Lars Martinson's Blog, page 7

2012 Year in Review

Pictured: The key to happiness (apparently).

At the end of July 2011, I started teaching English in Japan for the second time. The first time was from 2003 to 2006; this experience that served as a basis for my ongoing graphic novel Tonoharu. I enjoy teaching (for the most part), but that’s not why I returned to it

As documented on this blog, I spent a couple years drawing comics full time. This endeavor was fairly successful when looked at through a certain lens. It spawned two sold out printings, a decent amount of media coverage, and French and Spanish language editions of my work.

But unfortunately, it wasn’t as successful in financial terms. I managed to make *some* money off my work, but never the opulent heights of a sustainable living wage. As such, my savings slowly but surely dwindled as the months went by. Eventually they reached an uncomfortable low. I needed to regroup, refill the coffers a bit, and decide where I wanted to go from there. It was time to bite the bullet and get a day job again. Teaching wasn’t my calling or anything, but it’s a decent way to earn a living. So back to it I went.

The teaching program I’m in has yearly contracts that are renewable annually for up to five years. From the get-go, I figured I’d do at least two years; I didn’t see the point in uprooting my whole life and moving to the other side of the world for just twelve months. Beyond that, I wasn’t sure what I’d do. I figured I’d see how the job treated me and decide based on that.

Flash forward to August 2012. I had just gotten back from a vacation in the US, and was starting my second year as a teacher.

At that point, I was feeling pretty lukewarm about my whole situation. I felt like I was just spinning my wheels, opting for a vague sense of security at the expense of what I really cared about. I had only just started my second year, and was already fantasizing about an escape plan once my contract was up.

But then in the weeks that followed, something changed. This change wasn’t earth-shattering, but it was profound enough to inspire me to not only to sign up for a third year, but to put me in a frame of mind that I’m seriously considering doing four or five.

What inspired this turnaround? Meticulous record keeping.

Beginning at the end of August, I started keeping careful track of a couple things: calories consumed and money spent. I was/am totally anal-retentive about it, measuring food down to the gram, and recording every last yen spent. At the same time, I started trying to finish a page a week on my comic.

My friends, who watched me calculate every calorie of every piece of sushi and log every coin spent, found the whole exercise bleak and depressing. But for me, being so strict on myself was paradoxically liberating.

In the year prior, my goals tended to be unhelpfully vague: “save money”, “eat less/eat healthier”, “progress on comic”. I made progress on most fronts (the diet being the exception), but still I always felt unsatisfied.

By nailing my goals down to concrete targets (spend only X amount every month, eat only X calories a day, finish four panels of comic every week), I had something to strive for. This granted me a sense of accomplishment when I met my goals, and allowed me to splurge from time to time without feeling guilty. If I wanted a doughnut or a fancy video game console, I could get it, as long as I cut back on other things to compensate.

The upshot of all this: I’m on track to save almost twice what I saved last year (despite buying a new iPod and a PS Vita). And I’ve lost 25 pounds since August, meeting my goal weight. On the art front, I’ve managed to meet (actually, exceed) my “page a week” goal for the comic, returning to a schedule of steady progress for the first time in forever.

It’s a bit embarrassing to admit that my sense of contentment was inspired by entering numbers into a couple of iPhone apps. I mean, jesus, how boring can I be? But on the other hand, seeing quantitative evidence that I’m progressing towards my goals inspires me to works towards them all the more. So hey: whatever works, right?

So I’ll continue teaching until July 2014 (at least). While I do that, I’ll keep meticulously tracking money and calories, and keep drawing four panels of comics every week. When my teaching stint inevitably ends, I’ll be closer to where I want to be than when I started. And that’s got to COUNT for something. (See what I did there? Those are the sorts of bursts of wit you get from a “professional”, published author!)

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Dunno if anyone cares, but here are the iPhone apps I use to count calories and track expenses:

Lose It! (Free)

iXpenseit ($4.99)

There may be better ones out there, but these two have served me well.

“Tonoharu: Part Three” Winter 2012 Progress Report

Above: Progress, one baby step at a time.

With 62 out of 124 pages completed, Tonoharu: Part Three is finally HALFWAY DONE! Yay!

