Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Earnest Graham on July 18, 2009 at 3:44am

Hello,
I am Earnest Graham. I am happy to see this group taking shape. I think Web Comics are a marvelous medium that is still in the pioneer stage. (I love the description that Kazu Kibuishi gave of making comics to be seen primarily on the internet- that we are painting with light.')

I have been drawing stories since I was five years old. Initially, I wanted to be a writer, but I found over the years, that I spent much more time and joy in illustrating the stories, because I tend to think in pictures. For many years, drawing was a lifeline for me. I grew up in a family with alcoholism on every side, parents, grandparents, siblings. Being able to draw, and pour out my life on a page helped me hold on to what was good, and to keep hope. I believe God was ministering to me at the time, even when I could not see it.

I studied art in college and set out to be a comic artist and illustrator. After college, I opened a studio with friends, and drew posters, designed brochures, flyers, did spot illustrations, and worked on comic submissions and stories. It was during that time that God reached out to me in a surprising way. It reminded me that the Spirit hears our prayers, even when we do not have the words to fully give them voice. Soon I found that i was on a different path than the one I had chosen for my life.

I became active in the church, and found a community that was amazing. They showed me Christ, in their words and deeds. During that time, I felt called to ordained ministry, and prepared to go off to seminary. In a way, it felt like I was leaving my artwork behind, but in truth, it did not leave, it was transformed.

After seminary, and while working in the church, I could see the need for visual storytelling as a way of proclaiming the good news. I had a thought of doing a comic translation of the book of Jonah (in a comic strip format like Calvin and Hobbes.) Also, my wife loved studying Hebrew in seminary, and i wanted an excuse to work with her on a project, so I proposed that she translate Jonah (which was relatively short and could be done as a verse by verse story.) It took a couple of years, in the midst of ministry and being new parents, but it was the first full story I had ever completed in pencil, ink and letters. And it was a lot of fun. We showed it to our Old Testament Professors, and they liked it, and recommended that we sumit it for publishing. We submitted it to Church Publishing, and they liked the book, and asked if we could do 2 or 3 other stories from the OT to make it a full graphic novel. We chose Esther and the prophet Amos, in part because they were similar length, but also because they were unlikely characters that God had chosen as servant. The book was finished last year, and published in the Fall of 08, titled "The Unlikely Chosen".

After finishing the book, I started a project of drawing the parables of Jesus , from the gospel of Matthew, which were in the Sunday lessons last year. I translated each parable from the Greek. It was a good way to brush up on my skills from seminary. I drew them in pen and ink, and started coloring them in photoshop. It was my first attempt at coloring, and again, a lot of fun to do. I made the parables available on my blog (www.lookbothwaysartandfaith.blogspot.com) and sent them in pdf form to friends and colleagues. The response was overwhelmingly favorable, and the feedback very encouraging. Almost universally, they said we need more of these kinds of translations.

It appears that God took me off my chosen path as artist, only to reorient, me, and put me back on the path in a new direction. I still serve as a priest and love working with people, but drawing comics is now a part of that vocation.

My project for this year is drawing the epistle of James. It is a manageable size, and presents some interesting challenges- like how do you draw a letter?. I am doing it in installments, and depicting it as if it is being read throughout the course of church history- each passage in a different age and place.

I welcome your feedback and ideas. I would also like to work on a collaborative project some time, as time allows.
Peace
Earnest

Permalink Reply by Rob Marsh on July 18, 2009 at 9:24pm

Welcome to the group Earnest! I checked out your blogger site and there's a lot of material there I'd like to look through. The art samples look really good.
Let me know if you'd like to do a link exchange and I'd be glad to link 'Look both ways' on my site.

Permalink Reply by Justin Martin on August 26, 2009 at 4:49am

Hello everyone,

I pray all is well. I joined the CCAS about a month ago, and I am currently working on creating a webcomic. The comic will be based on Christian principles, namely on how many of the problems that individuals, communities, and societies face can be eliminated (or at least greatly mitigated) if people made more of an effort to love people and relate to them better. I've already got some story ideas, characters, abilities, and a plan for how I want to do the first 14-15 issues or so.

I do not draw, so I may be looking for an artist to work with. Since I plan on creating a webcomic, any advice and resources pertaining to creating a webcomic would be greatly appreciated. I pray for the best in everyone's endeavors, and I look forward to networking and sharing ideas with everyone here.

Permalink Reply by Rob Marsh on August 26, 2009 at 11:40am

Welcome to the group Justin! There are many ways to get started, and one of the easiest, just to get the hang of the nuiances of blogs and posting would be to start a freebie Blogger blog. You could start with writing and posting this, and then work up to images? Just some ideas.

Welcome!

