Up From Genre City

Today Is The Day

Here's the basic boilerplate, gang. Knock yourselves out and spread the word.

The creator of Modern Tales' Mini-Masterpiece Genre City launches his long awaited multi-media juggernaut, !PASS today, Monday, September 12th.

Aside from all the cool mini-comics and merchandise you can pick up, the real meat and potatoes is the content I'll be dropping on an almost daily basis. Here's how it all shakes out:

Mondays & Fridays

Genre City: Lonely Information is a prose detective novel, scanned in page by page from an alternate dimension where it's already been published in hardcover and adored by millions. I think it's safe to say that no one has serialized a novel in quite this peculiar a fashion. It takes place, as you might have guessed, in the same locale as the Modern Tales comic, and explores the city in much greater detail than the comic ever could.

Tuesdays

Ben At Work is a weekly look "behind the scenes" at Camp Interstate !, featuring sketches, script exerpts and various other items of interest, along with some brief commentary.

Wednesdays

Genre City: Plan B is the big one. A full color graphic novel detailing the story of five protagonists who have just recently finished what most would consider to be the interesting parts of their lives. Now they have to figure out what to do next. You've thrilled to it on Modern Tales, now you can thrill to it here as well.

Thursdays

The Kings Of Pop is most likely the funniest webcomic about soda enthusiasts you're likely to read. I'm not going to say it's the only webcomic about soda enthusiasts you're likely to read because, let's face it, there are like eighteen million webcomics out there.

Sundays

When Sundays Strike! serves as repository for any and all stories and items related to my Interstate ! corner of the playground. Illustrations, short stories, one page introductory strips. They're all fair game. And I'm starting things off with an entire 10 Page short story. Because that's how highly I think of all of you.

And, since it's Premeire Week, you'll be able to take in this entire week's worth of content today. Every item is freshly updated for your enjoyment. See you next week and every week after that, pretty much every day.

It's on now.

Comics Enlargement

So, I had a slight change of heart with the postcards.  As you recently discovered, the plan was to have a doublesided postcard jimmied up to look like a TV Guide pastiche.  I took a break from coloring the "cover" to work on the "back page" which went from its original concept of a "page" of this "TV Guidesque" "magazine" and became some kind of advertisement likely to appear on the "back" of this "magazine".  I was planning on having the wear on the front side carry over to the back to really solidify the illusion.  This is what I came up with, though.

I'm pretty head over heels in love with the idea, I'll be the first to admit.  It got me thinking, maybe I should scrap the Magazine Cover idea and really run with the idea of Prescription Drug campaign.  I finished off the "fine print" on the ad (easily my favorite part) and went to bed for a few hours.

At around five in the morning I leapt out of bed and started pacing.  I was thinking mostly about things I could do with this approach at a convention.  Handing the cards out the way people hand out stuff in Times Square.  Not the sad, Brazillian Passport/Barber Shop handouts, but rather the premium, Free NutraGrain Bar hand outs.  And that led me, inevitably, to this:

It's a perfect combo, and a perfect, fun approach.  I can stand around going "Are my comics right for you?" hand out the cards, etcetera.  The only thing that's going to get hairy is, really how do you pronounce !Pass?  That was another thing I paced around about.  I was thinking for a while it could be any kind of non-verbal grunt, a personal favorite of mine being that weird "Rrr!" that Michael Bluth exchanges with Heather Graham in the Arrested Development episode "Shock And Aww".  This morning, though, I came to the temporary conclusion that I might just pronounce it "Ex Pass", which would be a necessary shorthand for the clumsy sounding "Exclamation Point Pass".  So that might work.

Basically, I'm planning on spreading the "Is !Pass Right For You" meme like a fucking virus this September.

Ask your doctor.

"Labor Day." "Labor What?" "Labor Day." "What Day?" "Labor Day." "What What?

So, I've decided to knock the !Pass launch back a week because it's got to a launch on a Monday and I just don't think it will make as big a splash on a major holiday as it would otherwise.  I think it's for the best, not to mention it gives me another week of cushion.  But I assure you, I was totally ready to go on 9/5.

As far as progress, I had a ridiculoulsy productive weekend.  Iron-On Club logo?  Done.  Subscription Message?  Colored, lettered, paneled, done.  New Kevin Analog cover?  Done, and much more striking.  Dude, I even finished stuff I wasn't planning on starting.  To wit: The !Pass Letters Page.  It's the first time I've ever fiddled around with actual aging in Photoshop.  The Plan B and Lonely Information logos weren't actually modified in Photoshop to age them.  They were scanned in and then I cloned out anything in the middle to give me a nice smooth working area.

I also came up with a postcard design which I'm pretty much happy with.  Thanks to the developments I made with the Interstatements logo, I decided I wanted to do something similar for the postcard, something aged out.  So I'm going to mock up the front side like a TV Guide cover and have a list of the main !Pass "channels" with a synopsis and a small piece of art on the back and make it look as much like a page of TV Guide as possible.  I'll be using a piece of unreleased Plan B art for the "cover", which will be giving everyone a taste of this really gorgeous Genre City print image that no one's seen but is easily the best thing I've ever drawn.

I've also been looking into Newsletter solutions.  Joey has said that it will eventually be built into the WCN engine but I'd really like to have one ready for launch.  Also, the Email Notification, I think, would just be a bit too intrusive, as it would send out an email from me every day with nothing but a brief description of that day's update, as opposed to the weekly and robust "Note From The President" (or, in the this case, Beautification Association Chairperson) I'd like to have.

Also, you longtime readers will be happy to know that daily !Pass updates means daily content on this blog, albiet brief.  There will be a link to commentary at the bottom of every strip on the site, all of which means you've got a lot to look forward to, both behind and in front of the scenes.   So it's an great time to be a fan of my work.  All of three of you should be very excited.

Because Of Leo McGarry

It occurs to me, as the deadline for the !Pass launch looms ever closer, that I might want to think about blogging regularly about the process, about the enormous amount of stuff that needs to get done before the launch, about my priorities as they figure between print publishing and web publishing, and, in the case of The Kings Of Pop, taking advantage of the rare opportunity to chronicle the progression of an idea from the very instant it's thought up to its eventual dissemination into the ether.

