Easter Eggs To Me?

This is getting odd. It's one thing to see story ideas or characters that resemble each other, because there's been a lot of genre-borrowing over the centuries.

And then there's some very specific stuff that is so oddly the same you start to wonder.

My comics, The Desert Peach, and Stinz, have had a world-wide audience for years. I'm beginning to wonder if other creatives who know my work - especially writers in much more recent film and animation - are throwing little Easter Eggs to me. I would be so delighted if they were.

I can't prove this. Just take a look and think about it.

ZOOTOPIA: There are a bunch of stupid wolves guarding the secret project. In Stinz, there are a bunch of bachelor wolves my fans call The Stupid Wolves. They even look somewhat like the ones in Zootopia - and they're about as bright. 

I wouldn't think that was enough to prove those are my images - but look at the secret installation on the lake with its causeway, and then look at the mill and the mill-race in Stinz. The two things together have me wondering. What do you think?

THE HATEFUL EIGHT: This is really an oddly one. In Tarantino's movie, Sam Jackson shows up as a man who famously served in the Union army as a Major. So he's the Black Major. That's just one point - but his old enemies have a ransom on his aging head? Stinz was the Black Major - and had a ransom on him. And had gotten old.

FROZEN: I know there's a reindeer in the original Snow Queen. But the role of the reindeer and the person who rides him is much more like Udo and his reindeer in The Desert Peach. What do you think about that in addition to the birch trees?

THE GOOD LIAR: This one is sensitive. First and foremost, the REAL bad guys in that movie are the Nazis, that screw up two families SO BAD. 

"Taub" is commonly a Jewish name in Germany. Jews who were officially Germans - yes, the Nazis took over the roll of the Rabbis in saying who was Jewish - served in the German army. They could visit their official Jewish relatives in camps before the war started, and all access were closed to the camps, which were then devoted to extermination. 

Taub's relatives seem to have already died in the camps. This is a weird complex idea, and you see it in The Desert Peach, between Udo and Leutnant Winzig.

It's what makes the movie even more horrible. I'm not saying anybody saw this - because this kind of stuff happened all the time. 

There you go. If these are coincidences, so be it. But if they're Easter Eggs - thanks, guys! 

Final note: one Stinz character is the village blacksmith. He has a pet black rooster who is really a demon. One of the woodcutters up here has a pet red rooster who follows him everywhere. 

Both birds are named "Chicken."

My Distribution List - Help Your Favorite Shops

Right now, Anne Bean of Emerald Comics Distribution has made sure my books go into Northwest Shops. Here is a list of the shops ECD serves.

Now for a list of shops that carry my work right now, and others that could be encouraged to pick them up. If you live nearby any of the following stores, and you want my books, check them out first!

The Dreaming is the best place to go - "Loves it, keeps it in stock, buys back issues."

Left Bank "Buys issues, sells slowly," but will be kept stocked.

Push/Pull is "Happy to stock issues," move slowly. So go help them move quickly! Same for Left Bank.

Dreamstrands: "Loves your work, keeps some in stock." Again, doesn't get a lot of stock - so help move up those numbers for these good shops. 

Now here are shops need your support to start sharing my books. If any of them are the shop most convenient to you, do drop in and request my books. If they want to know how to get my books, just refer them to Anne Bean, whose link is at the top of this posting. She is very good at making things happen. If your shop isn't on this list, tell the shop owner about Anne, and me, and we'll make your comics experience even better. 

Fantagraphics Bookstore and Gallery. Say "hi" to Larry for me! I love this shop whether they carry my work or not. They're family.

Olympic Cards and Comics. Gabi says she LOVES my work, but needs customers who want it. Go give her some for me!

Phoenix Comics doesn't stock back issues. But there's a new Afterdead collection with new stuff that's not even appeared on the website.

Arcane Comics They don't have my work right now, but they love special ordering from Emerald Comics. Tell them what YOU want specially ordered!

Floating World Comics MIGHT sell if customers want. If you live nearby and want my books directly, do drop in.

Stinz Volume One Repair Download

First of all, even though I proof these pdfs to death, there's always a page or two that get away from me. In this case, the new Stinz Collection volume 1 has a missing page - page five of "Hair of the Wolf."

So - for those of you who bought Volume 1 of the new Stinz collection, this is what I did for my OWN copy. 

You can't get these un-improved versions, any more, either. I fixed 'em on the Amazon link. I love Print-On-Demand - no more tearing our hair after a huge, expensive print run comes out. When an alert reader emails a correction, we can - correct - it!

