NFReads Interview With Me

Originally, said, "No politics, no religion," but that would leave me right out! So Tony added my foreword, and everything's kopacetic. 

As you can see, I don't think much about the process of creativity: I just do it. 

NFReads interview with me.

Just Stop Trying, People

Every once in a while, somebody tries to - I dunno - "hurt" me online, or at least my work. Which leads to the following conversation from a very nice reader of mine, Danny Sichel:

From Donny Sichel, email:

"So I'm reading the Terrible Webcomics megathread on Something Awful.

Someone posts a page of Stinz." (I dunno which page; Danny just said, "a page.") 

"Responses: "Somehow, I can't bring myself to hate this. It's not even pinging my 'fetish-sense'. Please post an example of this comic sucking, because so far I don't dislike it."

"What is this, Lil Abner with centaurs? I kind of like the oldschool feel of the art"

"I am really really happy this thread introduced me to Donna Barr

because she is a fucking genius"

"Can't stop my fascination with Barr's work. There's something so

incredible here I don't fully understand "

When I said I thought this was funny and gratifying, Danny, like the decent guy he is, tried to get it through my thick skull that somebody hated my work:

Danny: "It's still the 'shitty webcomics' thread. Your stuff is being a work of insane genius. A given page of the Afterdeath stuff may totally insane when seen out of context, but it's not *lousy* - the art is vivid and competent, and there's actually a reasonable storyline. And you're someone who genuinely enjoys what you're doing. Yes, there are people who produce webcomics but don't like making art. They see it as a tedious obligation that's necessary for the rewarding experience of receiving praise.)"

That made it even better. You see, I'm an original - I solved all the artistic problems myself, instead of being a fake and a copy-artist. I learned to write in colorful letters home to my family from the army and college. I still base everything I do on stuff I've seen, researched, or been told stories about - not something I cribbed and barely changed from somebody else's (too-often cribbed-and-changed) fake stories. I'm not one of those legion of comics people whose work you pick up and go, "I can't tell which writer or artist this is, because they all look the same." You see Donna Barr, you KNOW Donna Barr. Nobody else can actually copy me, although there have been some adorable attempts - and some ridiculous steals. I think of the well-intentioned as good puppies, and the bad ones as abused puppies.

However, the thought the, no matter how old I get, I'm STILL the class weirdo is something I've learned to live with and appreciate.

I just thought - since the last pages of Stinz are done by very practiced friends, perhaps they're being hated on - and getting the free publicity! Yay! Win-Win, Cin Cin.

So You Wanna Be A Comics Writer?

The Clarion Group asked me to write an article about getting into comics. So I wrote it. They used it, but it's a lot shorter. So here's the rest of it. Oh, and they used a much prettier picture.

Me, imitating Christopher Lloyd.

After a long San Diego Comicon, during the Sunday wind-down, a mother with a hopeful son approached me as a comics professional:

"My son wants to get into comics," she said. "What should I do for him?"

Pretty much wrung out after three days of marketing, I blurted, "Break his hands!'

Happily for me and her kid, they'd been around the industry long enough to recognize the reality of my comment.

Comics are hard work. They're probably the most labor-intensive art form we can successfully finish alone. The best way to get into comics, of course, is to learn to draw and write them from start to finish; that's what we call a comics author.

These days, with print-on-demand and downloads becoming simpler, cheaper and more easily organized, many comics authors are profiting quite nicely from the entire publishing process themselves.

Many people are becoming complete authors, but there's still a demand in the industry for the old-fashioned penciller/inker/letterer/colorer/writer team, especially in the old genre markets like superheroes and manga.

If you're going to write for comics, first of all attend a comics convention, the bigger the better. Look at everything and talk to everybody. Bring a big box of business cards, and no matter how good you think your memory is, write what your exchange was about, or both parties will forget it by the time you get home. There's just that much going on.

Hydrate, eat a good breakfast - you may get nothing more until supper - and learn to fish-swim through the rivers of fans (an art in itself).

Back home? Seen some books you want to write for? Learned who people are? Now it's time to get to work.

Think movie script. You're transmitting your ideas of dialog and images to another person. If you're writing licensed characters, it's like writing a Star Trek novel; you get pay, not the rights. On a comic book you get paid like the script-writer. The artist/s get paid like the actors.

The first lesson is: nobody's a mind reader. The second is: garbage in, garbage out. Artists come in at least two flavors; the ones who want you to describe every detail of every panel, and the ones who want to do the layout themselves. Too much detail just makes panels clunky. And you have to leave space for word balloons. Get some comics, and check out basic layout.

