So February came, still looking for options, and then I found what could be a way to finally print my book(s) for a reasonable price. Even if I was stil stuck with a soft cover and a book size that was not what I wanted... With this new prospect, I wanted to get over with the book as fast as possible. Problem was I had a daytime job and felt tired, and my friends helping coloring flats have also their own life too.
So nothing was moving fast...
I started to look for a way to hurry up things... Apparently some people have more patience than me and for a fair price are willing to do flats... Having my mind set for a 2015 release, I started to look for a flatter to help me. So far everything seemed to go for once according to my plans... Even if there were still shadows on the path... How would I promote my book worldwide as I live in Belgium and don't benefit from the network of a publishing house...
I wanted to do more, to help my project... But you know, I am a bit lazy... And I had also other project/ ideas waiting for their turn... So I tried to find out more about self promotion... I started reading bit by bit... Anyway it was a way of keeping things moving on since during the evenings and the week-ends I wasn't feeling like drawing. But of what I read you need to get an audience, to show yourself, to earn a presence, showing your art and posting news stuff relentlessly...
Which is a problem for me, working slowly, needing to be "in a working mindset", being lazy and feeling numb and dumb after work... All that and you add the fact that it takes time to post here, there... And anyway, what to publish? I started to feel more and more the pressure to do more, to create more, to draw more, more, MORE! But how, when? I had ideas, but not the mood, not the time... Something needed to be changed, things needed to move on...
But how to be going forward with a dayjob and its consequences? Add to that the fact on not knowing how the book would be released, which distributor, which size, which quality of paper?
I was looking then to self publishing options, with websites proposing print on demand, it was possible to create my own book, as I wanted without having it denied by publishing houses. I could even do all my projects this way. Being my own master!
The downside of it were the sizes of the books they proposed, rarely A4 and also the fact that a hard cover was very expensive... You have to understand that where I'm from the comic books mainly have this kind of covers... So people have a tendecy to think a bit less of soft covers comic books...
Finally, I thought I found a good compromise, that gave me some courage to resume my work. And in November and December 2014, I completed the pencilling, managing to complete half of the inking in the mean time. I was back to a high level of production, sometime pencilling 4 pages a day or inking 6 pages in the same amount of time.
In the mean time, I was piling new ideas about the project, new prospects for the storylines, revamping the name, preparing the next volumes. Next volumeS? Yes, next volumeS! I already had leftover pages from the first volume, but with big hopes -or big dreams- I had more ideas coming. And while working on the fonts for the definitive layout, how to make the gags form a story, sort of...
Unfortunately I found out that the print on demand company I spotted would create a very expensive book and it was almost impossible to make some profit out of it... Not that I am doing that for the money, just that I would like to get something back, at least to pay the people that were helping me to make the flats or pay for some of my materials and the eventual expenses linked to the book...
Indeed, since I was a child I wasn't that much into coloring, and since the gig as a flatter I hated coloring! It took sooooo much time! And it was killing my patience... So when friends of mine offered to help, I couldn't say no, but I proposed to pay them. A work so hard for nothing, I thought it was the least to reward them for their help...
But having their own life, flats were not fast coming. For some time I didn't care. I didn't know where to go with the book once it would be done. You see, some people do and then see what they can do with it, me I can't, I need to know where I am heading, and having no good way to publish my book, I was going nowhere, so doing nothing...
That was a problem, indeed I was shedulding the album for end of 2015... We were in january... And I was looking at options to ensure my project a good distribution, but wherever I looked prices were too high or the distribution was not good, or I had to make some compromises...
So before things go further I take one step back and decide to plan the album. Trying to get the right number of pages, I create a serie of gags, the problem is to get an album from the a logical progression. The ideas don't necesserily make a story, but I want the events to follow each other not to be just a gag then an other...
So I put the storyboard for each page on the ground, making a giant puzzle with holes where the should be a connection, then I create some pages, decide to move some parts... Trying to get an album without "fillers". In the end I have too much pages for the usual 46 pages... The second volume was already on its way! Well and as the second volume goes, I think some of those ideas might find their way to the third volume...
By the time, the idea of a web comic was gone, I wanted it to be a book (even thought some web-comics turned into books, either self published or released by real publishing houses), althought I had created a spine-off for the web-comic purpose... Where only Red Puma would appear, where she would be giving up her passion for warfare to learn... Magic... But everything would be sor complicated to juggle especially the fact that I was doubting I would be able to meet deadlines such as posting a page a week... Even if for the spin-off the style changed to something a bit simplier and easier to make... But no... It just stayed at the stage of idea.
