Hello, Boulder!

It's been a pretty wacky month, and I'll write again soon about all that's happened, but first, a quick announcement: I'll be doing my last scheduled signing tomorrow, June 27th, at Time Warp Comics in Boulder, CO from 1PM to 3PM.

I'm flying a long way for this one, and we haven't given folks much notice, so any help getting the word out would be most appreciated! Denver people, too! It's not that far, right?

If I may appeal to your self-interest, one thing that I have learned over the last couple of weeks is that first printings of Nonplayer 1 are now selling on Ebay for like a trillion dollars each, and they go for a shmazillion dollars if they're signed. Even second printings are starting to fetch silly sums. Hooray for scarcity! So if you have one of those, bring it by Time Warp to get it signed!

Also, I feel like I'm getting tweeted/emailed a lot by LA folks who want me to do a signing. I would love to come down if a shop invites me, so feel free to bug your favorite shop on my behalf.

Thanks!

Back to drawing!

Two-Day

Hi guys!

Boy, that took a good little bit, but here we are. Nonplayer 2 is on stands today (print version here, digital version here). I feel like I've crested the second of a series of increasingly taller peaks -- there's the peak of #3 poking up out of the mist in the distance, but before I start hiking back down and prepping for the next climb, I'm going to enjoy the view for a second.

I have now drawn two comics! So nice to be able to speak about them in plural. Almost sixty pages. I know that's not a huge accomplishment by professional comic standards, but it was really challenging for me, and I'm happy that I've been able to keep going.

Of course, now that there's a second book out there, I'm getting lots of questions from people who may not have followed this journey from the beginning, so here's an FAQ:

Q: Wait. FOUR YEARS?

A: Yes. This comic took four years to make.

Q: How can I take you seriously when your book takes so long to make?

A: I should not be taken seriously. I have a family and a day job, and I make this book solely between the hours of 3 and 6 AM on weekdays. The book is not, nor has it ever been, financially self-sustaining. I do it because I enjoy doing it.

Q: Uh. Surely you've got the next five issues ready to go, though? There's no way you want me to wait that long for #3!?!

A: I am only now laying out #3. It will not come out quickly. I hope very much that it takes less time than #2, but I have learned to make no promises.

Q: But I heard you got a movie deal after the first issue came out. Aren't you rich now?

A: Nonplayer was optioned by Warner Bros. in 2012. That option paid for repairs to the roof of our house. We ate out more often that year, too. The option has since lapsed. I am not rich. Should renewed Hollywood interest result in some substantial influx of money, that money will be spent finishing Nonplayer #3 much more quickly.

Q: Why don't you just do a Kickstarter for #3?

A: I have not been able to make the math work out. I would need an amount of money similar to what I make in video games, and that amount is probably not achievable through Kickstarter. If I were in this position before getting married and having a child, I would definitely have gone this route and slept on somebody's couch for a year. Alas, I have responsibilities. If anybody has other ideas for funding the book, I am all ears.

Q: The only reason I was into Nonplayer was that I thought Dana was cool. I see that she barely shows up in the second issue. What gives?

A: Dana will continue to be the protagonist, and she will be all over issue 3. Issue 2 sets in motion a lot of machinery that will make more sense when read in the context of the finished collection. This book is all about Dana.

Q: Oh, then I have no further questions, and I support your book wholeheartedly! Where can I buy awesome Nonplayer merchandise?

A: You can find issues of Nonplayer #1 and #2, as well as posters big and small, at the Nonplayer Store. International shipping has been recently fixed, so everybody should be happy forever. If you have questions about shipping stuff, you can contact me directly through the contact link at the store.

Q: Will you be doing any signings?

A: Yes. I will be bringing myself, my comics, and my posters to the following events:

Comics Dungeon, Seattle: Wednesday, June 3 from 4pm to 6pm
Arcane Comics, Seattle: Friday, June 5 from 6pm to 9pm
Destiny City Comics, Tacoma: Sunday, June 7 from 2pm to 4pm
Third Eye Comics, Annapolis: Saturday, June 13 from 11am to 1pm
HeroesCon, Charlotte: Friday, June 19 - Sunday, June 21

Thanks for all of your support, guys. I haven't been going about this the normal way, and I know that there's some controversy because of that. It means a lot that you've been so enthusiastic about the book. You are the reason that I haven't yet surrendered to common sense.

