Just thought I’d tell you guys how excited I am about getting some reviews on Womanthology already!   Even more exciting, this particular reviewer had lovely things to say about “Everwell”, the story I helped illustrate along with Fiona Staples!  “Everwell” was written by the lovely and super-talented Jody Houser!

Please click here to read the article:  Womanthology: Heroic Review

For those who don’t know about the book, Womanthology is a large scale anthology comic showcasing the works of women in comics. It is created entirely by over 140 women of all experience levels, with the purpose of showing support for female creators in comics and media.  All earnings from the book will be donated to charity.

Among all the amazing ladies that contributed to this project, we have Katie Shanahan, Jessica Hickman , Camilla d’Errico, Isabelle Melançon, Megan Heaton, and many many more!

The book should be released sometime in mid-March, and I can’t wait to see it!!

On December 10th my friend Katie Shanahan (Shrub Monkeys, Silly Kingdom) and I will be sharing a table at the Small Press of Toronto Winter Fair, located at the Hart House (U of T campus).  As we’ve done in previous shows, we’ll be selling comics and art goodies! The event will run from 11am to 5pm.

Please come support your local indie writers and artists!  Admission is free, so don’t miss out!

For more info, click on the image above or on the banner located at the right hand side of this website.

Hope to see you there!

I thought I’d take the time to share Amazon.com’s link for preorders of Womanthology’s anthology book: http://www.amazon.com/Womanthology-Heroic-Ann-Nocenti/dp/1613771479/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320256118&sr=8-1

For those of you who may not know, I contributed in the book as one of two artists for the story “Everwell”   It’ll be the first time my work is published professionally, so I’m pretty excited about it!

The book will feature work from other amazing women such as Katie Shanahan, Fiona Staples, Jessica Hickman, Gail Simone, Renae deLiz, Camilla d’Errico, Mariah Huehner, Jody Houser and many many more!

All of the book’s sale profits will be forwarded on to charity.  To learn more about Womanthology, please visit http://womanthology.blogspot.com/

Don’t miss it

I reallyreally hate to do this, but starting this upcoming week my comic updates will be reduced to once a week til further notice.  Fall on Me will now be updating on Wednesdays.

With my new full-time job plus commuting time, my spare time has become a lot more limited, leaving me with only the weekends to catch up on *everything* else (house chores, comics, quality time with hubby, etc.), and it’s becoming too much.

It’s a huge bummer for me, but I’d rather do this than to quit the comic altogether.  I also want to avoid letting Fall on Me’s quality slide because I’ll be forced to draw it in a hurry, or worse, to let this comic become a chore for me.

I hope you can understand, and thank you for your continued readership and support!  I’d love to be able to do Fall on Me full-time, but at this point a job that pays bills takes priority over the one that doesn’t.   I hope to be able to better manage my time in the near future and be able to come back to my regular updating schedule.  Til then, thanks for your patience!

I wanted to share with you this Fall on Me critique podcast by Tim Young and Mulele Jarvis, from Deconstructing Comics.  It wasn’t all positive (in fact, it was very harsh), but by no means it was unfair.  They made very excellent points on things that I had either completely overlooked, and on stuff that I’d already noticed but didn’t really know (still don’t know) how to exactly tackle.

First of all, to hear the podcast, please go here: Critiquing Comics 006: “Fall on Me”

I have to admit I was pretty hesitant to listen to the podcast (even though I myself requested the critique), but I’m glad I did.  Some of the things they pointed out are easily addressed and fixable (the website stuff, for example), but the writing bit will be much tougher for me.

It’s funny that they mostly talk about the lack of conflict and that things are “too happy”, because that’s something I myself have thought about from time to time over the last year or so. Why I haven’t acted on it is because yes, every relationship has its negative sides and mine is not an exception, but this being an autobiographical comic I’ve held back for fear of making our real, personal lives too “public”, too “out there.”   To be honest, I’m not sure that’s something I (and heck, even my husband!) would feel all that comfortable with.  Unfortunately, from what these guys have pointed out, that “holding back” has become this comic’s biggest flaw.

