the guys that respond suck. Some follow my requirements to the letter, are professional, and engage me in a bit of dialogue and enthusiasm for the project. It’s these guys that I remember and spend more time reviewing. So take some time, do some research and show that in your email. Even if I don’t end up hiring you for this job, the feeling I get for you will be a positive one and I may use you for another job in the future, or recommend you to my friends and acquaintances in the industry. After all, it’s all about networking.

Sovena Red update!

At Heroes Con, Leanne and I had our table next to the After School Agent team (Scott Weinstein, Chris Zaccone, and Gino Patti) and we had a blast. I wish we had been able to spend more time together outside of the show. Scott, Chris and Gino are a laugh-a-minute group of New Yorkers who we made quick friends with back at Heroes Con 2008. Scott and Chris are the creative force behind After School Agent, a comic book about a 12 year old secret agent with super powers.

Scott is the nicest guy we have ever met as well as the producer for Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update”, Chris is a superb artist and after only seeing him briefly at New York Comic Con in February, it was a long overdue to finally get to hang out with him at Heroes. Gino is an art teacher for high school students with a comic project of his own that he is currently developing. Gino got lucky and when the table on the other side of After School Agent ended up being empty throughout the show, so he was able to spread out and occupy it all by himself. It’s these guys that make the show for us so great and I can not wait to see them all again whether it is at Baltimore or New York.

After School Agent Team

Both Chris and Gino each generously offered their time and talent to a commission of Sovena Red. I was honored to have these two great guys tackling my character and making her tangible outside of my writings. I could not have been more blown away by either piece.

Gino drew me a beautiful airborne Sovena Red with just the right amount of mischief on her face to perfectly capture her spirit and personality.

Chris drew me a picture of Sovena Red looking admiringly up at Captain Wonder (her fellow super hero crime fighter from the 1960s and 1970s).

Check out Gino’s new site for artists. Chillustrators.

You can see them pictured below, including the silhouette mock up that Osmarco Valladao (the Sovena Red logo designer) threw together to accompany the logo design as a fake cover. Osmarco is a writer as well as a colorist, based in Brazil. He has an absolutely stunning comic / graphic novel titled “Sinchroncity” which he writes and colors, with Manoel Magalhães.

On the Sovena Red comic book front, the amazing John Amor continues to impress me with each new page. I have now uploaded the first three pages as a teaser. You can view them below.

Artist Luis Lasahido is working on a pinup that may end up being the front cover and as soon as I get the finished piece I will share it here.

The wheels of steel are turning and the traffic lights are burning as the Sovena Red machine heads into July. Now I just need to settle on the colorist…

Katusha!

Katusha by Wayne VansantAnother great little moment from Heroes Con 2009 was meeting Wayne Vansant, writer and illustrator of The Nam, Two-Fisted Tales, Red Badge of Courage GN, and countless war comics. Wayne is from Georgia, and I don’t know if it’s southern charm, or simply Wayne’s warm personality, but he was a pleasure to talk to and I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation as much as I enjoyed flipping through his comics and admiring his detailed pinups.

Our conversation began as I tried to peak at a pinup girl that Wayne had surreptitiously hidden underneath another illustration. Although Wayne did not have any other pinup girl work on display, I have an eye for beauty and couldn’t resist the temptation to look. Really pathetic, I know, but that’s just how this went down and I’m being honest. 😉 Wayne obliged me with a laugh explaining that I looked old enough to see, and soon we were sharing stories about World War II in which our not-so-distant ancestors fought so bravely.

Wayne is working on an epic graphic novel called Katusha about a Russian woman who joins the Russian army along with many other women during World War II. The eastern front saw the bloodiest battles history and the devastation of Russia’s resources and people. Katusha ultimately becomes a tank commander, something Wayne assured me could happen in the Soviet military machine of the 1940s. Wayne’s research and artwork are astounding. Anyone with any remote interest in this subject matter please check out his work and watch Katusha’s progress.

When I filled Wayne in on the Sovena Red comic project he was delighted as our interest in Russian history and culture came into play. I made quick and handy use of my new iPhone’s voice recorder to grab some snippets of Wayne’s wisdom concerning Russian superstitions that he had gleaned over the years. I can not wait to work them into the stories.

As more customers came up to Wayne’s table I offered to buy him a couple of adhesive cardboard stands to raise the eye-line of some of his great War pinup pieces rather than leave them flat on the table. I gave them to him and promised to return to talk more and buy more of his books. As the Sunday afternoon flew by so quickly I ran out of time and we did not cross paths again. It’s funny the people that you end up remembering the most fondly are sometimes those you least expect. :-)