Also, I encourage you to start working on your own projects, regardless of their justifiability! We've got a thing called the Holy Order of Viking Draftspeople (#HOVD on Twitter), where we all cheer for one another in the wee hours of the morning. I would love to see more folks suffering with us!

Okay. Sling that backpack, swig from the canteen, and back down the mountain we go. See you at the next peak.

Nonplayer Store Back Open

Hi guys,

First, to business. I finally got the Nonplayer store back up and running, and there is new stuff! You can now buy signed copies of Nonplayer #1 (3rd printing), as well as the long-in-coming gigantic poster of the two-page spread from issue 1:

That's a whopping 30" x 24" (or 76,2cm x 60.96cm, for you foreign heathens).

And on the subject of foreign heathens... After much hand-wringing, I've decided that I can't ship things USPS First Class International anymore. That shipping method involves me carrying a bunch of shipping tubes to the post office, filling out individual customs forms for every one of them, and then getting sneered at both by the mail clerk and the fifty people in line behind me for the thirty minutes it takes to process all the packages. Now that I've got a kid, I just don't have an extra hour a day to devote to this. If any kind reader has advice to give on the international shipping conundrum, I am all ears!

For now, I'm just offering Priority International shipping, which is crazy, crazy expensive. So you oil barons and oligarchs can go ahead and pay fifty bucks for shipping if you simply must decorate your yacht with Nonplayer posters. For the rest of you, I apologize for the inconvenience and earnestly hope that there's a home-printed shipping solution waiting out there for me. Again, if any of you have solved this problem, I would love to hear how you did it.

What else?

The third printing of Nonplayer #1 is now on stands, and I'm enjoying getting feedback about the book again after all these years. There's the added benefit that #2 is coming out on June 3, which will create the illusion that this is a monthly comic. Should be lots of fun in July when folks start tweeting at me, wondering where issue 3 went. In case it's not obvious, I do not think this will be fun at all.

Reaction to #1 has been pretty good! I snuck into the Top 5 New Comics list on Maxx's Super Awesome Comic Review Show, which even I think stretches the definition of "new" pretty far. I suppose if we're speaking in geological terms, it's new? But I am stoked that they liked it!

The ramp-up to the #2 release was hectic (who knew prepping pages for digital would be so complicated?), but now that all the preparations are complete, there is only the sound of waves breaking against the front of our landing craft as we approach Omaha Beach. It's difficult to get a read on how things will go when that door drops open. I've shown the book to friends, who say that it's good. But they're friends. What are they going to say, "dude, you gave up four years of sleep for nothing. This is total garbage. I no longer wish to be affiliated with you in any way."

I also sent a PDF of the second issue to retailers, who also seem bullish on the book. That's probably a good sign, though I think they too are taking a wait-and-see approach. If folks like the book, I think it'll go fairly quickly to a second printing, which would be wonderful. If you guys like it, I hope you'll share your happy thoughts on Reddit and Twitter and stuff, because the bottleneck on this book has always been awareness. I feel like there are probably people who would like it if they knew it existed, but it's quite difficult to be heard amongst the general promotional din.

Thanks for your support, guys. I am excited to finally be working on #3, and I hope things shake out so that I'm able to get it out sooner than the last one.

Oh, before I forget, here is the current signing schedule for next month:

Comics Dungeon, Seattle: Wednesday, June 3 from 4pm to 6pm
Arcane Comics, Seattle: Friday, June 5 from 6pm to 8pm
Destiny City Comics, Tacoma: Sunday, June 7 from 2pm to 4pm
Third Eye Comics, Annapolis: Saturday, June 13 from 11am to 1pm
HeroesCon, Charlotte: Friday, June 19 - Sunday, June 21

Ramblin' 'Bout Reprints

The third printing of Nonplayer #1 hits stands today, so if you're one of those people who missed out the first two times, there are lots of new copies in the wild now. This blog's readership probably already has a copy, but it's never too late to introduce a friend to the pleasures of reading a comic that comes out once per presidential election!

