Upcoming Appearances: Comic Book Club Live

I'll be a guest on Comic Book Club Live on August 7th at Fontana's in NYC, along with my fellow MonkeyBrain Comics creator Adam P. Knave (Amelia Cole)!  If you're in the area, stop on by.

Sneak Peek: October Girl #2 final cover...

Here's a look at the cover to next month's October Girl #2.

Interview: Why I Love Comics #93

Did a long interview with my friend Eric Ratcliffe for his Why I Love Comics podcast.  It was a lot of fun and we covered a lot of ground from Starman to October Girl and MonkeyBrain Comics.

Here's a link to the episode - Why I Love Comics #93.

Work In Progress: October Girl, Chapter Two cover lineart...

A sneak peek at the black & white lineart for the next October Girl cover.  They'll be unveiling the colored version at the MonkeyBrain Comics panel at SDCC later this week.  Couldn't make it this year because of my workload, but if you're going to the show, make sure to stop by the MonkeyBrain panel to get the inside scoop on even more of their upcoming projects.

And here's a pre-SDCC peek at a tiny part of the final piece...

Happy Independents Day!

Celebrating the 4th of July at the art table, but I was thrilled to learn that October Girl #1 hit the top 45 best selling $.99 comics chart at Comixoloxy today!  In fact, the entire first wave of MonkeyBrain Comics issues hit the top 45 charts in their various price points.

Huge thanks to everyone who picked up the first issue and to the amazing crew at MonkeyBrain.

Work In Progress: October Girl #2 Cover Concept...

Absolutely overwhelmed by the amazing response to the launch of MonkeyBrain Comics and my new book for them, "The October Girl".  Thanks so much for all the kind words, and I hope you'll all check out the first issue on Comixology.

Already putting together the second chapter, and I'll be posting sneak peeks at some of the art as we go along.

First up, a look at the concept sketch for the cover to chapter two!

Coming Soon: The October Girl, Chapter One... (UPDATED)

And here it is, my first project for Monkey Brain Comics... a 120-page graphic novel called "The October Girl", written and drawn by myself.  I'm serializing it in 10 page chapters, a new chapter each month.  Here's the blurb for the first 'issue' --

THE OCTOBER GIRL, Chapter One
Autumn Ackerman has always known she was a little different, but she has no idea just how different she really is. 18 years old and with no hope for a future beyond working behind the counter at her small town’s coffee shop, Autumn is about to discover that everything she thinks she knows about the world is wrong. The first chapter of a brand new dark fantasy story for teens and adults by critically acclaimed artist and writer Matthew Dow Smith (Doctor Who, Witchblade).

Chapter One goes on sale this Wednesday, July 4th now.  Only 99 cents, and only available through Comixology.

For coverage of the Monkey Brain Comics launch and a sneak peek at the first wave of books, including "The October Girl", click here.


And for the full preview of chapter one of "The October Girl", click here.


UPDATE: With #monkeybrain trending on Twitter, MonkeyBrain Comics and Comixology decided to launch the first wave of MonkeyBrain issues two days early!  So, yeah... they're on sale now, including the first issue of "The October Girl"!

Toys & Corners: Some Thoughts, Part Eight...

(This is the long overdue final installment in a long, rambling series of posts outlining my thoughts on comics, my career, and where I'm heading next.  You can read the previous installments here -- part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six, part seven.)

I'm thrilled whenever someone offers me a comic book job.  Sometimes I'm excited because the job will give me a certain amount of security (which, if I'm honest, is never quite enough security when you're a freelance artist or writer), and sometimes it's because the project really excites me creatively.

And you can always tell which way I'm excited about a new gig by who it is that I want to tell first -- my parents or my best friend, Dan.

If it's the security thing, I call my parents, who are the only people who worry about my financial well being more than I do, and are usually relieved to just know that I have a job, any job.  And if the project is something that really excites me creatively, it's Dan, an excellent writer in his own right who somehow managed to be born with the other half of my brain despite his birth taking place a couple of years before mine and on the complete other side of the country.