Print this jpeg - either on your own printer or your library's - and tip it into the book, either plain or glued. You see this sometime in old books - this is proof it still happens, when a book gets as big and complex as these collections do.

And if I see you at a convention with one of these, you get a color sketch - for free. It's like a coupon.

Coloring Afterdead

Now coloring the formerly black-and-white pages of Afterdead, on ComicFury. 

One of the gamer-favored moments of the old days when I was first starting out, illustrating Traveler, was a graphic depiction of removing bits of shrapnel from live intestines. 

This panel is the descendant of that illustration. Now in color.

I just realized, seeing it in the small form, that it looks like a map.

Paper Dolls In My Books

Thank you, the paper-doll-collecting reader who asked for them. If you go to Indyplanet, these are the issues with paper dolls in them:

Desert Peach #8 Rosen (Reprint inside back).
 
Desert Peach #16 Chaplain Stange (Reprint behind main story)
 
Desert Peach #17 Peach and Udo FULL COLOR (Reprint inside front and inside back) AND Barb Rausch's Udo-and-Falila paper dolls on every single story page, including the two of them in their adorable all-to-gethers.
 
Stinz #18 Baronin FULL COLOR (Reprint outside back)
 
Stinz #19 Kilan FULL COLOR (Reprint outside back)

There's a paper coll of Udo somewhere, but I dunno if it's in one of the reprints. I searched through all the reprints, but I may not have put it into any of the books.

Merry Stinzmas!

Stinz putting out hay for the birds and the poor half-horses.

Stinz to the Rescue

Cartoonists Northwest auctions art at their Toonies Awards banquets.  They need funding right now.  Like most artists, I got more art than cash, so offered to do them some art for the banquet.

Bidding for this piece starts at $200.00 -- I'll be posting more details once they get them to me.

Emerald City Comicon Poster

Look out for my poster at Emerald City Comicon (booth 610).  

The original art used to build the poster will be there for sale (unless you grab it first; $449.95 -- and there's only one).

What the hell is this thing?

As the result of a bad case of end-of-project anxiety ("Whadda I write about NOW??"), I'm poking at a -- novel? -- novelette? -- historical fantasy thingie? -- sci/fi? -- which is my usual way of starting something completely now.

Right now it's only some vague historical meanderings, with a gloomy kid (guess what I was like as a teen) wandering around in it. No, it is NOT Catcher In The Rye.

I'm actually going back and putting the action and dialogue in to spice up the liveliness (I can hack as good as the next guy). What I've got is just a skeleton, and an author with no clue. I don't even know what this thing is about, yet. Mystery? Teenage angst? Rage against the machine? It's talking to itself and I have no idea what it wants. I'm waiting for it to start talking to ME. The kid is probably just a place-holder until the real character shows up -- which is what Stinz did.

What later became the the centaur hero of one of my most -- dare I say? - beloved series was just some two-legged sidebar mayor in An Insupportable Light, a story about a young nobleman trying to take over a position in life he didn't really want. Stinz was standing on the sidelines smoking when he perked up and said, "Okay, I'm in charge of this plot line now."

My best work is nothing if not organic.

Out-Of-Print to Print-On-Demand Press Release

For immediate release:

August 30, 2009

Contact information:
Donna Barr, A Fine Line Press
donnabarr01@gmail.com 360 963 2935

Xeric-grant funded “Seven Peaches” sells out.

“Seven Peaches,” a collection of the first seven Desert Peach episodes that was funded by the Xeric Grant, has sold out.

The Xeric Foundation is a private, nonprofit corporation established by Peter A. Laird, co-creator of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Planet Racers. The Foundation offers financial assistance to committed, self-publishing comic book creators and qualified charitable and nonprofit organizations.

Donna Barr's work has repeatedly sold out print runs, including collections. To guarantee that her books stay in print without interruption -- and to keep from being forced to re-process them for a print one -- Donna is offering her work through her own company, A Fine Line Press, using new, more permanent technologies.

As a forward-thinking company, exploring new technologies, A Fine Line Press is committed to offering webcomic and print-on-demand versions of all past series by Donna Barr, including The Desert Peach and Stinz, as well as the on-going Afterdead (availale at Amazon and as a webcomic) and other, smaller series.

The first steps include the full Desert Peach collection, available now as a two-volume set at Lulu.com

“The Desert Peach” is also running as a page-a-day webcomic.

The first issues of the print-on-demand reprint of The Desert Peach is being prepared for use with the print-on-demand company Ka-Blam.com, and its distribution arm Indyplanet.