Justin Martin said:

Hello everyone,

I pray all is well. I joined the CCAS about a month ago, and I am currently working on creating a webcomic. The comic will be based on Christian principles, namely on how many of the problems that individuals, communities, and societies face can be eliminated (or at least greatly mitigated) if people made more of an effort to love people and relate to them better. I've already got some story ideas, characters, abilities, and a plan for how I want to do the first 14-15 issues or so.

I do not draw, so I may be looking for an artist to work with. Since I plan on creating a webcomic, any advice and resources pertaining to creating a webcomic would be greatly appreciated. I pray for the best in everyone's endeavors, and I look forward to networking and sharing ideas with everyone here.

Permalink Reply by Joe Chiappetta on August 26, 2009 at 3:11pm

You could also just use photos and add text balloons to them to get around not having an artist.

Permalink Reply by Justin Martin on August 27, 2009 at 12:52am

Hello Rob and Joe,

Thanks for the response and advice! As for blogger, I already have a blog that I write and post things to (www.speeklife.com), but I don't use it for "web comic" stuff. Would I just upload the comic pages like I would any other pictures, and then arrange them how I want them? Or if the suggestion to use blogger was more of a first step before using Comicpress, I think I can look into Comic press, because I 'm pretty familiar with how to post text and pictures on a blog. I'm just looking for the least expensive way to publish high quality webcomics. Take care, and thanks again for the advice.

Permalink Reply by Joe Chiappetta on August 27, 2009 at 11:05am

Yes, you would upload webcomics in Blogger just like any other images. If you need to rearrange the order of the comics, you just change the date published in the admin section. It is very easy. See my site www.sillydaddy.net and you'll get an idea how it works for me. If you want hassle-free web publishing stick with Blogger and be warned about WordPress: Too often, WordPress plug ins and themes are nice and fancy and innovative, HOWEVER, they often crash or are incompatible or need to be personally upgraded. It can become a total problem unless you like spending a lot of your free time reading help forums to troubleshoot issues with your WordPress blog. I know because the other site I run is our church site www.chicagoicc.org and if I had it to do over again, I would switch to Blogger for that site too.

Justin Martin said:

Hello Rob and Joe,

Thanks for the response and advice! As for blogger, I already have a blog that I write and post things to (www.speeklife.com), but I don't use it for "web comic" stuff. Would I just upload the comic pages like I would any other pictures, and then arrange them how I want them? Or if the suggestion to use blogger was more of a first step before using Comicpress, I think I can look into Comic press, because I 'm pretty familiar with how to post text and pictures on a blog. I'm just looking for the least expensive way to publish high quality webcomics. Take care, and thanks again for the advice.

Permalink Reply by Rob Marsh on August 27, 2009 at 12:30pm

If you're looking for a cheap, easy first step, "Drunk Duck" is ideal. It's got a stupid name, but it's free hosting and it sets up the comic in an easy-to-follow posting format. Here's a book I hosted there, just to try it out.

Justin Martin said:

Hello Rob and Joe,

Thanks for the response and advice! As for blogger, I already have a blog that I write and post things to (www.speeklife.com), but I don't use it for "web comic" stuff. Would I just upload the comic pages like I would any other pictures, and then arrange them how I want them? Or if the suggestion to use blogger was more of a first step before using Comicpress, I think I can look into Comic press, because I 'm pretty familiar with how to post text and pictures on a blog. I'm just looking for the least expensive way to publish high quality webcomics. Take care, and thanks again for the advice.

Permalink Reply by Justin Martin on August 27, 2009 at 6:49pm

Thanks Rob and Joe, I'll check out those links!

Permalink Reply by Jamie Cosley on March 1, 2010 at 6:27am

Hi, My name is Jamie Cosley and I have a webcomic called "This Is How We Met" or "TIHWM" for short. This week is all about mustaches...
http://tihwm.crashlandstudio.com/

I like Silly Daddy and other autobiographical comics...too many to mention :)

Permalink Reply by Michael Dean on August 4, 2010 at 3:49pm

Hello, my name is Michael Dean. My webcomic is called "The Outworlder." ( http://outworlder.comicdish.com ) It was originally supposed to be a comic book with characters a buddy and I created back in 1992. I wrote/illustrated the origin story in 1998, but couldn't afford to have it printed (POD was unknown to me at the time). A few years ago I decided to put it online just so I could have it out there somewhere.

A couple years ago I became fascinated with all the public domain comic characters out there and found "open source" character Jenny Everywhere. I decided to make my characters similarly available for anyone to use. I figured, I'm not looking to get rich off of anything, I'd just like to see the characters get used. To date I have still only completed the origin story, but I have the beginning of a second story up there as well. I hit a bad case of writer's block. Next time I'll get the story all planned before I start drawing.

My new goal, though, is to re-edit and re-illustrate the origin and try POD publishing. This is mostly for my 7 year old son, who keeps telling me I should make my own comic book to sell. If I can produce at least one "real comic book" for him to have a copy of, I'll be happy.

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