News – Page 3 – Lucy Bellwood

Catch “100 Demon Dialogues” at Emerald City Comic Con

It’s finally here! Emerald City Comic Con is upon us and there’s lots to share about the show.

First up: the raw details.

You can find me in Artist Alley on WSCC Level 6 this year from Thursday through Sunday, tabling alongside many of my good pals from Helioscope. I’ll also be appearing on ~~two~~ THREE panels, which take place down in TCC Level 3 (more about those anon).

You can find Helioscope in the H block of Artist Alley tables, and my specific table number is H-2. (Note that if you’re searching for us in the ECCC App, we’re all listed under “Helioscope” rather than our names, so don’t panic if you don’t see us listed individually!) Here’s a closer look at who’s gonna be there with me:

100 Demon Dialogues, my brand new collection of comics about overcoming imposter syndrome, is making its debut at the show! I got the proofs of both the hardcover and softcover editions this morning and THEY. LOOK. GREAT.

JUST LOOK AT THAT SILVER FOIL. AAAAAAAAA.

In addition to the books themselves, I’ll also have demon plushies, stickers, and letterpress prints, all made possible by the book’s smash-hit Kickstarter campaign.

Yeah, I got a little carried away.

I will, of course, also have copies of Baggywrinkes, A Life in Objects, my Iceland Sketchbook, various postcards, Fancy Bird Stickers, and a limited number of FREE copies of Mappin’ the Floor, my oceanographic comic drawn during three weeks in the Pacific with the Schmidt Ocean Institute.

What about those panels?

I’m so glad you asked. You can find me at the following THREE panels!

Don’t Break In: Independent Careers for Comic Book Creators

Thursday March 01, 2018, 1:30 PM – 2:30 PM, TCC L3 – Room 2

If you want to be a professional comic book creator, getting published isn’t the only answer. More and more creators are building independent careers outside of the traditional model. From social media to crowdfunding to self-publishing, learn more from creators Lucy Bellwood, Jason Brubaker, and Jake Parker. Moderated by Heidi MacDonald.

Mastering Mentorship: How Pros and Amateurs Can Help Each Other Thrive

Thursday March 01, 2018, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM, TCC L3 – Room 5

The comics world is full of creators honing their craft, but how can we better connect established pros and up-and-comers for the betterment of all? Join Lucy Bellwood (Mentorship Program Coordinator, Helioscope), Alissa Sallah (veteran intern of Milkfed Criminal Masterminds & Helioscope, Oni Press), Erika Moen (Oh Joy, Sex Toy), and Danielle Corsetto (Girls with Slingshots) for a discussion about finding mentorship opportunities, owning our strengths, and advancing new careers in comics.

Boats and Boners: a Fireside Chat with Erika Moen and Lucy Bellwood

Friday March 02, 2018, 6:15 PM – 7:15 PM, TCC L3 – Room 2

Join two cartoonists who have turned their niche passions (the nautical and the naughty) into successful careers in the world of comics, earning them professional accolades and invitations to guest lecture at universities and appear at events around the world, for an intimate fireside chat. Bellwood and Moen will unpack their combined 20+ years of hard-won industry experience and probably talk about their feelings a bunch too.

Yes, there will be a real fireside.

No, this is not a joke.

Here’s a handy guide to where those two rooms are in the TCC L3 floorplan:

So there we have it! Here, once again, are all those details in one place:

SEE YOU IN SEATTLE!

News

Ocean Sciences Meeting ’18

Hello everybody,

I’ve got an amazing opportunity to exhibit at the 2018 Ocean Sciences Meeting here in Portland this week (AKA the most impressive gathering of marine science folks in the country) and I wanted to invite you all to come along. I’ll be displaying original pages from (and giving away copies of) Mappin’ the Floor, the comic I drew during three weeks at sea aboard R/V Falkor last spring.

Fun fact: I relinquished ownership of the original pages once the gig aboard Falkor was over, so they’ve been touring all over the world without me to various nautical events: a film festival in San Francisco, the America’s Cup race in Bermuda, the Bishop Museum in Hawai’i, a sailing festival in Rhode Island…pretty neat!

