#the kill screen

[glassgears]

The Kill Screen - Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost brings a return to the technological apocalypse to Kickstarter, with just a few days left to support!

Support one of the best comics on the UK indie comics scene now!

[glassgears]

The Kill Screen - 230+ Page Hardcover! - The UK indie cult comic 'The Kill Screen' collected for the first time, as a hardcover edition, featuring a whole host of extras! - http://kck.st/1Wpn4ma

So I’ve mentioned this comic before. The Kill Screen is an amazing comic about the survivors of a post-apocalyptic event where computer viruses, errors and memes manifested in the world - and it’s now coming out as a hardcover collection.

They’re now successfully funded and even passed several stretch goals, but I want to see as many people reading this as possible, because it is awesome!

Go and show your support of talented new creators, and get this book! You will NOT regret it.

[glassgears]

The Kill Screen - 230+ Page Hardcover! - The UK indie cult comic 'The Kill Screen' collected for the first time, as a hardcover edition, featuring a whole host of extras! - http://kck.st/1Wpn4ma

Do you like good comics? Do you like intriguing, high-concept stories that are action-packed, funny and emotional? Then this is the book for you...and you can get it for incredible prices!

Go and support The Kill Screen​ now and get in on one of the best comics out there today now! - Joe Glass

[abigailchandler]

Self-publishing comics, with Mike Garley and Andy W Clift

While preparing my self-publishing feature for SciFiNow magazine (out now!) I interviewed a lot of awesome creators, both of comics and novels. Sadly, there wasn’t room for all of their many words of wisdom in the final feature, so rather than letting them go to waste, I’m including them here!

I had a joint chat with Mike Garley, writer of the awesome The Kill Screen, and Andy W Clift, writer and artist on the frankly mental Bertie Bear, to get their advice on self-publishing comics. They’re currently working together on web comic SGT Steel: Allied Avenger, which you can read here.

Read more below to learn all about how to find a printer, how to overcome the perils of resting on your laurels, and how to sell your work at a comic con.

What motivated you to get into self-publishing comics?

Mike: I’ve always loved storytelling, so when I started doing comics it just kind of made sense. There’s nothing to stop you, it’s easy enough to work with people or do it on your own, if you’re artistically gifted, to create your own comic and put it out there.

Andy: Definitely. I mean, for me, I grew up in an underground punk music scene, where everybody was doing everything themselves, putting on shows, making their  own CDs, making their own record labels, so I grew up in that, so when I started doing comic books it made a lot of sense to keep that ethos, to print your own books. As Mike said, nothing’s stopping anybody from making their own comics. You get a load of people who say ‘I really want to be a comic book artist, I really want to put out my own book, I really want to have that’ – do it! It’s out there, it’s not hard. Yes, it’s time consuming, yes, it can cost money to do, but... you put your money where your mouth is. Make your own stuff.

A panel from The Kill Screen

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced in self-publishing?

Mike: Most people who self-publish have drive. You have to have a certain amount of drive to do it... You have to face all these challenges, you have no safety net, you just have to go out and do it. There are constant challenges. Self promotion is obviously the most difficult thing, but that’s a problem for everyone, anyone who isn’t a massive publisher. Even big publishers struggle to get some of their books noticed.

Andy: Coming to comic cons I think is great. I try to do as many shows as I can a year, I know Mike does a lot more than I do. You get to meet people and put your book in their hands and explain what it is. I think that helps, being able to talk about your book. But if you put out a really great book, the best you can, I think that speaks for itself. Your work speaks for itself. Or Mike speaks for it.

How do you go about getting a table at a comic con?

Andy: It’s literally just keeping an eye on the websites. Things like MCM Expo, for example, they’ll have it quite apparent when their exhibitor or comic village applications are open and it’s literally a first-come-first-served, and they can just get rid of all their tables in just a couple of hours. And with Thoughtbubble, for example, they advertise it on their Twitter or Facebook page or whatever, and then it’s an application stage and they review everyone’s work and decide who they want. If you want to do a comic con, you just look at their website. They’ll have all the information there.

