#the comic bug

[kathubs]

just some ridiculously cute photos from the Clueless signing tonight

[anotherphotojournal]

hudson yang and forrest wheeler of FRESH OFF THE BOAT.

the comic bug | culver city, ca.

[kathubs]

NEW AMBER BENSON BOOK SIGNING!!!!!:

Wednesday, September 6, 2017 6-8pm The Comic Bug 4267 Overland Ave Culver City, California 90230  

BOOM! Studios proudly presents, CLUELESS: SENIOR YEAR, an original graphic novel and follow-up to the cult-classic film, written by Amber Benson (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Witches of Echo Park) and Sarah Kuhn (Heroine Complex) with art by Siobhan Keenan. The entire creative team will be on hand to sign, sketch, and chat!

RSVP at their Facebook event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1860043970978462

[gerimi]

Black Comic Creator Day at THE COMIC BUG

 - 

http://www.thecomicbug.com/ https://www.facebook.com/events/167749863861959/

2nd annual Black Comic Creator Day - Saturday Feb. 10 The Comic Bug in Manhattan Beach

Featuring… Don Walker (writer /artist - Agent Wild / Reaper Corps),

Brandon Easton (writer / IDW / MASK, Vampire Hunter D, Marvel TV'S Agent Carter),

Saddler Ward (Kids Ent. writer / artist Honeydew and MaryLo),

Jeffrey Carr (Angle Man),

Marcus Newsom,

Stephano Terry (writer/artist - THE GAMMA GALS for Fanbase Press),

Clint D. Johnson (Faith Walker). That's all I have confirmed.

…And MORE

10am - 5pm.

The Comic Bug - 1807 Manhattan Beach Blvd, 90266

[alunclewe]

Finally scanned in my second 24-Hour Comics Day comic from last year, drawn at the Comic Bug.  Here’s the title page.  Not one of my better title pages from my 24-hour comics... but I guess not my worst.  As I said when I posted the title panel from the previous comic, it’ll probably be a while before I get the entire comics online.  But I hope to do so some time in November.

Anyway, I guess next I’ll scan this year’s 24-Hour Comics Day comics...

[alunclewe]

24-Hour Comics Day 2016: Part Two

Okay, so in my previous post on 24-Hour Comics Day 2016, I said to “expect Part Two tomorrow”, and that was... six days ago.  So if you actually did expect Part Two the next day, I’m afraid you were severely disappointed.  Sorry.

The fact is, I’d been pretty swamped the last week.  I still have to get ready for the convention formerly known as Comikaze, which means among other things getting caught up with d24, but there’s actually something else that’s been occupying me this last week... getting ready for my first day of casting for a webseries.  I’d put the casting notices up on L.A. Casting a few weeks ago, but the first actual day of casting was yesterday, which means I had to sort through all the submissions and pick who to call in and then get everything ready, and I’ve never done this before so it involved a lot of stress and uncertainty...

But this Tumblr blog is supposed to be about my comics and animation, not my (non-animated) film work, so I won’t elaborate on that.  Suffice to say, yeah, sorry I didn’t have this post up earlier.

So, anyway, as I was saying, since my usual 24-Hour Comics Day venue, @thecomicbug, had rescheduled its 24-Hour Comics Day event to the 17th, this year I did 24-Hour Comics Day on the official date at a different place, 4 Color Fantasies in Rancho Cucamonga.  I got there a little late, not least because I had to make some stops to pick up art supplies, which I probably have somewhere around my apartment but couldn’t find, and which I’d intended to pick up the previous night but ended up not doing so because what was supposed to be a brief nap ended up extending past the closing time of the stores I was going to pick them up at.  So it was, I think, a bit past 10:30 when I finally got there (the event was supposed to begin at 10:00), but I’d registered online so space had been reserved, and there was one seat left.

And here, actually, is one minor point in which 4 Color Fantasies was an improvement over the Comic Bug for 24-Hour Comics Day: more table space!  At the Comic Bug, I generally only get about a quarter of a table to myself; at 4 Color Fantasies I (and every other participant) got a full half table.  So that was nice... though of course the smaller space at the Comic Bug is kind of a necessity because there are so many more participants there.  (There were 16 participants at 4 Color Fantasies this year; I don’t remember exactly how many there were at the Comic Bug last year, but I’m pretty sure it was significantly more than that.)

