MISSOURI COMIC BOOK NEWS

In This Issue

Comic Book Calendar

Hugo Awards in K.C.

Ink and Drink Interview

Creating Comics

‘Epickos’ Comic Strip

Graphic novels at

Walmart

Graphic novels on sale at Walmart

Welcome to Missouri Comic Book News During my first (and to date, only) visit to Small Press Expo, I was in the hotel lob-

by chatting with another attendee.

“So, what kind of comics do you make?” I asked.

“I don’t make comics. I’m just a fan,” he said.

I’m not sure he could have said anything that would have taken me by surprise

more. It seems like a huge proportion of comic book fans are also aspiring comic

book professionals, which is why the theme of this first issue of Missouri Comic

Book News is “making comics.”

Inside, you’ll find our exclusive interview with St. Louis comic book collective Ink

and Drink, and some helpful tips for making your own comics. You’ll also get a

look at comic news from around the state, and a comic calendar to help you find

local shows and events.

It’s my hope that this newsletter will become a trusted resource for fans, collectors,

creators and retailers across The Show-Me State.

If your shop, group, or community has an event or news release that you would

like to see us cover, please send your information to missouricomicbooks@gmail.com

Kurt Parsons—Editor

A newsletter for comic book fans, collectors and enthusiasts across The Show-Me State July 2016

“Comics are a harsh

mistress, and as much fun

as it is to make comics and

get them out there in front

of readers, the production

side of it takes a lot of time

and effort. “ - Steve Higgins,

Ink and Drink

July 2016 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1 2

3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10 ToyMan

Show

11 12 13 14 15 16

17 18 19 20 21 22 NatsuCon 23 NatsuCon

24 NatsuCon 25 26 27 28 29 30 Comics

Central

31

July 10: ToyMan Show at Machinists Hall, 12365 St Charles Rock Road, Bridgeton, MO 63044. The Show has

over 200+ tables and well over 120 Vendors Buying / Selling / Trading Collectible Toys along with Authors, Comic

Illustrators & Cosplayers all in a 13,000 sq ft Building. Admission for adults is $5, children 16 & under free. Sunday:

9:00a - 3:00p Early Bird @ 8:00a - $12.00. Free parking.

July 22-24: NatsuCon anime convention in Collinsville, IL (just outside St. Louis). Japanese animation, video

games, manga, and Japanese traditions and culture. Attendees are allowed to and encouraged to dress up as their

favorite characters and compete for awards for best costumes in a Masquerade.

July 30: Comic Central at the St. Louis Public Library. One-day comic convention.

Aug 7: Comic Book Show: $2.00 Admission. American Legion Post 111. 7300 Lansdowne Ave, Shrewsbury,

Missouri 63119. Comics, sports and non-sports cards, toys, videos, and more. 314-544-2812.

Aug 12-14: Kansas City Comic Con. All-ages show featuring creators, vendors, cosplay and activities. $25 Friday,

$35 Saturday and $30 Sunday. Youth 11-16 $20, and children 10 and under are free.

Aug 17-21: MidAmeriCon II. MidAmeriCon II is the 2016 World Science Fiction Convention ("Worldcon"). Mid-

AmeriCon II’s Guests of Honor are Kinuko Y. Craft, Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Tamora Pierce, and Michael

Swanwick. MidAmeriCon II’s Toastmaster is Pat Cadigan. The winners of the 2016 Hugo Awards, the premier award

in the science fiction genre, honoring science fiction literature and media as well as the genre's fans, will be an-

nounced at a highlighted formal ceremony at the convention, on the evening of Saturday, August 20.

Email upcoming events to missouricomicbooks@gmail.com

COMIC CALENDAR

Hugo Awards Ceremony Coming to Kansas City One of the early testaments to the quality of Watchmen was its

Hugo Award win in 1988. The “premier award in the science

fiction genre” now has a Best Graphic Story category, which

includes 2016 nominees from publishers like Vertigo, Image

Comics and First Second.

The winners of the 1941 Retro Hugo Awards and the 2016 Hugo

Awards will be announced at a highlighted formal ceremony at

MidAmeriCon II, the 2016 World Science Fiction Convention

("Worldcon") , on Saturday, August 20. MidAmeriCon II, the

74th World Science Fiction Convention, will take place

from August 17-21 at the Kansas City Convention Center

and Bartle Hall.

