Press Release: Once Upon A Times... the Early Comic Strips of John Steventon

Press Release: Once Upon A Times... the Early Comic Strips of John Steventon
For Immediate Release: April 10, 2010

John Steventon and HappyGlyphs Comics are very proud to announce a brand new comic strip collection, Once Upon A Times... the Early Comic Strips of John Steventon.  As the title implies, this is a collection of John Steventon's early work.  John is best known for his two comic strips Knight and Day and The Inquiring Minds, and this book explores the origins and evolution of these two comic strips and the characters that reside within.  "This book explores my growth as a Cartoonist," John says, "and follows my various attempts at newspaper Syndication.  There is a lot of fun stuff for the casual reader, and a good deal of valuable information for anyone wanting to learn about the craft of Cartooning."

Basically, the book is made up of chapters defined by John's various attempts at newspaper syndication.  Each chapter contains a new comic strip, and starts out with material submitted to Syndicate Editors.  This includes plot synopsis, character sketches, and cover letters, as well as the strips themselves.  Also included is John's thoughts on the strips, comments received from Editors, and other hard earned information as to why a strip wasn't picked up, and what could have been done better.

The strips are not the stinkers you may expect from a Cartoonist just starting out. "Actually," John says, "I left out my really early stuff, and my attempts at magazine cartooning.  What is here, though, are the origins of my more popular characters, and their evolution through various looks and even name changes.  Some of the early chapters may be a little rough, but I think the humour is very good, and surprisingly there's some nice art here."  By rough, the Cartoonist explained that his early material doesn't follow the standards of the newspaper comics page. "I didn't use the character's names in every strip, and my first strip was an adventure that needed a bigger platform to tell its story than a comic strip.  The reader may wonder what the heck is going on at times, but I do give a synopsis to get things started, and hopefully I can be forgiven for stumbling through my first attempts at Cartooning".

Over all, there is a nice progression to the book.  As the Cartoonist learns from his mistakes, the strips get better and easier to follow, and will hopefully leave the reader wanting more.  For that, the reader can turn to John's first book, Take Me Away From All This!!, a Knight and Day comic strip collection.  Knight and Day was created immediately after the completion of the strips in Once Upon A Times..., and this new book serves as a delightful prequel to Knight and Day as well as The (new and improved) Inquiring Minds that soon followed.

Once Upon A Times... is a must for any fan of HappyGlyphs Comics, and anyone interested in developing a comic strip of their own.  Once Upon A Times... will be available through HappyGlyphs Comics, and Lulu.com. Click the store name to visit that site.


Iris Knight, April 10, 2010