As I reported in my last blog post, Sunnyville Stories Volume 1 will be going on sale on August 1, 2012 to the general public. The book will go to the printers no later than Sunday, June 10. I’m still working on it. In fact, here’s the image that will be on the cover.

"The Journey Begins", Ink and watercolor on 7x10 in. paper

Since the book itself will be about 8.25 by 10.75 images, I’ve reworked the above image into a suitable cover image. But I’ll talk about how I came up with this image in a future post. What I want to discuss with you readers now is my plan for my first trade paperback. I will make an announcement on the blog on August 1 that Sunnyville Stories Volume 1 is for sale. What’s more is that I want to try to sell at least 100 copies of the book.

Between August 1, 2012 and January 1, 2013, my goal will be to sell 100 copies of my trade paperback however I can – be it the the online retailer of Indy Planet, through comics shops, bookstores, Amazon, and so on. That’s roughly a period of five months. It’s a modest goal, especially for a first-time unknown like me. But I think it can be done.

I’ll be using all kinds of tactics to build awareness and drive people to purchase my book. There’ll be use of Facebook and Twitter as well as local newspaper coverage and review copies being sent out. But I can’t do it alone. That’s why I will need the help of all you readers out there.

When the first trade paperback of Sunnyville Stories is announced for sale, please purchase a copy of it and tell as many people as you can. This means much to me and this could make certain that Sunnyville is a very marketable idea.

Help me sell 100 copies this August onward once the trade paperback goes on sale. Together, with all of you out there, we can make it happen.

If you haven’t already, please subscribe to the RSS feed and get an email subscription too. Any questions and comments are welcome. Thanks for your support and stay tuned to the blog for more.

Today, I have a big announcement to make. You’ve heard me talking about it in previous posts, but I want to make it official. I will be formally announcing that Sunnyville Stories Volume 1, my first trade paperback, will go on sale this August!

Sunnyville Stories Volume 1 will be a book that will contain the first three episodes of Sunnyville Stories (Beginnings, Multiball Madness, and the Train Robbers) along with a few other bonus features. The book will be 128 pages in length and will retail for US$8.99.

The book will be available at first through Indy Planet. However, since it will have an ISBN number that will be under my ownership, I will also be able to sell it through other sources like Amazon, retail bookstores, and distributors.

If all goes according to plan, the book will go to the printers by no later than Sunday, June 10. I aim to receive a proof copy for myself around mid-July and mail out review copies to publications and select retailers.

This will be my first book. Wish me luck, everyone! I feel that my life and the world of comics will be changed forever, no matter what.

Oh yes, while we’re on the subject of my book, take a look at this brand spanking new trailer I’ve done for it!

I’ll have another announcement to make about my book this Saturday – a very special appeal. But that can wait until then. Anyway, be sure to subscribe via RSS feed or through email if you haven’t already. As always, your questions and comments are appreciated. Until next time, loyal fans!

And now we come to the final of the four pieces that I’m displaying in the Anthrocon 2012 art show.

Putting Your Foot In It, pen-and-ink on 11x14 in. bristol

I did this with my usual tools: sable brush, pen with a Speedball 513 nib, and India ink. Those are my tools of choice. You have to be comfortable with whatever it is you’re using and I’ve always felt that I produce my best work when I use those tools.

This piece is simple yet effective. Again, this image represents the relationship between Rusty Duncan and Samantha Macgregor. Believe me, ever since Rusty came to Sunnyville, it has never been boring for Sam.

It seems like Rusty really did put his foot in it this time. The original drawing called for him to have his hand stuck in that tea kettle. I thought it would be funnier to have his foot stuck in there. Sam’s reaction is just priceless.

Wish me luck at Anthrocon next month.

Hot on the heels of the other two works I’ve discussed before (“Worlds Apart” and “Rusty Against the World“), I’m going to share yet another piece that I will be displaying at the Anthrocon 2012 art show. This piece is titled “Three Sour Notes”.

