The Week – 18 May 2018

May18
by on 18 May 2018

This week has been very hectic and stressful––tasked with grading 140 final projects in a week and a half. However, after that week and a half, the school stuff will be done and I can relax and focus on the fun stuff for about three months. However, that doesn’t mean I haven’t done stuff to talk about.

LONG JOHN NEWS RECAP:

In case you missed it, Long John, Volume 3 is ON SALE NOW in the Long John store (on Etsy). It’s $8 plus $3 shipping, and, when you get it, the purchase comes with an original Long John sketch on a card stock comic book backing board, and a Long John bookmark.

Also available now is a 3-book bundle, available at a discounted price of only $20 (plus shipping), but I’ve been keeping it on the down-low because supplies are limited right now, though they should open up soon. Once that happens, I’ll post it all over the place. So, if you’re holding out for that, go ahead and jump on it, but know that delivery may be delayed slightly (though not likely).

Also, Tuesday June 12 has been announced as the day Volume 3 will start updating on the website––twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays. We’ve got thirty-four pages of action and drama to bring you and I can’t wait to show them to you! Be here on Tuesday, June 12!

FREE COMIC BOOK DAY 2018:

I was a bit upset that I didn’t get a silly video done in time for Free Comic Book Day, like last year, but that failure aside, I was eager to debut Volume 3 at this year’s event, held at the comic shop, Empire’s Comics Vault, in Sacramento. I can confidently say that the event was an unbridled success. People came to the table eager to pick up Volume 3 (and I was eager to get it to them), which warmed this jaded heart a bit.

D. Bethel’s FCBD 2018 table setup.

It was a much bigger and much more organized version of the event than last year or any year in which I’ve participated. The folks at Empire’s have introduced new crowd management systems and layouts and the traffic at the show never got backed up or felt congested in the slightest this year. Their efficiency was remarkable to see and it really helped get people out of line and wandering around the wares being sold by local creators.

I don’t usually do sketches at shows. This is mostly due to it being just me behind the table, which means that I have to keep an eye out for potential customers who need to hear the pitch and chat about comics for a bit. This year, however, considering it was such a relaxed atmosphere and I was feeling like a seasoned pro, I ended up doing some drawing while gabbing with customers, peers, and enthusiasts. I was inspired to draw some Marvel characters I’ve had a fondness for and it was fun to dip in to a little bit of fan art every now and then.

Ghost Rider. Drawn at FCBD 2018. I’ve only read two issues of Ghost Rider…it was when it crossed over with the X-Men.

Wolverine (Laura Kinney). Drawn at FCBD 2018.

These sketches are silly things that let me have fun with the talents I have, which I don’t usually exercise on a whim. Though I won’t make a separate category in this post to talk about it, I have been reading Marvel’s All-New Wolverine in trade paperback collections recently, having heard it was a good series. As an X-Men fan from the early ’90s, “my” Wolverine was the grizzled, over-powered, enigmatic Logan. In the comics, he has since died and his clone/daughter, Laura Kinney, has taken up the mantle. The series is delightful, which makes it even more sad to know that the final issue of All-New Wolverine released this week before the “Wolverine” moniker gets passed back to the recently revived Logan. It’s too bad, really; I would have liked to see Laura take the character of Wolverine into new and interesting directions for another five years (at least). But what we got from her is quite a legacy in its own right. Bravo!

Until next week, that was a week!

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Volume 3 is ON SALE NOW

May14
by on 14 May 2018

This week, Long John Volume 3––”Making Smoke”––goes live on the Etsy store. Like the other two volumes, it runs at a cost of $8 per issue plus $3 shipping, but what a package you’ll be getting.

In addition to 36 pages of brand new story and exclusive behind the scenes art (that won’t be posted online), you’ll get a one-of-a-kind Long John sketch by D. Bethel himself on a thick, card stock comic book backing board. Also, the package includes the beloved Long John bookmark.

Furthermore, if you’re new to the comic or have enjoyed the comic and want to throw some monetary support our way, for the first time a book bundle is being offered! For the first time at the store, you can buy all three books at a discounted price. Whereas the buying the books on their own would cost you $8 a piece, if you buy the bundle at a mere $20 plus shipping, the math speaks for itself.

Like with the books themselves, if you buy the bundle, you’ll also get an original Long John sketch on a card stock comic book backing board and a bookmark.

Now, I’m going to be honest, I’ve got more copies of Long John, Volume 1 on the way, but I’ll gladly sell through the remaining stock of Volume 1 that I have.

Which leads me to my next bit of news:

Long John Chapter 3 Begins on LongJohnComic.com on Tuesday, June 12!

Twice a week––Tuesdays and Thursdays––Chapter 3 will post to the website for your reading pleasure. And with it will come the page notes you have come to expect from Long John updates, including thoughts about the creative process, inspirations, and behind the scenes looks at the creation of Chapter 3.

With over thirty pages, that means fifteen weeks of uninterrupted Long John content for absolutely free.

So this would be a good point to go back and read through Long John volumes 1 & 2 again to refamiliarize yourself with the story, the characters, and unanswered questions.