You want to become a writer for a publisher? Learning a genre and submitting scripts is the same as for any multi-level project. Each company has its own requirements. Their websites will tell you how. Nobody has time to give you the details at a comics convention. It's a trade show dealing with every level of arts, media and entertainment, and time is precious.

Of course, if all you have is a script you're probably going to end up sliding off the slush pile. A script is just a script. You need art, because the publisher isn't a mind-reader, either.

Don't try to talk some artist into working for cheap or free. Learning to be a really able artist requires thousands of hours of work and thousands of dollars in expenses. Unless you're part of a team that deeply believes in the project, that way lies fights, accusations, and a reputation as an amateur and an asshole. The artist is not lazy or feckless; you're just on the back burner because you're not paying, and somebody else is. It doesn't matter if they showed up after your project started. Artists are professionals, and while it's fun to work for the love of it - it's where the word "amateur" comes from - this is the real world, and they have a job to do.

If you've got a fat wallet, you can pay your artist without quibbling, but you still have to know if you like his or her art already. Don't demand the artist imitate a much more expensive artist, unless you're willing to pay the same fees; that's just getting copy-art for cheap. It's not going to help your reputation.

You pay up front; you're hiring the artist to do the work, not to decide if you like it or not. The usual arrangement is fifty percent up front, fifty percent upon approval.

But what if you're strapped? There's a way to get a good start. Put money together to pay well for the first pages before submitting the project to a publisher. You're acting as a small-scale producer; you have to find the funding for the film.

I can remember one young man who approached me and offered $750 for twenty pages of art. Starting at black and white for $150.00 per page and going up - he wasn't getting beyond a short story. I asked him who his dream artist would be, and if s/he was at the show. The man was. Then I asked the writer who he'd approach second, and then third. They were all at the show. I told the writer to wait until his first choice was on a break from lines of signings, then approach him politely, and offer the entire budget for one really fine color splash page.

The writer returned within the hour. His first choice worked at a higher usual page rate, so turned him down, but thanked him for the offer. The second had too much work on his plate. He got the third.

Start at the top. Offering a copy of a really top-class piece of art along with a script is going to at least let the publisher know you're serious about your project.

How many of you out there are asking what a splash page is? If you don't know, or what a Kirby grid or a signature is, or how many of them go into a comics format, then you need to google some comic book terminology. Or at least get to the largest comic book show you can find, and geek up. If nothing else, you could see Darth Maul on stilts playing a bag-pipe.*

Happy hunting!

*And yeah, it's onYouTube.

Down with Amateurs

Okay. Rolling up the sleeves right now to strike at more BS.  

The times I have worked with writers, the script is ALWAYS thin, clichéd and boring.  It's why I do it myself -- I write what I've seen and know and think about, not some leftover genré scene that excited me when I was 12.  That is NOT a muse, no matter what you think it is, and if you can't tell the difference -- well, you can't learn it.

Writers who claim "not working without pay" for artists is "destroying indies" are amateur wienes.  There are PLENTY of us in mainstream drawn book world (Not "Indies," you boobs -- superheroes are the niche market now!) who write, draw and own the project. We're original, driven, knowledgeable, and have no time for manipulative amateur BS any more. If you, as a writer, WANT an artist, you are in the position of the producer and director. who has to find the funding for the actors and crew. Go to the film people and find out how it's DONE.

NOTE: I just did art for writers who did not grizzle over prices or payment schedule. Their only question:  "Paypal or check?"  They got a Kickstarter project and they wrote the artists into the costs.  Guess who already has the art in their hot little hands?  Like my editor on the Forks Forum says, "It's so nice to work with a professional."

She Told Me To - Another Interview with Donna Barr

Sarah Coultier sent me some nice interview questions, and I'm posting it here as she suggested.

Hi, Sarah -- I'm typing this with the 'flu, so you might want to proof it.

My answers are marked with "D" (Hers are marked "S").

Donna Barr

S: Hey - I'm a student at Pacific Northwest College of Art and I'm supposed to interview three artists in the field that I want to go into. I actually have some things that I really want to know about how all five of you work, so - I know you're quite busy, but if any of you have time for a few questions, could you please answer mine? Even one would be awesome. If you want to post the answers to your blogs, I follow most of you in one form or another. And several of you have already covered some of these, so don't feel obliged to answer what you've already talked about.

D: Thanks for contacting me. I'll do my best.

S: Work ethic: from things you've mentioned on the internet, I know that all of you have continued to draw and update through depression, migraines, other jobs, and dealing with family. How do you manage it?Does the story have such a strong hold on you? Do you have an unusually strong sense of duty? A particular routine, or a system for getting things done that I'm not seeing?

D: The short answer: we're women.

KIDDING.

