I don’t think I wrote about it here on the site because everything was happening so quickly, but my first published work came out this week. There’s a single page backup comic in issue 5 of Pretty Deadly. It’s written by Kelly Sue DeConnick, illustrated and lettered by Xylon Otterburn, and colored by, well, yours truly.
 

So there’s my name in the back of one of my favorite comics currently coming out. How crazy is that? I can’t believe it. Xylon’s a good friend, and he’s the one who brought me in on this. We’d chatted before about working together, but I don’t think either of us imagined it being something as big as this. More people will see that backup this month than will have ever even glanced at Other Sleep or any of my other work. That’s…it’s kind of staggering.

And hopefully it’s just the beginning.
 

Koku Manga was this past weekend, and well…it didn’t go so good. I knew it wouldn’t quite compare to the glory that was ETSUcon, but still. Maybe two anime conventions in Johnson City in the same month is just way too close? Not to mention the big draw for the show, the costume contest, having a $25 entry fee, which coupled with the ticket price meant you were already spending 40-50 dollars before even stepping into the smallish dealer room and even smaller artist room (which even fewer people came through). Sales didn’t go too well for me, at all.

It wasn’t a total downer, though. I had my first ever panel on Saturday, called the Creative Process of Comics. Moderated by good friend Big Daddy Voodoo, we discussed my work and my somewhat counterintuitive process for making comics, breaking things down step by step. We also kept getting sidetracked and talking about kaiju movies, which is what happens when you put BDV and I in a room together. About a dozen people showed up for this thing, which was pretty awesome, and a few of them asked some really good questions too after my dumb presentation which was missing a slide! I got a nice round of applause after bemoaning the lack of diversity in American comics, which came as a bit of a surprise. Afterwards, some of them came up to chat, shake my hand, and even a couple took my picture! I could get used to that, you know.
 

I want to do something like this again, maybe at the next ETSUcon? I think there was a panel this year about making web comics, so this might be too similar? Who knows?

Burst Reach 4 is chugging along. I’m doing an 8-page comic about a girl and her doppelganger at the end of the world that’s largely done in charcoal, with some watercolor washes here and there for good measure. It’s driving me crazy, but I’m nearly done with it. And I think the way it looks is quite worth the messy hassle.
 

I’ve also been working on some other stuff, and talking with people about doing other stuff. Exciting times, these are. Planning ahead on how I want to tackle HeroesCon this year, too. I’ll be tabling by myself this go around, which is a little scary, but I also want to try and be more sociable too, which even more scary. Meeting people and making friends is incredibly important in art and comics, yeah? I need to get better at that, I really do.

So to recap the first quarter of 2014: Art show, my own panel at a con, and my first published work. Not too shabby. Let’s see if I can keep this momentum going, yes?

[Brett]