The Holiday Season hits JAVILAND! Our special Christmas Show featured a fairly large amount of callers, as well as a look back at our year in art, and a look toward 2010. Also, this was the 30th episode of JAVILAND, which feels great to have arrived at.
This episode we talked about what we each received from 2009. This took the form of artistic inspiration, new printing opportunities, experiences in exhibiting at comic conventions, etc. The artists also talked about their plans for 2010, such as what comics they plan to produce and what strategies they're going to employ in their art and branding.
Joining us on the call for the first time on JAVILAND were two cartoonists who maintain fairly productive schedules. Tyler James is the creator of several webcomics including the romantic comedy OVER and also teaches comics as well as writing a column for the COMIC RELATED website. Mary Bellamy is the creator of the comic book AH HECK and FAUX. And Mary is currently taking pre-orders for her brand new line of plush dolls based on some of her characters!
A pretty heafty episode, that's for sure! But I think with the rich diversity of the cartoonists this episode, you really get a feel for the passion and creativity these individuals possess. Thanks to all for participating in this episode, and for following the podcast. I hope you have a very merry Holiday Season this year. 2010 will no doubt bring us lots more comics and lots more talk!
Listen to the episode with the TalkShoe Player on the right, or go to our TalkShoe page and listen there. While you're over there, add JAVILAND to your iTunes feed and get every episode delivered automatically as they're posted!
This episode didn't have a particular topic, but I instead decided to keep it open for anything we wanted to talk about. Of course, it still revolved around the actual topics of art and comics, but it was nice to have a kind of buffet-type conversation.
Among the things we discussed were Ted Seko's recent appearance at the Gardena Holiday Craft Fair, and how he, as a comic book artist/creator was able to create a new product (a SUPERMONSTERS COLORING BOOK) for that specific show. We also talked about Merchandising, and how we can take some of our iconic images and brand them onto other products in addition to our comics. I also shared my experience at the Ronald McDonald House event at the Warner Bros. Ranch, drawing for kids.
Among the cool things we recommended you check out were:
Thanks to everyone who participated, and thanks to everyone who listens to the show. Your support is much appreciated!
Listen to the episode with the TalkShoe Player on the right, or go to our TalkShoe page and listen there. While you're over there, add JAVILAND to your iTunes feed and get every episode delivered automatically as they're posted!
Based on a topic brought up by another artist (Luis Escobar, a storyboard artist and newest member of the Cartoonistas), this episode gave us a lot of interesting things to reflect upon regarding how we promote our work to readers. And also it let us explore what we put into our stories.
The original questions posed by Luis was "What promise is your art making to readers, and what need do they want fulfilled by your art". From there we went off in several discussions regarding our commercial approaches and what's important to us in our storytelling.
A nice bonus to this episode was that Greg Giordano drew this nice piece of art while on the call. It's a roundtable of characters created by everyone who participated on this episode! Check out his site for the full image!
Listen to the episode with the TalkShoe Player on the right, or go to our TalkShoe page and listen there. While you're over there, add Javiland to your iTunes feed and get every episode delivered automatically as they're posted! Thanks for participating, reading, and listening!
Money or fame or personal satisfaction? Which of these do you use to measure your success? On this episode, we discuss these and other measures of our own personal success.
Listen to the episode with the TalkShoe Player on the right, or go to our TalkShoe page and listen there. While you're over there, add Javiland to your iTunes feed and get every episode delivered automatically as they're posted! Thanks for participating, reading, and listening!
As artists, we often mention other artists or certain works that inspire us to create our own art. Sometimes we get inspiration from artists in other mediums, or folks who may not even be artists themselves.
On the episode we discuss who influences, and how we take that inspiration and apply it to our own work as creators and publishers.
Listen to the episode with the TalkShoe Player on the right, or go to our TalkShoe page and listen there. While you're over there, add Javiland to your iTunes feed and get every episode delivered automatically as they're posted! Thanks for participating, reading, and listening!
This is Part 2 of the "DIY Comics: The Secrets of Self-Publishing" podcast. Pt. 1 can be found on Episode 24.
