Earthling! is an Oregon Spirit Book Award Nominee!

The graphic novel I worked on for 18 years….OK. That’s not true. I didn’t work on it for 18 years. At times it may have FELT like 18 years. Actually is was about 3 years. But in dog’s years that’s 21 years…never mind.

Anyway, my graphic novel Earthling! has been shortlisted in the Oregon Spirit Book Awards, Graphic Novels category along with – Hereville: How Mirka Met a Meteorite by Barry Deutsch and Squish: The Power of the Parasite by Jennifer and Matthew Holm.

Both of the other nominated books and great and feature unique approaches and one-of-a-kind voices. I’m honored to be listed with them.

Read more about Earthling! here, and read a review of Earthling! at the New York Times.

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A page here, a page there…

Here’s two disparate pages from a project that just may never see the light of day. It may live only on my computer. When I speak at events about writing and drawing I often explain how most of what I do never sells. There is a lot of ‘other stuff’ I don’t finish or no one wants to publish. This is part of that other stuff.

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New project

Here’s a page from a project, technically a side project to fill some quiet hours and provide some finished pages while I work on roughs for larger books. It’s nice to have a project I can go from idea, to rough, to final art on while I’m working on longer projects that involve revisions and notes and changes. And I’ve written this in chapters so I can take little steps (finish a page, or even a single panel) and still make progress over a few months.

 

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Collage and Kafka and shrimp…

I am inspired and fascinated by many different art styles. I love doing collage. In fact it was simple clip art collages (like the one above who along with a half dozen other characters ended up as short run, silk screened shirts which I used to give away as gifts) that lead me use collage in longer form narratives like my illustrated version of the Kafka story A Common Confusion. This book was originally done as a hand bound sample book, but later I put it online.

Eventually my interest in collage lead to me developing The Mr. Shrimp Show and several other bits of collage inspired animated oddness.

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Don Rosa

Don Rosa is a cartoonist, well known for his Donald Duck comic books. His stories have a worldwide following and are highly regarded. He produced extremely detailed drawings and his plotting was equally extravagant.

He has written an heartfelt essay about his retirement from drawing linked here. In it he discusses his love of what he got to do for a living, and at the same time the costs it has had on him emotionally, physically and monetarily, working in a system where he earns not a single penny for any reprints or reuse of his work.

Below are two quotes which will resonate for many cartoonists, illustrators and writers I know.

“This is one of the personal problems I brought into my comics career — too much enthusiasm. It’s an aspect of my personality that I don’t know how to do anything without letting it consume me.”

“I don’t know if you have a similar expression in your countries, but I am what is referred to here as a workaholic. I am incapable of relaxing. Inactivity makes me feel nervous and somehow “guilty”.”

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Dead Projects. What to work on, what not to work on.

Here are four pages from a graphic novel project that, most likely, I will never finish. I wrote the entire draft, and drew two dozen pages but I don’t think it’s ever going to make it onto my ‘To Do’ list.

It can be difficult to pick and choose what you spend your time on. I’m like most creatives and I have no end to projects I’d love to tackle. But you only have so much time in a day, a week – a life. I’m happy with the story, but the amount of work it would take to finish it doesn’t make sense. It is a ‘hard sell’ for a publisher and I’d probably end up trying to self publish it. But a 130 page graphic novel isn’t something you do part time. And as I make a living doing this work every day I spend doing something that is greatly less marketable, means I am putting off that other project, which I probably love just as much, which is more marketable. As a writer/illustrator making choices about what you want to do vs. what not to do is, unfortunately, a big part of your life.

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Earthling! starts off 2013 with good karma

Earthling called out as a good read by Geekdad over on Wired. Nice way to end 2012 or start 2013…Whichever you prefer.

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A short Earthling! holiday play

Morning. A crowded city bus.

Albert
I sure wish I knew what to buy that special 8 year-old in my life for the Holidays.

Fay
I hear ya! I don’t know what to buy my nephew who is 9.

Fish Monger
Me neither. What can I possibly buy for my 10 year old niece this Christmas?

Bob
I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation. I have a 7 year old and an 11 year old to buy for and I have to get them 8 gifts for Hanukkah!

Albert
I’d like to buy them somethings more than a video game or just another toy.

Fay
Me to. Like a book.

Bus Driver
You could buy them a copy of Diary of a Wimpy Kid!

All
They already have it.

Bus Driver
Oh.

Suddenly the bus begins to rock back-and-forth. People fall asunder. A glowing figure steps aboard. It’s hard to clearly see this mysterious figure amongst the bright lights and fog though they are wearing a gold lamé jumpsuit and stand at least 8 feet tall.

Mysterious Figure
You should buy them a copy of the graphic novel – Earthling!.

Fish Monger
You means that graphic novel about a school bus from outer space?

Mysterious Figure
Exactly.

Bob
But that’s all science-fictiony and stuff. I don’t know if kids like that.

Mysterious Figure
You mean the way kids don’t like Star Wars and Transformers and such? Not to say Earthling! is exactly like Star Wars or Transformers but they share a genre…

Fay
I am researching it using my iPhone and gosh, the reviews sound great! Except for this one, man they really had it out for the guy. Anyway, that’s a great idea! I’ll order one right now from my iPhone!

Albert
It’s the perfect gift!

Fish Monger
Well that and a few pounds of fish!

All laugh. Fish monger has a coughing fit.

Bus Driver
(To mysterious stranger) Thanks for the book buying advice but you got a ticket?

Mysterious Stranger
I don’t know. Do you?

Curtain closes.

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Too many books…

Too many books. Too many shelves packed with books.

There, I said it. I have too many books and they are beginning to weigh on me more than I want them to. So it’s time to start deleveraging. So to speak.

It’s a big decision to make. But I plan on getting a box, then going through all the books on my shelves and I will keep only the books that fill that one box. No more, no less. I have too many tomes that I haven’t looked at in 15 years. I have those ‘Art Of’ books from animated films. Probably a dozen of them. Beautiful big, heavy, books. Love the art in them.Wonderful to casually page through, like I have time to casually page through anything anymore.

I do almost all of my visual research on the web now. I have directories full of art samples. I find myself going to the books less and less often for research. Either because of sloth or…well mainly because of sloth. This will not be an easy task but I need to clear the overstuffed shelves, the stacks on tables, the piles on the floor.

I’ve done this with CD’s and DVD’s and records and cassettes. Media storage nightmares all of them. I have three or four comic book cartons that need to go too. I’ve managed to ignore them, stick them in the back of the studio, move them to different corners, but honestly – it’s time. I realized I haven’t looked at what’s in those boxes for many, many years. Some I don’t think have been opened since I moved from Wisconsin to LA. Oh my. I feel even older now.

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Earthling! Reviews, the almost September edition.

A nice review of Earthling! is online today from The New York Times. It will be published on Sunday the 26th I think. I really appreciate that the reviewer looks at the ‘big picture’ of the book. I was out camping with my daughter overnight so I’m trying to catch-up now.

From the review: By the time Fearing brings “Earthling!” in for its landing, with a bit of L. Frank Baum flourish, the entertainment experience feels remarkably complete: good art, good design, good inking, tight story. May Fearing whoosh and scree his way to the finish line of his next book soon.

Buy a copy from Green Bean Books today! Drop them a email. I think they still have some signed copies.

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