Every month since late 2007, Zuda Comics hosts a competition between webcomics, with the winner becoming a regular strip on the site. In Zudist Colony, I interview the contestants via email, asking each of them the same five questions, which hopefully gives you a little more insight into the strips and the creators themselves.

So here we go ...

*****

In Maps & Legends

Niki Smith and Michael Jasper, In Maps & Legends

JK: Please introduce yourself ... who are you, where are you from and have you done any other comics work? What do you do when you aren't making comics?

Niki: My name is Niki Smith, and I’m the artist for In Maps & Legends. I’m a freelance artist right now, just graduated last spring. I’ve had comics published in anthologies both in the US/UK and in Germany, and am currently working on developing some graphic novels of my own. One is out with editors and the other is still in script form, waiting to hear back from my agent. I also just had a coloring book published with Faber Castell.

Mike: And I'm Michael Jasper, the writer for the comic. I've published a couple novels and a pile of short stories in places like Asimov's, Strange Horizons, Writers of the Future and Paper Cities. This is my first comic script, and Niki handled my non-standard scriptwriting skills quite nicely. I'm finishing up a historical baseball novel set during World War I and plotting out a series of young-adult novels, the first of which is currently out on submission to various editors (this series would make a GREAT comic, too, I think). For the day job, I'm a technical writer for a software company.

JK: What's your strip about?

Niki: An artist who finds her map-making skills in surprisingly high demand…

Mike: What she said.

JK: Why did you decide to enter your comic into the Zuda competition, rather than trying to publish it somewhere else or setting up your own site for it?

Niki: Zuda has a great sense of community that can be hard to build when webcomics are otherwise scattered across individual websites. The support behind the imprint is something I’ve admired since the launch.

Mike: I also liked the democratic feel of the site, with readers choosing the comic that gets to continue on. While the competition is a bit stress-inducing right now, it's been fun getting in touch with readers and following the reader feedback in the comments section.

JK: If you don't end up winning, do you plan to continue doing the strip?

Niki: We have a few places we plan on looking into, but if things don’t work out, we both have other projects that we can happily move on to. In Maps & Legends was originally one of Mike’s trunked novels and now it’s a full color comic! So you never know when there’s the potential for a drastic rebirth.

Mike: Agreed. I'm really itching to show people where we take Kait and her crew next, so the sooner the better!

JK: If you weren't in this month's competition, who do you think you'd vote for?

Niki: That’s tough. I’m an art girl at heart, so that definitely sways me. I love the line work in Brother of the Bronze Hammer and the painterly quality of the art in Little Earth People … I’d probably go with Bronze Hammer in the end.

Mike: I'm actually surprised Little Earth People isn't higher in the ratings, because the story's pretty original and unique, and the art knocked me out. And I do have a lot of love for Slam McCracken's hard-boiled style.

*****

Peabody & D'Gorath

Mark Penman, Peabody & D'Gorath

JK: Please introduce yourself ... who are you, where are you from and have you done any other comics work? What do you do when you aren't making comics?

Mark: Hi my name is Mark Penman, I'm a freelance illustrator and comic artist based in Manchester, England.
I've done bits and pieces of comic work, some self published stuff as well as some anthology stuff such as Pulpo done by the fine folks at entervoid.com.

When I'm not making comics, I like to go out and solve mysteries.

JK: What's your strip about?

Mark: My strip is about two antique hunters, Remington Peabody ( a reanimated skeleton) and Clancy D'Gorath (deamon bound by obligation to the British monarchy). They go around trying to proclaim esoteric artifacts to determine whether they are a threat to the nation or if they can be used as weapons.

JK: Why did you decide to enter your comic into the Zuda competition, rather than trying to publish it somewhere else or setting up your own site for it?

Mark: It's 8/10ths liking and respecting what Zuda do ( I like that there's a nice mixed bag of comics and lots of fresh ideas they're willing to have on board) and 2/10ths being pretty computer illiterate so doubtless any webcomic site I did make would be atrocious.

JK: If you don't end up winning, do you plan to continue doing the strip?

Mark: I've been asked this by a few people and to be honest, I'm not totally sure. I have other ideas for comics that I'd like to try out, but I can't see me abandoning the characters, I always grow attached to the comics I create so Peabody & D'Gorath would still be kicking around in some form.

JK: If you weren't in this month's competition, who do you think you'd vote for?

Mark: Hmm, probably In Maps and Legends. The arts solid and the story seems like it could go places

*****

Children of the Sewer

Benito Gallego, Children of the Sewer

JK: Please introduce yourself ... who are you, where are you from and have you done any other comics work? What do you do when you aren't making comics?

Benito: My name is Benito Gallego. I was born and live in Spain. Among other things I have been a long time collaborator artist for Sword, a Spanish fanzine turned into pro-magazine that includes articles, comics and pin-ups based upon Conan, the Hyborean age, and REH's characters and concepts. I have made pencils, inks and a cover illustration for Anthem and Captain Thunder & Blue Bolt, both series created by writer Roy Thomas and published by Heroic Publishing. I have also made a collaboration with new independant publisher A First Salvo and have contributed with a story (pencils and colors) to be published in Danger's Dozen #6. I have also made a collaboration with writer Brian Azzarello in order to produce the cover and a eight-page comic (pencils+inks+color) called "The Cowl" to serve as promotion for best-seller author Joseph Finder's new book: Vanished.

And when I don't do comics I'm a graphic designer at an advertisement company.

JK: What's your strip about?

Benito: Children of the Sewer is an epic odyssey through the mind of a serial killer in search of the light. Paradoxically, the way he will achieve this is by entering the dark closed sewers of the city and meeting an unknown race of human beings who are born, live, love, kill and die in the sewer. Among those weird people Edmond Ratt will find his place in a human society but truly not without finding his way awash with blood.

JK: Why did you decide to enter your comic into the Zuda competition, rather than trying to publish it somewhere else or setting up your own site for it?

Benito: Mainly because Zuda is exposed to many people and I wanted to test the reaction and know what people think about my comic.

JK: If you don't end up winning, do you plan to continue doing the strip?

Benito: I have already written more than 50 pages of the strip, and I would love to continue developing it.

JK: If you weren't in this month's competition, who do you think you'd vote for?

Benito: Probably Little Earth People is the story that I like the most next to mine.

*****

Slam McCracken

Greg Woronchak, Slam McCracken

JK: Please introduce yourself ... who are you, where are you from and have you done any other comics work? What do you do when you aren't making comics?

Greg: I'm Greg Woronchak from a small 'burb in Quebec, Canada. I started off in traditional animation (I've worked on Sagwa The Chinese Siamese Cat for PBS, and Tripping the Rift for SyFy, amoung others), eventually deciding to focus on freelance storyboarding. Animation work in town abruptly dried up, so I'm currently a freelance illustrator (www.comicspace.com/gwor) and independent comic artist (I've done work for Argo Comics, Modern Myth Press and 11 issues of Negafighters). I have a drawer filled with scraps of paper, sketches of ideas that just pop into my head; I finally decided recently to develop some of the stronger ones into webcomics (I'm a big fan of the format) and submitted Slam to Zuda. When not at my drawing board, I try to keep my two daughters amused and help out my lovely wife around the house.

JK: What's your strip about?

Greg: Slam is a hard boiled detective, literally . He's an egg who takes cases in a film noir inspired city, populated by common household items (his client in my Zuda submission is a toothbrush searching for her missing tube of paste husband). This weird idea came to me years ago when I doodled a quick cartoon of a detective egg standing over a chalk outlined popsicle stick on the ground (I was into The Far Side back then ). I figured the idea of a noir private eye could be a lot of fun, with potential for cute sight gags; I decided to use heavy cross-hatching to replace color, which creates a visually interesting look and mood. My goal was to create something quirky that all-ages could enjoy.

JK: Why did you decide to enter your comic into the Zuda competition, rather than trying to publish it somewhere else or setting up your own site for it?

Greg: I would've needed al ot of help setting up my own site; I'm alot more comfortable with the creative side than technical or promotion. I felt that if Zuda would choose my strip to compete, it would provide nice exposure for my work, and I could network with folk who might like my particular style. As I've already said, I think the webcomic format has alot of potential for creativity and unique ideas, and Zuda is an extremely high-profile place to showcase one's work. I'm quite proud to have been chosen to compete this month.

JK: If you don't end up winning, do you plan to continue doing the strip?

Greg: I have a long story plotted out, so I'd love to continue it. The response has been great so far, and I think I could develop a fan base that may support a self-published version.

JK: If you weren't in this month's competition, who do you think you'd vote for?

Greg: I find Brother of Bronze Hammer visually electrifying. The artwork compliments the story well, and I enjoy the overall look.

*****

Model Student

Joe Bowen, Model Student

JK: Please introduce yourself ... who are you, where are you from and have you done any other comics work? What do you do when you aren't making comics?

Joe: My name is Joe Bowen, and I'm currently a third year student at the Joe Kubert School of Cartooning and Graphic Art in beautiful Dover, New Jersey. I totally love comics, and when I'm not drawing them, I'm reading them or reading about them or listening to podcasts about them or trying to get my girlfriend to listen to me talk about them. I also watch a lot of TV. If there's a show about teenagers, I'm probably into it. And finally, I like watching funny videos of pugs on YouTube.

JK: What's your strip about?

Joe: Model Student is about Kevin Burke, a tough-as-nails high school student at the prestigious Vendrell Academy, who is recruited by the headmaster to infiltrate the school's seedy underbelly. I tell people that Model Student is The OC meets The Shield. Essentially, Kevin is living the high school life I always wanted to live, with tons of drama and fighting.

JK: Why did you decide to enter your comic into the Zuda competition, rather than trying to publish it somewhere else or setting up your own site for it?

Joe: I entered Model Student in the Zuda competition because I think the concept works well serialized in single pages. The high school drama combined with the undercover student aspect provides a lot of room for regular twists and surprises.

JK: If you don't end up winning, do you plan to continue doing the strip?

Joe: If Model Student doesn't make it through Zuda alive, I'll most likely adjust the format and submit it elsewhere, perhaps as a graphic novel. I have too many ideas for Kevin Burke to let them all go to waste.

JK: If you weren't in this month's competition, who do you think you'd vote for?

Joe: The entry I keep going back to is Brother of Bronze Hammer. That artwork is just damn sexy.