Here's what we discussed:
#3: CREATE THE STORIES YOU WANT TO TELL, NOT WHAT YOU THINK PEOPLE WANT TO READ: If you try to get ahead of some type of particular trend in comics, how long will that trend last? Is your heart behind that type of story? If you tell the exact story you want to tell, your own voice will shine through. And if people like the work you produce, they'll look at you for your unique ways of telling stories, regardless of whatever genre you tackle.
#4: DON'T CREATE IN A VACUUM: This one is, I believe, very particular to those of us who publish our own books. Even before you sit down and draw your comic, how is it going to be published? In print, or on the web? Your page format, and digital files, must be taken into account. Do you have money to print your book once it's ready? Can you build your own website, or can you afford to have someone build it for you? What are your goals? Lots of questions relating to marketing and distribution should be asked at this stage. We tackle a few on the podcast.
Ryan Dow shared this link with us: How To Be Creative, a manifesto by Hugh MacLeod on being creative. I found it very insightful and practial, and an entertaining read as well.
I've recently taught my first seminar of "DIY Comics: The Secrets of Self-Publishing" at a local comic shop, and in fact have been invited to the Portland Comic Book Show on November 15 to teach the workshop there as well. My hope is to be able to reach more people with this, as a way of inspiring them to make their own comics. I'm planning on creating a "DIY COMICS" book as well, filled with anecdotes, comics and the 'Secrets' on self-publishing.
Listen to the episode with the TalkShoe Player on the right, or go to our TalkShoe page and listen there. While you're over there, add Javiland to your iTunes feed and get every episode delivered automatically as they're posted! Thanks for paricipating, reading, and listening!
This episode turned out to be Part 1, as we had more material to cover which we'll discuss in Pt. 2, scheduled for Sunday, Sept 27, in Episode #25.
This episode is derived from a recent seminar I gave at GEEKS, our local friendly-neighborhood comics shop in Whittier, CA. Titled "D.I.Y. comics: The Secrets of Self-Publishing", the seminar consisted of me sharing with others my own personal mantra, (or manifesto, if you will!) of creating self-published comics.
Because we had lots of great discussion on the roundtable for this episode, we only really were able to discuss 'Secrets' #1 and #2. (I know these probably aren't really 'secrets', but part of establishing your own brand in comics is coming up with attention grabbing labels!). Come back for Episode 25 for Secrets #3 and #4.
Here's what we discussed:
#1: COMICS ARE YOUR CHOSEN VOICE OF EXPRESSION: This one probably sounds the most obvious, but it's meant to be a liberating declaration. We love the comics medium and so choose to use that as our vehicle of expression. Your artistic voice is your personal unique fingerprint you leave on the world (whether your voice is heard by a couple of hundred people or tens of thousands). And only you can speak in that voice. See what others have done in comics, but pursue it with your own innovations and style.
#2: SELF-PUBLISHING IS A MARATHON, NOT A 50 YRD DASH: You have to think long-term in regards to establishing your brand and audience. The assumption is that we have more limited resources (time and money) to devote to our work, so concentrate on fostering your own 'staying power'. Prepare for the barrage of upsets, setbacks, obstacles (many put there by ourselves!), but as long as you know that they will appear, you become better at handling them.
Also on this episode, we announce the winners of the coloring contest I ran on JAVZILLA.COM!
Listen to the episode with the TalkShoe Player on the right, or go to our TalkShoe page and listen there. While you're over there, add Javiland to your iTunes feed and get every episode delivered automatically as they're posted!
This episode turned out to be another vigorous discussion! Our topic was 'All-Ages comics', and how we approach making comics that we feel would be appropriate for a wider audience. There's plenty of discussion on what exactly 'All-Ages' means, and how other comics, or movies, have achieved that wider audience, where there's something for 'everyone'. Also on the table was a discussion about the reasons one may choose to reach an All-Ages audience, and what the pitfalls for DIY/Indie comics could be.
Listen to the episode with the TalkShoe Player on the right, or go to our TalkShoe page and listen there. While you're over there, add Javiland to your iTunes feed and get every episode delivered automatically as they're posted!
The idea for this show came from a personal experience I've had in the last two weeks, which I shared on my site JAVILAND. Basically this episodes topic dealt with finding other ways to make money besides just via self-publishing. And to be honest, self-publishing isn't exactly a way to make a living, although there are opportunities to make money at it under certain circumstances.
