The Flight of the Valkyries

The Flight of the Valkyries

Peter Nicolai Arbo - Valkyrie, 1865

or: How We Got Janelle Asselin to STAPLE!

by Uncle Staple

Synergies - they're awesome. We have some great synergies working this year on the STAPLE! guest list. Most of these talented ladies already know each and are friends, some have collaborated together as well. For example, Kate Leth did all the scout badge designs for Lumberjanes, the comic by our other guests Grace Ellis, Brooke Allen and Shannon Watters.

Kate also started The Valkyries, an affiliation of women who work in comic shops, and some of those Valkyries helped us get Janelle Asselin to STAPLE! I shall explain.

Around the time of Denver Comic Con I saw that Janelle was doing a panel there called Hire This Woman, based on her Comics Alliance column of the same name, which included, among others, my friend Jamie Kinosian (who has also been featured in the column). I thought, especially since we are focusing on women in comics this year, that it would be awesome to get Janelle here to do the same panel with some Texas-based female creators. I asked Jamie to put me in touch with Janelle, which she kindly did.

Happily, Janelle was available that weekend and interested in the idea, we just had to find a way to cover her travel. STAPLE!'s usual sponsors (local comics shops Austin Books, Rogue's Gallery and Dragon's Lair) were already committed to bringing in our other guests, so I couldn't ask them for more help. I talked to a couple shops in Houston, and they weren't able to do it either, at least not in full.

So, I was chatting with my friend Meredith Nudo about this conundrum and she came up with the brilliant idea of reaching out to the Valkyries to ask for assistance. Meredith, among her many other credits, is a Valk herself, and knew that they would be excited about having Janelle at the show, and likely willing to chip in to help make it happen. As it turned out, she was right.

I asked her to take the lead and she diligently went about securing enough donations to completely pay for the cost of Janelle's flight, thereby making Janelle's appearance, and our own Hire This Woman panel possible.

These are the Valkyries (and a couple non-Valks) who contributed to the fund:

Meredith Nudo - Pop & Schlock Podcast
Annie Bulloch - 8thDimension Comics & Games
Alva Coto & Jessi Jordan - Third PlanetSci-Fi Superstore
Sarah Simes - @allaloam
Leia Calderon - SubCultured
Jesus Garza - SpaceCity Nerd
Danni Danger - WeirdGirls!
Bedrock City ComicCompany

I am deeply indebted to them and humbled by their willingness to help, and very touched by the sense of community and coming together to make this happen, which is part and parcel of what STAPLE! is all about. Connections, synergies, cooperation, community.

We reached out to that community and asked some of our guests, panelists, and friends to tell us what they felt was good about STAPLE!'s focus on women and diversity this year, and this is what they had to say:

Janelle Asselin, Comics Alliance: “I think the easy answer is that it matters because no one ever thinks twice about all the guests at a convention being guys, but diversity - even just having things like panel parity - is seen as something that requires an extensive amount of effort. Staple has put together a guest list that seems to excite attendees that just happens to be entirely female without what seems like a whole lot of effort. It’s a great model for other conventions who might be afraid of too much effort - not only is it not that much effort, but it also does nice things for your reputation.”  (http://comicsalliance.com/tags/hire-this-woman)

See bio for Janelle at: http://staple-austin.org/2015-guests
 

Hire this Woman Panelists:

Maria-Elisa Heg:  “It's really exciting to see so many amazing women getting the recognition they so richly deserve, and an honor to included alongside such talented individuals.” http://ohdonteven.com,  http://zinefesthouston.org

Jeanne Thornton: “No one can represent a group like a member of that group: if you want believable, recognizably human women in comics, then women must make those comics. The more humanity we have in the comics--the more comics exist where women can see ourselves legitimately represented, the more comics exist in which men can see women as subjects who have distinct experiences, ideas, and goals that maybe have nothing to do with said men--the better off everyone is going to be. A century overdue.” http://fictioncircus.com/Jeanne

C. M. Bratton: "It's somewhat mind-boggling how women have been portrayed throughout comic history - both in storylines and as creators. I read an article recently that spoke about how nearly all women employees of comic companies were fired when men came back from WWII. We're talking editors, writers, artists, colorists - you name it. And since then, the industry has never quite recovered in terms of equality between genders. But women liking and buying comics is nothing new at all. And women producing comics is just as normal, which is why we deserve equal respect." http://www.cmbratton.com

