| Sleeper hit? |
[Apr. 28th, 2008|09:02 pm] |
Oh where to start? How about "best convention ever?" So much has happened in the last two days. I want to tell you everything, but I'll just try and hit the highlights so as not to lose you before my big news. Rest assured, it's worth it.
The crew from Cloudscape (our Vancouver comics collective) drove down to Portland in two cars. In attendance were ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) japanese_cowboy, spikecomix, mothos, and Severine. Many wacky hijinks took place. The convention was great- lots of truly amazing comics, lots of people I knew of or had met on the internet, and so on.
Stumptown is a really great convention. I've decided to continue my embargo on name-dropping because I don't want to sound stuck-up or like a drooling fan-boy or leave people off of my list. Suffice it to say I met artists I admired, found out in some cases that the feelings are reciprocal, and walked away with stronger friendships, new people to keep in touch with, and lots of awesome books. I said once before that conventions are if nothing else a great way to get a sense of how you truly fit into the industry. I fit a lot better now than I did two Stumptowns ago (the only other time I've gone). I'm still a minor player, but ain't nothing wrong with that. I'm a player.
But now for the big news. For this I'll have to name drop, but I think he'd be okay with this so here goes.
Scott McCloud was two or three tables down from me at the convention. After waiting for a while I chose my moment and went over to show him a copy of Lords of Death and Life. I'd met him once before at a book signing in Vancouver last year so though he didn't recognize me on sight he did know who I was. I hoped that, since my book was somewhat inspired by Understanding Comics, he might think it was kind of neat. More than that, he thought it was brilliant. He flipped though it, lavishing compliments on it, making comparisons to the web version of the comic which he has obviously read, and then turned to the growing queue at his table, stretched out the accordion fold and said, "Look, everybody! If you're going to do a comic based on Pre-Columbian picture books, this is how you do it!" He then proceeded to spend the next day and a half showing off my book to everybody who came to his table and pointing out where my table was.
Needless to say, I sold out of the fifteen copies I'd managed to cobble together before the convention. I sold my second last copy to a girl with Mayan ancestry and my demonstration copy to a friend of hers. People talk about how indy conventions often have a "sleeper hit" that by the end of the convention everyone is talking about. I... I think I may have been that sleeper hit.
Oh there's more I could tell you. There was the little girl (about four years old?) who thought the life-sized cardboard cut-out of Connie Sakura I had at my table was the coolest thing ever and kept trying to have conversations with her ("why is she so bored???" said she) There was the wallet my friends and I managed to return to its rightful owner after she left it on a streetcar seat, there were the suprising number of people who thought they'd probably heard about Fablewood... I can't even tell you the best thing that happened at the convention (What? Better than Scott McCloud's shout-out?!?) but chickens that aren't hatched, you know. Stay tuned!
P.S. If you're reading this and you already know my secret better-than-shout-out news, Shhhhhhh!! ;-) |
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| So close and yet so very far. |
[Apr. 22nd, 2008|10:01 pm] |
Twelve dollars worth of ink? Half an hour to 45 minutes assembly time? Two dollars worth of tape??? It's becoming increasingly clear that my ideal method for printing Lords of Death and Life is just not on. This thing just isn't going to happen, especially with less than three days left before I head out to Portland.
I will have a couple of copies with me you can flip through if you're coming to the convention but that's it. Sorry. That, and plenty of copies of A Mad Tea-Party. When I get back home after I'll have to really pound the pavement in search of a cheaper printing method. The lovely accordion fold might need to be sacrificed. Heck, I'll print the thing with Ka-Blam if it comes to that.
It's such a shame too. It looks so nice in print! I mean I'm not trying to sound smug. Most of these pages I have only just printed out on paper for the first time. Ohhh the colours! They came out better than I'd hoped! I so wanted to take this thing with me to Stumptown.
I don't know how I can afford now to do a print run of LODAL though. I blew my budget and then some making the dozen copies I have sitting in pieces on my kitchen table. Crap. |
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| Xicalango revisited |
[Apr. 19th, 2008|12:08 am] |
I posted recently that I had the wrong location for Xicalango in Lords of Death and Life. Well, it turns out the truth is more complex than that!
