Dream-Quest Kickstarter Update, 9/27/2011

by on September 27, 2011 at 5:00 pm

Thanks to everyone’s generosity — thanks to everyone’s shares, tweets and spreading the word — thanks to everyone, the Dream-Quest Kickstarter has been funded! We did it, and there’s still six weeks to go! I’m so amazed and grateful, I don’t know what to say.

Today I finished scanning all the pages of the original Dream-Quest comics. Now I have to go over them, clean them up and make whatever changes and tweaks are necessary and I can fit in in time for publication. Most of this will be simply redoing the lettering in the early issues, straightening the panel borders, cleaning up white-out stains and other necessities. The screentones which I bought at FLAX art supply in San Francisco back in the ’90s and used for gray effects in the original comic (which was filmed photographically, not scanned) have yellowed and in some cases fused inextricably with the Bristol board they’re stuck on. This isn’t necessarily a problem if the tone still looks good and will reprint properly, but in some places the tone has crumbled off selectively, or gotten so muddy I’ll need to redraw sections. I’ve also got to make some changes to The Strange High House in the Mist and Celephais from the versions that are currently online. One of the pages of Strange High House has to be redrawn completely since I lost both the original art and the high-res scan through a series of misadventures.

What I’m really enjoying right now, though, is working on the cover and on the map which will go on the inside endpapers of the book. The cover lineart is drawn and Jay and I are working on the colors now. I’m still pencilling the map but I hope to have something to show at the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco this coming weekend (Oct. 1-2). I’ll be at the Couscous Collective booth with my friends Shaenon Garrity, Andrew Farago, Pancha Diaz, Liz Conley and Konstantin Pogorelov. If you happen to be on the American West Coast that weekend, please come by and say hello!

Anyway, lots of work to do over the next few weeks, and more posts soon! And again, thank you! I couldn’t have done it without you!

1 Comment

Dream-Quest Kickstarter Update, 9/21/2011

by on September 21, 2011 at 5:10 pm


It’s been almost two weeks since we started the Kickstarter project, and we’re off to a great start! I’ve got my fingers crossed that we’re going to meet our goal. If you’re reading this out there, thank you so much for your help in pledging and sharing the Kickstarter on facebook, twitter, forums and wherever!

For the last few days I’ve been scanning and retouching the old pages of Dream-Quest, while working on the cover of the graphic novel. Among the stacks are many images I drew for advertisements and things, many sketches, and many revised versions of pages or panels I drew for Edward Martin III’s Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath movie. The piece at the top of this page was drawn for a Dream-Quest flyer I sent out to comic shops. I’ve got tons more random bits of art like this, but there’s so much I’m not sure what to post up. Some of it will go into a gallery in the back of the book; maybe I’ll put the rest up on this blog.

Lately I’ve been rereading my Lord Dunsany and Gary Myers and struggling through the classic hollow earth novel Etidorhpa. I’ve also been listening a lot to the HP Lovecraft Literary Podcast, which most folks reading this blog probably already know about. This site is incredible. It’s really refreshing to hear a Lovecraft podcast that goes back to the original writing without all the later pop culture mythology added by August Derleth and Chaosium and everyone (not that I don’t own and adore the Chaosium books myself). The show has great production values — music and foley and all — and most importantly, Chad Fifer and Chris Lackey are hilarious. This show manages the wonderful feat of viewing Lovecraft simultaneously through the lenses of literary critics, historians, enthusiastic monster/sci-fi/horror fans who love this stuff and take it seriously, and snarky adults who don’t let Lovecraft off the hook for his occasional bad writing and frequent racism. I’d recommend this podcast to anyone, and it’s great to listen to in the background while you’re drawing Lovecraftian comics. I’d like to listen to it in bed, too (although I’ve already listened to all the dream story podcasts, so I don’t think I could use the podcast to mystically transport me into the dreamworld), but Jay prefers to fall asleep while watching Star Trek: The Next Generation on Netflix. (We both love Doctor Who, though.)

A quick announcement — I’ll be at the Jet City Comic Show this Saturday, September 24 in Seattle! Please stop by the table, I’ll probably have the cover of the graphic novel there, and hopefully some other new stuff. Speaking of which, I’m going to be drawing another 8-page Lovecraft comic very soon, possibly before the end of this year. Which one? That’s up to the person who pledged for it to decide. I’ll post when I find out!

4 Comments

The Best H.P. Lovecraft Quote Ever

by on September 12, 2011 at 9:52 am

This is something he wrote in one of his letters (collected in the old Arkham House Selected Letters books):

“If I were ever to try to be a ladies’ man, I fear I would upset all my charmers at the outset by weaving them into weird and horrible tales! But fortunately, horror writers are not often ladies’ men.”

└ Tags: 
 Comment