The other short answer: YES, to all of the above. I know I'm imprisoned by my Muses, and I'm German (the "duty" thang). The rule is: when not doing anything else, draw and write! Or even better, try to get the other stuff done when not drawing or writing.

My other trick: DRAW AHEAD. Do masses of stuff, and post a month's worth. So you CAN be sick or wrapped up in emergencies if you need to. Bless the internet for chugging along while we're doing other stuff. It's the way I've set up everything: WWWID (Will work when I'm dead).

S: Publicizing: what works for you guys? Who do you talk to? Where? Online or physical? Ads? Twitter? As far as I can tell, success is a combination of luck and just really being interested in your material - but some people do seem to make a success of advertising... and of course an audience needs to know you exist. How much is too much, for you? What's your experience with getting someone else to advertise for you? When did you decide there was enough demand to try to get your stories printed - or, for those who started before the grand era of webcomics and gauging an audience by online fan response, at what point did you decide to print, and where did you try to distribute it? Where do you wish you'd tried to distribute it, now?

D: EVERYTHING. Facebook, Lulu, Twitter, Createspace, Project Wonderful, CCNow and Blogger. You got those, you just do your hour of marketing and contacts every day. It's the online comiccon! You, too, can look at PayPal once in a while (and then regularly) and go, "Oh! Where did that extra hundred dollars come from?"

You print when you have enough pages: Ka-Blam.com (or other comics site) for comics page numbers. Lulu and Amazon for collections. Lulu and Ka-Blam for wholesale to your customers (fan and store). Amazon for cheapest discount to you for shows. Lulu for automatic ebooks.

The paper days? It was Diamond and nothing else. You can still do that, or flog it at book publishers. That world is still in the 18th century, when it started, all the rules still hold. What worked for Dickens will work for you -- but these days it will be pixels, not paper.

And we don't write cuz we're trying to get an audience. We write because demons have us by the back of the neck and are pushing our faces into the paper/screen.

S: Publicizing 2: Did trying to put yourself and your work out there make you feel like a flimsy facade with something ill and rotten behind it at first? If so, how on earth did you get over it, and do you think it has anything to do with how women are socialized to b self-effacing, or more to do with being an introvert, or an artist, or scolded for boasting as a kid...

D: Eh? Does not compute.

My stuff is good, damnit. I write what I can't find out there. Then again, I had a great blessing: I was daddy's little princess, but mom told me I was "enough to gag a maggot on a gut wagon." This taught me that NOBODY'S JUDGEMENT MATTERED BUT MY OWN. Get over yourself. And throw your relatives out of your studio. And your in-laws.

Oh, and I hit myself in the head with an ax when I was seven and immediately became obsessive, fixated and self-absorbed. Artist material! :P

(Fun with creaties; ask them when THEY had their head-trauma!)

S: Collaborators: Who's your favorite editor/collaborator/friend to take somewhere and babble at? What do they do that's special?

D: These days it's my fans on my websites. We have lots of fun giggling like girls over the antics of my characters (I'm not in control of any of this; I'm just management).

S: Collaborators 2: Do you have lots of artist and comic friends? Do you find you work best with engineers and scientists, or writers, or editors, or some other group of interests and traits instead? Do you emember how you collected most of them?"

D: My Facebook page is loaded with artists and writers and other creaties from all over the world. Editors and agents, too. I remember NOTHING about anything; the ax scrambled my memory, too; I have a hard time telling reality from dreams from imagination from tv commercials.

I love engineers; one of them is my BESTEST patron. They are so funny, tongue-in-cheek and self-aware (and they know art is worth money). The Desert Peach is an engineer. It's why my favorite Error Status is "418 I'm a Teapot."

(GOOGLE IT).

Scientists think my 1st rule of writing is hilarious: "If it's funny, it's right."

The other 2 are: "If it's physically possible for its time and place, it happened." And "If it didn't happen, it should have."

Or the short form: "Some idiot has already tried this."

(My rules of writing also apply to historical research).

S: Thank you very much if you have time to answer any of these. Any time would be fine, and you can pick any one question to answer if you want. I think I was supposed to ask how you got where you are in your careers, but this is the stuff I'm actually interested in. I apologize for how awkward this is. If and when you're ever in Portland, I'd love to meet you and say hi, and I'm just as awkward in person.

D: Awkward? NO! So nice and polite and well-thought-out! You should extend your teacher(s) my compliments.

Donna Barr

(and include this: http://www.donnabarr.com )

Sarah Cloutier

http://scloutier.tumblr.com/
http://melukilan.deviantart.com/

Donna Barr Lets Her Characters Go Play With Fans

I love my agents.  Letter from me to Dave Baxter and Dallas Miller, of Killing The Grizzly.

