Jason McNamara's Blog, page 3

The beat goes on...

Anke and I are emerging from a bruising summer, the details of which could fill a separate graphic novel, and we are getting GHOST BAND back on the road.

We have clearly missed our September 2021 shipping target, but if we can maintain our current pace, I think we could have the books in the mail by the end of the year. I truly appreciate how supportive everyone has been during this last stretch. And I'm here to tell you there is one advantage to the delay...Anke's art has gotten even better. Feast your eyes on this sequence from the upcoming third chapter.

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The third issue of GHOST BAND will go out to backers this fall. Ideally, the collected graphic novel will go out by the end of the year, that’s still my goal. If you’d like to reserve a copy of GHOST BAND and catch up on the digital issues, and the making of DEMO TAPES, you can support the project here.

Comic Book Script Writing Course open for Fall Applicants!

My Adult Comic Book Scriptwriting Class is now open for registration through Pacific Northwest College of art. This is a remote Zoom class open to everyone. I will teach you how to take the germ of an idea and build it into a professionally polished script in eight weeks. Then in a year or two when you have your own production company, you can hire me to get you coffee!

Rose City Comic Con - September 10th - 12th

I’m honored to be a guest of the Rose City Comic Con this weekend in Portland Oregon! Stop by table Artist Alley table EE 10 and flip through copies of Nocturnal Commissions, Creepers, SUCKER, The Cicada, and The Rattler. These were all small print-run projects, when they are gone, they are gone daddy gone.

The Cicada is returning!

It feels like seven years since The Cicada was released as a single issue… But I’m happy to announce that Alberto, Paul, and I have moved the project over to my company Polite Strangers, and have resumed production on The Cicada as an original graphic novel release this winter!

Emma Dale is a very special character to me and I’m grateful that Alberto, Paul, and I get to finish the project the way we intended. More news to come!

Tomorrow is a Day Behind is available on Amazon!

My debut novel Tomorrow is a Day Behind is now available for purchase on Amazon! This 126-page paperback middle-grade thriller can be enjoyed by anyone ages eight and up.

Cover art by Justin Greenwood, colors by Brad Simpson and design by Sonia Harris!

No matter how hard Martin tries, he can’t adjust the date on his new phone. It’s set to one day in the future. Mild frustration turns to alarm when Martin starts receiving texts from one day in the future. And the future is not looking bright.Now Martin must piece together clues from incoming texts to try to prevent an impending disaster, all while being terrorized by a middle school bully, and trying to impress the coolest girl in school.Will Martin save the day? Or will his minutes run out?

Written by Adrianne Ambrose & Jason McNamara, Illustrations from Justin Greenwood, and color covers from Brad Simpson. Cover design by Sonia Harris.

Tomorrow is a Day Behind available for Pre-Order!

Tomorrow is a Day Behind is now available to pre-order for a limited time! This 126-page paperback middle-grade thriller can be enjoyed by anyone ages eight and up.

The Story

No matter how hard Martin tries, he can’t adjust the date on his new phone. It’s set to one day in the future. Mild frustration turns to alarm when Martin starts receiving texts from one day in the future. And the future is not looking bright.

Now Martin must piece together clues from incoming texts to try to prevent an impending disaster, all while being terrorized by a middle school bully and trying to impress the coolest girl in school.

Will Martin save the day? Or will his minutes run out?

PRE-ORDER AVAILABLE UNTIL FEB 9TH.

Written by Adrianne Ambrose & Jason McNamara, Illustrations from Justin Greenwood, and color covers from Brad Simpson. Cover design by Sonia Harris.

Scriptwriting for Comics & Graphic Novels with Jason McNamara

Pacific Northwest College of Art is offering my Comic Writing Class again this spring. This 8-week course is completely remote and open to everyone, everywhere. Let’s make some comics!

This course focuses on creating production-ready documents for comic books / graphic novels through instruction, peer review, and one-on-one mentoring. Master the three-act structure, learn the difference between plot and theme, and the importance of the Hero’s Journey. With an emphasis on visual language, students will learn every step of script development by taking an idea and evolving it into a production-ready document.

Tomorrow is a Day Behind!

"Hey, when are you going to write something my kid can read?" I hear this every year and I finally have an answer: January 2021!

