Dylan Edwards's Blog, page 65

New PiQue, and more Beyond teasers

Page 2 of the Dee/Alicia storyline is now up on Tapastic. Thus begins the bit of this story I’ve reworked most extensively, updating the art to reflect more current trends in chat design, and altering the text rather a lot. The original version shall remain here on Studio NDR for the time being. You can go compare ‘em and decide for yourself if I’m Lucasizing this story.

In the realm of new stuff, I’m currently drawing my way through the billionty character designs I need to work up for my story for the queer sf/fantasy anthology Beyond. The script is in its second draft and is just about ready for storyboarding, I think.

I’m hoping to get a section set up here on Studio NDR to collect the various bits and pieces of my work in progress for Beyond. I cannot, obviously, show you the story itself, as it’s exclusive to the book. But there’s a lot of concept art and backstory that goes into creating a sci-fantasy world, and I think it’d be cool to have that sort of stuff here for people who are process junkies. I’m also posting stuff to Twitter from time to time (@DylanNDREdwards), so follow along if’n ye wish.

First, though, I gotta come up with a name for my story/world besides the current inadequate working title. For some reason, coming up with names is a huge chore for me. So. Gimme a minute or three to get this rolling.

Cheers,

Dylan

Time for another multi-page PiQue story

Starting today on Tapastic, I’ll be running the 8-page story of Dee and Alicia’s interactions since their initial meeting. “High School Sucked for You, Too?!” is, as with previous episodes, colorized from its original black and white. In addition, I’m also heavily revising a lot of the text, mostly because I was never totally happy with it in the first place. So this is one that, if you’ve already read it, you may wish to follow along and read it again.

In other news, I’m still working away on my story for Beyond, the frabjuous queer sci-fi/fantasy anthology that will be coming out next year. I have the first draft of my script done, though I already know several changes I’m going to make, and I’ve been whittling away at character designs and concept art. The story itself is exclusive to the book, so you’ll have to wait until it’s released to read the whole thing, but I will be posting teasers here periodically, so keep checking in for the latest sketches and so forth.

My plan is to put together a separate section here on Studio NDR for all my Beyond-related arts. Hoping to get to that later this week, but you know how things are. Anyway, I’ll definitely post here to let you know when it’s up.

Cheers,

Dylan

Love your editor

I’m very excited by some of the anthology projects I have coming up. There’s QU33R, of course, which is supposed to drop next month from Northwest Press (more on that when I know the official release date). I’m also going to be a part of Beyond, an all-queer sci-fi/fantasy anthology that will be coming out next year. Beyond is currently soliciting proposals, so check out the FAQ and guidelines if you wanna submit.

Also, I don’t remember if I mentioned this here or not, but No Straight Lines from Fantagraphics is back in print in softcover, so snag this amazing tome of jillions of queer comics if you haven’t already.

All this anthology talk has me ruminating on the relationship between creator and editor. I think it’s relatively rare, especially in the age of webcomics and self-publishing, for comics creators to have an opportunity to work with an editor, whether that’s in the form of being selected for an anthology project, or having your work-in-progress edited by a professional (i.e., not your friends). A couple of comments I have on this process:

1. Be nice to the editor, even if they decline to publish you at this time. Maybe what you do is not suitable for the current project, or maybe it’s already over its page limit and your amazing story is too long, or maybe you didn’t read the specs carefully and the piece you created will not physically fit in the book without looking terrible. It sucks to get turned down! Truly! But bear in mind, it’s not uncommon for anthology editors to do more than one anthology project in their lives. Maybe you will be a perfect fit for the next project. If you haven’t burned your bridges, the editor might think of you later and be all, “Oh, hey, wanna be in my next anthology?”

But if you are rude to an editor, even if your work is amazing, you will have a hard time getting published if you’ve made a reputation for yourself as someone who is an obnoxious jerk. Especially with an anthology, the editor is already herding cats trying to get the other artists to get their stuff in on time (ha ha). Unless you are such a huge draw that your name alone will sell a ton of books (hint: you’re probably not), an editor is likely to pass you over for someone whose work is equally as good, but who is also not a giant pain in the ass to work with.