The ISSN numbers for this new reprint are:

ISSN 1948-9269 (print)
ISSN 1948-9277 (online)

“(Donna's) astonishing productivity puts most of her fellow comics creators to shame, particularly since she has never benefited by having the big-time comics publishers blowing wind into her sails. Donna has charted her own course and controlled her own creative destiny, and in the process she has provided inspiration and generous mentorship to others of us who would similarly like to avoid being shackled by presumed commercial ground rules.”

Howard Cruse, Stuck Rubber Baby, Wendal All Together.

The Desert Peach Webcomic

See the pretty new link over there at the top of the list of extras? Go over there and read all the original Desert Peach pages, as they appear, day by day.

For the Stinz readers: stop whining! Dave says we'll be doing the same thing for YOU, too! So promote this site and we can get to the next one. Yay!

Afterdead 2 -- let it snow.

So let's get off the whole publishing thing for now and talk about the next books.

I was whining to someone (yes,you know who you are) that I couldn't get any work done because I've been doing nothing but plow through publishing.

Which is why I'm about to start page 19 of AFTERDEAD 1.4, which is the last section of AFTERDEAD 2.

Dan says this is like teaching me to parallel park. He said I learned it faster than anybody he'd seen but I was still cussing because I didn't get it right the first time. I tend to beat up on myself more than is warranted (Recovering Catholic).

(Some of my readers mistake me for the sweet, patient, fatherly Peach or Stinz. I am much more like a cross between Udo and Leutnant Winzig.)

I had started the story sorta in the late summer, the trees touched with orange, mostly green. Then, while talking to a colleague on the phone, I remembered what the sky outside out window looked like.

Vancouver Island was frosted with snow. I can see this from my front window across the Strait of Juan de Fuca (NOT pronounced like that). I said, "There's snow on Vancouver Island. Oh, hell, the story should be taking place in the snow."

Which is why I changed page the pages up to 19 -- ah, the unifying wonders of a bright orange marker -- and put in a new page. I'd accidentally miss-numbered the pages, and had an extra I could either ignore or add. So I used it to surprise everybody involved that their little production was going to have to take place in the white stuff.

The prose writers reading this are scratching their heads and going, "Why didn't she just cut and paste?"

You don't cut and paste comic book pages. That would be like cutting and pasting tapestries once you'd gotten halfway down the warp. It would be like repainting the car once you'd gotten past the front doors -- and I'm talking a dragon-and-flame airbrush, not a nice metal-flake blue.

Speaking of prose, I'm seriously champing at the bit to get done with the AFTERDEAD book and start something in prose. I don't care what.

I should give my poor agent something a little easier to flog than the ENTIRE DESERT PEACH COLLECTION. Just as a break.

Season's Greetings, 2008

Happy Holidays!

Whatever or whenever you're celebrating, may you have lots of friends, family, food and brights lights -- and JUST enough snow for snowballs.

The AFTERDEAD gang posed for the attached card.

Donna Barr

Loss Leaders

Dear retailers:

PLEASE put the left-over Desert Peaches and Stinzs and Afterdeads in the Bargain Boxes!!! Even better, if you get a damaged copy, don't waste time and money sending it back -- give it to a likely reader.

They run right back for $35 to $85 in books. But then, the savvy sellers amongst you already know that.

One of you had a badly-bound Desert Peach. You showed it to me and said you couldn't sell it. I quickly drew the Peach inside, blaming Udo for helping with the binding. On the white edge of the crooked page, I drew Udo saying it wasn't his fault, and he gets blamed for everything. A $15.00 book sold for $45.00 and the reader was happy to get it.

Don't be shy -- if you as a retailer get a damaged book, email me and show me a photo. I'll send you a nice big label with art on it to put inside the front cover. I'll send a personally-signed label to any reader who buys the improved book.

Readers, go tell your retailer about this.

No fair beating up the books just to get free art!

Stinz and the Barr Girls

The Barr Girls are hassling Stinz over at Webcomicsnation.

They're the Cow -- uh -- Boys of the AfterReich. Good with a lariet, and know they look good in a short skirt.

They can rope anything with four legs. Stinz has four legs.

You don't care about marketing, do you?

I know, I know, I should be writing about what I'm writing, but for at least two years now, I've been heavily involved in publishing.

AND I've been experimenting with my books to try to make them usable for webcomics and black and white and color books. This hasn't always been easy; it's been three steps forward and two steps back the whole way.