*****

Molly and the Amazing Door Tree

Mark Murphy, Molly and the Amazing Door Tree

JK: Please introduce yourself ... who are you, where are you from and have you done any other comics work? What do you do when you aren't making comics?

Mark: I am a Dallas, Texas-based graphic designer. Over the last 15 years i have done comic book work for Caliber Press, NBM (the house of java series) and Slave Labor Graphics (last year's Tiki Joe Mysteries). When I'm not drawing comics I'm maintaining a full-time job as a in-house graphic designer for a medical company as well has spending time with my family. There's a lot of reading and guitar playing going on when i can fit it in as well.

JK: What's your strip about?

Mark: Molly and the Amazing Door Tree is about a seven year-old girl that finds a magical door into another world. Molly quickly finds that her destiny and the destiny of this magical realm are interwoven. Before she realizes it, Molly is embroiled in a quest to both save world of the door tree and make her way back home. This story is a departure for me stylistically. My previous work has dealt more with adult oriented issues such as coming-of-age stories and crime fiction. With Molly I made a deliberate effort to create a kids story that my two daughters would relate to.

JK: Why did you decide to enter your comic into the Zuda competition, rather than trying to publish it somewhere else or setting up your own site for it?

Mark: I've been wanting to enter a story into Zuda ever since the competitions started. After working for years on Tiki Joe, the challenge of presenting a story within Zuda's 8 page format really appealed to me. I also new that Molly had to be in color and the best chance of making that happen was to take it on line. From the get-go, Molly was planned as a Zuda entry.

JK: If you don't end up winning, do you plan to continue doing the strip?

Mark: Not sure yet, but i would like to. It depends on the level of interest (from the voters as well as my own kids) and the time constraints i have to work with.

JK: If you weren't in this month's competition, who do you think you'd vote for?

Mark: There is so much good art competing this month. I think my vote would have to go for either Children of The Sewer or Little Earth People.

*****

Big Ups

Christina Boyce and Justin King, Big Ups: A Space Adventure

JK: Please introduce yourself ... who are you, where are you from and have you done any other comics work? What do you do when you aren't making comics?

Christina: Hello, my name is Christina Boyce. Right now I live in Southern California, where I have been most of my life. I'm a media arts/animation student at the Art Institute of California, but I originally started school in Arizona. My list of comics isn't terribly big, mostly short ones that can be found here and there online. I do have a short one printed in an anthology, and hoping to have another one in the second installment! I would like to finish something a little bigger, and perhaps have my own little book printed in the near future, and perhaps a webcomic of my own.

Justin: I self-published a comic in 2008 called Physicist Roundtable. I also had my first real pro job earlier this year when I made a comic for a software company. They seem to have dropped off the face of the earth after they paid me, though, so I think I caused them to go bankrupt.

When I am not making comics, I am trying to publish other peoples comics. I started a small web and print publishing company called DAPshow, for which I have published one anthology (The Eternal Sad, which had comics from 30 artists around the world, including me and Christina), and I'm currently putting together the second volume of it which should be published in early 2010 along with a few other comics.

JK: What's your strip about?

Christina: The strip focuses on the continuing adventures of an alien explorer, and his companion/sidekick. Upsie, the main character, is an official explorer in the name of his home planet. His job is to find new things in space, and report back with his findings. He is very proud of his job, but he is rather new at it. Along the way he runs into another alien, a Nematoid named Neemu. They become pals, and Neemu joins Upsie on his travels. There may be some reoccurring things throughout, but for the most part it is a more episodic sort of thing. Different stories for different adventures they go on.

JK: Why did you decide to enter your comic into the Zuda competition, rather than trying to publish it somewhere else or setting up your own site for it?

Christina: I personally know some dudes who have entered the competition, and have either done well, or have won. I thought it would be a cool thing to try, and I wanted to see if I could produce something that would get in. I'm pretty happy that I got in, as I was doubting myself for while.

Justin: I have thought about entering the Zuda competition a lot, but always had a hard time thinking of a story that would work in only eight pages and show the potential that it could go on for a lot more. So, when Christina approached me about coloring her comic, I thought it would be a great opportunity to be a part of Zuda and get some much needed experience in it's format. It has turned out to be all of that and more.

JK: If you don't end up winning, do you plan to continue doing the strip?

Christina: I think I may, actually! I've grown attached to my silly aliens, I have to say. I already have some adventures for them sitting around in my head.

Justin: If Christina ever wanted to continue working on it, I would be down for coloring it if she wanted.

JK: If you weren't in this month's competition, who do you think you'd vote for?

Christina: Prolly Peabody & D'Gorath. Mark is a cool guy, and I've talked to him a couple times prior to the competition. I was actually pretty intimidated when I heard that he was gonna be competing against me, and I was right- his comic is pretty great!

Justin: I would vote for Mark's Peabody & D'Gorath. I might be a little biased because he is my friend and the cover artist of an anthology I am publishing soon, but his comic is very entertaining and has a lot of potential. I also really enjoy its atmosphere.

*****

Little Earth People character concepts

Joe Pekar and Chris Lewis, Little Earth People

JK: Please introduce yourself ... who are you, where are you from and have you done any other comics work? What do you do when you aren't making comics?

Joe: I'm Joe Pekar, from Orlando, Florida. I've done a few covers here and there, a couple Grimm Fairy Tales for Zenescope and some for BOOM! Studios Hexed. I also have my own book 'Brandi Bare' that may be coming out in some form one of these days (there are some preview pages of that book on my website: www.joepekar.com ). When I'm not making comics I'm usually drawing other stuff or dealing with my kids, trying to figure out who started the fighting or who broke what. you know, usual parenting stuff

Chris: I'm Chris Lewis, an Oregonian in Germany (the title of my next work?) working as a translator in an advertising agency. Little Earth People is actually the first story I ever wrote, but I'm hoping to get my next projects to the masses soon. Other interests include baby-raising, book-reading, wife-loving, and love, um...spreading.

JK: What's your strip about?

Joe: Well Chris will probably answer that better than me, in fact he's the writer, so he should do it anyway . To me, it was the story of trying to draw a boy that always needed to be looking at a tv screen on his wrist, and the trials and tribulations of laying out panels that way. but that's probably not what you were asking about...

Chris: It's about people watching people and the effects that this has on watcher and watched alike. For research I was watching as much reality TV as I could stomach and just wondering what could possibly possess these people (or their parents in the case of certain 16 year old birthday divas) to subject themselves to such public embarrassment. Then I got to wondering what effect it had on me, while at the same time asking myself if I really wanted to be a writer, reading a lot of Philip K. Dick and Oliver Sacks, and realizing my passion for meerkats.

JK: Why did you decide to enter your comic into the Zuda competition, rather than trying to publish it somewhere else or setting up your own site for it?

Joe: Actually, I saw a posting on a web forum about someone looking for an artist for a Zuda submission. At the time I was really looking for something to work on that was different than my usual drawing work ... pinup girls and stuff like that .  So I just decided to give it a shot. I sent Chris an email with some of my Brandi Bare pages, showing some sequential stuff. He seemed to like it enough and we were off. After hearing about his story, it seemed the total opposite end of the spectrum of what I usually draw so that got me hooked.

Chris: Because it's Zuda, man (insert a$$ kissing noises here)! Actually, I had a couple years between finishing Little Earth People and doing anything with it, and after completing two more stories, I realized that nothing is going to happen unless I get some great artists to draw these things. Apparently, dusty scripts in drawers don't attract big publishers...who knew? I thought online might be the way to go for a first attempt like this, and Zuda just seemed to be the place to be. There's an active community, intriguing talents, and a big pile of money for the winner. Zuda is my "'enry 'iggins, the somewhat-stern-taskmaster-but-he-really-likes-her-anyway-kind-of-thing guy," who has taught me how to write better.

JK: If you don't end up winning, do you plan to continue doing the strip?

Joe: Probably not. I mean it was fun to do, but it was a lot of work to get the pages done. I just wouldn't have the time to do it for fun.

Chris: Joe said it. I was going to ask him to finish the entire 4 issue story for fun (ie. free), but that doesn't look like it's going to happen. Like I said, the story is all there and ready to go, but I'll have to think about what to do with it if my dramatic "please vote so we can all see Joe draw more of Marsha's fabulous 'rackatoni' (user comment)" prayer isn't heard in time.

JK: If you weren't in this month's competition, who do you think you'd vote for?

Joe: Wait, we're allowed to vote for ourselves?! Actually, I really enjoyed the art style on Brother of the Bronze Hammer the most this month. so if i had to vote for someone else, it would be that one.

Chris: Joe stole my joke with this one. But I'm torn about how to use my vote. Should I vote for our story, loving the art and knowing where the craziness leads? Should I vote for the amazing art style on BOTBH? Or should I go vigilante and specifically use my pea-sized vote against one of the two dark-reigning titans? I'm conflicted.

Zuda

Every month since late 2007, Zuda Comics hosts a competition between webcomics, with the winner becoming a regular strip on the site. In Zudist Colony, I interview the contestants via email, asking each of them the same five questions, which hopefully gives you a little more insight into the strips and the creators themselves.

This time around I asked them to share which page was the most challenging to create of the eight pages they submitted to Zuda, which is the artwork you'll see with their answers. Also, I only received answers back from eight of the 10 contestants this time around.

So here we go ...

*****

ShockPopTerror!

JM Ringuet, ShockPopTerror!

JK: Tell me a little bit about yourself -- is this your first comic-creating experience, or have you done other work in the field? What do you do when you aren't creating comics?

JM: I'm a full-time freelance artist doing comic work, illustration, concept art and video game art, as well as some storyboarding here and there. I have been doing comics seriously for about three years, first as a colorist for a variety of indie publishers (first job was Death Comes To Dillinger for Silent Devil, and the latest to date Lords of Misrule for Radical), then as a full artist (pencils, inks, colors) on Transhuman written by Jonathan Hickman for Image Comics and on Sparks for William Katz Catastrophic Comics. I'm also self publishing a comic on the iPhone called Stolen Suns (that was featured on CBR), that I am also writing. Chapter 1 is now available on iTunes, Chapter 2 coming early November. I'm currently working on a graphic novel project.

ShockPopTerror! is my first try at Zuda.

When I'm not doing comics I'm either reading them, or creating art in a different field, writing. I work most of the time. I like to work.

JK: What's your comic about, and where did the idea come from?

