I was fretting on Farcebox about a script growing to more pages than intended – more for the sake of getting readers curious about it than anything else – when Robert Triptow (second editor of Gay Comix, among other things) offered to look at it and see what he could recommend to trim it down.
Suppressing my reflexive resistance to anyone meddling in my creative process and telling me what to do, I took him up on it and sent him a copy of the script. He couldn't see a way to shorten it, except by leaving out the epilogue sex scene. My favorite part of his response was "I looked at your script and didn't think it could be improved."
But clearly he read it again, because he then suggested some changes to how he would tell the story, with different emphasis, such as moving a panel to before/after a page break to change the pacing. I'm not going to take his edits wholesale, but I'm going to see what I can incorporate without breaking the way the story was working in my head.
I just got a gig doing 10 pages of coloring for a publisher who posted the gig on Facebook. I sent him a PDF of Smiling Damned (thanks @JasonFranks !), and apparently he liked the look of it. I'm being hired as part of a larger rush job, which he's farming out to as many people as he can, to get it done in a couple weeks. The coloring he's looking for is pretty generic and not too complicated, so that might work. It's some kind of superhero thing called "Captain China". The publisher is Asian-Floridian, and as far as I can tell it isn't overtly political. And from my perspective: $250 is $250. He says there will be more work to do if he likes what I turn in. "Fortunately" my day job is closed (without pay) until the new year, so I shouldn't have any trouble finding time for this.
Nice one, @JasonAQuest! You did excellent work for Smiling Damned and I'm glad it's gained you another gig. I'd like to do another issue next year but I don't have any stories stockpiled the way I did this year (I have scripts but no art). I'll definitely hit you up again for colours if I can get it happening.
Looking at the material for this assignment – a sequence of 10 pages, with some samples of previously done pages to use as color reference – I find myself in the ironic position of having to break one of my Rules For Coloring People: "Don't make everyone the same color, even if they're the same race." Not only is it a reflection of reality and also Politically Correct, it helps the reader tell characters apart even in close-ups. But every character in their samples (some European, some Asian) is the same color. Except for the monster, which is White (the color, not the race). Oh well. I'll color it to specifications. It don't get much more Work For Hire than this, I s'pose.
It's that time of year, when Jason strives in vain for the respect of his peers. No, I'm not talking about the Queers & Comics conference; that's only odd-numbered years. I'm talking about Prism Comics' grant and awards, which are annual.
They have an annual Queer Press Grant of up to $2000, which I've applied for three times before. I decided not to bother applying again, because really nothing has changed much in my work or my financial circumstances (the two main criteria), so there's no reason to think I'd fare any better by doing it again. But shortly before this year's deadline, the chair of the committee posted that they hadn't gotten as many applicants as they were expecting and extended the deadline by several days, so I dusted off my last application, updated it, and submitted it. Maybe I'll get it by default.
A new thing they did last year was the Prism Comics Awards, which has no money attached, just prestige. It's a self-nomination thing, so I did, in the "web comic" category. Not only did I not win, that category had fewer "finalists" than the others (and I wasn't one of them). So apparently I wasn't even close. But now they're accepting nominations again. The awards are based on the year of publication, but for the first 8 months of last year I was posting illustrated prose, so the only material I can submit this time would be the 30 pages of comics I posted at the end of the year. Not a very strong entry. But you can't lose if you don't enter, so I'm entering.
Comments
Suppressing my reflexive resistance to anyone meddling in my creative process and telling me what to do, I took him up on it and sent him a copy of the script. He couldn't see a way to shorten it, except by leaving out the epilogue sex scene. My favorite part of his response was "I looked at your script and didn't think it could be improved."
But clearly he read it again, because he then suggested some changes to how he would tell the story, with different emphasis, such as moving a panel to before/after a page break to change the pacing. I'm not going to take his edits wholesale, but I'm going to see what I can incorporate without breaking the way the story was working in my head.
Looking at the material for this assignment – a sequence of 10 pages, with some samples of previously done pages to use as color reference – I find myself in the ironic position of having to break one of my Rules For Coloring People: "Don't make everyone the same color, even if they're the same race." Not only is it a reflection of reality and also Politically Correct, it helps the reader tell characters apart even in close-ups. But every character in their samples (some European, some Asian) is the same color. Except for the monster, which is White (the color, not the race). Oh well. I'll color it to specifications. It don't get much more Work For Hire than this, I s'pose.
And congrats on the colouring gig!
They have an annual Queer Press Grant of up to $2000, which I've applied for three times before. I decided not to bother applying again, because really nothing has changed much in my work or my financial circumstances (the two main criteria), so there's no reason to think I'd fare any better by doing it again. But shortly before this year's deadline, the chair of the committee posted that they hadn't gotten as many applicants as they were expecting and extended the deadline by several days, so I dusted off my last application, updated it, and submitted it. Maybe I'll get it by default.
A new thing they did last year was the Prism Comics Awards, which has no money attached, just prestige. It's a self-nomination thing, so I did, in the "web comic" category. Not only did I not win, that category had fewer "finalists" than the others (and I wasn't one of them). So apparently I wasn't even close. But now they're accepting nominations again. The awards are based on the year of publication, but for the first 8 months of last year I was posting illustrated prose, so the only material I can submit this time would be the 30 pages of comics I posted at the end of the year. Not a very strong entry. But you can't lose if you don't enter, so I'm entering.