(Source: mareodomo)
we went to see Ursula Le Guin speak and read from a book she translated from Spanish, that was translated from Romanian. The Romanian-to-Spanish translator was there too! And very charming and excited to be reading with his favorite author(!).
The original (Romanian) author’s daughter and nephew were there too. At one point, we heard a story being read in all three languages! (((Not all at once, obvz))) It was neat.
She signed my sketchbook because we forgot to bring books. I gave her my last promotional postcard / comic which I just happened to have on me.
The nugget that really stuck with me was when she said that the book would probably never be turned into a movie or a BBC miniseries because it was “more descriptive than narrative, more idea than drama”.
I get real caught up in Oh Gosh, Maybe I Should Be Working On A Graphic Novel and thinking about story structures and archetypes and tropes and getting mad and being like NO! I want to work on a bunch of little one-pagers! and make a book that way! But then I just did that “Internet Comics” thing and took advantage of the two-page spreads and whatever. I don’t have to decide. It doesn’t matter.
It was nice to hear, is all. I felt like she was telling me it was okay to make different kinds of stories. There aren’t any rules.
(If you haven’t read the Earthsea series or The Left Hand of Darkness, I think they’re both great and I love them.)
LEAKED TRACKLIST FOR “INTERNET COMICS”!!!!!
6-ISSUE “SACRED PRISM” SUBSCRIPTION $25
APRIL 2013
spx:
A little MO process…
This was a while back, when Emily and I lived in the same state for the second time in our lives. (It won’t be the last.) I hope she doesn’t get sad when/if she reads this.
Went on a little drive to Snoqualmie Falls with my boo and Emily and Dima (who is my roommate for about one more week), and Dima’s friend Mike who is supposedly related to Morrissey and works on a boat. The bottom part of the Falls have been fenced off for a while. Years, I guess. It’s gonna be that way for a while.
Walked around The Great Northern. (It’s not that great).
Ate french fries and hashbrowns and drank coffee at the Double R (and a vegan cherry pie my boo made for the trip), drove through that intersection from that one scene in Fire Walk with Me, walked down Ronette’s Bridge, down the path, then back.
Emily forgot her camera bag at the diner, it was still there.
Drove back and did something, I guess. Probably drank more coffee.
(I started coloring this last night and I got sick of it. And now I’m like whatever.)
***
P.S. Because purry asked, here’s my process for coloring linework:
Scan greyscale, fuck with levels, go to your Channels palette. Hit the first button on the bottom. It’s a dotted outline of a circle. If you hover it, it says “load channel as selection”.
New Layer, Select -> Inverse (Shift+⌘+I)
and then Fill that selection. I usually opt+delete, which fills with the foreground color. You could also use the bucket, I guess.
Then, in this new layer, go to the Layers palette, and hit the little checkerboard box (“Lock transparent pixels”) near the top, where it says “Lock:”
So shit should be on lock. Switch into RGB/CMYK (don’t merge your layers, doy) and you can color the linework however you want. I usually pick a color and then opt+delete (fill) then ⌘+U to mess with the Saturation and Lightness.
Plus, my bottom layer is usually some off-white or yellow and my line layer is usually on multiply. (Layer -> Go to the dropdown menu that says “Normal” -> Multiply).
Those last few comics had colors I lifted from stuff I found on tumblr, because I was getting sick of my usual pink + blue combos. Rippin’ colors is whatever, rippin’ concepts is pretty poopy.
I think that’s everything. Sorry for the Mac shortcuts. It’s what I got. I’m on Photoshop CS5.5 cuz my trial for 6 ran out :(
OH! And The Thunder One and The Workspace One and this comic are all from iPhone photos, because my scanner is being mad dumb and mad slow and I’m mad mad. It sounds like a dumb trick, but it’s so much faster. Maddy told me about it and linked me to a KC Green post.
I don’t recommend it for pencils, really. My lighting wasn’t perfect and a lot my lighter linework got blown out, but maybe I just need a better setup.
AITE.
I’ve been confident about my work, lately. Probably partially due to twitter-based lyfe coaching from Brian Fukushima and Geneva Hodgson. I’m trying to make more comics. I’m trying to share more.
But there are pokémon comic orders that were supposed to be in the mail over a month ago. And sad spells to fight off, and meals to cook, and smooches and snuggles to be given and received. Stuff to do.
I’m only one person, that’s why you like me.
Sitting in the kitchen, thinking about pencils.
I was sad and got dressed up to make myself feel pretty, even though I had no plans for going out. (It helped / It helps.)
Did the dishes (which is why I’m wearing an apron), made coffee, and stared at the wall.
spx:
This looks fabulous. 80 Color pages from folks like: Chris Andersen, Andy Burkholder, Mark Hensley, Aidan Koch, Blaise Larmee, Scott Longo, Dane Martin, Dylan McKeever, Maré Odomo, and Jason Overby…
You can check out more glamour shots of the new books here, via the Sonatina Comics tumblr. Editor Scott Longo also tumbles here.
Got my contributor copy of Sonatina! http://sonatina.us It contains my comic “Zen Yogurt”, which was a small story I have been wanting to tell for some time <3 (Taken with instagram)
:)
