Page ‘Leven

There’s a panel or two on here that I’m not sure will fit into the scheme of the page.  Unfortunately, I won’t know until I ink it, tone it, and letter it.

It looks damn good, though.

ComicBookBin Review

A new review of Tiny Life: l(a has surfaced.  This time it’s from the good people at comicbookbin.com.

Hervé St-Louis talks about the seemingly autobiographical nature of the comic (which it’s not, by the way): “Tiny Life is not one of those navel-gazing autobiography. It’s really steeped in post modernism and thus apart from the attention to life’s detail and moronic tantrums that accompany many auto-biographical comic books.”  Read more.

More than One (or, “Shoot to Thrill”)

I’ve been thinking about this:

Why is it that so many creators start something and don’t finish?  Or, I guess put more specifically, why do so many people make one thing and then disappear forever?  I think it’s a very complicated question, but I think it has a simple answer.

A lot of people get into comics for one of two reasons: 1) they want to play with superheroes.  They want to write or draw Spiderman or Superman and they want to boast to everyone “look what I get paid to do!” or 2) they want to make money the easy way; for some reason, people think that because it takes less time to read a comic book (as opposed to a text book), it must take less time to make.  Or, as Dave Sim once told me, people often get into comics because they want “money for nothing and their chicks for free.”  So when they make something and it doesn’t sell, when it doesn’t get them laid or doesn’t get them rich or doesn’t allow them to give a new suit to Superman, they give up.  I have a solution.

I fucking hate this band.

I listen to rock and/or roll.  Lately, I noticed that there’s been a lot more of my archenemy AC/DC on the radio.  They released an album earlier this year.  Nothing on the radio is from that album; I still hear “Hell’s Bells” and “Shoot to Thrill” until my balls shrivel (seriously, AC/DC is physically painful for me to listen to).  I also noticed that I’m hearing a LOT of Guns N Roses because they (he) just released Chinese Democracy.  As I do with most things, I started to wonder how this relates to comics.

I don't really care about this band.

I thought back to my first days of reading independent black-and-whites.  Most of what I picked up – Cerebus, Hepcats, Milk & Cheese – generally had higher issue numbers.  I was amazed that there was a comic out there that had made it to issue 50 and I never heard about it.  I think that’s how a lot of people view this stuff.

Once you get past the idea that comics are collectibles (no need to keep them in plastic bags if all you’re going to do is read them over and over.  As a matter of fact, if you buy one and don’t like it, you should – gasp – throw it away!  Or donate it to a library or Goodwill), you start to really appreciate them.  You don’t collect every number one just because it’s a number one.  You also start to look at them like they are literature.  Since comics are only 20 pages long, I start to look at the longer ones.  I look for the ones that are telling a story.

 

My first ever b+w.

So, the solution to those people who make one thing and leave the field forever?  Make something else.  And then something else.  Once you have a few books out, people start to notice that first one.  If they like it, maybe they’ll buy the second and third.  I know I didn’t buy Goodbye, Chunky Rice until I read Blankets.  I also didn’t listen to Kill ‘Em All until I heard …And Justice for All.

 

I’m thinking that’s the way Tiny Life is going to go.  I’ll sell 500 copies of the first book.  And then a few more once the next book comes out.  And then a few more once the 3^rd books comes out. 

Maybe by the time I’m done with book ten, I’ll actually break even on l(a.   

Page 10 Pencils

Here are the page ten pencils.

Pg. 9

Take a look at the new page nine:

Facebook All on its Own

I’m on Facebook. I’m not what you’d call a “social internet user,” but when I was starting to advertise for Tiny Life, most people I contacted said “get a Myspace and a Facebook page. After that, it’s all word or mouth.”

Well, I got those things. I don’t think I’ve been to the MySpace page since I set it up, and for some reason people want to add me to their “friends list” on Facebook (just to let you know, “virtual friends” are not “real friends” A virtual friend will not attend your funeral; although I guess they might set up a virtual funeral where people can send virtual flowers, get virtually drunk at the virtual wake, and virtually hit on your sister). I’m getting requests from people I haven’t talked to since high school graduation; I’m getting requests from people I’ve never met. It’s kind of neat to feel popular, but at the same time, It’s eerie to think where these people are finding me.

