Okay, I'm going to officially kick this off... who wants in on a TAG anthology comic book? I figure if wwe start now and we get 10-15 artists to contribute we can print up loads of copies and have them to sell/trade by the 2013 convention season. Specifically, I would want to target ECCC, not just because it's convent for me, but that I would open this to TAG North contributors as well as for the old TAG guard.
At this point I'm just interested in a show of hands... who's with me?
Update: I reset the date on this post that it would stay sticky and on the top of the blog for a bit. If we get enough interest I'll probably start a new blog just for the comic book.
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I'd hate to be left out. I may just finish my 8 to 10 page horror strip WAIT and make that my contribution.
I am in on this, especially since I found out from Clydene Nee today that a committee has taken over assigning tables for Artist's Alley at SDCC ... so I am on a waiting list. Because much more established artists are also on the waiting list my chances of getting back in under these circumstances are between slim and none. So I plan to become a Comic Con vagabond, and the first step is to create something creative for the TAG comic compilation. Then, I'll start hitchhiking to Seattle in February, 2013. See y'all there! ...
You know you've got a place to stay when you get here, Tom!
I am in on this--and not only in, but working on my submission already (well, sort of...).
But I'm in!
ALSO: do you guys think we should limit this to, for want of a better term, "traditional comic stories"? Because I could see a wider variety being included here--fer instance, a few pages of Ron Thompson's wonderful, whimsical, non-narrative drawings.
What do you think??
I think it would be awesome to have as many drawings from Thompson as possible. But then he has to link them into a narrative with captions ala Rick Geary.
Well, each contributor will also need to contribute to printing costs. That being the case, I'm not interested in editing anything that contributors wish to put in. In other words, if someone is paying for 5-10 pages in the book then that person should be able to put in what ever they like.
That said, I will reserve the right to opt out of the book myself if the content of other contributors is something that I deem too offensive to be a part of. This is a right that every contributor has, I should think.
In other other words, I would love it if Ron published a bunch of cool sketches.
Why worry about costs? WE'LL MAKE MILLIONS ON THIS!!
Rick, are you open to full-frontal nudity--if it's done tastefully?
Sure... I'm not going to be a prude about it. This is a comicbook we are talking about, after all!
You want to start a separate blog for the comic?! We were finally gonna get stuff pumpin' here again. I say keep it here!
I don't mind keeping it here, but I didn't want to take over the TAG blog with a single project. What do others think?
Are we going color, or black-und-vhite??
I think we would want to do color... it's a more appealing package and pretty much what folks expect from a comic. It will cost more, but worth it.
Once we have a group of fairly committed contributors we can decide things like this, but my inclination is that this ought to be color.
I'd like to contribute as well, if you'll have me!
DOK- Hell yeah! That's my vote anyway. This is about a gathering of an era.
Amen to Dok joining.
As far as my OWN contribution, I hadn't planned to do color, but I agree it'll look real slick. Although, oddly enough, every contribution I've been envisioning/expecting comes from a black and white format (Creeple, Ellis's WAIT strip, Ron's drawings, Scott's CORK/comic work--even the long-lost Ranjo's contributions to the blog are usually B&W.
That doesn't mean I'm against it--it could be a very exciting challenge!
And if we do color, there's absolutely no excuse for Tom Moon not to contribute one of his gorgeous (and very much missed) Dr. Kosmic stories.
Tom! Do you hear me???
Oh, Creeple will have color alright!
Dok! Yay! We would be honored if you would join us!
Dr. Kosmic! Yay!
I'm in! uh...when would you need final artwork?? BTW I'm in charge of the next Disney Story Dept anthology and found a good printer. I also have Photoshop templates if you need them. Let's do this!! (except for Scott)
OH! Please share the template. What printer did you use? There was a group of artists at PopCap who did an anthology and they used Kablam. The print job was good but communication with Kablam is spotty... They claim that they would get too much spam if they used a regular email address so they have a buggy login system instead.
Yeah! Let's see the template.
Yeah, I'm here, lurking. I know this is something I SHOULD do.
I am envisioning my five pages to be like the old Fiction Illustrated books like Starfawn (http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3AStarfawn&page=1) and Chandler: Red Tide (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandler:_Red_Tide. Mine will be Prentice Cruz, which is the intro story about a space cadet on his first training voyage aboard a star ship. Very Star Trek, but from the POV of the cadet, not the captain.
So far we official have Ellis, Tom C., Marty, Tom M. and myself.
For what it's worth I have a 7 page story that is already written and penciled from a different anthology project that fell through.