"Three Sour Notes", Gouache and ink on Aquabord, 10x14 in.

I’m proud of this particular piece and believe me, painting this work wasn’t easy. The source of inspiration for this work was from a publicity still of the Three Stooges. At least a few stills were done, showing Moe Howard literally getting an earful of sound from the musical instrument of a fellow stooge. To be honest, I’ve pictured Rusty Duncan, Ragnar Eftirmatur and Olaf Eftirmatur as being a lot like the Three Stooges when they’re together. Thus the idea for this painting was born.

"The Malady Lingers On", pencil on 8.5x11 in. paper

As with most of my paintings, I had to work up a sketch to get an idea down. Based on those stills I mentioned earlier, I came up with this. Unlike “Rusty Against the World”, a color study here was not necessary. I was only going to use three colors in my image: yellow, purple, and black. So I went right ahead to the painting.

Normally, when I paint, I use paper. I tend to dilute paints with lots of water and use them much like watercolor. However, for this work, I tried something different: Aquabord! Aquabord is a special type of wooden panel made by Ampersand. Normally, watercolor or heavily diluted water-based paints would make an ordinary board warp. But Aquabord is a specially designed surface that won’t warp when using watercolor or other diluted paints.

I sketched lightly the three characters onto the Aquabord in pencil. Once that was done, I used a special frisket to cover Ragnar, Rusty, and Olaf. Some out there use bottles of frisket from the art supply stores. I use a cheaper yet equally effective alternative: rubber cement. Once the frisket was dry, I mixed up a batch of diluted purple gouache paint, titled my Aquabord upwards, and put down a wash of paint. Later, after the paint completely dried, I removed the frisket and the three characters were left completely untouched by the purple paint!

For painting with gouache, I normally use Holbein brand gouache, which is from Japan. Anyway, I mixed up some more diluted paint, this time yellow and after the frisket had been completely removed, I painted in yellow areas (as shown in the above photo). After the yellow was completely dry, I worked in the black ink using a sable brush and a Speedball A5 nib.

Note the powerful effect of the yellow and purple paint. There’s a good reason why this combination is so powerful. Yellow and purple are considered opposite colors or “complementary” colors. When juxtaposed, the two produce a potent effect to one’s senses. That’ll be sure to get attention at Anthrocon.

Prints of this are available on DeviantArt.

I hope you enjoyed this look into my painting, Three Sour Notes. Don’t forget to subscribe via RSS feed or email if you haven’t already. Any questions or comments? Do any of you readers paint too?

Again, this will be displayed for sale at the Anthrocon 2012 art show, so be sure to bid on it then!

First and foremost, this day, May 5, 2012, is Free Comic Book Day!

And now onto the focus of this week’s post – the monthly video log!

As a favor, I thought I’d do a review of a small press comic that I picked up while attending the MoCCA Festival 2012 – Casey the Pillow Fighter by Gary Cohen and Louie Chin.

Casey the Pillow Fighter is a short, color comic. It tells the story of a pillow fighter named…well, um, Casey! This knight from the land of Napalot is sent forth by the king to make the kingdom bigger. How does this happen? By handing out free t-shirts! Well, that’s something you don’t hear about everyday. However, this soon leads Casey and his people into a conflict with the Food Fighters to the east. A big war breaks out and…well, I won’t spoil it for you. You’ll have to read the comic yourself.

So is this small press comic worth reading? Definitely! This is a fairy tale, but offbeat enough that it’ll appeal to children and even get a few snickers from adults. The storytelling is smooth enough, with easy transitions from panel to panel and brightly colored artwork.

I only have one real problem with this title. There’s little contact information. While the writer of the work, Gary Cohen, is identified as being active on Inkbot.net, that’s it. There’s no email, blog URL, social media profile listings, etc. In this digital age, that can be an impediment to someone looking to promote their work.

Other than that, Casey the Pillow Fighter is a winner.

