The Inquiring Minds are Digital on Comixology

The Inquiring Minds #1, The Ghost PIrate Skeletons of Three Craters Lake!   Now digital on Comixology.com.  Help support HappyGlyphs Comics, and assure more kid friendly books like this by buying the book here or at our shop.  With Comixology, you get closer to the art than ever, with incredible zooming, and(!), get this; you buy it once but can read it anywhere, from your PC, phone, or tablet.  How cool is that? Here's the official information, with links, followed by a closer look at the advantages of reading quality books like this in a digital format.

Published by: HappyGlyphs Comics Cover by: John W Steventon Written by: John W Steventon Art by: John W Steventon Colored by: John W Steventon Price: $3.99 Bobby, Albert, and sometimes Iris are The Inquiring Minds, three kids who seek fun and adventure by exploring all things strange and unusual in their hometown of Three Craters Lake. This summer, though, they're going to find plenty of adventure in their own backyard, as Albert, ever seeking fame and fortune, declares that The Inquiring Minds are going to build their own theme park! Sounds crazy, but as Iris herself says, "Bobby and Albert just don't know enough to let anything stop them!" Their success, or possible failure, comes down to one ride... The Ghost Pirate Skeletons of Three Craters Lake! Buy now on comiXology!  So what are some of the advantages?  Well, like a paper comic, you can view whole pages, entire spreads, or one panel at a time.  With Digital, though, you can zoom in on the action and art, and see details you might not have noticed in the paper comic.  Not that paper isn't great, but like a paper comic, you take the digital version with you, and catch up on your reading anywhere.  I started reading the comic on my phone, and when I picked up my tablet, it asked if I wanted to pick up where I left off on my phone.  Pretty cool!    So please check it out.  We'll still have paper books, of course, and we do have digital books on Kindle, but this looks worth looking into.  And if we do well on comixology, there'll be more books on comixology, and more new books for you to read! Thanks for the support,    JOHN :0)

Comic-con International 2013 Pics!

I'm finally getting around to posting my Comic-con pics from this year, the first time I actually exhibited.
It's a work in progress, but you can see the to-date set here at my facebook page, and hopefully I'll find another photo-sharing site as well. (I can't seem to load to my Flickr account, so...)

I'll also get around to doing a full report, once I iron our a few problems, and find the time during what will be a very hectic fall schedule, with Baltimore and Ohio Comic-cons coming up, and some other exciting events!

I will say that Comic-con this year was exceedingly crowded with some very enthusiastic crowds that started lining up around 6:00 every morning, before the sun even came up.  Thanks to jet lag, I was up around 5:00 each morning, which actually worked to my advantage, allowing me to easily get into work and have my table ready usually an hour or two before the doors opened.

 

I will say that walking the show floor early, when the lights seemed dim, and few people were around was an amazing experience!  I was able to totally geek out walking past huge banners of superheroes and video games, a life-sized LEGO Iron Man and even Thor's hammer.  Unfortunately, because I was working the show, I did not see more than 20% of the show.

I did see lots of costumes, and met some wonderful people, and have a lot more to tell you when I get the chance.  And I got to do my first convention sketch, live!  I've done plenty of little sketches for people, but this was a complete illustration, penciled and inked as people walked by and watched, which I never thought I could do, so... I did it again, and plan to do more at future shows. :0)

Click that link above for the rest of the pics, and be reassured that there are a lot more to come.

All the best,    JOHN :0)

The Last Page!

I've finally drawn the last page of The Ghost Pirate Skeletons of Three Craters Lake!!!!

At least I think I have.  I'm going to have to go back and read over everything and see if I need to add two additional pages.  The last read through I did of the script led me to believe that one part of the story needed a little enhancement... the pacing went by too fast. So we'll have to see if I'm done, or if there's a bit more work to do.

Either way, this is an incredibly big deal to me... right up there with drawing my 300th Knight and Day last year.  This comic book, my first full color comic with one storyline, has been a long journey for me.  Unfortunately, I needed to take a couple of breaks from it, but in the long run, I know that the book will be better for me having waited, and because of my skills increasing with time.

