The latest issue of The Gathering comic anthology ships this week. It includes a three-page story I did with artist Paula Cob about the people we meet in dreams. The issue can be ordered here.
If you like horror and/or creator-owned comics, check out the Kickstarter for Anathema, a six-issue mini series written by Rachel Deering, a fellow Womanthology contributor (she lettered over thirty stories, including “Everwell”). The first issue has already been released to great reviews (I’m eagerly awaiting my copy) and the funds raised from the Kickstarter will pay the art team for issues 2-6. Come on, how many other comics out there bill themselves as a Lesbian Werewolf Epic?
A while back, I asked for creators who identified as LGBTQ to announce themselves and promote their work in a massive thread right here on Tumblr. It got hundreds of responses and tons of links to some incredibly wonderful work, most of which has not yet received the exposure it deserves, quite a…
My name is Jody Houser and I’m a writer focusing on comics and screenwriting. I’ve written comics for several anthologies (including Womanthology) and have created webcomics since 2006. I’m also scripting some longer creator-owned projects. There’s more info and links at my website, MindEclipse.com.
Here’s a sneak preview of “Everwell”, the story I did for Womanthology with artists Fiona Staples and Adriana Blake. The photo is of the actual book. I got my copy yesterday and it is gorgeous!
MASSIVE Womanthology preview on the official Womanthology blog!
And there’s not just previews of comics pages (though there are those galore!), but also “Protips” from the pros involved, creator interviews, and profiles of lady comics creators of the past!
Go check it out!
(Source: ladiesmakingcomics)
For those who want to purchase Womanthology: Heroic but don’t have a comic book store nearby, it’s also available for preorder through Amazon. But support your local comic retailer if you can!
Womanthology @ Comikaze Expo
This weekend is the first Comikaze Expo, a new comic and pop culture convention in Los Angeles. The lineup looks pretty good and I’m excited to hit up a show so close to home.
I’m even more excited to be one of the speakers on the Womanthology panel on Saturday. I was on the panel last week at Long Beach Comic Con as well, but this one looks like it’s going to be much bigger (in part because we’re not opposite the panel for The Guild this time around). It’s also, to my knowledge, the first Womanthology panel at any convention to show preview art from the book! I can’t wait for people to see the amazing job that Fiona Staples and Adriana Blake did on “Everwell”.
Tickets are still available for Comickaze Expo (and are dirt cheap), so if you’re in the area, come and help kick off what will hopefully be a fantastic start to an annual event. And stop by the Womanthology panel! It’s at 4pm on November 5th, Room 306AB.
Also, right after our panel is the Sushi Girl panel with the legendary Mark Hamil. It’s like I’m part of the opening act for Mark Hamil.
I’m very excited to be one of the ladies on this panel! Hopefully I’ll be over my cold by then.
(Source: womanthology)
Womanthology has officially hit the PREVIEWS catalog! It will be in comic shops in January. If you want to order a copy (you do because it’s awesome) through your local comic book store (you do because supporting local businesses/the direct market is also awesome), the magic code is NOV110296.
(Source: joamette)
From Catwoman v1 #20 (1995). This is Selina Kyle’s commentary on the movie industry. It seemed oddly relevant…
The Value of Work and Womanthology
There’s currently a lot of discussion going on about how women (and creators in general) need to be paid for their work in comics and entertainment. I agree with this 1000% because I like having food and shelter and an internet connection.
However the dialogue somehow changed into anger about the Womanthology contributors not being paid for their work despite the amount of money the Kickstarter raised. And that’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what the project has been about from the beginning. From day one, the book was intended to raise money for a worthy cause. And that charity was picked well before the Kickstarter was launched.
The Womanthology blog has a post that lays out the initial estimates of the distribution of funds. Contributor Amanda Deibert pointed out where the information about the goals was clearly available. And even Bleeding Cool has some coverage of the discussion.
It’s a touchy subject, and an especially personal one for me. Back in 2009, I was laid off from my job as senior SEO content writer (essentially specialized website copywriting) and found that most job listings were filled with phrases like “unpaid internship” and “build your portfolio” and “valuable experience”. It’s enough to make you want to put your fist through your monitor (which is a bad idea even when you can afford to replace it).
Keep in mind these jobs weren’t even in art or entertainment. They were positions to help give businesses a public voice and face. To spread their name and message online. Marketing that could make or break a company in the long run.
But since they saw it as only writing, it wasn’t worth paying actual money for.
