Zub Tales

I know I’d intended to post during Comicon, but this year in particular ripped along at such an incredible rate that I didn’t get the chance. I came in yesterday evening and when I finally got home I well and truly collapsed into bed for a much needed rest. I’m teaching in a couple hours and am currently trying to pull my head out of the “go back to bed you fool” brain goo that’s currently surrounding it.

The show kicked ass, but it was exhausting.

Details and photos coming later on.

The day before the Udon crew heads out for San Diego Comicon. The biggest comic convention in North America – here we go again. 🙂

All the companies have gone quiet as they do their Comicon prep. All the deadlines extend past this week as everyone knows there’s no point in having things due while the “Big One” is on. Each year I meet more people and feel like I’m actually a part of the industry tornado. Between the Newsarama articles, the many Udon books and the upcoming Makeshift Miracle book I’ll have a lot to talk about and some extra visibility, which feels kind of cool.

Speaking of the book – I finished reformatting/relettering page 77 last night, which is good. It’s taken some long days but I have less than a hundred pages of the main story to go. It’s getting a bit faster as I discover better ways of doing it and keeping everything organized. The pagination (figuring out which pages are odd/even/etc) seems straight forward so far, but I’ll know for sure when they’re all done. The clarity of the high resolution line art versus the low rez web ones is such an upgrade… at this point I’m glad I didn’t just blow up the small size version and jury rig it, even if it’s a ton of work.

Locking down the cover price has been tough. We’re not sure what the orders will be like and the book size isn’t quite normal… cheaper may mean we move more copies but it could still make less money overall if it’s too low.

How much is a 8.25″ wide 5.25″ tall 200 page full color soft cover book worth?
You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. It’s mostly rhetorical.
It’s harder to figure out when it’s your own material.
We’ll nail it down.

I’ll have my laptop with me at the hotel and they have wireless internet as far as I know, so expect some show reports and photos during the week.

I checked out Spamalot tonight and had a really good time at the show.

The play is an adaptation of Monty Python and The Holy Grail, so I was a bit worried that it wouldn’t be able to match the humor of the original movie. Luckily it has a zaniness all its own and even the parts directly lifted from the film flow quite well from song to song. It works even when they incorporate “Always Look On The Bright Side of Life” from Life of Brian into it as a major song number. The set pieces, the kooky animations and the biting humor is sharp throughout.

It just opened yesterday night so tickets should still be available if you’re interested in pretending you’re a cultured theatre-goer while enjoying being a big nerd at the same time. 🙂

The original version of Makeshift page 37 is one of those pages that makes me cringe every time I see it:

Colby’s run looks incredibly lame and the whole page looks rushed because…. well because it was. I really like the face in panel 2 but the other two panels just drive me bonkers. When I started figuring out how much work would be involved in remastering the pages for print, I knew I’d have to change that page or it would drive me crazy forever.

Figure drawing, a better understanding of dynamic movement, more time and stronger draftmanship… here’s the results:

And here’s the new version of the page as it will be in the book, complete with better lettering:

Obviously the other pages won’t be as drastic as all that. 🙂

Nominations for the ENnies went up yesterday and Udon has a couple nods:

Best Cover Art: Mastermind’s Manual – published by Green Ronin (Art by Udon’s Chris Stevens and Omar Dogan)
Best Interior Art (Honourable Mention): Exalted Comics – published by Udon comics (Art by Udon’s Noi Sackda, Greg Boychuk and Roberto Campus)

The mighty San Diego Comic Con is next week. This will be my fifth one in a row, so it’s exciting and yet “normal” at the same time. Right now we’re busting away on preparations, so it’s a busy, busy time at the studio.

Check here for a rundown of the special stuff we’ll have at the show!

For those of you attending, you’ll be able to track me down at Booth #4145 – the Capcom/Udon big booth area.

In the grand scheme of the massive San Diego Convention centre, here’s where we are:

We’re surrounded by video game companies and right along one of the main lanes, so it should be hopping.

Come by, say hello, get comics or other books signed and watch our crew draw for fans.

Also, anyone know a good karaoke place (private rooms or public karaoke) near the convention centre?

In my last post I talked about remastering/relettering the Makeshift Miracle pages to get them ready for printing as a book. Let me explain in a bit more detail what that means.

When I first did Makeshift I was still learning about HTML, Photoshop and everything web-related. I’m still learning a ton, but I’ve gained quite a bit more skill, especially with Photoshop.

Each page of Makeshift Miracle was hand drawn and then scanned in at 300dpi (dots per inch). That’s a standard print resolution. For lettering and coloring those pages though, I’d downsize the line art to 72dpi (standard computer monitor resolution). It made the process way faster on my slow computer back in the day and meant I didn’t have to fiddle with details, but it also meant that the pages were less than 1/3 as sharp as they needed to be in order to be cleanly printed as a book.

Using those original files now, even with Photoshop trickery, it would still print quite fuzzy.

The good news is that I saved almost all the high-resolution line work scans. Since the coloring and lettering is on separate layers in Photoshop, I can upsize the layered PSD files and swap out the low resolution line art.

At the same time, I’m also using the lettering knowledge I’ve gained while at Udon to improve the readability and give the whole thing more consistency. Fixing a few typos, awkward sentences and grammatical errors doesn’t hurt either.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about.

Sorry I haven’t posted much since I got back. The post-vacation/pre-San Diego Comic Con time here has been a tornado of things to do, but not necessarily in a bad way.