"Hi, D & D:

I would like to extend a huge gift to my fans, but I want to ask you first.  You know how Gene Roddenberry allowed anyone to sell any Star-Trek-related things they created themselves?  I'd like to do the same with my work.  Not the old stuff you're representing -- anything THEY make, new and pretty.  I'll let you hyperventilate for a bit, and then get back with me."

Dave Baxter:

"Hyperventilate?  Hell, no, that sounds fantastic.  I mean, personally, I think every creator should pirate their own work and stick it out on torrents and forums and P2P sires.  Anyone who downloads the work there and reads it on a computer (un-ideal) wasn't going to give you money anyway, either due to not having any money or just being a stubborn ass, but either way I don't believe you actually lose anything and you gain word of mouth and exposure.

Creator-approved fan-fic (even for profit) is a profound idea, and can do nothing but good.  It's free marketing and reader engagement for publishers, too.  On paper they all have to poo-poo these kinds of ideas, but if they're already in motion.... :)

Dave Baxter (of Dave Baxter and Dallas Miller, of Killing The Grizzly).

So there you go, folks.  Go nuts.  Send me stuff (email files, copies, links) to read or enjoy.  Sell it without worrying about paying me.  Invent new characters, whatever you want to do.  It's a big desert out there (and Gene was usually right).

Cool Facebook Thread about this.

The Donna Barr Trade School

Now I've had a couple of students serving internships with me from the MCAD, I've had a chance to think about what I can really offer and what I need out of it.

I am no longer going to offer internships; I don't need people to show up here to do scanning and scut work.  I need to be able to pass on years of experience in art, writing and publishing -- and be paid for it.  Instead, I am offering a trade school.

If you're short of time and money and just want to get to work in any end of this industry, consider that I can offer you the same training as a college, with fewer costs in time and money.

Online option:  only three students at a time.

Required programs: Skype, GIMP and OpenOffice required. ComicLife optional.

The details for a one-month course; you must be a legal adult:

1. Costs for either on-line or in-place option:  $4500.00 Paypal (with additional fees) or money order.

In-place option:

2.  If you opt for training with me directly, you will find your own place to live while training, and feed yourself.

3.  You organize and pay for your own travel.  If you are late because you didn't take into consideration the distances or bus routes, you may not change your schedule; you'll have a lot of travel to do in this business and you can't be late for anything.

4.  Courses will consist of five hours per day, with an additional lunch break, from Monday through Friday.  You will have weekends to yourself, but you will be expected to finish all assignments.

5.  The first two weeks will be drawing, writing and comics layout.  The second week will be more full training in open source programs, including the art manipulation program GIMP, the layout program OpenOffice. The final week will be networking, accounting, marketing, small press publishing, cooking and health hints for authors, etc.  

Be prepared for a LOT of work, and no pity if you don't get it done (you'll never get any from a editor).  Time at the beaches and in the forests of the Olympic Peninsula can be earned by finishing projects in time for weekends.  Since I seldom get out to see them myself, I will be willing to provide transportation so I can see them too. However, I am not a hang-out buddy, so don't expect it.   I'm also a working freelance reporter, so I may have to leave you to work on your own; you should have enough independence to work hard without supervision.  Please don't bring up personal or family problems, unless we're just gabbing on beach-runs -- then anything's fair.

At the end of this course, you should have the tools you need to go out and work in the comics industry with fewer expensive or scary surprises.  It will not gain you recognition in academia, unless you think associating with an historically-recognized comics author will do so.  It may not necessarily open any doors for you (although I have a huge list of contacts who will listen to my recommendations), but it will give you the tools for being prepared to do so yourself.

You will also have the right to contact me any time after the class with reasonable, well-thought-out questions about anything having to do with comics, as well as access to my extensive colleague and reader community.  Your performance will count. If you make a bad impression during the course, you can redeem yourself by future life performance; I do not burn bridges, and people can change. Points are given for honest effort.

First person who signs up and pays for this gets to take me out to to the Clallam Bay Inn for fish n' chips and beer and a walk on the beach; no holds barred on the evening's conversation or questions.

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.

The 26-Year Comic

I did 6 x about 1600 panels like this before I ever published. OCD? http://ping.fm/jcuo6

24-hour comics are fun, but 26-year 1-author comics are an exercise in adrenalin, caffeine, ink fumes and too many hours on a laptop.

It's like comparing going into the woods for three hours to get a vision -- to the Sun Dance

(With the understanding this is strictly a figurative comparison and no attempt to equate the severe vision quest of the Sun Dance ceremony to making drawn books. Or should we? Spirituality comes in many different forms, and the high priests have all got to be a bit nuts).

