Makin’ with the Digital Pretty
on February 3rd, 2012Well, it took the purchase of a $3000 scanner and months and months of tracking down original art, digital clean up, and very expensive over-my-bandwidth-limit charges, but I just heard from Image today that my scanning efforts are good enough to go ahead and make a new digital comic book edition of A Distant Soil.
Because A Distant Soil was self published by me for the first 14 issues, there has never been an Image edition of those comics. The lead story was reprinted in our graphic novels. There are no digital files of the cover art or back up stories.
I do not have digital rights to some of the back-up features, so they are cut.
I’ll be doing new cover art for many of the back issues (issue 1 and issue 9 were particularly lackluster efforts,) and there will be new character portraits.
Lookie, handsome character portrait in progress. You likey?
Old fashioned drawing thing made with dirty stick marks on pressed wood stuff.
The prequel to A Distant Soil, “Seasons of Spring”, will also be cut and run separately. Some pages need to be completely re-lettered, and that is time-consuming unfunny. Don’t feel like you’re getting shorted. The early issues of A Distant Soil were 40-48 pages long.
I’m not sure how to restore issue 14, but I may simply run an original story in it. In color. That would be fun.
All sketches and paintings that ran in the series in black and white will also be published in color. Lead stories will still be black and white. Alas, just do not have the copious funds to hire a colorist at this point. I’m feeling the pull of Kickstarter…
I’m very excited that Image is bringing an A Distant Soil digital comic out, and am very grateful they’ve helped me with my project for so many years. Image has just been great!
Really excited about this news. Whee!
Also: I am working on the new issue of A Distant Soil. This makes me happy, too. I will let you know as soon as I’ve turned it in to Image. Back to print until the end of the story! March, march, march…
hooray! for the digital issue news and HOORAY that there’s a new issue in the works! I knew there was a reason I had to buy red velvet cake today…
Last year was very encouraging, and obviously, my financial condition improved a lot.
The bad news: even though I did really well with the mail order, picking up the reigns on a mail order business again is super time consuming. I couldn’t figure out why I had such a time problem last year until I looked at my commissions and sales in detail: ate up about 3 months of work. Not good.
So, I have to be really careful this year in order to get the 6 months I need for A Distant Soil, and the six months I need for everything else.
Tricky. I am set up a lot better for mail order than in the past, but how much I do depends on whether a major sale goes through. If it does, I might just turn off mail order and commissions for a good six months or more so I can concentrate on doing more comics pages.
It’s a funny balancing act. I’m right back to my days of self publishing in terms of task management.
I’ve still got the original back cover painting for #1, the Aeren and crystal piece, if you want a high res scan.
Wow! I’d love that!
Hmmm… Kickstarter? Perhaps a limited edition paper copy as a premium?
Yes, Torsten, I already mentioned Kickstarter as a possibility in the post.
*hyperventilating with geek joy* First Hunger Games…then Avengers…now this…oh my God I’m going to have a heart attack at 30…