Well, the idea interests me, anyway.

So, with only a little over a week to go before I launch !Pass, here was a list of must-do's I scrawled into my notebook yesterday:

• Subscription Message
• !Pass Gold ($24.95)
• T-Shirt Club ($14.95)
• Buttons
• Street Team (?)
• Iron-On Ad (Single)
• Kevin Analog Cover
• Postcard
• New !Pass Ad

Now, the Subscription Message is a little stop-gap I want to have before people feel like I'm forcing them to pay only for the privilege of reading my comics on the web.  That "only" is incredibly important and you'll see why in greater detail on September 5th.  Suffice it to say, though, getting that message across takes some doing.  First, I had to pencil and ink myself in an urging frame of mind.  I was pleased to discover that this sort of thing doesn't take nearly as long as it used to.  Lately I've been breezing through penciling and inking both in promotional material and in actual sequential work.  This, however, only occurs when I actually sit down to do it.  Second, I had to letter a rather enormous screed of dialogue that outlines my approach to subscriptions on !Pass.  Basically, I've decided that Genre City: Plan B is staying with Modern Tales and, thus, will require subscriptions to be read on my site as well.  However, effective Spetember 5, every single thing that anyone purchases from me, at all, whether its in person or online, comes with at least a month's subscription to Plan B on !Pass and in a few cases, an entire year's subscription.  More on that momentarily.

!Pass Gold is something I've had in mind since I got my WCN account. A catch-all, one time payment that will allow readers access to everything I do, whether it is in print or online or, in the case of Iron-On Club, wearable.  With the amount of content I'll be bringing to the site, that basically shakes out to quarterly mini-comics and one new Iron-On every month.  The good thing about it, for those who choose to hop on the plan, is that if I decide to do more, and there's a very good chance that I will now that I've pretty much abandoned the POD solution for comics production, they will be coming out severely ahead.  The reason it's on that list, though, is I need to iron out a brand identity for it so I can post it on Small Press Swapmeet.

"T-Shirt Club" is the potentially misleading shorthand for the cumulation of almost two years of consideration.  Along with the !Pass Gold-type scenario, I've also long desired to have some kind of "Of-The-Month" club for my Interstate ! universe.  I toyed with the idea of posters, postcards, monthly calendar one sheets; all sorts of things.  This dovetailed nicely into the frustrations I've had with the costs of flexible (read: Not Cafe Press) T-Shirt production, especially when sitting on such a potentially hot design, the Lightning Bolt Kevin Analog Mix Tape.  I don't know at what point I realized I could print out Iron-Ons ridiculously easily, but once I did, it was instantly obvious that this was not only the solution to my T-Shirt problem but also the perfect thing to offer as a monthly club.  So, for $14.95, you'll get the 12 Iron-Ons that will be sold individually on !Pass every month (for about $2.50) plus a bonus Iron-On only for club members.  And, also, a year's worth of access to the Plan B archives on !Pass.  The aforementioned Kevin Analog design will be the first entry in September, and I'm confident in my quite lovely logo designs that there will be no shortage of material over the course of the year.

As far as the buttons go, I need to get in gear and just take some quick pictures of the two buttons I currently have available so I can put them up on SwapMeet.

I've also toyed with putting together a Street Team package of the buttons, maybe some stickers and possibly an exclusive iron on design, but the moment I wrote it down on my to-do list I quickly realized that it wasn't a high priority.  All of those things are available seperately and they'll be doing their job on an individual basis.

"Iron On Ad Single" is just another tiny bit of busy-work, putting together a design for a SwapMeet entry for the first Iron-On, and it has to be ready on September 1st.  Now that I think about it, Anything Iron-On related is really a higher priority, because I'd like to launch that stuff on the 1st and not the 5th.

The Kevin Analog cover.  Right.  Well, basically I'm reprinting the Kevin Analog mini in a much lower-fi fashion, Copy Shop & Self-Cut/Stapled basically, and this will require a new cover design.  It doesn't need to be finished by the 5th, though.  Just needs to be ready for SPX.

I also want to have !Pass Postcards ready for SPX, to pimp the site in The Real World.  Again, not due on the 5th, but they do need to be considered.  Also, lastly, I wanted to make a slightly more involved ad for !Pass than the one that currently resides in the back of the Kevin Analog mini.

So, how did I do last night?  Well, The Subscription Message is fully pencilled, inked, and lettered.  And that was really the hardest bit on the entire list, except maybe the Postcard design.  All I've got to do is color it and slap it online.

As I looked down the barrel of this work pile, I started to wonder why exactly I was going through all this trouble?  There are tons of webcomics and print comics that are promoted and put out much more shoddily and have a much wider audience and level of exposure.  You'll note that nothing on that list is any kind of serious attempt at marketing my product or getting the word out.  Well, maybe the postcard.  There are several ways to do this and if I wanted to, I could divert this energy into designing more banners and contacting sites about ad rates, etcetera.  So why am I putting the energy into creating clubs and subscription packages that, potentially, no one will be interested in?

The first thing I thought of?  Leo McGarry.  Chief Of Staff (whoops, EX-Chief of Staff) to West Wing's president Bartlett, he was instrumental in getting the President through the tough transition from Governor to Presidential Candidate.  At one point, a frankly terrified Bartlett tells Leo that he is simply not ready to go out there and act like someone who should be president.  He doesn't have it in him.  Leo tells him succinctly, "Fake it till you make it."  And that, my friends, is exactly what I'm doing.  I'm not kidding myself by thinking that !Pass' launch is going to be met, press releases or no press releases, with anything more than passing interest at best.  But those five or ten people a day that are already browsing through the site are going to find something that looks like and offers just as professional an experience as anything else on the web.  And that stuff will be there whether or not anyone takes advantage of it.

Because, honestly, I have spent far too much time trying to get the word out and far too little time producing stuff that's worth generating word.  So I'm done.  I've set up a structure that will allow me to simply produce and if people start noticing, fine.  If they don't, well, they're going to feel pretty out of the loop when I drop down on APE 2006 like a goddamned atomic bomb with, what, nine Iron-On deisgns, like five kick ass mini-comics and a website with a fairly blinding amount of content.

