Geek Girl Con ’22 Recap

Geek Girl Con ’22 Recap

Photograph of my assorted art zine, Crab Rare Arts Best, next to my calico cat, neatly arranged on a bean bag.

Where to Sell my New Zine?
I recently compiled a selection of my Pandemic drawings into an art zine. The fun of zines is sharing them with someone who will read them.

Photo of my calico cat turning away from an open zine in my hands. Drat!C’mon. Just read my stuff…

Having exhausted my household of zine-readers, I decided to table at Geek Girl Con. This is a convention that takes place in Seattle and was on hiatus during the COVID days. I had only tabled once before but the feeling of the convention was, well, a weight off my shoulders. Geek Girl Con feels a lot more personal than big comic cons, but it still has lots of people attending and there is plenty of workshops and panels to attend. I don’t feel bad for being an indie creator at GGC! In fact I feel very encouraged to continue doing my own thing. The sales last time I went weren’t bad either.

Digital artwork of a dragon chomping a dove. This is painted in a medieval style. The dragon is on a red background with a title of 'crab rare arts best' in the background. Doves perch in the tree, fearful of the dragon.Crab Rare Arts Best – my new 48-page zine featuring odds and ends, including drawings, doodles, and short comics.

This zine is named via magic square, so the title isn’t supposed to make sense. Scraps of knowledge were collated by ancient people and protected with magic squares instead of properly being titled. So I did that in the same vein. It’s 48 pages of unrestrained nonsense, pulled together by virtue of ‘this is everything I happen to have on my desktop right now’.

I also created giclée prints of my elasmotherium unicorn, my gastronomy chart, my medieval cat meme, and various small artworks I’d made on my livestream. I used my inkjet printer and archival-quality cotton paper. To fill in the rest of the table, I brought leftover acrylic fossil charms (some of which were in blind boxes) and some older zines from pre-pandemic times. Warlock’d and Hands & Feet made their appearance. Then Devin and I masked up, loaded everything up in the car, promptly snapped off the side-view mirror while backing out of our garage, and called in a Lyft to get the rest of the way to the convention. I totally forgot my banner so I sent Devin back for it. He arrived with all my forgotten stuff and also…dumplings. He’s sort of amazing.

Digital artwork of an elasmotheirum depicted as being unicorn-like in a field of interlocking flowers. The 'unicorn' has clearly stomped its way into a small fenced paddock, leaving ruin in its wake. The pomegranate tree from which the unicorn snacked is falling over. Regardless, the unicorn wears a beautiful blue collar studded with gems as well as a gold chain twining around the tree. It's a pastiche of the classical medieval tapestry 'The Unicorn in Captivity.'Of Pomegranates and Unicorns –  $60 print I had for sale.

I thought for sure this print was going to be the star of my show. I even made extra copies and an additional design with the recently-reconstructed horn. I only sold one, and I only sold it while I was away from the table! Maybe I should have Devin pitch this one in the future.

Digital artwork of a constellation chart. The joke is that these constellations are all food-themed, so that the chart is a 'gastronomy' chart instead of an 'astronomy' chart. The artist's personal favorites are 'Burger-cules' for Hercules and Drink-o the Dragon. Gastronomy Chart — Another $60 print I had for sale.

Much to my delight, Gastronomy Chart sold several copies. I even had it hiding behind the bone charms because the contrast of the dark night sky made the bones pop out. People still had a fun time discovering it and that probably added to its charm. I was worried about this one because online it’s never been very popular. Just goes to show that social media literally means nothing when it comes to point of sale.

Digital artwork done in the style of a 14th century illuminated manuscript piece. A small calico cat is angrily plinking away at keys on a pipe organ, while passive-aggressive flowers curl and twist up to the cat's thoughts: Mother!! print — a $40 offering at a smaller size than the big luxury prints, same quality of paper and printing though.

This passive-aggressive cat meme was the surprise hit of the show. You can really tell when someone is responding to something on the table. People would run up and show their friends or reference roommates. Glad I made a few prints of these as a joke. I couldn’t even use my tactic of redirecting purchases from the pricey $40 print to the $15 zine — People just wanted the cat, and they were willing to pay the meme premium.

In terms of other sales, I sold the average amount of zines, and was surprised by the enthusiasm for some of my older zines. Someday I will shift those out of rotation. Still have a few left.

