When I got laid off Feb. 5, one of the things I wanted to do was kind of overhaul my blogs in an attempt to get back into some sort of regular posting. Seeing it's been two damn weeks since I last posted anything here, I can see it's easier said than done.
So, that's why I'm here now.
WORK UPDATE:
Actually, this is a good day to post a work update because... I'm going back to work tomorrow!
I got a call last week from one of the managers in the Distribution Dept. where I used to work. I got laid off from our Maintenance Dept. Well, some of the personnel and hour cuts I knew were going to happen after I got laid off (conceptually speaking, I didn't know who was actually going to be cut) finally happened in Distribution. Two people were laid off outright, and at least a couple positions were cut down from full-time to part-time (2 days = 16 hours). Well, one of the guys who got cut to 16 hours decided to just leave, that part-time wasn't going to work for him. So, that's why they called me, to see if I was interested in working only part-time. In my case I was, but my situation was different than the other dude's. Part of me was interested in trying to make money creatively via freelance/self-employment, although you wouldn't know it by anything I've done since being laid off, other than cleaning up some blog infrastructure among my three Blogger blogs and posting a couple times here. But, I still am interested in trying to pursue that avenue. However, the possibility of having some stable source of income was very attractive compared to having zero income, so I said yes. So, I'm going back to my old company, but I'm working part-time and in a different department. Meanwhile, I have also filed for unemployment and will be theoretically collecting a portion of that as well.
ART UPDATE:
Meanwhile, as I described in a previous post, I hoped to create a mini-comic as one of my first art projects. Thus, in typical Kimmel fashion, I'm not focused on working on one story but I'm actually juggling two different comic stories. In addition, part of me wants to publish these stories in a mini-comic format, but part of me also wants to send it to Ka-Blam Digital Publishing so I can hold a genuine comic book in my hands that I can say I created.
Ugh! I can't fucking decide! (what else is new)
Which is also why I'm working on two stories.
So, that's why I'm here now.
WORK UPDATE:
Actually, this is a good day to post a work update because... I'm going back to work tomorrow!
I got a call last week from one of the managers in the Distribution Dept. where I used to work. I got laid off from our Maintenance Dept. Well, some of the personnel and hour cuts I knew were going to happen after I got laid off (conceptually speaking, I didn't know who was actually going to be cut) finally happened in Distribution. Two people were laid off outright, and at least a couple positions were cut down from full-time to part-time (2 days = 16 hours). Well, one of the guys who got cut to 16 hours decided to just leave, that part-time wasn't going to work for him. So, that's why they called me, to see if I was interested in working only part-time. In my case I was, but my situation was different than the other dude's. Part of me was interested in trying to make money creatively via freelance/self-employment, although you wouldn't know it by anything I've done since being laid off, other than cleaning up some blog infrastructure among my three Blogger blogs and posting a couple times here. But, I still am interested in trying to pursue that avenue. However, the possibility of having some stable source of income was very attractive compared to having zero income, so I said yes. So, I'm going back to my old company, but I'm working part-time and in a different department. Meanwhile, I have also filed for unemployment and will be theoretically collecting a portion of that as well.
ART UPDATE:
Meanwhile, as I described in a previous post, I hoped to create a mini-comic as one of my first art projects. Thus, in typical Kimmel fashion, I'm not focused on working on one story but I'm actually juggling two different comic stories. In addition, part of me wants to publish these stories in a mini-comic format, but part of me also wants to send it to Ka-Blam Digital Publishing so I can hold a genuine comic book in my hands that I can say I created.
Ugh! I can't fucking decide! (what else is new)
Which is also why I'm working on two stories.
FIRST: There's one very strange story that I'm doing for a comic book title I'm impulsively calling:
A FISTFUL OF THIS!
I've been toying with this story for the last month (or two-- hell, maybe longer! Time has no meaning for me, even when I was working full-time, but even moreso now...). It seems to be a pseudo-Superman parody but then it goes... elsewhere. Originally I was thinking it was going to be a one-off sort of deal-- my attempt to just crap out an 8 page mini-comic and get that off my back. But as usual, once I started thinking about it, I could see how I'd be able to continue the story into a series or even a multiple series. And that notion segued into me remembering Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown's YUMMY FUR. YUMMY FUR was this very strange 80s comic of odd tales that after a couple issues, the tales started connecting into a more deliberately longer and continuous narrative which became ED THE HAPPY CLOWN (and if you're unfamiliar with this book, believe me, the adjective "happy" is ironic). Stories that originally seemed to stand alone in early issues of Brown's comic as short, absurd, non-sequitor sort of ridiculous things (such as "The Man Who Couldn't Stop" where a man is shown sitting on a toilet, and then after a few panels of the same image he finally thinks, "I don't seem to be stopping.") started to actually be part of the narrative continuity of the other stories. Until, soon, each issue was focused on telling this bizarre story with Ed as one of the main characters. So, with that thought in mind, I'm toying with using this first FISTFUL story as a springboard into other tales. I guess I'm envisioning FISTFUL as a loose anthology of strangely related tales, for lack of a better term.