So that's what I've been working on.  Oh, and a little other thing, I mapped out pretty much all of Lonely Information on the train ride to work this morning, which is a massive development and one I'm ecstatic over.  I have a huge chunk of the first chapter written, enough for at least a month's worth of updates, but I did hit a bit of a wall until I realized I had overlooked an enormous opportunity to link the novel concretely with the Plan B storyline.  Once I introduced that key element, which you're batshit crazy if you think I'll be spoiling here, the rest of the novel fell into place pretty easily this morning.  At least as far as the broad strokes go.  Now, I'll let you in on a little secret, I've never had that happen before with a longform work.  Sure, I've got the beginning and end of Plan B in my head, and I've also got the very last Genre City story in my head and have for some time.  But this is a new and very comforting achievement for me and one that, frankly, was a critical step if I had any real interest in crafting a working Detective Novel.  Well, now I've got one.  I'll tell you, folks, it is working overtime.  September 5th.  Be ready to fall in love.

That's How I Roll

The Kings Of Pop are coming.

And just think, it's like you saw it all happen right in front of you.

The Things That MoCCA Taught Me (2005 Edition)

So I rocked myself a table at MoCCA this weekend grudgingly debuting a mini-comic entitled Kevin Analog, as some of you may already know.  I found it to be a learning experience on several levels.  Allow me to explain.

Rule #1:  BORING IS ALL YOU CAN AFFORD

Alot of what happened with Kevin Analog, a book which some of you may now be familiar with, had to do with the siren call of this fairly new development in self-publishing: digital printing.  What it promises is incredibly appealing.  For a surprisingly low fee, say 50 cents a book, you can get a color cover on your mini-comic.  Now for someone like myself, who is heavily into cover design and logo design, this is all too appealing.  I designed my first mini to look like a 7" single with a label depicting the comic inside.  I remember when I first got the box of books, my first reaction was that the printing wasn't all that bad, but it wasn't that great either.  The saving grace was that it was surrounded by a white background, which rendered any print deficiencies pretty moot, as you could barely notice them.  But it did plant that teensy voice in my head, saying, "Benjamin, you realize this is not offset printing.  This is digital.  If you look for even a few seconds too long, you will see the flaws inherent in this process."  I didn't listen to it.  Instead, several months later, I designed, drew and colored a cover I fell absolutely in love with.  With the promise of digital printing in my mind, I had visions of sellouts and raves, of several cries of "Oh, the book of MoCCA 2005?  Are you fucking kidding?  Kevin Analog.  No question."  Having a cover in your PhotoShop window that you literally can't go fifteen minutes without pulling up, even when you're drawing something unrelated or watching Scrubs Season One with your girlfriend, can do that to you.  So, the day before the convention, the box arrives on my doorstep.  And my friends, I had no clue what I was looking at.  There are a zillion reasons why the gap between what the cover looked like on my iMac looked so very and ghastlily different from the one I stared at that morning, and most of them are my own fault.  There are obviously differences between print colors and screen colors.  Had I given the printer more time to work, I would've gotten a proof (See: Rule #2).  But the resounding lesson was clear: A Book You Spent 1/3rd The Money On And Printed At Kinko's Would Look 175% More Professional This.  So, Rule #1: Boring Is All You Can Afford.  Until you can raise enough money to go Offset, don't waste your time calibrating a beautiful balance of color and design nuance.  Here's the perfect example of why.  The back of the Kevin Analog book was the simple monochrome image of a Cassette Tape  with lightning bolts around it, surrounded by white and balanced by my admittedly gorgeous Interstate ! logo.  A bold design that had the pin it was also on pretty much flying off the table.  On Saturday, I displayed the book with the front cover facing up right next to a copy of the book with the back cover facing up.  Literally, EVERY SINGLE PERSON who picked up the book went straight to the back cover version, even in some cases PUTTING THE BOOK DOWN when they flipped it over and saw the other side.  Obviously, Sunday, I only displayed the book back cover up with a gorgeous glossy mounted print out of the cover behind it.  So, the copies that didn't sell (and, friends, it is miraculous that I sold even one) are never ever leaving the box that they're in right now.  Kevin is going back to press with a completely bare bones black and white cover, featuring the logo and nothing else.  Because a good logo, which I tend to come up with occasionally, can move a book on its own, if you just get the fuck out of its way.

Rule #2: MAKE MINI-COMICS WHEN YOU HAVE THE MATERIAL, NOT THE TABLE.

This should have been obvious from the get go, but the self-publisher can easily delude him or herself into thinking that, even in this day and age of teeming internet commerce, that you only really sell books four or five times a year, from behind a table.  This is bullshit.  And the only thing it gets you is a table with two books and a hard drive at home with another 60 to 70 pages that the thousands upon tens of thousands of people who actually don't have a Modern Tales subscription have never seen, but after marvelling at that legitimately bitching Mix Tape button you made and then dropping fifty cents for the priviledge of putting it on their backpack, probably might have had a legitimate interest in.  If you had been smarter and put out cheap mini-comics whenever you had eight pages of comics to stuff them with, you would have been behind a table just flat out teeming with content.  And that means diversification.  And that means, inevitably, $$$.  (See Also: Rule #4)

Rule #3: CARROT TOP WAS RIGHT

So, the table is set up , you've got your comics, you've got your buttons, you've even got a showstopper of a banner behind you that is easily the most professional looking thing you've ever had printed.  But, for those first few hours, the interest is sort of minimal.  So, it dawns on you that you're hocking a comic about a guy who, ostensibly, uses mix tapes to fight crime.  You run to the new Best Buy which opened a mere two blocks away from The Puck and you buy ten blank tapes.  A few brilliantly conceived labels later (BANK ROBBERY 4.02.03, PRISON BREAK Vol. 2), and you're now running a table with a visual representation of what your book is all about.  I sold my first copy of Kevin Analog not ten minutes after the mix tapes appeared and spent the rest of the weekend explaining to people why there were blank tapes on my table of comics.

