Jason McNamara's Blog, page 7

I'm going to miss old whats his name...

Brief update! 

I have decided to take an extended break from social media and other sources of aggravation and distraction. I have too many projects that need my focus and attention right now. That said, I'll probably come crawling back when I have a project to announce. 

Until then, I will leave you with this semi drunken rant from years past.

http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/monkeygongcom/e/storycraft-podcast-jason-mcnamara-37571395

The Storycraft podcast is rerunning an interview I originally gave in 2013. Recorded over a six pack in San Francisco Duboce park, Kraig Rasmussen and I reflect on our first decade in comics. It's both amusing and horrifying to hear where my head was at in that moment.  We complain, gossip and generally shit talk our way through an amusing 90 minutes. Which, if I'm being honest, is more time than even I'd like to spend with my own thoughts but to each their own.

Kraig and I are currently collaborating on a graphic novel and I can confidently tell you, if nothing else, it will be gorgeous to look at. 

A rollicking interview w/ Comics Bulletin

 

Interview with Comics Bulletin 

Had a great time talking with Jason Sacks over at Comics Bulletin. We dug into THE CROSSING, ABANDON and managing a kickstarter. 

ABANDON and THE CROSSING debut on Stela

 

I have two new graphic novels debuting on the Stela comics app. If you're not familiar with Stela, they are a brand new comic reading app featuring exclusive content from todays top comic book talent (and me). The comics are displayed in a continually scrolling style like Tumblr and formatted for smaller screens like phones and tablets. The app is free to download and the first chapter of each series is free. 

 

THE CROSSING is a coming of age story on an alternate earth where Neanderthals survived and are in conflict with humans. Also, body altering crystals and love triangles. 

I describe ABANDON as 2001 A Space Odyssey meets Ten Little Indians. The story follows 6 volunteers on a one way trip to colonize Mars...and one of them might be a killer. 

The RATTLER sheds its skin

After multiple signings, interviews and podcasts, the entire RATTLER team was in one place for a hot minute. On April 27th artist Greg Hinkle, editor Joel Enos and myself were on hand for a signing at Mission Comics in San Francisco. It was a fantastic event and a wonderful way to wrap up the promotional tour for the project. 

Thank you to everyone who supported THE RATTLER in both its incarnations. We are incredibly proud of the book and are grateful for the experience. I can't wait to work with these guys again. 

For anyone who missed out on a signed copy of THE RATTLER I've added some to the store page on this site. 

Greg, Joel and Jason

Interviews, previews and a review.

Greg Hinkle and I have been on the promotional warpath for the upcoming Image release of THE RATTLER and it's been a lot of fun seeing how journalists respond to the book. A common question is why did we create such an unpleasant protagonist? It must say something about Greg and I that we find Stephen Thorn relatable, even amusing.

Another question that comes up often is how we made the transition from publishing through Kickstarter to getting picked up by Image Comics. The short answer is Greg Hinkle and the longer is that we didn't fuck up our Kickstarter. It doesn't matter if you have ten backers or a thousand, every one of them needs to walk away feeling positive about the experience. I'm not saying I deserve a cookie for delivering what I set out to do only, that the experience was rare enough to garner us more attention. 

Greg and I speak with JK Parkin at Smash Pages "What I hadn’t anticipated was how emotional running a Kickstarter would be."

We both took part in a longer format interview with Nicole D'Andria at Comics Front Line. I get into the true story that inspired THE RATTLER "Oh, yeah…he also just happened to be traveling with some very thick rope."

Greg and I also talked with original Kickstarter supporter Nick Nafpliotis at Adventures In Poor Taste about Kickstarter, sequels and our inevitable Super Hero reinvention "My childhood dream was to be a comic book writer, it wasn’t to be a grown man making excuses for himself."

We had a great conversation with Leo Johnson at Multiversity Comics. "Greg and I we would jump at the chance to return to this world. We have a lot of options on where we could go next. "

And finally we were treated to an advance review from Elizabeth Lotto at The Outer Haven. "Nancy-Grace-With-A-Penis goes absolutely nuts and it’s wonderful."

 

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The Rattler comes to Image Comics this March

Pleased to announce The Rattler is being published by Image comics this March! The 104 page graphic novel is gorgeously illustrated by Greg Hinkle (Airboy) and will be presented in grayscale with bursts of red throughout. We released a limited run through Kickstarter in 2014 and are very excited to finally have a mass market edition available for new readers to discover. 

10 years have passed since Stephen Thorn’s fiancée vanished without a trace, and he has grown into a prominent, if bitter, victim’s rights crusader. Despite the cold trail and lack of leads, he stubbornly refuses to give up the search. And then…he begins to hear her voice in the strangest of places.

 

The Martian Confederacy serialized on Go Comics

My sci-fi comedy series The Martian Confederacy is currently being serialized on Go Comics. A collaboration between myself and Jane's World creator Paige Braddock, the book follows the adventure of three outlaws living on Mars in the year 3535. The entire first volume has been posted and you can read from the beginning here. 

The second storyline, FROM MARS WITH LOVE, recently began on the site and starts here. 

I've dusted off my treatment for the third and final storyline, STEAL THIS UNIVERSE. With any luck it will be serialized when the current storyline ends. 

The Rattler on Reason.tv

I had the pleasure of discussing The Rattler Kickstarter with reason.tv. The five minute video segment focuses on emerging distribution channels and creative freedom. 

The Rattler on Real.tv

I had the pleasure of discussing The Rattler Kickstarter with Real.tv. The five minute video segment focuses on emerging distribution channels and creative freedom. 

Rattler Kickstarter: Prepping for fulfillment

Since the Kickstarter ended I have been working with our vendors to get the Rattler rewards produced. The majority of these assets were created before the campaign went live and it's mostly a matter of paying an invoice. The big exception to this was the extra material generated by the campaign for the print edition of the Rattler. To save time we took a risk and started illustrating the art for the high level backers before the campaign was over.  We realized that these rewards were going to more time consuming for Greg to create than we anticipated. So in the third week of the campaign we reduced the new art assets available and instead offered more sketch rewards that could be created after the book was printed.  This allowed us to get our primary asset, the printed book, into production as soon as the funds cleared. 

 

We decided to go with an American printer for quicker turnaround and customer satisfaction. After a small snafu with bleed lines, the book has been approved and is in production. In the meantime I've assembled the boxes, bagged the postcard sets, packaged the posters, and sleeved the prints. Greg is coming for a visit next week and hopefully, if they've arrived, we'll start sketching and signing books. We could conceivably start shipping out rewards June 23. Two months ahead of schedule. 

We might actually pull this off.