OUAT Artists Interview - Michelle Silva

What is your story about?

Hi my name is Michelle Silva, I love comics!! My story is called Lindorm King, which is a love story between a dragon prince and his servant boy.

Where did you get your ideas and inspiration for your story?

The comic was inspired by the tale "The Bride of the Lindorm King" or also known as "Lindorm Prince" the story originates from the Scandinavian region. I really wanted to do something with dragons in it and I re-adapted the tale in a modern twist.

Concept art by  Michelle Silva

What made you decide to do a story for Gurukitty Studios anthology project?

Fairy tales and folklore evoke our childhood and past.  The stories have lessons, and deal with life's challenges, but as the tales are retold the meanings and details change depending on what society made them. These morals that are depicted affect us today in modern society and how we view ourselves.  Currently I'm working on a upcoming graphic novel called, Click Track Lolita which is inspired by the "once upon a time" genre. One day while I was researching,  I stumbled across Gurukitty's project.  When I saw Gurukitty Studios was going to do a Once Upon A Time Anthology, I had to submit!

What other comics have you done? Tell us about them.

The biggest project I've worked to date is a graphic novel published by Oni Press titled Love Buzz, written by Len Wallace. Love Buzz is a college romance story about finding the right one . Some published anthology projects I've participated in would be Outlaw Territory vol. 1, Negative Burn issue. 6,  The Girls Guide to Guy Stuff, Sugar Ninjas: Spicy Book 3, and Trickster: Native American Tales.  I also publish comics digitally and have multiple mini comics which are available on my website to read for free! 

http://www.tc.umn.edu/~silva039/

Where else can people find your work? Are you included in any other publications or a website?

I like post all over the internet but my main hangout would be my sketch blog where I post my latest art and happenings, which would be

www.0becomingX.blogspot.com

Thanks for reading!

OUAT Artists Interview Reetta Linjama

What is your story about?

A crooked rich guy and an arrogant monster, both getting their comeuppance from a hero they underestimate. It's a folk tale peppered with slapstick violence and a matter-of-fact take on so called monsters.

Where did you get your ideas and inspiration for your story?

"The Evil Boyar's Farmhand" is adapted from a Mari-El folk tale. Technically the Mari-El live in Russia, but their language is one of the Fenno-Ugric languages, a close relative of my native Finnish. As the starting point for the visuals I used Finnish scenery, old traditional Finnish clothing etc. I've made a few changes to the plot and characters, both for the story flow's sake and so I could draw stuff that I enjoy -- like snow. I'm also quite influenced by Eurocomics and classic gag cartoons.

What made you decide to do a story for Gurukitty Studios anthology project?

Mostly that the theme of the anthology meant I could adapt a tale rather than write a comic from scratch. I'm slowly venturing into writing my own comics, but I feel better about a gentle start. And, well, I know Guru&Kitty in real life, and I knew they're not just talk ;)

What other comics have you done? Tell us about them.

I'd been making one-page comics for my own amusement before, but my comics-making hobby really took off after joining Cloudscape Comics, when I started collaborating with writers. I'm interested in drawing all kinds of comics, but my own writing skills lean towards humour and cute gags right now, like my first self-scripted comic "Revenge of The Ghost Spider" in the 2011 Gurukitty anthology "Ghost Tales" shows.

Where else can people find your work? Are you included in any other publications or a website?

I have a website, including links to most of my profiles around social media. So far I've been in the Cloudscape anthologies "21 Journeys" and "Giants of Main Street", and Gurukitty's "Ghost Tales"

OUAT Artists Interview Jeri Weaver

What is your story about?

My story is about a winged lion who keeps a lair of bones guarded by two white ravens.
Every time he goes on a hunt, he brings the bones back to his collection.

Where did you get your ideas and inspiration for your story?

It is actually based on an African folk tale called "How the Lion Lost his Wings". I
chose it because it kind of reminded me of the man eating lions of Tsavo who were said
to keep a lair of bones from their prey.
I am drawn to African legends in general, they are always creative and get right to the
point.

What made you decide to do a story for Gurukitty Studios anthology project?

Well, I am Gurukitty studios, so it would be kind of silly if I didn't put a story into my
own anthology project. Our reason for doing anthologies is to help give fellow comic
artists a chance to get their work published. We remember a time when publishing
seemed like an impossible task and an unacheivable goal and we want people to know
that if there is a will, there is a way.
Our fairy/folk tale theme was inspired by our love of history and a book we had
growing up. It was an amazingly illustrated folk tale book, all traditionally done of
course. It is unfortunately out of print now, but we still have our original copy.


What other comics have you done?Tell us about them.