JM: ShockPopTerror! is inspired by the exploitation and grindhouse horror movies of the 70s and 80s, the era that gave rise to the modern 'slasher' movies. I am very interested in 70s cinema in general because of its raw power, its sociological elements and its honesty. I watched a lot of those movies, and I like a lot of them. I sprinkled quite a few references actually for movie fans. It's a classic horror comic.

I thought a story set in that era, 1972, using the tropes of the horror genre, would be a good starting point for a thrilling comic and then to twist it a bit and sprinkle it with more modern concerns. Basically I wanted to do fun, action, thrills and add some more serious elements in there like religion, gender role, economic problems and the role of violence. And some dark humor of course!

I think the first eight pages only show bits of this, and maybe I should have make my themes stronger at the beginning. I wanted to ease out the reader in the atmosphere of the story, create a mood, present the crazy characters. It could have been a bit more forceful and have more density, but eight pages is not a lot. Hopefully readers get a fun and exciting romp in Hooper County and vote for the comic because they want to know what happens next (that would include swamp mutants, cannibal bikers, Mayan cursed treasure, masked maniacs, and a strange altar).

JK: Of the eight pages you submitted, which was the most difficult to create, and why?

JM: That would probably be page two, because it was actually the first one I created. I had to come up with the look for the two main characters, the look of the place and also find a graphic style that worked for me.

I tried something that I think is original with painted backgrounds and more traditional inked characters colored with only two values (one light, one dark). I think it gives it a kind of weird animated look, although my original inspiration was the 70s illustrations and movie posters that were rendered in gouache.

I added a lot of distressing over everything to give a patina, to a feel of something pulpy, wet, sweaty, damaged. Then I toyed a lot with the added text, to create something that is half caption boxes and half movie slogans. It took some time to get the right feel.

JK: What are you doing to market your comic this month?

JM: Mostly message boards, Facebook, Twitter and friends. I'm not the best at marketing, I'm just trying to get as many as possible to just read ShockPopTerror!, especially horror fans.

I also want to reward the best supporters of the comic with original signed sketches. There has been a lot of support already, and some tremendously good reactions to it. I'm beyond happy to see that this little comic has some real fans.

JK: If you do win the competition, what happens next in your story?

JM: The girls go to town (literally) and discover that the man they are looking for (their old partner in crime) is the son of the local pastor, a man who has a lot of power over this little backward community of strangely deformed people and a weird idea about religion. They also learn that a precious ancient Mayan treasure has been hidden in the worst part of a gator infested swamp, playground of the mysterious Berryman family, and that the legitimate owners of the treasure, a biker gang with cannibalistic tendencies, are not far away. To get at they want they must face the horrors of Hooper County, and discover the real secret that lays in an antediluvian altar. But who are the real monsters: the mutants, maniacs and cannibals, or... the two girls?

It's a good pulpy fun thrill ride with a dark side, equal part EC Comics and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I promise 52 more pages of relentless heart-pounding horror action!

Now readers, it's your turn, please vote for ShockPopTerror!

*****

Doc Monster

Davd Flora, Doc Monster

JK: Tell me a little bit about yourself -- is this your first comic-creating experience, or have you done other work in the field? What do you do when you aren't creating comics?

David: Thanks for doing this, first of all. This is actually my second comic endeavor, though it’s my first attempt at coloring the pages. I’ve been writing and drawing my first comic, Ghost Zero, since January of 2007. The whole thing has been a very positive experience for me, and the reader response has been fantastic.

When I’m not creating comics, I occupy my time providing technology training at a university, being a church deacon, a freemason, and plotting to become a farmer!

JK: What's your comic about, and where did the idea come from?

David: Doc Monster is really a salute to 1950’s sci-fi and horror films. It starts out with Doc and his CIA-assigned “handler” Carson Clay investigating strange lights in the sky over a rural, Kentucky town. The CIA is concerned that the lights might indicate some sort of communist activity, but it soon becomes apparent that there’s another, more shocking power behind the disturbance. It turns into an alien slugfest, with Doc doing some things that hint that he’s more than he seems.

The idea of the comic really has its genesis in my love of films from the 50’s ... X the Unknown, The Thing from Another World, The Blob and so on … plus my love of the classic movie monsters such as Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster and the Wolfman.

Doc Monster is also a tribute to my big brother, Mike. Mike is one of those larger-than-life kind of guys who got me interested in pulp action tales and weird stories from an early age. Mike has always had a fascination with UFOs, thus Doc is a larger-than-life character whose first adventure involves aliens. The first scene actually happens in a drive-in theater that was in my own hometown!

JK: Of the eight pages you submitted, which was the most difficult to create, and why?

David: Well, the toughest page involves a scene where Doc has figured out that the strange UFO is generating its own gravity field … cars from the drive-in are stuck to the surface of the craft … so he leaps up into the field and lands on the bottom of the UFO. It presented an interesting question; from whose perspective should I orient the page, Doc’s or the viewer? Doc’s view would show the page in a traditional manner, where he would appear to be standing upright on the saucer’s bottom, but I was concerned that the sudden flip in viewer orientation would confuse viewers. So, I instead chose to draw the page from the viewer’s perspective, one in which Doc is upside-down in the page! It did confuse a few viewers, but it also made for a page presentation that you don’t see often in comics. I was pretty pleased with the end result, but I’ll think long and hard before attempting it again!

JK: What are you doing to market your comic this month?

David: The same sorts of things that I’m sure have been mentioned before. I’ve been talking about developments on Facebook and Twitter, along with several of my favorite forums, and I have a development blog at www.docmonstercomic.com. I’ve also have an article posted in my hometown newspaper.

The most amazing thing to me is how many readers have published reviews, created support pages, and posted on their blogs about the comic. There’s a tremendous grass-roots kind of support that’s been surprising. I mean, when you create a story like Doc Monster, you hope that some people will enjoy it, but the response from readers has been really remarkable.

JK: If you do win the competition, what happens next in your story?

David: Well, we of course get to find out what happened to Doc! Also, there’s some interesting information gained from the corpses of the centipede-creatures, more alien attacks as the entire country comes under siege, and secrets about Doc’s history are revealed. Stay tuned!

*****

Fly Me from the Moon

Gabriel Bautista, Fly Me From the Moon

JK: Tell me a little bit about yourself -- is this your first comic-creating experience, or have you done other work in the field? What do you do when you aren't creating comics?

Gabriel: I'm a 29 year old animation student, living in the burbs of Chicago. I've actually been doing comics for many years, and it all really started when I created EnterVOID.com, an epic comic battle website that has been home to several professional comic artists, and many artists you see on Zuda these days, including Sheldon Vella (Supertron), Aluísio C. Santos (Rockstar). Professionally, I've had work published by Image Comics (Elephantmen, Tori Amos' Comicbook Tattoo, Popgun Vol 2), SLG (Fat Chunk Vol 1 & 2), as well DC (JLA 80-Page Giant) and Heavy Metal.

When I'm not working on comics, I'm typically animating, or sketching ... I don't really watch TV or play games, so it leaves me with a lot of time to create.

JK: What's your comic about, and where did the idea come from?

Gabriel: Fly Me From the Moon is a sci-fi adventure piece that takes place in the mid 22nd century. It revolves around a middle-aged acquisitions office manager, Titus Simirica and his quest to rescue his wife from a lunar civil war.

The idea came from a random lyric from a song by Cafe Tacvba (epic Spanish rock band!), where the singer says, "I met a man, and I sold him my piece of lunar property." That whole line got my mind spinning as i walked home from work one afternoon, and I started thinking about space realty, and how people actually buy stars. So, from that spawned this 'lil nugget of story that is Fly Me From the Moon.

JK: Of the eight pages you submitted, which was the most difficult to create, and why?

Gabriel: I'll be honest, cause I know a lot of people have called me out on it, but the drawings themselves weren't so hard to put down on paper. I was almost pushing the limit on how crappy my artwork can get, so really the only difficult part of my story was the panel layouts. The thing I love about Zuda is their page template. I know a lot of other people complain about it, but for me it boils my creativity juice. Also the actual dialogue is always a tough, as I try to make something that people actually want to read, and feel connected to. I think page five was the toughest for me to write ... I wanted to come up with something really awesome and quotable.

JK: What are you doing to market your comic this month?

Gabriel: I could probably lie and say that I've been doing a lot, but really as of now (10.13.09) I haven't done much. One of the problems with having a full time job, being a full time student and having freelance work in my lap means you don't get much time to surf around on forums and drop your link to people. So honestly the best thing I'm trying to do now is get as many popular people as possible to pimp my comic. I hope this following week I can get some free time to run around in forums, chat rooms and what not ... maybe even do some fan art for some dudes who have big followings. It's almost a shame that people have to try to win by being the most popular, but that's life, right?

JK: If you do win the competition, what happens next in your story?

Gabriel: Honestly I haven't thought too far into that. I know for a fact that the protagonist's wife gets kidnapped, and Titus lands safely on the moon. From there I'd really like there to be some real action, some fights, some gunfire, chases scenes... everything that makes a good sci-fi adventure flick great. I really want to show off what the moon people look like, I want them to be a bit uglier than earth humans, and definitely stronger. The addition of a new hot girl would be very likely as well, as we all know hot babes sell. A bit chauvinistic i know, but it works.

*****

A Polar Nightmare

Amancay Nahuelpan, A Polar Nightmare

JK: Tell me a little bit about yourself -- is this your first comic-creating experience, or have you done other work in the field? What do you do when you aren't creating comics?

Amancay: This is actually my third comic submitted to Zuda. I started in November 2008 with Hijos de P, followed by Clandestino in May 2009, and now this one.

Also in the comic field I published an ongoing series titled Hijos de P (what I published in Zuda was a parallel story to the printed arc). And right now I’m working with the guys at Com.x on Duppy'78, a graphic novel written by Casey Seijas, due in 2010. You can check out my blog at http://annbonline.blogspot.com/ for more info.

JK: What's your comic about, and where did the idea come from?

Amancay: It’s basically the story of two kids that go to the North Pole looking for Santa, and, well, as it’s seen in the comic, they don’t find exactly what they were expecting.

And the idea came years ago, from a crazy conversation with some friends.

JK: Of the eight pages you submitted, which was the most difficult to create, and why?