If you’re not familiar with Facebook, there’s this little widget on the side that says something like “people you may know” and it just runs down stuff about you – your hometown, your job, your graduating class, etc. – and finds people with the same histories. I imagine it does this automatically. I was shocked to find out just how many people form high school actually knew me. I was also shocked to find out that there is another Facebook page dedicated to Tiny Life.

If you go here, you’ll see a page about Tiny Life that I did not make. Again, it’s probably automatic, but it’s neat to see nonetheless.

Anyone out there know how I might be able to add some stuff to it? Like a cover image or a link to the website?

Interview at Comic Book Outsiders!

I was told that there’s a new podcast from the ComicBookOutsiders that is 100% Tiny Life.  I haven’t heard it yet, but I remember doing it and I am not a complete ass in it. 

Download it here or at the Downloads page.

Fahrenheit 451

As hard as it is to believe, I never read Fahrenheit 451 before.  As a matter of fact, I never read anything by Ray Bradbury deliberately because he helped design that god-awful Epcot Center ride and he also wrote some of the worst Twilight Zone episodes ever. 

 

He also wrote "Robocop 3"

But then, one day, while I was teaching 10^th Grade English, we had to read “A Sound of Thunder” and “The Gift” in the short story unit.  They’re both really well put-together and thoroughly enjoyable stories.  So I thought, much like Frank Miller, maybe this guy is really good, but only in one genre.

 

So I picked it up for $4 at Wal-Mart (or somewhere like it.  I forget where) and read it in a couple sittings. 

I am amazed at Bradbury’s level of foresight.  If you’ve never read it, he describes how people just go on about their lives because they haven’t many cares.  They’re so meticulously distracted by various personal forms of entertainment that they can’t remember much of anything for very long (as a teacher, I can attest to this.  Does anyone out there know how hard it is to teach something to someone, have them forget it almost immediately, and then try to build on that something the next day?) and these forms of entertainment are ridiculously expensive.  He even talks about iPods way back in 1953 (except instead of using “earbuds” they use “ear thimbles”).

But I didn’t want to talk too much about the book.  It’s a fun read and a little creepy to see how someone more than 50 years ago could see how we would end up.  What I wanted to talk about was the little interview at the end.

 

This guy says we all love books.

This guy says we all love porn.

I bought the “50^th Anniversary Edition” which includes a new afterward by the author and an interview where he talks about the impact of the novella.  At one point the interviewer asks Bradbury about how he would get kids into reading.  I thought I would see the normal “Everyone likes reading!  You just have to get them to read something they actually like!” (which is bullshit.  Authors always say that because they (we) LOVE reading.  They can’t get enough.  They think about words so much that they actually start making up stories because they can’t consume enough.  It’d by like a fluffer saying, “Everyone likes porn”) But I didn’t.  What Mr. Bradbury said was something like, “Put one of my books in front of that kid; he’ll like to read after that!”

 

That, my friend, is a bold statement. Reading is a skill; albeit a skill that everyone should have a firm grasp on – like zipping your pants up – but a skill nonetheless.  We all have skills we’re bad at and we don’t like doing.  I, for instance, can’t work on cars. I know how they work, I know what parts do what, but I can’t fix one to save my life; therefore, I hate doing it.  Reading is the same way.  For a lot of people, it doesn’t matter the author or the subject or the environment.  For some, reading just plain sucks. 

What I want to know is, at what point can I become that proud of my work?  At what point will I be able to go, “If every school in America simply adopted the Nick Jones reading system (consisting only of Nick Jones material), we would wipe out illiteracy within a year!” 

I want to be that crass. 

Help me to get there.

Buy Tiny Life l(a.  

Page Ate

Here ’tis:

cIndyCenter Interview Available

I had an interview quite a while ago with Chris from cIndyCenter.com.

It was my first one.

I rambled a lot.

Much like I am now.

It’s finally available for your pleasure. Take a listen here or from the downloads page.