Hey There,
Happy Thursday! I hope you’re having a good week. Keep scrolling down for the free download. And as always, feel free to keep reading and/or check out my video for all of my updates.
I want to start out by saying thank you so much to all of you who took my survey last week! In my last email, I was talking about how I’ve been considering switching the campaign for No Spell Lasts Forever #1 from Indiegogo to Kickstarter. It’s really just fear that led me to Indiegogo, since it has an option to keep whatever money you raise even if you don’t hit your goal, and Kickstarter doesn’t. But Kickstarter has a much more robust indie comics community and I think gives the comic a better shot at success in the longer term. So I included a link to a survey asking you all if you have a preference between the two platforms, and the results were overwhelmingly in favor of Kickstarter. So that’s what I’m gonna do! I’m working on the new campaign page now and I’ll send you that link as soon as it’s finished and Kickstarter approves it.
Again, thank you for taking the time to take the survey. Your interest in my work really means a lot!
Okay, I’ve got big Concrete Aracanum news this week! Concrete Arcanum is the urban fantasy anthology where my story Olive and the Ogre will be appearing (Sara Setna did the beautiful artwork). We’re just three weeks out from the campaign launch for it on September 13, so I wanted to share with you a free PDF preview of it. And this isn’t just like a dinky little two-pager, this thing is 33 pages! You can download it here.
And you can go to the campaign page and sign up here to be notified on launch.
I’ve really enjoyed being a part of a project of this scope. There are so many highly talented creators involved, all doing really interesting things in this genre that I love.
And there’s more No Spell Lasts Forever news! Like I mentioned last week, Aimee Hawley has moved on to the inks for the rest of issue #1, and they look amazing! So I wanted to share with you the first newly inked page, which is page 5. I shared the pencils for it a couple weeks ago and thought you might enjoy seeing how it’s progressing. It’s the first time we get a look at Bash, the main supporting character. He’s the one leaning on the desk in the second panel, and you get a better look at his face in the final panel. I just really love the way Aimee designed him. It’s just what I pictured in my head only better!
As far as comics I’m reading, I’m continuing down the never-ending rabbit hole that is Scott Snyder’s Batman run, and I’m still loving it!
I’m up to All-Star Batman: My Own Worst Enemy, by Snyder, Declan Shalvey, Danny Miki, and John Romita, Jr. It’s a Two-Face story, and Dent basically tells Batman there’s a cure that will get rid of Two-Face so he can just be Harvey again. Of course, he’s manipulating Bruce. But it’s interesting because I feel like Bruce is uniquely vulnerable to this particular manipulation because of his one-time friendship with Harvey. I’m excited to see where it goes!
I’m also reading Embodied, an intersectional feminist comics poetry anthology. I just love it. I feel like comics and poetry really have some things in common as mediums. Both have to be very selective in the moments, ideas, and images they choose to portray. Because of the nature of sequential art, when you’re making a comic, you have to be very intentional about the moments of a scene that you choose to show in each panel. It’s different from other visual mediums like film or TV in that way, and I think it’s actually one of the strengths of comics. And poetry is similar in that each word or turn of phrase holds so much weight, so there’s a similar intentionality. And the way the anthology combines the two is just fascinating!
Well, that’s all for me this week. As always, I’d love to connect with you on Instagram, @sarahcookewriter and @nospellcomic.
Have a great day!
Best,
Sarah