Jody's Tumblr Thingie

Farewell 2011: The Year of the Comics

It’s the last day of what ended up being a pretty eventful year for me. I suspect that, looking back, I’ll remember 2011 as the year I figured out how damn much I love writing comics.

I’ve been focused on screenwriting primarily for the past few years, and I spent the first four months of the year finishing one screenplay draft and writing another. But then in May, I heard about the zombie comic anthology Dead Roots from a friend. I pitched a story, which was rejected for not being quite the right fit. So that same day, I sent a completely different pitch based on the notes for the rejection. That one was accepted.

That second pitch became the first of four anthology stories I wrote this year. Which inspired me to pull out some old attempts at comic book scripts and rework them into something decent.

Later in May, I heard about a comic anthology that was being put together for charity. An all-women anthology, in fact. It sounded like a fun little project, so I shot off an email to contribute a story.

That of course became Womanthology, which very quickly stopped being a “little project”. And Womanthology is one of the main reasons that 2011 has been so crazy for me. I went to New York for the first time to attend New York Comic Con and met Jim Lee, who was kind enough to take the time to talk to some of the Womanthology contributors. I was on my first ever convention panel (and my second a week later). I actually have followers on Twitter now, which is a strange and new experience.

But by far, the most amazing part of the year was all of the fantastic people I met and worked with. They say quality over quantity, but somehow I was lucky enough to end up with both. Jack Tempest, Adriana Blake, and Paula Cob have all been amazing artists to work with. And how many unpublished writers get to work with big names like Fiona Staples and Eric Canete in the same year? That’s insane. My life is insane.

And the funny thing is, I’m technically still unpublished. Everything will hopefully be coming out in 2012, which means this coming year could be the storm after the calm. Here’s hoping.

So what’s ahead besides stuff hitting the shelves? I’m currently finishing up world-building for a new fantasy comic series I want to start scripting this coming week. I’m planning to look into digital/print publishing options for collections of my silly little webcomics. I have a few screenplays I need to revise. A script collaboration with one friend and some web comedy shorts with another. And a multitude of little comic and video and writing and even drawing projects I want to tackle. My goal is to make 2011 look positively unproductive.

Here’s to an amazing 2012, everyone. Create like the world is ending!

Womanthology Sketchbook Available Now on Amazon!

The Womanthology: Heroic Sketchbook that was a pledge incentive for the Kickstarter campaign is now available for sale on Amazon! I got a chance to flip through it at LBCC and it’s a really nice little book. It should be a great companion to the anthology itself, so pick it up now if you need something to help tide you over until Womanthology drops.

One of my favorite things about the sketchbook is that it includes both artwork and script excerpts. And one of those excerpts is a page from my very own story, “Everwell”!

The Daddy Complex: What Was That About Bootstraps?

thedaddycomplex:

Let me warn you this post has little to do with parenting until the end, at which point you’ll realize the whole thing actually has a lot to do with parenting.

Last night I got word that a creative side project I’ve been working on for over a year fell apart. The main wheeler-and-dealer backed…

While there has been a lot of talk about creators working for free as of late, the thing that most people have neglected mentioning is that many creators, writers in particular, spend much of their time producing content for free. Even established screenwriters write spec scripts or pilots that they hope to but have no guarantee of making money off of.

Sometimes you do get to that wonderful point where production and paychecks are within reach. And sometimes it still falls apart.

Those moments suck, no doubt. And that’s why you sure as hell better love what you’re doing. Because yes, when you’re working for others, you should get paid (unless you choose to donate your talents to a worthy cause, of course). But you spend an awful lot of time essentially working for yourself for free too. Love of your craft might not always be enough to keep you fed, but it will keep you creating through the famine. And hopefully it will land you on the feast side of the equation before too long.

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!

“ 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)

The other day I referred to some of the scene ideas I was writing as story fetuses. Obviously, I had to draw a few of them. There are many, many more.

When I was young and far more idealistic, I thought that having an office job was a fate worse than death. I had been born to write. A creative soul shouldn’t be caged by cubicle walls. Etc.

Then I grew up and decided I liked having food and shelter and overpriced gadgets on which to write and look at funny cat things. Thus, I find myself celebrating my one year anniversary at my fifth “day job” today.

Having spent over a year skimming by on contact work before this, I can honestly say that my writing output greatly improved once I wasn’t spending all of my energy applying for jobs and fighting for mindless article assignments. In the past few months, I’ve written three comic scripts for two anthologies. I wrote a horror feature entirely in April, working on it almost exclusively on my work breaks. And it was actually notably better than my last feature first draft.

It’s really amazing what being in a good environment can do. I’m working at a nonprofit with wonderful, creative people. They’re interested in my personal projects and they have some pretty amazing ones of their own. And judging by the ever-growing inspirational image on the office chalkboard, I am among my own geeky kind.

The thing I didn’t understand as a kid is that what you do to earn a living doesn’t have to define you. Often, the energy around you is far more important than the cubicle walls. I’m glad I learned that as an adult, at least.