And the journey is truly only beginning!  This comic book will be a big deal for my company HappyGlyphs Comics, and I will have a lot of big announcements to make before the book is printed and available.

So please, stay tooned!    JOHN :0)

Comics on Kindle: 3 Knights in India

After a lot of learning, I've finally launched 3 Knights in India, my graphic novel, as an ePub.

I bought books, searched the web, but as usual, ended up just doing it myself. It was much easier that way.  Even at Amaon's publishing pages there was some misinformation that I needed to get past, just to move forward.  If you follow 'the rules', per se, you can waste days wondering what you're doing wrong, when you're just taking a different path.

I first created my Wolfman of Beckenham, Kent as an eBook.  At 8 pages, it was small enough to hammer out the basics of ePublishing.  Then I did the two Inquiring Minds books, now both available exclusively at the Kindle store.  I finally went back to 3 Knights in India. and resized the artwork for optimum viewing.  After all this, I managed to bring my graphic novel down to 26 MB from 53MB, and it looks great.

I love real books... the kind with dust jackets that you keep odd bits of paper in as bookmarks, but publishing them can be a chore, and an expensive one at that.  3 Knights in India was made for color, but as it first ran in the India Post, and then was published as a graphic novel, it simply had to be a black and white endeavor.  Now, however, with the Kindle App that allows you to read comics in color on any device, I was able to present 3 Knights in India more as it should have been.

Even if you have the graphic novel, this second edition has a lot of my original work now being shown in color, as well as some of the black and white art that I have colored exclusively for this edition, and I've even added some brand new stuff!

I'm very proud of this book, and at $6.99, it's a bargain.  It took me 3 years to write the original, and it's a fun story. If you enjoy Knight and Day, then you will enjoy this book.  It's Steve and Amy Knight, their daughter Iris, Oz the Ice Cream Man, and especially Sunny Day at her best, all coming together in whirlwind of an adventure that starts in New Jersey and ends up across the world in Bangalore, where everyone still manages to drive Steven crazy!

All's well that ends well, though, and there's more.  Musings of mine from my own travels, a few recipes, and other fun stuff make this a unique graphic novel experience. Check it out, and let me know what you think.

Cheers,    JOHN :0)

Publishing in the New World

The world is changing, and more rapidly than I think anyone could have guessed.  There's a lot of talk about newspapers, and publishing in general, and where it's all going.  As the new year approaches, I am unusually flustered, and quite frustrated, in investigating new venues for my company.

I'm talking about eBooks... electronic books that you can read on your iPad or comparable tablet, or on a eReader such as the Kindle or Nook.  I love a good book that I can hold in my hand, and take to the beach, but I've been pulled into the eBook world as a matter of convenience, and just to check out what's new.  In a matter of weeks I've already purchased several books in different formats... mostly for business, but some for fun. I am disappointed in the one thing I thought electronic publishing would bring me... books that I can no longer find in print.  Apparently, there's a lot of the same books you can find on a bookstore shelf available in electronic format, but the entire history of publishing is still out there, waiting to be converted.  There are some books that I just can't find anymore, at a decent price anyway, and I was really hoping to rediscover them in this new format.

I digress,  As a publisher, I see a lot of potential in this relatively new format.  Unfortunately, most of what I have done is comic strip related.  After a LOT of investigation... reading everything I can find on the web, and just about every decent book I can find on the subject, it appears that eBooks are just not ready for image heavy books.  There are a lot of roadblocks, and frankly, it's a lot more work to convert a comic book to an ePub or other eBook format.  It has been done, and there are eComics out there, but everywhere I go I see stumbling blocks, and warnings.

