Before jumping into my longer updates, I'm very excited to share that next week I will be tabling at New York Comic Con! Come say hello to me and J.L. Johnson, Jr. of Ennead at booth I26 in Artist Alley!
An update or six on Andraste:
After wrapping up printing on Volume 1 and getting all of the Kickstarter rewards shipped out to backers (RIP my floorspace for that week and a half), I got some wonderful news. Unai, who was the original artist on the series, was recovering and tentatively ready to work on the book again!
Around that time I'd also started working with an editor, Jim Higgins, to get some developmental feedback on the series. I was happy with where we were at, but I wanted to make the rest of the book stronger and improve the pacing as we got out of scene-setting and establishing our characters and context. I can't really say enough good things about the conversations we had and how they helped both streamline and deepen the story. I sent a new and improved version of the Issue 4 script to Unai, and off to the races we went.
Fast forward to right now: Unai is nearly done with those inks! Issue 4 is where we get a closer look at the Otherworld, its gods, and their machinations, catch up with some of the political schemes of the Romans, and get more of a look into what actually got the Britons so pissed off (helpful hint: don't tax people in a famine). Next up is colors, and then the book will be available online. I'm planning to wait until we're nearly finished with Issue 6 to do another crowdfund for Volume 2, which will likely be next spring.
Here's a peek at Dornall and Macha arriving in The Otherworld...
Of Lugh, Shuck, Cernunnos, and Macha having a mild disagreement:
And of the Governor of the province asking Prasutagus about the quaint fire festivals of Britannia:
Another series!
Here I will call your attention to something I wrote in my last blog post: "This [Andraste] is my first rodeo, hopefully of many."
Well, it's rodeo #2 time!
I've had a story about a flooded, rat-stricken Manhattan rolling around in my head for years. I've written it as a poem, a short story, a novella; it wasn't landing. Then I tried it as a comic script, and there it was. Once I had a script I reached out to George Quadros, who contributed inks to Issue #3 of Andraste: George's style is incredible detailed and dynamic, and I couldn't really imagine anyone else drawing it. To my delighted he was also very excited about the prospect of drawing lots of rats, some service drones, and maybe a slime monster or two.
That's how New Rat City got going. It'll be a four issue mini series following Felicia Shepherd, a pest controller keeping the family business alive in the crumbling New York City of 2083 as she deals with a surge of pests and her mother's disappearance. And all she wanted was to go to space, like all of her friends.
George is wrapping up inks on Issue 2, and we're currently funding Part 1 of the series on Kickstarter if it sounds up your alley! That campaign is running through October 18th, and you can pick up a double issue of #1 and #2 there. My eternal pal DC Alonso is doing the colors, and Lucas Gattoni is doing the letters. I'll be sharing updates on the book and fun pest anecdotes on my mailing list.
I'll also be talking about the series with Kevin Joseph and Will Allred on Explain Yourself at 11 pm ET on October 1st, and with Andrew Davis at 7 pm ET on October 13th.
Oh yeah, Comic Con!
As I mentioned at the top of the post, I'll be tabling at New York Comic Con next week! Booth I26! Aiiiiieeeee! When I go to cons I most enjoy talking to creators and seeing people's stuff, and I'm hoping that I'll get to do a lot of that from the other side of the table.
I'll have lots more to write about doing a convention after it's done, but, one thing at a time!