The Auction, page 4

Another page from the latest Wandering Koala adventure.

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The Auction, page 3

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The Auction, page 1

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Wanna hear a funny story? Okay, maybe not "ha ha" roll on the ground funny. More like strange and ironic funny.

It was a dark and stormy night.

Okay, not really. The sun hadn't quite set, and there were only a few clouds in the sky, so it was neither dark nor stormy. Oh how that would have added atmosphere. But it was night. Almost.

Preview: Wandering Koala crashes The Auction

You've probably noticed I've been pretty quiet lately. There's a good reason for that. I've been working on a new 80-page comic book. I'm a little over half way done, so you should be seeing it in the next month or so. As usual, I'm trying something new art and storywise. Will it work? Will it be a complete failure? Who knows? But until then, here is a quick preview.

It's Done!

Have you ever worked on a project and thought it would never be finished?

That's how I've felt working on the second issue of Wandering Koala Digest, which is funny, because I'm actually on schedule. I guess it's because the page count for the graphic novel portion grew to 35 pages instead of the usual 32. Oh, well, the story needed the extra pages.

I'm so excited it's finished that I decided to share the final page as a teaser.

What do you think? Be sure to leave a comment and let me know.

Wandering Koala Digest will be available for pre-order in a couple of weeks from Barnes & Noble, Apple, and Kobo, and will go on sale mid-December.

Preview of an Upcoming Graphic Novel

 

Next week the Wandering Koala returns in a bi-monthly anthology entitled Wandering Koala Digest. Issue one contains a 32-page graphic novel, 2 pages of humorous comics, part one of an apocalyptic virus novella, and an essay. It will be available in both print and eBook formats. You can preorder a copy at Barnes & Noble, Kobo Books, or the Apple iBookstore.

But while you are waiting, you can see a preview right here. Above is the first page of the graphic novel. Enjoy!

Words and Pictures make a Story

I love words put together well. I love pictures that effortlessly tell a story. And I especially love the skilled combination of the two. It's something I strive for but don't always achieve.

Currently I'm working on a project that is part illustrated storybook and part graphic novel. It's my latest attempt to create the perfect genre for telling the stories I want to tell. Illustrated novels have too many words and too few pictures that aren't essential to telling the story. Graphic novels are basically just long comic books (come on guys, did you learn nothing from Will Eisner's Contract With God?) and have too many pictures--the reader can't savor each one. I want the pictures to be an essential part of the story that progress the story. I also understand the power of words and telling and don't want to loose that.

So with Caveman Conspiracy I'm writing little more than a radio drama script and using the pictures to progress the action and show the emotion.

Will it work? You'll have to pick up a copy and let me know.

The Conclusion!

Part 3 of Wandering Koala meets the Beast who came for Christmas is finally available! Here is the cover with a gorgeous image of Alpine Fall's local church.

As with the rest of the series, the backgrounds are a combination of Google SketchUp 7 and Corel Painter X and the characters are all drawn and colored in Corel Painter X.

My next project is something I've been wanting to do for years, and have tried, but this time I think I've finally figured it out. Check back often to learn more!

Wandering Koala meets the Beast who came for Christmas

The latest chapter in the Wandering Koala saga is now available!

Part One of Wandering Koala meets the Beast who came for Christmas is FREE for a limited time. Download your copy today!

www.WanderingKoala.com/comic0006.php

Comic books designed for small screens - eReaders and smart phones

I've always loved comics, but the cost of printing, distribution, advertising, and senior management benefit packages make them unviable in today's marketplace. Most comics are between $2.99 to $3.99 for a mere 22 pages. Who is going to pay that other than the comic book addicts? There's no room for the marketplace to grow--at least not in print.

But the eBook movement and the move to smartphones opens up a whole new market and new opportunities. There are no printing costs and minimal distribution costs. Plus, a cartoonist doesn't need a big company to publish anymore, so the senior management benefit packages don't have to take their chunk out. Many people have tried to do digital comics, but none have succeeded very well because of three problems: 1) Pricing, 2) Formatting, and 3) New Content. So I designed a new comic to meet these concerns.

Most digital comics cost either $0.99 (which isn't enough to make them profitable) or $1.99 (which is too much for 1's and 0's with no resell value). To overcome this, I've priced my comic at $1.50, which allows me to make a profit but doesn't soak potential customers.

Most digital comics take existing print comics and chop them up into pieces so you lose everything achieved from panel layout. I've designed my comic to be easily read on a smart phone, eReader, or a computer screen. Yet the comic still has the resolution and detail to look good in print for when I'm ready to do that.