Aside from that, things ran pretty similarly to the Comic Bug.  The proprietor hung around offering banter and moral support.  Free food was provided to the participants, including donuts, pizza, and—of course—coffee.  It was generally a friendly and pleasant atmosphere, and I had a good time.

There was one gimmick unique to this location: the Wheel of Panels, a wheel participants could spin to randomly determine the number of panels for a particular page.  I’d taken a picture of the Wheel of Panels, but unfortunately I discovered the next day that my phone had decided within the last month to start arbitrarily deleting recent files from the SD card, so my picture of the Wheel of Panels—along with every other picture I’d taken with my phone since September 1—was gone.  I spent more time than I probably should have looking online for a picture someone else might have taken of the Wheel, but without success.  (I did find a photo of the event that shows me working on my comic, but I’m not tagged in the photo so if you don’t know me you’re just going to have to guess which person I am.)  A participant at the next table, @beenbettercomic, was liveblogging the event, and I even found his videos on Facebook and skimmed through them hoping he’d captured the Wheel of Panels somewhere, but I didn’t see it (though, as I said, I only skimmed them so it’s not impossible it did appear somewhere briefly... I may have spent more time than I should have looking for a picture of the danged thing, but watching twenty hours of video for it was still rather more time than I was willing to devote to the cause.)

To be honest, I wasn’t even sure I’d remembered the name right—was it the Wheel of Panels, or the Panel Wheel, or the Wheel of Layout?—but I managed to find again the event registration page, which confirms it was indeed the “Wheel of Panels”, so... there’s that, at least.

Anyway, I say my phone’s been deleting files, but really it’s almost certainly not the phone itself that’s the problem, but the SD card.  And it’s possible the “deleted” files are still salvageable, but finding out would require an SD card reader.  And it seems that no local stores actually had the danged thing in stock, and I ordered one online but it hasn’t arrived yet.  So... when I get the SD card reader, and when and if I’m able to use it to recover the lost files from my phone’s SD card, I’ll post a picture of the Wheel of Panels.  But until then, a text description is going to have to suffice.

The Wheel of Panels was a cardboard wheel similar to the game show Wheel of Fortune, with twelve divisions it could land on, each with a number except for one that just said “Splash”, for splash page (single panel): If I recall correctly, two of the divisions were numbered “2″, two “3″, two “4″, two “5″, one “6″, one “7″, and one “9″.  The idea was that a comic creator would spin the wheel for each page—or at least for a few pages, if he or she didn’t want to use it for every page—and whatever number it landed on, that was how many panels that page had.  (The proprietor, who I guess I may as well start referring to by name instead of just as “the proprietor”—his name is Chris Brady—, said he’d originally planned to have on the wheel not just different numbers of panels, but different layouts, but he didn’t have time.)  Apparently the “7″ and “9″ were originally “1″s, but were changed before I arrived because it was decided that the chances of a single-panel page were too high.

I’m always up for a challenge on 24-Hour Comics Day, so, sure, I spun the wheel for every page.  On the whole, I’m not sure whether that was to my benefit or not.  On the one hand, I tend to use a lot of panels, so I think it did lead to a smaller average number of panels per page than my 24-hour comics usually have, and that may have sped up the process—thanks to the Wheel of Panels, I ended up with an average of 3 7/8 panels per page.  For comparison, my first ever 24-hour comic had an average of 5 17/24 panels per page, and my last three pen-and-paper 24-hour comics before this one had 5 5/8, 5 2/3, and 6 1/3 (in reverse chronological order).

On the other hand, fewer panels doesn’t necessarily mean less time.  One large panel may not be faster to draw than nine small panels, because I tend to want to load that large panel up with lots of details.  And then there are the pacing issues... maybe I’m at a point in the story when I’d like to get things moving quickly or dump a lot of exposition, so it would be nice to cram a lot of panels on a page to do it with, but the Wheel of Panels in its infinite wisdom has decreed that the next page will only have two or three panels... or, conversely (though less likely), I’d like to take just a few panels to wrap up the current beat but thanks to the Wheel of Panels I have to figure out a way to drag it out over six or seven panels.  This especially came up at the very beginning and end.  I don’t tend to use many single-panel splash pages in my 24-hour comics, but I do generally use a splash page for the title page, which, naturally, comes near the beginning of the comic.  This time, I didn’t get a single-panel page till page 17, though, so a single-panel splash page was out.  And at the other end, the last few pages of my comics tend to have a lot of panels because I’m trying to wrap up the plots; this time two of the last three pages had only two panels each.