... and Dok. I SHOULD do this... but I'm not sure I will have anything by next year.
... and Jeff.
Tom, you have stuff ready to go! You have a bunch of Captain Kosmic strips that are print ready... you don't need to do anything at this point.
Yes, Dok and Jeff, too. This is already shaping up to be a good collection! I'm sure there are some TAG North folks who would like a piece of this as well.
Hey Jeff, were you able to do bleeds on the Disney comic?
I'd like to contribute as well if I can find the time. I've had an eight page story written for years that I still haven't drawn, maybe it's time. I'd also like to add a few tasteful drawings of Ellis' ass. It would've been Jeff, however he refused to sit for me.
Buncake. Speaking of tasteful ass, I'm now being followed on twitter by
"Fear Facers @Fearfacers
Three Idiots looking for ghosts."
You should have done something like that.
Sorry I keep trying to reply but it won't let me comment!! arrrgh!!
I need emails from y'all if you want a template!! Scott you vex me.
Oh and Yes Rick, bleeds are a go.
rick@rickschmitz.com
gunnellis at yahoo period com. Thanks for the template.
Just looked at Ricks post . He's not worried about spamming
gunnellis@yahoo.com
tomandpatty@cox.net
Shenandoah01@gmail.com ... ;-)
Actually, Jeff, you can send it to me and I'll put of a link where others can download it from.
I don't have anything to add except I'm so excited to see so many comments here.
And don't forget Ron Thompson! He's promising to share some Thompsonian sketches for the anthology.
And Jeff Ranjo & Buncake involved. too?!?! We've never had it so good!!
As the artist with the most actual comic book experience and name recognition, I vote for Scott to do the front cover. Maybe a group shot with one character from each story?
As the artist with the best ability to mimic anyone else's style and characters, I vote Marty do a humorous back cover a la his EC parody of Cork and Ellis's grandmother.
Tommy, you flatter me!
I love yr idea about Scott doing the cover, and I whole-heartedly endorse it.
The "group montage" theme is an interesting idea, and very "fair" to all of us involved--but am I alone in usually finding these sorts of covers aesthetically unsatisfying? I'm thinking of books with, for instance, Spawn talking to a Schuster-Simon-style Superman and Dave Sim(m?)'s Cerebus. Maybe I'm just a fuddy-duddy (no doubt true...).
But then, when Scott's got his Buncake Burner burnin', he can make ANYTHING work.
(personally, I'm still reluctant to ask anybody to make a single image that will include a snippet from everyone's contribution--seems like a tall order...am I crazy?)
As to the rear cover--I'm blushin' all over--and I'd love to contribute in that way if the group so deems--but I'd like to see more of our stories, first. Maybe a nice montage of images would be cooler? I've bought a few books based on a slick, montage-y cover (usually a series of vertical slices of close-ups from each artist's work inside--like the Black Flag bars). The covers promised much artistic diversity within--but usually the cover was the best part!
The cover is the least of my concerns at this point. The toughest part of these sorts of endeavors is getting the actual work completed and turning in with enough time to assemble the book and get it printed.
I would be inclined to hold off on the cover until we've figure out a few things, like how much it's going to cost and how to fairly distribute that cost... is it per page? per story? per number of books ordered?
Mr. Ranjo, I would welcome your wisdom and experience in these matters.
Okay, you're right Marty. No group cover. You're right too Rick. I just like dreaming.
I sent out the files to those who posted addresses. No Scott I will not send one to you. Anybody else need one?? Marty? Jim? Ron? Rick feel free to pass around those files to the TAG North peeps.
As for figuring out the cost per person... I just got a printing estimate from the printer which included shipping costs and split amongst number of participating artists.
Our Disney one "Where is Dead Zero?" is about 20 people paying $350 each. This includes booth costs
also have to consider paying for barcode use (forgot official name) $50 bucks. gotta go to meeting!!
I didn't get my template. Someone send theirs to
gunnellis@yahoo.com
How big an edition did you Disney guys do, Jeff? I'm thinking 10,000 at least?
And Jeff, my people can be reached at davischino@mac.com. They'll forward your template to the proper department here at MAR-TECH, Inc.
TOM MOON I LOVE YOUR DREAMING! I'm like you--I love to visualize the finished volume.
And if we're talking $350 a person that sounds just fine because Tom Moon said he's was going to pay for my share.
p.s. Rick, do you have a deadline in mind?
Three-hundred and fifty bucks. Uh-oh. May need to re-think this. But we will cross that bridge when we get to it.
In the meantime I'll concentrate on getting some work done that will be worthy.