I liked this project, I thought it has potential, that it could be published... But Summer ended and I was back to work, full time waking up at 5AM, coming back at 7PM or later, journey to work taking five hours of my life each day, taking evening classes, so I was more in a zombie state, brain dead and unable to work on anything else...
Althought, in November 2008 during a week of vacation, I started to pencil some of the pages... Included the first page again, the father character had changed, I did some research on Native Americans, to try to be more accurate even if the project is humoristic and I take some liberties on the subject. In less than one week I will pencil about ten pages, things are finally moving!
The thing is, I don't know if I am a funny person or if I can make good gags, but
the ideas make me smile and while pencilling the pages I laugh alone on
some of them... I try to ad also some details, references... Even very cryptic ones sometipmes... For exemple
the name "Big Jim" comes from an action figure from the 70's if I
recall well, a sort of pre-Action Man. Some details or characters are reference and
tribute to Morris and his character "Lucky Luke".
But I have to get back to work, trying to draw every now and then until I have about twenty pages pencilled, enough to send my project to a publishing house... If only some of them were inked and colored... I start with the first page, ink and color the first half. Just the first half.
By the way we are already in March 2011...
If it took so much time, it's due to the demise of my personnal life, the end of a relationship which lead me to sitting for long hours watching TV series but certainly not working on anything seriously... Althought I managed to start few things on children books... That were supposed to be faster to draw... But are not finished yet... Anyway, that's another story.
July 2011 comes, vacation time! I finish that first page and manage to complete the next two, inking two more pages during the month, then work stops, back to school, meaning to work...
Auntumn 2011, during a week-end I finalize the cover -which changed since- and send my projetct to various publishing houses... But only negative answers...
During spring 2012, I worked a bit more on some inking and pencilling and then nothing for a year...
With time I can say how much the doom of my relationships prevented me from continuing my work. Ok, I have to admit I am also a bit lazy at times... But still...When you're not in a mood to draw, drowning in apathy or on your nerves, you don't want to take a chance to get mad and punch your Wacom!
Summer came and I worked on an other project -Daemon Project- written by a friend, for which I did some pencilling then. During July and August 2013, I finished pencilling and inking the 10 pages we set up for the presentation of this project, and while finalizing the coulours during the autumn, two more pages were done, so I could send a new version of my presentation to the publishing houses in the same mail as Daemon Killers... But both projects got negative answers...
I buried again my project in the sand for a year... Thinking about options to publish it... Still not willing to "just" put it on the net...
Once I would succed my second summer session, I was planning to start working on my projects.
So from the piles of pages, I try to sort things out... A hard task, because during those years of graphic design studies, I took a lot of notes about ideas of stories for children and comics books/ graphic novels... Where to start? These Indians, well, they lend on the pile of the ones I want to start with... But once more, only Little Dark Cloud seems to appear, just like in the school works... At the time I think I forgot a bit the other one... So I tried to decide what would be the final version of its appearence... For some time...
But work comes to an end....
By the end of septembre 2007, I've been asked to color flats for some pages of a book of the comic book serie named "Alix"... Well, not really me, it's a acointance from art college who's one of the colorists, and he knows he won't meet the dead line... So...
You need to know that colorist is a bit the ugly little duck from the comic book industry. Indeed it is not so well paid, you spend lots of time for not so much money. The worst thing being that when an album is going to be published, there is a time set for the whole process to be ready for printing. So you need to have the story written, story boarded, then you do the pencilling, the inking and then the colorist can -finally!- start his work.
But if the previous steps took more time, the the colorist get less time to do his job... A job that take a lot of time, trust me! I took me one day to do one page and being paid 10$ (which is the actual price for a flatter). Lucky me, I was just an off-the-book colorist (my named in not mentoinned in the book), so no taxes on that money...
A job I got later again that year for pages of two other albums.
Once these pages done, I could finally resume my work! I decided to create a children book, alledgely it should take less time... But meanwhile I am also back to school to get a degree to be able to teach and I am looking for a job. Few month pass without that much progress... Then in february 2008, a school calls me, then another and suddenly I don't have much time at all to spend on my ideas...Only writing more and more ideas. Summer comes, I spend time with my girlfriend, working a bit on some ideas, on the style of those indians, as I am away from home without my first visuals, I try to recreate them...
Nothing serious...
September comes, I am hired full time in a school, but I spend a lot of time again to get to work, nothing moves... Until summer vacations, until the day I fanilly work on what could be the first page of a comic book, introducing Little Dark Cloud. It's july 2009, the first page is done, it's not perfect, but still, it's colorised and ready to be shown to some people to get their advice. Some things need to be changed, but on to even with all the ideas I have, do I have enough material to make an album?
The things is that I want to make also a web comic, I have ideas to eventually adapt the characters... But do I have the time? What about being published?