Rule #4: DIVERSIFY YOUR BONDS

Apparently there's this guy who walks around comic festivals, berating the exhibitors for not having more stuff.  He's, obviously, right.  The obvious change one first arrives at when considering Rule #1, is that, still, America loves beauty and color and zazz in her comic artwork.  But paying out the nose for it is just cold not worth it unless your going to do it right.  Scratch that, unless you CAN do it right.  And most self-publishers who don't have their day jobs at a Professional Printer can't.  But one thing most self-publishers DO have is a halfway decent printer.  So imagine this table, a good selection of mini-comics, that are now a bit cheaper since you didn't have to drop so much on them, with really sharp, simple, and eye catching covers.  And what's that behind them?  Glossy prints that you printed out yourself, full color and exactly as gorgeous as you envisioned them.  Hell, print five and sell them for ten, they are 13x17 after all (yeah, I happen to have access to pretty incredible printer).  Not everyone is going to buy them, of course, but all you need is that one person.  The person that actually reads Genre City every week, the person that actually knows who you are and loves your work.  On June 10th, 2005, you would've only allowed him to give you six dollars TOPS.  June 11th, 2006?  You could be looking at forty bucks easy.  Also, if you've got a sneaking suspicion that something you designed is cool enough to be on a button, for God's sake, throw that shit on a t-shirt.  I could have sold at least a dozen of those this weekend if I'd had the foresight to make them.

Rule #5: FREEDOM ISN'T FREE

I just don't get people who give away their comics to their friends and their family.  These are the only people on the PLANET who you can count on for sales.  That's it.  That's the rule.  Charge your friends, they should be over the moon to buy your shit anyway.  Otherwise they're just hanging out with you to up their street cred and they officially suck.  If your family won't buy your comics?  I don't know, man, that's some Dr. Phil shit.

Rule #6: AMERICA LOVES CONTESTS

It took me about two hours to take the Kevin Analog Mix Tape Competition from wild idea to almost fully designed flyer and press release.  Two days and one gorgeous illustration later, it's getting press on Fanboy Rampage.  MoCCA weekend, it's wowing passersby right and left.  It's the easiest thing in the fucking world to cook up and it will cost you next to nothing.

So, thanks so much, MoCCA, for the sales and for the lovely new friends I made and old friends I saw again, but more than that, thanks for the things I'll take with me to SDCC.  And APE.  And MoCCA 2006.  Etcetera, etcetera.

Post

Sweet Christmas, it's been like FOREVER since I last posted on this thing.  Why, you ask?  I've been hip deep entrenched in getting together my latest mini-comic creation and for the past very long while I've been doing nothing but post-production for it.  Spotting blacks, doing borders and letters in Illustrator, that sort of thing.

See?  The title works on so many levels.

I have to say I'm burstingly excited about this new comic.  I've yet to mention its name because it's already been nicked once and even though the new title is better than the old one, if you think I'm saying that bitch out loud before I've got it folded, stapled, and printed in my bare hands, then you are just out of your goddamned mind.

There's more on the horizon.  Like a stand alone subscription site exclusively for Interstate ! material, including a serialized illustrated novel that's going to let me get down and dirty into the details of Genre City and the Interstate ! Universe at large.

And I'm sure I'll be posting at length about the new Star Wars movie and the new Gorillaz album and the Lost and Deadwood Season Finales and so so so much more.  So, thanks Alex, for the kind comment below.  But I'm back now.  So show some respect to our fallen brother and quit frivolously dropping his quotes!

I'm on it like John Gulager, son!

That Sweet Sting Of Sweat In Your Eye

Thanks to the complete non-response I received from anyone who I gave or sold the book to at SPX, I suppose I was living in a bit of a bubble when it came to the Near, Mississippi story I published in my first mini-comic.  As with much of my work, when I was actually working on it, I felt like everything in the story was done right.  Sure, the art could use some work, but at least I was telling a tight, if a bit obtuse, story.

Jai Nitz's review (scroll down to the end), which I am eternally grateful for, proves that I was probably being a bit too generous to myself.  Maybe it's because it's the first review of this material?  That's why I'm so despondent?  I swear, whenever I flipped through the 11 pages of this story, I was struck by how well I had pulled things off.  Again, having the benefit of being in my own brain, I could follow all the subtle threads of the story.  Any readers of the story did not have the same luck.

There are monsters (or maybe aliens, I can't really tell) for no reason. Do they represent something specific, or are they there just for the sake of being weird? I don't know, and I don't know if Birdie does either.

Ouch.  That was the one that stung.  See, what I was trying to do (and to anyone who hasn't read the story, read: all of you, this will probably lost on you) was find a way to personify the phenomenon of the Next Guy.  The guy who falls in love with someone and has to deal with the detritus of her previous relationship, in this case a several-dicked monster who everyone thought was the coolest guy of all time and his infant son.  The reason the story was so populated with freaks was because, well, I guess I just liked the weirdness of their presence and how mundane their existences were.  So, yeah, I guess the monsters really were there for no reason.  Does this mean that The White Girl and Kid Insomnia and Toner Monkey and all the other weird-ass freaks I've created are pointless?  That the themes I'm out to explore are better explored via normal characters?  Am I to abandon the things that bring me pleasure in creating comics?

Nah.  I mean, everything I do in comics has an abundance of weird characters that are just there.  I think "A Worrying Thing" (the story in question) could definitely be improved, but I think it looks more like it wasn't Mr. Nitz's cup of tea.  But hey, he likes the cover, and that was really the battle I was out to win.

Now With Bleach

I'd have to say it all started with the wristband.

I have a pretty selective palate when it comes to Manga and Anime, even with my recently rekindled interest in both mediums.  One thing that's hardly ever appealed to me was your straightforward, giant-sword-brandishing-monster-hunting teen manga.  There's about a zillion examples of the genre and none of them ever caught my eye.  But there was something just incredibly cool about a kid in the typical getup of these kinds of stories wearing the red white and blue wristband.

