It’s probably pretty clear by now that I really love comic books. Since I’m often stuck in bed due to my illness, I read a lot of them to keep from going insane. It happens. Currently, one of my all time favorite comic books is Raven the Pirate Princess, a Princeless comic series written by Jeremy Whitley. It’s not just a great comic, it’s also a very important comic.
When it comes to “Representation Matters” Raven has everything. Bisexuals, lesbians, disabilities, gender-identity questions, women of all shapes and colors and beliefs. And this is a comic book that, at least at my LCS, is found in the kids comic section. It’s family-friendly, honest, and sincere in its storytelling. Girls and grown women alike can find themselves in these pages. I’ve never read anything like it.
Unfortunately, Raven is in trouble. While this feminist series has a very loyal following, it’s a small one. And the numbers aren’t looking great. Jeremy wrote up the specifics on tumblr and it absolutely breaks my heart to see one of my favorite comics sinking because not enough people know about it. Which is why I’m writing this blog post. I want everyone to know how incredibly critical this comic is to little girls who need to know it’s okay to be who they are. To know that women can do and be all sorts of things. It’s an important reminder to those of us who are grown that we can still be strong and formidable in the face of adversity.
If the selection of pages I’ve posted hasn’t won you over, check out all the reviews and love being spouted for Raven on Jeremy’s tumblr and twitter. Those of us who have been fans since the beginning recognize the need for this comic to keep going.
So please, if you haven’t, read Raven the Pirate Princess. You can buy digital copies on Comixology and the physical volumes on Amazon. If you’ve already read Raven, buy copies for your friends. Get them hooked. Tell them to share with their friends. Share on social media. Share through word of mouth. Let’s just get the good word of Princeless out in the world. Everyone will be much better off with this comic book in their home.
I have lived in Austin, Texas for almost seven years now. Six of those years I have been going to my favorite local convention Staple: The Independent Media Expo. I love is so much that for the third year in a row, I’ll be volunteering at the show. If you haven’t heard of it and you’ll be in town on March 5th and 6th, come join us!
What is STAPLE?
STAPLE! is a quickly growing convention located in Austin, Texas that has been bringing the best of independently produced comics, zines, art, crafts, and games and more to local fans. This year, there will be over 150+ exhibitors of comics, zines, art, crafts, games and more! There are events and workshops and live podcast recordings throughout the day and live screen-printing of the annual STAPLE t-shirt.
Some of my past highlights: meeting Kevin Eastman, mastermind behind Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and interviewing Sean Wang, the creator of Runners. I’ve also met some other amazing artists like Kate Leth, E.K. Weaver, Jamie Kinosian, and so many more. Last year there was also a really stellar panel about queer diversity in the gaming industry with folks from my favorite Bioware. There is always great things happening at STAPLE! and this year is no different.
Who are the Guests this year?
There are some fantastic and talented creators coming out for this year’s STAPLE! Four time Eisner Award winner Gene Ha is the artist of books like Fables, Justice League, Cyclops & Phoenix, and Oktane. Emily Carroll is probably best known for her short stories collection Through the Woods and her gorgeous illustrations. C. Spike Trotman runs Iron Circus Comics, Chicago’s largest comics publisher, and puts out some pretty awesome Kickstarters. Danielle Corsetto is the creator of Girls With Slingshots and has written three Adventure Time graphic novels. These are just a few of the guests that will be showcasing at STAPLE! You can read up on who else will be there on STAPLE’s Guests page.
There will also be TONS of exhibitors showing off their work. You can find the whole list on STAPLE’s Exhibitors page.
STAPLE! Details
STAPLE! The Independent Media Expo
When: March 5-6, 2016
Where: Marchesa Hall and Theater, 6226 Middle Fiskville Rd, Austin, TX
Tickets: Sold at the Door
Interested in attending? Great! Here’s the scoop. On Friday (the 4th), there will be a pre-party out at Austin Books and Comics starting at 8pm. On Saturday, the expo officially opens at 11am and there will be workshops, tutorials, panels, interviews and more until they close down at 6pm. On Sunday, the show starts at 12pm and goes to 6 as well. And throughout the whole thing there are two rooms full of vendors for your to peruse to your heart’s content. The complete STAPLE! schedule can be found on their site.