HUGO AWARDS BEST GRAPHIC STORY NOMINEES

The Divine written by Boaz Lavie, art by Asaf Hanuka

and Tomer Hanuka (First Second)

Erin Dies Alone written by Grey Carter, art by Cory

Rydell (dyingalone.net)

Full Frontal Nerdity by Aaron Williams

(ffn.nodwick.com)

Invisible Republic Vol 1 written by Corinna Bechko

and Gabriel Hardman, art by Gabriel Hardman (Image

Comics)

The Sandman: Overture written by Neil Gaiman, art

by J.H. Williams III (Vertigo)

Show-Me Comic News Hastings has filed for Chapter 11 protection. The

company is actively searching for a buyer for its

business. Hastings gift cards will expire on July 13.

The company has discontinued game rentals, its

buyback program, and will no longer accept de-

posits for future movie purchases. In Missouri,

Hastings operates stores in Warrensburg, Jeffer-

son City, St. Joseph, Poplar Bluff, Cape Girardeau

and Kirksville.

Cosmic Collectables in St. Joseph celebrated its

20th anniversary on May 20. “Oddly enough I did

not start with comic books,” said owner Curtis

Couldry. “My business was action figures, but

action figure were not coming out at a regular

basis like they do now. I could go months

without a new figure coming in, my customers

would come in and not buy anything because

there was nothing new...so I looked into get-

ting comic books because they come out

weekly.”

Planet Comiccon in Kansas City is reporting at-

tendance of over 70,000 for the 2016 event, which

was held May 20-22. Planet Comicon says 2016 is

the most successful year in the con’s 17-year histo-

ry. One of Planet Comicon’s highlights was an ap-

pearance and celebration of the career of Stan

Lee, including designation by Kansas City

Mayor Sly James of May 21 as “Stan Lee Day

in Kansas City.”

The St. Louis Public Library presents the 2nd An-

nual Comics University. Every Wednesday from

June 1-July 20, a comic expert discusses different

facets of the industry. Workshops and classes run

from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at Central Library, 1301 Olive

Street. July topics include: Black Comics and Com-

ics Creators; Introduction to Archival Research of

Comics and Illustration; and Contract Writing for

Artists.

Recurring events at Star Clipper, 1319 Washington

Avenue, St. Louis: Wednesdays: Magic the Gather-

ing tournament, Standard format. Fridays: Magic

the Gathering tournament, Modern format. Sec-

ond Thursday of every month: Star Clipper Book

Club meetings.

Submit news to: missouricomicbooks@gmail.com

Ink and Drink, a St. Louis Comic Collective “What started as an excuse to drink beer and talk comics has now become an excuse to drink beer and MAKE comics,” says Ink and Drink, a collective of St. Louis-area comic creators that has been publishing trade paper-

backs and comics since 2010. Many of the group’s publications are anthologies, with popular comic themes like

superheroes, romance, horror, science fiction and war. Ink and Drink even published a “Local St. Louis” antholo-gy. The editorial council of Ink and Drink—editor Jason Green, editor Steve Higgins and creative director Carlos

Gabriel Ruiz—spoke with ‘Missouri Comic Book News’ about their group, their projects, and what they’ve

learned since becoming publishers of independent comics.

How long has Ink and Drink been meeting?

Carlos Gabriel Ruiz: Unofficially, we’ve been meeting since 2008, when we started out as a small sketchgroup (see ORIGIN

STORY below). Officially, we became Ink and Drink Comics in 2010 and have been meeting every month since then. We

used to meet on a Thursday at Applebees, moved it to a Wednesday for a short while, before settling in on the third Tuesday

of every month. It appears that Ink and Drink has kind of an interesting backstory. Could you tell us how the group came

together?

