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.

Wandering Koala vs. The Scientific Method Part 2 (in progress)

A couple of years ago or so I was working on a comic book proposal that just wasn't working. I kept trying and trying, but it wasn't getting any better. Then I remembered an idea that had been swirling around in my mind for years, and I decided to work on it. I had also been watching old Felix the Cat cartoons from the 20s (black & white and silent--they were brilliant!)

So I created a first issue, but wasn't happy with it. Then I tried starting a different story arc. I didn't even finish that issue before I realized it wasn't working. So I gave it a third try, and this time something great was happening.

I wrote and drew the first issue and sent it off to two publishers for considerations. One rejected it; the other didn't even bother replying (thanks, Dark Horse). I had just purchased a Kindle for myself and was loving it, so I decided to publish it there. I also planned to publish it on the iPhone, but that was too involved for the time.

While working on the second issue, I realized the story would work better as a novel. I had been reading a lot of great books and short stories on my Kindle which had re-kindled (pun intended) my love of reading. I had also always wanted to write and publish a novel. And I wanted a novel that was like Hardy Boy books with pictures and adventure, but written for adults and worthy of being a classic. So I decided to do it. It's called The Scientific Method (a Wandering Koala tale).

Since publishing it, I've written two and a half new short stories and published two of them. I left the first issue of the four issue mini-series up for sale, and it kept selling. So I said to myself, "Self, you should write a second issue--it's by far the most visual and works better as a comic book than a novel."

I've always wondered what a comic book by me would look like, and all my past attempts have been disappointing. This time I analyzed some of my favorite comics and what excited me about them. I also thought back to some of the best experiences I've had with comics, and some of my fondest memories. That's when I realized I loved mini-comics. Mini-comics also fit nicely on the Kindle (as another attempt Euphony in E showed). So I decided to create a mini-comic.

So I'm 13 pages into the second issue, and I'm really happy with the result. It finally looks like a comic I'm proud to sign my name to--a comic I can walk up to someone with and proudly say look what I did!

Above are three pages I was especially happy with. They still need to be colored and lettered, but I thought I'd share the black & white artwork. I'm tempted to leave the issue black & white, because I love black & white artwork so much. What do you think?

The Muses Are NOT Amused

In college I was an English minor. One of the classes I took for it was a creative writing class in which we wrote an essay and a short story. The teacher used a method developed by Nyberg. You start with a turning point, then write about the scene, then turn it from first person to third person, and create a fictional story from it. I wrote a story and thought it was the greatest thing in the world. Then the file went missing.

A few years later, I found it. It wasn't as good as I remembered. So I reworked it and added a fantasy-horror element to it. It's currently on sale as Smashwords in every eBook format for FREE. (I'll probably start charging money for it in a couple of weeks.)

The cover took me quite a while to come up with. I've been wanting to combine brushwork characters with Photoshop created objects and a photograph background. I like it, but I'm not sure if this is the direction I want to go.

What do you think?

Character Sketch: The Native

So I drew this picture for a friend last Christmas and meant to create a colored version, but I could never get the colors to work.

Until now.

I drew it with a crow quill pen and colored it in Painter X. I call it "The Native" because it is a picture of my friend and that's what he always called himself (at least when he was being humble).

Character Sketch: Summertime Lady in the Park

My original plan was to turn this into an art deco type decoration, but I was coloring it in Corel Painter X and looking thru my iPhoto library and found this picture of a park in Savannah, GA that fit the sketch perfectly.

I love to mix my cartoons with photos. It creates a really unique effect. And my iPhoto library is big enough that I have a nice selection of pictures. From now on I'll have to take more scenery type pictures of places I go.

I still plan to do an art deco version. Be sure to check back for it.

Character Sketch: Summertime Lady

So it's been a while since I last posted. That's the thing about work--it takes up all your free time! But seriously, it is good to be busy working and earning money in the current state of the economy.

This is another in my series of character sketches. I used a $1 brush from Porter's in Idaho Falls and sumi ink from Udrecht's in Tempe, AZ. It's based on a photo of an ice sculptress that I'm creating an animation for. I was going thru files on my computer looking to delete anything old and unnecessary, and I found this photo. I thought the pose was really nice and would work as an art deco-styled illustration, so I added the fancy dress and large hat. (She was just wearing a t-shirt and shorts in the photo.) I'm going to add color and a cool background, but I thought I'd let you see the linework, because it did turn out really nice. Check back in a day or two for the full color version!

