Literature
Webcomics and my inspirations
Tue May 25 2010
Still recovering from a fantastic weekend at the first Hugo House Writing Conference, Finding Your Readers in the 21st Century. There was a great Wacom Intuos4 Small Pen Tablet
with Photoshop. I didn’t have the benefit of a teacher or guide when I started, but now there is one that I highly recommend: The DC Comics Guide to Digitally Drawing Comics
.Artistically, my first, best inspiration was the late great Will Eisner. Although I loved his work in The Spirit
but it was his Contract with God Trilogy
that really got to me. Fantastic writer, fantastic artist and he could tell a deep resonate story with some funny squiggles.Many great graphic novels have come after this early genius. BTW, I got asked this a bit afterwards so if you're looking for a comic to give to non-comic people, I've had a lot of success sharing Persepolis
or Craig Thompson's Blankets
. Speaking of Craig Thompson's work, don't miss his gorgeous travelogue, Carnet De Voyage
. For younger readers, check out Girl Genius
.So how does one adapt a gritty crime drama in a webcomic? My inspirations there were none other than the work of Frank Miller’s gritty take on super heroes, especially Batman: Year One
and Daredevil: Born Again
.My other inspiration, Greg Rucka, who started out writing mysteries
but then graduated to mystery comics, like Whiteout
and his homage to the old spy show, Sandbaggers - Queen & Country
. BTW, I highly recommend Greg Rucka's take on Batwoman
.How do I write with a female lead? Well, after reading Terry Moore'sStrangers In Paradise
, I was inspired. So much so that I have an original drawing of Katchoo in my upstairs hallway.I know my artwork leaves something to be desired. If I had 3 wishes, one of them would be able to draw like Andi Watson. I find his stuff to be brilliant pieces of simple beauty. My favorites of his are Geisha
, Dumped
and Princess At Midnight.That’s all for now, but I’ve got a few more inspirations and recommended reading posts somewhere in my head waiting to be typed out.
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News and stuff
Sun May 09 2010
Lo, I have been busy. I have lots of good excuses why Chapter 20 isn’t done yet. Honest.
First, I’m putting my talk together for Hugo House’s first writing conference, Finding Your Readers in the 21st Century. I’ll speaking on Saturday, May 22nd on “Publishing on the Web” with Rebecca Agiewich. For those of you who don’t know, Rebecca Agiewich had a fantastic blog called the Breakup Babe that she successfully turned into a novel. I got to meet her the other week to plan our session and her tale was quite interesting. Ironically, she was one of the bloggers I used to read back in 2002 when I was first creating the Heidi character.
Second, I just re-drew the first scene of Heidi book one. I got tired of my worst art being the first thing people saw when they were introduced to Heidi. In time, I think I will slowly re-illustrate most of book one, polishing some of the words along the way. Shoutout to @hypatiadotca for spotting my typo. I manually redid the text instead of copying it from the originals, so at least one mistake was made. As always, if you spot typos, drop me an email or a tweet and let me know.
Lastly, I am actually working on Chapter 20. It’s about half illustrated in roughs and should be done soon.
First, I’m putting my talk together for Hugo House’s first writing conference, Finding Your Readers in the 21st Century. I’ll speaking on Saturday, May 22nd on “Publishing on the Web” with Rebecca Agiewich. For those of you who don’t know, Rebecca Agiewich had a fantastic blog called the Breakup Babe that she successfully turned into a novel. I got to meet her the other week to plan our session and her tale was quite interesting. Ironically, she was one of the bloggers I used to read back in 2002 when I was first creating the Heidi character.
Second, I just re-drew the first scene of Heidi book one. I got tired of my worst art being the first thing people saw when they were introduced to Heidi. In time, I think I will slowly re-illustrate most of book one, polishing some of the words along the way. Shoutout to @hypatiadotca for spotting my typo. I manually redid the text instead of copying it from the originals, so at least one mistake was made. As always, if you spot typos, drop me an email or a tweet and let me know.
Lastly, I am actually working on Chapter 20. It’s about half illustrated in roughs and should be done soon.
Origin story
Tue Nov 25 2008
I need to tell an additional Heidi story. Luckily, I had the very thing in mind.
As a writer, I was very interested in telling the story of the process of "hard boiling" the private detective. It also gives me a chance to make Heidi more like us... emotional, careless, fallible and very human. The current Heidi web-graphic novels chronicle Heidi's "origin story" and how she becomes the fully capable private eye that you've come to expect in detective fiction. However, I've also been itching to tell some stories showing Heidi as the full fledged detective. Well, I'm doing it. I've got a Heidi short that's been sitting in draft form that I've been dying to illustrate. But I've also decided to design and release it as a paper comic. A bit about what I mean by that.