Experimentation -- BAD?

When I published AFTERDEAD 1, I commented that the entire color section in the front -- Pithed -- was the result of experimentation.

What reviewers in our present-day book world -- and especially comics -- don't understand is that experimentation is a desirable quality. They misunderstood, and rather than looking at what I was actually doing, began to make pronouncements about it.

I LIKE what I did in those books. It's what I WANTED to do. I experiment on every single page I write and draw. It's not "wrong" or "doesn't match" or whatever it is they think they're seeing. When I put something out there I MEANT to do it. It's not some clueless accident because I can't copy somebody else. I know, I know: they need to try to get their heads around that.

Admittedly, I don't like my work while I'm doing it. I struggle and cuss and push, and finally release my three-eyed, one-legged babies upon the world, convinced -- as so many artists and authors are -- that They're Going To See Me For The Fraud I Am and Make Me Give It All Back. Then I come back in a year or two and gasp in amazement: "Who did this work -- ELVES?" I always think I was better Back Then and that I'm going downhill now.

This is the final difference between a hack and an author. The hack is trying to emulate what they perceive as a Master -- never realizing that the Master is always tearing apart her or his own work and is never satisfied with it.

I envy the hacks. They know what they're shooting for. Most of the marketing work has done for them. All they have to do is draw and write the pretty pictures that fit a prepared mould, pouring in the contents like any industrial worker and sending it off down the production line. Washington Irving portrays one of them in Buckthorne and His Friends.

The best of them know this, and are happy with it. The saddest are angry because they don't know why an author doesn't recognize them as One Of Us. I've stood in the same room with one of each, the former pumping me for marketing and editorial tips, the latter steaming because he just couldn't understand the difference. He didn't realize that authors like me are the ultimate source of his own rice bowl. He could never have invented Star Trek on his own.

I've done plenty of hack work; it pays well because somebody wants what they want, and they don't want us authors trying to work out anything new, different, disturbing or surprising. They want cottage cheese -- no salt -- not kim chi and chorizo.

I find the hack work I'm asked to do boring and repetitive. It's based in obsessions that have nothing to do what I want to say. But I can turn out a nice little moulded plaster statue, and hide the pouring seams pretty well. My customers are happy, I get to pay some bills or buy something I need. The best of my customers know I'm not going to enjoy what they ask me to do; I might as well be working the line at Boeing. So I ask for at least comparable pay, with benefits. And get some more time to write and draw what I need to.

Working as a reporter on a paper is pretty much the same job; a timid revelation of only part of the facts, told without spirit or insight. No wonder newspapers are dying -- it's not that blogs are faster (which they are) but they're self-correctible, fearless and include film on the spot. Who wants to read the grannie prose when the good stuff is on line? I finally get a job, and it's in a business that might as well be making buggy whips.

It's like a friend of mine said: "Sometimes I wish I were just fat, dumb and happy."

The Creative Life

As a creative freelancer, all you need to read is this number of Mistress Matrisse's Control Tower. Forget the how-to books, the seminars and workshops. This is all you need to know.

Toonie Awards Banquet Address

You're Doing It Wrong
(With stage directions)
By Donna Barr for the Cartoonists Northwest 2009 Toonie Awards Banquet

First, I'd like to thank the CNW folks for asking me to address this (pause) – I almost typed “August Body.” But who wants to start with irony? I believe the official collective noun for cartoonists is – “The Usual Gang of Idiots.” And proud of it!

If you don't get it, corner Basil's granddaughter afterwards (point at her) and ask her to explain.

I had a request to talk about Women in Comics. “Women in Comics is The Panel Subject That Wouldn't Die.”

There.

The title of this address is “You're Doing It Wrong.” It comes from a phrase that was originally used in the movie “Backdraft,” and is now rampant on the internet. It ranges in appearances from the pages of coding instructions and the titles of blogs, to a picture of a rat with the handle of a spoon in its mouth.

Since somebody always asks me why I do comic books instead of some other easier art form, here's my only answer: because I can... write and I can... draw. Okay?

That answer drives interviewers crazy. They always want a tortured history. Or influences. It's the wrong answer. It's why I'll never get a gig teaching art. My entire reply to “teach me to draw” is: Get a pencil and a pad of paper and draw everything you see – for twenty years. See? Wrong answer.

I've always done it wrong. I've drawn the wrong things, and said the wrong – read “unacceptable” – things about them. I've gone down the wrong roads and followed the wrong ideas. The Road NOT Taken for me has always been the one somebody just mowed. There aren't enough bugs and thistles and nettles on that road; you can't eat mowed grass. But you CAN deep-fry cicadas and make nettle omelets.