The print proofs for this summer’s convention-exclusive Udon Sketchbook look amazing. The 48 page full color booklet is jammed with the best personal works or rough material we gathered from the crew. You will not be disappointed. Last year I had 2 pages inside with a mix of old and current work. This year it contains 4 pages of my artwork, all current stuff culled from the sketch paintings and work I’ve been posting here since mid-May. The sketchbook is a great cross section of our gang and a bit of a time capsule as far as who was involved with the company and what kind of work they’re capable of producing.

And then there’s the book.

I debated about whether or not to post this announcement so soon. I’ve been working my butt off on it since I got back, but haven’t posted anything, so I was worried that people would think my personal artwork kick had died down or that I’d gotten post-Cuba lazy; Quite the opposite actually.

Ever since Makeshift Miracle wrapped up in mid 2003 I’ve had people ask me about when I was going to get it published. I’ve talked with a couple small publishers about releasing it, gotten some print quotes here and there, but never been able to move forward with it. Life got in the way – work commitments, moving back to Toronto, relationship stuff… the further away I got from it the more I wondered if it was worth putting in print at all. People would bring it up every so often after that, but I’d mentally back burnered the whole thing indefinitely.

Some of my friends in Toronto, most notably Chris, Mike and Eric, really hammered me about it.

“Stop wallowing in whether you should do it and just do it.”
“You’ve got a complete graphic novel that had a solid readership. Are you an idiot?”
“You’re part owner of a fucking publisher! Why isn’t Udon publishing your book?”
“If you don’t get Makeshift Miracle out by SPX, I will kill you.”

You have to understand that my boss Erik doesn’t read indy books. His mainstream access and contacts are unbelievable, but he’s not a web comic guy or involved with small press. Me asking the company to print my surreal coming-of-age story just felt wrong for the longest time. Publishing with another company would mean less control, less royalties and more headaches, but I didn’t even consider Udon an option. It didn’t matter how many readers I had or how much praise I’d gotten for it, I never asked because I didn’t want it to feel like vanity publishing.

The conversation ended up going something like this:

Jim: “Um, Erik. I was wondering… You know my web comic thingee, right?”
Erik: ”Makeshift Man or something… yeah. What about it?”
Jim: “Do you think it would be possible for Udon to publish it? I’ll take care of all the pre-press stuff on it and make sure it doesn’t lose a dime for the company, I just need to know if you’re interested at all.”
Erik: “You mean it’s done?”
Jim:“Uh, yeah. It was done before I even met you.”
Erik: “Oh yeah? All I saw were those preview pages on your site. How big is it?”
Jim: “172 pages.”
Erik: “Holy shit, dude. Why didn’t you tell me?”

The conversation rolled from there. Last week I wrote the solicitation text for the 2007 book market catalogues and Diamond Previews solicitation that will come out in a couple months. I’ve gotten printer templates and started laying the book out, as well as remastering and relettering the pages. I’ll go over the joys and nightmares of that in my next post.

The important thing is that it’s actually going to come out.

There’s a lot to do before it’s ready and you may get sick of my posts about it, but right now I’m pretty damn happy.

Thanks, as always, for your love and support.

Sketches done one morning at the beach bar in Cuba:

I’m still kind of in shock at how good the resort was and how well the vacation went for such a low price. We had one day that was overcast with about 20 minutes of rain. The other days were all shimmering sunshine and unbelievable heat. The resort was about half full, making it even easier to get a seat for dinner, maximize beach space or take a dip in the pool without interference.

The buffet area we ate at most of the time had good food, though not crazy gourmet or anything. Each night had a different theme – the Mexican night was particularily good, with hand made taco shells and lots of fixin’s.

There was also an Italian and Cuban sit down restaurant you could book at in advance to enjoy a higher class meal. I ate there twice and thoroughly enjoyed it.

The drinks were plentiful. It was fun trying new cocktails or shots and not worrying about a “drink budget” or how to get home if we drank too much. There wasn’t a rushed sense of “needing to get drunk” or maximising every drink.

The staff was very friendly and helpful, with most of them speaking some degree of english. They were happy to get tips, but didn’t expect them (in fact the resort has a sign clearly stating that tips are not required). I heard from other people that some of the resorts in Veradaro are staffed a lot by students who tend to be exhausted (school all day, working all night) and desperate for tips. The Jibacoa resort was staffed by adults and almost all of them seemed quite happy with their jobs.

Even though the resort is only for people aged 14+ it wasn’t a major party spot. There’s a little dance club at the resort and the bar and pool is open 24 hours, but this wasn’t a wild of vacation place. The atmosphere is laid back, which was exactly what I needed.

The trip wasn’t perfect. I accidentally slammed my pinkie toe into a door frame mid-week and woke up to find it black and blue the next morning, so I was limping around the resort for a couple days afterwards. The tour into Havana that we took on the Friday was blisteringly hot and our tour group was swarmed by beggars, which was depressing and hard to deal with. Even still, those two things were pretty minor compared to the quality of the resort and the amazing time that encompassed the rest of the trip.

If you want any specific info about where we stayed or recommendations on what to bring to Cuba, let me know. I’m pretty serious about going again at some point and it would be kind of cool to get a gaggle of people all going at once some day.

Some cool work news and other things coming in my next post.

How good was my vacation in Cuba?

Click here to find out…