The brain is interested in what it's been doing recently. Cells involved in recent activities flood out cells involved in older activities. So the mudflats in my head are pretty much katrina'd over with publishing muck.

To try to get an art hurricane to re-flood the flats, I began doing a story practically freehand; more like webcomics are produced, than my old, careful, complex story-telling method. I wasn't really happy with it. I've always loved black and white better than color, but color looks so GOOD on webcomics! And I post everything now. So the nuts-and-bolts of producing books is getting in the way of my storytelling. I know too damn much about publishing now, and it's growing thorns in the mud.

I had a color story three pages in, and then Obama went into the White House. So this nasty little story that featured Leutnant Winzig kind of hit a brick wall. Which is probably a good thing.

My childhood love of bloody anatomy REALLY didn't need to get loose at a time like this.

States I've been to -- What about yours?

If you'll look in the left column, you'll see a map of states I've been to.

Want to help me fill in the map?

Get your store or gallery to fly me in for a show or a signing!

Most Common Customer Questions About My Books

1. Am I old enough to read this?

Answer: If you're under 18, you probably won't get it; it's full
of stupid adult tricks. If your mom will let you have it, you
may buy it (save it for when you're older).

2. Will I like this?

Answer: If you like to think, yes. Most of the references are
explained. If you need more details, hit the library and the 'Net.
Caution: you may end up with the urge to take German classes (it
has happened before).

3. Which book will I like?

Answer: Choose the cover you like. The author was in the
same mood when she created the inside pages.

4. What's The Desert Peach about?

Answer: An historical fiction following the Desert Fox's fictional
gay brother (not the real one).

5. What's STINZ about?

Answer: An historical fantasy based on 19th century farming
life. The main character is a big black centaur stallion.

6. What's Bosom Enemies about?

Answer: People as horses, and horses as people. It has been
described by reviewers as an allegory of slavery.

7. What's Hader and the Colonel about?

Answer: Learning not to eat your friends.

AFTERDEAD 1.3 -- "Hunter and Hunted"

Press Release: For immediate release

October 17, 2008

AFTERDEAD 1.3 – HUNTER AND HUNTED, by Donna Barr, $15.95, shipping in February 2009 from A FINE LINE PRESS.

Contacts:

A Fine Line Press
PO Box 363
Clallam Bay, WA 98326 donnabarr@hotmail.com 360 963 2935

The lives and afterlives of the Desert Peach and Stinz continue. At a roller derby tournament – Rosen is a huge fan -- the Peach meets an old friend from the Quick Times. A questionable treasure brings back memories of an old war. The Peach loses his lunch – and his head – at After Reichisch entertainment.

Review quotes:

“Many, many moons ago, I stumbled across Stinz: Family Values, and was immediately impressed. Long story short: I went and found every Stinz collection I could, and along the way met this Desert Peach guy, too. And watching Desert Peach moving from farcical comedy to human drama was, no hyperbole, dumbfounding. I really truly did feel like a bomb had gone off in my brain. Like so many of her fans I couldn't help but wish that somehow, somewhere they might meet ('cause believe me, the half-horse and the gay Nazi could have quite a conversation – they're both veterans). And now, years later, those prayers are answered!”

Caleb Collins – Dove Square, Webcomicsnation

“In Afterdead, Barr continues to explore themes such as the influence of the military on society, the complexities of love and sexuality and the gray areas of morality and human responsibility.... Afterdead will allow her to comment on a wide range of issues facing modern life, noting in her introduction that 'the new Peach will open up hunting season on the whole of human history and every country that ever was or could be.' Barr acknowledges that the current political climate, in which issues of war and civil liberties are of central importance, should give her rich material with which to work.”

Kate Culkin – Publisher's Weekly.

Published: Quarterly (yearly for full volumes).
Intended Audience: Full Citizen
Genre: Historical Fiction, Science Fiction, and Magic Realism*
Format: Comic size (6.62” x 10.25”) 64 pages, black and white. Full-color cover.

Link Madness

I found this old photo of me. Dan wanted me to point the gun at him, but I don't do that because (1) it makes a boring photo and (2) I never point a gun at anything I don't mean to kill. Unlike stupid chimps who think these things are toys.

(Note: I am not this cute any more)



I just posted this photo at Webcomics Inc., and since this blog feeds into my blog at COMIXtalk, I am doing link madness:

"Hi! I found out about Webcomics Inc. on Deviantart.

I'm at Webcomicsnation which links back to more of my work at Moderntales.

I'm at Lulu.com which is where all my webcomics go when they go on paper."