I don't think this audience is going to be surprised I knew that. It's the job of a cartoonist to be complete garbage brains; it's how we keep it funny. Finding a left-handed link between the unrelated is the birth of the non sequitur and the belly-laugh. Comedy is the strongest horse: nothing's sacred, not Allah's turban, not the Pope's red slippers, not even recipes for kosher bacon bombs. Unlike a lot of writers and artists, we know we're throwing snowballs at top hats.

But somebody always had to do it wrong, at least the first time. It was the wrong artists who decided it would be cool to twist the bodies on Scythia's tattoos. For all I know we're the ones carved the fat ladies and left them in the caves to confuse and awe the local shamans – or we were the shamans. Who else would have figured out how to make caricatures pay? I wouldn't be the first one to define the swimming reindeer heads on the cave wall and the Egyptian Book Of The Dead as “cartoons.”

I might have been the first to define the Stations of The Cross as a comic strip, complete with panel gutters and word balloons. Scott McCloud thought we were all going to be hit by lighting – but Jack Kirby said I was right. Well, if anybody was ever was one of the “Usual Gang,” that guy was. I'd say he was totally off the grid, except there's one named for him.

I've always done my art wrong. When I was a kid, I started drawing German soldiers. Why I did was mostly about fashion, relationships and horses. And cute guys. Girls don't ask about the politics when they've seen a cute guy, especially one who looks good in boots. The politics would come later. In spades. I could bore for England.

When you consider that my parents and their neighbors were part of the worldwide Generation That Couldn't Get Along with Anybody, you'll see why I was always hiding the drawings in the back of the underwear drawers. Who else hid their art there? (look over audience) Oh, didn't you HAVE an underwear drawer? I bet your mother dressed you funny, too. (Use this one depending on audience reaction.)

I've spent 23 years piling up pages about an impossible subject – what genre-minded publisher is going to touch my stuff? I got news for 'em – there's a whole new generation of girls now drawing the same uniforms. But with long hair and faces whiter than anything the original Aryans would have allowed to run around outside a camp for – ahem – “defectives.” It's like Prussia meets Anne Rice. I must be doing something right, because I'm getting really tired of reprinting my books every time I sell out. Which is one of the reasons I went with print-on-demand. I thought Done is DONE, but in publishing the targets keep moving. I'll keep you posted in Penstuff.

When I was asked why I drew what I drew, I answered, “When I grow up I'll find another girl drawing the same thing – and she'll be in Switzerland!” which was my idea of a really far-away place. Forty years later, I did find her – and she was from Switzerland. I also said all the world's money was controlled by a little old Japanese lady living in Switzerland – and now I'm beginning to wonder.

I also used to yell at my dad: “I'm gonna go live with the Indians!”

Now we live in Clallam Bay. We're not exactly at the butt-end of nowhere, but you can see it from there. Guess who we live next door to now? They're getting their language back. And selling t-shirts that say, “Resisting terrorists – for 500 years.” We better hope all they want is casinos – and not 40 acres and a mule.

What do we have on the Olympic Peninsula? A beach, a wood stove and two full baths. Bald eagles in the backyard and harlequin ducks practically underfoot. If you come visit and I'm smoking fish, be careful of the salmon grease on the front doorknob. We also have wireless DSL; talk about your techno-hicks.

Living that far out forced working on the internet. I'll admit the roads on the interwebs can be like navigating Highway 112 during the slide season . But that's just the briar patch for Brer Cartoonist. We can find loopholes in sites – like allowing blog catalog readers to find bookstores through the IndieBound system, even for books that don't have an ISBN number. The trick is using your publisher serial-number base, and putting a fake three-number ending on it. I use XXX like the old cartoon whisky barrels. Think of it as back-roadin' the revenooers.

No matter what you do, part of it is going to be right. The publisher may want you to sign the contract, but she also wants your copyright – even though she can't afford it. That may look good, but if you end up working for ten years without copyrights, you're the typecast Star Trek actors before Roddenberry took pity on them. Just remember: if they can't afford to pay you, they can't afford to sue you.

After watching one of my colleagues fight with Hollywood, I wrote my own animation contract:

Take my work and screw it up any way you want; I'm not going to be buying any of it, or even watching it. But first hand over six million dollars – offshore – and never talk to me again. If you do, you'll pay another million for every contact. I mean it – every time you think you need to bug me again, by any means, for any reason, it'll be another million dollars. Don't ask me if you can make t-shirts or get the wrong voiceover actress or persecute the fans for selling knickknacks; I won't care. I'll be on a beach somewhere. With tequila. And no cell phone.

I once described this contract to an animator, who said, “They'd go for it! No lawyers! And no agents!”