Well, I created the Daqueran series we have posted online, started in 2007.
I've also created a few other short comics for other anthologies, "Rules for
Ghosts" is in our last anthology, Ghost Tales. A short called "Spirit Bear" will be
in another anthology by ink'd well comics.
I'm currently working on a story for Cloudscape Comics for the "All Canadian
Superhero" anthology.
I also created a 4 page teaser for a graphic novel I am working on called "The
Gourd Wife". The characters and everything have changed dramatically, but the
graphic novel is still a go and in the scripting stage.

Where else can people find your work? Are you included in any other
publications or a website?
Well, most everything can be found on my website http://gurukitty.com
I've been published in the March 2009 Estonian "For Him Magazine" (random and odd, I know).
The Ink'd well Comics "Fearsome Fables" Anthology that will be released at Halcon 2012
All the GK anthologies of course.
I've also done some illustration work, most recently for "A World of Stories" for the Rotary Club.
I also do guest pages all over the place wherever and whenever I can.

OUAT Artist Interview - Bevan Thomas

What is your story about?
“The Happy Prince,” illustrated by the talented Ksenia Kozhevnikova, is about a swallow flying south who befriends a golden bejewelled statue of a prince. The swallow is so filled with love for the Prince and the Prince with love for his own city that they offer up everything of themselves, destroying themselves for love. In the end, an angel takes their souls up to Heaven so that they can be rewarded for their selflessness.

Where did you get your ideas and inspiration for your story?It’s an adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s fairy tale of the same name. Oscar Wilde wrote numerous tragic tales, such as “The Angry Giant” and “The Star Child,” in which the protagonists martyr themselves for compassion and love. They’re very sad and mournful, but also very powerful and beautiful. I wanted to adapt one and “The Happy Prince” seemed the best fit for the anthology.

What made you decide to do a story for Gurukitty Studios anthology project?

I’m always interested in getting involved with local graphic novel anthologies and I really enjoyed contributing to Gurukitty Studios’ first book, “Ghost Tales.”

About the artist

What other comics have you done? Tell us about them.

I wrote “Ghosts of the Capital,” with art by Jayleen Weaver and Donut, for Gurukitty’s “Ghost Tales,” an exploration of various ghost stories and hauntings within the city of Victoria.

I’m also a frequent contributor to Cloudscape Comics’ various anthologies. For “21 Journeys,” I wrote “Flyaway,” featuring art by Reetta Linjama, which juxtaposed a woman escaping a toxic lifestyle with a swallow flying south for the winter. Then for “Giants of Main Street,” I created “Fallen Star” with Ksenia Koshevnikova, the story of “Theseus and the Minotaur” from the Minotaur’s point of view, and “My City” with Oliver McTavish-Wisden, about a man who keeps a city in a bottle. For Cloudscape’s next anthology, “Waterlogged,” I intend to create an autobiographical story about my relationship with my late maternal grandfather and also a story about a woman’s fascination with a powerful female pirate.

Oh, and I’m spearheading “All-Canadian Comics,” an anthology of Canadian superhero stories inspired by 40s Canadian comics. That’s a big personal project for me. I’m the editor and wrote three of the anthology’s stories. Basically, I like to keep busy. 

Where else can people find your work? Are you included in any other publications or a website?

A lot of my work is linked to off my portfolio at http://www.bevanthomas.ca. That’s also the location of my blog, where I post news about my professional and creative work, as well as various articles about things I find interesting. A lot of my work can also be read at http://www.cloudscapecomics.

com, the website for Cloudscape, the comics society I’m prominently involved with.
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Once Upon a Time Atist Interview - Jason Hart

As part of our indiegogo campaign to raise funds to print our anthology, we are doing interviews with some of the artists.

First up is Jason Hart, artist of "Small Wars of Inconsequential Beings" and the cover artist for the Special Edition Variant cover, available now only through a $30 donation on the Indiegogo campaign.
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What is your story about?

"Small Wars Of Inconsequential Beings" is a take on an old Greek/Roman story, "Batrachomyomachia," about a war between mice and frogs (which has been speculated may have been a satire of Homer's Iliad). My take doesn't modernize it necessarily, but attempts to make the story a little more universal.

The king of the frogs invites his friend, the mouse king, to a celebration at the frog lodge. On the way there, the mouse king accidentally drowns, and a war between the two species ensues...



Where did you get your ideas and inspiration for your story?

I was looking for a tale that had what I saw as a flaw to it – so that I had somewhere I could improve it with a re-imagining. The latter part of the original tale brings in the Greek gods, which for the sake of the parody, worked at the time, but didn't really make sense from a modern perspective.

I also really try to have a theme or driving message with my stories, and the basic setup of the frogs/mice war lent to something I wanted to say about the interconnectedness of our world today – that any war or struggle, even of a very small or seemingly unimportant people, today has a very significant impact on its neighbors and on the world balance overall.