Even aside from the comics stuff, the films they’re showing as part of this art evening at OSM sound really cool. One of them deals with the Blaschka collection of glass replicas, which I had the chance to see at Harvard a couple years ago. Here are some examples, all mind-blowingly accurate. If you ever get the chance to go see them in person, FOR THE LOVE OF NEPTUNE: GO.

I’m really looking forward to doing an event that’s ocean-first rather than comics-focused. Gonna meet a lot of other aquatic nerds!

So that’s it! Join me this Thursday, February 15th, in the Oregon Convention Center Portland Ballroom at 6pm. No ticket required.

See you there!
Lucy

Art, News

Inktober 2017 Skyline Watercolors

If you follow me elsewhere on social media, you know I’ve got a massive penchant for drawing challenges. Inktober is a perennial favorite, so this year I tackled 31 6×6″ watercolor paintings of sunrises and sunsets. Each image was painted from life wherever I happened to be on each day of the month, starting with a basic silhouette of the sky at dusk or dawn.

The final result spanned Portland, Long Beach (WA), New York, and Richmond, and looked something like this:

While prints of all these images are available in my online shop right now, I’ve also decided to sell off the original paintings themselves to help raise some end-of-year cash to help with book printing in 2018.

Buyolympia will be listing the originals (unframed) in batches of 5 over the next few weeks every Tuesday and Thursday. If there’s one you’ve got your eye on, be prepared to act fast! The framed pieces that pre-sold at Portland’s tiny llama gallery earlier this week went real quick.

You can check out the current selection at Buyolympia and take advantage of their free shipping promotion to snag some other gifts for the holiday season while you’re at it. Happy shopping!

News

Curiosity and Creative Mornings

Hi friends, I am very excited to announce that I’ll be speaking at Creative Mornings this Friday (October 6th) at 8:30am at the Armory Theater here in Portland.

Creative Mornings is a free monthly lecture series where speakers appear on stages all over the world to deliver thoughts on a communal theme—all before 10am on a Friday. This month’s prompt is PIONEER, and I’ve crafted a talk all about belonging, childhood passions, and curiosity that I am super stoked to reveal.

I’m also hand-drawing all my slides, which has led to working on things like this all week:

WHAT IS THIS PERSON DOING WITH THAT FIRE EXTINGUISHER AND ALSO THAT BABY? Come to The Armory on Friday to find out.

Seats are free, and the CM Team provide donuts and coffee to get you pepped up in the early hours. All you need to do is reserve a spot through this website. I look forward to seeing you there!

Conventions, News

SPX Comin’ Atcha

This is it, friends! My last convention of 2017! If you’re in the D.C. area, come on out to Bethesda, MD for the Small Press Expo this Saturday and Sunday. SPX boasts an amazing roster of indie comics folks, and I’m so excited to be returning this year. I’ll be camped out at Table K9-A alongside the team from Cartozia Tales. You can check out the full exhibitor list and floor map here.

I’m also appearing on a panel on Sunday at 12:30pm:

Balancing World-Building and Character In Kids’ Comics

Laura Terry, Ben Sears, Janet Lee & Lucy Bellwood all create elaborate worlds for their colorful characters to dwell in. They will discuss how to balance the immersive quality of world-building with the development of character and story, particularly as it pertains to comics for kids.

Sunday, 12:30pm, White Flint Room

So what am I gonna have on hand? WELL.

I just picked up these extra shiny ✨new sketchbooks✨ from my time in Iceland. If you want 24 pages of watercolor studies, life drawing, and landscapes from two weeks in a totally unreal and gorgeous country, this is the book for you. (It’s also available as a PDF if you swing that way.)

Here’s a look at some of the artwork inside:

If you’re not going to be at SPX, these books will go up for sale in my online shop around the end of the month. You can keep an eye out on Twitter or sign up for my monthly email newsletter to get the drop on that.

I’ll also have a limited selection of miniprints from the 100 Demon Dialogues series, and the plush prototype for folks to get a handle on.

If you missed your chance to order a book or a plush toy through the Kickstarter campaign, there’s now a pre-order store where you can do all of that! No deadlines needed. Just for kicks, here’s a look at the letterpress print design I’m working on for the campaign:

In addition to these new treats, I’ll have gold foil box sets of my first 100 Day Project, A Life in Objects, which sold out in record time at last year’s SPX. (Don’t worry, I’m bringing a lot more this year!)