Today's reprint has three new pinups, and they're brilliant. All three were drawn by friends I made when I worked at PopCap. That place, especially at that time, attracted ridiculous talent from every corner of the globe.

The first pinup is by David Ryan Paul, a fellow worshiper of French stuff:

I love that hair going through the sword. What a cool move.

Here's a random page from DRP's tumblr, just to give you a taste of his range:

And here's another one:

I really hope he puts out a comic. I love that color. I love the character design. Heck, I love DRP. Especially his beard.

Next up is Cory Allemeier:

Cory apologized for drawing empanadas instead of tamales falling out of Dana's delivery box. I'm glad he said sorry, because I was going to just throw it away otherwise. Ooh, I just noticed that the shadow hints at Dana's Lifeskin appearance. Cool! I love everything about this drawing. Those hands! That color!

Cory and I have been quietly working on a new project together -- one that may one day help me shift into a full-time career in comics. But since I can't show that off yet, I'll just show you a couple of his stupendously cool drawings:

It makes me mad when radness takes so little effort for somebody. But Cory is cool, so he gets a pass.

Finally, there's Mike Bear:

Mike had a very specific notion about how players in Warriors of Jarvath would go about purchasing their steeds. If you look closely, you'll see Pookie hanging from the ceiling at upper left. I don't really think there are words I can say about this that could enhance it in any way. It makes its own gravy. There's a giant velociraptor with a turret. And a dude with tiny birds nesting in his beard. I'm not sure there is a way this could be more rad. Oh, well, I guess he could have also drawn a giant robot. Oh wait, he did.

Here's a wedding announcement he made for a friend:

And here's a little thing he made that I've always loved:

Anyway, these guys all took time out of their crazy schedules to make me pretty art, so if you happen across one of them on the street, give them a big, wet kiss for me. 

All four of us will be attending the Nonplayer #2 signing at Arcane Comics in Ballard (evening of Friday, June 5), so if you want to get every pinup signed, that's just about your only choice short of stalking us individually. Which for some of us might actually be kinda cool, but Mike Bear already has so many stalkers, you might find it difficult to get a good view of him.

I'll post again as we get closer to the Nonplayer #2 release. Gonna be a busy summer!

Road Trip!

Hi guys!

Wow, it's been a busy month. Okay, what do we talk about first?

Let's start with the boring stuff. That's always a good policy, right? We have dates and Diamond codes for both the issue 1 reprint and the issue 2 release. #1 is back out on April 1 and final order cutoff is this coming Monday, March 9. The code for that is JAN158233. #2 is on shelves on June 3 and the code for that is APR150542. Please do encourage your local comic shop proprietor to order lots of #1 reprints so that we don't run out of copies again and then you get #2 and you're all like "I don't remember what happened in #1, and now I have to pay 30 bucks for a copy on Ebay."

Okay, that wasn't so bad. Now for the fun stuff.

It is confirmed that I'll be doing a signing at Third Eye Comics in Annapolis from 11 AM to 1 PM on June 13.  For those of you who know Steve, you won't be surprised to hear that he's been just about the coolest guy ever during the planning of this thing. I liked him so much, I agreed to do a variant #1 cover just for his shop. This event is going to be off the hook, and there will probably be like strobe lights and dubstep and people dancing in cages that are hanging from the ceiling. That's how off the hook it will be.

Anyway, here is the variant cover. Does anybody want a poster of this? I really don't know if it's poster-worthy. Comment or Tweet me if you think this should be a thing:

For those of you who are unable to pick up this 'sclusie, you'll be happy to hear that both versions of the reprint also contain three completely astonishing new pinups from game art aces David Ryan Paul, Cory Allemeier, and Mike Bear, which I will tease here:

Man, I love those guys.

I will also be doing a signing at Comics Dungeon in Seattle on the day that issue 2 comes out --Wednesday, June 3 from 4 to 6 PM. I hope to see all my hometown friends there. If you are my friend, you WILL be there. This is how I will know who my real friends are. 

Next! I am also confirmed as a guest at HeroesCon in Charlotte, NC from June 19 to June 21. I'll be at Indie Island, which despite sounding remote and forbidding, is actually where all the cool kids will be hanging out. There will probably be dubstep and people dancing in cages.