Among the various cosplayers and con-goers near my table, I encountered a very tame iguana on top of its owner’s shoulders and I got to pet it. Everyone was wearing masks. My usual sales tactic of handing people stuff off my table to handle it was a little awkward, considering. Devin was also somewhat better at selling my stuff than me. I think he pulled in more sales. Lesson learned: I should just go walk around and relax more at these things.

You may have noticed the high quality of photos taken of my table in a previous post. At the convention, I met an amazing photographer (AnnaMaria Jackson-Phelps) who offered to take shots of my table. Sporting an impressive portfolio of print media photography, I was very excited to make her acquaintance and see what she saw through her lens. The organizers at Geek Girl Con put her in touch with me and it turned into a cool collaborative adventure.

I also met someone from the Sequential Artists Workshop in person for the first time! We both live in the Northwest area so it was cool to get my local social circle widened a little.

Photograph of a watercolor print arranged on a warm table, next to a cow-shaped succulent pot and on top of a cloth with delicate leaf embroidery. Paintbrushes lie near the print. The print itself is a bright crop of a restful, happy blue whaleshark swimming through a school of yellow fish in teal water.Look at this adorable whale shark print by Rebecca Martinez!

I picked up a moon rabbit sticker from Rebecca and couldn’t be happier with the design aesthetic. Now I just have to get back to drawing traditionally so I can get a new sketchbook, as I like to crown my sketchbooks with stickers. I highly recommend grabbing something from Rebecca’s Etsy shop if you can. It’s certainly inspiring me to do something digital, so that I have somewhere to send all this leftover stuff from the convention.

Should You Do Geek Girl Con?
All in all, Geek Girl Con only lasted one day, but it worked out really well. People had to buy then and there so I did about as well as I do during a three-day convention. It does make me wish that artist alleys were only open for one day, so that artists have more time to browse around and escape their tables during the rest of the con. I adore this convention and highly recommend it as just big enough to get visitors to your table, and just small enough to make you feel like you’re part of something special.

As far as health safety goes — everyone wore masks. It was still tricky to navigate health boundaries because part of a convention is handling merchandise and saying hello to tons of people. I know I accidentally thrust my hand out to a baffled person because I had totally forgotten not to do that anymore. In general I could feel my social skills grinding slowly into gear, but never really overcoming the awkwardness of basically holing up for 3 years with my partner and losing all of my small social groups in the process. There wasn’t anything particularly special in terms of health requirements outside of the masks and I believe (?) a vaccination requirement as well. So, do this one at your own risk when it comes to skirting COVID.

Geek Girl Con also does plenty of remote outreach via their Twitch channel. Geek Girl Con is something you can interact with all year round from any distance that is safe. I really appreciate all the work they do to make a safe vibe for a convention. Just really positive and light all around.

 

 

Care to read more?

In the News Again

In the News Again

In the News, Again: A SAW Nonfiction Comics Anthology Recently I had the pleasure of joining a nonfiction anthology, In the News Again, edited by Emma Jensen and Karlo Antunes. Above is the first page to my small entry. I wanted to do a comparison of attending a...

My Digital Shop: Now Open!

My Digital Shop: Now Open!

My Online Shop is Now LiveTruth be told, I’ve been promising this online shop for years. I think over a decade, now, people have asked for a digital shop and I’ve been unable to supply it. I’ve just not been able to set the shop up. It’s been a combination of perilous...

Amphiox: Launches Today!

Amphiox: Launches Today!

Amphiox: Launches Today!Today, my short story Amphiox launches in free-to-read format! This is the first time I’ve ever self-hosted a webcomic and I’m so happy it’s all come together. My partner Devin coded a website design I had in mind, and it is immaculate. Just...

Want to chat about this?

Beenix: A Free Home-Brew Dungeons and Dragons Monster

Beenix: A Free Home-Brew Dungeons and Dragons Monster

Digital artwork of a half bee, half phoenix fantasy creature perched in a cherry tree. The Beenix is about a foot and a half tall, with a bee's thorax and six chitinous legs. It has six bee wings. A feathery tail sprouts from its behind and its head has a beak. The beenix is eating a cherry and tilting its head at the viewer. It has feathers on its antennae. This is one half of a collaboration with Adam Ma.

