Interviews galore!

Three new interviews to report. First, a MASSIVE interview with Newsarama about my entire creative process. Anyone that's ever wondered about my step-by-step comic-making process should read this one, it's jam packed with info.

Second, MTV Geek has a slightly shorter interview up about Sweets and Punks, and the upcoming relaunch of Punks through MTV on their geek imprint. Some good info here about what's coming up in the next few months.

Third, a detailed audio interview with Amber over at Comic Book Page. This one goes into great detail about process, philosophy, and more. Worth a listen.

And if you missed this one posted earlier this month, I did an interview with On The Page screenwriting podcast with Pilar Alessandra, who happens to host one of my favorite podcasts on the subject of creative writing. I like the podcast so much, I actually hired Pilar to consult on the original Sweets script before I started drawing. HUGE help, and I think the story improved greatly because of it. And buy her book The Coffee Break Screenwriter, it's awesome.

Notes on Kickstarter

A lot of comic creators are getting interested in Kickstarter, and for good reason. It's a fantastic service. I used Kickstarter to fund my marketing efforts for Sweets: A New Orleans Crime Story. I already had a publisher at Image Comics, so my funds were used exclusively for marketing and promotion. Things like convention expenses, advertising, printing, Facebook ads, etc. I'm told Sweets was one of the very first Kickstarter funded comics to hit shelves nationwide, and that's pretty cool. With a successful Kickstarter project comes lots of questions about my experience with the service and lots of requests for advice on the subject, so here are a few notes for those interested in my experience. And here is the original Kickstarter project listing for those that haven't seen it.

SWEETS Issue 4 and Early Accolades in 2011

Issue 4 of Sweets hits the shelf tomorrow (Wed January 5th, 2011) so please pick that up.

Now, on to the topic at hand.

I enjoy creating comics, but I never enjoy reading my own comics. I love reading other people's comics very much, I buy as many comics as I can afford, but I'm a little too close to my own work to enjoy it as a reader. I mostly just see the things I could have done better or the opportunities I missed in every single panel of artwork. Same goes for my story. I see every flaw and it's magnified every single time I flip through an issue. I've heard many other creators say the same, so I guess that's normal. But I have to be honest, when I read a positive review of my work I often question the sanity of the person giving that review. If they dig what I'm doing, they're obviously a little crazy, right?

"I’m looking forward to Sweets #4 (Image) by Kody Chamberlain. As you’ll recall, this was one of my favorites of 2010." —Justin Giampaoli at 13 Minutes

See what I mean? There's obviously something wrong with Justin. This guy needs large amounts of therapy. Justin might as well start a group therapy session with Neil Kleid, Rob Guillory, and Kevin Colden because they've all got mental problems of various levels of severity: 

"Scott Chantler’s TWO GENERALS should have been on folks’ radar as should have been Kody Chamberlain’s SWEETS." — Neil Kleid 

"…Kody Chamberlain’s SWEETS is something so subtly brilliant that I think a lot of folks will be giving it a second look in 2011." — Rob Guillory

"As far as new comics, I really dug Peter and Bobby Timony’s Night Owls, Kody Chamberlain’s Sweets, Thor: The Mighty Avenger, and all of the Batman titles." — Kevin Colden

However, positive reviews and accolades go a long way to helping promote a new comic like Sweets, and good promotion helps us earn a living doing what we do. So it's essential to our survival.

And when a writer and producer on shows like Family Guy and The Cleveland Show says something nice about your comic, you have to share it, right?

"I still read a lot of comics.  ”The Boys” is a favorite.  ”Crossed” is incredibly disgusting and awesome.  Terry Moore’s ECHO. Kody Chamberlain’s “Sweets.” There’s a lot of good stuff out there." — Kirker Butler

But how can you take someone so talented like Kirker Butler and reveal to the world that they're one step away from a mental institution? And when a fan-favorite writer of X-Men and Deadpool is asked which creators should we be looking out for next year and replies:

"Honestly, most of the names I could say are names you already know. Jason Aaron continues to kick butt, and I want to see what Kody Chamberlain does next. Lots of talent out there." — Victor Gischler

You're right. You absolutely have to post that on your blog. But posting that comment for public viewing reveals to the world that Victor Gischler isn't a very good judge of quality. He's worked hard to create a veil of credibility, and now I've blown his cover. I do feel responsible, and the guilt weighs on me like a three ton elephant.