When I was first doing the research for this comic a year and a half ago I swear there was next to nothing available by googling "Xicalango." Now there's some good material- though my name comes up repeatedly on the search. ;-D It seems there's quite a bit of archaeological disagreement on where exactly this city was located. Everyone's sure it was there- all the Aztec and Mayan sources make reference to it, Cortez's translator was born there, and there are descriptions of its Mexica quarter, legal status with regards to the Empire, importance for trade, wealth of caocao production, lighthouse, slave trade (Cortez's translator), religious pilgrimages, and the ethnic group that lived there. Everyone knows it was on the peninsula at the westernmost edge of the Terminos Lagoon. But it seems that so far that's all we know.
There is a website that claims to have Xicalango's location, based on the discovery of some temple mounds and (possible) fortifications in the region. But the whole area is covered with artifacts and the rainy swampy terrain makes archeology very difficult. Another source suggests the city has been inundated by the lagoon- a reasonable assumption, as the entire peninsula seems to be sinking and Xicalango would have had to be on or near the coast five hundred years ago. Yet another site just says that no one has found it yet.
So. The upshot of all this is that due to academic squabbles and the unfinished work of Mesoamerican archeology, I'm well in the clear for making the city look like anything I want it too. If I want to give Xicalango an impractical improbable seven-story lighthouse I can! Jonathon one, historical nit-pickiness zero! Ha! |
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| I don't even have time to blog properly! |
[Apr. 13th, 2008|09:21 pm] |
I am still so very very busy. And tired. But I did just finish my revisions on Lords of Death and Life. I just made a few minor changes. You probably won't even notice. But there were things that were bugging me that I wanted to fix. Next I have to do the cover, the filler pages at front and back, lay the whole thing out, print the whole thing out, print a bunch more copies of A Mad Tea-Party #1, and get a few other little things ready before Stumptown on the 26th. All while teaching full time.
And I still need to do my taxes this month. Crap. |
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| Lords of Death and Life, 1492-2008. |
[Apr. 5th, 2008|06:20 pm] |
Seven years ago I came up with an idea for a webcomic that would showcase everything I loved about Mesoamerican art and culture. After two false starts, a pile of used up markers, and plenty of blood, sweat, and tears, Lords of Death and Life is now complete.
Well, nearly. I want to go back now and fix up a bunch of panels that are bothering me. And I have to figure out how to print the bloody thing in time for Stumptown. But it's online right now and you can read it, beginning to end.
Whatever else I've said about this comic let it be known that I'm glad it's now out of my head and down on paper for everybody to read. I trust the last seven years have not been a waste of time. I learned an awful lot about comics and an awful lot about the Maya and ended up with a passable finished book.
Heh. As a final irony, though, I was on Google Earth the other day and I discovered that the site where Xicalango once stood is now marked on the map with a little sticky note. The note wasn't there when I started the comic and it turns out I guessed the wrong spot on the Laguna de Terminos! The real site is about ten kilometres further down the coast, with a sandy beach instead of the swampy lagoon I put at the edge of my fictional city. On Google Earth you can even see a square patch where the ruins are- I assume this is the central temple complex- and it's much smaller than the one I drew. I still have yet to find a single book or online source that describes Xicalango apart from it having a lighthouse, being a trade port with a high Mexica population, having lots of caocao plantations, and being the birthplace of Cortez's translator during his invasion of Mexico. I've never seen a single map or picture of the ruins. And I looked pretty hard.
Well, I did my best. Historical fiction is tough. Now I feel like writing some sci-fi. *rubs hands together in anticipation* |
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| Making books |
[Apr. 2nd, 2008|04:57 pm] |
So I'm thinking about how best to print Lords of Death and Life. And I'm concerned that getting it printed by someone else might be too expensive. Would anyone be willing to pay $25 for a nice-looking 50+ page colour copy of LODAL? Because based on a couple of quotes for other people's books I've heard recently, it could well cost $20 a copy for me to get them printed. That's way too much, isn't it?
