Wednesday, December 19, 2012

23 Ways for a Comic Artist to Survive and Thrive in any Economy

This was originally a to do list that I wrote for myself. I was trying to think of as many things that I could do as an artist to expand my reach and get the word out there. Some were stupid so I immediately omitted them and tried to chisel this list down to only the good stuff.
This isn’t meant to distract you from your goal of becoming an uber successful comic book artist. I understand that you need to dedicate the bulk of your time to your craft and comic pages take long enough to finish as it is. Believe me, I sometimes wish there were 100 hours to a day.
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Is Kickstarter the #3 U.S. Indie Graphic Novel Publisher?

You’ve probably heard of Kickstarter, the website where people post pitches for creative projects and invite the public to contribute money to fund those projects. You’ve probably heard that comics material is a popular category on Kickstarter. If someone told you that Kickstarter funded roughly the same amount of comics material as DC Comics’ Vertigo Imprint, you’d look at them like they were crazy.
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Monday, December 17, 2012

GENERICON XXVI IS MARCH 1-3, 2013! This year’s theme is “Post-Apocalypse.”

Genericon is a weekend-long, general convention run by the students of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. Our events run the gamut of geeky hobbies, including science fiction, gaming of all forms, and anime. Our events include panels by guest speakers and fan presenters, video gaming tournaments, role-playing games of both the pen-and-paper and live-action variety, and 24 hour science fiction and anime showings, spanning old classics and new favorites. The convention runs for an uninterrupted 48 hours, starting at 5 PM on Friday, March 1, 2013 and ending the following Sunday, March 3 at 5 PM.

http://genericon.union.rpi.edu/wordpress/

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Mike Raicht, of Marcellus, finds success in comic book industry with 'Stuff of Legend'

A slumped-over plush teddy bear caught Mike Raicht's eye one night as he was putting his son in his crib. The bear eventually became the inspiration for "The Stuff of Legend," the second volume of which has been published this summer after the first was compiled into a graphic novel and made the New York Times best sellers list.
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An opportunity to be creative or be distracted from the task at hand.



If you are interested in creating comics or memes and don't know where to begin, list contains a bunch of online tools to get you started. From comic strips to your own custom Marvel comic, you'll find something to spark your creative juices. Or you will spend time you should be working on a much more important project making a spiderman say goofy things.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/create-web-comics-memes-free-tools/

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Sagert looks to restore faded comic community


It was in the early 1970s, when Sagert was looking for a storefront to set up his new comic book shop. There was a time when people believed Mike Sagert sold porn.
But at the time, the idea of a shop that specialized in comics was strange. It didn’t matter how passionate Sagert was about comics, everyone else still viewed illustrated adventures as mutated reading material. They were uncanny. So when Sagert looked for storefronts, landlords misunderstood what he was trying to sell. In their minds, there was little difference between superheroes and strippers. Continue here.


Monday, December 10, 2012




Dan Jurgens is one of the greats in the Comic Book industry. This is a man that will go into the Hall of Fame among Stan Lee and Jack Kirby His site features a breakdown of the process involve creating comic art and the evolution of Doomsday. 

Good Time - Cosplay Parody of Owl City ft. Carly Rae Jepsen

Sunday, December 9, 2012

WOMEN OF COMICBOOK COSPLAY


One of the best part of attending conventions is the cosplay that is going on there and Women of Comic  Book Cosplay collects the best in one site. I must admit I spent quite some time searching the archives of the site looking for the perfect picture to use for this post. The problem is they are all so good. WoCC dispels any myths that cosplayer are only "con hot".  Well check it out for yourself.   http://comicbookcosplay.tumblr.com/

I’M NOT BUYING IT!

With Christmas upon us it is easy to buy the first piece of licensed merchandise for the comic fan in your life. Gabe Roth has a great article on ifanboy.com on the state of comic licensing to help you out. You should check it out. http://ifanboy.com/articles/im-not-buying-it/

Dial B for Blog

I just came across this site dialbforblog.com and was lost for hours going through the back issues. It is a blog that covers the silver age of comics in a format the matches the era. The author takes on the pen name Robby Reed, the star of Dial H for Hero. The 600th and final issue covers the life of Jack Kirby and is extremely interesting, while back issues such as Batman's Boners will have you in stitches.

Join the team.

If you are interested in joining the Fanatic Voyages team, we want you. We are looking for a talented writer to assist in the creation of our marketing material. If you think you would like to join the team just contact send an email to fanaticvoyages@gmail.com

Welcome to Fanatic Voyages

Hello, I’m Chris Wicks and I am the founder of Fanatic Voyages. We are a “Destination Management Company” that is specializing in providing bus tours to comic book, gaming, and pop-culture conventions such as NYCC, Boston Comic Con, PAX East, and others from Syracuse, NY. Since our guests all share a common interest based on the destination, we will be providing activities and entertainment en route. This will essentially be a “mini-convention on wheels”.

We will be posting our schedule shortly and how you can get your tickets for our convention packages. We look forward to meeting all of you over the coming year.