Mike: I would add that there’s enough smaller cons, local cons, so new creators can find a con that they can exhibit at. It’s not a closed industry by any stretch of the imagination. There’s always local cons, there’s always a way for you to get your work seen by people.

How do you find a printer to print your comic?

Mike: There are several printers that you can look around for, I’d recommend having a look at other people comics and getting printer recommendations from them. You need to find the type of printer you like, and then you need to find someone who can do that at a cost you can afford. The more comics you print the cheaper it will be, but you need to be realistic and print a massive load of stock that you’re not going to be able to shift.

Andy: A lot of [printers] will send out proofs as well, which is always nice, so you can get an idea of what they look like. You’ve got to find the printer that works best for you. Some printers that put out books for other people might not get the finish that you want, so it’s always good to do research into what you’re doing.

What’s the benefit of a print comic over a web one?

Mike: I think people like to own things. If people invest time in something then they want to own a copy, they want something tangible. I personally love stuff. I read a lot of digital comics, but if I really enjoy something I want to have my own copy that I can look through.

How do you get into comics if you’re just a writer or just an artist?

Mike: It means you can focus on the one thing you do. There’s the challenge of finding someone to work with, but then there’s a benefit of finding someone to work with who can really improve what you’re working on.

Andy: I started off just as an artist and it can be harder. I do think it’s easier for writer/artists. I think there are more writers out there looking for artists, and I think it’s easier for an artist to find a writer than it is the other way round.

Mike: You can look at an artist’s work and tell if they’re good at doing artwork, but you can’t look at a writer’s script and tell if they’re a good writer or not, it’s a completely different ball game. I think for writers, before anyone has any faith in you, you need to have created a fair amount of content first. You need to keep producing stories that people are interested in.

What’s been your proudest moment?

Andy: Getting my own book in my hands for the first time, that was kind of awesome. And then selling it at comic cons. Obviously since then [I’ve been] trying to create new goals and moving on, just making sure you’re moving forwards and not staying still.

Mike: One of the main motivating factors for me is when I do a con and people come back and they’ve read the comic and they’ve enjoyed it and they’re looking for the second one, or the third one – the next one, basically – or they just want to say that they enjoyed it, and I think that’s one of the most gratifying things, when people enjoy what you’re doing.

Andy: People who come back. They’re like ‘I really enjoyed that book and now I want to buy the next one’, that’s really nice. And of course anybody who is willing to pay you for your work. I love those guys. I love all of them.

A panel from Bertie Bear

Do you think some people fall at the first hurdle because they expect overnight fame?

Mike: I think it takes a very, very long time to get any type of traction in the comic industry. I think it can’t be a stepping stone for people if they set an unrealistic goal and think they’re going to make it straight away. It takes a long time, it takes a lot of hard work and perseverance. You just have to stick with it.

Andy: Going back to what I said about one of my favourite moments, having that first book in my hands, it’s very easy to let that take over and go ‘I’ve done it now! I’ve made a book, I make comics and that’s the end of it! Now I just have to sit back and wait for people to come and buy my book’. I’ve seen that happen, people go ‘I’ve got a book now and I’m a comic creator’. It’s all well and good to enjoy that moment, I have, but you have to keep going. People aren’t going to come to you to buy your book. They don’t know who we are.  You’ve got to push it.

What advice would you give people just getting started?

Mike: Do it! It sounds really simplistic, that I’m just taking away all of the challenges, but it’s as simple as if you want to create something, just do it. A lot of people have this thought that they’re not ready to do something. They have a story that they want to tell but they want it to be perfect, and I think that’s a dangerous mentality to get into. You can’t worry about making something perfect, you have to make it otherwise you’re going to lose the opportunity, you’re going to lose that momentum. You need to make it, get it out there, get feedback, and then move on. It needs to be a continual process... I don’t think you should get drawn into doing a massive project. If it’s your first project don’t worry if it’s only a four page story – that’s fantastic, you’ve got something you can show people and it helps get you excited about the next thing you want to work on, or possibly find someone you want to collaborate with on the next project.