I’ll also have assorted travelogue minicomics and softcover copies of Baggywrinkles, if you somehow don’t own a copy yet. PHEW. Lots of goodies. Oh! AND. I’m also giving away copies of Mappin’ the Floor, the comic that came out of my three-week stint in the Pacific aboard R/V Falkor. Learn some stuff about oceanography in 12 bright and charming pages—fo’ FREE.

Okay, I think that’s legitimately it from me. SEE YOU AT THE SHOW!

News

Live Event: Demons & Monsters with Jessica Abel

Let’s take a brief trip back in time to January, 2016.

When Jessica Abel started posting the podcast adaptation of her storytelling handbook Out on the Wire, I was totally hooked. The series pulled from her own robust career and from interviews she’d done with luminary radio hosts and journalists, but took a wider stance on applying their lessons to an essential question:

What makes stories work?

I appreciated her candor at not knowing the first thing about making a podcast, and simply figuring it out as she went. I enjoyed the camaraderie of listening to ideas and practice exercises from other listeners. Most of all, I loved the way it helped me think about my storytelling work from a nonjudgemental, process-oriented standpoint. It was a community—not just a product.

So I tweeted about the show and how I much I was enjoying it, which I think is why she ended up watching this talk I’d given at The Animation Workshop in Denmark and following me on Twitter. It was one of those “WHOAAA A REAL CARTOONIST IS LOOKING AT ME WHAT DO I DOOO” moments, which I can tell you from experience everyone has. Jessica co-authored Drawing Words and Writing Pictures, which was a really formative book for me back when I was getting into drawing comics and couldn’t find a program that had the rigor I really wanted from a formal perspective.

Fast forward to this summer, when she wrote and told me she’d been teaching workshops about a creature called The Should Monster that was super similar to my inner demon. Jessica’s students had pinned their inner critics to the page, just as I had, in order to defuse their power.

Then she asked if I would be interested in collaborating on a live, online event—part interview, part Q&A—where we could discuss work-life balance, creative practice, and social media.

WELL, DUH.

I was beside myself with excitement—especially because our dates aligned with the launch of my new Kickstarter, which explicitly deals with overwork and self doubt and a million other things.

And then she wrote this essay about it and I had to come to grips with the idea that somewhere along the way, I had become a working cartoonist. And what’s more, I was good at it. I had learned some things that other people might find useful, and someone I really admired wanted to get that knowledge out to a wider group of people.

It’s not going to silence the little voice that claims I’m a phoney forever, but it’ll definitely do for today.

So here’s our upcoming event!

What:

Demons and Monsters with Lucy Bellwood and Jessica Abel

Join us on Crowdcast to talk about

building an audience for your work,
using Patreon, Kickstarter, and self-publishing to pay (some of) the bills,
and fighting off the Should Monsters and Self-Doubt Demons that want to stop us from making it.

Ask your questions and get some answers!

There will be a replay for those who can’t make it, but you only gain access by registering, so be sure to sign up either way.

WHEN:

July 25 (next Tuesday) at 12:00 noon Pacific, 3 pm Eastern, 9 pm European.

WHERE:

At this link: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/demons-lubellwoo !

This event will be online in real time. You can join us from anywhere via Crowdcast, the online platform we’ll be using to stream. (There’s even an app if you’ll be out on the beach and still want to tune in.)

So reserve your spot here, and we’ll see you soon!

(I’m really, really looking forward to this one.)

Comics, News

Announcing: 100 Demon Dialogues

Hi friends,

Big, big news today! My latest project, 100 Demon Dialogues, is now live on Kickstarter!

For the past three months, as part of the 100 Day Project, I’ve been illustrating a daily dialogue with the little voice in my head who tells me I’m no good. (You might recognize him from my Inktober drawing challenges from the last couple years.)