I posted this as part of a binding public contract on my blog. It says that anybody who signs me for a copyright owes me six figures. With its date. Any publisher doesn't find it before signing, it's his own fault for hiring lawyers on the cheap. And not surfing.

We already know how much publishers love us. To quote the Canadian Broadcasting Company's radio series Monsoon house: (Use East Indian accent) “We don't have so many authors, now; less aggravation.”

A Facebook friend and I were laughing about how the economic meltdown affecs artists. Ha! Artists are like – pardon the comparison – black people in the depression: “What economic meltdown?” Everybody should hire us as consultants for living on the edge. We must have liked college because a lot of us are still living on the same budget we had in the dorm. Ramen is your friend.

In cartooning you have a choice: money or legacy. With the first, you're gambling you can save the money for the future; the second lets you pile up owned work. Copies of my books that originally went for $6.00 are going for RS 1300 in India – about $26 bucks apiece. I still own all my stuff and no publisher is going to have to wrangle with anybody else in the negotiation. Except me. (Burt Lancaster Grin).

My legacy is nailed: a reader opened up a contact with the San Diego State University special collections department. Your readers make a great street team and they love being included. I gave Collections a bunch of sketchbooks, art, printed books and the strange toys readers send me, to seed the Donna Barr collection. I have a little glass plaque on the Love Library entry wall, and am a designated heritage member of the university. They put me up at the Hyatt when I went to speak at the opening of my collection because they wanted to emphasize that comics artists are important artists. Cool, huh?

They got collections for everybody, even a complete set of the original Wizard of Oz books. Their original print runs go back to the 15th century. It's the ultimate geek job. If you get a chance at the San Diego Comicon, go beg the Love Library to let you take a peek at the stacks. They have my Inkpot Trophy – and my Toonie. SCORE! (Arms Up)

There are two more roads: an idea nobody else ever thought of, or one everybody's thinking of. Deciding on something original can work for or against you. If it's rather original, it could require a lot of steps to relate to an audience. If it's VERY original, you need dumb luck.

Forks, the town where the Twilight series is set, got lucky when the author said she found it on Mapquest and the publishing industry was in PPD: Post-Potter-Depression. But living 30 miles from the place, I'm wondering whether Meyers wasn't using the bad teeth, living in the dark, and poaching, as a parable about the meth capitol of the Pacific Northwest.

Are we born with our luck? Chinese birth signs come in twelve-year cycles, light and dark. Late baby-boomers like me got the dark cycle. We don't just get the snake, we get the Snake In The Grass – powerful and talented, but nobody recognizes his or her gifts. We get the War Horse. I'm a dragon – but I'm The Dragon In The Rain. Rain dragons see everything as dark and stormy. They never feel at home.

But if I recognize that, I can turn a weakness into a strength. Every time I'm feeling like I don't belong, or that I'm in the wrong place in my life, I just have to remember I'm a Big Wet Lizard, and the feeling goes away.

Well... mostly.

Like I said, nothing's perfect. Then again, Zen Buddhists say EVERYTHING's perfect. So you can't really do anything incorrectly, anyway. If nothing else, it will be a learning experience. You know (quote signs) – a “Learning Experience.” (Look over glasses). Yeah, I think we've all had a few of THOSE. We still try to hide them in the back of the underwear drawer.

So there's no use waffling on whether or not it will turn out right. If there are too many choices, then there's only one way to make a decision and move forward: flip a coin. Or look at a good horoscope.

I don't necessarily believe in horoscopes – mostly because of parallax (point at sky) – but since my day usually has about 14 roads to choose from, the few sentences of instructions and suggestions – usually printed next to the comics pages, which I'm going to be reading anyway – will help me steer me onto one road. It doesn't prevent it from being a road full of nettles – it just keeps me from falling in the potholes or meeting highwaymen. Of course, if you ascribe to the belief that falling in the hole is how you learn to climb back out, you might want to be steering for the ruts, anyway. It's your road.

Like the atheist ad-boards on busses say about God– you don't know, so don't worry about it. Especially when you're lying in bed when your half of the globe is asleep and really can't do anything to you until it wakes up and has its coffee. Any road you take, one way or the other, it's going to be the wrong road.

But it will be PERFECT. (Prayer hands).

Another Interview

Interview with me by K.A. Laity at Wombat's World. With lots of links! Cool site.

The Great German Word Hunt, 2

If you were coming up with words for the German prompt buttons, Anne Kirkham of Bremen and Tommy Lee and Sharon Henderson have beat you to it.

Watch for their efforts on the new website, coming soon!

The Great German Word Hunt

Hi, Mad Readers of Mine!