I've worked with Josh Fialkov for years on a comic called PUNKS, so I already know how nuts the guy is. But you can't possibly read this without flashes of Hitchcock's Psycho stabbing you in the head:

"SWEETS - Look, I've known Kody Chamberlain for nearly a decade now. I've seen him grow and change and turn into one of the best writer/artists in comics. The work he's done on "Sweets" has been nothing short of spectacular. He's working on a level that the rest of us can only dream of. Once the series wraps up and the TPB hits the stands, I've got a feeling the rest of the industry is going to shit their pants for him." — Josh Fialkov

Speaking of Psycho, I don't know Ron Richards very well, but this quote is more than enough to convince me he can't be trusted. In fact, I can't help but take the entire iFanboy concept with a grain of salt after reading this:

"One of the most enjoyable mini-series from Image Comics that began in 2010 for me has been Sweets by Kody Chamberlain. Clearly a labor of love, Chamberlain has crafted together a world, set in New Orleans, that you simply can get lost in while reading, savoring the amazing artwork and watching the crime tale unfold." — Ron Richards of iFanboy

And when a respected publication like Comic Heroes from the UK includes Sweets in their list of Contemporary Crime Classics, you can't help but dismiss the entire publication as hateful, slanted propaganda.

That brings me to Rob Levin. Rob was a long time editor at Top Cow, so he knows comics. After reading Sweets #1 in July 2010, Rob hasn't been able to buy a comic since:

"I’ll go to a comic shop this week and buy a new comic, my first new, non-collected book since I bought a copy of Sweets #1 off Kody Chamberlain at SDCC." — Rob Levin

I know what you're thinking. It's possible Rob read Sweets and was so blown away he just couldn't tolerate drudging in the bowels of lesser entertainment. No. The truth is that I ruined comics for him, and it's taken him a half a year to recover. To me, that makes Rob Levin the smartest man alive. He's got me figured out.

Having said that, I'm told by respected professionals (and my wife) that being self deprecating hurts more than it helps, so just take the compliment and shut the hell up. 

Done.

Looking forward to a great 2011!

Join me for the Kickstarter panel at Comic-Con

I'll be participating in a panel at Comic-Con about my experience using Kickstarter, and offering tips and suggestions for those looking to start a Kickstarter project of their own. Here's the official description:

Kickstart Your Comic! (Saturday 6:30-7:30pm) Room 7AB
Producing an independent comic requires not only a huge time commitment, but also a sizable financial investment to cover the printing, promotion, and distribution costs incurred before your book even hits the shelves. Recently, some creators have discovered a new and effective way to raise start-up capital for their comics online. Since it's founding in 2009, Kickstarter.com has been helping artists in all media find financial backing for their projects through user donations. Join Kody Chamberlain (Sweets), Steve Earnhart and Pat Loika (The Villain), and Steve Bryant (Athena Voltaire) as they discuss their highly successful Kickstarter campaigns and offer advice to help you fund your own comic through Kickstarter.com

BUZZ!

I mentioned this briefly a while back, but I handed black and white previews of SWEETS issue #1 (and the full 5 issue script) to a few creators at this year's Boston Comic-Con and I got two great quotes! Here's what Bill Sienkiewicz (Elektra: Assassin, New Mutants, Stray Tosters) and Jim Starlin (Dreadstar, Infinity Gauntlet, Shang-Chi) had to say about SWEETS. Too cool!

“Kody Chamberlain is an amazing talent. SWEETS goes down like a deliciously nasty full course meal, and tastes even better coming up.”

— Bill Sienkiewicz

“Kody Chamberlain‘s beautiful art originally hooked me into checking out SWEETS. But it was his intriguing story that has me impatiently waiting for the second issue and beyond.”

— Jim Starlin

Sweets preview!

(click images to enlarge)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SWEET ON DARK AND GRITTY CRIME

Newcomer Kody Chamberlain writes and draws SWEETS for Image Comics

Berkeley, CA - 22 April 2010 - Newcomer and Louisiana native Kody Chamberlain makes his Image Comics debut with SWEETS, a five-issue crime drama set in New Orleans shortly before Hurricane Katrina strikes.

"New Orleans is a great town for crime comics. It's rich with culture, architecture and all the little details that rarely show through in comic books," says Chamberlain. "I've lived in South Louisiana all my life: I don't have to jump on Google to find tourist photos. The music is my music, and the slang is my slang. Hopefully, that shows through and makes the city come alive for the readers."

"Kody has one of the freshest perspectives I've seen in a while," says Image Publisher Eric Stephenson. "His artwork is fantastic, but he's a great writer as well, and SWEETS is going to be the book to read."

SWEETS: A spree killer terrorizes New Orleans days before Hurricane Katrina makes landfall. Detective Curt Delatte just buried his only daughter, and he's in no condition to work. But when the bodies pile up, Delatte masks his grief and joins the hunt through the bowels of the Big Easy. It won't be long until his city---and his evidence---gets washed away.

SWEETS #1, a full-color 32-page comic written and drawn by Kody Chamberlain, will be available for $2.99 and in stores on July 14, 2010. A special preview of SWEETS can be found in CHEW #11, in stores on June 9, 2010.