Amancay: Page five was definitely the most difficult page to create, because originally there was a longer story happening when the kids got into the house, they were going to go through different labyrinths and secret tunnels, like to make them know who they were going to end up meeting with. But it was impossible to go with all that in just eight pages, so I condensed everything in just one single page.

JK: What are you doing to market your comic this month?

Amancay: Basically going through the internet possibilities, trying to get interest from local newspapers, and leaving some flyers at local comic shops.

JK: If you do win the competition, what happens next in your story?

Amancay: Well, the main idea is trying to show up bizarre versions of well-known holiday characters, the Easter Bunny, the Thanksgiving turkey, etc… and there will appear more “normal” characters, humans who also went to the North Pole years ago looking for Santa.

*****

Impure Blood

Nathan Lueth and Nadja Baer, Impure Blood

JK: Tell me a little bit about yourself -- is this your first comic-creating experience, or have you done other work in the field? What do you do when you aren't creating comics?

NL: My name is Nathan Lueth and I'm responsible for the art of Impure Blood. I've been drawing since birth, a lover of comics since eight, and a freelance illustrator since 2000. I've drawn a few comics professionally, a few for competitions (I was a finalist in Tokyopop's 2008 Rising Stars of Manga) and a lot of comics for personal projects, but I've never had the opportunity to draw them regularly. I hope to change that in the near future (one way or another... XD). When I'm not drawing I enjoy reading, martial arts, gaming (tabletop and console), movies, long walks on the beach, and sharing my feelings.

NB: Nadja Baer, author of Impure Blood, which was originally scripted as an epic fantasy novel. It's my first foray into the world of comic creation, but I've got several more story lines that might translate well into the visual medium. When I'm not creating comics, I'm at my desk, 9-5'ing in a corporate cube farm, working on one of my other novels, reading, doing other equally exciting things, or trying to figure out ways to get Nathan to stop sharing his feelings. XD

JK: What's your comic about, and where did the idea come from?

NB: That's a tough one...it's about a lot of things. As stated above, the idea came from an epic fantasy series I've been working on (off and on) for the last seven years, so there are a lot of themes and plot lines. At the very heart of the story is the question of identity--in one way or another, all the main characters have to decide who they are and what they stand for, and to see how their choices affect the people around them.

JK: Of the eight pages you submitted, which was the most difficult to create, and why?

NL: Page eight has a lot of perspective on it. Not just the buildings, but the figures in the last panel were rather tricky to draw from that angle. But, it all turned out, and now you all have a great view of our character's butts.

JK: What are you doing to market your comic this month?

NL: Emailing everyone I know and their dogs. We have some fliers that we're passing out and whatnot. Pretty mundane compared to the tremendous marketing war last month.

NB: Emails, posting throughout the writing forums I frequently haunt--I've brought quite a few comic newbies to the site--writing to friends across seas in hopes of going international, getting the corporate drones I work with the vote for me over lunch breaks ... y'know, the usual.

JK: If you do win the competition, what happens next in your story?

NL: Well, as it turns out, Roan is actually an alien from beyond the moon. Sent to Earth as an infant to conquer mankind, he hits his head, loses his memory, and is raised by a kindly old martial arts master. He will soon discover his origins and his ability to power up to Super Roan... wait... I may be thinking of something else. You really think we're going to give it away?

NB: Ninjas. Zombie ninjas. Seriously. With kites. I wouldn't give away trade secrets. Nathan doesn't even know yet.

NL: It's true...I don't. But I'm holding out for Roan-Ball Z.

*****

Evil Ain't Easy

Seth Wolfshorndl, Evil Ain't Easy

JK: Tell me a little bit about yourself -- is this your first comic-creating experience, or have you done other work in the field? What do you do when you aren't creating comics?

Seth: My partners and I have been self-publishing comics as Three Trees Studios since 2005. We publish four series (Random Ink, Rook City, and others) both in print and online at threetreesstudios.com. Random Ink is our anthology of stories that features everything from humor to science-fiction to biography. Rook City is a comic about a town full of oddball characters, including aging vigilantes, delusional vampires, and superficial superheroes. When I'm not creating comics, I stay busy teaching art to high schoolers, running an after-school cartoon studio, organizing our area sketch nights, and picking up some freelance illustration work.

JK: What's your comic about, and where did the idea come from?

Seth: Evil Ain't Easy tells the story of Dr. Nimbus, a maniacal and diminutive scientist who just wants to conquer the world. Unfortunately, the annoyances of everyday life keep getting in his way. Joining Nimbus is his loyal henchman, Lothar, who may be more hindrance than help. Together they will launch their master plan... right after they figure out how to pay rent!

I've always enjoyed humor that pokes fun at the stereotypical, over-dramatic evil genius, and so I created a strip where I could do that. I also enjoy having two very different characters play off each other, and Dr. Nimbus and the very mellow Lothar are definitely polar opposites in personality. The combination of these elements leads to a lot of fun situations, and the strip practically writes itself.

JK: Of the eight pages you submitted, which was the most difficult to create, and why?

Seth: The first page was probably the most challenging because it had to do several things. It had to catch the reader's eye, give the basic setup for the strip, and make the reader want to read more. I'm proud of how it turned out, but it definitely took a bit of tinkering to get it there.

JK: What are you doing to market your comic this month?

Seth: I have started a production blog at evilainteasy.com that serves as the hub for all of the promotion for the comic, complete with sketches, fan art, and downloads. I'm also relying heavily on social networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and deviantArt, to help get the word out there. I am running various contests on each of these that are stirring up a lot of interest in Evil Ain't Easy. Our Facebook group, in particular, has really taken off with a few hundred members already signed up. In addition, the local media is helping to spread the word about the comic, and I'm advertising online.

JK: If you do win the competition, what happens next in your story?

Seth: Dr. Nimbus comes to realize that world-conquering just ain't paying the bills yet. So to make ends meet he will start to take a series of part-time jobs. But we'll see how long he can tolerate working at positions that are so obviously beneath someone of his intelligence!

*****

Old Cthulhu's On The Rise

Daniel Tollin, Old Cthulhu's On The Rise

JK: Tell me a little bit about yourself -- is this your first comic-creating experience, or have you done other work in the field? What do you do when you aren't creating comics?

Daniel: Hey! I'm a crazy northlander from Sweden who tries to make a living in comics, when I'm not working a mental asylum as a licensed nurse! This is not my first comic-experience. Exactly a year ago I was in a Zuda contest with a comic called Skullgoyle. But I think I'm mostly related to as the artist on Stephen Lindsay's crazy thrill-ride that is the comic Jesus Hates Zombies. I've so far illustrated two volumes on the Jesus Hates Zombies story called "Yea, though I walk..." and I'm working on the final volume as I write this. Prior to Jesus Hates Zombies I did a really fucked up comic with Stephen called Happy Panda Funtime Show. Oh, I've also got a newly started web comic, yet again with Lindsay, called Vaempir Testament, it's about this slacker who's into metal and comics, and one day he finds that his band has been slaughtered by some kind of monster. The story involves vaempirs, heavy metal, Norse mythology and the legendary sack of Thor. Check it out at www.captionsandballoons.com/vaempir. Shameless self promotion, I know.

JK: What's your comic about, and where did the idea come from?

Daniel: The idea for Old Cthulhu's on the Rise came to me one night, while watching An American Werewolf in London ( I don't think anyone has failed to notice my tribute to said movie in my comic). I just really love the whole movie and especially the beginning with the two guys just aimlessly roaming the English hillside. So I thought what could make this even creepier and right away Lovecraft's slimey creatures filled my mind.

JK: Of the eight pages you submitted, which was the most difficult to create, and why?

Daniel: Hard question, I think I'll have to say page four. Trying to build visual tension while the guys are running away from something that I don't show at all was really hard.

JK: What are you doing to market your comic this month?

Daniel: Not much actually, a bit of Twittering and Facebooking. I've put some links on different comic related forums also. But I believe that a comic, if it should win, should be so good that you don't really need to promote your ass off. People who randomly check it out, while going through the other contestants, should just think that this is good enough to win without me having to nag them. So, no, not much promotion at all.

JK: If you do win the competition, what happens next in your story?

Daniel: Next up is introducing the town of Old Insmouth and its inhabitants, who are gonna be a big part of the story. In my mind the whole town is one of the main characters along with the two guys. I want to build up a creepy atmosphere where everyone has a nasty secret and no one is safe. And there will of course be lots of monsters, it is after all a Lovecraftian story!

*****

Pluck

Gabe White & John Amor, Pluck

JK: Tell me a little bit about yourself -- is this your first comic-creating experience, or have you done other work in the field? What do you do when you aren't creating comics?

John Amor: My name's John Amor, and I'm an artist from the Philippines. I've done a handful of other projects, including an appearance in C.B. Cebulski's Wonderlost from Image and The Mask of Manolo from Patchwork Comics. I also dabble in concept art and graphic design, but when I'm not at the drawing board I co-host a comic review podcast called Tres Komikeros.

Gabe White: I've worked on a few webcomics in the past, and I have a comic called Gulch currently running on Zuda. When not writing comics I like to watch obscure movies.

JK: What's your comic about, and where did the idea come from?

John Amor: I'm just the draw-art guy, so I'll let Gabe go into detail about it. What I personally take away from it is it's Lord of the Rings meets Huckleberry Finn... and that's about as sophisticated as my references go.

Gabe White: Pluck is about a young man trying desperately to rise above his station, find an angle, make something of himself...and the many misfortunes which follow when he finally does. In some ways it's a critique of class, the privilege of high birth, and the Great Man theory. But it's mainly just a good old fashioned fantasy epic, full of adventure and monsters and fun.

JK: Of the eight pages you submitted, which was the most difficult to create, and why?

John Amor: Each of the pages had its own little challenge, I should say... but I guess the one thing I spent the most time on was the last panel of the last page. In it, the king (offpanel) is speaking to Pluck in a rather commanding manner, and we don't exactly know what sort of person/thing/sandwich he is... but Gabe's script called for an intimidated, shocked, and sheepish expression on Pluck's face, and I had no dialogue from Pluck to help me out. I like to think it worked on the most part, but there are still areas that I now see could have used a bit more love.

Gabe White: I would agree that the last page was the most difficult. It's always tricky deciding how to wrap things up in eight pages, how much of a cliffhanger you want to leave things on. Like John said, the script originally called for the king to be speaking off panel at the end, and there was a bit more narration, but I decided the look on Pluck's face was perfect as is. The other elements just seemed to distract from the moment.