It’s easier for me to share the funny, positive stuff because they happen most of the time, and it was precisely those moments that inspired me to start this comic in the first place.  I’m fully aware that the more conflicting aspects of our lives would make for more meaningful, 3-dimensional storytelling, but again, this being an autobio it makes it a lot tougher for me to just expose it all for people to see and judge.  Many people have had no problem and even succeeded to do so (Lucy Knisley and Lezley Davidson from Peeling Onions come to mind), but I have to admit it’s a scary prospect to bring your own dirty laundry out in the open.

All that said, though,  I do want to get better, and I do want to grow as an artist and a writer.  I’ll make a point to be more observant and see if I can better “mine” our not-so-happy moments and make them work as comics.  It may not happen right away, though…but I’ll try.  I’ll have to make a decision about what I want this comic to be(come).

Argh this is hard.  We’ll see how this goes =P

Huge thanks to Tim and Mulele for spending their time reviewing and critiquing this rookie’s little comic.  It’s been a lot of food for thought!

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The event is targeted at people interested in zines, self-publishing, and do-it-yourself distribution. This event has a door charge of $5/Pay What You Can.

Besides myself, zine creator Cindy Crabb (http://www.dorisdorisdoris.com/ or http://doriszineblog.blogspot.com/) will be there giving a talk on her zine, her book, and the topic of women in the small press industry, along with Maranda Elizabeth, a zine creator from Guelph.

I’ll be talking about my comic and its beginnings, plus I’ll have copies of Fall on Me books available for sale (signed, of course! ).  So, if you’re in the Guelph area, don’t miss it!  The Dragon just recently moved to a new location, and their selection of comics and graphic novels is excellent!

The Word on the Street is a book festival taking place on the 25th of September from 11am to 6pm. Please come by and say hi; besides the fact that it’ll be super-awesome, it’s free admission! I’ll be in the area called the Fringe Beat, dedicated to indie publishers.  I’ll be at table FB6 with the awesome Julie Faulkner and Brian Evinou!

(click map above to enlarge)

I’ll of course be selling Fall on Me books Volumes 1 and 2, along with mini prints and art goodies

To find out more about the festival, click here or on the banner to the right hand side of this site.

Hope to see you there!

If you’re going to Fan Expo (August 25 – 28), please come by table #A106 in the Artist Alley, where I will be exhibiting along the lovely Megan Lavey-Heaton and Isabelle Melançon, the lovely writer/artist team behind the webcomic Namesake! We’ll be selling comics, prints, original art and other art goodies!

Please take a look at the map below to find us (click to make larger):

Hope to see you there!!

Just today I was spotlighted in Girls Read Comics Too! Check out the article here (it includes a brief interview as well ).

Thanks to the ladies of Girls Read Comics Too for starting this “Women in Comics” spotlight series; I look forward to the rest!!

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Also!

For those who may not know, from 2006 to 2008 I worked with Light Bug Productions on the short hand-drawn animated film version of the children’s story “The Firefly and the Stars“. You can watch the trailer of the film below:

The Firefly and the Stars trailer

While working on the film, we also put together an illustrated book version with art by my friend Bill Ferguson, and it is now available as an e-book in Barnes and Noble! Please check it out and spread the word!

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In other news:

I’ll be participating as an artist in the Womanthology project!! If you don’t know anything about it, it’s an anthology graphic novel created entirely by women for charity. The purpose of the book is to showcase the works of female creators of every age and experience levels.

The book will majorly consist of many short stories interpreting our theme for this volume; “Heroic”. We’ll also have interviews and how-to’s with some of the industry’s top female pros, as well as talks with young girls who someday want a career in comics.

It will be published through IDW Publishing and will be raising all the printing costs for the project through Kickstarter.com, which you can find out here.

Even though it’s reached its funding goal, it’s not too late to help out! More donations = more books = more money for charity!! Please help spread the word about this too!

Also, although contributions are closed for this first volume, a list has already been started for contributors for the second volume (writes, artists, editors, colourists, inkers, etc.) If you’re interested in learning more, please check the Womanthology website here.

On that same note, I recently finished a Womanthology inspired drawing now available in the Colour gallery of my main site, Littleteacup.net

Thank you to all of you who commissioned me from the bottom of my heart!