{"id":97,"date":"2007-06-14T13:41:06","date_gmt":"2007-06-14T19:41:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/?p=97"},"modified":"2010-04-26T11:52:46","modified_gmt":"2010-04-26T17:52:46","slug":"gearing-up-for-ape-con-2006","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/archives\/97","title":{"rendered":"92. GEARING UP FOR APE-CON 2006"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back At Last!\u00a0 Blog Update 6\/14\/07 <\/strong>
\nGreetings, fans, and welcome back at last!<\/p>\n

THE RETURN OF THE BLOG\u2026<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

DIARY OF A STRUGGLING COMICS ARTIST is finally up and running!<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Sorry it took us four months and eight days to begin posting again, fans! <\/span>Technical difficulties and a free-but-moronic blog-hosting site had us shut and locked up, but good! <\/span>That entire time that you’ve been suffering without our blog, we were unable to post new diary entries, edit old posts, or even remove all those goddamn porn-site message-leaving meddlers that posted around a hundred spam-porn messages throughout our old blog! But we\u2019re back again strong now, with a new hosting program that isn’t a piece of shit, without porn-links (sorry, fans of the porn links!), and ready to relay the pathetic adventures of Chris Wisnia trying to make it in the comics industry, strictly for your amusement (and his ego)!<\/p>\n

Even though the system was locked, we’ve secretly been posting additions for a portion of that time we were away, in preparation for the day we’d be up and running again! So you should have plenty of reading, now, to keep you busy for at least ten minutes!<\/p>\n

So ease into your smoking jacket and slippers, light that pipe, get your “Moonlight Sonata: Adagio” record out of its sleeve and onto your record player, lie back, relax, curl up with a warm glass of milk, and enjoy!<\/p>\n

-Rob Oder, Editor-in-Chief!<\/p>\n

…and now, the diary…<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

April 4, 2006<\/p>\n

My original plan was to try and have a dozen pages of new giant monster stories finished and ready to show around to Fantagraphics, Oni, Idea Design Works, and AIT\/Planet Lar. <\/span>I think I\u2019ll have ten. Not so not bad.<\/p>\n

I took a few months getting the Doris Danger book together end of last year, and then it took me a few months to get the Lump Trade Paperback together. <\/span>Almost just as an excuse to be drawing again, I decided to draw three pages of epilogue for that project, and it felt really good to get drawing again. <\/span>The last couple weeks have been my only real chance in months to just sit down and get pages pounded out.<\/p>\n

With my day job as a guitar instructor, I just changed my charging policies. <\/span>The way I\u2019m set up now, I charge a flat monthly fee for four lessons a month. <\/span>If you have lessons on Mondays, and there\u2019s a fifth Monday that month, we take that week off. <\/span>I just started this new policy in March, and March had five Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. <\/span>That meant, come March 29th<\/sup> to 31st<\/sup>, I took the days off and got myself a five day weekend.<\/p>\n

All that week, I told myself I had to sit down and draw, especially since I was just goofing off last week, sending out emails\u2026but I never did. <\/span>Finally around Thursday, I sat down and cranked out some work, and really got in the groove Friday Saturday. <\/span>I drew two new pages, and inked another that I had already penciled. <\/span>I got in at least ten or so hours a couple of those days. <\/span>It was exhausting. <\/span>I had to be careful, because I could feel my hand cramping up, if I spent too long without giving my hand a stretch. <\/span>Don\u2019t want to end up with tendonitis.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve gotten some email replies from a few artists I\u2019ve contacted. <\/span>A couple didn\u2019t pan out, but I sent payments to Sam Glanzman and Guy Davis. <\/span>Sam was hilarious. <\/span>He said he was in the middle of a deadline, but let\u2019s go man! <\/span>Real enthusiastic. <\/span>His pin-up actually came in within a few days. <\/span>Great!<\/p>\n

Guy Davis seemed really sweet. <\/span>He began the email thanking me for wanting him to contribute. <\/span>Usually, when someone opens a letter this way, it means, \u201cThank you, I\u2019m not interested.\u201d <\/span>But he said he\u2019d really like to be included.<\/p>\n

Today I\u2019m wondering how many emails I\u2019ve been sent that I never saw. <\/span>I\u2019ve had a number of people tell me they\u2019ve sent me emails (always because I\u2019m waiting for replies from them, and I don\u2019t hear back), and I never received them. <\/span>Today Al Feldstein wrote that he\u2019d written me, and didn\u2019t I get his email?<\/p>\n