I'll have as many copies of #1 and #2 that I can carry, and I'll also be selling several new posters, including this 30" x 24" behemoth:

Which in case you can't see it due to the blinding radiance of my visage, looks like this from the front:

And of course all of this stuff will be available for order at nonplayer.storenvy.com just as soon as I get my shipping tubes delivered.

What else, what else? Maybe that's everything for now. Oop. I think Ian is waking up. Okay, I'm off. See you in Charlotte!

Takin' It to the Tweets

First, an announcement: I am officially going to be at HeroesCon in beautiful Charlotte, NC from June 19-21. This will be my only convention appearance in support of Nonplayer 2, and I'm very excited about it. I got a table and everything, just like a real grown-up comic book artist.

The guy Rico who works over at Heroes is especially cool. If you meet him, give him a vigorous handshake on my behalf and maybe let it linger just a little too long. Let him be the one to disengage. Or if he rides it out, just hang on until the sweat from both your palms makes it impossible to maintain a firm grip.

This week, I pulled the dusty sheet off of the old Nonplayer promotional machinery and started contacting retailers to tell them about the reprint of #1 and the release of #2 (which, I should add, has been delayed until June -- the #1 reprint is still in April).

I don't know how effective my pitch is -- I am offering a free signed poster and a preview PDF of Nonplayer #2 to any retailer who gets in touch with me, and I've now gotten a fair number of replies. So good old email seems to work okay. But my contact list is now three years old, and sadly, a lot of comic shops have disappeared over the years. And of course new ones have popped up, but I have no contact info for most of them.

Since I'm hip to the jive and into what the kids are doing, I attempted to augment the email campaign with some tweeting. Gotta say, not really sure what I'm doing there. There seem to be times of day when people are reading, but the only way to guarantee visibility is to kinda spam everybody all day. Which feels super gross and annoying. That said, I added maybe half a dozen new shops to my contact list this way, and that's not nothing!

By the way, if you happen to know a retailer who wants in on this free signed poster/early access PDF deal, feel free to forward the official Nonplayer email address to them (nonplayercomic at that one really huge company that starts with a G). Especially if you know of any new shops, please send them my way. I have no way of knowing about Annie's Boutique Comics and Artisanal Tart Hut in Boise unless you tell me about it.

Thankfully, the retailers that have gotten back to me have all been super nice and supportive. I had assumed kind of a defensive crouch after hitting send on that first email, but I have at time of writing not received a single disgruntled reply. I'd have expected retailers, of all people, to be exasperated by the delay, but they all seemed to be aware of the various setbacks I went through and excited that there was finally something new on the horizon.

So comics retailers are actually not like Comic Book Guy at all. They all LOOK like him, but they're quite nice, personality-wise.

What else? Oh yeah! Posters!

First, I'm printing up a new 11"x17" poster for Nonplayer 2, which I'll be selling at HeroesCon, as well as though my online store (which will be back online soon). This is also the poster I'm sending to retailers:

I also bit the bullet and did a run of BIG (30"x24") posters that look like this:

I hope they sell, because dang, they weren't cheap to print. I will also be selling these at HeroesCon and maybe through my online store, if I can figure out an economical way of shipping something so huge. I am nervous about how much I've spent to print these, so if you want to give me something really nice this year, buy a big poster. It's for a good cause, which is the cause of me not being broke and not having a garage full of gigantic posters.

That's about it for now. Thanks for reading!

Halley's Comic Returns

You didn't hear it here first, folks: Nonplayer #2 is done and in the can.

There's a lot to write about, but I'll start with answers to the FATQ (Frequently Asked Twitter Questions):

When will it be on the stands? Looks like I juuuuust missed the Previews deadline for April, so probably May. Yes, it feels like a long time from now. It's after Emerald City, where I would very much have liked to debut the comic, which makes me sad. My best convention option right now is San Diego in July, but obviously I've completely missed the window for reserving a table. So if anybody has a table at SDCC that they'd like to share with me, please drop me a line. I swear I don't smell that much worse than the usual convention-goer. I am happy to pay for my portion of the table.