Image Comics is a comic book and graphic novel publisher founded in 1992 by a collective of best-selling artists. Image has since gone on to become one of the largest comics publishers in the United States. Image currently has five partners: Robert Kirkman, Erik Larsen, Todd McFarlane, Marc Silvestri and Jim Valentino. It consists of four major houses: Todd McFarlane Productions, Top Cow Productions, Shadowline and Image Central. Image publishes comics and graphic novels in nearly every genre, sub-genre, and style imaginable. It offers science fiction, romance, horror, crime fiction, historical fiction, humor and more by the finest artists and writers working in the medium today. For more information, visit www.imagecomics.com.

SWEET ON DARK AND GRITTY CRIME

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SWEET ON DARK AND GRITTY CRIME
Newcomer Kody Chamberlain writes and draws SWEETS for Image Comics

Berkeley, CA - 22 April 2010 - Newcomer and Louisiana native Kody Chamberlain makes his Image Comics debut with SWEETS, a five-issue crime drama set in New Orleans shortly before Hurricane Katrina strikes.

"New Orleans is a great town for crime comics. It's rich with culture, architecture and all the little details that rarely show through in comic books," says Chamberlain. "I've lived in South Louisiana all my life: I don't have to jump on Google to find tourist photos. The music is my music, and the slang is my slang. Hopefully, that shows through and makes the city come alive for the readers."

"Kody has one of the freshest perspectives I've seen in a while," says Image Publisher Eric Stephenson. "His artwork is fantastic, but he's a great writer as well, and SWEETS is going to be the book to read."

SWEETS: A spree killer terrorizes New Orleans days before Hurricane Katrina makes landfall. Detective Curt Delatte just buried his only daughter, and he's in no condition to work. But when the bodies pile up, Delatte masks his grief and joins the hunt through the bowels of the Big Easy. It won't be long until his city---and his evidence---gets washed away.

SWEETS #1, a full-color 32-page comic written and drawn by Kody Chamberlain, will be available for $2.99 and in stores on July 14, 2010. A special preview of SWEETS can be found in CHEW #11, in stores on June 9, 2010.

Image Comics is a comic book and graphic novel publisher founded in 1992 by a collective of best-selling artists. Image has since gone on to become one of the largest comics publishers in the United States. Image currently has five partners: Robert Kirkman, Erik Larsen, Todd McFarlane, Marc Silvestri and Jim Valentino. It consists of four major houses: Todd McFarlane Productions, Top Cow Productions, Shadowline and Image Central. Image publishes comics and graphic novels in nearly every genre, sub-genre, and style imaginable. It offers science fiction, romance, horror, crime fiction, historical fiction, humor and more by the finest artists and writers working in the medium today. For more information, visit www.imagecomics.com.

 ###

Click Here for a 4 page preview!

GOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAL!

The funding goal has been met in less than 4 days!  Simply amazing.

HUGE thanks to everyone that Twittered, Blogged, Emailed, Facebooked, MySpaced, etc.

And how about a round of applause for those that made pledges toward this project: David Hopkins, Bill Hanna, Jason Rodriguez, Joshua Fialkov, Chris C P Powell, Micheal O'Connell, Noel Tuazon, Petteri Jalava, Michael Lapinski, James Layman, Kimberly Saucier, Matthew J. Hernandez, Megan Hargroder, Derek Hart, Jeff DeClue, Shawn, Patrick Rills, Werner Fischli, Kevin Kairys, Ben Hampton, Bsi Comics, Casey Moore, FictFact, matt, Steven Perkins, Tyler & Wendy Chin-Tanner, Joseph Jackson, Chere, Dan Taylor, Andrew Larimer, Jourdain Castille, Ron Phillips, Darrel Dartez, Jason Copland, Steve Kowalsky, Dan Gee, Steve Epting, Ben Oxley, Dan Hill, and Don Edgecomb!

Most of the packages are still available and the funding drive will continue until May 1st. The $3000 goal was the projected MINIMUM of what was needed to promote this project on a national level. Every bit helps open new promotional opportunities to ensue this project is a success.

My sincere gratitude to all of you. I honestly had no idea so many people would step up and make this happen.

Kody Chamberlain

Help KICKSTART this project!

Publisher and Fanboy Radio

The publisher is locked in, SWEETS #1 has a target date of Jul 14, one week before Comic-Con. I'm showing the cover on Fanboy Radio this SUNDAY (March 28 @ 7pm/6c).

http://www.fanboyradio.com - You can listen online, or download the podcast after it airs.

Crowdfunding

I'm entertaining the idea of crowd funding to help generate a little marketing and promo cash for SWEETS. Conventions, direct mail, ashcans, posters, etc can all be very expensive ventures.