Jason Green: Our group grew out of PLAYBACK:stl, a music/arts publication based here in St. Louis. Now it’s just a website

(www.playbackstl.com) but back then it was a monthly print magazine as well. Carlos and I were both working for the maga-

zine; he was drawing a couple comic strips (which included Pretentious Record Store Guy, which he later turned into a

graphic novel, and Elliot Goes), and I was the editor of their comic book reviews section. We talked about comics a lot via

email and occasionally in person, and after a PLAYBACK barbecue where we bored my girlfriend at the time to tears by talk-

ing about comics the whole party, Carlos had the brilliant idea to get together some comics loving friends of ours at a local

bar once a month to drink and talk about comics.

Carlos: That’s mainly true, but there was a two-year gap between those two things. PLAYBACK:stl went digital only in 2007

and I became the editor of the Graphic Ink Section (which published the comics Parade of Freaks, Pangaea, Pretentious

Record Store Guy, My Awesome Life and Elliot Goes). I then suggested all of the artists meetup once a month to go over

things on the site, talk shop, drink a pint (or two) and make comics.

Jason: He then invited me, a few other non-artist PLAYBACK staffers who liked comics, and a few friends from the comic

book store we all shopped at, Star Clipper. Since most of us not only liked comics but also wrote or drew our own comics, he

encouraged everyone to bring along whatever they were working on so we could talk shop at the same time we were talking

comics. And because we were meeting at a bar, he called it an “ink and drink.” And the name stuck.

Carlos: After meeting monthly for around two years, I came to the group with

the idea to do a short story anthology featuring work from everyone in the

group. As luck would have it, the second edition of Project: Comic-Con was

coming up in late September, so we thought “Hey, that’s right before Hallow-

een--let’s do a horror anthology!” We set the theme, set a page limit, put the

word out, and a few months later, to our surprise, we had an 80-page book

with 13 stories on our hands. I’m a designer by trade, so I handled the art di-

rection and design. Another guy in the group, Bryan A. Hollerbach, was an

editor by trade, so he took over the copyediting. And Jason, as a “Person With

Opinions”, bullied his way into being co-editor to round out the three-person

editorial council who reviewed and organized the submissions. We debuted the

book, which we called Spirits of St. Louis as both a local reference and a bad

drinking pun, at the con and sold out of our initial print run. Then we did a re-

lease party at Star Clipper and sold even more, ultimately becoming their sec-

ond best-selling indie book of the year after The Walking Dead. It was insane

(we also had two covers, which are both awesome and helped sell the books

for us).

Jason: So the next meeting, the consensus was “We should do this again!”

What should we do next time? “How about crime?” When should we do it? “Hey, C2E2 is in the spring; how about in

6 months?” As word spread beyond the original core group, members invited their friends, or people got to know us

at cons and came along for the ride, and the whole thing just blew up. Looking back, it’s kind of mind-boggling how

quickly it grew from informal hangout to formal publishing concern.

Carlos: I still don’t know how it happened, and I was there from the start…

Steve Higgins: As for me, back in 2008 I was writing reviews for the comics section of Playback, as well as produc-

ing my own mini-comics under the banner Myriad . Jason knew about what I was doing with my comics, how each

one was its own short story, so when they decided to produce their first anthology Spirits, he figured I’d want in and

invited me to the meetings. From there I became a regular contributor to each book, so that when Bryan Hollerbach

had to drop out of his editorial role, they asked me to step up and fill his shoes. The first book I served as editor for

was our fifth book, Hammered , and I’ve been part of the triumvirate ever since.

About how many members are there in your group?

Carlos: It depends. We have had over 90 contributors who have taken part in our books. Some have just contribut-

ed one story and then moved on. Others have contributed multiple stories.

Steve: Yeah, since we’re really a loose collective of creators, basically anyone who has ever been a part of one of

our books, we consider an Ink and Drinker. So, for example, we count sportswriter Derrick Goold as an Ink and

Drinker, because he contributed a short story to our St. Louis-themed anthology Home Brew. That being said, we’ve

got about 30-something people who have contributed to multiple anthologies and who attend our monthly meetings

regularly that kind of make up our “core” group of creators.

How are subjects/themes chosen for your anthologies?

Carlos: After doing the horror and crime books, we had the idea of doing a book for every genre, in the hopes of

having something for every reader.