(You think YOU have it bad slogging your way through all of these thoughts?  Dan's had to listen to me kick them back and forth endlessly over the course of the last seven years.  A feat of such great friendship that it deserves countless plugs for his own creative endeavors -- like his brand new novel, BREAK MY HEART 1000 TIMES.  I got an advance copy.  It's good.  Real good.  Seriously.  Comes out in October.  Go buy it.  Daniel Waters.  Hyperion Press.  Oh, look... here it is up for pre-order on Amazon.)

But when Chris Roberson asked if I'd be interested in doing something through a new digital comic book company he was putting together called Monkey Brain Comics, I didn't know who I wanted to tell first...

Mom and Dad, or Dan?

As I worked out the details with Chris and his partner, Allison Baker, it got even harder to decide.  Was there the security of something regular?  Yep.  As regular as I wanted it to be.  Monthly, weekly, anything I liked.  And was I going to have the opportunity to tell the story I wanted to tell, the way I wanted to tell it?  Most definitely.  I was so overwhelmed with the creative freedom they were willing to give me that I pitched them on a whole bunch of things I wanted to do.  Their response? 

"Sounds cool.  Go for it."

Of course, all of this was Top Secret, in big, GIANT letters, so who I wanted to tell first was pretty much a moot point.  Everything about the deal was under a cone of silence until Chris and Allison were ready to make the big announcement.

(I did tell my parents, though.  Sorry.  You have to tell your parents when something like this comes along or you have to turn in your family membership card, or at least, suffer the withering glares you receive at the next holiday dinner.  Parents don't like to find things out about your life from your Twitter feed or your blog.  Trust me on that one.)

But the point is, I wanted to tell my parents AND Dan, and right away.

When I turned 40, I celebrated that uncomfortable milestone by using Kickstarter to fund work on my first novel, NIGHT FOLK.  That story was one of three ideas (four if you count Johnny Chaos which came a little bit later) that I'd been carrying around in my head since the day I started in comics.  Work on NIGHT FOLK has taken a lot longer than I had planned, partly because the middle bit needed some major revisions, but mostly, if I'm honest, because of the weird, unpredictable life of a freelance comic book artist.

The hardest thing for a freelancer to do is to say, 'no'.  When someone offers you work, you just HAVE to take it, because if you don't, you might not be eating that month.  Or if you ARE eating, your menu options run exclusively to which kind of Ramen noodles would you prefer -- chicken or beef?

The second hardest thing for a freelancer to do is to say, 'I don't care what you think'.  As a comic book creator, your career lives or dies by what other people think -- editors, reviewers, fans, and the higher ups who decide whether a comic book should continue or if somebody should pull the plug.  You need to keep these people happy, because these are the people who keep you working.

But in my case, 'I don't care what you think' translates roughly to 'I don't care if what I'm doing fits in with what you or anyone else thinks a comic book should be'.

And that's been nearly impossible for me to say.

If you've been following this series of posts you'll know how much I've struggled to fit in with what was going on in the rest of the mainstream comic book world over the last 18 years, whether it was trying to make my art 'slicker' and more 'superhero-y' or pitching stories that were closer to what I thought other people wanted instead of the stories I wanted to tell.

But now, with digital comics (as with their digital predecessor, webcomics), creators like me have a chance to do the kind of work we feel compelled to do, whether it fits in with what Marvel, DC, or even Image are doing.

Nothing fundamentally wrong with those companies or the kinds of comics the produce, mind you, but the stories I have to tell are definitely outside of the boxes they've established for themselves.

And now, after all this time, I've finally learned to say, that's just fine.

I've never regretted trying to fit in with the crazy, fun, vibrant world of mainstream comics.  Gotten frustrated, sure.  And definitely dissatisfied with the work I was producing from time to time.  But I've never regretted trying, and I'd like to think I've never been bitter about not quite succeeding at fitting in.

But I have to admit I've been jealous of other creators, the ones who stuck to their guns and produced the work the way they wanted to.  The Michael Gaydoses and the Ashley Woods, the Teddy Kristiansens and Mike Mignolas.  They make comics that no one could make but them, who found their own path and stuck with it.  That's the kind of work I like to read, and it's the kind of work I've always wished I had the courage to do.