The amazingly difficult synopsis

I'm currently working on my Previews catalog synopsis for SWEETS. Previews is the catalog retailers and readers use to order their comics, so the synopsis is very important since it's the main chunk of info everyone uses to make buying decisions. This is the entry point for retailers and fans. It's the bait on the hook. WIKI defines a synopsis as: "A brief summary of the major points of a written work, either as prose or as a table; an abridgment or condensation of a work."

The easy part is I already know the core of what I need to write in my synopsis. But...

Publisher?

People of Earth, I may have found myself a publisher for SWEETS, my new creator owned comic. More info soon.

The pitch!

The pitch pages are done! Finished up the lettering today, and now I've got to comb over the script a few times to make sure it's solid. Should have it in the mail to the publisher on Monday. More info on that soon.

0002 - A rundown of where things stand today.

0002 - A rundown of where things stand today.

Here's the usual disclaimer: I don't claim to be an expert on any of this, but with a bit of confidence, smarts, and help from my friends, I can probably work my way through most of it. These journal notes are NOT intended to be perfect, essay style entries. Comic book deadlines are hell, so I make no promises on the quality of the information I'm presenting. You'll find typos, grammar problems, logic errors, constantly contradicting information, and all sorts of things that will annoy and offend those with an eye for perfection. I publish these entries in several different places, please feel free to choose your favorite and stick with it, or jump around if you'd like.

| Digital Webbing Forum | Blogger | WordPress | DeviantArt | MySpace |

So toughen up, don't sweat the small stuff, and enjoy the process of making comics, presented in no particular order:

SWEETS - This new project is all about story, and until my story is solid, the pencil stays in the box. I've been rolling this script idea around in my head for about 6 or 7 years. I had a few false starts and it's been shelved a dozen times so I could take on freelance comic work.

But as of today, I've written the script. It's done. It's 5 issues, about 116 pages. I sent it out to a few friends for feedback and got some amazing notes. For the last couple of weeks I've been going through those notes and making tweaks, moving a couple of things around, and overall I think it's headed in the right direction. A big thanks to everyone that contributed their time and passion to reading this thing: Josh Fialkov, Rob Levin, Keven Gardner, Ford Gilmore, Chris Kirby, Troy Wall, and my amazing wife, Kristie. It's nice to have friends, ain't it? The script was written on my very old titanium PowerBook G4 also known as the Ti-Book.

[ TIP ] Use a crappy computer for writing so you don't get distracted! Apple makes a great product, and the fact that this old PowerBook is still running after all these years of heavy use and abuse really impresses me. I ran my graphic design studio with this machine for many years, and it's served me well. But with an 800MHz processsor and 768 of RAM, it's a relic. The reason I use this old PowerBook is because it's amazingly outdated, and therefore, painfully slow. Doesn't perform well doing anything except text. So it's a GREAT writing machine, and a BAD design/game/video/web browsing/music/torrent machine. Great way to eliminate distractions, yes? [ END TIP ]

The script is a detective story, set in New Orleans. I'm going to do my best to dance around story spoilers, so forgive me if I write cryptically about story points. I'll discuss story in more detail once it hits the shelf and everyone's had a chance to read it. So in the meantime, this creative journal will focus on actually making the comic with a few hints here and there to keep it interesting.

One of the big goals of this journal, and the comic itself, is for me to keep learning and growing as a creator. I've made a lot of friends through the years, and one of the side effects of making friends is you end up with a network of professionals you trust and respect. Along with other comic creators, my professional network includes marketing professionals, graphic designers, engineers, software developers, social networking gurus, accountants, investors, lawyers, small business owners, etc. I'll be reaching out to this network and bringing them in for short interviews and tips. My gut tells me this is going to be a whole lot of fun.

Here are a few bullet points about what's already happened:

• I've talked with a few publishers that have shown great interest in this project, haven't officially signed with anyone yet. No need to rush through this, but I'm certainly leaning in a certain direction.
  
• I've done five full color test pages for the story, but will likely redraw them because of story revisions.
  
• Everyone that's read the story seems to be impressed. I'm not sure if they're impressed with the story itself, or the fact that I actually finished it. Time will tell.
• I've played around with logo designs, and I've got one that I've been using as a temporary logo. I'll be redesigning this eventually. You'll see the progress throughout.
  
• I've had conversations with retailers about marketing and promoting creator owned work, and some of the things they respond to and the things they're likely to ignore. 
• Through the years, I've been compiling a detailed spreadsheets of retailers and media contacts. I've been tweaking it through the years, adding and removing as I go. No, you can't have it.
• I have also been developing a detailed marketing plan. This includes a timeline of when things need to happen, and where information needs to go. Once I establish a marketing budget, this marketing plan will evolve and expand. I haven't yet decided if this is something I want to share in public, or keep to myself. It's been a very large investment of time and something I'll continue to use and develop as I move forward with new projects. 

There's more to come, but deadlines call.
Thanks for reading!

— Kody