Andy: Because that‘s going to be harder to sell as well, to put out there straight off the bat. ‘This is my first book. It’s 300 pages long and it’s £25’. That can sometimes be a deterrent. If anything it can be better to work on something smaller.

Has creating comics lived up to your expectations?

Mike: More so. It’s everything I hoped it would be and more. When I started I didn’t expect to enjoy it half as much as I do. I love cons. They’re hard work and they take up a lot of my time and they’re expensive, but I wouldn’t trade them for the world, I really enjoy them, I really love getting to chat to people and show them my work, I love getting to see other people’s work. It’s a fantastic community and industry to be part of.

Andy: I always say to people that making comics is the best thing in the world. It just is. I remember the first comic book I worked on, it was the best feeling ever. I was doing a lot of drawing work as a storyboard artist already and to the outside person they’re quite similar, and they are, storyboards and comics are quite similar, but there’s just something about working on comics, creating something, putting it out there and just having it. You created it. It’s lovely.

[chucksuffel]

Review - The Kill Screen #2 Cascade

Review – The Kill Screen #2 Cascade

I reviewed the first issue of Kill Screen back in May. I was surprised at the intensity of the story and at how much I enjoyed it. The second issue is now available and I enjoyed it even more than the first.

The basic premise of the series is that a computer glitch has spread to the human race and destroyed civilization. The survivors do their best to escape from the various groups of the…

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[chucksuffel]

The Kill Screen #1 - I Love You - No Really, I Do

The Kill Screen #1 - I Love You - No Really, I Do @mikegarley

Early on in my tenure here at What’cha Reading, I reviewed Mike Garley’s Emponymous, which I loved. Now he has a new title coming out, Kill Screen, which I had the pleasure of reading the first issue of.

A description from their promo package:

The Kill Screen is a brand new creator owned comic written by Mike Garley, with artwork by Josh Sherwell, and letters by Mike Stock.

Humanity has reached…

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[rhymeswithgeek]

The Kill Screen #1: I Love You

Writer: Mike Garley

Artist: Josh Sherwell

Review by: Ben Penfold-Marwick

A “kill screen” is what gamers call a glitch in a video game which stops the player from being able to continue playing. They are frustrating, annoying, and make for a great comic book title. The solicit for this new comic book suggests the idea that an event called ‘The Kill Screen’ has left humanity on the brink of extinction, leaving the remaining survivors caught in a deadly 8-bit game for survival….. whatever that means.

Story: The comic opens with a jarring scene involving Jill, our protagonist, trying to talk her lover out of suicide. We then see her partner shoot himself in the head, a blood-red spray of pixels splattering from the wound. ‘2.0 years later’ Jill is caught in the middle of a group of infected that she seemingly cannot escape. This teeters on being silly, but the dialogue is not bad at all, and the tension is kept high throughout. There are hints to a larger storyline, but this honestly felt like decent one-and-done story from something like 2000AD or Heavy Metal. Interesting ideas and well told. Story score: 8 out of 10.

Art: The ‘pencil work’ or hand-drawn look of this book is kind of average, but there is a very definite sense of design which gives this book a very different feel to many other indy comics out there. The 8-bit infected are glitching all over the place, and the first page of the comic looks like an image that is still loading, well and truly setting up the tone of this world. The panels on one page resemble a tetris game, while others take on a cinematic feel that reminded me of Bendis and Oeming’s landscape panels in Powers. It’s not as crisp and professional as anything from the big two, but it’s great to see something visually different and original being attempted. Art score: 7 out of 10.

Overall: If you think about it, The Kill Screen is just an alternate take on yet another zombie apocalypse story, but it’s a unique one. There’s something cool about the strange mix of the real world and 8-bit graphics that I can imagine this comic book catching on as a cult hit. I hope that the ‘#1’ on the cover is not misleading because I want to see what comes next. Final score: 7.5 out of 10.

Want to see what those ‘other’ comic book websites thought about this comic?  Check out comicbookroundup.com for a full scoring breakdown!

The Kill Screen #1: I Love You – RWG Reviews The Kill Screen #1: I Love You Writer: Mike Garley Artist: Josh Sherwell Review by: Ben Penfold-Marwick…