What made you decide to do a story for Gurukitty Studios anthology project?

I've been writing comic scripts for a few years now, and about 6 months ago, I just sort of hit a wall, where I had all this stuff written, but nothing published to show for it. My wife suggested I look into anthologies, and so I started hitting up any comic anthology that seemed legit and that I could find a story to develop under its theme.

I have a long love of folk tales, so Once Upon a Time... was a natural fit. It was also only my second time illustrating my own work, something I'm developing more now. (And yes, there was a reason I chose a story with very few humans in it.)


About the artist

What other comics have you done? Tell us about them.

I have upcoming short comics in Melaina Comics' Cartoonists Against Bullying and Grayhaven Comics' The Gathering: Kids Fairy Tales, with a few more pending – as well as a 7-issue circus mini-series that's been scripted and a 4-issue adventure/comedy mini-series that an artist and I are developing. Currently, I'm illustrating two new stories for anthology submissions.


Where else can people find your work? Are you included in any other publications or a website?

The two listed above haven't been published yet. Updates on my work can be found at my blog: showerstorm.tumblr.com



About the cover

How did you come up with your cover design?

Even with single-image illustrations, I really get excited if I can tell a story, or at least hint at one. The hard part was finding an image that would evoke the genre without being too specific to any one tale (while still being interesting). I came up with a scene of a young adventurer who seeks out folk tales to collect in her snake-skin cloak. She confronts a spider in its lair, who also collects tales and hoards them in its subterranean web. A sort of parallel to the idea of the anthology within.
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Raising Funds for OUAT

Well, we're nearly there! We're almost ready to print Once upon a Time...! So exciting this is! We just need some help from you! We've begun an indieGoGo Campaign to help us raise the funds to print our artists copies. The artists copies can cost us nearly 1000$ to print and ship to them, and that usually comes our of our own pockets but we're a little strapped these days, and we need help. You can help out by donating of course, but also by sharing the campaign!
If you'd like a widget like this:
 
you can copy and paste this code:
<iframe src="http://www.indiegogo.com/project/197179/widget/175406" width="224px" height="429px" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>

Or simply use this link and tweet and share!
http://igg.me/p/197179?a=175406

Thank you so much for your continued support :D
You guys are the best!

Once Upon a Time...

For all of you interested in updates on our next Anthology, here it is.

All submissions have been accepted and announced. See list...
Cover winner announced, as well as a future variant cover. See them...
Sample pages from several stories have been posted. Have a look...

Whats left to do?

Well, a whole heck of allot actually.
Table of contents, artists information and credits, interior covers, making the covers into print format with proper spine....

lots.

We are still looking at a release date before Christmas, so fingers crossed!

Another issue is raising money to get the print copies to the participating artists.
If you want to help, Donations can be made via paypal to hello@gurukitty.com
We would very very much appreciate any help you can give. We may be doing an indigogo campaign in the near future to get enough money, but they usually end up costing a lot of money to raise money.

Thank you everyone for your continued support.

The fanart trap

It is really hard to sell an original idea. There is no doubt about that, even mainstream comic companies know that, thats why all these movies are being made of old stories and characters.

But remember Batman, Spiderman, Captain America, Iron Man and all the rest were original ideas once too.

We are sitting at minicomi, a small one day comic festival (mostly manga/anime), at our table trying to sell our original ideas, art and comics.
Across from us is a table selling 13x19 prints for $5 more than us of My Little Pony and various animes I'm unfamiliar with.
Beside us is some Princess Mononoke fanart, down the aisle is Zelda and some Adventure Time and Pokemon plushies.
Table after table is people making a profit off of other peoples ideas, hard work, and imagination.

It makes it even harder to sell an original idea, when you are surrounded by the familiar.

What we also see are some tables trying to sell their original ideas by selling fanart at the same time, this is what we call the "fanart trap".

Often these are artists that have been trying for a long time to sell their original ideas, or were fanart artists before and have a new original concept.
These people have often thought that they could gain an audience or fanbase by having familiar characters peppered in their displays. They very often have been struggling to make a profit for a long time and just sold out, or they are too afraid to jump in all the way.
Admittedly, with the right audience in the right time and the right place, this can work, but the reality is that most of the time all those ingredients just dont come together.

Once you go down that path it is hard to get out, this is why its a trap. People tend to get addicted to the sales at the end of the day and forget that their original story or characters are still ignored, hidden and lonely.

Having an original story or idea is only 1/2 the battle, most artists and business owners spend more time marketting and pushing their ideas than they do working on them. A sad fact for sure, but I asure you its true.