JK: What are you doing to market your comic this month?

John Amor: I'm plugging it on Twitter and Facebook of course, where a group seems to be gaining fellowship. I've mentioned it on my website a couple of times before, but I definitely plan to show a bit more of how the pages were put together soon enough --- a sort of DVD commentary for all three people who visit the site. (www.johnamorartist.com plug plug)

Gabe White: I'm also marketing on social networks, as well as a few other odds and ends.

JK: If you do win the competition, what happens next in your story?

John Amor: I don't know if I can divulge anything too revealing but I WILL say that Wolverine shows up. Twice. And then Bruce Wayne comes back and is super pissed that he's in a webcomic. Yeah but no, Gabe drew me into the project when he said that it's going to have a healthy amount of creatures and races in it. Anyone who's seen some of my art knows that I'm a huge creature buff, so I can honestly say that I'm looking forward to designing me some beasts and such.

Gabe White: Damn. Now everybody knows about Wolverine.

Ant Man

Webcomics | In case you missed it, like I did ... Chris Eliopolis shares a fun Ant Man tribute comic on his website. (via Comics Alliance)

Webcomics | Alex Hoffman of the webcomics site Transmission-X discusses how webcomics are usually limited to one category when awards time rolls around.

"The issue is that since webcomics are allowed nominations in only a single category - while print comics are nominated under a multitude of aspects of comic production – webcomics are severely limited in their recognition," he writes. "The online comics community is large and growing quickly, but as yet, all the major awards exclude them from the majority of categories. While they do honour the Best Webcomic, they do not allow those strips to compete for recognition as Best Artist, Best Cartoonist, etc."

Mobile | The independent publishing house McSweeney's has launched an iPhone application called Small Chair that will feature content from their various publications, as well as music and art portfolios. "No longer will T-Pain be your only salvation on trains, during lunch, and through all the other empty gaps in a day." They say to expect content from Spike Jonze, Wells Tower, Chris Ware, and Jonathan Ames.

Video games | I thought this was an interesting piece by Russ Fischer. Writing for the Baylor University newspaper, he compared the storytelling techniques of three recent video games -- Infamous, Batman: Arkham Asylum and Prototype -- to the storytelling techniques of Marvel, DC and independent comics 20 years ago. I haven't played any of these three games, so I'm not sure how well the analogies hold up, but it was an interesting place to go.

The ACT-I-VATE Experience

Seth Kushner and Carlos Molina have put together a documentary on the webcomics site ACT-I-VATE, which will debut at the Baltimore Comic-Con in October. According to Kushner's blog, the film will include interviews with many of the site's creators, making movie stars out of Thomas Baehr, Nick Bertozzi, Pedro Carmago, Mike Cavallaro, Kevin Colden, Nikki Cooke, Molly Crabapple, Mike Dawson, Jim Dougan, Ulises Farinas, Michel Fiffe, Simon Fraser, Maurice Fontenot, Dan Goldman, Tim Hamilton, Dean Haspiel, Jennifer Hayden, Joe Infurnari, Jason Little, Josh Neufeld, Leland Purvis, Kat Roberts, Ryan Roman, Nathan Schreiber & Jeff Newelt.

The film will also be shown at KingCon in Brooklyn this November.

Zuda

Every month since late 2007, Zuda Comics hosts a competition between webcomics, with the winner becoming a regular strip on the site. In Zudist Colony, I interview the contestants via email, asking each of them the same five questions, which hopefully gives you a little more insight into the strips and the creators themselves.

This time around I asked them to share their favorite of the eight pages they submitted to Zuda, which is the artwork you'll see with their answers. Also, I only heard back from nine of the 10 contestants this time around.

So let's get to it ...

*****

Mystery Jungle

Diego Cordoba, Mystery Jungle

JK: What's your entry about? Where did the idea come from?

Diego: Actually it’s a story I did a couple of years ago. I’m a big fan of the comics and artists from yesteryear. Nowadays people don’t take the time to read a comic book and want it to be over in less than five minutes. It’s a pity, but then again it shows the poor state of the whole comic book industry. They all look like video games now! As I said, I like the classic comic books, done in pen, brush and ink with some spotting and then the coloring. My entry was done because I like stories set in the jungle, I was born near the Amazon jungle, and I like dinosaurs. That’s all there is to it. Oh yeah, and the writing from the old pulps, where people outside of Europe or America were called “savages” and where you could run into dinosaurs just by going into an unknown territory. It was just an ode to the good old pulps, which apparently few people “got."

JK: Is this your first comics work? If not, what else have you worked on? And what do you do when you aren't creating comics?

Diego: I’ve done comics for quite some time. I stopped because of the pay. I make more money doing a simple illustration that takes me a couple of hours as opposed to a complete comic book that takes me months to do. So there you go.

JK: How much of your story do you have mapped out at this point, beyond the eight pages that you submitted to Zuda? And how did you decide what to put into those eight pages?

Diego: The whole thing is plotted and most of it already written out. It’s a long story, so the fact that there’s hardly any character development in the first eight pages is normal. How can you have fully developed characters with only eight pages? As far as I know, it wasn’t a short story contest. I had that story lying around my studio and instead of letting it gather more dust, decided to submit it to Zuda to see the reaction it got. Which by the way was negative (laughs)!

JK: I asked you to send me your favorite of the eight pages you submitted. What about this page makes it your favorite?

Diego: I don’t have a favorite, but I picked the opening page, because it pretty much settles the whole story.

JK: What are you doing to market your comic this month?

Diego: Absolutely nothing! It was turned down by a syndicate some years back, and they eventually pulled the plug on the whole series, which had been going on for nearly 80 years!!

Some of my other stuff can be seen here.

*****

Marked

Fernando Pinto, Marked

JK: What's your entry about? Where did the idea come from?

Fernando Pinto: To be honest, the first spark for the idea was that I reeeeally dig the way the “x’s” that straight edge people mark on their hands. I know it sounds kinda stupid (And I’m not a subscriber to the straight edge movement… though more power to ‘em ) but as a graphic element I always thought it looked cool.

And the setting came from some relationships I’ve had in the past. It can be really hard to manage a relationship with someone you love and a full time job that you are deeply committed to. The story, as it unfolds, is about how both those things make you mature as a person, even if you don’t want them to.

Then I just threw some demons and punching (so I'd get to draw cool stuff), and Marked was born.

JK: Is this your first comics work? If not, what else have you worked on? And what do you do when you aren't creating comics?

Fernando Pinto: I’ve been lucky enough to do some work for the TMNT books (both as a writer and artist), and some other indy titles like Hack Slash (issue 6), Ursa Minors (at SLG, with former Zuda contestant, and all-around great guy Neil Kleid) and the first volume of Popgun (with the amazing Tim Seeley), amongst others.

You can see some artwork from all of those at my site.

JK: How much of your story do you have mapped out at this point, beyond the eight pages that you submitted to Zuda? And how did you decide what to put into those eight pages?

Fernando Pinto: I know how it starts, what happens in page 52 (which would be the ending of the first “season” if it gets to go that far… *wink wink*) and most of the steps in between. I know how Evan grows into the man you see in pages 1 and 2, but I don’t have the whole script written down at this point.
You gotta leave room for it to be fun along the way…

JK: I asked you to send me your favorite of the eight pages you submitted. What about this page makes it your favorite?

Fernando Pinto: Page 8. When Evan’s life is changed forever and he has no idea how or why. He knows just as much about what happened to him as the reader does (I always like when you get to find out about the story as it goes, instead of having captions dictating everything. I think it makes you more of a participant than an observer).

And you can tell how he feels by the look on his face.

JK: What are you doing to market your comic this month?

Fernando Pinto: Email, Facebook groups, forum postings and everything else under the sun I can think of (and is also legal to do). I’ve been buggin’ everybody I know to vote for me. I just hope they don’t end up hating me too much for it.

It’s been a new experience for me, ‘cause self promotion is not really my strong suit. We’ll see how it pans out for old Evan when Sept. 30 hits.

*****

Goldilocks

Adam Lucas, Goldilocks

JK: What's your entry about? Where did the idea come from?

Adam: Goldilock follows an ensemble cast of scientists and explorers as they discover new and amazing species of life and the adventures they have on a newly discovered planet in "The Goldilocks Zone" of a nearby galaxy. I think of the first arc as Jurassic Park meets Tarzan, on an alien planet.

For inspiration, I've always been a sci-fi nut. Stuff like The Forever War and Armor really inspired me to try and make a story in an exotic alien environment but focus on what it does to the people in those situations and how they react and grow. And of course, 80's cartoons. I tried to give it a nostalgic feeling of watching those old shows like Voltron and of course, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors.

JK: Is this your first comics work? If not, what else have you worked on? And what do you do when you aren't creating comics?

Adam: This is my first real dive into comics. When I'm not working on this I love doing concept art work and character designs. I've also just jumped into the world of storyboarding which is turning out to be quite the adventure in itself. Music too...love making music.

JK: How much of your story do you have mapped out at this point, beyond the eight pages that you submitted to Zuda? And how did you decide what to put into those eight pages?

Adam: I had the ending of the first arc pictured in my head very early on. From there it was figuring out how to get to that point. Which is insanely fun. As for the first 8 pages, I wanted to begin to introduce everyone and show their role as well as get a general idea of their mission and give a lead into the direction it could possibly go. Tried to give little hints of their backgrounds and histories, show some conflict. Cause really it's all about the characters.

JK: I asked you to send me your favorite of the eight pages you submitted. What about this page makes it your favorite?

Adam: It has the least word balloons. Ha ha. It just feels kind of tranquil. It's one page that makes me wish I could have some sound effects playing in the background. Alien crickets, chirps, wind...stuff like that.

JK: What are you doing to market your comic this month?

Adam: Everything humanly possible! I have a trailer here and a blog here. Gave out promotional materials and really just whatever I can think of to get the word out.

*****

The Symptoms

Will Sliney and Dave Hendrick, The Symptoms

JK: What's your entry about? Where did the idea come from?

DH: Thematically it’s about two main things, work and what that says about you and rebellion and how sometimes the bravest form of rebellion is mere survival..

