100 Demon Dialogues – Page 3

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.