Dave Baxter, of Worst Writer and Kill The Grizzly is doing neat little prompt buttons for my WHOLE NEW Peach-based website (other books will come later, okay? We don't want to scare the new readers with the ENTIRE Midnight Library. It's like building a fire -- little bites first).

He had this cool idea - when you hover the pointer over a prompt button, it reads as the German word.

Now we all know how rich (and slightly warped) German idiom can be. I suspected the Germans were using English words, as the German Lush site.

But... you know we're always going to do something -- ahem -- "original" (with all that implies in English idiom). You native German speakers -- putting your heads into the era in which the Peach lived -- what word do you think the Peach would have used to say "Home," "contact," "register" on a webite? Perhaps even a military-flavored word? Get out your historical thinking cap and put your tongue FIRMLY in your cheek. And have fun! Driving very proper German professors out of their minds encouraged. Dialect encouraged! Private jokes encouraged!

The words we need so far are: About, Archive, Contact, Forum, Store, First, Home, Last, Home, Next, Previous, Subscription.

Dave, I'd like to give credit to anybody who helps out on this or whose word gets used. Maybe when the button opens up, we can add, "Vielen Dank to:!"

And I'll send those who get in a sketch of Udo using their word.

(And if you call me ANAL, Dave, them's a compliment to us Germans! And all the Freudian connotations THAT has). ;))

This is also part of a Facebook Comicon Event , which lists the deadlines.

Whale painting

The sort of thing that inspires a writer.

Thu Stephens bought this painting from the prison on the hill.

It looks like it was done by the guy with the killer whales in his yard.

Thu's husband Robert was the head of the dragon in the 2009 Dragon Dance.

AFTERDEAD Novel

The ideas for prose are beginning to gell. An afterlife series based on the ideas in AFTERDEAD -- but in a more contemporary vein.

I've even figured out how my main character gets INTO the afterlife, and it's one that I've found irresistibly funny and relevant ever since it popped into my little pointed head.

But then, my family competes to tell horror stories about the deceased at a funeral. Sort of like: "Mom came closest to killing ME, so I WIN!"

And I did.

Life of a Writer

Random thoughts:

I don't think my newspaper editors care if I'm a subversive as long as they know they can send me tearing out into the storm to get any weird crime story that happens out here. Or lose my mind writing down all the paper-of-record numbers at some awful community-development meeting; I would literally rather stand in the icy, pouring rain than listen to a bank manager drone on (I've done it; I can compare). I'm a amateur stringer --- I don't know no better.

Creative people are crazy. You have to kill us first to make us stop writing or drawing or making baskets. But sooner or later we have to admit we have to make choices, and if we want to continue to create, we have to back out of other things. The books and pictures and woven things come first.

NOTHING hurts as bad as the migraines that I had all my life and are now GONE!!!! I don't know why; they used to cripple me, but now they've just disappeared.

Answering Questions (Not Under Torture)

Nice interview with me at ComixTalk.

Interviews are GIGO: you don't have a good interview unless you have good questions.

What a concept!

Another blog entry yanked out of an email. A reader contacted me about a children's charity book a colleague was putting together. I told the reader I had a few pages that had only appeared in a mini (I was going to say "very limited" mini, but that's a redundancy).

He wrote back saying the publisher would probably want original work, even if it did appear in a mini. I wrote back and said that if the guy wasn't paying, he should be on his knees to all the nice artists, crying, "Thank you! Thank you!"

The GALL of these people, putting together everything from charity books to 24-hour comics, and all of it riding on FREE work from artists. But do they ever think of putting together the cash first? Do they even look for an arts grant or get a LOAN?

The goddamn printer gets paid, and UPS, and everybody in the project -- including the PUBLISHER -- and who gets hung out doing it all for free? The people doing the most work! How the hell did THIS mess get started??

I'll give you one guess who's fault this is, for building the system -- even admitting it in his books -- but that would make too many little heads spin. Let's just say I get sick of being expected to paint bed-frames in a production line.

What a lot of people don't realize is you can get an author or artist to do ANYTHING -- if you just pay us!

What a concept! You get what you pay for! Are your heads spinning yet at such a revolutionary idea?

For example: Transformations (where I'm just storing the damn thing).

I don't LIKE writing TF -- but I get paid for it, and I'm good at it.

Here's another project I got paid for pretty nicely (but not enough for what they wanted) and don't want to do any more of:

Yaoi Hentai #4

Mostly because the publisher doesn't understand this: Artists' Rights.

So the next person who gets the idea to put together a nice little book, find a damn arts grant to pay the artists first, before making us do all this damn work, because you want to swan around at SDCC pretending to be a Publisher, with your own little stable of grateful scribblers.

Or are you just too butt-LAZY?