Hey guys, I just finished scheduling two new posts for Teach English in Japan! As well as getting prepped for my upcoming appearance at ECCC 2016 this year. Sadly I won’t have anything new on offer, but if you’d like a sketch or to get a physical copy of the book, I’ll be with Cloudscape at booth 1332. ECCC 2016 If you want to read the new pages in advance, I have posted two new pages on Patreon,…
Hey folks! I’ll be on site at Emerald City Comicon with some new Cloudscape books, as well as some mini-comics you might not have seen in Seattle last year! Visit me and the rest of the Cloudscape crew at booth 1332
Hey folks!
I’ll be on site at Emerald City Comicon with some new Cloudscape books, as well as some mini-comics you might not have seen in Seattle last year!
Visit me and the rest of the Cloudscape crew at booth 1332
In episode 15 Jon, Jeff, and Kathleen are joined by
special guest Jess Pollard to talk about the first half of Nausicaa of
the Valley of Wind, the manga series by world-reknowned animator Hayao
Miyazaki. This is an incredibly dense work and we have a lot to say
about it! But the true purpose of the Sea of Corruption isn’t the only
secret conspiracy that this episode will reveal…
Also mentioned in this episode:
Puss in Boots and People of the Desert by Hayao Miyazaki
Lupin III and Spirited Away, as well as Studio Ghibli
Local comic book artist Jason Harris has partnered with writer Skip McRobert to produce the new graphic novel David the Survivor.
“For centuries, ancient unseen forces have been speaking to hermits and outcasts. And in the modern epoch, hermits and outcasts watch TV. Amy and David don’t know each other, but they share a secret. For each, their lover is their TV. When David’s dies and Amy is…
…. is the title of a novel I wrote, which will be published by Roaring Brooks!!! Yes, this is a real thing, and Comics Alliance has the details here. It’s my very first novel, and I’m so excited it’s actually going to become a published thing that people other than me can read. There’s no release date yet because I’m so busy with Nameless City, but I hope to start editing on the book really soon. It’ll need a lot of editing! As excited as I am that CWBYH will be published, I’m also a little nervous. I want it to be good! So, lots of editing. Lots and lots.
I’m going to write a bit about how this book came to be. Initially Comics Will Break Your Heart was a comic idea. I started working on it when I started pitching The Nameless City to First Second, as a back up plan in case FS eventually rejected Nameless City. Fortunately, that didn’t happen, and in two weeks you’ll be able to pick up your own copy of The Nameless City book 1. 🙂
Comics Will Break Your Heart stuck with me, though. I liked the idea of a story about two teens (Miriam and Weldon), stuck in a small Canadian town for a summer, who had a link to the history of comics. Years ago their grandfathers had created comic book characters (called The TomorrowMen) who were about to star in their very own $200 million dollar movie. (“It’ll be bigger than The Avengers,” one character says.) But Miriam and Weldon have different perspectives on their grandfathers’ creations. Mir’s family lost the rights to the TomorrowMen, while Weldon’s father runs the publishing company that still publishes TomorrowMen comics. The complicated history of comics creators and how a disposable, pulp art form has become a billion dollar movie industry is pretty fascinating, and I decided to use it as a backdrop for this story.
Once Comics Will Break Your Heart’s backdrop became more firmly rooted in the comics industry (initially it wasn’t about comics at all), I decided that doing this story in graphic novel format would be kind of incestuous, so I decided to try writing a novel. I’m pretty comfortable with writing, although I hadn’t written straight prose since university. I was rusty initially, but once I got past the 20,000 word mark, I started to enjoy myself. I wrote the book mostly on airplanes and in airports, stealing time away from comics to work on it, always feeling kind of guilty. I had no idea if the book was any good, or if it would sell. Taking time away from paying work to work on a project that might get you nothing in return is scary, but I liked my novel, and I liked working on it. Even if I’d get nothing out of this novel but the experience, I felt it was worth doing.
And now it will be published! Eventually! Someday. 😉 When I find the time to edit the hell out of it. It was a great experience, and I’m thrilled that I was able to stretch my legs artistically, and try a new art form. I might even write another novel when this one is done, who know? 😀
1. China had a “renaissance” of its own, complete with the invention of banking and the assembly line, during the Song dynasty. It ended, but still, this seems important.
2. Alexander Dumas, author of the Three Musketeers and The Man in the Iron Mask, was black. I should probably read those books at some point.
3. The scientific method originated in the Arab world. So did a bunch of economic theory later cribbed by Adam Smith. They call it the “Golden Age of Islam” for a reason, I guess.
4. Northwest Coast people were not, in fact, nomadic hunter-gatherers with “no concept of ownership.” They were sedentary aquaculturists with complex intellectual property and land rights law.
5. Gunpowder was not, in fact, “only used for fireworks” after its invention in China. It was also used for cannons, guns, grenades, and rockets. Actual rockets. Come on.
6. Christopher Columbus wasn’t just kind of mean and represents (in an abstract sense) the start of colonialism, he literally invented the trans-Atlantic slave trade and murdered thousands of people for personal gain.
7. Most of Sub-Saharan Africa had been in the “iron age” for a thousand years before European explorers got there. Not that vague historical categories like that matter a whole lot, but if you’re gonna use them, don’t leave out whole continents.
8. African Americans didn’t just gain some rights after the Civil War and then gain more rights in the 1960s. The Civil Rights Movement was about taking BACK the rights that had been systematically clawed away from them by white voters and politicians from the 1870s on.
9. At Confederation in 1867, when Canada gained self-rule, there were women who could vote. Not many, but if you were a widowed (white) land-owner, you could, while many (non-land-owning) men could not. Those women lost the right to vote when the law changed so all (non-Native, non-Asian) men in Canada could vote.
10. Basically the entire history of residential schools in Canada, the US, and Australia. Look it up, it’s bad.
Maybe you learned about all these things in school, in books, or on the internet in a timely fashion. I’ve learned about them now, but let me tell you, I ought to have known about all of these WAY sooner, and I’m still kind of pissed about it.
Local comic book artist Jason Harris has partnered with writer Skip McRobert to produce the new graphic novel David the Survivor.