As soon as we got back from the Orlando Con, where I met Al, I sent him an email to say hello, send him copies of his pin-ups and photos we took. <\/span>Ever since then, I\u2019ve gotten fourteen emailings he sends out to his address group. <\/span>All of them have been anti-conservative, anti-Republican propaganda. <\/span>We\u2019re talking literally inside of one month, I\u2019ve gotten fourteen of these emails. <\/span>That averages practically one every two days. <\/span>It\u2019s not good if your spam-guard blocks two emails from a mailer, and you still get twelve in a month!<\/p>\n

The interesting thing is that politically, I think Al is right on. <\/span>We\u2019re on the same boat there. <\/span>But man, fourteen emails. <\/span>My wife says, well, he\u2019s the guy who has the right to send them out. <\/span>He was called in to testify for the McCarthy hearings. <\/span>If anyone knows what they\u2019re talking about with conservatives going too far, Al\u2019s got a case for it.<\/p>\n

The reason I had written him this week is that I sheepishly sent him copies of his pin-ups that I inked. <\/span>I wanted to see what he thought, and see if he would mind if I published them. <\/span>I wrote that if he\u2019d rather I publish his pencils without my inks, just say the word. <\/span>I certainly understood. <\/span><\/p>\n

The message I got today was that it was all right with him, so long as I also published his pencils along with the inks, and I thoroughly explained the situation of getting the pin-ups from him (In other words, that they were quick convention sketches, which I think he always felt a little insecure about), and that my inks were \u201cunauthorized.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the word he used. <\/span>\u201cUnauthorized.\u201d <\/span>I felt bad that he used that word to describe my inks. <\/span>It made me think he wasn\u2019t particularly keen about the idea. <\/span>But on the other hand, I can appreciate that. <\/span>The original deal was that I would publish the pencil drawings he gave me. <\/span>He didn\u2019t ask me to ink them. <\/span>I was obviously taking liberties, to the point of rudeness. <\/span>Of course, an artist (or aspiring artist such as myself) does these things just because it\u2019s a good experience, but also in the hopes that his idol will say, \u201cWow! <\/span>These look so great, I can\u2019t believe my eyes! <\/span>You\u2019d be stupid not to publish these inks! <\/span>You are an amazing artist!\u201d <\/span>But of course, we\u2019re just setting ourselves up for disappointment when we hope for these things.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m thinking about whether I want to just include his pencils or not. <\/span>I\u2019ve got a few ideas. <\/span>My plan right now (and of course it seems my plans always change) is to release two Doris Danger books, \u201cDoris Danger Greatest Army Battles,\u201d and \u201cDoris Danger in Outer Space.\u201d <\/span>I\u2019ll put the war pin-ups (Sam Glanzman, Dick Ayers, Russ Heath) in the army book, and the outer space pin-ups (JH Williams III, Dave Gibbons, Al Feldstein) in the outer space book. <\/span>What I\u2019m thinking right now is to put his \u201cTales from the Crypt\u201d-style pin-up in the war book, alongside my inks. <\/span>On my inked page, I could put, \u201cWarning! <\/span>This pin-up has unauthorized inks!\u201d <\/span>And a little paragraph explaining the situation, as Al requests. <\/span>Then in the space book, maybe I\u2019ll just do Al\u2019s pencils, and not bother with my inks. <\/span>I could always post my sci-fi inks on the website, alongside his pencils with a paragraph, in the \u201clinks\u201d section, and link it to Al\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

So many choices\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back At Last!\u00a0 Blog Update 6\/14\/07 Greetings, fans, and welcome back at last! THE RETURN OF THE BLOG\u2026 DIARY OF A STRUGGLING COMICS ARTIST is finally up and running! Sorry it took us four months and eight days to begin posting again, fans! Technical difficulties and a free-but-moronic blog-hosting site had us shut and locked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diary-of-a-struggling-comics-artist"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"woocommerce_thumbnail":false,"woocommerce_single":false,"woocommerce_gallery_thumbnail":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"cwisnia","author_link":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/archives\/author\/cwisnia"},"uagb_comment_info":50,"uagb_excerpt":"Back At Last!\u00a0 Blog Update 6\/14\/07 Greetings, fans, and welcome back at last! THE RETURN OF THE BLOG\u2026 DIARY OF A STRUGGLING COMICS ARTIST is finally up and running! Sorry it took us four months and eight days to begin posting again, fans! Technical difficulties and a free-but-moronic blog-hosting site had us shut and locked…","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chriswisniaarts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}