Meanwhile, a few days ago another artist friend of mine linked me to one of the products she was selling on Society 6, a website I was unfamiliar with. I had heard of the online Etsy store, and I actually thought she was selling stuff through there, but I guess I was wrong. Anyway, I took a look at some of the things she was selling and, looking to support her, I decided to sign up to the site as well and then "like" her various designs. Check them out yourself (she goes by Lady Tanya Bleudragon). I like this design in particular.
SECOND: After looking at the S6 site and signing on, I wondered about submitting a design myself. My first idea was to use something old, something I've already done, simply to expedite things. I started considering comics or illustrations for concepts I originally began in college. I went to Buff State (Buffalo State College, part of the SUNY system), and although I never finished my degree, one of the great experiences I had was working on the Buffalo State RECORD, the school newspaper, for a couple years. The last year I was there I was Co-Graphics Editor with Joe Wocjik. Anyway, there was this weird sci-fi romance parody I had done to fill up a big space on the comic page one day and it was a personal artistic highpoint for me, not only in terms of creative accomplishment but also because I finished it in time for the deadline. It worked on it 11 hours straight from blank page to finished product. Yeah, I was a totally different person back then!
Getting back to this Society 6 site and coming up with design ideas to sell, the idea of selling T-shirts with my comic designs has been very seductive to me as a goal for a while. What the hell. I'm going to give it a shot. You get a small commission for everything you sell, but you don't have to create the products ahead of time, the site creates the products (art prints, T-shirts, tote bags, etc.). They're the investor. So, I'm going to do a re-make of this one page comic story and try to make a T-shirt design out of it.
The initial idea is to do a full 10 x 15 page of the comic artwork that stands on its own story-wise. The original story was a square image because that was the space I had to fill for the paper. Here it is:
My decision to remake this story as a T-shirt design was also inspired by a few favorite T-shirts I own. One is an off-white T-shirt that I got from Walmart which has great B&W line art by Leinil Yu depicting a visually busy collection of various Marvel heroes engaged in battle, with Spider-man in the center. Also, I have this amazing Paul Pope shirt that has various panels of his artwork on the front and a single character drawing on the back. So, with these brilliant examples guiding me, I'm plunging into this damn enterprise.
Right now, I'm in the re-writing stage of remaking the above little comic story. The title's already been changed from KAREN'S DILEMMA to PATSY'S PASSIONATE PREDICAMENT and I'm creating a "host" character to introduce the story, a la the Cryptkeeper, etc. Part of this overhaul is to improve/update the artwork. Plus, fix up the writing. Like, make the Victorian romance elements in the story a little more obvious (or actually existent), and especially strengthen the end of the story which shouldn't be hard because it's ridiculously inane. Even from the viewpoint of using absurdity as a means to getting a laugh -- the ending is rather stupid and disposable.
Also I'm trying to think/develop other possibilities for designs/self-marketing, like using this host character as a mascot in at least a couple ways: 1) as a recognizable character from an anticipated portfolio of my work; and 2) to also promote the possible existence of an infrequently published series of a space romance comics anthology, which may or may not still be called INTERPLANETARY ROMANCES. I keep going back and forth as to how good or bad a title that is. "Interplanetary" seems like a big, clunky word, but I don't know. Big and clunky is part of my verbose charm...
Meanwhile, in the original comic (above), the story is presented as the concluding segment, but I only did this one installment. For the remake I intend to make the story complete (beginning, middle and end) but if that's the case, I really won't be able to contain it on one page. From a comic book story perspective, multiple pages is fine. From a T-shirt perspective, well, no. But, I think I can work with that, too. Once it's done, I'm thinking I'll just "cut up" the various panels and make a 10 x 15 collage of the story with perhaps the coolest images, etc, in the mix. And maybe I'll draw a new image of the hostess character to superimpose over the whole collage and that might make a cool T-shirt design. So, I got some ideas here...
All I need to freaking do is clear off my drawing table, be able to WALK comfortably in my "workroom" to get to my drawing table, and start drawing.
*takes deep breath*
A FISTFUL OF THIS!
I've been toying with this story for the last month (or two-- hell, maybe longer! Time has no meaning for me, even when I was working full-time, but even moreso now...). It seems to be a pseudo-Superman parody but then it goes... elsewhere. Originally I was thinking it was going to be a one-off sort of deal-- my attempt to just crap out an 8 page mini-comic and get that off my back. But as usual, once I started thinking about it, I could see how I'd be able to continue the story into a series or even a multiple series. And that notion segued into me remembering Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown's YUMMY FUR. YUMMY FUR was this very strange 80s comic of odd tales that after a couple issues, the tales started connecting into a more deliberately longer and continuous narrative which became ED THE HAPPY CLOWN (and if you're unfamiliar with this book, believe me, the adjective "happy" is ironic). Stories that originally seemed to stand alone in early issues of Brown's comic as short, absurd, non-sequitor sort of ridiculous things (such as "The Man Who Couldn't Stop" where a man is shown sitting on a toilet, and then after a few panels of the same image he finally thinks, "I don't seem to be stopping.") started to actually be part of the narrative continuity of the other stories. Until, soon, each issue was focused on telling this bizarre story with Ed as one of the main characters. So, with that thought in mind, I'm toying with using this first FISTFUL story as a springboard into other tales. I guess I'm envisioning FISTFUL as a loose anthology of strangely related tales, for lack of a better term.
