Updates galore

The last half of October has been a heck of a few weeks for me. The biggest highlight was my trip to Winnipeg for Central Canada Comic Con where I was selling Acts of Violence: An Anthology of Crime Comics and the issue of IF-X featuring Dark Art, promoting The Grim Collection, and checking out Artist Alley in the hopes of finding some talented artists who might be interested in working together on comics for The Grim Collection. I will have a full Con report posted on this here blog in the near future.

In other news, Song’s End has been lettered by E.T. Dollman. I will be packaging the files and sending it to the Hamtramck Idea Men over the weekend. You might recall that Song’s End will appear in the December 2011 edition of IF-X. The theme is “West”.

There has been movement on other comics as well. Manoel Magalhaes has turned in more pages for Orphan. Tim Hall has completed character designs for On The Other Side of The Bridge, and just the other day turned in thumbs of the first eight pages. My experience with Tim has been great thus far and I can’t wait to see what the final artwork looks like. The third comic currently in production for The Grim Collection, The Dig, is also moving forward. Adam Sward provided me with character sketches that were quickly approved. This will be the third collaboration between Adam and I.

And, I hate to announce this for fear of jinxing it, but there is a very good possibility that a long gestating comic project is soon to debut.

I will finish with one final word about The Grim Collection. I added new content to it on November 4. The Draw of Memories is a short fiction, the first to appear on The Grim Collection.

Calgary Con Report

Thought you might like to hear about my experience at the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo. It was June 17 – 19, and is the largest Con in Western Canada. The numbers aren’t in for this year, but there were more than 30,000 attendees in 2010.

I did not know what to expect of the Con because this was my first time as a fan and creator, but I can say with assurance the experience was better than I could have imagined. Sales were great. The atmosphere was amazing. The people were fantastic. I had fun. I learned.  And the whole Con experience revitalized my desire to be an active, contributing member of the comics community. Seeing and experiencing tangible evidence of what being a comic creator is all about was therapeutic.

I went down with four other comic writers (the writers / creators of Acts of Violence). We each brought copies of Acts of Violence and the other guys had other books to sell too. Going in I was going to be happy if we sold 30 Acts of Violence. The other guys at the table who did Cons before thought 50 copies sold would be strong sales. We sold 104 copies of Acts of Violence (the highest selling book at our table) and the other books sold well too, including 50+ copies of Ed Brisson’s Murder Book. We did awesome.

In summary, I loved the Con experience (as a fan and creator). It made me realize how much I want to be a full-time member of that community. It has also gotten me super-excited for the future of Synchronicity—whether it ends up at a publisher or self-published I know it is a great book and would be well received by the community. I look forward to the day when I have the honor of selling it at a Con.

Acts of Violence in stores now

Acts of Violence

Canadian comic shops that ordered Acts of Violence from our distributor, Diamond, have copies in stock as of June 2, 2010. American comic shops will have Acts of Violence on June 3, 2010. If you want a copy but your comic store isn’t carrying it they should be able to order it for you, or you can buy it from our publisher’s online store.

The creators of the anthology (me included) would love to hear your thoughts on the book. We can be reached via the Acts of Violence Web site or you can contact me through this blog.

I have a sense of closure now that the book is widely available in comic shops. To think we started this project almost two years ago! I replied to Ed Brisson’s digitalwebbing.com post on August 15, 2008. I don’t have the post on file, but here was the email I wrote to express my interest in his crime comics project:

“I saw your post on digitalwebbing.com and got very excited. The genre of crime appeals to me, but what got me really excited was the overall contents your post—an experienced writer and maker of comics looking for collaborative partners, especially writers, and you just so happen to be Canadian. (I’m in Saskatchewan.) I’ve been on the look out for opportunities to collaborate with others. I feel I’ve also proven to myself that I can be dedicated to a project through to the end. I wrote, hired an art team, and managed a 96-page graphic novel through to completion. I self-published it. Anyway, I’m interested in learning more. Let me know if you have any questions for me.”

Ed got back to me five days later, we continued the conversation via email and the rest, as they say, is history.

Free Comic Book Day Event

I was at the Downtown and South ComicReaders in Regina, SK on May 1 as part of Free Comic Book Day. I was selling and signing copies of Acts of Violence, Special Edition volume 1, IF-X #9 and A Thousand Faces.

My day started at the south store where I met many great people, including some old friends, and two writer / artists who are part of a creative collective that produces and publishes Valuable Comics here in Regina. Another highlight was meeting Jason Sylvestre, another local comic creator whose comic Jason of New York City  is currently competing in Small Press Idol 2010. It’s a great comic so check out Small Press Idol 2010 and cast your vote for Jason of New York City.

I moved to the downtown store for the afternoon, where I chatted with even more people. All in all, it was a great day for me and comics in general because Free Comic Book Day is a great way for readers to get exposed to new titles and genres within comics.

My table at the South ComicReaders.

(left to right) Jason Sylvestre and I. Check out Jason's comic Jason of New York City at Small Press Idol 2010. Give him your vote too!

Darcy (left) is one of the creators responsible for Valuable Comics, which is produced and published in Regina by Saskatchewan comics creators.

Greg (left) and Dana (right) are the big-wigs at ComicReaders. The opportunity for me to be at FCBD is thanks to them.

More Acts of Violence Interviews

Here are more Acts of Violence related interviews.

Damian Couceiro, artist for The Orchard

Manoel Maghalaes is the artist for The Three Princes.

Ed Brisson's second interview is about The Orchard.

Toren Atkinson is the artist of Reggie-Town.