A Walk to a Waterfall - In print!!

A Walk to a Waterfall is here and in print! My second comic is slightly different to my first, most pages have 6 panels rather than 4, meaning the illustration detail is smaller. 

I am not fully happy with the colours in this comic, although it looks fine, I know how I expected it to look and its slightly different, so this is something I want to investigate a little more for future prints. Other than that, I really love how it looks. The cover works really well. I used the back page to add in the map I had created too, to match the walk I took, which I really love.

Macc- Pow! - First Comic Market

I am super excited to have today exhibited at my first comic market! I have sold at markets and fairs before, when I ran my own creative business, that gave me a great idea on how to expect, and how to prepare, so the day went really well! 

I got to meet some really amazing comic creators, and talk to people about my work, which felt like a huge accomplishment. I exchanged 

There were a few things I didn't fully expect, like some people asked me to sign the comics they bought which was really exciting. I want to have a bigger variety of work to sell at my next market; prints, postcards and zines. However, having two solid comics for sale, really felt great. My feet hurt. 

Adding Travel Zine Elements into my Comic

 

A Walk to a Waterfall - Sent to Print!

 Today I have finished lettering and formatting A Walk to a Waterfall; the process was MUCH quicker with this being my second comic, although still quite clunky! I've sent them off to print, with the hope they will arrive in time for the weekend when it is my first ever comic fair.

Here are a few of my favourite spreads. I love the grey and pink colour pallet, and can't wait to see it in person.

A Walk to a Waterfall - Progress Update

I have now fully finished the artwork for A Walk to a Waterfall!!

I have gone through so many iterations of this comic, and I have now finished the artwork in a way that really pushed my boundaries. There were so many scenes that I actively avoided adding in originally, but in the end I pushed myself out of my comfort zone and I am really happy with the results.

I will start lettering now, and send to print as soon as I can.

 

Preparing for a Comic Market

 My first comics market is coming in the next 3ish weeks, which means I want to start doing some prep to make sure I am ready. This includes ordering things like a card reader, looking into additional merch (stickers, postcards prints etc), ways to display everything and things to label prices etc.

At this stage I know I will 100% have at least one comic, and I have a riso print which I'll be taking too,

Card Payment

After a little research the simplest, and cheapest card reader I can find is Square. It can take contactless payments and also works via bluetooth, so no cables. I do plan to only take card so this is very useful. 

https://squareup.com/shop/hardware/gb/en/products/credit-card-apple-pay-reader-contactless

Transporting Stock

Display

 I am going to have to transport everything on a train, so I need to take that into consideration when thinking about my display. I want to make sure my work is displayed well and accessible. After a little search I found this module wire mesh display, it comes apart and packs away flat, and can be built in various ways. I can use bulldog clips to attach prints to display them better too.

Merch

I want to use a local independent printer for my merch work, although I haven't settled on exactly what I'm going to print yet, I hope to use Print Works (www.print.work).

Art print pricing-

• A5 - 20 prints - £14.28 - Sell for £5
• A4 - 20 prints - £20.40 - Sell for £7.50
• Concertina Zine - 30  - £30.15 - Sell for £5

Reflections on First Printed Comic!

I received the printed copies of A Crying Shame last week, and I am so pleased with how they came out. 

If I was going to redo anything, I would make the cover a little thicker, I have the impression its going to curl quite easily. I also left a page blank at the back (intentionally) and I'm going to make sure that doesn't happen again with future comics; either with artwork of details of myself, something so it looks more intentional. 

I wish I had also added details of where and when they printed, eg "First print run, June 2023" or similar. I will definitely be doing that on A Walk to a Waterfall.

Other than that I am really happy, the cover is bold and bright, the inside pages are really pleasing, and the overall layout flows really well. Working closely with the printer and taking their advice really worked out!

Leeds Zine Library - Logo Creation and Concept

I took these initial logo concepts and ideas into the Art Librarian, quick sketches and inspiration that I wanted to build into the new Zine Library logo. I wanted to focus on owls, it being a Leeds emblem, the golden owls at the bottom are at the gates to the library. I took colours from these, a dark blue and an antique gold.

The librarian was extremely positive about them, let me know they wanted the close up face of the owl. We looked at other zine library images too ad liked the simplicity of many that could be turned into a stamp, into stickers and badges easily; meaning not too much detail that can be lost if the image is quite small. I went away and created the these variations:

 

A Walk to a Waterfall - Covers and inside covers

Front cover - Inside Front Cover

Back Cover - Inside Back Cover

I wanted to carry on the front cover of A Walk to a Waterfall into the inside covers and back cover. I also wanted to make them flow into each other. Very excited to see these ones in print!

A Walk to a Waterall - Old V New Pages

Upon restarting the pages of a Walk to a Waterfall, having now already fully completed one comic, I went into it with some prior knowledge on ways to stream-line the process, given my tight deadline this was quite important too. Here is a side by side comparison, left being old and right being new.

As you can see the one on the right has a lot more detail, it's also more stylised in a way that is unnatural to my drawing style, meaning it takes a lot longer. Although the images are more flat, and the colours more limited, this being an A5 comic means it's not as important to have a lot of detail; thought if I dont have some additional time at the end I will go and add in some additional detail.

At the minute, however, I am very happy with how it looks, it feels more natural to me and I feel more confident that I am going to hit my printing deadline.

 

A Guide to a Waterfall - Map Zine.

 It was suggested at mid-term peer reviews that I make a zine alongside A Walk to a Waterfall, which details the route for other people to use to take the same walk. I thought this would be a great idea! I did a little research and found a company that print concertina fold wedding invites, which would work perfectly for this as the route itself is quite long and narrow, and it being a wedding invite means the stock is quite thick! I've put together the artwork, which you can here.

