Zub Tales

As a lead up to the November 16th release of Skullkickers Volume 2, this week all digital issues of the series are 1/2 price at comiXology! Each issue is only 99 cents!

Buy, support, and share with your friends the joy that is Skullkickers.

The news broke on Friday evening, but today’s the day we’re making it formal:

Makeshift Miracle is part of a publishing experiment for UDON Comics, a way for us to see if we can build a larger reading audience for an original published book by first releasing the entire professional-quality graphic novel online for free, week by week.

As part of that, we’re interested in gaining readers and letting as many people as possible know about the story. With that in mind, we’ve decided to release a torrent of the entire first chapter of Makeshift, containing PDF and CBR files, so that more people can discover the series.

Download the torrent file, pass it around, re-seed as much as possible and convince your online friends to try it out, absolutely free. Once they’ve read chapter 1, they can head to our website to continue the story with new chapter 2 pages.

Makeshift Miracle Chapter 1 Torrent File

I was a guest Sunday on the Graphic Policy radio show chatting about all things Skullkickers, Makeshift Miracle and creator-owned comics. Click through to listen to the episode and hear how it turned out!

There are people in the comic industry who, the minute I read their work, I kind of know that we’re going to get along. The stories they tell hit all the right notes and I get an unshakable feeling that we have the same outlook and attitude. It’s such a cool thing and it’s a bit hard to describe.

Chris Sims is one of those people.

His unbelievably funny Invincible Super Blog became a regular fixture on my internet reading list early on. The mixture of infectious energy, keen insight and pure glee at all the ludicrous things that make comics what they are permeated every aspect of his writing.

When he started writing his own comics, I worried that he’d lose that razor’s edge of analysis, that he’d be so caught up in his own work that he wouldn’t give it the same kind of joyous verve. Thankfully, I was wrong. His comics are just as entertaining and well aimed as the industry-targeted gut punches he’s given over the years.

Dracula the Unconquered is his latest offering, an ambitious digitally distributed 1 dollar per issue action-adventure comic series. Chris has leveled solid criticism at the major comic publishers for their digital pricing structure and this is where he puts his money where his mouth is. The result is, as expected, professional through and through.

The story kicks into gear without delay, introducing Dracula and his new ‘assistant’ quite efficiently. You know who Vlad is and if you don’t then you’re probably not buying a comic called Dracula the Unconquered. The action’s the thing, you see, and within a couple pages confrontation is clear and the whole thing is off and running. The players are in place and it’s time to kick some butt.

Steve Downer’s artwork is emotive and clear with solid storytelling and a wonderfully moody color palette. The whole things roars through without a hitch. By the time this first issue is finished the stage is set for grand adventure and, at $1, there’s absolutely no reason not to keep on reading. It’s a new reader-friendly product that’s easy to recommend at the absolute right price for the emerging digital comic market.

So, to summarize, Dracula the Unconquered is Chris Sims and company kicking down the door and showing how it should be done. Bring it to your digital screen ASAP and know that you’re helping unleash the next level of Sims-Awesome onto the worldwide web.

Happy Halloween!

Updates at both the Skullkickers website and Makeshift Miracle worthy of note:

At www.skullkickers.com I posted up the entire script for our first issue. Quite a few people have asked me how to write a comic script and, although there’s no absolute format, I thought I’d post up a full script so people can see how I work and how scenes are described to the art team.

Meanwhile, over at www.makeshiftmiracle.com we have the big reveal of what Colby finds at the crash site. Hong’s moody watercolours, as expected, knock it out of the park. Click through to see it full size.

In February I coloured up the cover of Zach Weiner’s first Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal collection. Adding texture and mood to Zach’s cartoony style was a lot of fun and he was really happy with the results, so they asked me to rock out their second book, The Most Dangerous Game:

Man VS Ninja on Polar Bear mounts playing dynamite badminton on the edge of a volcano? YES.

Comic newsblog Robot 6 has just posted up an exclusive interview with Shun Hong Chan, the artist of the new Makeshift Miracle.

Click through to check out sneak peeks of upcoming artwork from the series and learn about Hong’s artistic background and techniques.

Hey Everyone,

I’m posting on Reddit>Comicbooks today with an official Q&A where anyone can ask me questions about comics – working in the industry, technique, conventions, you name it. Feel free to stop by.

A year ago I married the most incredible lady and it was amazing.

Happy Anniversary, Stacy!

On Saturday November 5th I’ll be a guest speaker at CANSCAIP’s 27th annual Packaging Your Imagination event taking place at the University of Toronto.

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Jim Zubkavich
Graphically Speaking: Graphic Novel Creation for Artists and Writers

Learn how the graphic novel combines elements of art and prose to achieve unique storytelling results that neither format could do on its own. Both artists and writers will find useful tips and strategies on form and formatting.
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I was originally going to post about the event here in case anyone who reads my blog/FB wanted to purchase a ticket to see me or any of the other guests doing workshops, but when I went to go get more information at the site I saw that the event is already sold out as of Oct 17th. Yowza. I guess I’d better make sure my presentation is in tip-top shape.

Anyways, that’s coming up and I’m pretty excited about it. I’m speaking from 9:30-10:45am and will have a book signing after the entire event is over at 4:00pm. If you’re already signed up then I’ll see you there.