Meanwhile, a few days ago another artist friend of mine linked me to one of the products she was selling on Society 6, a website I was unfamiliar with. I had heard of the online Etsy store, and I actually thought she was selling stuff through there, but I guess I was wrong. Anyway, I took a look at some of the things she was selling and, looking to support her, I decided to sign up to the site as well and then "like" her various designs. Check them out yourself (she goes by Lady Tanya Bleudragon). I like this design in particular.
SECOND: After looking at the S6 site and signing on, I wondered about submitting a design myself. My first idea was to use something old, something I've already done, simply to expedite things. I started considering comics or illustrations for concepts I originally began in college. I went to Buff State (Buffalo State College, part of the SUNY system), and although I never finished my degree, one of the great experiences I had was working on the Buffalo State RECORD, the school newspaper, for a couple years. The last year I was there I was Co-Graphics Editor with Joe Wocjik. Anyway, there was this weird sci-fi romance parody I had done to fill up a big space on the comic page one day and it was a personal artistic highpoint for me, not only in terms of creative accomplishment but also because I finished it in time for the deadline. It worked on it 11 hours straight from blank page to finished product. Yeah, I was a totally different person back then!
Getting back to this Society 6 site and coming up with design ideas to sell, the idea of selling T-shirts with my comic designs has been very seductive to me as a goal for a while. What the hell. I'm going to give it a shot. You get a small commission for everything you sell, but you don't have to create the products ahead of time, the site creates the products (art prints, T-shirts, tote bags, etc.). They're the investor. So, I'm going to do a re-make of this one page comic story and try to make a T-shirt design out of it.
The initial idea is to do a full 10 x 15 page of the comic artwork that stands on its own story-wise. The original story was a square image because that was the space I had to fill for the paper. Here it is:
 |
| Photocopied from the Buffalo State College RECORD circa... uh... early 80s, maybe 1983? The direct inspiration for this comic was there was an unexpected snowstorm in early spring that year, and while I was home (snow day!), all I did was read my Silver Age FANTASTIC FOUR issues by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. I was so energized by reading them that it directly led to me creating this comic story at a single sitting when the opportunity presented itself. Okay, the same day deadline I had bearing down on me also forced me to finish in a single sitting as well. |
My decision to remake this story as a T-shirt design was also inspired by a few favorite T-shirts I own. One is an off-white T-shirt that I got from Walmart which has great B&W line art by Leinil Yu depicting a visually busy collection of various Marvel heroes engaged in battle, with Spider-man in the center. Also, I have this amazing Paul Pope shirt that has various panels of his artwork on the front and a single character drawing on the back. So, with these brilliant examples guiding me, I'm plunging into this damn enterprise.
Right now, I'm in the re-writing stage of remaking the above little comic story. The title's already been changed from KAREN'S DILEMMA to PATSY'S PASSIONATE PREDICAMENT and I'm creating a "host" character to introduce the story, a la the Cryptkeeper, etc. Part of this overhaul is to improve/update the artwork. Plus, fix up the writing. Like, make the Victorian romance elements in the story a little more obvious (or actually existent), and especially strengthen the end of the story which shouldn't be hard because it's ridiculously inane. Even from the viewpoint of using absurdity as a means to getting a laugh -- the ending is rather stupid and disposable.
Also I'm trying to think/develop other possibilities for designs/self-marketing, like using this host character as a mascot in at least a couple ways: 1) as a recognizable character from an anticipated portfolio of my work; and 2) to also promote the possible existence of an infrequently published series of a space romance comics anthology, which may or may not still be called INTERPLANETARY ROMANCES. I keep going back and forth as to how good or bad a title that is. "Interplanetary" seems like a big, clunky word, but I don't know. Big and clunky is part of my verbose charm...
Meanwhile, in the original comic (above), the story is presented as the concluding segment, but I only did this one installment. For the remake I intend to make the story complete (beginning, middle and end) but if that's the case, I really won't be able to contain it on one page. From a comic book story perspective, multiple pages is fine. From a T-shirt perspective, well, no. But, I think I can work with that, too. Once it's done, I'm thinking I'll just "cut up" the various panels and make a 10 x 15 collage of the story with perhaps the coolest images, etc, in the mix. And maybe I'll draw a new image of the hostess character to superimpose over the whole collage and that might make a cool T-shirt design. So, I got some ideas here...
All I need to freaking do is clear off my drawing table, be able to WALK comfortably in my "workroom" to get to my drawing table, and start drawing.
*takes deep breath*
BUT, I'm going to eat something first.
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