Ally and I take a break after a long comicon weekend.
“We’ve been in this hustle called comics for a long long time.”- Ed Piskor, upon being being introduced to Ally at Pittsburgh Comicon.
It’s been a busy summer and early fall. We’re pretty much done with comic conventions for the year (maybe December show) – Response to the God Child project has been really great and now it’s time for us to hunker down and get back to work on finishing the first big book to deliver to our publisher, which we are really excited about. (more on that at a later date.)
Getting back to shows and meeting fans old and new was really great. There was one fella who said he’s been looking for me for years to get me to sign some Hero By Night books and his FCBD edition. Over and over again I was asked for more Hero By Night and praised for those stories. I always see the collectors coming and stopping with their big carts when they see me and start paging through to find what they need signed. I can’t explain it, but it’s a really cool feeling to know that something I did has been cherished or put away. It really makes me think about my work and the craft differently. I’m of course asked for more, and there are more stories to tell. I may be up for it soon. Lots of things have changed, one important one being that certain entities don’t exist anymore and contracts have expired. I do believe ALL of the rights have reverted back to me. I’ll decide what i’m doing pretty soon, but it most likely will not involve another publisher of any kind. Just me.
Even though we went to the biggest convention in the world, and maybe the smallest, Pittsburgh Comicon really was Ally and I’s first “real” comicon working together. I was asked to host a panel on Saturday for digital comics and creative partnerships and I started off by telling my path to where I was now…. and essentially my “career” began at Pittsburgh Comicon in 1995. I never really thought about it in depth before. It’s been 19 years since I took this stuff as serious as I could. 13 of which were full time freelancing years. Some good, some bad, but I just kept trucking along as I matured. I went from hand stapled minicomics, self published comics, being solicited by indy publishers, freelancing for great indy writers, then crossing over into webcomics land (one of the first young punks to put their comics online when people said it was dumb and crazy) then finally “selling out” and then back to indy comics again.
I took a small detour for a couple years away from “the hustle”, as Ed Piskor calls it, but it feels really great to be back and actually feel like I’m back 100%. All of the good and bad experiences I’ve had over the last decade in comics and my personal life have ultimately made me a better storyteller.
It’s also been great to know my work or past articles are still inspiring and helping others coming up in the hustle. I would really like to start blogging some articles like that again. If you have any suggestions for topics in and around self publishing, comics, drawing or marketing and the business side, drop me a line or comment here.
Our new story is trucking along… you can read and follow along weekly for free at http://godchild.keenspot.com – Thank you!!!