We don't need to get a booth... we can leave that up to individuals. That will cut down the costs, also, I don't know what Jeff's print run was.
Don't get freaked out by the costs at this point... that can be managed.
I'm thinking November deadline. If we can get the finished book to the printer by end of December I think that gives us plenty of time to get it printed and shipped.
Yeah, I was thinking about the bar code thing. If we do that it can be sold in more places.
I got the template. Whistles as in impressed. 500 dpi. I don't think I've ever worked 500 dpi. But luckily my whole technique is based on filling a workpath selection so it's scalable. 500 dpi comes last for me. I may check my proportions now that I have this.
I have it online now... you can find the templates at:
http://rickschmitz.com/comictemplate.html
The one's that Jeff has sent out are .psd files... the only real difference is that they have pre-made layers called "paint", "lines" and "text". I'm confident that TAG members will be able to manage without those layers prefabricated for them.
Over at the TAG North blog there seems to be a lot of interest in contributing non-comic drawings, so I think we will get an interesting mix of work to be sure.
I should say this now: I think that what ever is contributed to this book should not have been printed before somewhere else. I think stuff that been posted on the internet before is okay, but this should be the first place that this work has been in printed form.
I'd be willing to donate one of Grafikus's ISBNs/barcodes for use on this book, if you guys aren't particular about the publisher's name (the numbers/barcodes are assigned to Grafikus). And Grafikus is already set up as an Amazon seller.
Also, if you need any graphic design or production assistance ...
On the Disney book it's 1,000 copies...maybe 800. That was their minimum.
Beata! You are the best! I'm guessing we would be happy to take you up on both offers!
I second the motion that Beata's the best!
U B ISBN 4 US.
I third it!
Which one is Beata again and why is she at a bar?
Jeff, send me the template dammit. scottbenefiel@yahoo.com.
Thank you for the vote of confidence on the cover! If, when the time comes, you all still want me to do it I'll take a stab at it. Or maybe we'll want a turnip on the cover instead. We'll see.
By the way, the epic graphic novel I was working on a few years ago has finally found a publisher. Boom Studios will put out Michael Midas - Champion in six monthly issues starting in July. Then they'll collect it into one big graphic novel after the run. They're also going to do it in landscape format so it'll be at least over 256 pages long. (It was originally designed to have a gutter across the dead center of my traditionally upright portrait comic pages so we could chop them in half and make two landscape pages out of them.)
I just finished the cover for the first issue (I'll post it soon) and it's currently being colored in Europe by an artist in Spain I think.
That's all. Ellis is an assy gimp.
Scott, that's great news about your new graphic novel! CONGRATS!!
The announcement deserves much better than being buried at the end of this epic thread. Please post the news--and the cover!
And once again, congrats!!
I'll post soon!
I refuse to let that conniving Scott "The Noodler" Benefiel take the spotlight away from this mega-thread!! How can he finish that god awful graphic novel and take time away from Ghost Provokers or Corn/Coke/Cork or whatever the name of that book is!? Shame! Shame on you Scott!! Oh, and by the way...here's the link to the template - http://rickschmitz.com/comictemplate.html
...now give me a hug. xoxoxo
I think you meant gassy.
Great news!
I think BOOM is a very cool outfit. I was following a couple of BOOM titles a few months back.
I'll have to have that.
You're such a pro. No promise of reward and you still did your best comic work.
Any insider ideas who this major DC character that is going to be gay? I think it's J'onn J'onnes.
CongRATS, Scotty!
Does this mean you'll finally be able to afford to send me my Ghost Provokers t-shirt?
Good God woman! Have we owed you one and not sent it to you yet?! Dave was in charge of that, I'll get on his case today! (Tell me what size again please!... And your address... and
... and Ellis' pajama bottom size. )
I'm thinking about doing a kickstarter project for some new pajamas. All my 50 dollar supporters will get an audio file of me using their name in the banana banna fo fanna song.
I'd pay 50 cents to hear that... perhaps even $5.00!
I didn't get where I am today by having stuff ready for submission, but I'll be watching the blog. Heck maybe the next layoff will provide some inspiration... Are pages not pencilled anymore?
Pages are penciled and sometimes not inked. Just use levels on art like Scott's pencils. Call it inked. Scott rarely penciled in a way that left much to the inker's imagination anyway.
Hope you aren't facing layoff. I'm coming up on 3 years of unemployment. Starting to think I may have to get a job again. Or rob a bank. I'll flip a coin.
I'm in. I'd like to do some color stuff. I don't know what yet.
Excellent!
Ron art in a big comic book sounds very fun. I also like the idea it will be color.
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