Jason: We like using genre as a theme rather than something more specific because it really leaves our creators

open to run wild. As a result, each book has such a huge variety of styles in it: some people try to do the best exam-

ple of the genre they can think of, some people poke fun at the genre’s tropes, and some people come up with ide-

as out of left field that barely touch the genre at all. It’s all great, as far as we’re concerned.

Steve: On the Rocks, our romance book, was one that people really went crazy with. Some of the stories in that one

really stretch the definition of what you think of when you hear the words “love story.”

Carlos: Also when we pick the themes, we give each book a drinking pun as a title.

Jason: I am ridiculously proud of all of those puns.

Steve: Blasted was one of mine, which I suggested to Jason at a party before I was even an editor!

It looks like Ink and Drink has published quite a few titles. How many publications does the group have to its credit?

Carlos: We have 13 books so far. We have a book for every genre we could think of, plus a book that we put to-

gether for St. Louis’ 250th anniversary back in 2014, and a collection of the first three mini-comics we put out for

Free Comic Book Day. Our complete bibliography is:

Horror - Spirits of St. Louis and Spirits of St. Louis II - Hair of the Dog

Crime - Shots in the Dark

Science Fiction - Blasted!

Western - Off the Wagon

Fantasy - Hammered

War - Tanked

Romance - On the Rocks

Superhero - Liquid Courage

Kids - Juice Box

Nonfiction - Sober

Local - Home Brew (for St. Louis’ 250th anniversary)

FCBD - On the House Vol. 1

Are all Ink and Drink publications physical books, or digital, or both?

Carlos: All of our books are physical books. We don’t have any digital offerings yet, but we are looking into offering

that as an option in the future. Our books used to be black and white only, but with Home Brew we’ve switched to

full color and have been really proud with the results.

Steve: That switch to color came about because we kind of grew dissatisfied

with the printer who did our first fewbooks. We had high printing costs per book,

and their turnaround was kind of slow. So I led the charge for us to switch to a

new printer called Lightning Source with our seventh book, On the Rocks. After

that book came out we discovered that, in order to get the proper image resolu-

tion on the artwork in the book, they were already printing our books “in color”

anyway, even though the files we had given them were still in black and white.

Since fully coloring our stories wasn’t going to cost us any more money, we

figured why not? Most indie books are published in black and white, so we

thought color might make us stand out from the crowd a bit more, give our

books added value to the readers.

Jason: Also because of that switch, our new printer was affiliated with

Ingram, the world’s biggest bookstore distributor, which means almost all of

our titles are available to buy through pretty much every online or brick-and-

mortar bookseller (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Powell’s) in the

US and the UK. Plus every library and most comic book stores can order them

as well.

What has been the hardest part about being an independent comic publisher?

Steve: Comics are a harsh mistress, and as much fun as it is to make comics and get them out there in front of

readers, the production side of it takes a lot of time and effort. We set the deadlines for story submissions about a

month and a half before the release date of the book, so Jason and I can edit the stories, so Carlos can do the pro-

duction work, so the three of us can decide together about the order the stories should go in. That last part takes a

lot more effort than people might realize, because a good anthology has to be like a good mixtape, where one song

flows into the next rather seamlessly.

And all of that is on top of the regular hardships of making the comics themselves. If you’re a writer, like I am, you

have to find an artist willing to collaborate with you. You have to flesh out any ideas you have, tailor them to the

scope of our page limitations, tailor them to the artist’s interests and style.

And you have to meet deadlines yourself, which is definitely one of the hardest parts for me, because I am a hard-

core procrastinator. I have to realize that any script I write will take the artist a certain amount of time to draw, so I

have to get them the script in a timely manner… or as timely as I can manage, at any rate.

Carlos: Besides deadlines, which are a necessary evil in comics, the hardest part about publishing our anthologies

is having to reject people. It’s never fun to reject anyone’s work, but we’ve had to do it on a fair share of our books

because of differing reasons with production issues, storytelling gaps, or quality-of-work. We have set a standard of

quality with our books that has to be upheld, and sometimes certain submissions don’t meet that standard.