One of my favorite authors, Adrianne Ambrose, thought it would be fun to co-write a short story with me. Of course, I'm terrible with directions and turned in a draft that was way too long. So it became a novel. And then we outlined another one, then another and...holy crap, I think we have a series of stand-alone horror books I could give to a ten-year-old and not be arrested.

We tricked comic auteur Justin Greenwood into creating illustrations for us and even got Brad Simpson to color our cover. I grew up on YA horror, and can’t believe it’s taken me this long to return to the genre. I can't wait to get these out into the world. Hit this link to get notified when we launch.

Tomorrow is a Day Behind

A middle school book nerd’s new phone receives texts from one day in the future, so he knows the girl of his dreams is in danger, he just has to piece together the random messages to figure out how to save her.

Written by Adrianne Ambrose and Jason McNamara. Illustrations by Justin Greenwood. Cover colors by Brad Simpson.

GHOST BAND Encore Performance!

The GHOST BAND Kickstarter was an overwhelming success and I continue to receive messages about where folks can pre-order GHOST BAND. We have opened a pre-order page for the standard editions of the book on IndieGoGo to be delivered next year when the book is printed (sorry, the prints and variant covers were exclusive to KS).

GHOST BAND is an original 96 page graphic novel from myself and illustrator Anke Gladnick. We are delivering the book in digital chapters over the next year and plan to publish the complete book next fall.

Pre-order GHOST BAND now!

We live in a Ghost Band

You can tell a lot about a town by the conversations you overhear.

When I moved to San Francisco in 1997, the locals told me that I had just missed “the good years” and that all these new people were destroying the culture and driving up the rents. 

But as I explored the city from one end to the other, always with a notebook in hand, what I overheard changed my life. In every corner of San Francisco, in every coffee shop, book shop, telephone pole, and crosswalk I was being pitched bands, DIY zines, clothing lines, films, and books. Nobody needed permission to make art, everyone was expected to fight the good fight and make it themselves.

Sure, the city was expensive to live in and it was understood what you did to pay the rent wasn’t who you were. The day job followed your passion like a hyphenated last name like “Ginger Poet-Bike Messenger” or “Dusty Costume Design-Tech Support.” I had enough people ask me “why aren’t you writing comics” that my daydream no longer seemed so unrealistic. I started introducing myself as “Jason Comic Writer-Coffee Jerk.” 

The plan I put into motion back in those blurry days was to become the Johnny Thunders of comics; Talented, drunk, and tragic (hey, two out of three isn’t bad). San Francisco had turned me into a writer. 

At my day job, I worked alongside cartoonists, sculptors, dancers, musicians, and writers. Every night there was a reading, a show, an exhibit, a performance, and far too many substances to manage. Most mornings I would wake up in a strange place, crawl to my day job, and repeat the adventure all over again. It was an incredible time to make art. 

Illustration by Anke Gladnick

We considered ourselves lucky to survive the initial dot com explosion and laughed off the tech industry that nearly obliterated us. I was probably too busy making comics with my friends, or busy being drunk, to notice the tech industry regaining a toehold in the city.  Suddenly it wasn’t enough to just to hustle anymore. It was like trying to mop up the ocean with a sponge. Nearly every artist I knew was priced out of the city and replaced by a 20 something in a polo shirt.

One of the last conversations I overheard was during lunchtime at Market and 6th, a dicey intersection on its best day. It came from a tech employee looking at his phone and loudly bemoaning his 401K investment strategy as a local urinated on the building and nodded his head in agreement; times were tough. 

The loose definition of a Ghost Band is a band that has continued on without its original members. San Francisco had become my Ghost Band. The problem wasn’t that the city moved on, became something else, it was that I had not. 

I moved to Portland, Oregon, in 2015. The locals were quick to tell me that I had just missed “the good years” and that all these new people were destroying the culture and driving up the rents. 

Another time, another place, but the song remained the same. 

I have come to believe a city is as much a time and place in your life as it is a location. We all have our ghosts, the memories that we thought were home but all we have is what’s next. 

GHOST BAND, my graphic novel with illustrator Anke Gladnick, is an adventure about the end of the world. It’s about making art and moving on. 

None of us to get to stay. 

The GHOST BAND Kickstarter is 75% funded with five days left, give the project a look if you can. 

-Jason