The printing costs around £30 for 30, and I'd look to sell them for around £5.

A Walk to a Waterfall - Fully lined

I have now fully lined, and began colouring A Walk to a Waterfall, as previously mentioned I was playing around with the narrative and page count, using the skills that I learnt during A Crying Shame; this was resulted in the original 12 pages becoming 20. I am incredibly happy with this, the flow feels a lot more natural and well paced. It's allowed me to bring in more details from the trip that I took. It also means that I will have 2 20 page comics, which feels more substantion.

 

Reflection on finishing first comic

Finishing A Crying Shame as felt like a real achievement, it has also been a huge learning curve, which has lead me to understand sequential art in a different way. 

Through the process I have learnt a lot of practical skills, specifically lettering. Although obviously still very inexperiences, the short time I was letting this comic I felt like I streamlined the process, as well as learning to create my own font too. I printed pages out with various font sizes to test how they would look in print.

I have now revisited A Walk to a Waterfalls script, using what I have learnt and my new understanding of pace, I have realised my words per page doesn't quite work. I've made some edits, and re-split per page, and it's now more than twice as long; its gone from 12 pages to 28... this causes a few issues with my timeline. 

I'm going to work on a dummy book immediately and decide which route to take from there.

Caliburn Prize - Entry

 

I came across this comics prize on twitter, and have just submitted my entry.

To enter you needed to send a single PDF document consisting of a cover with logo, eight finished pages of story, a one-page full synopsis of the comic and a biography page. Deadline Is June 7th, so I got it in with a few days to spare using completed pages from A Crying Shame.

A Crying Shame - Finished Pages

I have just completed the first proof of A Crying Shame. After I finished lettering I created inside cover pages, and a title page.

Reading it through fully once the lettering was completed felt like a real achievement, I have been worried a little throughout this that it was going to feel too short and that the intended feeling would be missed, however, I feel like I have really achieved by initial goal in being vulnerable in this comic, enough to give encouragement to people that might be struggling with depression.

I am having it proof read by a few people now, to ensure the flow works and there is no grammatical errors. I will then create the final back page, where I intend to list my website so people can contact me if they need to, or find my work in future.

 Once I've had proofs back, I'll make any chances that are needed, and will ready the files for print to send straight away.

A Crying Shame - Layout Critique

I've finished the lining and colouring of A Crying Shame, and have taken the chance to lay out the pages in the correct layout to see how the pages look side by side as they will when being read. I am really really happy with the way they look. The flow feels natural and slow. I still feel quite aware that the comic itself is quite short, and know that I struggle to stretch out dialog and let the pictures tell more of the story, but I am much happier with this layout than earlier versions which were more condensed and word heavy.

I'm looking forward to seeing it fully lettered, which I will work on next, and re-evaluate again at that stage that the flow still works, and the pacing matches the story.

Comic Progress - Update

 

Now that my pre-orders are live, and the target has been met I am focusing solely on getting my comics finished. My target for finishing outlines/the bulk of the drawing was the end of this week, I will hopefully hit that for A Crying Shame but then need to focus on A Walk to a Waterfall. My print deadline is June 9, which I am tentatively hopeful I will hit. However, I need give myself some leeway, and have contacted my printer for their turnaround to make sure I take that into consideration.

Self-Publishing - Launching Pre-Orders!!

 On Thursday May 18th I set comics live for pre-orders! I made a few graphics to promote this specifically for Instagram Stories, Instagram Grid and Twitter! Below are screen caps of the posts:

I have previous experience in selling things online, and that really helped me feel confident in setting this all going. I set myself a target I hoped to reach, similar to what I would have done on a crowd funding campaign, something that would allow me to cover the costs of my initial print run of 50 of each comic, and I achieved this within the first few days of the pre-orders being live! I can now go ahead and finish the comics knowing that I can easily pay for the initial print run, which cover all pre-orders, as well as leaving spares for my upcoming comic markets and some stock for comic stores!

Self-Publishing - Dissemination - Stockiest Research

I contacted OK Comics and Travelling Man, two local comic shops to discuss their approach to stocking small press/self-published work. Below are the responses:

Travelling Man

"Most of the time it is Sale or Return but sometimes Wholesale, depending on how many we order to be honest, it really varies. We mostly wait for people to get in touch with us but again, sometimes we seek out and contact creators. Quantity wise, usually 2 or 4 copies per shop, but it really can vary! I've attached our guidelines too!" 

Mama, who runs the small press for Travelling Man, also added their guidelines for me which detailed the ins and outs of getting paid and it was really useful.

OK Comics

"We used to purchase small press on sale or return but this was hard to manage, buying at a discounted rate (usually between 40/50%, we usually discuss this with the creator and find a price that works for us both) and letting them tick over works better for us. We also find that this gets us more excited to stock and sell the comic!

We tend to order a small amount to start with and gage customer response before ordering more,

Hope this helps!

All the best,

Danielle"

Leeds Zine Library - Dissemination

After visiting Leeds Library a month or so ago,  I contacted the Art Librarian, Emma Hayton, to discuss the potential of revamping their Zine Library. The Library currently is tucked away in a corridor, and visually isn't the most appealing; although the library itself has some really great pieces in it. It felt like with a few changes and some time dedicated to it it could be something really special. 

Today I had an initial meeting with Emma, pitched my ideas and it wet really well. They already have plans to move the collection to a more accessible space within the Art Library, and we discussed some furniture options from other zine libraries that I have come across during my MA research. 

We also discussed having an official re-launch party, and building a donation drive into that where creators can donate copies of their work to replenish the shelves. 

The outcome was that I will become an official volunteer at the library, and work on the zine library long term. We have more meetings booked in, and in the mean time I'm going to work on some rebranding.