Jason: The great thing about Ink and Drink is that we work with a ton of new people who are passionate about

making comics, and the editorial staff is always willing to work with an artist or writer to make sure that the work is in

good shape. Unfortunately, we’ve run into issues multiple times where a submission was delivered to us late and

there were too many production issues to fix before we had to send the book to the printer, so that story had to be

cut. For that reason, we encourage all new contributors to send us their story as early as possible for feedback in

order to get in front of any potential issues.

What aspects of publishing have been most surprising?

Carlos: The support we’ve gotten from the community, fellow artists, and fans has been great! Having created other

series and gone to cons as a solo act, it’s hard not to feel like a little fish in a really big pond going at it alone. With

Ink and Drink, there is a great support network of fellow comic creators that is great and always encourages one

another. Plus, we’ve seen contributors go off to bigger and better things. Ink and Drink members have gone on to

work with Dark Horse, Oni, IDW, and Zenescope. We’ve infiltrated the scene, and we’re not stopping yet!

Do you actively recruit new members?

Carlos: We recruited more for our first few books, but after that it seems like

the word of mouth really took off. With each book we had new contributors

who would bring in their friends and friends-of-friends.

Jason: Not in any formal way, but we are always happy to welcome new peo-

ple aboard. Seriously, some conventions we do, it seems like half the people

we talk to are excited enough about what we’re doing that they ask about how

to join.

The most rewarding thing, though, is people who join the group and love it

enough that they invite their friends. It makes all the headaches seem worth-

while. A close second is one of our contributors, Chris Sagovac, who is a pro-

fessor at Webster University and has brought his entire class to meetings

before. It’s pretty funny watching a bunch of nervous college kids try to figure

out how networking works.

Steve: I think it’s always important to stress that attendance at our meetings

is not mandatory if people want to contribute to our books. The large majority

of our contributors do live in the St. Louis area and come to our meetings on a

semi-regular basis, but we accept submissions from artists who live all over

the country (and even a couple from outside the US). Our regular cover artist

Adam Davenport for example is not a local; Carlos was friends with him in high

school.

On the flip side of that, contributing to an anthology is not expected of everyone

who attends our meetings. We do a little bit of business each month when we

have our meeting, but it’s really only for about fifteen minutes when we’re re-

minding people of deadlines and upcoming signings or con appearances. Be-

yond that, we’re all just sitting around having some beers and talking comics.

Our meetings are really open to anybody who wants to help us live up to our

name by hanging out and doing some inking and drinking, so if you are in the

STL area, you can find us at Cicero’s on the Loop on the third Tuesday of eve-

ry month, from 8 until they kick us out at the end of the night.

What are a few of the most indie­friendly comic shops/conventions you've dealt with across the state?

Jason: We’re pretty lucky in that there are a lot of great comic book shops in

the state of Missouri. Our home base for many years was Star Clipper since so

many of our contributors worked there at the time. Since Star Clipper changed

ownership and moved, we’ve been lucky enough to team up with a bunch of

great stores around St. Louis, including the new Star Clipper in downtown St. Louis, Wizard’s Wagon in University

City, Comics Headquarters in south St. Louis County, and the Fantasy Shop chain of stores.

Carlos: As far as cons go, the most indie-friendly con we’ve been to is the St. Louis Small Press Expo. If you love

indie books, zines, and DIY comics, the St. Louis Small Press Expo is the way to go. Another good one is the Cen-

tral Library Con. Planet Comicon in Kansas City and Wizard World St. Louis are two of the best cons in the midwest,

but they’re more geared to be pop culture happenings these days.

Steve: We have done well tabling at Wizard World St. Louis, especially in no small part due to the fact that we de-

buted books there which had special variant covers only available at the show. Those books were listed as exclu-

sives on the con’s website, and that brought a few people our way.

But at every convention we do lately, we get people who come up to us and say “oh I remember you guys! I bought

this book last year!” and then they check out what new we have to offer. So every con is an opportunity to expand

our fanbase ever-so-slightly.

Carlos: It seems like new cons are popping up all around the state at a pretty fast rate, so it’s hard to keep up with

all of them… but if we can get a free table and/or a panel, we’ll definitely show up!

As an independent publisher, where have you had the most luck in selling your titles? Comic

shops? Book stores? Conventions? Online?