So I figured it was high time to write an update entry to give you a sense of where I’m at in terms finishing the last half of the Tonoharu story. And we’ll throw in projected release date, as is tradition. Unfortunately, this time around, that projection is particularly distant.

Why, you ask? To answer that question I need to give you a little background info:

Originally, I conceived of Tonoharu as a story told in a single volume. I decided to split it into multiple volumes for two reasons:

1) The page count kept going up (originally projected the whole thing to be 200 pages, and now it looks like it’ll be more than double that), and

2) Tonoharu: Part One took so damn long to draw, I didn’t really have the luxury to wait until the whole thing was finished before I published (some of) it.

Once I resigned myself to multiple volumes, I figured four books, each being about 128-160 pages in length, would be the right way to go. Part One, Part Two and Part Three would each get their own respective volume, and then the appendices and epilogue would get the fourth and final volume.

For the past year or so, I’ve been reevaluating the four volume plan, particularly in light of Tonoharu: Part Two‘s sales.

Tonoharu: Part Two has sold *okay*, but it’s not flying off the shelves. This makes sense, of course; no one’s going to buy Part Two if they haven’t read Part One, so my potential audience is a lot smaller. The potential audience for a third book will be smaller still, and the potential audience for a fourth book would be positively minuscule; probably less than the smallest viable print run. Since Tonoharu isn’t exactly selling like Harry Potter, it’d be best to finish it up in as few volumes as possible.

This is why I’ve recently been considering eliminating the fourth volume by having Part Three, the appendices, and the epilogue all into one, final book.

For readers, this approach would have both positive and negative consequences. On one hand, it would mean I could sell the last half of the story at a cheaper price: one medium-lengthed book is cheaper than two thin books. On the other hand, it would push the release date back even further, since there’d be more for me to draw before I could release it.

Like I said, Part Three is about 124 pages. I’ve already written the epilogue, so I know that’ll be about 24 pages. The big wild card is the appendices. Without giving anything away, the appendices give me a lot of flexibility. I could easily devote 200 pages to them, or *almost* could get rid of them entirely. For the longest time I figured they’d fall somewhere in between those two extremes, or about 100 pages. Recently, I’ve started to wonder if 50 pages would do the job. Guess I won’t know until I really get into scripting it and seeing how it reads…

Regardless, unless sales of Tonoharu magically skyrocket, I think finishing the story with one more book is the best way to go. SO, the million dollar question: what’s this mean for a projected release date?

Well, for the past few months, I’ve managed to finish a page a week. That probably sounds absurdly slow, but since I’m working full time and the artwork in Tonoharu is so damn labor-intensive, it’s about the best I can do. A page a week has proven to be an ambitious (but realistic) target.

So I have 62 pages of Part Three left, then maybe (hopefully) about 50 pages of appendices, and then 24 pages of epilogue. 62+50+24=136 pages. That translates to 136 weeks, or a little over two and a half years. Add on another year for edits/book design/book production/unexpected delays. So we’re looking at a projected release date of three and a half years from now. So like… Summer 2016?

0_o

Holy shit. It’s sort of sad to see it and black and white like that… but there ya go. And the sad thing is, I can’t really imagine anything changing that would significantly speed things up, unless I won the lottery or something and could devote myself to comics full time. *Cough*

BUT, like I say, all this talk about projected release dates is sort of premature until I really nail down just how long the appendices need to be. Who knows, maybe I’ll be able to get them down to 30 pages. Or maybe I’ll decide they need to be 70 pages. Hopefully I’ll be able to give you a more accurate page count for the next Tonoharu update entry sometime in 2013.

Or, for people who like their updates more incessant and less meaningful, I update my twitter account every time I finish a page, so feel free to follow me there if you want.

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Just to end this on a slightly more positive note: like I mentioned before, the second printing of Tonoharu: Part One is all but sold out. (Personally I only have SIX signed copies left, and amazon.com is showing they have less than ten left.) I’m currently prepping a 3rd printing. I figure the hardcover has run its course, so I’m going to do a cheaper paperback with a redesigned cover. Who knows, maybe that’ll drum up sales. Also, in case there’s any doubt, I WILL finish Tonoharu, come what may. Maybe it’s just my natural stubbornness, but nothing will make me abandon the project. It’ll be a while yet, but it will get finished and released. So hey, that’s something.