Still, whether the Wheel of Panels was a help or a hindrance, and despite at one point spilling coffee all over my concept and layout sketches (fortunately none got on the comic pages themselves, except a few small drops I covered with correction fluid), I once again got the comic done, with four hours to spare.  (@beenbettercomic​ finished inking his comic about the same time as I did—actually a minute or two before—and then spent a while erasing his pencils; I used to do that my first few years of 24-Hour Comics Day, but nowadays I use a non-repro blue pencil so I can skip that step.  Not that there’s anything wrong with using a regular pencil and erasing it, of course; it’s just a different method.)  I took a break that was supposed to be brief but ended up lasting two hours (I can’t exactly say I took a nap because I don’t think I actually fell asleep, but I did spend part of that time lounging in a soft chair with my eyes closed, anyway), and then I spent the last two hours proofing the comic and adding some more backgrounds and details.  I can’t post the comic yet because it’s still at the store awaiting being scanned, but I’ll get it online as soon as I can.

Of course, this raises the question... if once again I was able to finish a pen-and-paper 24 hour comic on 24-Hour Comics Day, why am I having so much trouble finishing my digital 24-hour comics for d24?  If anything, the digital comics should be faster to make.  I’d actually written up a rather lengthy analysis about this question, but... eh.  It’s better saved, I think, for a separate post.

So to end this post, how was 24-Hour Comics Day at 4 Color Fantasies?  Well... I’ve been doing 24-Hour Comics Day at the Comic Bug for ten years; I’m kind of a traditionalist; I don’t want to break that pattern.  And anyway, I like the Comic Bug.  But I also like 4 Color Fantasies, and if I weren’t already doing 24-Hour Comics Day at the Comic Bug I’d do it here.  And on those years, like this year, that the Comic Bug decides to hold their event on a different day—it’s happened before, and it’ll very likely happen again—then 4 Color Fantasies is going to be my go-to place to do it on the official day.  And I may drop by for the occasional other event, too.

[alunclewe]

CTN Expo, Day 1

Okay, it’s now actually Day 3 of the Expo, but I’m referring to yesterday; I’d intended to make this post last night, but I was too tired.  Of course, yesterday was Day 2 of the Expo, but since I couldn’t go on Friday it was Day 1 for me.

And Day 2 for me is getting off to a later start than I’d planned, since I ended up sleeping in a bit later than I’d intended.  There’s a panel going on right now I’d intended to attend, and quite obviously didn’t.  I’m heading off as soon as I finish this post, though (well, as soon as I finish this post and then take a quick shower, have breakfast, and get dressed), so at least I’ll get there much earlier than yesterday.

So anyway...

So what did I do at the CTN Expo so far?  Well, I did see a few of the artists I follow on Tumblr— @arythusa​, @breebird33​, @briannedrouhard, @bobbypontillas, @portlynntagavi, @coryloftis, @radfordsechrist, @elioli-art... quite possibly others I’m forgetting.  When I say I saw them, though, I mean just that... I saw them; I didn’t actually talk to most of them.  Partly because the space in front of their tables was already full with other people talking to them when I passed by, but also partly because I... didn’t really know what I would say.  “Hi, you don’t know me, and I haven’t worked on anything you know of, but I follow you on Tumblr”?

What I possibly should have done—and what I will do today if I see them again and if they’re not too busy when I pass by—is actually buy some merchandise from them, even if it’s just a postcard or two.  That way it gives an opening to talk, as well as showing I’m actually interested in their art.  Still not entirely sure what to talk about, but I do want to at least say hi and try to make some sort of tenuous connection.  I came to the Expo in large part to try to make connections; I ought to try harder to do that.