I just drew the 100th entry this morning and I’ve been so overwhelmed by the response to the project. Hearing from people who see themselves reflected in these drawings makes my heart swell. I’ve also heard from a lot of people who want to own these comics for themselves! So here’s what we’re gonna do about that:

The Books!
- Today’s Kickstarter launch will fund both softcover and hardcover editions of the book. I am very excited about the whole thing. Here are some of the special features I’m aiming for:
The Plushies!
- The Kickstarter will also be funding a run of PLUSH DEMONS to keep you company as you do battle with your own voices of anxiety and self-doubt. This little fella will measure about 15″ from tip to tail, and can easily sit up on any surface you care to place him on. (If you’d like to read all about what it takes to produce a plush toy from start to finish, I just did an in-depth blog post about it over on Tumblr.) Here’s a look at the prototype:
The Print Shop!
- Lots of folks asked for prints of particular demons, but since producing, stocking, and shipping 100 different print types is a massive headache for a long creator like myself, I’ve partnered with the fine folks at Buyolympia to provide archival-quality prints of any demon your heart desires. The store is almost ready, and I’ll be sure to link to it here on the blog once it’s up.

So there we go! You can read all the entries in the series here on the site, head to the campaign page to preorder books and plushies, or buy prints (very soon, I promise) from Buyolympia!

Thanks, as ever, to my amazing supporters on Patreon, who gave me the stability to devote so much time to the this project over the last three months. Y’all are the best.

LET’S GO MAKE SOME COOL SHIT.

Conventions, News

Festival of Sail This Weekend!

Heads up Seattle, Tacoma, and the greater Puget Sound: I’m tabling at Festival of Sail Tacoma this weekend WITH THE LADY WASHINGTON (and Hawaiian Chieftain, Adventuress, Zodiac, and a host of other beautiful vessels)! You can find me at the north end of the Thea Foss Waterway this Friday through Sunday from 9-5.

Here’s a map with some more details about the layout of the event. Take note that there are two pods of tall ships on the waterfront, each about a 15-minute walk from the other. Plan accordingly! The blue circle marks the vendor area where you can find me.

My big, exciting news is that copies of Mappin’ the Floor arrived right before this event, which means I’ll be giving away oceanographic comics for free all weekend!

If you preordered a copy from my store, I’ll be getting those out the door as soon as I’m back in Portland on Monday, so keep an eye out for them early next week.

And if all that weren’t enough, the World’s Largest Rubber Duck is also going to be in attendance so, uh, SEE YOU SOON.

Conventions

VanCAF 2017 is Here!

It’s time, once again, for everyone’s favorite West Coast Canadian Comic Arts Festival: VanCAF!

Yes indeed, I’ll be appearing at the Roundhouse Community Center in Vancouver, B.C. this weekend from 10am to 5pm (both days). You can find the Bellwood Comics Empire at Table I2 in the Gymnasium. I’ll have a bunch of Baggywrinkles books, Life in Objects boxes, minicomics, and SUPER SECRET copies of Mappin‘ the Floor in advance of its official release in June! If you say the secret password, you can have one for free.

Photo Credit to Dan Turner from Free Comic Book Day in Berkeley—thanks, Dan!

If you’re attending with a young person who wants to learn more about making comics, they can come to a special comics-making class with myself and Mariana Yatsuda Ikuta on Sunday at 2:30 in the Arts and Crafts Room. There are free workshops for kids happening all weekend, so check out the schedule here and go draw with your favorite cartoonists.

I’ll also be moderating a panel called “Hash Out Your Cash!” with Steve Lieber, Hope Nicholson, Jeph Jacques, and James F. Wright (WHAT A LINEUP) on Sunday at 10:30am in the Performance Center. We’re gonna talk all about money which a topic I’m getting more and more jazzed about discussing with cartoonists, so I hope to see you there! (And be sure to check out the whole panel lineup on the VanCAF site.)

Okay, phew, that’s all for this weekend! I’ll see you across the border.

News

Free Comic Book Day in the Bay Area

Hi friends!

Just a quick note to say that I’ll be stopping off in Berkeley, California this weekend for a Free Comic Book Day celebration on Saturday, May 6th at Tr!ckster, an amazing independent comic shop and art gallery. Here’s the details:

For the Free portion of Free Comic Book Day, I’ll be giving away BRAND NEW minicomic copies of Mappin’ the Floor, my oceanographic travelogue from a Pacific Ocean crossing with R/V Falkor and the Schmidt Ocean Institute! Supplies are limited, so these puppies will be first come, first serve.

I’ll also have copies of Baggywrinkles, A Life in Objects, and various adventurous travelogues for sale, plus my trusty squeaky shark for your squeaking pleasure. I hope to see you there! It should be a rollicking good time.