I’m going to share with you a painting I did. This will probably be the cover for Sunnyville Stories episode 8, which won’t enter production until probably next year. This will also be one of the four pieces I display at the Anthrocon 2012 art show.

"Rusty Against the World", Ink, gouache & acrylic on paper, 10x14 in.

This piece is titled “Rusty Against the World” and was done with ink, gouache and acrylic on 10×14 inch watercolor paper.

Prints of this are available over on my DeviantArt account.

For those of you who don’t know, this painting is a parody of the cover to the 1977 album by Queen, News of the World.

As I said before, this will be for sale at the Anthrocon art show. However, while working on this painting, I snapped photos of the various stages of work. I’m sure there are those of you out there who would like to see how a painting comes together. Well, sit back and you’ll see how this came to be.

Here we have the beginnings of the work. I have my sketches on the left there of my workspace. The top sketch is the pencil rough while the lower one is the color study, done with graphite and colored pencil. I’m using a block of Aquarelle Arches brand watercolor paper. This block is glued on all four sides, which means I don’t have to tape it down like with other kinds of painting papers. This is a hot-press paper, which has a smooth surface, and the weight is 140 lb. which is strong enough not to buckle.

This is how the painting looked after I did the pencil drawing onto the paper and after laying down the green background. After doing the lines with a pencil, I decided to block in the background first. I used Liquitex brand acrylic paint, a darker tone. It’s been awhile since I’ve used paint thickly. My preference is to dilute my paints and use them like watercolor. The duller, darker background does register a few misgivings on my part, but my instincts tell me to keep going.

Next, I decided to move onto the red in the picture, the color opposite of green on the color wheel and the focus of the image. I used Holbein brand gouache for Rusty’s shirt, the blood on the robot’s finger, and the robots eyes. Alizarin crimson was used for the robot eyes while scarlet (a brighter color) was used for Rusty’s shirt and the blood. After finishing, I decided that they looked right and proceeded onward. Notice too that the aforementioned red areas (Rusty’s shirt, the bloody fingertip, and robotic eyes) form a triangle of sorts. This was planned and is integral to the composition.

My mind, body, and spirit were in complete unison during this painting process. Keep in mind that this piece is not only meant for display at the Anthrocon art show, but is also going to be for sale there. Naturally, I’m obliged to give it my best efforts…and then some.

This was from later on in the work after I had painted Rusty’s pants, inner ears, nose, and fur. I used gouache here. For Rusty’s gray fur and the robot’s gray/silver metal, I used both ready-made gray from a tube (neutral gray #3) as well as mix of black and white gouache. It took some color tests and a bit of mixing to get it right. But I did.

This photo shows the unfinished “Rusty Against the World” painting (far right) along with two other pieces to be shown at Anthrocon. At this time, I was still waiting for the paint to dry. The line art, done with black India ink, was done once the paint had completely dried. And that was that.

Don’t forget to subscribe via RSS feed or email if you haven’t already. Feedback is appreciated. What do you think of my painting? Does anyone out there reading this paint? Oh, and don’t forget to bid on this in the Anthrocon 2012 art show!

This entry is a personal one. I have some announcements to make. First, it is about my plans to relocate to New Hampshire. That will be delayed for another year. A careful check of my business plan against my finances and other factors have revealed some flaws. Starting a comics publishing imprint in New Hampshire cold turkey is not viable for me yet. I will wait another year, secure more funding, and rework my business plan.

Now for the good news. Sunnyville Stories Volume 1 will be released on schedule. If all goes well, it will be available in August.

However, I’m not going to sit around and wait for things to happen. As a person of action, I will make them happen. Soon, I will organize and formally file as a business here in New York. I will produce the Sunnvyille Stories Volume 1 trade paperback as well as episode 6 and episode 7. Yes, I know it will be hard. The cost of living in New York City and New York state is high as are business expenses and taxes. For now, I have to grin and bear it.