When I first conceived of Heidi as a web comic, I didn't want to take a comic strip and whap into a web page. Having to read a comic from left to right in a series of little frames seemed stupid. Why retrofit an old medium into a new one? So, inspired by Scott McCloud's infinite canvas, the web comic layout goes down, taking a decent portion of the screen with no clutter. If you hadn't noticed, clicking on an image automatically advances you to the next frame. So basically, I made it as easy to read as possible, with nothing in the way. It's also why I haven't released any of the web comic in graphic novel form. I'd have to rethink my layout and design from scratch. Tough work for a kid who raised on Will Eisner and aspires to his fantastic use of the page. So, this new story will be designed for paper... and not for the web.
To make it all the more interesting and inspiring to me, I will be returning to Heidi's birthplace to finish this story. On December 6th, I'll be working on the story at the Richard Hugo House Write-O-Rama, a writing marathon to raise funding for the literary arts center.
So, get ready for a new Heidi short story, Tr0jan. One set in current times. If you check the Heidi timeline, you can see it's already been accounted for in the plan.
Now, the best way to encourage me to finish and publish is to sponsor me in Write-O-Rama. All you gotta do is hit the link and pony up whatever you like. Under "Designation" type "Write-O-Rama" and under "Dedication" type in "Planet Heidi". All proceeds go to the Richard Hugo House.
As a writer, I was very interested in telling the story of the process of "hard boiling" the private detective. It also gives me a chance to make Heidi more like us... emotional, careless, fallible and very human. The current Heidi web-graphic novels chronicle Heidi's "origin story" and how she becomes the fully capable private eye that you've come to expect in detective fiction. However, I've also been itching to tell some stories showing Heidi as the full fledged detective. Well, I'm doing it. I've got a Heidi short that's been sitting in draft form that I've been dying to illustrate. But I've also decided to design and release it as a paper comic. A bit about what I mean by that.
When I first conceived of Heidi as a web comic, I didn't want to take a comic strip and whap into a web page. Having to read a comic from left to right in a series of little frames seemed stupid. Why retrofit an old medium into a new one? So, inspired by Scott McCloud's infinite canvas, the web comic layout goes down, taking a decent portion of the screen with no clutter. If you hadn't noticed, clicking on an image automatically advances you to the next frame. So basically, I made it as easy to read as possible, with nothing in the way. It's also why I haven't released any of the web comic in graphic novel form. I'd have to rethink my layout and design from scratch. Tough work for a kid who raised on Will Eisner and aspires to his fantastic use of the page. So, this new story will be designed for paper... and not for the web.
To make it all the more interesting and inspiring to me, I will be returning to Heidi's birthplace to finish this story. On December 6th, I'll be working on the story at the Richard Hugo House Write-O-Rama, a writing marathon to raise funding for the literary arts center.
So, get ready for a new Heidi short story, Tr0jan. One set in current times. If you check the Heidi timeline, you can see it's already been accounted for in the plan.
Now, the best way to encourage me to finish and publish is to sponsor me in Write-O-Rama. All you gotta do is hit the link and pony up whatever you like. Under "Designation" type "Write-O-Rama" and under "Dedication" type in "Planet Heidi". All proceeds go to the Richard Hugo House.
Shout outs
Thu Jul 13 2006
Special thank you to the GirlieGeeks. Heidi is proud to be an affiliate of your site. It just so happened that today's scene includes a moment where Heidi has to surf the web, so I took the opportunity for a little shout out. It's a geek thing, baby.
I hope you all enjoyed the double-postings during last chapter's Scavenger Hunt. I was pretty beat doing all twice as much artwork. That said, I'm trying to pick up the pace in getting more updates out sooner. I know as the book hits the third act, the suspense is ratched up (as my teacher taught me to do). With this, I know the demand for more updates will also ratchet up. Sorry, when I wrote the thing, it was intended to be a paper novel... y'know, a page-turner. Now you gotta suffer with the waiting. Sorry.
At some point as we near the end, I'm going to consider putting up the novel version of the story... probably self-published and available at a marginal cost. The book is slightly different than the comic, but 95% the same as the comic. And of course, you can read it faster. If you think this might be of interest, shoot me an email and lemme know. I'm still weighing the possibilities. Here's a sample.
How many people noticed to the new font? I hope it makes things easier to read while still retaining the overall "Heidi" look to her thoughts and words. Font nerds will let you know the old font was Blambot's Chronicles of a Hero, and yeah, I loved the name. The new one is Blambot Pro and it was worth every penny.
Thanks again and keep an eye around you. And remember, Heidi is everywhere.
Prison
Fri Feb 17 2006
I went to prison as a visiting author. It was pretty moving experience, so I was compelled to write an essay on the experience.
Prison essay