Tickets aren’t sold online, so just head out and purchase them at the door. $10 for a day pass, $15 for both days. On Saturday only there is a Student/Military discount: two-day pass for $10 with valid student or military ID.
Join Us!
Can’t wait to see you there!
A little over a month ago I was in glorious San Diego with my fiance, drinking local beer and eating some of the largest portions of food I’ve ever had (like seriously, California you sure don’t know how to portion control – I thought Texas was bad). San Diego Comic Con has been a bucket list item of mine for EONS and finally, after years of trying, I managed to score both of us tickets. And it was everything we could have ever hoped for.
Comic Con Internation!
Jake and I at Comic Con!
I didn’t take as many pictures as I wanted – there was just too much to do and look at and I think most of the time I was just walking around with my eyes opened wide trying to take it all in at once (that’s what she said). I had actually hoped that maybe SDCC wouldn’t be as great as everyone says it is so I’d never want to go back, but sadly (happily), this was not the case and I am planning on going back next year because you can’t just go once. It’s like getting a tattoo – it’s now become an addiction. I need more SDCC in my life.
And because I already miss it so much (Was I really just there last month? It feels like a dream.), I am going through all the pictures I did manage to take and I’m living vicariously through Past Nikki and feeling all the feels again. Here. You can feel them with me.
One of my favorite traditionally-colored webcomics is Dawn Chapel by B. Root. Brian has a gift with watercolors, and I decide to ask him if he would be willing to do an interview with me. Dawn Chapel is a series of eloquently rendered short stories in comic-form. Each story consists of detailed panels and beautiful illustrations that could easily stand on their own. I strongly suggest going and reading some of Brian’s stories. My favorites are A Fine Day Out, Firefox has Crashed, and They Sit So Still.
Have Some Questions
When did you start drawing comics and what inspired you to?
I started doing The Dawn Chapel in October of 2009, but I’ve fooled around with comics a few times before then. I did a few comics for the university newspaper when I was in school, and attempted a webcomic called Rabicano about a year before my current one that I stalled out on as soon as I started.
I’ve been wanting to get started on a comic for something on the order of ten years now, and I had these big obnoxious plans about these awesome stories I wanted to tell and kept not ever getting started because I didn’t really feel like my art abilities were at the point where they’d do any justice to the stories; until finally I decided that the time when I was ‘good enough’ just wasn’t ever to come and I was wasting my life not doing this thing I wanted to do.
So with The Dawn Chapel I threw out any big stupid ambitious plans about epic, sweeping stories and just gave myself a homework assignment of one page a week, doing little short stories that I wouldn’t have to commit years of time to, and put the comic work itself first and foremost. I didn’t fuss over the web page layout (right now it’s still the barebones Comicpress theme, now that I’ve been at it for almost a year, I should probably take the time to do something with it) and used a domain name I’d registered for another project I meant to do and never got around to, and just started throwing comics at it.
There were a couple of specific things that gave me the boot in the pants to get started on the comic, though: one was a contest called the Sequential Endurance Competition, where all the participants were required to draw and post a page of comics every day, that I thought would be pretty good practice but then missed the entry deadline. The other was seeing my friend Beckey do her comic String Theory, which she started at around the same time I started Rabicano, but she actually stuck with her project and seeing her successes was hugely motivating to me.
Today’s Webcomic Wednesday is one from the FUEL archives – we’re going back in time for an interview with E.K. Weaver of The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal fame, a (more than epic & NSFW) comic about two guys who throw caution to the wind, and take off on a cross-country road trip. As the author puts it, “”This is the story of two dudes who drive from Berkeley to Providence, take multiple detours, smoke too much weed, eat terrible Chinese food, sleep in seedy motels, get kicked out of a Goodwill, contemplate fate versus chance, piss into the sunset, start a brawl in a Waffle House, and fall in love.”