Editors are not gods (necessarily). You certainly don’t need to grovel. Just, you know, be nice.

2. Do not take edits personally. This happens a lot in prose, and would happen more in comics if more comic book people actually got a chance to work with a professional editor. Unlike your pal, who doesn’t want to hurt your feelings and is not getting paid to critique you, a professional editor’s job is to highlight the weaknesses in your piece so you can fix them. (A good editor will preface the coming bloodbath with some words of praise for the stuff you’re doing really well.) In general, you are not actually obligated to make all the edits (unless you need to make something age appropriate, for example), but ask yourself if you feel strongly enough about the work as-is to go to the mat for it. And if you’re defending it, can you make a case for why your version is better.

My own experience working with professional editors was that, while being edited sometimes made me grumpy (I AM AN AAAAAAHTIST), the editors were right probably 95% of the time. And by taking their criticisms seriously, I saw the quality of my work level up considerably. There were a handful of instances where I felt motivated to defend my original version, but for the most part I found that the professionals were right. (You can, it turns out, hire a freelance editor to look at your project if you’re planning to self-publish. If you’ve never done this before, seriously, give it a try sometime.)

Cheers,

Dylan

New Retconned PiQue, plus a sneak peek into Beyond

Time for this week’s PiQue on Tapastic, in which a younger Sunita (in her retail-workin’ days) has a plan for getting rid of pesky dudes who can’t take a hint.

Okay, so this is something of a retcon. After I came up with the “brand-new” character Sunita, I realized this unnamed woman from an old comic of mine was pretty much identical in personality. The only difference is she’s skinnier. So it’s not that hard to see old-comic Sunita as the younger (think 19-ish) incarnation of current Sunita (who may or may not be pushing 30-ish, who can say?).

Trivia fun time: Archer is essentially a reincarnation of an old D&D character of mine … apparently when I make up a fake person I like to keep ‘em around.

In other news, I’m in the midst of crafting a story for Beyond, a queer sci-fi fantasy anthology that’s currently in the works. I’m working away on character designs for my story right now … last night, I sketched out these two ladies. I don’t actually have names for them yet (I have a hard time coming up with names, it turns out),and it’s very likely their outfits will change as I get a better handle on what I want to do about fashion in this world, but for now alls you need to know is LESBIAN SCIENTIST ADVENTURERS. My story will also have non-gendered asexuals, what-if hominids, and other fun stuff, so keep an eye out for further developments.

This is intended as a standalone story for the anthology, though the world and the characters are all featured in my big, epic sci-fantasy book I’ve been writing away on. THAT’S not going to see the light of day for awhile, but it’s been my Big Project Goal for a long time now, so I’m excited to get to work on bits of it for Beyond.

Cheers,

Dylan

The latest PiQue on Tapastic, and downtime?

The latest episode of Politically InQueerect is now up on Tapastic. This is originally from The Outfield, in which several PiQue characters had cameos. I’m just pleased this one has come around to being relevant again, what with the Red Sox being the awesomest and the Yankees sucking and all that. Whether the Sox manage to swing a World Series win this year is yet to be determined, but Archer is a bit over-excited nonetheless.

Also, I guess there’s been a certain amount of downtime for Studio NDR lately? I keep getting alert messages to that effect, though it seems to happen overnight for me (which I guess sucks for any Australian readers). I dunno what that’s about. I am honestly just about the world’s worst website administrator, and my eyes lose focus the instant I start to read any technical details of the server thingy thum, so yeah. Sorry. I don’t really have a good solution at this time, owing to the fact that I’m a cartoonist and therefore have no money.

One of the benefits, I guess, of publishing externally on a place like Tapastic … at least somewhere on the internet my cartoons are available!

Cheers,

Dylan

This week’s PiQue: An Official Statement on Rand’s Gender

The newest remastered Politically InQueerect is now up on Tapastic, and it seeks to answer a burning question: what IS Rand’s gender identity, anyway? Well, NOW YOU KNOW.