So, whether you pick up Volume 3 today or wait to read it on the website, there’s a lot of Long John coming your way this summer. I can’t wait for you to see it!

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The Week – 04 May 2018

May04
by on 4 May 2018

LONG JOHN UPDATE:

Volume 3 is in-hand and will debut at this year’s Free Comic Book Day Festival (Saturday, May 5) at Empire’s Comics Vault in Sacramento.

In a sense, these updates are basically done as the books are here and in-hand! However, we’re not entirely done, as I’ll keep the updates going until we get ready to post new pages to the website. I’ll bring a start date soon, but it won’t likely be until the beginning of June. But that’s getting away from the exciting stuff: books!

Though they’re not on the website yet, they’ll be debuting this Saturday (tomorrow, 5/5) at Free Comic Book Day. Like last year, I’ll be a guest at Empire’s Comics Vault in Sacramento where it’ll be a huge event. Local artists selling their wares. Pro Wrestling. Cosplay. Food Trucks. And, of course, free comics. It has always been a blast and I can’t wait for tomorrow.

The book will be up for sale on Etsy shortly, but it will have to wait until after Free Comic Book Day (and I’ll be getting a mountain of grading next week––though it’ll be the final mountain to climb before the break for summer). I’ll do a run-down on the books a bit later, but for now know this: they’re wonderful. I’m really happy with how they turned out. From the new colors being used in the book to double-page spread (for real!), to having an actual illustrated cover, RA Comics Direct did a fantastic printing and binding job on this new book.

I’ll likely talk more about this week’s preview panel when the page actually comes up, but it is emblematic of a lot of how this issue turned out. Like most artists, I’m hyper-critical of my work, but this panel, in inks, actually turned out pretty well. When I sat down to color it, though, I did some experimentation and had some fun, and the result even more fully captures what I thought had captured in the original inks. I should play with high contrast art maybe in a future Long John chapter or in a future project; either way, it was super fun to do and made me realize how important shadows are to this book.

 

READING:

 

source: Boss Fight Books

It is rare when I get the chance to read a book during the school year. It’s even rarer when I become enthralled by one (I was never much of a reader to begin with). It’s rarer still when I finish a book. Sadly, I don’t read much fiction anymore; but the non-fiction I do read––and enjoy––is that which has a strong narrative sense to it: a beginning, a middle, and an end. Something that trades in metaphor when appropriate and weaves theme throughout the book. I’m not specifically referring to the style of “literary non-fiction” (in fact, one book that I’ve been trying to read is in that style and I find it a slog), instead, I mean a book that’s well-constructed. One where the author has something to say aside from simply the content. If video games are involved, then all the better.

Chris Kohler is a games journalist with a strong storyteller’s eye. His first book, Power Up: How Japanese Games Gave the World an Extra Life, I tore through as well, bolstered by the fact that he was specifically talking about games I (and he) grew up playing. But it wasn’t just the subject matter as it was his sharp, focused, and clear voice that held me all the way through (though I’ll admit my eyes got a little glassy during the Pokémon chapter, as it was a series a bit after my time).

His newest book from the incomparable publisher, Boss Fight Books, grabbed me from its announcement. Boss Fight Books puts out an interesting mix of criticism, narrative, and personal essays that make it as much a treasure trove as it is also a mixed bag. Of the three ingredients, I skew more toward the first when it comes to writing about video games, and (based on the excerpts the publisher provides) I get wary when the books veer too much into the other two lanes. Boss Fight publishes little books, each one centering around a single game. It’s fascinating because they allow the writers to take their own angle on the book which makes for a unique and often engaging experience about games that most readers, surely, have already formed pretty strong, personal stances and interpretations.

However, I am a big fan of the first wave of Final Fantasy games. As a series, it released its fifteenth installment last year, though many fans could tell you that it is kind of the last of the most recent wave of Final Fantasy games (or, with hopes, the first of a new wave). The first wave constitutes the first six games in the series (all the numbered installments of the series are standalone stories with no real continuity from game to game), though, during my impressionable youth, only three of those ever came stateside and which form a foundational triptych of my psyche: Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy IV (released in the USA as Final Fantasy II), and Final Fantasy VI (Final Fantasy III, in the US).

Kohler’s book about the “lost” Final Fantasy game so completely captures what the series meant and means to me (I stopped playing the series after the twelfth game, albeit skipping the online-only Final Fantasy XI) but is also a fantastic look at his growth as a gamer and a writer (it seems we are around the same age) AS WELL AS a fantastic piece of gaming criticism. Even though I never did a full playthrough of Final Fantasy V, I know it––and the series––well enough to have every page of Kohler’s book hit me square in both the nostalgia and analytic centers of my brain. It’s nice not having to compromise on a piece of writing about something I have such a personal and academic fondness for.

To further cement how rare it is for me to not only start, read, and finish a book: I bought this with the idea that I’d read it over the summer, but one day I decided to read the first chapter. A week later, I finished the thing.

Write more books, Mr. Kohler.

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