Will there be a reprint of issue 1? I have asked for this but have not yet received an answer in the affirmative (which isn't to say the answer is "no" -- Image is pretty busy these days). If you want to help this cause, feel free to tweet @ImageComics to remind them that you'd like to have access to the first issue. This is especially important because A) it turns out lots more people buy Image comics these days, and low supply is making copies of issue 1 ridiculously expensive and B) the second issue is pretty dense, and though I don't believe it's completely incomprehensible on its own, it's a much better experience if you know what happened in #1.

Are you going to do any signings? Yes, I think so. As long as it's a reasonable driving distance from Seattle. I'm already talking to Arcane Comics in Ballard (they're my home shop). If you run or work at a comic shop in the area and you'd like to put together a signing, please contact me!

Are the other media rights for Nonplayer available? Why yes, it turns out that Warner has decided to let their option lapse, so Nonplayer is back in my hands. And no, nobody has actually asked this. I'm pretty shameless.

Why the heck did it take so long to make issue 2? I think the answer to this one is going to comprise the remainder of this post, so let's move down from the oppressive confines of this Q and A format. See you in a second.

Hi. Ah, that's better.

Okay, so here's what happened.

The first issue took just a hair longer than a full year to complete. That was me working without a deadline, without any scrutiny from any kind of publisher or press, using Photoshop (a program with which I was very comfortable). So that's our baseline. A year. A very long time by comics standards, but within an order of magnitude of the amount of time detailed comics have taken, historically (see Darrow, Geof or French Comics, all). Future issues of Nonplayer needed to be at least as handsome as that first one, so it was destined to be a slow ride from the start. But exactly how slow, I had no idea.

When Nonplayer #1 was released, a few things happened. As I have detailed here in the past, there was quite a bit of distracting hoopla (at least by my standards). Between promoting the book, fulfilling poster and comic orders, Googling myself, hanging out with all my new comics friends, talking to Hollywood big shot types, and trying to answer every comment on DeviantArt in a meaningful way (man, that was cray), the amount of time left in a day turned out to be quite small. So regret #1 is not having made more hay while the sun was out, because I had a finite window of full-time access to the comic, and a lot of that time was spent on things other than drawing.

On top of that, life took a turn for the lame almost immediately after issue 1 hit the stands. I have debated the wisdom of sharing this aspect of my experience with the public because it might feel like a play for sympathy, but since it was such a major feature of my life at the time (and now), I feel that there's no reason to conceal it anymore. On the same week that issue 1 was released, I got a call from my stepdad in Ohio about my mom being ill. It turned out that she had Pick's Disease, a rare form of early-onset dementia, the symptoms of which had been manifesting for a couple of years prior to her diagnosis. We'd had a couple of weird Christmases in Ohio, but somehow we'd managed to convince ourselves that she was just developing hearing problems.

One thing about mom's illness that is particularly beautiful and heartbreaking is that her coworkers and boss apparently loved her so much that they covered for her for almost two years before finally letting her go. Her work performance had deteriorated to the point that her presence had become actively harmful, and everybody just worked around it, which is a big part of why her family never suspected that anything was going seriously wrong. So to the good people of Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease, thank you so much for taking care of her (and by extension, her whole family) for so long. 

Anyway, once the diagnosis was official, Mom and Mike moved straight to Seattle so that we could be together while she was still herself. I wish I could have spent more time with her. But I saw her at least once or twice a week, and she got to meet her grandson a few months before the end. She passed away last year.

No, Nonplayer 2 isn't late because my mom got sick. But her decline formed the backdrop for a couple of very unpleasant years. I crashed my bike a few months into the project and broke my collarbone, which put me out of action for a couple of months. Then the money ran out, and despite my best efforts to get a second title going, things just didn't click.

Meanwhile, I ended up having to throw out the original first six pages of #2. They felt like they had been drawn by somebody whose eye was not on the ball, which they were. When I finally shook off the brain-fog and gave the first pages an honest read, it was clear they'd have to be redone. Super bummer. On top of all that, I had contrived to switch from Photoshop to IllustStudio to streamline my pipeline. Not only did it take me a while to get comfortable with the new interface, the work I did with the program felt lifeless because of the way the linework was automatically stabilized. I finally found the right settings to replicate the feel of the first issue, but that took time. And then time ran out.