My experience working on NIGHT FOLK and writing those WHO stories for IDW and BPE in the UK finally gave me the courage to say, "I'm doing something I really like here and I want to do more stuff like it".  But as I've outlined over WAY too many posts, the more I thought about it, the more I realized the only way I was going to be able to do that is if I took a break from mainstream, work for hire comics.

And so here I am, taking a break from mainstream, work for hire comics.

Am I done with work for hire comics?  Not quite yet and I doubt 'done' forever.  I still have a digital comic book project with my friend Ron Marz to wrap up for Amazon, and as we speak, I'm finishing work on my last Doctor Who story (written by one of my childhood comic book idols, Len Wein, which seemed kind of fitting for my last WHO story, to me, at least).  And I'd sure like to think I'm not completely done with the Doctor, either.  There are still some things I'd like to say with the character if I ever get the chance, but yes, these are the last work for hire assignments I'll be taking, at least for a while.

Every work for hire comic book is a compromise in one way or another, creatively.  And believe me, it's good to compromise sometimes.  There are few things more fun than collaborating with a good writer or a good artist when you're making something as intricate and complicated as a comic book.  And more often than not, that collaboration leads to a MUCH better book.

But there's something to be said for doing it all yourself, too.  Compromise is fine and good, but it can also be good NOT to compromise sometimes.

If digital comics offer me the opportunity to tell stories in my own idiosyncratic way, then Monkey Brain Comics offers me a way to get those stories to the marketplace with a bigger splash than I could make on my own.

Comics is a business, after all.  I do want to sell books.  I just want to try making those books in my own weird way for a little while and see what happens.

That means it's time to take my toys into a corner and see what I can come up with.  But thanks to Chris and Allison, and the other talented creators they've lined up for Monkey Brain, I don't have to sit in the corner alone.

NEXT TIME: You'll be relieved to hear there is no 'next time'.  Yep.  The long ramble is over, though I do plan to share some more thoughts about digital comics, the industry in general, and my career in specific, over the coming months.  But I promise to be slightly less long-winded about it.  If that's at all possible.  But I'll try.  I'll really, really try.

On The Nightstand

LISTEN TO THE ECHOES: THE RAY BRADBURY INTERVIEWS

by Sam Weller

Thanks to so many secret projects, it's been a while since I've talked about what I'm reading.  But if I was going to do another one of these posts, it seems appropriate that it would be a collection of interviews with Ray Bradbury.

It's no secret that I'm a card-carrying member of the Ray Bradbury fan club, and in my personal pantheon of creative gods, he sits on the highest throne, flanked by Douglas Adams and Kim Newman.

(F. Paul Wilson, Aaron Sorkin, and Steven Moffatt are all there, as well.  In funny hats.  And when I really let my imagination run wild, I like to think Paul's hat has wings on it.  Just 'cause it amuses me.)

I expected to be deeply saddened by Bradbury's recent passing, but I have to admit my initial reaction wasn't so much a feeling of loss, but an enormous gratitude that he had walked among us for any period of time, and for the incredible amount of stunning work he left behind.

We say things like, "I wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't for (random name of an author or artist or filmmaker or whatever)" way too much, and the well-meaning intention of that phrase has gotten a bit muddied.  But I can honestly say that I certainly wouldn't have written a single word of prose or comics if not for Ray Bradbury.

I rediscovered him in college and tore through every book he'd written that I could get my hands on.  In those thousands of pages I found a way to look at the world that resonated with me, encouraging us all to be better, more wide-eyed, more joyful people.

The collection of interviews here (conducted by his biographer, Sam Weller, over the course of nearly a decade) show a vibrant, ridiculously creative, and touchingly all too human man.

If you're a fan of Bradbury or writing in general, I can't recommend it enough.

Monkey Brain Comics promo...

A teaser image I made to help my friends Chris Roberson and Allison Baker promote their mysterious new venture, Monkey Brain Comics.