My first convention appearance has already been blogged about (The INDYpendent Show) which was a great opportunity to teach a little about comics, and get told how I needed to step up my game… So I did. The first thing I worked on was getting something else printed, more than a print. I depressingly looked at the comics I had produced recently and realized that I could put together a 16 page comic book with two years worth of comic strips. Many of my self publishing friends had given me a drop dead date for having something ready, and that date had come and gone when I finally was able to start this project. I looked around the interwebs and remembered a few publishing company names from conventions and went to Ka-Blam out of Florida. They had an online pricing tool and promised a quick turn around so I could have my books in time for the Indy PopCon (which I will blog about a little later). I realized that about a third of the comics still needed to be colored so I decided a black & white book was in my future. As I was working on getting the book laid out (fine, avoiding the scariness of laying out the book) I designed some buttons to sell also. I tried a few different ideas for a cover and decided to go with one I drew while waiting for a meeting to start, which has shaped the design of the covers for the future. Once everything was turned in, it was just waiting for the comics to arrive. As the time passed I got anxious like waiting for my first MINI, I checked the progress on the Ka-Blam website until I saw that the book had shipped. The package arrived earlier than I had anticipated, and I was very pleased with how they had turned out. I kept telling myself this was a learning experience, and I would figure out what I did wrong, and fix it for the next book- I was already thinking about the next book before the first book was in my hands.
There’s something strangely scary about seeing your work in print. For the past five years I’ve been working on this comic and it’s just been pixels on a screen. Pixels aren’t real, no matter how much I looked at the comics I published here they were always intangible. When My Geek Odyssey appeared in FTF Geocacher Magazine, it didn’t faze me since I know a lot of people to contribute to hobbiest magazines, they write, I draw- no big deal. When I opened that box and stared down at my cover, an homage to Uncanny X-Men #141, it all became real, I had actually done it. While many a Con had called me a “Professional” it never really meant anything until I held that comic in my hands thumbed through it and found the one glaring error. Then I remember the old Marvel No-Prize and decided this was another lesson I had to learn.
I’ve already got ideas for next time, and issue 1.5… my first big thing is to start getting more comic strips out. I’m planning on Tuesday & Thursday as a publishing schedule for the summer and hopefully into the school year. I’ve got a bunch of stories I’m getting ready to tell, the first one being about our trip to Joyce Kilmer National Forest in North Carolina which started today. I’m re-examining the direction of the comic and will see what path that takes me down. I’ll take some side trips on My Geek Odyssey, but hopefully you’ll enjoy reading them as much as I will enjoy making them.