Eric Orchard's Blog, page 39

Suburban Mysteries

One pretty recent book that had a big impact on me was Shaun Tan's Tales From Outer Suburbia. Such an impact in fact that I believe it changed my approach to storytelling dramatically, or sharpened the focus. I think it resonated because I recognized something from my childhood which I tried to escape and missed once I did and now I'm back there again, in suburbia with a little boy and all the magic that entails. You can'r spend an entire childhood in the suburbs looking for magic without it profoundly influencing your grown up life. Before Outer suburbia I wrote in my notes "look for magic in the backyard" but since I've managed to broaden that search a bit. See things with a fresh perspective.

"In late August a witch moved into our neighborhood" is the first line in a story I'm writing right now. A glimpse into the strangeness that is suburbia. 

Elder Cat

Link From Zelda

Blasting From The Crypt

                                                                       

                                                                           BOOM!

Just finishing up Cat Island thumbnails today, second draft. And then it's full time on Maddy Kettle for a while. Hoping to be posting some new Maddy art in the coming weeks. And if you're wondering about Marrowbones I'll be floating it around as a pitch soon.

Finished Rosemary's Baby last night, I enjoyed it but it was so close to the movie I felt like I had already read it. Not sure what to read next. Might stick to short stories for a while.

Ectoplasm Cat

Here's an old sketch from a book I've been thinking about again. An ongoing ghost story thing.

At the moment i'm mired in thumbnailing a book. I find this one of the hardest parts of the process, I think because it requires constant thoughtfulness in a way that drawing pictures doesn't. Or maybe it feels like the process slows down to a crawl during thumbnails. I'd love to do a book I thumbnail as I go along rather than putting the whole book together at the beginning. I think either way is fine but publishers usually want a draft of thumbnails to look at. Which makes sense.

Finished reading The Haunting of Hill House yesterday which is just brilliant. Even subtler and darker than We Have Always Lived in the Castle. And I just stated reading Rosemary's Baby. Still not sure what I think yet!

And I need to mention how wonderful the weather is here, I was able to wear a sweater this morning which is perfect weather in my books. I'm done with the sweltering summer. Thankful to see the Fall. 

House On A Hill, Old Rejected Book

A page from a spooky comic I never got around to finishing. I really want to do a spooky comic with really rich detail but haven't been struck with the right idea yet. I'd likely do it in pen and ink rather than pencil though. I'm reading Shirley Jackson's amazing Haunting of Hill House for the first time so I'm getting lots of spooky ideas. Have you read it? I love it and can not believe I'm just getting to it now. I read We Have Always Lived in the Castle a year or two ago and it easily became one of my favourite books. She does something interesting in her stories, combining a real human compassion with unsettling, other worldly ambiance. Brilliant stuff.

Years ago I brought a ghost story to Tor but it was rejected, I was a little disappointed but had more than enough on my plate that it wasn't a crushing blow at all. I shared the idea with Mike Mignola who really seemed to like it so I've been holding on to it and refining it since. With a number of books floating around as pitches maybe I'll finally unearth this concept as a self published book. My experience at Tor made me suspect it's too strange to properly market. And like I mentioned in my last post, Marrowbones showed me that having a self published book can make the whole business of being a cartoonist more viable, when combined with traditional publishing.

In family news, Henry turns 4 next month. We are planning a birthday trip to the pumpkin patch. How much fun is that?

Winding Down Winding Up

I apologise for the sudden drop off in posts the last few days. Every year as Summer winds down I find myself in a sudden panic to complete work and set up work for the Fall and after. At the moment I'm thumbnailing the Cat Island book, which looks to be about 85 pages and I'm completing Maddy Kettle. I'm also doing a few scripts for later works.

Reflecting on the summer and the work I did I am wondering about the best approach to publishing right now. I feel that Marrowbones has been a real success and it was a nice surprise. It sold well and was very well reviewed and with no marketing and sales primarily through this blog. I thought that was pretty amazing. I really enjoy being able to share my work directly with people like that. At the same time I'm not sure I can make a sustainable income just from that and the honest truth is I really like the collaboration that comes with working with publishers. So, right now I wonder if the best route is to do books both with publisher AND to self publish fairly consistently. Maybe this seems self evident to people but I'm always figuring these things out. I find the free content approach pretty baffling, it has never really worked for me. I can't make money from it and it doesn't seem to get as much attention as a collected work one pays for. The most important thing is to tell stories, the second most important is to eat. But both are pretty important.

Just thinking out loud.....

Green Lantern Commission

Sorry, the scan made the green yellow....

Big Bad Wolf Private Commission

Watercolour and ink commission of So great to draw older cartoon characters, I feel like there's a lot to learn from their design.

Today I'm just finishing up the very last commissions and thumbnailing the Cat Island book. Hoping to have to have Cat Island thumbnailed in the next few days and then return to Maddy Kettle to finish that off by late Fall. 

Super Monkey And Super Rabbit Commission

Here's a commission I did, turning 2 sisters in to awesome superheroes. This was really fun to draw. People's kids are tough, I'm always worried about likeness even though my work is pretty cartoony.

Also, check out the header I did for the Automata Blog: http://blog.dugnorth.com/ This is an older commission and the site just went live.