The only real way to get yourself known for your ideas is to make sure that your ideas and your face are what are out there. Yes, it is harder, but it is also much more rewarding down the road and you wont have to dig yourself out of the trap.

I find it very annoying to hear someone at a table with fanart and their original stuff, complaining that no one looks at their original stuff. DUH! You've distracted them with pop culture, familiarity and memories.
It's your own fault.

Im not trying to preach about the immorality and disrespect of selling fanart, what I want to convey is that its not an easy money making solution. It will make things harder for you, and its already hard enough.

For everyone who is trying to sell their original stuff, dont give up, dont sell out, and keep pushing yourself!
Your original idea today could be the next generations super fandom and immortality will be yours!

Some advice, pick your conventions wisely, research and see which ones enforce fanart rules and which dont.
Most larger corporate ones will be stricter on those policies, as they are a business. Though the corporate ones do have a lot of official mainstream stuff, stick to artists alley.
If you are in the greater Vancouver area, Vancaf was a great original artists con.
Vancouver Comiccon is surprisingly good for that as well, its small and bi-monthly, but you can earn back your table cost easy.

Minicomi is very fanart heavy, as most anime cons are because Japan is more fanart tolerant.
You can go, just remember what your competing with and dont let them sway you or discourage you to falling into "the trap".
If you have a strong anime style, obviously an anime con is where you want to be, but its going to be easier to sell a generic obvious anime image than a generic slightly anime influence image, so keep those kinds of things in mind.
In some cases it may be better to be an attendee and just hand out postcards advertising your stuff than trying to sell at a table. Make sure they are graphical and clearly show your style.

The last peice of advice is to join your local comics community. Connect with other original creators, art jam with them and form bonds.

Create on!

Summer of fun!

<p>We have two conventions coming up in July. First being July 7th at UBC, Minicomi. The next day we have Vancouver Comicon at Heritage hall!<br>
Busy weekend of fun! Hopefully we will see you at one or the other.</p>
<p>We have also added art galleries to our website (finally) and are working on getting digital comics in our shop. </p>
<p>You can see we already have 3 issues of Daqueran available for download.<br>
We are working on digital copies of Ghost Tales, but it being a much larger book its proven more difficult.</p>
<p>If anyone trys these digital books, please let us know how they work. We have tested them on Samsung Galaxy Tablet 10.1 and they worked pretty well.</p>
<p>Once Upon a Time is working pretty well, we are a bit behind schedule but that is due to thing's beyond our control.

Twitter and facebook

Vacaf is now over! This has turned out to be a pretty fantastic convention! We are so impressed with the organization and location of this convention. So fantastic. I won an auction for 2 framed comic pages by Jeff Ellis, from the exploded view anthology. Through the kindness of someone else who out bid us on 2 Jonathan Dalton Lords of death and life comic pages i have one of those pages as well. Both of these artists are friends from cloudscapecomics !  Good times!
Often times at conventions we get people asking us about how we do what we do.
We are really lucky because we have the 2 of us and we both have a different set of skills, that probably evolved from working together for so long.
So i thougt i'd give a few bits of information on how we've used twitter and facebook to our advantage. I'm not saying that what we do is the way to success, its just some things that have worked for us

TWITTER
- when you start a twitter account name it well. Simple text. That makes it easier to remember and verbally promote.
- to gain followers, follow others. We went to other comic artists that were prominant in the comic industry, and local people and followed all the people thst follow them, and that they follow. Many of them will follow ou back or at least check out your stuff.
- make sure you have a simple, descriptive bio on your account. That way when you do follow you them, they will see instantly what you do. Also that you aren't a porn bot.
- interact with people. If someone @'s you, respond to them.
- promote other peoples work. Retweet them often, and be supportive. Don't make all your social media into a ad for yourself. You'll be boring pretty quickly, and you dont really inspire people to promote you in turn.
- keep a seperate twitter for personal vs comic work.

FACEBOOK
- Set up your custom url for your facebook page. You can do that once you have 25 followers (I think). It's in the account settings.
- Make a page, rather than a group. A page is the one people can "like". People will like more freely than join.
- Be active! Post photos, works in progress, events, convention appearances, promote other artists. But dont be spammy.
- Don't beg or whine. Earn or followers, and appreciate what ones you have.
- If you have nothing going on to promote, use that time to learn about your followers. Post polls and invite them to post art or information on your page.

- for both twitter and facebook make sure you put the links on your website and business cards.

This stuff has worked for us. We're far from super famous right now but we have a few excited and eager fans and we love them. It takes a while to increase your followers and it takes work but it will work if you work at it.

Later on we will show you the awesome artwork we got at Vancaf!
Im on a train right now though haha!
Thank you so much to everyone who visited us at Vancaf!