So, that's what originally drew me to Bleach.  Lucky for me, it's a legitimately great comic.  The closest comparison I can draw would probably be to Buffy at its root.  You've a noble teenager fighting monsters but the story never slouches on delivering the minutia of teenage life that's essential to having any kind of lasting interest in the characters.  Ichigo, our protagonist, is tasked to become a Soul Reaper, which is sort of like a combination between a Ghostbuster and, I don't know, Nate Fisher?  But really all that stuff is the incidental backbone of the story and not really what I feel like talking about.

This is what I'm talking about:

I mean, it's like Jamie Hewlett drawing manga.  I am completely enamored with the design that author Tite Kubo puts into the clothes that Ichigo rocks both in the story and in the chapter endpapers like this one.  It's probably one of the greater recent influnces on my upcoming Kid Analog mini-comics. I mean, I know that there's no way I could pull off that exact level of detail in my own work, but that kind of casual fashion badassery is exactly what the doctor ordered for the adventures of a 28 year old ennui driven super-hero in the suburbs of Minnesota.

That reminds me, I haven't said word one about Kid Analog.  I ought to post a crapload of stuff about the development of the character here.  You know, show some sketches, the evolution of the pencil-only style I plan to use, that kind of stuff.

In the mean time, know this: Bleach is good.  You should read it.  I mean look at this one:

Nuts, right?  Absolutely radical.  He's even got the parka collar that is, like, Kid Analog's raison d'etre.

Oh, did I mention I learned the Hiragana?  I can write anything phonetically in Japanese now.  It's basically a first grade level of Japanese language retention, but still.  By the end of the year, I'll hopefully be able to at least read Japanese at some kind of functional level.  I've got to reccomend Remembering The Hiragana by James Hesig, the book I used.  It doesn't take long, and its use of imagery to teach you the hiragana is nothing short of brillaint.  For よ (yo), Hesig has you visualize a puppy, tied to a boomerang, getting egg yolks chucked at it.  How could you not remember that?  Four stars.

Dumb Luck

So, it just so happens that my Local Comic Store (or, "LCS"), Midtown Comics, is also an enormous online comic-selling monolith. It took nothing more than a five minute walk and ten minute discussion with their comic buyer to get ten copies of my mini-comic on their stands this Wednesday and on their website right now, which potentially puts in the hands of anyone on Earth with an internet connection. Almost too easy.

I'm unfamiliar with the usual consignment process but I was pretty happy with 10 books changing hands. I sold them at 50%, as is customary, which still gives Mike and I a not-laughable amount of profit. Although we still haven't broken even (if we sell 200 copies, we'll still make a good deal of profit above and beyond the printing costs, which still leaves 50 copies for promotion). So, when I go to pick up my comics this Wednesday, I'll have my own book staring back at me. Too sweet.

Before I get into my Genre City work as of late, I ought to explain how the switchover to Modern Tales worked. When Joey Manley contacted me, I was 55 pages into the story, serializing it once a week on my site. Until about page 45, all lettering was done by hand, and until page 54, all computer lettering was done in Photoshop. One of my big pushes before Joey approached me was relettering the entire story so far, and in Illustrator, giving everything a much cleaner look and providing a much-needed distraction from the not-as-good-as-it-is-now artwork. Since maybe only 20 people were reading the comic regularly, I didn't see much of a problem in starting the entire story over in June of 2004 on Modern Tales and serializing it twice a week. I was up to about page 15 in the relettering process at that point, so I figured I had a two fold head start. A) I didn't have to draw another new page of Genre City until December and B) I had at least seven weeks of comics already ready to go. This is why, in August, I had an abundant amount of time to work on the Near, Mississippi story. Now, it's October 12 and Page 39 has just gone live.

One of the more mundane things I've had to do was go into the original Photoshop files for each page and strip out the lettering. For the first 45 pages, this meant a slightly time-consuming process of selecting particular areas of the line art and deleting them. Once I got past 45, though, it became a much easier task of deleting the layers which had the new computer lettering. This weekend I finally finished off the last page that needed lettering stripped out of it. This is good news. I also lettered pages 39 through 42 in Illustrator and uploaded the jpgs to the Modern Tales ftp site. So that means the pressure's off for the next two weeks.

Here comes the scary part. The most important lead, "A)", is completely gone in the middle of December. I had hoped to have a bit more time to build up another lead once I'd finished the lettering process for the pages I'd already drawn and colored. I currently have 12 more pages to letter in Illustrator before I can start in on drawing new pages again. Realistically, I'm not that worried. Like I said, I breezed through four pages of lettering in one night and among the remaining twelve pages, there are at least four or five that will require nearly zero work to letter.

Where it's going to get sticky is in a week or two (it really shouldn't take much longer than that) when I start working full bore on Genre City again, all while dealing with the following self-imposed deadlines:

A) At least two of the Calendar Club Prints will have to be finished by December as well so I can put the whole package on SwapMeet and give any potential buyers a look at what they can expect (and it would really need to be more than one, in order to expect them to shell out twenty or so bucks).

B) I'd really like the first Kid Analog mini to be finished in time for a mini-comic festival in Athens, GA on January 29.

C) If I'm indeed going to that festival, I'd also like to have at least two of the Genre City prints finished, at least for display purposes, if not to sell outright.

D) I'd really like to have some kind of promotional copy of the first seven Genre City pages, mini-style, to sell for a few quarters.

I'm thinking that at some point, possibly at the end of the next serialized scene, Genre City will be serialized once a week instead of twice. This will definitely ruffle some feathers (it was definitely the loudest complaint among my original readers).

This, of course, brings us to a fundamental and tough question.

Should I be devoting this much time on projects not directly related to Genre City? Two of the above deadlines are completely unrelated to Genre City or its direct promotion.

My answer is that it is undoubtedly important to work on these other projects. For one, they could potentially appeal to people who might not appreciate Genre City, which is a long and involved story and it poised to clock in at a couple hundred pages when its first storyline is done. Everything else in the Interstate ! fam is set up as much shorter and much more accessible and approachable. However, there will be nothing I put out that doesn't contain at least a promotional message about Genre City and its presence on Modern Tales. So, in a way, I kind of look at one aspect of the Interstate ! projects as Genre City Business Cards that you pay for. And also that you can read, and derive enjoyment from.