The Creation of a Free Home-Brew Dungeons and Dragons Monster
When I first approached Adam Ma about designing mechanics for the Beenix Dungeons and Dragons (DnD) monster, I had artwork and a jumbled text document full of features that blended phoenixes and bees. It was ‘lore’ in the worst sense — me blathering about exploding bee trees and cherry honey, having all of one or two experiences as a DnD player and understanding that ‘numbers good’. Overall I did not have a concept of how the Beenix would fit into a tabletop rpg campaign. I passed a link to Adam and was unsure if I should take him up on his offer of collaboration since the beenix was such a mess! I’d honestly been intending to partake of his professional Dungeon Master (DM) services. The moment Adam heard that it was a homebrew monster design to be released freely to the masses, like Oprah would, he grabbed all my Beenix fragments and ran off with them.

When Adam returned, he had a gorgeous pdf containing everything a DM needs to incorporate the Beenix into a DnD campaign. My intent was a creature that is suitable for low-level adventurers to encounter, but could scale up to a mid-level encounter. Not necessarily a hostile entity, but alien and requiring some patience when encountered. Adam translated my ideas into DnD concepts such as ‘swarming’ for multiple monsters. He gave the Beenix better DnD-specific context by ascribing them to an existing setting: the Faewilds. Adam also pushed the concept of the Beenix queen into not just an entity, but as a whole setting unto herself.

Digital black and white artwork of a giant, twisting tree, most like an oak in shape. It towers over mountains, the ruins of a village, and a pair of tiny horses.
Guess what? Beenixes turn into GIANT! TREES!

Adam ran the design through some balancing checks and now here it is, a free, cute, weird addition to any Faewild adventure that could use a little more glitter. I highly recommend developing adventures with Adam Ma. I had so much fun and I’m grateful he took my concept and ran this hard with it!

Click here to download the Beenix PDF

The PDF contains stats, lore, and artwork for the Beenix, and is licensed for non-profit DnD campaigns under CC-BY-NC 3.0.

Comics Tip

How to Digitally Color Diaphanous Insect Wings
Whether it’s a bee or a dragonfly, or a house fly, insect wings can be tricky to figure out because they are shiny, delicate, and transparent, all at the same time. To begin, we should look at a reference photo, courtesy of Pixabay.

Photo of a bee with the wings displayed clearly.

What we learn from this photo is that an insect wing has opaque parts with shiny transparent stuff in between those parts. How do we mimic this in a digital drawing? We’ll use masking and some hand-painting to nail the delicate insect wing look.

Digital artwork of the beenix wing with a 50% dark brown opacity fillThe opaque veins of the wing are filled with 100% opacity dark brown. A bee’s wing has an underlying dark sheen on the transparent cells. I’ve chosen to fill the cells with a dark brown set to 50% Multiply. This is still too dark and opaque, but it’s a good starting point.

Digital artwork of the semi-opaque dark brown layer with masking to provide an insect wing texture.
I set up a masking layer on the membrane which I’ve filled. A quick swipe with a soft brush set to black on the masking layer makes this look more like the light is passing through the wing in a more interesting way. I use a hard brush to define some sharp mid-tone highlights in the end of the wing.

Digital artwork of the bee's wing with a 100% white layer fill.
I set up another layer on top of my brown layer, this time filled with 100% opacity white on normal. It will look like the white has obliterated the underlying brown layer, but that layer is intact underneath.

Digital artwork of the bee's wing with the layer masking on top of the white layer, with various parts of the white masked to provide a texture that looks a lot like an insect wing.
A masking layer and some swipes with a 100% opacity black soft brush, then a 50% gray soft brush first soften the look into a gradient…and then I can pick out brighter mid-tone highlights with a sharp brush. For a final touch, I speckle the edge of the wing with sharp 100% pure white highlights, but only on the wing I really want to shine and shimmer.

Digital art of the beenix perched in the tree. It's lines only and ready to color!

Want to customize your Beenix? Here’s a CC-BY-NC 3.0 coloring page that is free to use for personal, non-profit DnD campaigns, as well as just relaxing with a half-bee, half-phoenix monstrosity.

Care to read more?

In the News Again

In the News Again

In the News, Again: A SAW Nonfiction Comics Anthology Recently I had the pleasure of joining a nonfiction anthology, In the News Again, edited by Emma Jensen and Karlo Antunes. Above is the first page to my small entry. I wanted to do a comparison of attending a...

My Digital Shop: Now Open!

My Digital Shop: Now Open!

