14 posts tagged “cloudscape”

Hey there,
I Really should have posted earlier, but I went straight into work on Tues and then had to run the Cloudscape meeting.

I know my last post made things sound pretty bleak, but in the end it all worked out, and then some!

Stumptown 2009 was at the time of writing this, my BEST CON EVER!

Everything worked out just exactly right!

Where to begin? Well we stayed at the super cheesey Jupiter hotel which was an experience. Camilla D'Errico recommended it and was also staying there, so I got to share a burger with her and pick her brain about sales techniques. She's a great role model for marketing and business savy, as well as a great person to share table space with. Cloudscape was right next door, so we got to banter and joke throughout the con.

Once again Cloudscape outdid themselves for set-up and display. I was very happy with our table this year.

IMG_0951

I also got to pick up Erika Moens book which had almost not been printed. And grab her super neat collaborative project with Lucy Kinsley. Which was really neat, those are two talented women.

I also got to touch base with all the great Vancouver regulars including the Jobnik crew and Steve Rolston. As well I got to speak with Ed Brisson, and it looks like we will be launching Funday Sunnies alongside his group in May. Expect more details soon.

I also got to meet Jeff Smith and get a nice sketch done. As well as pick up a beautiful limited run print of a new Pop Gun War by Farel Dalrymple.

I also got to get caught up with the one and only, Blue! Musician, Comics activist, and all around awesome girl! Not to mention one of Cloudscapes first fans! She was a huge help, and a great tour guide throughout the trip.

Sales were really good, and I think it helped that I had nominated Historyonics for two Trophy Awards. That night at Cosmic Monkey we even took home an award! I was super thrilled to take the stage, it was definitely a highlight!

Check it out!

IMG_0960

At the party I met Brendan, one of the editors at Dark Horse. He was a really nice guy, and he even bought a book from us :)

The following day I met Craig Thompson who is one of my heroes in comics. He blew me away when I was getting my book signed when he said "Oh yeah I know you, you did that Historyonics book, you guys are doing good stuff".
I was reduced to such a jittery fanboy at that point I had to make a hasty retreat. He'd been to table and liked my books! Woo Hoo!

I think those are the broad strokes. I'm sure I am forgetting countless talented artists I rubbed elbows with. I am definitely coming back to Stumptown 2010, and I will probably go to the Portland Zine Symposium this Summer because I am totally in love with the city of Portland.

Tomorrow morning I am off to Stumptown in Portland Oregon.

I feel like the right thing to do here would be to put a bright shiny face on and talk about how great Cloudscape is and how happy we are to be going to Stumptown, but right now that feels a bit insincere.

A few days ago I would have said I was excited to be going. Now I am not so sure.

I mean I'm still excited to meet Jeff Smith, and Craig Thompson. I'm still excited to speak to Camilla D'Errico and Erika Moen and Ed Brisson again. I'm even excited to attend the Trophy Awards (We are nominated).

I am also excited to see how people like our news books (We've produced two since the last Stumptown). I really feel we've made a great book and I think this could be the con we actually make some profit at.

But due to unforseen complications that I don't feel I should get into in detail here. Everyone seems to be going into this with a chip on their shoulder. They have their nose out of joint, or are stressed out or both. This makes me worried about the future of the collective and I really feel like I haven't done a good job as it's leader.

I am hopeful that we can pull together as a group and move forward, hopefully the good vibes of Portland and the greatest comic con on earth can soothe us all.

Wish me luck!

Woot!

I got the new books and was almost immediately off to Emerald City. The con was decent enough. I think I had the advantage of going in with low expectations. Sales were low, but not bad. Networking went really well.

Ultimately I think I touched base with several cool artists. Notably, Erika Moen, Keith Knight, Camilla D'Ericco, David Mack, Steve Rolston, Ed Brisson, and many others.

It also gave me a chance to employ some more more merchandising techniques, which I was pretty happy with.

IMG_0941

So I came home today to see my latest publication!

Funday Sunnies!

IMG_0938

Cloudscapes full-colour salute to the newspaper strips of old! And it looks great!

I am very proud of this accomplishment, and am eager to see how it is received at Seattles Emerald City Comicon this weekend!

Wish me luck!

Life has been motoring along at it's usual break neck pace. I've been musing at how much and how quickly my life has changed. I am now on my second year at DeSerres and living with a roommate.

I'm feeling more comfortable with things so far. The dull ache of being single is becoming easier to handle.

More importantly though, I have a new book coming out!

Funday_sunnies

 It's felt like time for my monthly blog posting.

I don't know why but I seem to be dragging my feet on then blogs these days. I don't even use facebook that much, and I haven't been on MSN or Skype in ages.

I sometimes worry I'm losing touch with people

It's happened over a long period of time, but just recently I am realizing how long ago Japan has now been for me. I'm more comfortable with my current life in Vancouver, but there are times I still feel nostalgic for those good old days.

That's me ignoring the problems I had there, and forgetting the good things I'm doing here.

Best of all is Cloudscape, the comics collective. We'll be putting out our third book in April; Funday Sunnies a full-colour tribute to the newspaper strips of old. Check the website for more details:

www.cloudscapecomics.com

I'm very excited about this book, and even more excited about the conventions in April. I'll be in Seattle and Portland selling our books.

Despite my resolution to try to make 2009 a positive year I've been spending most of it feeling rather depressed.

Things are a bit better but I still feel like I'm stuck in a rut.

I want a better job, one that is challenging and dynamic and requires my talents and skills.

I also want to meet a nice girl. Someone who has goals and is moving towards them at the same pace (if not faster than my own). Someone honest and passionate and principled.