I went and got a job at another game company. And while the people I worked with were lovely and talented (and many of whom are still close friends), it was a very demoralizing time for me. I remember sitting at my desk at work a couple weeks into the job and just wallowing in self-hate and resentment. I fantasized about walking out the door and roaming the land like Caine, with nothing but my Cintiq strapped to my back, drawing Nonplayer at diners and coffee shops across our great land. I'd just spent a couple of years working on the Thing I Loved, and now I was drawing gems and elves for a freemium mobile game. They gave me money and were really nice to me, but every minute I spent there was a minute not spent on Nonplayer, and a minute I'd never get back. It felt like slow death. And then after two years there, they canceled my project. So that whole period is just kind of a weird pause in my life, career-wise.

It was during that time that I started working on Nonplayer in the very early morning hours. I joined the Holy Order of Viking Draftspeople, a group of other artists who were also working on personal projects in the wee hours of the morning (see #HOVD on Twitter -- lots of people there still working on rad stuff). Progress was excruciatingly slow for me. An hour or two every morning, just adding a few more lines, a little bit of color, and then off to work. With time at such a premium, my blogging stopped almost completely. Every once in a while, folks would poke at me or wonder where Nonplayer had gone, and there wasn't really anything I could show or tell them. I was half-done with the book and was literally getting a face drawn one day, a hand the next day, a telephone the day after that. It was like crossing a desert on all fours with no oasis in sight.

The whole point of Nonplayer had been to work on something that I loved, but under these circumstances, it was no longer fun. The end was nowhere in sight, and I was getting a lot of disappointment and hate from fans, retailers, and even friends. I felt like a total failure. My office was a couple of blocks from Zanadu Comics, and I had to walk past that shop on occasion. The embarrassment I felt was so great that I sometimes crossed to the other side of the street to avoid having to face what had come to symbolize my total failure at life. My coworkers would sometimes go inside on their lunch breaks and when I tagged along I felt what seemed like a physical weight on my shoulders. They had a signed poster from issue 1 on the wall, which made me feel bad until they took it down, which felt even worse.

I was in a bad place!

I really thought about quitting. My work on the book slowed even more. I played Kerbal Space Program. I got super into SpaceX and rocketry in general. I doubled down on cycling, bought a fancy road bike, and started going after Strava records. I got a little happiness wherever I could. Especially in winter, it was hard to find reasons to be happy. My wife carried me through this time, and I'll be grateful for that forever. When I bogged down completely, she offered to help the process move forward by helping me out with flatting. Just having that vote of confidence was a huge help. A few other folks still gave me encouragement online, but without Jiyoung's support, I would have thrown in the towel (I'd like to add that I also received enthusiastic flatting assistance from Matt Harding, who did an amazing job -- you should buy his book PopApocalypse right now).

And then in May 2013, my son was born!

For all the extra lost time that his arrival entailed, it also forced me to focus. Yes, on many mornings he would (and still does) choose to wake up at 4 AM, completely disrupting my work. But his arrival also got me to stop playing video games (haven't touched one in more than a year), and to be more pragmatic about my goals. He got me thinking long-term again, and I wanted to show him that there was value in making progress on something, even if that progress came in small increments.

That, and he just makes me happy. You work better when you have happy chemicals in your head.

So that brings us to now, I suppose. Honestly, the end caught me by surprise. I'd concentrated so much on just putting one foot in front of the other that when I finally looked up and noticed I was standing in daylight on the other end of the tunnel, I couldn't believe it. I had a funny exchange with my agent after I sent him the final PDF where I just kept repeating "am I done? Oh man, is this thing done? I can't be done. Is it really done?"

Yep, it's done.

Is it a Pyrrhic victory? Will the book be overlooked now that so much time has passed? I don't know. I hope not, obviously, but I certainly don't expect a repeat of the buzz that surrounded the first issue. Which is probably a good thing, because it'll be a lot easier to concentrate on #3.

There's a lot of other stuff to talk about (plans for Nonplayer and the future in general), but I'll stop here for now.

I'm happy right now, guys. Thanks for waiting.