My Online Shop is Now LiveTruth be told, I’ve been promising this online shop for years. I think over a decade, now, people have asked for a digital shop and I’ve been unable to supply it. I’ve just not been able to set the shop up. It’s been a combination of perilous...

Amphiox: Launches Today!

Amphiox: Launches Today!

Amphiox: Launches Today!Today, my short story Amphiox launches in free-to-read format! This is the first time I’ve ever self-hosted a webcomic and I’m so happy it’s all come together. My partner Devin coded a website design I had in mind, and it is immaculate. Just...

Want to chat about this?

SAW Graphic Novel Development Month 6/6

SAW Graphic Novel Development Month 6/6

Digital spot illustration representing the spirit of the Sequential Art Workshop's Graphic Novel intensive. Arranged around a sawblade are comic pages, sketches, an ink brush pen, a Wacom stylus pen, a speech balloon with a blue exclamation point inside, ink spatters, loose staples, and a teal stapler that looks like it's leaping out at the viewer (woah there, stapler).

Recently, I wrapped up on a sixth-month course offered by Sequential Artist Workshop: The Graphic Novel Intensive. I had an overall positive experience. Here are my thoughts on it.

What Did I Want the Graphic Novel Intensive to Do?
I wanted:

  1. To meet other graphic novelists
  2. To exchange intensive critique on projects similar to mine
  3. To get the Warlock’d script to a stage where I could proceed to the art production.

Of these three things that I wanted, I met other graphic novelists and I got the Warlock’d script to a stage where I could start lettering it. Two out of three for $100/month isn’t bad.

 

What Did the Graphic Novel Intensive Do for Me?
I started the SAW Graphic Novel Intensive with a messy 4th draft of a comics script I’d been wrestling with for years, and some sample pages for what I wanted it to look like, seen here.

I ended the Graphic Novel Intensive with the following:

Screenshot of a Google Doc containing a thumbnailed comic page and some script. The script's contents are unimportant. This is mostly to show layout.

A completely revised and thumbnailed 330-page script

A curated gallery of 12 character designs for my graphic novel, Warlock’d.

These were rendered in a new, simpler style that is faster to implement. I think I could go even simpler than this, but this is where I’ve decided to try out the character designs in situ rather than fuss anymore over the lineup height chart.

Screenshot of Trello with Warlock'd to-do's in columns.

An organized Trello board for tracking my past and future progress.

Of these tangible things I created, I will note that they were of my own design for my own project. I proposed and completed them within the GNI program. I wasn’t particularly inspired by anything I saw there other than I couldn’t stand the thought of using paper index cards to organize everything. I opted for Trello for ease of organization and sharing, and some students thought it was good enough to adopt for themselves. I found myself resistant to incorporate suggestions from other students (such as changing my entire workflow to accommodate different software) but it was enough to have the invisible accountability to keep the work going.

And the intangibles: ‘Permission’ to start lettering my comic, as my script was now complete. Friends to chat general, surface-level comics-making with, but not really anyone willing to go mutually in-depth on our projects. Connections and familiarity with other comics artists, published, self-published, and otherwise.

I had an overall positive and productive experience, but I think a specific type of comics artist would benefit the most from the SAW Graphic Novel Intensive. Which begs the question…

 

Who is the SAW Graphic Novel Intensive For?

To help interested creators decide if they want to go for the Graphic Novel Intensive (GNI), I will present who leads the course, what other students bring to any given cohort, ways that the MightyNetwork interface benefits some methods of work and not others, comparable and different online courses in the $500-$800 range, and the harsh truth of making comics (which is: To make comics, one must…make comics. Sorry. There’s no getting out of it.) This is mostly my own opinion based on anecdotal observations, and isn’t technical or scientific in any way.

 

Who leads the SAW Graphic Novel Intensive (GNI)?
For the most part, Tom Hart (Rosalie Lightning, and who spearheads the SAW network itself) leads it. Tom Hart is a self-taught memoirist who examines his own personal pain as he draws his panels. He balances real-world observations with abstracted characters such as floating shapes and men who can’t stop screaming in the woods. As far as I can tell, his goal is to provide an affordable learning environment for a broad swath of comics artists. He also does a pretty good job of acknowledging each individual student in the cohort and encouraging them.