There’s still a bit more I want to write, but this entry is already plenty long, so I’ll leave it at this for now. I’ll write about the other stuff for a “year in review” blog entry in a week or two.

Kameoka Diaries #10 — Closure.

[Obligatory Ad] Digital collections of Kameoka Diaries comics are available in HIGH DEFINITION (i.e. twice the resolution of the images shown here) for just ONE DOLLAR apiece! Plus they contain exclusive content! Check ‘em out!

The Kameoka Diaries: Volume One ( collecting parts 1-8 )

iBooks Version (for iPhone/iPad/iPod touch) [ CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW ]

DRM-free PDF (For Android/PC/Mac/Whatever) [ CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW ]

The Kameoka Diaries: Volume Two ( collecting parts 9-16 )

iBooks Version (for iPhone/iPad/iPod touch) [ CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW ]

DRM-free PDF (For Android/PC/Mac/Whatever) [ CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW ]

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That’s it for now! I’ll probably put the next part up in… about a month, maybe? Although that’s what I said last time and it took me three months to upload a new one, so who knows. Anyway, feel free to subscribe to me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter as I’ll announce any new comics there.

Until next time! (^^)/

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The Kameoka Diaries: Volume One ( collecting chapters 1-8 )

 iBooks Version (for iPhone/iPad/iPod touch) [ CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW ]

DRM-free PDF (For Android/PC/Mac/Whatever) [ CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW ]

The Kameoka Diaries: Volume Two ( collecting chapters 9-16 )

iBooks Version (for iPhone/iPad/iPod touch) [ CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW ]

DRM-free PDF (For Android/PC/Mac/Whatever) [ CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW ]

Young Men of a Certain Mind

 iBooks Version (for iPhone/iPad/iPod touch) [ CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW ]

Tonoharu/Kameoka Diaries November 2012 Update

Man, I haven’t written a new blog entry in forever. Here’s a little update about what’s been going on in the six weeks since my last update.

Tonoharu Update

For anyone keeping track: there are now less than 80 new copies of Tonoharu: Part One left in the world (to the best of my knowledge). On Halloween I shipped 69 copies to the distributor. That leaves me personally with EIGHT signed copies left. Once those are gone, that’s it; no more copies left.

I plan to reprint, but I haven’t really even started the ball rolling on that, and probably won’t get around to it for a while yet. The new printing probably won’t come out the second half of 2013 or so. So I’ll just say it one more time: if you want a copy of Tonoharu: Part One (especially a signed copy) get it now!

Buy a signed copy of Tonoharu: Part One–only 8 left!

Buy Tonoharu: Part One from Amazon.com via 3rd party seller 

Kameoka Diaries Update

Here’s a bit of cool news I’ve been meaning to announce: the iBooks version of all my digital comics (Kameoka Diaries 1 & 2, and Young Men of a Certain Mind) are now available for sale for around $1 in 18 new countries:

New Zealand, Argentina, Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Brazil, El Salvador, Panama, Chile, Guatemala, Paraguay, Colombia, Honduras, Peru, Costa Rica, Mexico and Venezuela.

It’d take me waaay too long to make direct links for all those different iBookstores, but if you search for “Lars Martinson” that should lead you to them, I would think.

Or if you’re from a country where the iBook version isn’t available (or you don’t have an iOS device), both volumes of the Kameoka Diaries digital comics are available as DRM-free PDFs anywhere worldwide for as little as $1 each:

Kameoka Diaries DRM-free PDFs

Speaking of the Kameoka Diaries, I’ve been meaning to upload another installment to the internet; hopefully I’ll be able to get to that within a couple weeks or so, cough…

“Tonoharu: Part One”—SOLD OUT! (Almost–see details below)

Just got some cool news from my distributor: they’ve ran out of the second printing of Tonoharu: Part One!

I intend to reprint, but I’ll have to do a lot of prep work for it, so it’ll be months before a new printing comes out. I don’t expect to have it out until sometime in 2013…

So if you want Tonoharu: Part One for the upcoming holiday season, get it now while you still can!