So! SPX was awesome. It was my first experience of this particular con, and I really had a blast. I am pretty worn out from it (my travel to and from was fraught with peril, bookended by 1,000-year weather events on the one side and mass shootings on the other), but would happily do it again next year. My pal Melanie Gillman drew all the panelists for the Queering the Mainstream panel I was on, which is the first time I’m aware of such a thing happening to me. It is awesomeness.

Up next: a local event, wherein I shall join something like 30 other Colorado authors for a book-selling, food-eating event called Books & Bites. That’s this Friday, Sept. 20, from 6:00 PM – 8:30 PM, at the Arvada Library (7525 West 57th Avenue, Arvada, CO 80002). Be there!

Cheers,

Dylan

Two new comics and an art! And SPX!

Gosh, so much stuff this week.

Let’s begin with this week’s Politically InQueerect offering on Tapastic, in which we buck the stereotype of the lesbian jock, and catch up with a few non-sporty Sapphics. This was originally an Outfield cartoon with a cameo from Dee, which I’ve recolored for this incarnation. I also had to change the text rather extensively to make it work in the context of an official PiQue comic. So even if you’ve read this particular Outfield cartoon before, you might want to give it a look.

Next up is the brand-new cartoon I made for the most recent issue of Rocksalt. Even if you read said issue you might have missed my cartoon, as it was cleverly disguised as an ad (THAT’S WHAT YOU GET FOR NOT READING THE ADS). Here it is all comic-sized and in sepia color.

This one posits what sort of beauty regimen a Skeksis might get up to (yes, Skeksis as in The Dark Crystal). I spent way too much time researching old-timey vanishing cream ads in the making of this one. Although, important point! This is actually intended as a modern ad done up in an old-timey style, as is the current trend with products marketed to hipsters.

Third piece of new art is this Welcome to Nightvale fan art I did. A recent episode had Cecil rattling off a list of horrible monstrosities, of which spider wolves were but one. I was instantly captivated by the concept of a spider wolf, and was unable to resist the urge to draw one. (Note: this has my Feeping Creatures watermark on it, coz I’m too lazy to make a separate image for studiondr.com. I expect you’ll manage.)

Lastly but not leastly, SPX is upon us. I leave tomorrow! The show is this weekend, Sept. 14-15 in Bethesda, MD. Once again, I’ll be tabling with Northwest Press. You can find us at K10. My pal Tony Breed made this awesome chart of LGBTQ comics and creators at SPX. Use it! I’ll also be on the “Queering the Mainstream” panel on Sunday the 15th, from 3:30-4:30 PM. Please come watch us yammer on about things and stuff.

Is that everything? Jeebus, I hope so.

Cheers,

Dylan

Crystal Power Brand Vanishing Cream

How do some skeksis manage to stay looking so young? The secret is all in the beauty regimen, as long as that beauty regimen includes a healthy dollop of Crystal Power Brand Vanishing Cream!

Welcome to Night Vale fan art: Spider Wolf

Yes, I am one of those nerds who listens to the Night Vale podcast, and then cannot resist drawing the bizarre imagery Cecil describes. When he mentioned “spider wolves” in a recent episode, I knew I had to find out what a spider wolf looked like. So here we are.

Once again, I left my feepingcreatures.com watermark on the image because I’m too damn lazy to make separate images for each of my websites. SO THERE.

New PiQue on Tapastic and here at home

In this week’s remastered Politically InQueerect, Todd and Archer argue about a spatula. No, wait! Come back! I promise, it’s funny.

It is actually kinda funny, for me at any rate, to figure out what kind of decorating sense these guys have. The house is not particularly done to Archer’s taste, since he’d prefer to live in a sterile white box if he could. But Todd winds up taking control of the interior design because he’s the one actually willing to put forth the money and effort for it. Hence colorful walls and antique furniture. I think they may have compromised on more earthy tones rather than bright, screaming colors.

I’ve also added last week’s new strip, starring new characters Yuki and Sunita, to the PiQue archives here on Studiondr.com. You’ll find it in PiQue Pieces, the repository for one-pagers and other short pieces that aren’t part of a specific storyline.

I am definitely getting to a point now where I need to resurrect the obligatory Cast o’ Characters page. Probably won’t be done before SPX, but it’s definitely high on the priority list for this fall.