I have created an ePub out of 3 Knights in India, and I have enjoyed tremendously revisiting this book!  I have made a version that reads very well in Kindle, but not so well in Nook.  Apparently, I will probably be better off either picking one or the other, or spending time creating two new books, one for each platform.  Frankly, I've put a lot of work into this already.  I'm warning all cartoonists to think before leaping into this new format of publishing.  I've wasted a lot of time, and so far have not accomplished anything.  The quality of eComics as they stand right now varies tremendously, and your eBook may not be accepted if the legibility is too low.  Amazon has ridiculous guidelines set right now for images, and those guidelines are already aimed at the future!  My images are much bigger than the asked for standard, but if I make them any smaller, then they become very difficult to read.

Amazon also has an added charge of 15 cents per megabyte for downloading the book, and that comes from the authors profits.  As it stands now, if they were to accept the graphic novel, with well over a hundred large images, I would have to sell the book much higher than I'd like to get any profit at all. Not a good business plan, let me add, from experience, since selling Print on Demand is the same business plan. (Little profit for a lot of work)

So, a new year approaches, and I currently face nothing but frustration.  I won't give up, after all the work I have put into it so far, but right now I am not happy.  I am sure that one day, maybe soon, the industry may mature enough so that all the roadblocks I'm facing now will disappear,  When that time comes, however, the market will be flooded, and it will be all that harder to be seen in the crowd.

Think twice, cartoonists!  Maybe a small comic book can be done, but the world just isn't ready for an eGraphic Novel.  I've done the research, and if the answers are out there, those in the know aren't ready to share yet.

Happy New Year!    JOHN :0)

PS What I'm listening to? Andi Starr, Leaving the White Line

Fund Raising Update: incentives.

Whether you know it or not, we are at war... war with a disease that is affecting more and more people every day.  We lost Kage Baker last week, one of my favorite Authors, to cancer.  I can list easily a dozen more people I know personally that have this horrible disease, or know someone who has lost someone to cancer, or are taking care of someone with a form of cancer.  In fact, if you do not know someone with cancer, then you are a minority... one of the lucky few.

I hate this disease for what it does to people, and to our society.  It takes from us the people we love, it robs us of great minds that could have done wonders if given more time, and it drains us... mentally, physically... I hate it.  I'm not a Scientist or a Researcher or Doctor, so what can an Illustrator and Cartoonist do, who is tired of sitting by dong nothing?  My answer is this fund raiser.  I am hoping to raise money for the American Cancer Society, and I pray that they are going to take this money and do some good.

So far we have raised $260!  Yay, us!  That's not enough, of course, but it's a start.  I have set a modest goal of $1000, with the hope of collecting more, and the fear of collecting less.  Let me state right away that this fundraiser is not putting anything in my pocket. This is why I chose to go through FirstGiving.com and to donate through them to the American Cancer Society.  It's all legit, and in the open.  You can see how much is collected, and you can read how much goes to the American Cancer Society, and at their website you can see what they do with their money.  Everything seems to be above board, as they say. :0)

Because I feel so strongly about this, and because of who I am, I have chosen to create special incentives for those of you who do donate through my site.  HappyGlyphs Comics and I have created special artwork that you can see above for a Thank You card, and a very nice collectible pin featuring our mascot, the HappyGlyphs Sheep.  The pin is exaclty like the pins you can get at Disney, except it features my sheep, instead of Goofy or Pluto.  The same quality and collectibility, but different.

Hopefully these gifts will be enough to encourage you to donate to a worthy cause. No, you shouldn't be donating just to get gifts, but it is a great cause, and there are so many places you can donate, sowhy not here?  And why shouldn't you be rewarded for taking your time and your money, and for helping those families who are ravaged by this disease.  Yes, ravaged. If you haven't experienced cancer, you have no idea how bad it can be for the person suffering, and for their loved ones.

Please donate, if you can.  Thanks,    JOHN :0)

http://www.firstgiving.com/johnsteventon

PS How can I forget? When we reach $1000 in donations, I will put your names in my hat, and choose one lucky winner to win the original art for the Knight Family in Disneyland illustration you see above.  Heck, here's a scan of the original art here. Ain't it pretty?