The alternative of course is to print them myself with my laser printer. This is why I have a laser printer. It would be significantly cheaper to do this. The finished books might cost around $10. The problem with doing it myself is that I'm then faced with the choice of either abandoning my idea to print it as an accordian book (with zig-zagging pages the way an actual Mesoamerican book would be made) and just doing a regular book with a stapled spine, or coming up with some way to assemble pages in an accordian fashion. The best idea I have for that involves book tape (cloth-bound archival tape, the kind they use to make the spines of some books). But I don't yet have a practical way to approach the problem. I do plan on experimenting a bit.
So internet friends, what are your opinions? And P.S., do you know where I might find book tape I can buy? |
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| Sage Comics! |
[Mar. 23rd, 2008|12:32 pm] |
Today's update means I'm only one page away from finishing Lords of Death and Life!
In other news, you may have noticed a new linky thing in the top corner of my website. That's there as part of my membership in the new Sage Comics collective. It's a pretty talented bunch. You should read some of their comics (so should I- I've only had the time to read a couple so far). Right now the site is just a link exchange and forum, but there's more content on the way. |
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| Wait, what's this? |
[Mar. 16th, 2008|03:10 pm] |
Oooh. It's an update. I've heard of those.
P.S. Yesterday was awesome. Good news through the email, hanging out with friends, drawing comics, volunteering in the community, shopping, eating sona banana and delicious sashimi... Good times. I gotta go though, I have a ferry to catch. |
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| Fablewood is imminent! |
[Feb. 17th, 2008|08:07 pm] |
First off I guess my last post wasn't clear? I'm in a book, which I also coloured the cover for, and if you click on the image in the last post you can see a preview of it.
Oh, and Lords of Death and Life just updated. But now let me tell you the real news!
Fablewood will be on comic book store shelves VERY SOON. Possibly as early as the 20th and definitely within the next two weeks. I won't be able to go to a comic store before Saturday, probably, so tell me if you see it before I do!!! Also, I've been mentioned in a few of the reviews of the book. Which is completely awesome.
From J.L. Collins:
Jonathan Dalton closes this collection with The Cloudleapers of Blue Pine Mountain, challenging the reader with a culturally-inspired style and color palette, and a tale of a fantasy empire facing all too real and familiar problems of war, environmental changes, and the loss of ancient traditions that define us. Dalton’s story reminds us that every choice we make affects not just those around us, but the very land we share.
Dang. That's a nice review. Dang.
And from Indie Jones of Ain't it Cool News:
Jonathon Dalton’s “The Cloud-Leapers of Blue Pine Mountain” looks to be taking a lot of inspiration from Japanese ink drawings. This is a beautiful tale of a culture’s sacrifices during a war and what that culture must do in order to persevere. It also has a nice battle between a boy and an albino monkey, so it’s gotta be good.
Again, two out of three reviewers really seem to like the story (the other reviewer talked about other stories but not mine). This is really great. Except that it's a GIRL dammit! Not a boy! *cries* Apparently I can't draw girls or something. Oh well. I'm glad he liked the monkey. The monkey is awesome. |
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| Tezcatlipoca once fed his own foot to the Earth Monster. So, yeah. |
[Feb. 3rd, 2008|01:32 pm] |
I guess I was feeling artsy when I designed today's page. It's a little strange!