WHERE TO BUY TONOHARU: PART ONE:

Direct From Me:

My distributor is out of copies, but I personally still have a couple dozen pristine copies left & available for sale. Not only that, but they’re from the first printing! AND a limited number of them (about 10) are signed! (I’ll update this entry if the signed copies run out.) I’m in Japan so I can’t sign more until I visit home next summer, so if you want a signed copy (or a copy at all, for that matter) order now!

Link to My Store>>>

From Amazon.com

As I write this blog entry, Amazon says they still have 2 copies. I don’t know if those are the very last two, or if they’ll be getting one last shipment or what, but either way, they’re scrapping the bottom of the barrel. There’s also some really, really cheap new/used copies being sold through third party sellers on Amazon. I imagine they’ll go up in price once the book is listed as out-of-print, so get ‘em now while they’re cheap!

Link to Tonoharu: Part One on Amazon.com>>>

From your favorite local bookseller

If they have a copy, grab it, because it’ll be a while before they get any more!

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That’s it for now! My sincere thanks to everyone who supported me and picked up the book, making two sold-out printings possible! Here’s hoping printing #3 does okay too!

Oh, and there’s still a TON of copies of Tonoharu: Part Two left, so… pick that up too, won’t you? Ha ha…

(^^;)

New comic up on BoingBoing.net!

A new comic by me is up over at BoingBoing.net! You can read it here:

http://boingboing.net/2012/09/13/great-graphic-novels-saz.html

Kameoka Diaries #9 — Sickness

[Obligatory Ad] Digital collections of Kameoka Diaries comics are available in HIGH DEFINITION (i.e. twice the resolution of the images shown here) for just ONE DOLLAR apiece! Plus they contain exclusive content! Check ‘em out!

The Kameoka Diaries: Volume One ( collecting parts 1-8 )

 iBookstore Version (for iPhone/iPad/iPod touch) [ CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW ]

DRM-free PDF (For Android/PC/Mac/Whatever) [ CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW ]

The Kameoka Diaries: Volume Two ( collecting parts 9-16 )

iBookstore Version (for iPhone/iPad/iPod touch) [ CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW ]

DRM-free PDF (For Android/PC/Mac/Whatever) [ CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW ]

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It’s been like five and a half months since I last posted Kameoka Diaries comics on this site,  so I figured it was high time that I did so. So without further ado, here’s part 9:

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That’s it for now! I’ll probably put the next part up in about a month. Feel free to subscribe to me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter as I’ll announce any new comics there.

Until next time! (^^)/

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The Kameoka Diaries: Volume One ( collecting chapters 1-8 )

 iBookstore Version (for iPhone/iPad/iPod touch) [ CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW ]

DRM-free PDF (For Android/PC/Mac/Whatever) [ CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW ]

The Kameoka Diaries: Volume Two ( collecting chapters 9-16 )

iBookstore Version (for iPhone/iPad/iPod touch) [ CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW ]

DRM-free PDF (For Android/PC/Mac/Whatever) [ CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW ]

Young Men of a Certain Mind

 iBookstore Version (for iPhone/iPad/iPod touch) [ CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW ]

“The Kameoka Diaries 2″ Sample Panels!

The Kameoka Diaries: Volume Two is now available for just $1!

iBookstore Version (for iPhone/iPad/iPod touch) [ CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW ]

DRM-free PDF (For Android/PC/Mac/Whatever) [ CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW ]

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Weighing in at 312 panels, The Kameoka Diaries: Volume Two is 28% longer than Volume One! Here’s a breakdown of the eight main chapters that make up the book, as well as a sample panel from each:

Sickness: A comic about being sick in Japan, including an explanation as to why you often see Japanese people wearing surgical masks.

 

Closure.: A comic about why it’s easier to end phone calls in English than in Japanese, and why the word “sayonara”, ironically, doesn’t provide closure.

 

Popee the Performer: Actually, this is the one comic in the collection that’s already available online; you can read it over at BoingBoing.net. So… yeah.

Um… but the e-book version is in HD and includes a new title panel, so there’s that! *Cough*

 

E-mail from Home: Based on an e-mail from my father about his vile attempt to discard an old mattress, and the brave toddlers who thwarted his plans.