C.M. was also recently interviewed by Janelle: http://comicsalliance.com/making-the-reader-root-for-the-villain-an-interview-with-writer-c-m-bratton-hire-this-woman/

- See bios for these panelists at: http://staple-austin.org/hire-this-woman

Meredith Nudo: "STAPLE!'s guest list this year reflects how women are by no definition a niche within the comics industry. We're readers, writers, artists, editors, journalists, organizers, publicists, retailers...we ARE comics. We've contributed since the beginning, but historically received less recognition."     http://hardcorenudoty.com

- Meredith Nudo is the Comics Editor of Dork Shelf, event organizer at Third Planet Sci-Fi Superstore (comics shop in Houston), a podcaster, a blogger, a zinester, an editor, and general all around badass. She was instrumental in helping to crowd-fund Janelle Asselin’s appearance through the Valkyries. She'll be moderating Janelle's "Pitching Comics" panel at STAPLE!

Danni Danger, Weird Girls: “Indie comics are tricky game: pouring your creative energy to a project, working with limited resources, self-motivating? Just listing those things makes me tired. On the other hand, indie comics are some of the best indicators of what new, fresh outlooks readers want. This year's STAPLE! guest list reflects one of the industry’s biggest demands today: female creators. Bring on the ladies.

Part of what makes this year’s STAPLE! lineup so powerful for me is a small sampling of the collective voices of independent female creators are reaching out to the world, telling other women "I can do this and so can you." It's so much easier and less frightening when you watch other women like you doing it and changing the industry.

I like to think that we'll look back on this time as the beginning of the great emergence of talented women in this industry, and the idea of STAPLE! being a part of that, right here in my backyard gives me hope, and a good deal of pride.”  http://www.weird-girls.com/danni-danger

An Interview with Jess Fink, illustrator and creator of CHESTER 5000, WE CAN FIX IT, and just all kinds of online stuff (like KID WITH EXPERIENCE)

By Dave Farabee

Jess Fink wears many hats: illustrator, cartoonist, designer of many a Threadless t-shirt, and more. She's been drawing since she was a kid and earned her degree in Illustration and Cartooning from the School of Visual Arts. Jess has produced female-friendly erotic comics like Chester 5000, a sci-fi autobiography in We Can Fix It, and has many an online offering to be enjoyed from her Tumblr (which we should perhaps mention is NSFW). Alan Moore described her work as "liquid and elegantly stylized." In advance of her STAPLE! appearance, she kindly took time to tell us a little more about herself and her work.

Both erotica and biography are among the less-traveled paths in comicdom, or perhaps just less-discussed in between the Batmans and Walking Deads. What led you to those paths?

I suppose it's because I didn't come from a super hero/marvel/DC comics background. As a kid I was heavily influenced by animation, especially Looney Tunes, I wanted to watch every cartoon. I'd wanted to be an animator since I was 7. The first comic I bought was The Maxx, after seeing it on MTV, and I adored it. I didn't know comics could be like that! After that I dove in and read any indie comic that appealed to me. I also got heavily into manga and anime. In college I read tons of auto bio comics by artists like Julie Duchet, Craig Thompson, Chester Brown, Lynda Barry. It blew my mind to think I could talk about my own life in my comics. As for making erotica, I think it was a thing I always drew and as I got older I just became less ashamed of it. Live action porn had always left me with a bad taste in my mouth and I preferred to make my own. I had a great teacher, Tom Hart, who introduced me to some fantastic erotic comics by Molly Kiely that told stories and were compassionate, funny and sexy. I also found out about Fantagraphics' Eros imprint, and I jumped on submitting things to them right away.

How important is the internet to your livelihood?

Very! It used to be that Erotic comics were kept in the secret, back room of the comic store that no one talked about, not so with web comics. The internet has made it possible for a lot of artists who would otherwise be censored or marginalized to produce their work and find an audience. I love print comics too, but the internet is definitely where I've made my home.

Science fiction tropes from robots to time travel weave through your work. Simply springboards or does science fiction hold any special meaning for you?

I love Science Fiction, I always have. The kind of sci fi I love is usually more focused on talking about what it means to be human, rather than on the awe of new technology though. I guess it's the same with erotica, I want more of this type of sci fi so I try to make it.

How do you strike a balance between humor and drama in your work?

It's super important to me that things be funny. It's always easier for me to believe stories that have humor in them because I think it's just a natural impulse.

The square page format pervades your sequential work, from the formatting of Chester 5000 and We Can Fix It to your autobiographical one-pagers. What led you to that format?