Finally, almost all digital comics are reprints of old comics, not the new comics that come out every Wednesday. So I made mine all new material.

My new comic is called Wandering Koala(TM) rides The Phantom Coach. It's in two parts and a trade paperback, all of which are now available from Amazon.com and Smashwords.com for almost all eBook capable devices, and I drew it almost entirely on the computer with Corel Painter X and Google SketchUp 7.

The Phantom Coach

So I've begun a new comic. But it's not really that new. This is the third time I've tried writing/drawing this story, but I think this time it will work.

The story was inspired by two things. First, an old victorian ghost story called The Phantom Coach, which I found in a Dover dollar edition of short stories and absolutely loved. The second is a night I rode the bus in Alegrette, Brazil with a couple of friends. There was such energy that I knew I had to write a story about it sometime.

For this time I decided to try a style I've always loved but never been brave enough to do. Also, I decided to do the whole thing in the computer including the line work. This presented a few interesting challenges. I had completed several pages, but they looked so stark and lifeless, so I went back and added textures and a few gradient tricks which really helped warm them up. It's taken a long time to find the write settings in Corel Painter to create the line I was looking for. And the buildings and bus were constructed in Google Sketch Up. It took me a while to refine the models enough for the comic. They still look too computer generated, but for this stark style I think it's OK. For the next comic, though, I'll have to do better. And the font is a free font called Anime Ace I found on 1001Fonts.com.

On this particular page you'll notice the bus is distorted as well as the city itself. And I've added a cartoony sound effect. I've noticed a trend in comics to look more photographic and less like comics, but really, it's a comic book--it should look like a comic book, just like a Watercolor should look like a Watercolor and an Oil Painting should look like an Oil Painting.

I'm trying to get the whole story finished and published before Halloween, but it is taking longer than I thought it would. Keep your fingers crossed!

Issue 2 is Now On Sale!

A few years ago I began developing Wandering Koala as an ongoing series, then a mini-series. After I finished the first issue, I sent it to a couple of publishers who never got back to me. I had just bought myself a Kindle at the time, and I was loving it. I knew there was a way for anyone to publish a book to the Kindle, so I said to myself, "Self, why not publish your comic on the Kindle?" So I did.

My original plan was to publish one issue per month. Well, the first issue did not take off to stellar sales, and while working on the second issue, I realized the story I was telling would work better as a novel, so I turned it into a novel. I was only going to publish it electronically, but it turned out so well, I spent the money to put it into print. After that I started a series of illustrated short stories and a couple of other comic projects.

I didn't really do anything to promote the single issue of Wandering Koala vs. The Scientific Method, and I had even thought of removing it, but it kept selling, and has actually sold better than anything else I've published. So I decided to do a second issue. I wasn't very happy with how my first attempt had been going, so I decided to start from scratch. I did reuse a few panels from my first attempt, but with some serious rearrangement. I also decided to use a digest comic format, because I loved my old Richie Rich and Archie Digests I use to buy in the early 90s.

This is the first comic that I've created that actually looked like what I thought my comic would. I was so happy with the results. Of course I recognize there is room for improvement, but so many of the questions and struggles I've been having have been worked out. I can't wait to start on the next two issue story, after I finish a couple of short stories I'm nearly finished with.

The wonderful thing about publishing with Amazon Kindle is the publication is available on the Kindle, the PC, the Mac, the iPhone, the big iPhone (aka the iPad), and the iPod Touch. Android is coming soon!

You can check out a few sample pages at http://www.wanderingkoala.com/comic0001.php.

You can purchase a copy of the comic for yourself at http://www.amazon.com/Wandering-Koala-Scientific-Method-ebook/dp/B003S3S2TC/

At $1.50, it's a steal!

Paint & Photo

I like to mix photographs in with my cartoons. I have a huge library from various trips, and there are a lot of public domain images available online. I usually do some digital altering of them so they mesh well with my drawings. For example, on these three comic book pages, I used photos of the sky and space as wall paper and blurred them so they looked like prints on canvas. I think the effect was very nice, and it adds a lot of character to the images. What do you think?

These are three fully colored pages from the second issue of Wandering Koala vs. The Scientific Method. I should be finished with it in a week or so, and then I'll publish it. This is the first comic book I've done that I've really felt looked like I wanted it to; that looked like a comic book by me. I may even do more if this one sells well.