It's a tough situation that will presumably only get tougher as mid-December approaches.

I'll keep you posted.

Points Of Interest

I figured that this particular category of my blog will serve as a kind of ongoing production journal, now that I've officially joined the ranks of North American Self-Publishers. I know that before I took this plunge, I was always highly interested in how people went about thois sort of thing, specifically, so that's what I'll be talking about. I've also been a fan of Larry Young's columns about self-publishing and the fly on the wall Production Journals of Spike Lee. This will be a sort of combination of the two, but with the caveat that, honestly, I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I'M DOING.

Here's what I DO know and these basic facts about my work and my situation will impact greatly on all the decisions I'll be making over the next few months and years.

a) My main ongoing work, Genre City, is, at this point, practically unpublishable in an independent manner. It is produced in full color. It has 8 1/2 x 11 dimensions. It is horizontal. It's not at all segmentable. Feel free to add significant amounts of money to your typical price tag for self-publishing a typical comic for each of the above wrinkles. That last one proves (and will continue to prove) the most complicating factor. Right now I'm in a position where my best bet is to print the prologue, currently complete, as its own book. Should work fine. It's 31 pages of story, add four chapter headings and you get 35, shouldn't be too hard to fill out a 48 page book with "director's commentary" and some nice endpapers and behind the scenes stuff. No sweat. But, like I said, it's in full color. So me doing it would cost a huge amount of money. On the flip side, the prologue would end up as 48 pages, with the next publishable chunk, Oxygen, probably in the 60-70 page range. Thus making it a really difficult sell to any substantial color publisher. The first volume is a potential floppy, everything afterwards is more of a perfect bound, collection-type book. But, even if it weren't that difficult of a publishing dynamic, we come to

b) I think that I'm in a vaguely unique situation, content-wise, especially when it comes to webcomics. Genre City is not a jokey "strip" type comic, the kind of comic which, when done well, has traditionally had no problem getting published. When it comes to Independent Publishers who print color comics, though, the list dwindles to near invisibility. I figure my best bet is Image Comics, who have a long and beautiful history of printing color books by both up and coming and established creators. But they haven't yet shown a more Dark Horsian proclivity to releasing oddly formatted and oddly scheduled books. I think Genre City is sort of straddling the line between the two companies. It's clearly not a comic that is fully at the Dark Horse quality level (yet), but I've created an odd enough style of pacing and telling the story, that I can't really see Image taking a chance on it. (Please note: I haven't even tried opening these kinds of lines of communication yet.)

Those are the two main reasons why Genre City is currently a webcomic. It takes such an enormous amount of effort (coloring, lettering, not to mention the already arduous tasks of writing, drawing and inking), but I really cannot see the story taking place any other way. It is a full color world, and it has to be, other wise the relatively drab current lives of our protagonists wouldn't work at all. The same thing goes with the lettering. It has to be in color and completely apeshit at times. I don't know why, but when I look through my archives, I just know it has to be. I've recently toyed with the idea of pulling out all the color in the book and trying to release it that way, at least release the prologue that way, and it's definitely a distinct possibility. Offer it in print in black and white and then invite readers to check it out in color on the web. I haven't done any tests yet, but I think the story would ultimately hold up well. My recent photocopies of the prologue, though, prove that greyscale renditions of the color work don't really work as well (mainly because of the "effects" on The White Girl's transparent gun. It just doesn't read.) This is something that I'll obviously be considering.

A few months ago, I was mainly of the belief that I would keep saving up money and eventually just save up enough to finally release the prologue on my own, apply for a Xeric at some point to try to help out. Then, two things happened. I don't remember how or which came first. Mike Rosenzweig and I decided to a) go to SPX and b) put out a mini-comic showcasing our work. Our first instinct was to do a story about our incredibly bizarre experience with Marvel Comics. I won't say more, because I'm sure someday we'll get around to telling the story, but needless to say, we were excited at the prospect. We quickly decided that an even better idea was to tell our own stories about the experience in the same comic, and release it as a flip book. Then, at some point, we both decided that neither of us really wanted to tell this story right now. Or maybe it was just me. I was having a lot of trouble coming up with a 12 page story about the experience. SO we decided instead to make it a showcase of our webwork. With Mike, it was no problem, and even now that the book is out, he had very little actual work to do. Buy the book today and you'll see 12 great pages of his webcomic, Everything Jake, spruced up for print. I, however, had the "a)" above to deal with and there was no way I'd be able to share a flip book with Mike's properly formatted comic. At some point during this time a name kept popping into my head, "Near, Mississippi" along with an attendant idea. A bunch of malformed rednecks, "almost human" (hence the name, get it?), living in a small swampland area. (Pogo meets Slacker [already it was more pitchable than Genre City, and I'd had the idea for only thirty seconds].) When Mike and I decided to do a flip book of our stuff, I knew that Near, Mississippi would be perfect. Everything about the idea was flexible. It could be a gag strip. It could be black and white. It could be traditionally formatted.

And this, I realized, was my way in, a way to sneak the albatross that was Genre City, eventually, through the gates.

Genre City is was and always will be an ongoing webcomic that will take up a huge amount of my creative time. What I needed, I realized, was smaller, low impact projects, that I could easily make time to work on, and that could build up a presence in the small press and could serve to get my name out there in a much more effective manner.

Because, unfortunately, there is a huge amount of problems for a huge amount of people when it comes to the subscription model that Genre City currently works under as a member of Modern Tales. It's nearly impossible to get people I know to read the comic and, returning to the above "b)" it's just not an enjoyable comic from page to page. It's an ongoing story and directing someone to its current page without them being able to read everything that came before it is a completely fruitless endeavor. It hardly ever works.

I have to add, though, that I was fully cognizant of this when I agreed to join the site, and I know for a fact that way, way, WAY more people are reading Genre City now.

So what I needed were stories, short stories, that were production-wise, completely apposite to Genre City. Near, Mississippi seemed perfect. Ironically, what started off as an attempt at straight gag humor (see: Page 1 of "A Worrying Thing") turned into what I consider to be a fairly dense and relatively depressing cohesive 10 page story. Which was not at all my intention. But I'm naturally happily surprised.