Actually, not all of my work is square! For Chester it felt better to use a square format so I could really fit all the swirling art nouveau panels in and not overwork myself on each page. Recently I've been doing quick auto bio comics in a square just because it's faster and looser. We Can Fix It doesn't have a square format though, and neither do a lot of my older auto bio comics. My comics for the Smut Peddler anthologies have all been standard sizes as well.

An Interview with Evan Dahm

Evan Dahm is an incredibly productive dude. He embodies the DYI ethos of Staple!  His epic project, set in the world of Overside, includes three books so far.  Rice Boy,  Order of Tales,  Vattu, and some gorgeous short stories, almost two thousand pages and counting.  He has also completed an illustrated edition of the Wizard of Oz, several art books, and co-founded the Benign Kingdom publishing company. He generously took time from his crazy busy schedule to answers some of my questions.

What do you think are the most important things to keep in mind when crafting and sustaining an epic narratives like yours?

This is a very good question and I've come up with different answers for it myself over and over. The planning issue is key, and I've oscillated between an almost stream-of-consciousness approach, and something super-densely mapped out. My current comic Vattu is pretty densely plotted, but I've given myself room to move and I'm always changing and elaborating on scenes once I get to the point of actually drawing them. Sustaining is another thing altogether... I lose interest sometimes; there's nothing I've ever been consistently invested in drawing or writing. But having it serialized online helps, and treating it as a commitment and working on it even on the days when I don't feel like it is important.   
 
Along with self-publishing on-line, you self distribute physical editions of your books. What have been the design and aesthetic advantages of maintaining that level of creative control?  







It's kind of spoiled me by now! I love having control of every aspect of how the work is presented, and I love designing books that appeal to a classy, book-fetishist kind of aesthetic. The fact that comics are inherently visual seems to implicate the entire design of the book or the website or whatever in the reading experience, so I appreciate being able to work with all of that as well.  I also just published an illustrated edition of the Wizard of Oz, which was fun: bringing that specific kind of approach to somebody else's work.  

Were there any big mistakes or learning moments self-distributing?

I shouldn't have even tried to do print-on-demand books. Technology has probably changed in that area a little since I was getting books printed that way five or so years ago, but it's a really inefficient way to get books made, and the quality is way below what any offset printer can do. There are tons of other mistakes but I'm figuring stuff out more and more I hope.  

Going from Rice Boy to Order of Tales, how has your relationship to color changed?

A big part of the reason I wanted to do Order of Tales in black and white was that I felt I was relying too much on color in Rice Boy, to the detriment of the quality of the drawing. So I learned a lot about texture and value doing Order of Tales, but I love color and I'm glad I can work with it again in Vattu, and other projects here and there. Hopefully I'm smarter in my use of color than I was back then!    Do you have any suggestions about the use of color to aspiring comic book makers?   Be mindful of how color

translates to print, if print is a goal for you... It might be worth working in CMYK from the start, so you're only using print-friendly colors. And more broadly, I still don't feel like I really Understand color, but I definitely think it's good to err on the side of limited palettes!  

Who do you think of as having really good Fantasy work in comics?

I haven't read many comics lately. I just read a bunch of Kory Bing's Skin Deep and I liked it a lot-- modern and grounded fantasy but with a strong folklore/mythology undercurrent: http://skindeepcomic.com/ . Bryan Lee O'Malley's new book is fantasy, right? That's a beautiful book.  

Are there any guests or exhibitors your looking forward to meeting at Staple?

Hmm Sammus rules   

Are you going to be bringing anything new to Staple?

Yes! I have new art books that have some series of landscape illustrations I've made, called Aftermath & Lacunae. It's meditative, black-and-white stuff that's different from a lot of what I've published before.

An Interview with M. Austin Bedell

M. Austin Bedell is treasure of the local cartooning scene. He is a regular member of sketch group, a contributor to Rocksalt  Magazine, an accomplished web cartoonist and longtime staple exhibitor.  He took some time out this summer to do this interview with us. He is most noted for his Skweegie Kolache stories but has a side project called Vidyagame Libary,  as well as GROG with cartoonist Chris Sweet of Effing Decaf. My personal  favorite is a pantomime story he did called Warm Fuzzy.

When did you start cartooning?

Bedell:  I was very young and childlike. Like, a very young child, I was.

Who were your early influences?