I did have a fairly good talk with @sherm, Sherm Cohen, whose voice I knew well, at least, from the Toon Boom Storyboard Pro tutorial videos.  I told him his videos had been very helpful for learning how to use the software, and he seemed genuinely pleased to hear that.  I didn’t give him a card, though I should have; it just didn’t occur to me.  I’m bad at this networking thing.  (I guess it’s not too late to say hi again and give him a business card if I see him again today.  I mean, not that I’m really expecting anything to come of my giving him a business card, but, eh, I’ve got these things printed, I may as well give them out; I guess you never know what could happen.)

The one artist I did give a business card to was someone I don’t currently follow on Tumblr, though I will—in fact, I’ll go ahead and do so as soon as I post this— @nateswinehart.  So that makes a total of... one business card I gave out yesterday.  Two, if you could the one I put in the jar at the Nickelodeon booth with a label on it saying they were collecting business cards.

Oh, I also ran into someone I already knew from monthly comic creators’ meetings at The Comic Bug in Manhattan Beach.  (I’m missing this month’s meeting, alas, because it falls on the same weekend as the CTN Expo.)  Who I didn’t realize till just now also has a tumblr blog, @47ness, so I guess I should follow him too.  (For that matter, I didn’t realize till just now that @thecomicbug itself has a tumblr blog, though there aren’t any actual posts there and it apparently exists just to direct people to its website and Facebook page.)

But anyway, even if this convention has been so far not a great success for me in networking terms, it has done better in serving my other purpose in attending... just learning how the convention works so I’ll know better next year.  I’ve certainly learned some important things about the CTN Expo.  For example:

If you want to go to a panel you have to line up way in advance.  And that’s with a “FASTPASS”.  According to the website, FASTPASSes allow you to “bypass lines.”  In practice, for all but the least popular panels, everyone uses a FASTPASS, so the FASTPASS allows you to get in line; if you don’t use a FASTPASS your chances of getting into the panel are pretty much nil.  Even if you do use a FASTPASS, it’s not guaranteed.  According to the website, “Everyone with a FASTPASS should arrive at the entrance to the session 10 min early and must have their FASTPASS ticket ready to give to the door attendant.”  In practice, if you only get there ten minutes early, you’re out of luck.  For particularly popular panels, even lining up an hour early may not be enough.  That’s because people with a VIP membership take priority even over people with FASTPASSes, and so the more people with VIP memberships decide to attend a panel, the fewer people with FASTPASSes are getting in.  (And, again, nobody without a FASTPASS is getting in regardless.)  So if you want to go to panels at the CTN Expo, either get a VIP membership, or be prepared for a lot of waiting.

But the panels aren’t really where it’s at anyway, and the biggest panels —the ones held in the ballroom—are displayed on monitors outside the room, so if you don’t care about the cachet of being physically in the same room as the speakers you can see the panels without having to wait in line.

Where it is at, largely, is the workshops, when you get some face-to-face time in small groups with working professionals.  To keep the group size down, you have to register for the workshops separately, and you have to pay for most of them, but they’re only $15.00, and it’s worth it.  Or so I gather; this I don’t yet know from personal experience, since I haven’t gone to any workshops, not having really known the system beforehand.  But I did register for a workshop today (the only one that wasn’t full, though it should still be interesting), so I’ll see how it goes...

Finding street parking near the convention was—well, I can’t say it was much worse than I feared, but it wasn’t much better either.  Actually, finding street parking was almost exactly as difficult as I’d feared.  So that’s one thing I anticipated correctly.

If you expect to be hungry during the convention, bring food.  There are concessions available there, but they’re limited and somewhat overpriced.  Though honestly, that’s another thing I’d anticipated correctly anyway.

Well, anyway, I guess now it’s time for a quick shower and breakfast and then off to Burbank again...

[alunclewe]

24-Hour Comic #24: It’s All Over

So, it’s noon, and that means 24-Hour Comics Day is officially over at the Comic Bug.

As I posted previously, I had all my pages inked four and a half hours ago, but I spent the remaining time adding shading, details, and backgrounds, and proofreading the text.  I think this is the first time I’ve actually had/made the time to proofread one of my 24-hour comics.  I hope I didn’t miss anything.

Anyway, I’ll keep this post short, because I’ve already said pretty much everything I think I need to say about the comic for now.  And because I’m very tired.  Well, actually... I think I sort of got my second wind (as well as being heavily caffeinated) and I’m not nearly as tired as I should be.  But I’m sure it’ll hit me in a few hours.

So... g’bye.