This way, I'd be able to hand people a comic, a finished product, that they'd be able to judge the merits of my work on. I have no idea whether the book will lead to more Genre City subscribers (definitely the Golden Egg), or even any increased interest in my work, but I do know this: Once You've Published A Physical Book Everything Is Completely Different.

A strange wrinkle evolved on my trip to Georgia at the end of August. On the trip driving there and back, and spending nearly 2/3rds of the trip working on the Near, Mississippi story and reading the Dark Tower, I conceived of a way to tie Genre City and Near, Mississippi together and at the same time create another 48 potential "Near, Mississippis" (i.e. low-impact, black and white stories, easily publishable). It came into my head originally as "E Pluribus Awesome" ("From Many, Comes Awesome") and that remains the concept's tagline, but when I started creating the logo, it quickly evolved into the much simpler and eyecatching: Interstate !. The main idea was to create a story/concept for each of the 50 states of the Union. Genre City (ostensibly New York) is the center, the nexus, but each of the attendant books follow the same rules and take place in the same Universe. They're also all basically the same kind of story. Not really adventure. Not really comedy. Anyone who's read my comics know this. They're just, well, my comics. I also quickly realized that they all won't be comics. Two of the ideas I've got in my head will be released as illustrated novels. Again, this is an easily publishable option in today's publishing marketplace. Basically the only thing that's off limits is a full color oddly shaped and formatted comic. Genre City will be the only time I ever do that. It is currently and most likely will be permanently the biggest story of the lot, and the only one that warrants that kind of treatment.

And that's where we are today. That's the goal. And this journal will describe the journey.

And it's already started. You can read Genre City every Tuesday and Thursday at Modern Tales. You can buy the first Near, Mississippi story.

One of the best things that happened as a result of the mini-comic's publication was meeting Logan DeAngelis and talking about his fantastic publishing company ComiXpress. One of the biggest bitches about setting up an SPX was how expensive it was to make color promo material. Logan told me about his company's ability to publish all kinds of color posters and flyers and my head was immediately filled with ideas. I have to say that I think my greatest strength, when it comes to pimping my shit, is design. I think the mini-comic has an awesome cover. I think that this promo image is fucking awesome. I think my Modern Tales banners are among the tightest on the site. But again, they're full color, and thus (I presumed) mad expensive to deal with. Logan explained to me, however, that there's no way it has to be that way. His company's solution is so inexpensive and so unrestrictive as far as minimum orders go, that the only limitation is my own output.

To that end, I'm currently designing a set of Genre City promotional posters and, more excitingly, I'm going to float the idea of the Interstate ! Calendar Club. Subscribers would get a new 11 x 17 full color print every month (functioning the same way a normal calandar would, with the date and everything) probably for something like $20 for the year, with a bonus 13th print (think "Smarch") for subscribers only. The best part is, even if only one person subscribes, it's a success. Again, there's no minimum here, so I won't be sitting on a bunch of unsold posters if it bombs (and there's no reason to suspect that by this December a huge amount of people would be interested.) The theme of the prints is going to be Untold Stories Of Interstate !, and while they'll mostly focus on scenes involving Genre City characters, they'll also be introducing other I-! characters who might not even see print in 2005. Again, this serves mostly to deal with problems "a)" and "b)". It is an easily accessible solution, with a tangible product and is sort of innovative enough that it might garner some attention on its own.

So, that's "The State Of The Union", as it were. This journal will start be detailing the selling promotion of the mini-comic, the ongoing production adventures of Genre City, and the genesis and execution of the Genre City Print and Interstate ! Calendar Club projects.

For starters.

Baby's First SPX

I wanted to wait until I could provide a full and exhaustive list of all the stuff I bought before "filing" my "full" "report", but eff that. In a few days no one's going to give a shit anyway. So, here, unexpurgated (word?) is my recollective report of SPX 2004, my first time ever behind an Exhibitor's Table.

DATELINE: THURSDAY NIGHT.

George Bush is getting shellacked on my telelvision. My bags are packed with some pajama clothes, way too many button down shirts, tons of photocopies that will never get used (had I only known) and not nearly enough promotional materials. Mike Rosenzweig pulls up outside the house. He gives me the directions. And we start a five hour trek to Virginia at 10:45 PM. The first of many miscalculations, as I will be following Michael (pronounced Mike-Showalter-of-Stella/Wet-Hot-American-Summer-style) in my spiff beyond belief Scion Xb. Also, Mike shows me the fruits of our labor. Our very own self-published comic fucking book.

Even though I was behind the wheel of an automobile that has to weigh at least a couple of hundred pounds while almost completely unconscious for the final thirty minutes of the trip, I somehow arrive at Mike's Dad's apartment complex in one piece. I open the box of Interstate ! buttons that I had had delivered directly to Virginia, discover that I had not converted the "!" to outlines and that what should have been an exciting Comicraft Monster Mash exclamative is nothing more than an oddly placed Helvetica joke, and then crumple to the ground in exhaustion. (Not entirely true. I did have enough energy left to tell Mike that his father needs to find the remote to his DVD player and reset it to output an Anamorphic signal if he wanted to get the most out of his ginormous 16:9 display. [I failed to add that he really at this point could just spring for the $60 Samsung DVD Player I have and some Component cables, I mean, if you are going to have a TV that blocks out the sun.])

DATELINE: FRIDAY MORNING.

I wake up on the floor of a living room and race through the morning's necessities. At this point, the excitement is palpable. I can't wait to fucking do this. I get to my car (once again set to follow Michael [once again pronouncing it like Mike Show, I trust all of you have seen Stella]) only to discover that the V8 Splash that was sitting in front of the passenger seat has at some point in the night leaked. The smell is fucking staggering. I open both windows and drive.

We arrive at the Holiday Inn was surprisingly little fanfare, but the starstruckedness starts early as Jim Rugg signs in right in front of us. Yes. That Jim Rugg. In what was probably the last remnants of my inexplicable shyness in front of comics professionals, I say nothing. We set up, eat breakfast, and then alter the set up of our table about four or five times before the 3 PM start of the show. We won't really be satisfied with the table's layout until tomorrow.