This will also mean no private commissions as I had planned. That will have to wait awhile longer. Stay tuned to the blog for further details.

The second and final day of the MoCCA Festival 2012 was just as active as the previous one. I started out my day with a lunch at the Murray Hill Diner on the corner of Lexington Avenue and 33rd Street. After finishing, I walked alongside the March of Dimes charity walk until I got to the 69th Regiment Armory and went my way from there. It was quiet at first when I got to MoCCA Festival 2012…but it didn’t stay that way for long.

There were still plenty of people out there browsing and exhibitors hawking their one-of-a-kind creations. One table there was 789 Studio, which had a QR code on their business card much like I did. I chatted with them for a bit and browsed their work. I also met Eric Leland, who was selling handmade cards, prints, and even some books. I even bought a thank you card from him. It’s nice to see in this age of computers, that people still like to make things by hand with paper, ink, and paint. In fact, I chatted with him for a bit on my own encounter with letterpress (his tool) at the Buffalo Small Press Book Fair last month.

MoCCA Festival 2012 turned out to be a reunion of sorts, as I did see some familiar faces there. Matt Madden, one of my mentors, was there and the second volume to his book will be out soon (I reviewed it sometime ago). I also met up with Josh Bayer, one of the guests at the School of Visual Arts independent comics seminar a few years ago. He had praised Sunnyville Stories episode 1 – in fact, Josh viewed page 14 as being genius!

Also present was another illustrator from that same comics seminar, Susanna Plotnick. She had her own table and her own book, which is just gorgeous (check out the link to see more).

Probably the highlight for today with MoCCA Festival 2012 was meeting Sean Von Gorman. This talented individual has done his own work called the Secret Adventures of Houdini. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Von Gorman gained some fame when he actually handcuffed himself to a traffic light outside Forbidden Planet (a Manhattan comics shop) to promote and sell his work. Yikes! That’s more than I’ve contemplated to sell Sunnyville Stories. I was just considering a sandwich board myself. But there’s still more. Sean Von Gorman did an actual straight jacket escape at MoCCA Festival 2012!

Yikes! That hurts me just looking at it. Please don’t try this at home!

All in all, MoCCA Festival 2012 was very fruitful for me. I may just get a table next year here!

What a day I have had at the MoCCA Festival 2012. The event seemed…bigger than it was last year. I felt overwhelmed for a bit.

Plenty was going on here at MoCCA Festival 2012. I stopped by the table operated by Lush Comics and chatted with them for a bit. I assured them that I will put more of my comics up on their site. Speaking of which, don’t forget that the second episode of Sunnyville Stories is available through Lush Comics for IPad and Android platforms, so go grab a copy right now.

I checked out two of the panels held at MoCCA Festival 2012. One of them was hosted by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and all about censorship. Pictured here was the following panel about small-press publishing. This provided quite a bit of insight into the challenges I’ll face when I start publishing my own comics soon enough (there’s been a slight change of plans with that, but I’ll discuss that in a special post).

I met a number of other people there and even bought a few things. Matt Madden and Jessica Abel were there (I reviewed their book recently) and they had a preview of the companion volume to that book too. (At the time of this writing, it won’t be available for sale for at least another week.) I also met Simon Reinhardt whom I bought a comic from titled “Win Some, Lose Some.” I was won over because there was an actual playing card on the cover! I also visited the table run by Inkbot.net where I was convinced to browse their table and I even bought a title! I purchased a copy of Casey the Pillow Fighter by Gary Cohen and Louie Chin.

Also present at MoCCA Festival 2012 was the Joe Kubert School of New Jersey (dedicated to those who want to learn how to make comics) and the Society of Illustrators.

So far, this was a very fun day for me. I expect to meet more people tomorrow and put up another post about how fantastic MoCCA Festival 2012 is. There’ll be video too. So stay tuned for more.

If you haven’t already, subscribe to the RSS feed or through email. Anyone else here attend MoCCA Festival 2012? Share your comments or anecdotes here!