Where have all the Short Stories gone?

Normally I post artwork and discuss it on this site, but this post is about something that has been bothering me for a long time. The picture has nothing to do with the post other than it is from a comic I published on the Kindle called Euphony in E.

I bought a Kindle a year ago, and one of the many things I loved best about it was the selection of short stories I could download for $.59, $.79, or $1.50; stories that were printed in a magazine years ago and haven't been seen since. Stories that I wouldn't even have known about let alone read otherwise. Stories by Charles Sheffield, Kevin J. Anderson, and L. Sprague De Camp that are as good as it gets. And download I did.

The other day I was browsing the Kindle store to see if any new gems had been added, and to my shock and horror, all these great stories that I read and loved were gone! How can an eBook go out of print? Ok, I know they didn't go out of print, but Fictionwise's contract with Amazon must have expired. Still, I was upset.

I love digital content, but this is an excellent example of the biggest problem with it: licensing and availability. The rights-holder decides to yank it, and the story is gone. This happens with music and movies as well. A physical book isn't so easy to yank, and they can and do show up on eBay and used bookstores. Digital content with DRM makes reselling and redistributing very difficult. (I'm familiar with pirate sites, but those don't help build a market, so I avoid them.)

It's a shame that in a world where we now have the ability for a store to carry EVERY title every written at a near zero cost and never have to worry about going out of print, stories and books aren't more available and more plentiful than they were and are under the current system.

Character Sketch: Cowboy

A month ago I mentioned wanting to do a series of Character Sketches to help me develop a style. If you read the four posts after that you'll notice I didn't post anymore after the fireman. I was going to, but I had been commissioned to create a set of icons, then I finished my short story The Hook (a Wandering Koala tale) and needed to illustrate it. Well, the story is illustrated and published (go buy a copy on Smashwords.com or Amazon.com) and the icons are almost finished. So here is another character sketch.

The fireman sketch was inspired by a magazine sized comic book called Heroes by Marvel Comics. It focused on 9-11 and showed a lot of firemen. This one is a cowboy inspired by the graphic album Tintin in America.

I had never heard about Tintin until recently when a comic book blog talked about the new movie Spielberg and some other famous director are making. It was the writer's favorite comic. Then a month later I made some comments on another artist's work, and he emailed me back saying "thanks" and mentioned Tintin as one of his major influences. Well, I said to myself, "Self, you should check into this Tintin character." So I Wikipediaed him. I discovered there were two dozen graphic albums of adventures, the first two being black & white.

So I went to Amazon.com and ordered the first three, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, Tintin in the Congo, and Tintin in America. Then I emailed the fellow artist back and asked for a recommendation.

I finished Tintin in the Land of the Soviets and really enjoyed it, and am a little over halfway thru Tintin in America. Part of the story involves Tintin dressing up like a cowboy and getting captured by indians. I kind of like cowboys & indians, so I decided to do my next sketch of a cowboy.

This one is different than the first, because it was done completely in Painter. (The fireman I drew with a pencil and inked with a Brush Pen.) I've been wanting to get more into digital art for a while, and Corel Painter plus and Intuos2 tablet work well. I'm happy with how it turned out, and how quickly I was able to finish it. The background is a photograph of the Australian outback, which I thought looked western enough.

So, what do you think?

Illustrated Stories

I've always loved the format of children's storybooks, where they have a picture on one page and the words on the adjoining page telling the story. I've never understood why nobody creates books like that for adults. Comic books and graphic novels are close, but I think something that was written so you only needed the words or only need the pictures for the story would be stronger. (Greg Rucka did create a miniseries released thru comic book stores called Elektra & Wolverine: The Redeemer in this format, and I thought it was brilliant. I used it as a model as well as a book by Jim David called Garfield: Babes & Bullets.)

So I decided to create that. My first story is called The Hook (a Wandering Koala tale). It's about 23 pages of story (small type) and 24 new illustrations with a full color cover. I'm really proud of it. It's a story I've been working on for a long time, and I even have an almost finished comic book version of it. A few panels of the comic made it into the story. Can you guess which ones they were?

Right now I've only published it electronically thru the Amazon Kindle Store and SmashWords (which supplies Barnes & Nobel and the Sony eReader store) so you can find it in any format, including a text file or web page. It's only $1.29, which is a steal. I'm hoping to write a whole slew of short stories. Once I have a dozen or so (or maybe a half dozen) I'll collect them into a paperback.