 

Matsui-san: A comic about perhaps the shyest person I’ve ever met, and his adorable, stalkerish texts. Guest staring everyone’s favorite Wisconsinite Matilda.

Forms of Address: A comic about Japanese forms of address. This comic includes what is certainly the crudest panel in the book (a censored version of which shown below).

Just in case you’re imagining the worst, it’s not THAT bad (it’s on par with “South Park”-style humor). That said, if I could do it over again, I might have gone a different direction. So… yay, I guess? (I wonder if I’m helping or hurting sales by mentioning all this…)

 

Bars: I prefer Japanese bars to American bars because of one critical difference. What could it be??? Read this comic to find out.

 

Re-contracting: My fellow English teachers and I have the option to renew our teaching contracts once a year. Which members of the Kameoka crew chose to stay, and which chose to go home?

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So those are the main chapters that make up the book. And they can all be yours, in HD, in a smart-phone-friendly format, for just a dollar!

Thanks for the consideration, and if you enjoy them, please tell your friends. Cheers all! (^^)/



The Kameoka Diaries: Volume Two:

iBookstore Version (for iPhone/iPad/iPod touch) [ CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW ]

DRM-free PDF (For Android/PC/Mac/Whatever) [ CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW ]

Other digital comics by me:

The Kameoka Diaries: Volume One

 iBookstore Version (for iPhone/iPad/iPod touch) [ CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW ]

DRM-free PDF (For Android/PC/Mac/Whatever) [ CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW ]

Young Men of a Certain Mind

 iBookstore Version (for iPhone/iPad/iPod touch) [ CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW ]

 

Kameoka Diaries 2: NOW AVAILABLE!

The Kameoka Diaries: Volume Two is available for purchase for a buck RIGHT NOW! YOWZA!

For iPhone/iPad/iPod touch:

The Kameoka Diaries: Volume Two is available on the iBookstore for only 99-cents:

[ CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW ]

For Android/PC/Mac/Whatever:

The Kameoka Diaries: Volume Two is available as a DRM-free PDF for $1 (or more):

[ CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW ]

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When I submitted my first e-comics to Apple, ( The Kameoka Diaries: Volume One and Young Men of a Certain Mind ) it took one month for them to get approved, so I’m surprised & delighted it only took two days this time. But hey, I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth!

I’ll write more about the new volume of The Kameoka Diaries soon; I just wanted to get this announcement blog entry out right-away.

So please check it out. And if you enjoy it, please consider writing a review on iBooks, and/or telling your friends, and/or tweeting about it, and/or “liking” it on Facebook. Thanks a bunch!

“Kameoka Diaries 1″ PDF–Now Available! “Kameoka Diaries 2″–Coming Soon!

Wow, it’s been a looong time since I’ve updated–almost two months! I’ll try to update a bit more frequently in the future!

Anyway, a couple pieces of news about my digital comics:

“The Kameoka Diaries: Volume One” PDF– Now Available!

The Kameoka Diaries has been available on the iBookstore for a few months now, but that excludes people without iPhones/iPads from buying it. A few people asked for a non-Apple option, so I finally got my act together and created a PDF for the Kameoka Diaries: Volume One. You can buy it here for $1 (or more, if you want!):

http://gum.co/OoHL

Actually, it’s been available for sale for like a month; I announced it on Facebook and Twitter, but never actually bothered to write an entry about it for my website. Yup, I’m a marketing genius, all right. Subsequently, sales have been, well, terrible. If you’re interested in seeing more of my work in PDF form, please consider picking it up! I’ll try to market it more effectively and see how it does, but if sales don’t pick up I probably won’t bother turning The Kameoka Diaries: Volume Two into a PDF when the time comes. And speaking of The Kameoka Diaries: Volume Two…

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“The Kameoka Diaries: Volume Two” Coming Soon!

Just today I finished the artwork for the book. Here’s what the cover looks like:

All that remains to do now is a bit of proofreading/fixing minor mistakes; I expect to finish that this week or early next week. Then I’ll submit the files to Apple and wait for their approval. For the first book that took about a month, so I expect the book will be available late-August or early-September or so. I’ll keep you posted!