I spotted the following instructors and volunteers helping out during my time in the GNI. This may be an incomplete list based on my own personal observations. It may also change from cohort to cohort:

Emma Jensen, What We Don’t Speak Of
Jess Ruliffson, Invisible Wounds
Barry Sawicki, who is studying memoir and adventure comics about the woods

 

What Do Other Students Bring to the GNI?
I’d say my cohort leaned more towards booklike comics rather than cinematic comics. Different cohorts might bring different projects to the table.

There was no curation in terms of skill level or experience. Anyone can hop into the GNI even if they’ve never written a word or drawn a picture in their life. Portfolios are not required. If a person has $600-$800 and a way to submit the payment electronically to the school, they can join the course. What each person puts into the GNI (and gets out of it) is entirely up to them. I prefer this approach since I am typically not selected for curated cohorts and prefer not to even try when it’s part of the process.

There were around 70 students in the cohort as far as I could tell. Of these 70 students, I saw about 20 people consistently update throughout the entire six months, and of these 20 people, I think about half of them visibly made comics. It’s hard for me to say who was working on things behind the scenes without posting. The apparent ~50 person attrition didn’t sit well with me but I suppose that’s what happens in large remote art classes at this price range. I also don’t know what was going on behind the scenes there. They could have been working on their projects but choosing not to interact.

I saw memoir, nonfiction, informational fiction, picture book, fantasy/adventure, horror, science fiction, wildly experimental, and reality-based fiction as projects within the GNI. The environment is geared more towards ‘just getting it out’. Target audience was not largely discussed across the cohort. Creators typically opted for subject matter that was personally appealing to themself as a reader, whether that was art therapy-as-memoir, niche subjects, personal characters made up by themselves or by their friends, or dream projects that they wanted to finally pin down.

The critique atmosphere leans towards general support and acknowledgement of finished pieces. Technical questions are only answered if they’re brought up. If a participant knows what to ask there’s a lot of information available from the cohort itself. If they don’t know what to ask or are incurious, there won’t be much technique to pick up. Technique and workflow are not explicitly laid out in what I assume is an effort to be non-didactic. This meant that everyone had completely different goals, techniques, and were on different steps of their own projects.

 

What Sort of Feedback and Visibility Does the GNI Provide?
The MightyNetworks UI dictated a lot of the interactions within the GNI itself. Users upload ‘Articles’ to a feed containing anything they want to share, whether it’s WIPs, comics, illustrations, random photos, cat pics, or whatever else they’re focusing on that isn’t comics. There was a lot of socialization and procrastination, which is honestly what people should expect from comics artists.

Creatives who create their comics one complete page at a time, or who are at a stage to complete finished pages, will have more luck soliciting feedback than creatives who work in ‘waves’ (ie script, thumbnail, layout, lettering, roughs, inks, colors) across the whole comic. It was generally easier for the community to engage with complete work and I suspect the MightyNetworks UI had something to do with this, being structured like social media. People in the cohort were reluctant to read scripts and synopses. To this end, I would have to say, the GNI didn’t help me with the part I needed the most technical help with: Writing. However, this structure seemed very beneficial to those who only wanted to post complete pages and who felt more comfortable ‘just doing it’ and not worrying about longform writing structure.

All of the things I wound up with by the end of the course ( thumbnailed script, character height reference sheet, trello board) were mini-projects I’d designed myself.

One cool thing that the GNI does is open an end-of-the-course anthology compilation. It’s a small, easy vehicle for being published and given visibility outside of the school, to people who purchase the anthology. Participants are welcome and encouraged to buy copies for themselves. Profits go back to the SAW network, if I recall correctly. 

 

Cost Comparisons
When I first saw this course open up, I definitely thought: This is either a scam…or a steal. I admit, I waffled over joining upfront. The normal lowest cost on the sliding scale, early bird discount included, was $600 for a 6-month program. Most online/independent drawing courses go for $600 for four weeks or less, although they promise intensive feedback on specific subjects and critique along with weekly meetings. Your average art MFA can cost anywhere from $20k to $40k with mixed career results, so there you go.

I thought, there must be something going on here to make this course cheaper than what I see offered by the likes of Gnomon, a university, or other industry art courses. The answer is: There isn’t much individualized (or technical) critique. I think the self-study aspect is very similar to something like Skillshare or Coursera offers, although those are different communities. The most technical critiques were geared towards print production so that everyone could get their works to print. Many of the participants in the cohort didn’t know about print concepts like DPI, bleeds, gutters, and margins and had to be caught up during the various Zoom sessions.