Both ideas are borne out through the exploits of The Symptoms, the last great band in the history of humanity. They know the world is lost but they refuse to lie down and die, hell they refuse to drop their guitars let alone their pickaxes. They’re slightly fortunate in the sense that they’ve these wonderful abilities that make surviving easier but to paraphrase a great man “with wonderful abilities comes a major pain in the ass.” The latter being in the form of their sense of duty to defend what’s left of New York from the murderous hordes of Zeno’s that hide in the darkness on the edge of town. They’d love nothing more than to be left alone to jam night after night but there’s flesh eating, disease spreading undead soldiers out there all gatecrashing the guest list.

I’m also a huge music fan and to me the closest we get in our world to real super heroes is our iconic rock stars. I suppose I married the two concepts kind of like what if Kurt Cobain had laser vision, or Hendrix had the ability to fly and took it from there. Also I’ve been in a couple of (really terrible) bands over the years and there’s a unique closeness that develops in those situations which when good is quite inspiring so I guess those days have always stuck with me and I’m subconsciously informed by them.

JK: Is this your first comics work? If not, what else have you worked on? And what do you do when you aren't creating comics?

DH: I’ve always been involved in comics in Dublin in some form or another. My brother owned a comic book store for a long time here and he still organises the Dublin City Comic Con each year. I’ve been writing properly for ten years but through bad luck and life getting in the way I haven’t had an opportunity really to get anything out there until this year. My first proper comics work is an ongoing web comic called Downstairs about how the recession has impacted the criminal underworld, resulting in one case to the mob hiring a hitman who just can’t bring himself to off his targets so he keeps them sedated in his basement while he figures out what to do. It’s up at www.whosinthebasement.com.

When I’m not creating comics, I’m busiest working at being Super-Dad to my 2 year old son Liam and getting ready with my very understanding wife for our new arrival around Christmas. I’m also involved with a national newspaper group.

WS: I've been working full time in comics for a couple of years now. I started off with a local comic book called Atomic Rocket group here in Ireland. I managed to break into the American market last year and am now the artist on the new Farscape ongoing series with BOOM! Studios.

JK: How much of your story do you have mapped out at this point, beyond the eight pages that you submitted to Zuda? And how did you decide what to put into those eight pages?

DH: The entire first arc is mapped and pretty much written. We definitely know where we’re going and what kind of surprises await the reader. I have to say there’s a twist in issue two that once written made me strut about like a bee-gee for a week or so.

Because I had the story mapped out prior to submission I was able to make a fairly informed decision as to just what to submit. So the introductory/documentary style opening that we went with is a good sampler of the characters and the action and I think piques enough reader curiosity to hopefully encourage readers to vote for us.

WS: The one thing I noticed about a lot of Zuda submissions is that after reading an entry I would often be left not understanding what the story was about. I liked how Dave's eight pages work well as an introduction to the story; it puts the band together and gets them ready to begin their crusade.

JK: I asked you to send me your favorite of the eight pages you submitted. What about this page makes it your favorite?

DH: Page two – It’s incredibly visceral, but because of Will’s beautiful art work it has a kind of innocence to it as well. The way Kinger’s just staring at himself with the one eye he’s got left with puzzlement and horror and awe. There he is on the verge of making (up to that point) the single biggest discovery he’s made about himself with a hole in his head the size of an orange and he looks like a frightened child.

WS: Mine is page two actually as well. I think I began to realize in this screen that having the pages horizontal can give a much more cinematic feel to them which is quite enjoyable to draw.

JK: What are you doing to market your comic this month?

DH: We’ve done the usual stuff: Facebook group, e-mail shots and message boards. Our local Forbidden Planet in Dublin have kindly put posters around the store and are carrying flyers for us. Will has put together a pretty amazing blog here and that’s got all sorts of bonus material to peruse from magazine interviews with the band to album outtakes. We're also getting press and radio coverage here in Ireland.

WS: That blog is going to be a lot of fun to do. Next up on the blog is a magazine interview which I got a great kick out of when reading through it once I got the script from Dave.

Other areas we're promoting the entry is in a sketch blog that I share with other Irish comic book artists including Stephen Thompson (Star Trek, Die Hard Year One) Stephen Mooney (Angel), Nick Roche (Transformers, Doctor Who), PJ Holden (2000AD), Dec Shalvey (Frankenstein, 28 Days Later) and Bob Byrne (Mister Amperduke, 2000AD). Some of the guys there have already posted up their own take on the characters. I love getting to see other people draw characters I was lucky enough to design.

*****

Revenge of the Homicidal Pumpkins

Shannon Cronin, Revenge of the Homicidal Pumpkins

JK: What's your entry about? Where did the idea come from?

SC: The story is about a 13-year-old kid, Robbie Jarvis, who discovers that a series of seemingly accidental deaths are no accident at all. Instead they are the work of homicidal pumpkins who are hellbent on revenge and taking over a small Colorado town.

The idea is heavily influenced by my love of horror films. Specifically horror films from the eighties like The Lost Boys, Critters, The Thing, Near Dark and so many countless others. I was 11-years-old when I purchased my first horror comic book, Clive Barker's Hellraiser, and have been addicted since.

JK: Is this your first comics work? If not, what else have you worked on? And what do you do when you aren't creating comics?

SC: This is my third comic creation. My first comic, The Timeline, is about a boy who goes missing only to show up 11 years later not having aged a day. My second comic is titled Lifespan and is set in a world where money doesn't exist and the estimated human life expectancy is used as currency. I'm also working on three other titles which I hope to have completed and submitted to publishers by Spring of 2010.

When I'm not writing, I enjoy spending time with my family, listening to the Howard Stern show, playing COD: Modern Warfare and offending people who get offended.

JK: How much of your story do you have mapped out at this point, beyond the eight pages that you submitted to Zuda? And how did you decide what to put into those eight pages?

SC: The story is done and has been since 2004. After writing two other comics which were much more serious in tone and that dealt with social and political issues, I decided to do something completely opposite and lighthearted. It's just a fun B-rated horror comic.

I knew if it was going to be a true horror story I would need the opening kill scene, so that was a given. But I also had to introduce the protagonist, Robbie Jarvis, and do so in a way that people get a sense of who he is. I think I was able to do both of those things in these eight pages.

JK: I asked you to send me your favorite of the eight pages you submitted. What about this page makes it your favorite?

SC: It was a toss up between pages 4 and 7. But because page 4 may reveal too much, I decided to go with page 7. This shot is just beautiful. Iwan Nazif took a boring scene of two kids talking while on the way to school and gave it life. He gave it personality. You see the neighborhood, you get a sense of the season and the characters are illustrated in such a way you can almost tell what they're saying without reading the dialogue. So take Iwan's art and add Lisa's colors and the end result is this beautiful page.

JK: What are you doing to market your comic this month?

SC: I honestly thought we'd be selected for the October competition. So I was thrown off a bit and had to scrap some of my marketing ideas when I learned we made in into September competition instead. I had some cool Halloween tie-ins I wanted to do as well as market this at the Long Beach Comic Con but had to change plans fast. After we scrambled a bit, I created two websites, HomicidalPumpkins.com and DontLetRickyDie.com. The first site is a standard promotional site where fans and supporters can go and grab avatars, wallpaper, banners and even watch a video about the development history of the title. I also had some artist friends who were nice enough to create some pin-up art for me and have posted it there.

The second site, Don't Let Ricky Die is the site I'm very proud of. I basically created a tie-in story which has one of Robbie's friends blogging from a basement where he's being held hostage. He's been kidnapped by the Homicidal Pumpkins and they're demanding that the comic receive 666 favorites before the competition ends. If they don't receive that amount of favorites they'll kill the kid. The site serves two purposes. Audience participation and trying to guilt people into supporting us. If you vote for anyone else, you're voting for a 13-year-old comic book fan to die. As someone mentioned the other day, it's basically a 'vote for us or we shoot the puppy' type of situation. Personally, I love it. I will say this though, if Ricky Myers is allowed to live and we do win the competition, he'll play a significant role in the storyline.

*****

My T-Shirt Fairy Tale

Adrian Ramos, My T-Shirt Fairy Tale

JK: What's your entry about? Where did the idea come from?

Adrian: My entry is a fantasy love story called My T-Shirt Fairy Tale. It's about a guy named U and a girl named Felix who must find a way to break the curses put on them and get their happily ever after. And the storytelling is aided by people in T-shirts. Seriously, check it out and you'll see. The idea comes from a love of the T-shirt aesthetic and thinking that someone had to use T-shirts to tell a story at some point. On top of that, I like to draw fairy tale stuff.

JK: Is this your first comics work? If not, what else have you worked on? And what do you do when you aren't creating comics?

Adrian: This is not my first comics work, no. I write and draw Count your Sheep, No Room For Magic, The Wisdom of Moo and Godmode Online on keenspot.com. Hey, it kinda sounds like a lot, doesn't it? When I don't do comics, I write, draw, and do something that resembles graphic design. Kinda.

JK: How much of your story do you have mapped out at this point, beyond the eight pages that you submitted to Zuda? And how did you decide what to put into those eight pages?

Adrian: I have certain plot points planned out, although the specifics I like to write as I approach them. I wanted to give a sense of fullness to the eight pages, a tiny taste that could give you a complete idea of where the story is going.

JK: I asked you to send me your favorite of the eight pages you submitted. What about this page makes it your favorite?

Adrian: I like this page because it's the point when we dive into the fairy tale aspect of the story. Plus, it's so pretty!

JK: What are you doing to market your comic this month?

Adrian: I'm going to try and show whoever lets me the merits of the comic, be it through social network or real world stuff. Selling non-important organs is not entirely out of the question either.

*****

Tessyleia 2.0

Marc Borstel and Eric Hayes, Tessyleia 2.0

JK: What's your entry about? Where did the idea come from?

Marc: Tessyleia 2.0 is basically an action comic. At first glance, it’s the story about a woman who doesn’t want to die (ironically, by the end of the prologue, she's already died twice.) The reader quickly discovers that nothing is like it seems. The main conflict here is the struggle between the individual being and the corporate system that swallows, assimilates and globalizes all aspects of our modern society. Our heroine, Tess, differs greatly from other sci-fi android characters who strive to become human, in that, becoming human is the least of her concerns. Some readers may struggle empathizing with the main character's lack of soul, feelings and abandoned search for lost humanity. But that won't be the case with our "Villain," a cloned Tess with all her humanity derived from the original organic Tess (whose death predates this story.) On the technical side, Tessyleia 2.0 is a great testing ground for my experiments in storytelling. I'm trying to create a Cyberpunk world that fuses aspects of modern life (internet, information processing, technology) with alternative media (video games, anime, movies). Tessyleia 2.0 is my first chance to work on my own script, construct my own universe and develop my own characters and ideas. In that respect the readers' feedback has been amazing. In an effort to stay true to my original vision, I paid close attention to the detailed aesthetics of the environment I created. The character designs, screen displays and various graphic elements create a specific mood that builds to a climax. If it were possible, I would love to add some music and interactive pop-ups.