Some of the things we discussed that could generate some additional revenue included teaching comic book workshops, speaking at schools & libraries and performing Live Art (creating and selling artwork). Sometimes a bad thing, like getting layed-off from work, can potentially lead to other avenues, like teaching workshops. Basically focusing as much as you can on your art and skills you have that apply to cartooning/publishing.
We also talked about the recent news that Ka-Blam, a print-on-demand service, will now distribute directly to comic book shops via their new ComicsMonkey distribution arm. A potentially seismic shift due to Diamond Comics Distributors recent raising of their minimum thresholds that they'll carry smaller, less popular titles.
Listen to the episode with the TalkShoe Player on the right, or go to our TalkShoe page and listen there. While you're over there, add Javiland to your iTunes feed and get every episode delivered automatically as they're posted!
We all want readers, whether we make web comics or print comics. But to help us indie creators prosper and even live off our own work, perhaps the model of the "1,000 True Fans"should be looked at, or at least adapted to our individual endeavors. An 'Active Fan' supports all your work by helping promote it and purchasing new products you create.
There are a lot of things we can do to cultivate an active fan base, some being communicating online, meeting fans by exhibiting at conventions and art galleries. Basically just keeping in touch with your fans by more than just creating the work (which is the primary concern). Personable skills are obviously important in cultivating true fans, and some D.I.Y publishers will have to work at this. But the rewards are positive and really motivating (not to mention financially beneficial!)
One thing I tried to do different starting with this podcast was to focus on staying on-topic! If you've listened to previous episodes, me and some of the other callers veer off on tangents that usually revolve around old 1970s Marvel comics or TV shows. While this stuff is obviously fun for some of us, I've realized that it could certainly turn off many listeners. I want folks to be able to listen to these podcasts and hear content useful to them in learning about self-publishing and creating comics.
So, my promise to the listeners, and readers of this blog, is to strive to keep the episodes focused on the topics at hand. And now I'm going to work on making these podcasts between an hour and 90 minutes in length!
Our first show of 2009 was off to a great start. Our topic was "Ideas: How we get them and how do they shape our work" (or something like that!). I was curious to hear from other creators as to how they get their ideas. Ideas can be starting points for stories, leading to other ideas, or the idea can be so strong and complete that it provides a solid blueprint for the finished comic.
There is never a wrong or right answer for these topics (I feel), but what you get are insights into other artit's creative process. It's interesting to hear other people with similar procedures for creating ideas, even though their work is very different from your own.
You can listen to the episode with the Talkshoe player on the right, access it via the Talkshoe page. Once you're at the Talkshoe page, find the iTunes icon, click on it and get every episode delivered to your iTunes library as they're posted.
Hopefully the Javiland podcasts can provide some beneficial insights to you the listener, particularly if you're interested in storytelling via comics. I enjoy listening to several podcasts myself, as I always gleam inspiritional insights. The shows I follow, and strongly recommend are Jerzy Drozd & Mark Rudolph's ART & STORYpodcasts, Kevin Cross's MINI COMICS DUMPTRUCK and the SEQUENTIAL ARTISTS PUB hosted by Krishna Sadasivam. I've only been listening to these show last year, but I have to say that I've been able to form some friendly ties with the hosts of those podcasts. They're all cartoonists in their own right, and while we all do very different work ,we have some common interests and approaches to our work.
This is the official blog for the JAVILAND podcast. JAVILAND is the interactive podcast of Javier Hernandez, cartoonist and all-around comic book-type guy! We'll post show notes for each episode as they're uploaded to iTunes. JAVILAND podcasts live every other Sunday at 6pm PT. You can find it directly at TalkShoe.com , create a profile, and subscribe to the podcast!
JAVILAND is a podcast that features a roundtable discussion by comic creators about issues related to storytelling, publishing, branding, etc. Good insights for beginners as well as cartoonists currently self-publishing their own work.
I'm a DIY cartoonist, creator of such comics as EL MUERTO, MANIAC PRIEST and WEAPON TEX-MEX, which I publish under my own imprint, LOS COMEX. I'm also the Associate Producer of the award-winning El Muerto live-action film adaptation and in 2011 I co-founded the LATINO COMICS EXPO, the nation's first convention dedicated to spotlighting Latino creators. I teach comic book workshops throughout Los Angeles in schools and libraries.
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