Is the Graphic Novel Intensive still valuable? Yes: There is an instant community of other people making graphic novels together. I would not go into this program expecting any additional challenges or accountabilities on top of just making the graphic novel. It’s a lot softer and more nebulous than that.

 

Verdicts
If you asked me, I would say that the SAW Graphic Novel Intensive is the best place to go for the following types of comics creators:

Self-directed
The sad truth is, just taking the course won’t make a graphic novel appear with your name on it. There isn’t a course out there that can do that. You still have to decide upfront what you want your project to be, and how to go about making it. You also have to write and draw the graphic novel itself. No one will do it for you or show you how to do it. There are also no technical components or anything breaking down the individual skills involved with making a graphic novel, outside of asking other creators in the course what they’re doing. There are course materials to work through but they’re very light and are mostly recordings of other artists describing their own process. To get the most out of the course’s intention (“just get a graphic novel out”), whatever you have in your creative toolkit is what you must use.

Self-publishers and Small press
While the occasional alumnus of the Sequential Arts Workshop goes on to work with large publishers, my impression of the GNI was that the prevailing attitude was ‘whatever you’re making, just make it, even if it’s for no reason’. The vibe is less about being accepted into the publishing marketplace and more about removing barriers to making whatever you want to make. For this reason, I think self-publishers and small press enthusiasts will find this course the most interesting.

Willing to Take Social Risks
There is very little hand-holding when it comes to meeting other students in the cohort. It’s up to individuals to reach out to other individuals based on mutual interests. A person who never posts and never messages other people is missing the main value that the GNI has to offer.

Page-at-a-Time
Webcomickers and diary comickers will likely feel more comfortable with the MightyNetwork’s interface in terms of reader engagement. I observed updates of this nature (complete, polished single pages or spreads) got more feedback than those who were posting WIPs such as scripts and thumbnails. This may not be intentional within the course, but it’s what happens with a social-media-like feed where some content attracts more attention than others.

 

What Would I Change About My Experience?
I consider myself mostly self-directed but wanting to share my work for specific critique on a frequent basis with trusted peers who are similar to me in terms of goals and skill level. If I were to edit the course in a way that I think would improve it for my own purposes, I would add the following aspects to it:

Small Group Critique
I signed up for this course in hopes of discussing my project (Warlock’d), introducing it to other creators, and getting six months of dedicated, nuanced feedback from a variety of peers I normally would never have met. The Zoom calls were too large to accommodate nuanced critique of individual projects. So, my suggestion would be to  have small group matching done by organizers, either in breakout sessions from the main big Zoom calls or as their own weekly event. Maybe even rotating critique groups so that no one group completely drops off or runs out of steam. More of the nuts n’ bolts discussion work could be delegated to the students, essentially.

Code of Conduct for Soliciting, Giving, and Reacting to Critique
A code of conduct describing how critique works would be really helpful for creators who haven’t shown their work to others before. It would also have allowed me to feel safe giving and soliciting critique, because I could trust the recipient had also read the same code of conduct. Even in areas of the network designed for critical feedback, I did not feel safe getting into technical details with other creators on the network. I avoided commenting in-depth for the remainder of my time in the GNI. For this same reason I neglected to connect with anyone over my complete script. The expectations surrounding critique were that unclear.

Pitch Application
A small pitch application to ensure that people have something to make (and post, when they introduce themselves!) might help future GNI cohorts. This would be judged on proof-of-intent rather than anything skill-based, as I agree with an infinitely low skill floor. The course is more fun that way.

Something to Improve Engagement and Discussion About WIPs
I don’t know what this would be, exactly, but I’d love for the environment to shine lights on the stuff that hasn’t resolved into its final comicky form. More attention and support for scripts, layouts, and thumbnails.

 

My Experience with the Graphic Novel Intensive was Good, but —
According to the things I’d have liked for the program to have included (but did not), I would feel uncomfortable recommending this course to everyone. Here are my recommendations.

 

I think this is an ideal primary program for:
Self-directed, self-publishing/small press, extroverted creatives on a budget, who do their work one page at a time, sequentially, primarily for themself as an audience, and who respond well to generalized, group-targeted encouragement.