Bedell:   I drew a lot of Super Mario, Ninja Turtles, and Simpsons as a kid--not because I was special, but because that's what was popular back then (Weird that all three of those things are still pretty popular today...). Matt Groening's name was the first I really clung to and mispronounced--my dad gave me a copy of Childhood is Hell and it was my favorite book. Then I got into the Far Side, and always had to wear one of those shirts. I was the coolest awkwardly-developing kid in the world in those one-size-too-big Far Side shirts!

Whose work do you admire now and how has it changed?

Bedell:  I went through a Crumb phase right after college and started branching off of that. Basil Wolverton, Jim Woodring. I like cartoonists who seem to put a lot of work and detail into such simple designs. Then I steal their techniques and try to pass them off as my own. I found this book of Drew Friedman's black and white stuff a few years ago with all the Tor Johnson comics. Man, what a stippler!

How long have you been doing Skweegie Kolache?

Bedell:  I started drawing the characters 20 years ago, did a few comic strips in high school 15 years ago, threw together my first book called "Skweegie Island" 5 years ago, and, uh... To answer your question, I don't know.

In addition to Skweegie Island and Vidyagame Libary, how many projects are you juggling right now?

Bedell:  I started drawing a new Skweegie Kolache story recently, but besides that, I'm in the planning stages on a bunch of stuff that may or may not ever happen.  Chris Sweet and I are talking about doing another colab. And there's always my super-epic magnum opus bullcrap I'll never get started on. 

Much more work...

http://www.skweegieisland.com

http://telfurious.tumblr.com/

http://vg-libary.tumblr.com/

https://twitter.com/telfurious
http://www.skweegieisland.com/?comic=grog

http://fictioncircus.com/rocksalt

https://www.facebook.com/skweegieisland

Interview with Dan Price

 

Dan Price is the writer and co-creator of Masters of the Obvious he also created the Latex Avenger. Recently, he started a web strip called Excelsi-ish! You can find his work at www.mastersoftheobviouscomic.com and buy his stuff at the Hound Comics Store.

Was Latex Avenger your first Comic Book project?

It was the first thing I did that saw fruition. I did the first issue in 2007, but really got into it in 2010.  

Who are your biggest influences?

Keith Giffen, Bob Burden, Lee/Kirby, Mike Allred, Don Simpson, Harold Ramis, Alex Toth Cartoons (Space Ghost/Herculoids), Dave Chappelle, Kurt Vonnegut, Groucho Marx, Woody Allen, Norman Lear. Huge fan of comics back in the nineties, so I blame the Image founders for me wanting to make original comics. 

You met your collaborator Bonn Adame at a 24 hour comic day and you have been involved in the monthly sketch bomb. What would say role of community has been on your work? It's been huge! When I first got into this, I didn't know anyone or what I was doing. In 2010, when I really started making a go of Latex Avenger and doing shows, I met a lot of people in and out of Austin.  By 2011-12, it seemed like Austin's comic scene became a family of sorts. People getting together and talking turned into collaborations and new ideas.

 

Artist Alley is a strange sales environment, you selling work that is very personal while surround by dozens of other creators attempting to do the same. What have you found works and why?

The battle for an independent comic creator is that no one knows you or what you do, so you have to stand out. I have an elevator pitch for both Latex Avenger and Masters of the Obvious that I say to everyone who walks by (much to the chagrin of the people tabling next to me) and gauge their attention level. In the case of Latex Avenger: 

"Latex Avenger and Spermicidal Foam Lad! Repelling crime 99.9% of the time!"

 If they laugh, I hand them a comic and start blathering. 

 

Do you have any production or distribution advise you learned from putting out Latex Avenger and Masters of the Obvious?

I lettered my first comic in Photoshop and then flattened the pages, causing my vector fonts to raster and never look right.  Don't do that. 

 

How far ahead do you plan convention appearances and what do you do to get ready?

Depending on the show and the goals of that convention, prep can take a while, but it's not usually a grueling experience unless I have a book coming out for a certain show. When that is the case, I usually spend the week before watching UPS's tracking website like a hawk. Until the book arrives, it's four small heart attacks a day and constant anxiety.

What has been your best experience after taking Latex Avenger and Masters of the Obvious to conventions all over the state?

I am so passionate about the characters and stories I am creating, it's really exciting when you meet people who really get what it is I've been doing for the last 4 years and are just as passionate. Latex Avenger and Masters of the Obvious are not the typical fair seen at the shows and it takes a certain, special, beautiful person to gravitate to it. So, to those people, thank you for supporting the cause!