On with the Interview!
What started you down the road of comics?
I wouldn’t really say I’m “on the road of comics”… maybe on a smaller frontage road, or in the bike lane. I’ve always liked drawing quick sequentials, but never really identified as a Comic Book Artist – partly because it’s not how I make a living; partly because I’m still a very green amateur. Honestly, what got me started working on a comic book was realizing the story I had in mind was best told in that medium. That’s it. I’ve come to love it, though – the craft of comics, I mean. Scripting, pacing, timing, layout. It still blows me away that when you make a comic, you manipulate time with art. How cool is that?
Who was your biggest inspiration in the field of comics or cartoons?
Oh gosh, um. There are so many amazing artists (many my age and younger) who are continually evolving inspirations, but if we’re going with the past tense, I’d have to say Al Hirschfeld and Kyle Baker.
I’ve always admired Hirschfeld’s knack for distilling a person’s likeness down to its essential forms – not just facial resemblance but style of motion and posture as well. He depicts someone’s essence clearly even while rendering it in impossible ways – placing the eyes below the mouth, say, or drawing tight spirals for eyes. Not only that, but watching the documentary The Line King and seeing how instead of just flinging out these effortless curves and perfectly placed lines (as I’d previously thought), that he took each drawing through a painstaking sketching and refining process… it was like a beam of light out of the blue. I saw that pouring effort and time into artwork showed dedication, not inability to “get it right the first time”. That artists aren’t gods but people who work really damn hard.
As for Kyle Baker: His comics showed me the importance of acting. Characters don’t just move through a scene, they live it – they act it. Just read the first 10 or 15 pages of I Die At Midnight and you’ll see what I mean. His work is incredibly cinematic. Also, Baker’s books Why I Hate Saturn and Undercover Genie – and more recently, How to Draw Stupid – have been huge inspirations. There’s a LOT of Saturn influence in TJ and Amal – building characters through conversation and facial expression, setting the story in its place and period rather than trying to make it ‘timeless’, telling the story in ordered vignettes rather than one continuous arc…
What were some early creations – and what do you think of them now?
Comics-wise? I don’t really have much to speak of. Most of my creative projects before TJ and Amal were commercial illustration and design, or fandom stuff I did just for fun. Nothing I could call a truly original creation.
What is your favorite medium to work with?
Plain old mechanical pencil.
Regarding your process of creating a finished panel, what is your favorite part? Sketching, lineart, or the color?
Probably the first passes in pencil and ink. That’s when things really start to solidify, and when the emotion starts to show clearly. It gets me pretty pumped to see everything finally taking shape.
How long does it take you to create a final, fully-detailed comic?
We’ll find out. Three years, at least. *haha* A single page takes between 6 and 15 hours, and a 10-page segment usually will take between 3 and 6 weeks. (I have a day job, so comicking happens on weekends and at night. )
Who is your favorite – TJ or Amal?
I can honestly say I do not favor one over the other. Amal’s easier for me to relate to, but TJ’s dialogue is much easier to write.
If TJ and Amal were stranded in a rainforest, do you think they’d survive? (And who would crack first?)
Probably. TJ’s appetite might have him end up eating some nasty mushroom, though. (Amal would crack first, just because of all the bugs.)
Annnndddd…. What is your favorite webcomic?
Oh man, that’s like setting me loose in a cheesemonger’s and telling me I can only pick one! Erm, so I won’t.
For strips, probably either Nedroid, Hark! A Vagrant, Girls With Slingshots, or Something Positive. I’ve been following those last two for a long time. Long-form webcomics I like include Hanna is not a Boy’s Name, Templar, AZ, The Meek, Octopus Pie… I don’t think I can go on without leaving someone important out, but there are way more than this! There’s so much love, enthusiasm, and talent out there in the webcomics world. It’s really exciting.
You can find more about E.K. Weaver and her art here:
Nikki is an illustrator, designer, and geeky gamer living on the gulf coast of sunny Florida.