I've already started on page 48, but just to warn you there may be another missed update at some point in the near future. I may have an actual paying short comics-drawing gig and paying comics always come first. Sorry! |
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| Really you should be used to this by now. |
[Jan. 27th, 2008|08:01 pm] |
No update this week, sorry. I was going to at least come up with some art to post but that hasn't happened either. I've had a very busy week and climactic final battles take a long time to draw. On the plus side, next month I might be able to stop complaining about being so poor all the time. Assuming I can keep my bank account from straying into negative numbers in the next couple of weeks. I get paid on the 7th! I think! |
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| Update? What's that? |
[Jan. 21st, 2008|05:28 pm] |
Yeah, yeah. It's a day late. It's been a busy week comics-wise. There was an Illustrated Journeys meeting on Friday, as well as the Inkstuds gallery opening, Vancouver Comics Jam on Saturday, and Heritage Hall comic con on Sunday (I shared a table with the completely awesome spikecomix). Radio shows, gallery exhibitions (plural- the Vancouver Art Gallery has something in the works too), comics jams, comics collectives, publishers, small press shows... what's up with this city? You'd think Vancouver was turning into a comics mecca or something.
It's totally awesome.
Oh, right. Lords of Death and life. Here's this week's page. Chances are next week's update won't happen on schedule either. I've also decided to add an extra page to the comic. It means prolonging finishing this thing but I think the story needs it. I have a bad habit of short-changing my endings. Endings are very important and I want this one to suck as little as possible.
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| I am not a plagarist! |
[Jan. 16th, 2008|12:33 pm] |
I never realized just how crummy the speakers for my computer were until today. I have this CD, you see, that mysteriously appeared on my computer while in London. The artist is Nitin Sawhney and I don't know the name of the album. I only bothered to burn it onto an actual disk today, and boy, I was missing a lot. His tracks have a lot of really great atmospheric noise that just gets lost playing them off my computer.
Usually I try not to break a lot of copyrights. Those who hope to make a living off of their own copyrighted works ought not to upset the copyright gods. Most of my music has been bought and paid for, which means I don't own very much music because I'm desperately poor, but I confess that computers and the internet do make some things hard to resist. I did end up buying another Nitin Sawhney album as a result of "finding" the first one.
I've also realized that the line a few pages ago in Lords of Death and Life when Tezcatlipoca calls himself "destroyer of worlds" was a phrase I subconsciously channeled from this very album. But I'm in the clear for that, because Nitin got it from the Baghavagita (sp?) so it's public domain by now. I guess creator/chaos gods can share their lines with each other, can't they? |
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| Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards, anyone? |
[Jan. 13th, 2008|04:44 pm] |
More last-minute plot-revealy stuff is going down on this week's page. Did I mention that this guy is crazy? But not necessarily in an arbitrary fashion. Because that would be boring.
The WCCAs are on again this year, by the way. Last year I was nominated for "best environment design." It would shore be nice to get on the ballot again. ;-)
Also, Vancouverites can catch me at the Heritage Hall comic con this Sunday. I'm pretty sure I have a table. I think I have a table. I hope I have a table. |
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| My own reflection |
[Jan. 10th, 2008|08:06 pm] |
I was reading through my archives today, as I often do. *cough*narcissus!*cough* And a couple of things have occurred to me. I thought I'd share them, just because that's what blogs are for. *cough*againwiththeselfadmiration!*cough* Sorry, hope I'm not coming down with something.
RANDOM THOUGHT A: I don't hate Lords of Death and Life. I've spent a lot of time complaining about it. There are still a lot of things I would do differently if I were to start again. It's not my best work (Cloud-Leapers is). But the page I'm working on right now and the couple before and after are really making me feel better about the whole thing. I've been writing and rewriting and tweaking the dialogue in this scene almost non-stop as I go, which I don't like to do (isn't that what scripts are for?) but I think the purpose of the whole story is finally percolating through the macho super-battle I wrote for the climax. I was dead set to finish the book already, but now I think the month's worth of effort remaining might also be worth it.
RANDOM THOUGHT B: Sometimes I write stuff that I think is very general and non-specific, and then some time later it seems to take on a whole new level of significance. This page, for example, from A Mad-Tea Party. Connie (you remember Connie, don't you? The little girl with the photographic memory?) suddenly makes a connection between a photo Roger (the alien automobile enthusiast) has sitting on a shelf, and old news footage from before she was born.