JK: Is this your first comics work? If not, what else have you worked on? And what do you do when you aren't creating comics?

Marc: 2009 marks my 20th anniversary working in comics. For the last seven years, I've been working as a comic artist, illustrator and toy designer for projects in the US. The first project was a series, Krystal, from FemmeFataleStudios. Later I began work on a series of comics for Cinemacomics, with writer Jay Carvajal. In 2008 I collaborated as colorist on the graphic novel The Outer Space Men with writer Eric C. Hayes (A very talented NY writer). He is currently assisting me in the Tessyleia 2.0 script translation. While working on that project, I was invited by OSM publisher, Gary Schaeffer, to attend NYCC’09. This is where the Tessyleia seed was planted. The last several years I've been working on some projects for Ape Entertainment. I’m also currently working on a Graphic Novel. When I’m not working on comics and conducting 3D experiments, I spend my free time with my wife (whose idea it was to kill the main character on screen 7) and two little girls.

Eric: I was truly fortunate to work with Marc on my Graphic Novel, "The Outer Space Men." The completed pages he submitted always exceeded expectations. I felt honored when Marc asked me to collaborate on the script for Tessyleia 2.0. This comic has been a showcase for Marc to demonstrate how versatile he has become as a writer and an artist. He seems to magically reinvent himself with every project. I'm just happy to have my name associated with Tessyleia 2.0. I think anyone viewing the September contest at Zuda comics would agree, Tessyleia 2.0 is HOT!

JK: How much of your story do you have mapped out at this point, beyond the eight pages that you submitted to Zuda? And how did you decide what to put into those eight pages?

Marc: The eight screens in Zuda Comics are just the prologue. I've already plotted 60-pages of the story and I can promise you one thing: Widescreen Revolution. Instead of "chapters," the script is divided into 3 “levels” with very detailed, choreographed action sequences and an explosive ending. I knew I had to place a very strong and dramatic cliffhanger in the last page of the prologue, because the next cliffhanger doesn't occur until screen 60. I never want to carry readers with obvious storylines. I'm constantly twisting the status quo to disorient readers and leave them with more questions than answers. Due to the 8-page contest guidelines, many ideas and essential secondary characters have yet to be explored.

JK: I asked you to send me your favorite of the eight pages you submitted. What about this page makes it your favorite?

Marc: My favorite screen is the fifth. The initial pages are slow-paced and packed with descriptive dialogue, this fleshes-out a futuristic universe the reader finds believable. Then, in screen 5 the story shifts gears and leaps into action. This lays the groundwork for the ending twist in the final scenes.

JK: What are you doing to market your comic this month?

Marc: I have printed flyers and posters to promote my project in my hometown of Mar del Plata, Argentina. ( http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg135/iergoth/TessComingSoon02LR.jpg http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg135/iergoth/TessComingSoon01LR.jpg http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg135/iergoth/BannerTess01LR.jpg )

I’m doing some viral Internet marketing, via Facebook and Twitter. I’ve invited all my professional contacts in the field to read the comic, contest or not. I'm also supporting the story with a supplemental blog where you can find all kinds of extras related to Tessyleia 2.0. Visit the blog for promo pieces, sketches, the original storyboard, discarded ideas, the step-by-step process, some graphic designs, etc. Zuda Comics is an incredible platform for artists to display their work worldwide. Its an invaluable resource to receive instant feedback, through comments and critiques, from the reader. I've never experienced this type of Artist-Reader interaction with print comics before.

*****

WheelJack Union

Mike Odum, WheelJack Union

JK: What's your entry about? Where did the idea come from?

Mike: Wheeljack Union is a period comic that takes place during WWII. The story is not so much about the war itself, but about an engineer named Gene Recktor, and his personal struggle to stand out from beneath his father’s shadow.

Wheeljack Union is a merger of two ideas I wanted to pursue, the first being the story of an unappreciated engineer, and the second being a secret weapons project during WWII. The concept of Gene's issue with his father was the result of a conversation with a friend when discussing what Gene's character traits should be.

JK: Is this your first comics work? If not, what else have you worked on? And what do you do when you aren't creating comics?

Mike: In a lot of ways, Wheeljack is my first comic because it is the first one I have had published in some form. But comics are my passion and I have always been pursuing that passion by making them, whether it be collaborating with other artists or working on my own stories. For those times when I can't pursue my craft I do freelance design work.

JK: How much of your story do you have mapped out at this point, beyond the eight pages that you submitted to Zuda? And how did you decide what to put into those eight pages?

Mike: I have just about all the story mapped out but, I'm not sure exactly sure how I am going to end it. Well, I know what the ending is but I haven't figured out how I will resolve it.

For the first eight pages I wanted to set the reader in the period of the story, throw in some action for fun, and begin introducing the characters and their context. So I decided to open with action and then somewhat bleed into the main conflict to give me the opportunity for a cliffhanger.

JK: I asked you to send me your favorite of the eight pages you submitted. What about this page makes it your favorite?

Mike: Page four is my favorite one because the blacks move the eye through the panels the way I wanted and I feel it flows very well action-wise. Also on this page you get a good sense of scale for WheelJack. Aside from those things, the final panel is one of my favorites.

JK: What are you doing to market your comic this month?

Mike: To market my comic I have printed off posters and hand-outs to post/give out around town. To further this effort I collaborated with friends and owners of local comic book stores to feature my promos. I will also be taking some printed versions of the comic to a small press expo at the end of the month.

*****

Incarna

David Gunawan, Incarna

JK: What's your entry about? Where did the idea come from?

David: The story is about a man (sadly, he didn’t appear in my submission) who has mythical power in his left arm, but he doesn’t know where it came from. So he travels to search the truth behind it and to recover his lost memory.

About where the idea came from, I always love cowboy, samurai, vampire, werewolf, and any kind of mythology, so I thought that it’ll be cool to combine all of those into a comic. So the basic idea of this comic is about where eastern mythologies and western legends collide.

JK: Is this your first comics work? If not, what else have you worked on? And what do you do when you aren't creating comics?

David: Yes, it’s my first comic. When I’m not making comic, I’m helping my father at his shop and doing a lot of practice to improve my drawing skill, sculpting and playing games in my free time.

JK: How much of your story do you have mapped out at this point, beyond the eight pages that you submitted to Zuda? And how did you decide what to put into those eight pages?

David: Quite a lot actually, I had already thought about how the story goes and how the story will end. But I still need to carefully arrange the plots and to find an English editor, as you can see, my English is not good.

About the submission, well actually I just follow my story concept so I don’t have to re-arrange the plots to much, that’s why I don’t have the main character appears in that pages.

JK: I asked you to send me your favorite of the eight pages you submitted. What about this page makes it your favorite?

David: I like this one because it feels kind of epic to me, a god versus a dragon, and I also like the combination between comic illustration and the decorative cloud from old Japanese/Chinese art. It’s kind of weird, but I like it.

JK: What are you doing to market your comic this month?

David: Well I tried to contact all of my friends and tell them that my comic is in a competition and I need them to support me, that’s all.

Zuda

Welcome to the second edition of Zudist Colony, which we kicked off last month.

Every month since late 2007, Zuda Comics hosts a competition between webcomics, with the winner becoming a regular strip on the site. In Zudist Colony, I interview the contestants via email, which hopefully gives you a little more insight into the strips and the creators themselves. For instance, this time around I asked them all to name their favorite strip besides their own, and the variety in their answers was pretty interesting.

So without further ado, let's see what they said ...

*****

Cards Kill

Cards Kill by Jason Chiu and Leah Liu

JK: What's your entry about, and where did the idea come from?

Jason: The story of Cards Kill is about a young guy who is nobody, and a little pathetic I may say. He gets some special power by chance one day, but with losing himself as the pay. So he has to find out what’s going on before he totally loses his consciousness.

The idea of Cards Kill came from many excellent comics and films, such as Death Note and Wanted. I thought it would be good to combine such kind of cool elements with cards, so I got the idea of Cards Kill.

JK: Is this your first comics work? If not, what else have you worked on? And what do you do when you aren't creating comics?

Jason: Yes, this is the first comic work of our own. We cooperated with some companies or individuals before, on some work-for-hire projects.

JK: Why did you decide to enter your comic into the Zuda competition, versus, say, trying to publish it somewhere else or setting up your own site for it?

Jason: As I said above, this is the first original comic work of our own. We need more experiences and suggestions, and Zuda is an amazing place, where we can share and communicate with many good artists and writers. Their comments and suggestions are very valuable to us.

JK: As a Zuda contestant, you're getting feedback via the comments section. What has that been like? Have you had any second thoughts about your entry based on any of the feedback you've received thus far?

Jason: The feedback from readers and other artists really tells us what we should do to make it better, including the settings of the story and lines. The feedback is very important to us.

JK: I'm also guessing you've had the chance to look at everyone else's submissions by now. If you weren't in this month's competition, who do you think you'd be voting for?

Jason: Yes, the competitions on Zuda are getting more exciting month by month. And we are glad to see more people investing more enthusiasm and passion in the industry of comics. If I was not in this month’s competition, I think I may give my vote to the Bow & Arrow Detective Agency.

Check out more of Leah's art on the Robekka Art Studio site and deviantART site.

*****

Bow & Arrow Detective Agency

Bow & Arrow Detective Agency by George Gousis and Antonis Vavagiannis

JK: What's your entry about, and where did the idea come from?

George: It is a funny crime story, full of cliches and 90's pop songs. I was thinking of doing a funny crime story and because Antonis is a master of these kind of stories... here we are.

Antonis: I love exploring and twisting cliches, and I thought it was time for "Macarena" to make a comeback. I got the chance to work with George, one of the top Greek artists, who wanted to make a film noir kind of story so we mixed it up a bit and came up with Bow and Arrow.