It doesn't take very long for the show to reach its highest peak in my estimation as I meet a fan in person for the very first time. My disbelief that someone might actually recognize my work is quickly squashed as the conversation turns to my comical usage of Boston Terriers. We have a nice conversation about how awesome my work is. It's probably one of the best things ever to happen to me, professionally, at this point. On Sunday I give the guy a free copy of my book. It is, literally, the least I could have done.

After that, my recollection of the show is a blur of passersby and shop talk, and here are the best parts, ocurring at random intervals throughout the weekend:

- I talk at length with Rob Ullman about the necessary Photoshop techniques used to create faux old book covers and comic book covers. He tells me about a great way to maintain creases above the art you're placing into the image.

- Erika Moen erroneously trades comics with me, thinking that I am in fact Drew Weing. There is a comical conversation about the mistaken identity, but we bump into each other a few more times over the course of the weekend. There are plenty of laughs, especially when I explain to her what "Small Press Comics" are Saturday Night. (You had to be there?)

- After a day of apprehension, I introduce myself to the Failure gang next door and the following occurs (in no particular order); Drew Weing introduces me to a fantastic new brush pen (The Niji Waterbrush, which I had missed in my ceaseless search for Brush Pens because it's actually designed to be used with watercolors), Antar Ellis and I discuss, at length current under and overground Hip-Hop releases (it is here that I learn, astoundingly, that the new De La Soul album would be dropping this week, at long last putting "Much More" [from their storied Chappelle's Show appearance] into my iPod at CD quality).

- Jason Lex shows me the most secret and hilarious Jeffrey Brown comic I've ever seen. It is a big secret filled with big laughs. If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about, and I hope that you have. He also shows me his utterly humbling "sketchbook" which is actually the most beautiful tool kit ever fabricated, containing any and all cartoon parts he needs for his comics within its pages.

- I meet and talk shop with Roger Landridge and a childhood dream is at last fulfilled.

- I also briefly but excitedly talk shop with Josh Neufeld, Jim Rugg, Dean Haspiel, Lauren Weinstein, Toby Craig, Scott Mills, Raina Telgemeier, and Bryan Lee O'Malley.

- R. Stevens, Jeff Rowlands, and I regale each other with the quotes of Dr. John Zoidberg.

- I mercilessly talk Logan DeAngelis' ear off about my excited plans for using the shit out of ComiXpress' poster offering capabilities this year and the next.

- I track down Heidi MacDonald via her bright pink backpack and give her a copy of the mini. Who knows what may happen next.

- Jeffrey Brown, James Kolchaka, Kevin Huizenga, Josh Neufeld, Dean Haspiel, Mike Rosenzweig, Jeff Rowlands, Antar Ellis, Rose Crowe, Drew Weing, Eric Powell, Jim Rugg, Jason Lex, Farel Dalrymple, Bryan Lee O'Malley, Hope Larson, Roger Landridge, R. Stevens, and Anders Nilsen all draw on a White Label Mr. Lif Record I brought with me and contribute to the best Birthday Present ever given to a girlfriend by her boyfriend.

Oh, and also, we sell ten copies of our mini-comic. And I hand it out and/or trade with several other people.

In closing, the entire experience was fucking incredible. And I will be at APE. By hook or, also, if necessary, by crook.

Here are things I can remember buying/trading for.
Jeffrey Brown's Bighead.
Jason Lex's Gypsy Lounge.
Roger Landridge's No More Mrs. Nice Nun and assorted minis.
Dean Haspiel and Josh Neufeld's Lionel's Lament.
Raina Telgemeier's Smile.
Farel Dalrymple's Pop Gun War.
Antar Ellis' Liner Notes and other mini.
Drew Weing's The Journal Comic and two minis.
All of Scott Mills' Superheroes and Seamonsterses.
Eric Powell's first Goon trade.
Bryan Lee O'Malley's Hopeless Savages book.
Hope Larson's Stung and Sex Rainbow.
Allison Cole's Science Fiction Affliction.
Erika Moen's Love Letter To My Pants (see above).

More if/when I think of it.

SPX: Merqury City Meltdown

Just wanted to let everyone know, I will be at SPX in Bethesda, MD this weekend, October 1st to the 3rd. Table 6-B in the Versailles room, right next to Drew Weing. Why, you ask? Well, first off, to get the buzz going for my new enterprise, Interstate !. And, I guess secondarily, TO SELL MY VERY FIRST SELF-PUBLISHED MINI-COMIC, BEE-HA! It's got the very first Near, Mississippi story in it, which I've titled, "A Worrying Thing". (Sneak a peek-a-loo!) It also comes with a special bonus page and 12 pages of Everything Jake comics by Mike Rosenzweig. If you're there, say hello. And, also, buy the comic.

You can also read the prologue of Genre City in full color at my Computerless Computer Terminal.

Hell Week

So, yes, things have been quiet. First, it was my vacation, now it's hell week. I'm gearing up for my first self-published work ever, premiering at this year's SPX, and at the same time glueing together a 22 page shot in the wind, which I have no interest in elaborating on until it actually goes somewhere. Until then, it's basically me wasting my own precious time.

But I'll say this, the first Near, Mississippi story (preview!), "A Worrying Thing", is probably the most accessible, tightest, and best work I've ever done. It's also, along with Genre City, one of the lynchpins of my own private universe, which will hearby be known as Interstate ! (you'll understand when you see the logo [hopefully] next week). Along with Near and the ongoing installments of Genre City (every Tuesday and Thursday, natch), next year will see the publication of Fair Play, SC (you're getting the gist of I-! at this point, yes?), an anthology comic with bookends by yours truly and, in the first issue, the work of the best artist you've never heard of, Jennifer Williams; among others.

Also next year, I'm hoping to add a little juice to the I-! line with an illustrated novel about an orphan and her dog. You can learn a bit more about all this stuff in Benjamin & Mike's Split 7" Mini-Comic this October, but by that point, there will be a huge I-! web-presence at my own site.

So, yes, it's an exciting time to be my fan.

P.S. It's an exciting time, period. HELLO. DTVII.