I wrote this in 2006. Does it make you think of some recent world events? It sure does me. Weird. |
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| Smoking-Mirror |
[Jan. 6th, 2008|02:31 pm] |
The cigar, the jaguar skin, the band across his eyes, the missing foot, the magic obsidian mirror, his obsession with stabbing people, these were all clues, you see. The name should have been a dead giveaway. In case there was any doubt, now North-Wind's true identity has been revealed. Mol should probably be a lot more afraid than he seems to be.
I spent all day yesterday printing and assembling mini-comics. There's another small local con in a couple of weeks and I was running out of copies of A Mad Tea-Party #2. It really is so convenient to be able to print and assemble these books all in my living room. The ink cartridges for the laser printer are about $100 each, but it's still much cheaper to do this than get someone else to print them for me (probably using the same kind of ink). It just takes a whole day to make a print-run of 25. I am a bit worried, though, because they were saying on the news a while back that laser printers put stuff in the air that's really bad for your lungs. I've been keeping the window open when I print large quantities of pages (the printer is right next to the window). I hope that's enough to keep me healthy. |
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| An informative comparative chart: |
[Jan. 4th, 2008|09:08 pm] |
I stole this from Winzig and I am totally turning it into a meme! She compared her character Pepsi von Hellswine to Hagar the Horrible. I'm doing Dr. Manhattan and Mol. If you have a comic, you must perpetuate the meme by picking a well-known comics character who is really amazingly similar* to your character and compare them on 10-12 points of interest like so. Do it! Do it now!
Dr. Manhattan | 
Mol Kupul | Has transformed into an all-powerful blue god
| Can transform into a flaming blue Aztec spirit | | Often walks around completely naked | Often walks around in nothing but a loincloth and sandals
| | Has the power to bring the world to an end | Believes the world will end in the year 2012 | | No discernible sense of humour | No discernible sense of humour | | A brilliant nuclear physicist | Illiterate | | Has a girlfriend named Laurie Juspeczyk | Has a wife named Four-Deer | | Single-handedly won the Vietnam War for the Americans | Trying to avert a war between Mayans and Aztecs | | Knows what will happen in the future | Knows how to grow corn | | The Soviet Union's worst nightmare | Has nightmares about frog-iguanas | | Has a friend named Rorschach who is a psychopath | Has a friend named Janaab-Pakal who fancies his wife | | Built a palace on Mars using the power of his mind | Also knows how to grow beans and squash |
*-Hint: sarcasm. |
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| The bad poetry should have been a dead giveaway |
[Dec. 30th, 2007|11:30 am] |
Well there's no sense in denying it any longer. Despite my views on superhero comics, detailed only in part in the lengthy rant I wrote last night, all along Lords of Death and Life has been a superhero comic in disguise. I mean look at it. Magical transformations, colourful costumes, ever-escalating epic battles, good versus evil or some such... all the familiar tropes are there. Only displaced to fifteenth century Mexico instead of twentieth century New York. I confess I wrote the first draft of this story many years ago before I had completely turned my back on superheroes. The story has been bugging me to be drawn ever since, and I surely can't stop now with only seven pages left to go.
But I will promise you this. Lords of Death and Life will be the most superhero-ish of all the stories you will ever see me write, and really, it's not that superhero-ish. If superheroism belongs anywhere, it surely belongs in Aztec culture. It's such a perfect fit there! All one need do is replace spandex with feathers and little bells and replace "truth justice and the American way" with the will of bloodthirsty gods. Surely I can't be the first person to have thought of this.
Some day soon I'll get back to writing my shoujo sci-fi epics. In the meantime, enjoy your super-powered Aztec warriors!
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| Is that Mol? |
[Dec. 23rd, 2007|12:46 am] |
Lords of Death and Life has just updated. |
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| If the king had horses, they'd all be there too. |
[Dec. 9th, 2007|08:54 pm] |
Boy this page was a pain to do. I'm still not happy with a couple of things in it. Having finished this page I'm not sure whether I should take it as final proof that I should never draw superheroes, or as proof that I actually could if I tried.
Either way, nine more pages to go and then I can print this thing up. ;-) |
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