Some News

I got to see Alex a couple of times last weekend, as he made his first return to San Jose since moving to Baltimore about 8 months ago.  In case you were wondering, he seems to be doing fine.  I’m glad I got to see him twice because we had so much to say that we didn’t even get to broach the subject of comics the first time.

So it’s a good thing we met again so we could talk about them extensively and come up with a plan of how things are going to be handled moving forward.  One of the biggest problems with his move to the east coast was that are communication has suffered greatly.  It has turned mainly to keeping up with each other on Facebook, which is not very good when we’re trying to accomplish a mutual goal.

To remedy this I’m happy to announce that Alex and I have committed to regular video chat meetings at least every other week to discuss comic business.  It’s not easy to get a man like Alex on a schedule, but I think this will be good.  It helps that we can talk via video so easily now, as a lot gets lost in email, chatting online or even talking on the phone.

In another exciting announcement, Alex has committed to writing for the blog.  In the past he has only posted a few times, but you can expect to start hearing from him on a more regular basis.  I think this will  be good for everyone.  It will keep him involved, it will give you another voice on here and it will make me not look like I have an imaginary friend name Alex!  Who knew it could be so hard to get a writer to write?

What will he be writing about?  Who knows.  I’d say there’s a good chance it will include the NBA and Game of Thrones though.

You may have caught wind of this yesterday, but I’ll say it again…Optimistically Cynical will be back next Monday after taking a two week vacation.  That was largely due to my family vacation in Disneyland last week, which was a lot of fun.

I want to briefly touch on the response I’ve gotten from this comic so far, which has been overwhelmingly positive.  It seems like people can really connect with it and get a good chuckle.  Even Alex told me it’s caused him to laugh out loud a few times.  At our meeting I had in fact offered to put the comic on hold while we worked on some other things (see below), but he insisted I should keep it going and told me how much he liked it.

So I’m happy that I’ve found something that seems to genuinely tap into the webcomic vein and give people what they are looking for.  It helps that I’m having a blast making it and it doesn’t take me too long to do.

Sadly, this is a current snapshot of where our KickStarter is at.  So it looks like we are destined to fail at this point, which is rather sad and frustrating.  I’ve done everything I can think of to promote it at this point, so I’m not really sure what I can do.

It is hard because I see so many other project exceed their goals, often doubling or tripling their goals, and I don’t know why we are struggling with it so much.  I hold out some hope as I’ve heard it is pretty common to lose steam in the middle than really rally at the end.  So that’d be cool…

And as always, anything you can spare would be greatly appreciated.

So where does that leave us if we do ultimately fail?  We’ll probably try again with a slightly updated version of the project and a lower goal in a few months.  And if it still doesn’t work we’ll find a cheap way to just get it printed, maybe Create Space again.

But there is one great coup we can take away from this KickStarter, and that is that Mark Egan has pledged to make a new page of I’m Famous in Japan! for every $100 we get, regardless of if we hit our goal.  So currently we are getting 5 new pages, and I know he’s already started work on one.

It will be really fun to get back to that series, and possibly get to the conclusion, as it was always meant to be a shorter one off type of thing.  I’m very appreciative of Mark for making that pledge, as I know his two comics keep him very busy.

And if you didn’t know, Mark has also pledge to create a commission piece for anyone who donates $500 or more to the KickStarter.  So you could be getting a commission from each of us!

Regardless of the KickStarter outcome look to see a major push to wrap up Two Drink Minimum soon.  There are still some major scenes and surprises to come, which means there is a lot to look forward to with this.

Personally I’m really excited to see the product completed and what kind of response we get.  I’m thinking it will be very positive, as the art consistently improves, the writing is really good and everything about it is so unique.  I also look forward to coming up with some bonus material for it, and am considering redoing the cover.  Not sure about that yet, as I do like the current cover a lot.  Maybe variant covers?

After we finish that book it will be a lot of fun to flesh out the script for the next one, as we already have a really good outline.

Alex and I have already discussed doing conventions next year, especially since we will have Two Drink Minimum printed and ready to sell. That will be really cool, and will very likely necessitate one of us flying to the other side of the country. Which conventions? I don’t know yet. A return to BigWow! and APE seem fairly likely. There are always a few in Sacramento, or the big ones down San Diego way. Then there’s Baltimore Comic-Con…

Wait and see I guess.

Lastly, and certainly not least, look for the glorious return of I’m Famous! in the near future.  I’ve always regretted putting this series on hold, and can’t wait to really get back into it.

One of the fun things here is that I only wrote a few more, so right now we really don’t know what’s coming next.  I look forward to seeing what Alex comes up with.  He’s mentioned a couple interesting ideas that would take things to new places.

How will I juggle keeping 3 series going?  I have no clue!  I’ll definitely need to come up with some kind of drawing schedule.

So all in all I’d say it is a very good time to be a fan of Black Snow Comics.