By Shon C. Bury Welcome to the third installment of In the Trenches. This is a drive-by column as I work to catch up on a mountain of jobs that landed on my desk over the last two weeks. We'll be back in two weeks with more chat about presenting your portfolio for review, an announcement in conjunction with Emerald City ComicCon, and a big change for one of my creator-owned books. But this column...random crap.
Attempt where made to sit down to write a column...but I was sidetracked by a PR (in conjunction with the ECCC BIG THING) I had to write and a barrage of questions that always come with new clients and new projects. I'm an email pivot man—and always put Space Goat business before my personal projects, so... FRI: I wake knowing that I will have to work the entire weekend if I hope to even dent my To Do List (which, sadly, is not even remotely abnormal)...and knowing that I will not have a real column in on deadline. Then a phone call comes from an...enthusiastic friend and fellow comic creator who needs a colorist on his book STAT. Emails fly. Decisions are made. And it's off on a rush job to meet a Diamond solicitation deadline. Good times. This is exactly what Space Goat was built to do, and I pride myself on being able to help our clients in a pinch (ask Marvel about the Spider-Man Family issue that we penciled and inked in seven days...that's helping out in a pinch). I manage to race to the bank to send out payment to the Space Goat artists, barely making it before they closed the doors on me. I didn't get around to eating until dinner...when I finally stop playing phone tag with new editor Shannon Eric Denton over at WildStorm and have a talk about some licensed books and WildStorm's CMX line of Manga books. Shannon's a great guy, but the conversation is cut somewhat short due to a nasal infection he's suffering from...and it being Friday night. Late evening, Javier Tartaglia (one of Marvel's newest colorists) wrapped his first Marvel gig. Marvel Adventures Iron Man 11. It was about 9pm my time. Senior Editor Mark Paniccia was still at his desk at 12pm his time, ready to approve the files. It's nice to know that regardless of how many hours I put in Mark always puts in more. He also confirmed that Java will be coloring the following issue of MarAdv IM, so YAY! Comics and publishing in general is a 24/7 lifestyle. Not just a job. When you set yourself up as a “go to guy”—you gotta be there when people need you. That's Freelancer 101. It's Sunday as I wrap this “column.” I've managed to put the finishing touches on the Manga proposal, emptied out my inbox, and continue trafficking more pages as they come my way. All while helping my son write a Pakistan report. If it all seems kinda random, that's because it is. And that's making comics. Take It From Me (or... “Carbon Copy Oh Firetruck!”)  So I've pretty much laid out the fact that I write and receive a LOT of emails. Most people in comics do. Especially editors. Most mornings we wake up to an easy 100 emails in our inboxes...regardless of whether we cleaned out our inbox the night before or not. It can be very consuming. That said I made an embarrassing email the other night. It was a late night email in which I was giving a writing partner of mine a bunch of emails from my contact list for a book that we are writing that we cannot talk about. Being tired and lazy, I was cutting and pasting email addresses from the carbon copy field so I could hyperlink emails to a list of industry people we need to get hold of. At one point I thought to myself, “It would be really embarrassing if I forgot to delete the addresses from the cc field.” But, c'mon! I wasn't going to do that...so, of course, I did. An explanatory email later as to why I was sharing their emails, I realized that indeed the situation was as embarrassing as I had mused. I wouldn't even care if the emails where to people I normally work with...but some of them where just emails from some high-level folks whose emails I had collected over the years. Sigh. Fortunately, I wasn't doing any trash talking. Take it from me...double check your recipient fields before you click “send.” Pluggin' Junk (or... “Check Out These Links”) Check out these random links: Fred Van Lente's Website – Fred's an awesome writer, so check out his site and stay up-to-date with all his projects. He's got a lot of them. Space Goat's Fine Art Gallery – We sell original art. We have lots of Rafael Sandoval art. He's going to be a superstar within the next two years, so get your art now. Greg Pak's Website – Greg is of the awesome. I've been amazed by his writing since Phoenix – Endsong. Rafa pencils a lot of Greg's projects, so I get to see a lot of his scripts. They're all great, so check out his site to stay in the loop of Pak happenings. Alan Moore Interview – Mind blowing interview with Alan Moore in Mindscape of Alan Moore. He rarely speaks outside his work, so it's always nice to hear what he has to say. Listen to what he's subtlety telling writers to try to achieve. And his thoughts on the advancement of human knowledge. Great stuff. Publishers, interested in having books reviewed here? Email review@spacegoatproductions.com for shipping instructions. Adult ADD Watch (or... “Yeah...”) This whole column has been brought to you by Adult ADD Watch. We'll be back in two weeks with a column about the pros and cons of putting together a creator-owned book...and how you go about getting such a thing published. Got comments for this column? Suggestions for future columns? Give me a shout. Or dig in below. I'm easy. scb |
MON: Mondays are usually my busy day. I was a big silly face to think I could do any writing on a Monday. It's usually spent sending art files that I've received over the weekend to editors, then getting approval or revision notes back to the artists. It's usually an 8am – 8pm kinda day, but my new screenplay has been written for a while...and I wanted to tweak some formatting and the closing scene. So I sat down to wrap the thing...when I got an email from Kevin (Underworld Trilogy, Marvel's New Warriors) Grevioux from the set of Underworld 3 in New Zealand. Apparently, we just did layouts on the wrong book! 
TUES: Sat down to start either a) part 1 of a 4 part column about creating creator-owned books and getting them published or b) a more comprehensive column about pencilers, what they should have in their portfolios, and how to traverse the review and submission process...when Marvel emailed wanting New Exiles penciler Roberto Castro to do up some character designs for a new licensed property. Should be a fun project if we land it (we're getting there, but we don't want to jinx anything). But there are a lot of animals in the book and the license holder wants very close likenesses to novel passages...that have not been provided by either Marvel or us. >shrug< Not as crazy as it sounds, but the emails, they get a flyin'. ..then it was time to do the bank/Post Office/FedEx/Office Depot marathon. So, no column for Tuesday. Forget about formatting that new screenplay or getting the Manga pitch out the door. I did manage to lock in art teams for both of the new books, get the contracts written, and start the creative process. 