One of the biggest problems has been the brief fling I was in earlier. It opened this door inside me that reminded me how nice it was to be in a relationship, and has made being single again much harder to face.

Many people have been encouraging me to throw myself back into Cloudscape to get out of this funk, but I find it's been harder to catch the same enthusiasm I'd previously had. Possibly because I haven't been getting the same enthusiastic responses that Historyonics seemed to generate during it's inception.
That being said I think we have an even better crop of talent involved, with an even higher grade of artwork. If we pull this one off I think the following book could be huge, maybe even huge enough to get distributed nationwide!
I'll try my best to pull up my boot straps and make this happen.

wish me luck

Well it's been an odd last few months. My career as a comic publisher has really taken off, sadly  comic publishing is still something one does for the love of it and not the financial rewards.

Still I've been feeling better.

October found me embroiled in a crazy relationship that burned itself out by November. For better or for worse I think I learned a lot about myself.

I am now officially a supervisor at DeSerres. I just need to make sure this doesn't put out the fire that was under my ass to escape.

My friend Angela finally put some pretty good targets in front of my face and I'm finally ready to get moving on some real careers.

The plan at the moment is a multi-faceted one which will involve drawing income from multiple sources and giving up on the security of retail sales.

I don't want to to go into great detail, but part of it will be more Cloudscape books, a web comic, and opening my studio space up for producing a lot more peoples mini-comics.

I'm still paying off APE, and most likely will be till February.

Hopefully in April I will have two new books to take with me to Emerald City and Stumptown.

In general life has been improving. Though I still feel, incomplete, like there's one piece missing from the jigsaw puzzle box.

Time will tell perhaps.

So today was the big show at the JEM! We had our comic pages up on the walls and our books for sale.

Thank you to all who came to the JEM gallery and supported us! It was an overwhelming success and we owe it to all you fantastic guys out there!

If you weren't at the JEM our work will still be up till the 19th and if you haven't already gotten a copy of the book, it will be in all major stores soon. Currently you can nab a copy of Historyonics at "The Comic Shop", Zulu Records, Big Pete's comic shop, Comic Relief, and Garden of Easten.

Or buy from us directly here!

We did better business and had better feedback than we did in two days at APE. This was by far one of our best events! I am so happy to finally unveil the new book in town and look forward to working on the next one.

Think Sunday Funnies.

Well I'm a week late, but here is the run down from APE (Alternative Press Expo) in San Fran.

I had gotten the new books (see last post) and a new banner stand courtesy of Scott and was ready to kick some ass at APE. I also had my costume worked out, but it meant wearing a portion of it on the plane. It was easier to wear my cowboy boots, coat, and hat than pack them away. Not to mention lighter.

I felt a bit silly at the airport, but it was in the interest of a good costume.

Scott, Jack and I travelled together, and would meet the others later. We had to drive to Seattle and then flew into San Fran, which was pretty brutal. Fortunately I'm good at sleeping on planes now.

Once we arrived we checked into the hotel (located on luxurious Ellis street) which was pretty much in the center of "Crackton". Yeah the neighbourhood made the downtown Eastside look alright. Still no one got shot so the area couldn't be that bad.

Anyways after a loooong wait we connected with the rest of the Cloudscape crew. There were seven of us in total, though we didn't see Severine the first night. Of the people staying at the hostel we had Jonathon, Angela, Steve, Scott, Jack and myself. We are then off to the APE preregistration party at the Last Gasp book warehouse. Some of us got into costume including yours truly. Here were some highlights:

IMG_0691

My ghost cowboy

IMG_0696

Jonathon as the Monkey King

IMG_0697

and the greatest costume of all, Scott as Charlie Brown!

It was a good night, however I found my extreme make-up got in the way of networking, as that no one could recognize me. Ah well ive and learn.

All in all it was a good night, I got to catch up with Camilla D'Errico, Keith Knight, and Stephen Notley.

The next day was the first day of APE and I was psyched. We had a slick new book and a great looking table, however there were two things I wasn't counting on.

ONE: San Francisco takes Halloween very seriously and doesn't like to do much the day after.

TWO: The first day of recorded torrential rain for the winter happeneded.

So sadly Saturday was bad sales wise, in fact we got slaughtered, it was pretty nasty. But I did get some nice books. Like the new Acme novelty Library, and Linda Barry's Best American comics.

And we made friends with the Boston Comics Roundtable Cloudscapes Eastcoast American dopplegangers.

 It was very rewarding to see the number of comic collectives at the con. I really think this is the future of small press.

Saturday night we missed out on the Comic Art Museum party, but did soak up the free booze and fun at the Isotop comic awards.

Sunday saw the  return of the Sun and a rise in sales. I also got to see Chris War talk about his work and even get the mans autograph. I was very nervous to meet him. He creates his comcis much like I created my 24hr. comic. In that he plans his story in advance but then starts immediately on finished art and works from top left to bottom right, allowing the story to evolve as he draws. His comics however end up a lot more polished than my 24 hr. scribbles did.

Still I see some value in applying this thought process to the work. I plan on some more flowing comics in future, maybe a 48 hour comic with sleep breaks is in order.

Chris Ware suggested a 27 hour comic, though possibly this was a plan to eliminate competition ;)

Sunday night Jack and I got to meet up with our old workmate Sasha, and we saw the shrines of "the day of the dead" which looked like even more fun than Halloween.

The next day Jack, Scott and I went to Alcatraz and got to experience the second recorded day of torrential rain in San Francisco. (I think we brought it down from Vancouver)

After we dried out we went to Chinatown for dinner, and the final day was spent at the cartoon art museum before returning home.

Loads of fun.

And on the 16th we do our official Vancouver launch!

Wish me luck!