Notes from the Field: Marketing

Hate to say it but this is a necessary evil for anyone wanting to sell a product to more than your Mom. It's how you use your dollars and time to do it is what matters most.

We are trained monkeys who can spot marketing a mile away.

We have built up defense mechanisms to ignore said marketing. Yet billions of dollars a year are spent to break you. I'm not a marketing expert, nor do I know exactly how to get people to notice what I'm selling. It's difficult to say the least. I did read a book: The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. It's a great book on how epidemics spread, weather it's disease, marketing or cultural. But even in that book it was never made entirely clear.

Viral Marketing is a big buzz word of the 21st century. It comes in all forms and gets people talking about the product. With The Overman, we're doing our best to find ways to get to the retailers who know their customer base. I tried joing CBIA, but for some reason even after getting my password, I couldn't get into the forums. The CBIA is apparently where the retailers have lengthy discussions about their business. There's also two retailer shows where you may be able to make contact. But there again, I'm not privy to the show. But I will investigate.

Suffice it to say, out of pocket is a partial way to go. I couldn't afford t-shirts just yet so I printed stickers, which cost enough on their own. I also printed info cards that have the cover of Book 2 as well as a short thing on the back that states what the book is about and who is publishing it and when it'll come out. It's all I can really do to make contact at this point at the shows. Oh yeah, and our website is on the back as well.

We'll try to do a few more conventions to help promote the book. But considering it's only 5 issues we don't have that kind of budget and time or even resources to pull a heavy campaign. We just hope our connections to media both on and offline will help in our efforts.

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Notes from the Field: Process of the Page

So this here is the process of the page.
Granted there is one other step where I do very small images on the actual script...these are actual thumbnail notes until I have a clear idea of camera placement. From there I can go in with pen only and thumbnail outthe book. In the THUMBNAIL stage I shoot for composition, lighting and storytelling mostly. The ROUGH stage helps me refine the composition, movement and acting down. The final PENCIL stage I can actually correct any issues that will most likely have been missed in the earlier stages. INKS, well I just finalize everything and make sure that the lies in pencil are truth. COLOR I can finally fulfill the atmosphere and final storytelling that the color brings.





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It's Always Something: Writers Block

I have writers block. It happens every few years, and I don't think there's anything I can do about it except continue writing. Wait, before you think I just contradicted myself, give me a moment to explain something.

Writing is like anything else, the more you do it, the better you'll be (at least in theory!). I used to keep a 'journal of thought' at arms length, where I would scribble down ideas that would emerge from stray thoughts, dreams, conversations…I had to write these things down because they were always fleeting, like a partially obscured road sign on a speed trap.

I still practice this, to a limited degree. I have several new ideas gestating, but none of them have that spark, that inexplicable 'something' that compels me to write it down. There is nothing quite like the feeling you get when you've conceived a new story idea, one that inspires you to quickly hammer out a synopsis, and then a script. I have a lot of ideas, but they very rarely inspire me. Lately, I haven't even had ideas.

These days, I'm immersed in illustrating a script I wrote almost 3 years ago, Champion Of A Lost Universe. That comic is currently published online and in print. Sure, I'm introducing new story elements and dialogue changes to the comic, now that I'm actually drawing it. But that doesn't count, really. Last year, I did nothing but re-write and edit my script for this upcoming Image Comics mini-series, The Overman. I don't even consider that creative work per se, since I was acting more as my own editor, fixing various problems in a script that came to life nearly 20 years ago. It's a little scary to think that I haven't written anything new since late 2004. What's going on?

I don't blame the usual suspect: my personal life. Every writer knows there is always something in the world around us that threatens the creative process. I've learned to deal with life's stresses by plunging into my art or writing. Perhaps it's just something that happens to creative types once they hit their mid-thirties. Mid-life crisis? I honestly can't equate that, since I am convinced that my best work is ahead of me, and there are many writers out there who've already proven that for themselves. Maybe there is no explanation for it, and it's just a natural process that I'll get through, just as I got through it when it happened before. It's cyclic in nature. Some mysterious spring-cleaning is taking place between the creative synapses, clearing out room for… something new.

Scott Reed
www.websbestcomics.com

Notes From the Field: Concepts I

I know, I know, I said I would post more character work...but frankly I thought I'd share some hardware to show everyone how the Neo-Deco look will eventually infiltrate everything in this universe.

This is the early designs of the main character, Nathan Fisher's automobile. Scott and I went back and forth whether cars would fly or not. His arguement was that in every sci-fi film or comic cars always flew and wanted to get away from the cliche. My thoughts were, "I've already had it in my head that cars would fly...why would you change it?" Well that and sci-fi really seems to relate how technology has conquered things like gravity, living in space indefinitely and warp speed. This seemed like a natural.

More later...

Stay tuned,

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Notes from the Field: The Process

Color me silly but I think I enjoy the process of making something over actually making it. Maybe that's why I'm never satisfied with the end results. The journey is always more exciting than the destination.

Like everything that's worth doing and will take up a majority of your time, money, and life it's good to have a plan. With the script in hand and ideas swirling in my head I break down everything from Scott's writings into a list of things to design. Initially I took two weeks to knock everything out in the order that it happens in the story. I have no idea why I did it that way, except maybe to recreate the impact that it had in my gut. Speaking of which sometimes at this point I create inspirational art to set the Artistic Vision of the book that everything will filter through.
Once I get the overall look and feel of the book, in this case I was shooting for a Neo-Deco experience. Think Hugh Ferriss, Raymond Loewy, and Arthur Radebaugh and you'll have an idea of where I was heading. What I liked about that period was that sci-fi and noir were equally ominous and in films lit similarly. Like "Things to Come" and "Alphaville" I wanted to capture a bizarre crossbreed that could make this future seem likely if our evolutionary path was slightly different.

Now the whole time I'm doing production design I'm thinking about characters and their relationship to each and the world around them. In terms of relationship to each other each character has a trait that another character shares. Whether it's a hair curl, or the shape of the cheek bones, I tried to create a visual relationship that attached them, while pushing other details further apart so that in silhouette they were significantly different. In my first round I try to cartoonify them to the point where it's clear their shapes are different from each other.

One thing I should note though, over the past 20 years or so Scott has had a significant input on designing some of the key characters. Dmitri for one was clearly Scott's idea, but even from his initial drawings he's changed somewhat. A lot of the other characters were brought on by me, either inspired by Scott's words or a sketch that sparked a direction.

Since Blogger is wimpy and won't let me post more than one image, I'll see about a second post with more character art.

Until next time...

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