Carlos: We do a pretty good job at cons and at comic shops. Book stores are hit or miss. If we have a signing, we’ll

usually move some units, but if we’re not physically there in person we don’t sell a lot. There was a shop that sold

local curiosities, and we did pretty well there with our books based in St. Louis, Spirits of St. Louis and Home Brew .

Jason: Naturally, we do our best in St. Louis. People like to support local art, and having a whole line of books full

of local artists makes us a pretty easy sell.

I think the big thing is the sheer variety of books we publish helps us a lot when we’re handselling things at conven-

tions. When you have literally something for everybody, it makes it easy to talk to people, find out what they like,

and steer them toward the book they’ll enjoy most.

It’s not something you can do if you’re a solo person selling the one comic you’ve put together.

A person will either be into it or they won’t. But we can say “Oh, if you like horror, you should get

Spirits of St. Louis. If you like cowboys, you should buy Off the Wagon. (And you really should! It’s our most under-

rated book!) If you like autobiographical indie comics about feelings, you should buy Sober.”

Carlos: We also started an Online Store (https://squareup.com/store/brain-

cloud-comics) for all our books in 2015. It’s the easiest way to find all of our

books and offerings in one location. We give out a ton of promotional book-

marks at all cons, so we tend to always see a bump in sales after a big show,

which is always nice. Readers of this interview can get a 15% discount with the

promo code INTERVIEW.

Steve: And don’t forget that most of our books are available via Amazon,

where our books are eligible for free shipping with Prime!

What is Ink and Drink working on, right now?

Carlos: We’re trying to recover from a month-long calendar of events built

around our last release, Spirits of St. Louis II - Hair of the Dog. We had a spe-

cial edition released for Wizard World St. Louis on April 1, and released the

“real” book on April 20. We then followed that with three signing events plus

multiple Free Comic Book Day happenings. Now we’re hard at work on the

next book…

Steve: ...which is kind of a hodge-podge.

Jason: Right. After going through every genre we could think of, our next book is going to be a sort of catch-all. We

have had a lot of stories that were in the works for previous anthologies that for whatever reason weren’t finished in

time for publication.

Steve: As an example, I had a story that I did for our war anthology Tanked back in 2013 which was an adaptation

of a poem written during World War I. I had assumed that the original poem was out of copyright since it was written

so long ago, but shortly before our deadline I discovered that, based on its date of publication, the poem was not yet

in the public domain. Since writing the copyright holder to receive permission to run the story would have taken too

much time, I had to table it at that time. Now, with this new book, I have the chance to get proper permission to final-

ly let the story see print.

Jason: Which is something you need to get on top of right away, before time runs out again…

Steve: Yeah, yeah…

Jason: Anyway, we’re then giving everyone in the group a similar opportunity to finally finish up such stories and

clear the decks before we start another trip through the genres. This new book is going to be called Hungover: Sto-

ries from the Bottom of the Barrel, and it’ll debut at Small Press Expo in Bethesda, Maryland in September. Since

every other book has a pretty specific theme, we’re excited to be putting together a book that will serve as a sam-

pler for everything we do.

Carlos: And everyone is also working on their own stuff too. That’s what makes Ink and Drink special: everyone is

off doing their own thing, but they come back to form like Voltron for each new book. It’s a pretty cool gig.

St. Louis Mini Comic Con July 30

Christina ‘Steenz’ Stewart with St.

Louis Public Library answered a few

questions about the library's second

“Mini Comic Con,” which will be from

10-2 July 30 at Central Library.

What is the Mini Comic Con? SLPL Con is a mini comic convention that highlights local vendors and cre-ators in the comics profession. It’s the finale to the summer series Com-ics University. It’s an event that opens up the comics community to

members that would not have been able to attend a paid convention. What are some of the highlights? We’ll be hosting three local food trucks, hosting our first ever Cosplay Contest, and have we’ve brought in acclaimed writer Vivek Tiwary in to speak about his book, The Fifth Beatle, creating comics as a diverse creator, as well as comics for televi-sion. What is new this year? Last year we had programming for kids, so this year we plan to have

programming for young kids, teens, and adults.

How did the idea come about?