In this day and age, there’s very little reason for creators to work for solely for the benefit of others to get “exposure”. Writers can start their own blog or five. Artists can create galleries of their work online and often can and do earn money by taking commissions (sadly, I have yet to see anyone interested in paying money for script pages to hang on their wall.*)
Sometimes though, it’s hard to remember that what you’re doing has potential value. Toiling away on spec scripts and hosting a webcomic for free (I should really add a Donate button, at least) and reading about how even established writers are having trouble getting paying jobs can make a viable creative career seem like it’s firmly mired in the impossible rather than just insanely difficult.
Luckily on the day-job side, I was able to find a position with a non-profit that raises money for a great cause and actually respects the work of their writers. Delicious income with a side of good karma. And quality writing to promote your cause is more essential than ever. It’s no surprise that a lot of non-profits and charities are really struggling these days. It was the fact that Womanthology was intended to be a for-charity comic anthology that drew me to the project in the first place, back when it was nothing more than a few tweets and a dream.
I agree that being paid money for creative work is essential and establishes the value of said work. That said, money isn’t the only way establish worth. The fact that what you create can help others, and that the work of aspiring professionals can help alongside that of those well-established in the field shows, at least to me, that the work created does have great value. And I don’t think anyone should begrudge those who want to give back where they can or take it as supplying more ammo to those who don’t want to pay creators their due.
tl;dr - Working for free to get exposure isn’t the same thing as working for free to support a charity and getting exposure as a side effect. See this chart.
The success of Womanthology means that there’s a whole lot of money that should be and needs to be accounted for. People will have questions and they should be asked. But there’s also a lot of information available already and everyone needs to take the time to go over it before they start throwing accusations around, especially when media outlets are picking up the story.
Spreading misinformation and distrust in the project will devalue everyone’s work far more than the contributors choosing to donate their efforts. And quite frankly, painting the creators as poor hapless ladies being taken advantage of is just a bit insulting. We’re volunteers, and we’re giving something that matters.
* If you’re interested in paying money for script pages to hang on your wall, call me. Some of my comic scripts are even color-coded!
“Oh, by the way, you’ll get something for your hard work. We were totally planning this all along. It’s just a coincidence that we never mentioned this until after people complained about it and after many of our contributors paid $50 because they had been led to believe this was the only way to get a book.” -My interpretation.
Bah. I shouldn’t complain about things turning out how I’d hoped. (Well, it’s the bare minimum of what I’d hoped.) I am just really grumpy today. Don’t mind me in the corner being a grumpus.
I just wanted to point out that the possibility of contributor copies was mentioned early on, after it was known the book would definitely be published. From an email sent to contributors on July 8th:
Because our initial print run is so small (400 copies [corrected to 1500 in a follow up email]), and our contributor list so large (over 140 creators), it may not be possible for us to distribute courtesy copies to you guys.
Obviously, this is something that we WANT very much to do, but we can’t *guarantee* just yet that you’ll get a courtesy copy. If you want a guaranteed, premium copy from the initial (and, so far, only guaranteed) print run of the book, you may want to pledge for one in the Kickstarter drive.
As I say, I do hope very much that we’ll be able to send out courtesy copies, but I wanted to alert you all to this possibility.
And then of course the Kickstarter went on to raise enough money to expand the print run to 5500. It hasn’t been stated if the contributors’ copies and/or the copies that will be donated to libraries and schools are coming from that total or will be further printings. I know the library/school donations have been mentioned previously on Twitter, but I think today was the first public mention of contributor copies. I just wanted to clarify that contributors had been told the intent was to provide them with copies if possible.
(Source: keiren-smith)
“ Comics are hard work. Comics are relentless. Comics will break your heart. Comics are monetarily unsatisfying. Comics don’t offer much in terms of fortune and glory, but comics will give you complete freedom to tell the stories you want to tell, in ways unlike any other medium. Comics will pick you up after it knocks you down. Comics will dust you off and tell you it loves you. And you will look into it’s eyes and know it’s true, that you love comics back.
— Becky Cloonan (via ladiesmakingcomics)
This week’s Cupcake POW! strip is dedicated to the amazing success of Womanthology Mostly because it was impossible to think about much of anything else last night while wearing out my F5 button watching the Womanthology Kickstarter tick down to the finish.
In the end, 2001 backers contributed a total of $109,301. It’s currently the 25th most successful Kickstarter ever and the most successful comic Kickstarter period. I can’t even express how grateful I am to everyone who contributed money or incentives or simply helped spread the word about Womanthology. And I’m only one of 140+ contributors.
There are a lot of really happy women out there right now. And a lot of fantastic comics stories being worked on as we speak. The thumbnails are already done for the story that I scripted and the art (by Fiona Staples and Adriana Blake) is going to be amazing. I love working with real artists (sorry Princess).