 

I also think this is an ideal supplementary program for:
Comics artists who are simultaneously working within a more structured art school environment, such as an MFA or technical school. The SAW virtual space is good for decompressing and avoiding burnout.

 

I think this program is worth checking out for:
People who want to find other people who make and read comics, whether it’s a hobby or a more serious vocation. I think this is a useful online space for those who aren’t able to travel physically to other locations or who are otherwise isolated. The price is reasonable for what the program is, and I recommend the early bird rates if they’re offered.

 

I also think that for whomever is interested, they might want to try the free parts of the SAW network first and see who they meet: https://members.sawcomics.org/

Comics Tip

Joining a Comics Community
While cartoonists are notorious for bricking themselves into tiny cabins far away from human society, let’s not be too hasty with exiting the grid. Making a big thing like a graphic novel is hard. Hermiting up too much makes it even harder. Here are some free methods for finding friends who make and read comics.

Meetup.com
Depending on how big your city is and where it’s located, anywhere from none to many comics groups may be happening. Also look for drink n’ draws, gallery walks, urban sketch groups, illustration get-togethers, and life drawing groups. Since these groups are open to whomever, not everyone will be a best friend, but that’s what coffee shops outside of the group meetings are for!

 

Conventions
Artist Alleys are great ways to connect with other comics creators. Even small conventions can be very good. Bring a budget and buy something from each table you visit, and take business cards with you. Afterwards, check bars and who knows, you might spot a creator relaxing after a long convention day. There are far too many conventions to list here, but check major cities for the really big ones and be on the lookout for local ones in smaller towns.

 

Discords
On this chat network, comics creators can hop into voice chat or carry on conversations via text while all simultaneously casting their screens and sharing their work. I have a quick list of active discords where comics artists tend to congregate and get things done. Note: Each of these links is a Discord invitation, so be prepared to be logged in with your Discord account or asked to make one.

Graphic Novel Artists and Writers
Artist Alley Network International
Comic Creators Workgroup

 

Livestreams
Some comics artists share their screen live for accountability’s sake. It’s always fun to pop in and look over someone’s shoulder while they work. Visiting a smaller stream might just make someone’s day, too. Twitch, Picarto, and YouTube are all common streaming services with varying levels of adult content allowed.

 

Networking Quick Tips
It’s important to be aware that you’re seeking specific types of companionship from people in these groups, but that doesn’t mean you have to announce it. Collaborating with others is a lot like dating. Don’t tunnel vision. Just go with the flow and see who becomes your friend.

When following up with a person, you don’t need to be funny, outlandish, or ‘stick out’ in their memory. A brief ‘nice to meet you’ email works fine and is actually fairly rare to receive after a social outing. Invitation for coffee where you offer to pay is also very reliable for continuing the relationship. Be sure to ask the other person as many questions about their own work as possible, rather than dumping your entire 10-volume graphic novel pitch on them.

Also, if you’re strictly social climbing, people can usually tell. It’s great to be friends with other people regardless of where they’re at in terms of their career. Never forget that.

Above all, when asked or if in an environment where it’s expected, share share share! Even if you’re not feeling confident about your work, other people love to see that you’ve put in the effort. They can also watch you improve as you continue to share.

Digital lineart of comic pages, a brush pen, a stylus, a speech bubble with an exclamation mark in it, an inkblot, and a stapler surrounding a round sawblade.

Or, if all that socialization stuff sounds too stressful…Here’s something to color all by yourself! Licensed under CC-BY-NC-3.0.

Care to read more?

In the News Again

In the News Again

In the News, Again: A SAW Nonfiction Comics Anthology Recently I had the pleasure of joining a nonfiction anthology, In the News Again, edited by Emma Jensen and Karlo Antunes. Above is the first page to my small entry. I wanted to do a comparison of attending a...

My Digital Shop: Now Open!

My Digital Shop: Now Open!

My Online Shop is Now LiveTruth be told, I’ve been promising this online shop for years. I think over a decade, now, people have asked for a digital shop and I’ve been unable to supply it. I’ve just not been able to set the shop up. It’s been a combination of perilous...

Amphiox: Launches Today!

Amphiox: Launches Today!

Amphiox: Launches Today!Today, my short story Amphiox launches in free-to-read format! This is the first time I’ve ever self-hosted a webcomic and I’m so happy it’s all come together. My partner Devin coded a website design I had in mind, and it is immaculate. Just...

Want to chat about this?