Christina ‘Steenz’ Stewart was made

aware that the library wanted to host

a Graphic Novel Festival last year,

and from that she decided that hav-

ing a Mini Comic Con would be a

similar and better executed idea.

Many libraries across the world are

hosting mini comic cons, and SLPL is

now one of them.

Creating Comics: ‘Epickos’ Epickos is a webcomic and blog written and illustrated by Kurt Parsons, editor of Missouri Comic Book News. The strip will also

serve as this publication’s first original comic. Kurt studied Sequential Art (comics, basically) at the Savannah College of Art and

Design, has been published by The Florida Review and Backwards City Review, and launched Epickos on Free Comic Book Day

2015. Here are a few tips and insights he’s picked up about creating comics.

Like Frank Sinatra, you have to do it your way Most of us have read all about how to do comics the “Marvel way,” and we’ve probably all read more than a few books that boil

down the comic making process into something like this: write an outline, turn the outline into a full script, do thumbnail sketches,

turn those sketches into pencils, ink the pencils, scan the artwork, color the artwork, add the lettering. For me, this is overwhelm-

ing. I rarely get anything done if I try to follow all of those steps. I wouldn’t even say I have a “process.” Some projects start with

prose writing, or even a poem. Some start with a sketch. Sometimes I even do a script, but anymore, I never follow all the tradi-

tional “steps” in creating comics. And that’s okay. For some people—based on the number of books that describe them, a lot of

people—seem to have luck with the traditional steps, and if they’re working for you, stick to them. For me, I’ve been much more

productive going another route. In the end, the audience almost never sees the outline, the script, the pencils, etc. Most often, all

they’ll ever see is the finished product, so come up with a “way,” marvelous or not, that helps you get a finished product that

you’re proud of.

Draw a lot, but only show the good ones Kind of like how the audience never sees the script (see above), they don’t need to know that it took you ten, twenty, or thirty bad

drawings before you finally got to the good drawing. And don’t feel bad about your abilities because you did ten, twenty, or thirty

bad drawings. It happens to all of us. Keep the bad sketches in the sketchbook (or destroy them), and only include your best stuff

for public viewing.

If you’re struggling with a drawing, draw something else

What happens when you’ve done ten, twenty, or thirty bad drawings, but you still don’t end up with a good one? Or even worse,

what if you’ve spent hours and hours working on a concept that just isn't turning out the way you want it to? These are the most

frustrating things we have to deal with when making comics. The best solution I’ve been able to come up with is, when you just

can’t get that specific drawing to work out, abandon it and do something else. Usually when this happens, it’s because you’re

married to an idea that is way too complicated, so when you’re trying to come up with an alternative, think simple. You’re much

better off with a good simple drawing, than a bad, or even mediocre, complicated drawing. I’ve also found it useful to come up

with something abstract in these situations.

Next Issue:

Steampunk!! Hanni-

bal’s Big River

Steampunk Festival

returs to America’s

Hometown.

An interview with

Cosmic Collectables,

which recently cele-

brated its 20th anni-

versary in St. Joe.

A crafty idea for re-

purposing those dam-

aged comic books in

your collection.

Summer vacation!

Some comic book

destinations you

might want to check

out.

Comics in Missouri Walmart While shopping at Walmart in Sedalia, Missouri on June 11, I

was surprised to come across a fairly large selection of

graphic novels. A few months ago, I noticed some Walmart

stores were carrying the graphic novel/Blu-ray/DVD combo

packs that DC has been releasing, but this is the first time

I’ve seen more than a few graphic novel titles on sale at one

time at a Walmart store.

It seems that every time the issue of comics going on sale at

a major retailer like Walmart is discussed, there’s always

disagreement on whether or not it is positive for the industry. Some feel that stores

like Walmart pose a threat to local comic shops that are unable to compete with

mass retailers. Others think that the exposure of comics to a broader audience is

key to growing the industry.

Having never been a retailer, I can’t say much from the local comic shop owner’s

perspective, other than to note that I’ve read, and understand, their concerns. As a

fan, it seems to be a positive development that there is now another place to find

comics. Especially as a fan that has spent most of his life in rural Missouri, where

local comic shops have been nearly extinct since the mid-90s.

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