JK: Is this your first comics work? If not, what else have you worked on? And what do you do when you aren't creating comics?

George: In Greece, i have published plenty of comics at different magazines and newspapers. But as far as the american publishers and wherever those books are selling i have taken part in two anthologies of Image comics, Outlaw Territory vol 1 and Popgun vol 3. At this period, i am writing a lot about a big comic project and when i am not doing comics, i do some illustrations for magazines. You can find samples of my works at my blog. That's all.

Antonis: I have published five comic books in Greece and done some one-off stories in magazines. I specialize in surreal humour and have an online webcomic which unfortunately is only in Greek. Lately I've been thinking of doing an English translation to share this national treasure with the rest of the world!
Apart from that, I work as a teacher in a primary school and I'm also part of the greatest alternative band in the universe The Empty Frame.

Bow & Arrow Detective Agency

JK: Why did you decide to enter your comic into the Zuda competition, versus, say, trying to publish it somewhere else or setting up your own site for it?

George: We knew about the site, that there are a lot of people visiting it and of course that if someone wins there is a contract, means that we have plenty of time to do a good job and make some money for this. For me, the most important thing is that you have a whole week for a page and that is a nice opportunity to create a nice comic, without hurry. So, it is a great opportunity for a first step, get some experience, some feedback etc. Also, working from your home and just sending your work or even your submission from the internet; it's very cool and easy.

Antonis: Fame and riches, of course! And women! Using the line "I am competing in Zuda this month" always works. I use it all the time. And if that doesn't get me laid, I use "Who is your favourite Cardinal? Mine is Cardinal Richelieu!" That works 100 percent!

Bow & Arrow Detective Agency

JK: As a Zuda contestant, you're getting feedback via the comments section. What has that been like? Have you had any second thoughts about your entry based on any of the feedback you've received thus far?

George: You know, the best thing is to be getting some feedback, whatever feedback is this. Because, when you are publishing a comic, as a book, not at web, the feedback you are getting back is not much, some friends, maybe a fan or a review. At zuda, you can get a feedback from anyone, very easy and you can see how your comic works on different people. On the other hand, its strange, because you are getting feedback for some pages, not the whole story, but those are the rules of this game. Personally, i dont have second thoughts for any of my work because i have think a lot before i publish it and know what to expect. But the comments that someone can take, sometimes are really interesting and helpful.

Antonis: It's great to have so much feedback for your work, which is something that I'm not used to. Of course sometimes it's a bit hurtful to see that people are quick to judge, or just have a hard time accepting that this comic is a lot different than what they're used to, but it's all okay! Most of the people were very positive anyway and that really gives you the will to go on and make your comic even better!

JK: I'm also guessing you've had the chance to look at everyone else's submissions by now. If you weren't in this month's competition, who do you think you'd be voting for?

George: If You See The Hills. Even if the art is kinda amateur, I think he has some nice things to say. I like honesty in any kind of art.

Antonis: In terms of artwork, Absolute Magnitude is certainly very impressive, but Physicon is more to my tastes!

As for the stories, I'm not too much of a super hero, sci/fi fan to be honest. So I guess Physicon and If You See The Hills are the ones that intrigued me more to read further.

*****

Rogue Royal

Rogue Royal by Chris Garrett

JK: What's your entry about, and where did the idea come from?

Chris: Rogue Royal is about a space princess on a mysterious quest. The basic idea came from my desire to draw a badass chick shooting lasers and flying around with a jetpack, but, and this may sound silly, I decided that was not enough for a good story. So I added these gigantic purple aliens and a laser sword.

Rogue Royal

JK: Is this your first comics work? If not, what else have you worked on? And what do you do when you aren't creating comics?

Chris: I’ve drawn a lot of self-published mini-comics: a sword and sorcery series called Side Passage that’s up to issue four, a couple travel diaries, a one-man Science Fiction anthology, a dark sci-fi horror series called The Drift, and a long form fantasy epic called The Flood. I am also a really amazing dungeon master (I would totally put that on my resume if my resume wasn’t just this big sad face that covers the entire page.) I work at a comic shop in midtown Kansas City called B Bop. Your readers should come visit me for free high fives.

JK: Why did you decide to enter your comic into the Zuda competition, versus, say, trying to publish it somewhere else or setting up your own site for it?

Chris: I actually created Rogue Royal specifically for Zuda. Oh did you want to hear the story? Okay great! One day I was wringing my hands about pros and cons and I suddenly decided hey! What if DC called me and said, “Chris! Will you make a comic specifically for us, and not sell us something you already have, that way you don’t have to worry about the corporatization of your entire soul, but just some of it?” So I pretended that conversation happened, and I gave the made-up DC editor a Long Island accent, and Rogue Royal was born.

JK: As a Zuda contestant, you're getting feedback via the comments section. What has that been like? Have you had any second thoughts about your entry based on any of the feedback you've received thus far?

Chris: Due to the high visibility of the competition, I’ve got more feedback on Rogue Royal than anything else I’ve done, and I love it. My comments section is like a party! Everyone should come hang out in my comments section.

None of the criticisms have prompted second thoughts, though I’ve found the differing views to be mostly insightful and presented politely. Most of the comments have been about boobs, which is funny, though I do wonder if, after winning the competition and continuing the story, I’ll lose all my readers when the male characters’ clothes start falling off.

Rogue Royal

JK: I'm also guessing you've had the chance to look at everyone else's submissions by now. If you weren't in this month's competition, who do you think you'd be voting for?

Chris: Octane Jungle really does it for me. I think after the competition I would like to ask Octane Jungle out on a date, like maybe to coffee or something at first so we could just talk, but I’ll be wearing something really slutty so it knows I’m ready for anything.

Find out more about Chris at his website.

*****

Octane Jungle

Octane Jungle by Morgan Luthi and Mike L. Kinshella

JK: What's your entry about, and where did the idea come from?

Mike: Octane Jungle is about human society in the not-too-distant future wherein corporate empires have seized total control and rendered traditional government and economics obsolete. Our protagonists are the crew of an illegal pizza delivery outfit, dodging morally questionable corporate police, violent street gangs and rival contraband operations in the interest of preserving a viable free market. The idea was inspired by many things (as most of my ideas tend to be) but mainly comes from my personal experience as a pizza delivery driver, mixed with my love of stories base in dystopian societies. There is also a strong undercurrent of horror running through Octane Jungle (probably the genre closest to my heart) most obviously characterized by the villains of the premier arc and the "gonzo gore" presented throughout. A handful of the characters and situations were inspired by an animated show called Brodice and Outlaw that Morgan and I developed a few years ago. I felt there was some really good stuff in there that kind of fit within the OJ world, so we went with it!

JK: Is this your first comics work? If not, what else have you worked on? And what do you do when you aren't creating comics?

Morgan: This isn't my first comic work, I previously did Snow with Tokyopop...but that feels like ancient history. I'm freelance now, but when I'm not drawing, I'm usually playing video games or reading other people's comics.

Mike: Although this is not the first comic I have written, it IS the first comic I have written to be fully realized. Recently, while not working on OJ, I have been working on a few other comic concepts as well as co-writing a short horror film with Los Angeles filmmaker Dan Riesser. I also front a punk rock band called Murderland and, like my partner in crime, spend a lot of time reading comics (my current faves: The Goon, Fear Agent, House of Mystery and anything by Ben Templesmith).

JK: Why did you decide to enter your comic into the Zuda competition, versus, say, trying to publish it somewhere else or setting up your own site for it?

Morgan: For me it was the instant feedback element of Zuda. Assuming an entry gets into the competition, the potential for it to be seen and build an audience is incredible. If you win, then its obviously awesome. If you don't, then the opportunity to take that entry use the new found fanbase and publicity to do something else with it is very, very, compelling motivation to submit to Zuda first.

Mike: Like Morgan said, Zuda is a legit place to get a comic seen by people who actually care and, with very few exceptions, know what they are talking about. At the end of the day we make comics for people who love to read comics, and zuda is run and supported by just such folks! Plus the whole concept of getting instant feedback from the readers is awesome. I'm big on instant gratification.

Octane Jungle

JK: As a Zuda contestant, you're getting feedback via the comments section. What has that been like? Have you had any second thoughts about your entry based on any of the feedback you've received thus far?

Morgan: I think the feedback has been awesome and very encouraging. For the most part, people have been incredibly supportive and they really seem to genuinely dig our entry.

Mike: The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, which is great! Its a great thrill to have Zuda pros whom I respect and admire giving us props and I particularly enjoy when Morgan's art gives people seizures - and they love it!

JK: I'm also guessing you've had the chance to look at everyone else's submissions by now. If you weren't in this month's competition, who do you think you'd be voting for?

Morgan: Rogue Royal, without a doubt. I love the humor.

Mike: Easily Rogue Royal. The art is not my favorite of the bunch but the script is awesome! Plus how can you argue with big guns, slimy monsters, hot chicks and infanticide?

But enough advertisement for our competition! Go vote for Octane Jungle!

*****

If You See The Hills

If You See The Hills by Sal Field

JK: What's your entry about, and where did the idea come from?

Sal: If You See The Hills is a coming-of-age slice-of-life story about a bunch of teens who hang out on the roofs, because they have no other place to go.

I've always been a fan of teen comic books like Sean McKeever's The Waiting Place, Bryan Lee O'Malley's Lost At Sea, and Kill Your Boyfriend by Grant Morrison and Philip Bond, so this is me doing the kind of comic I'd like to read, because there really aren't that many like that out there.

JK: Is this your first comics work? If not, what else have you worked on? And what do you do when you aren't creating comics?

Sal: I've done a few webcomics with some friends back when I was in school, none of which are online anymore as far as I know, and some freelance coloring on a couple of obscure indie titles that probably nobody ever heard of and that I didn't really care about. Essentially, If You See The Hills is the first series that's all me, apart from a couple of street art comic strips I did a few years back that I posted to traffic lights all around town, which gained some media attention during a slow news week.

JK: Why did you decide to enter your comic into the Zuda competition, versus, say, trying to publish it somewhere else or setting up your own site for it?

Sal: The chance of getting a contract with one of the largest comic book publisher in the world, and the fact that you get paid if your comics takes part in the competition, that's a pretty unique opportunity for a newcomer nobody has ever heard of. And it's not like these options are mutually exclusive. If it doesn't work out at Zuda, I can still look for another place to publish it. As for setting up my own site, I'm already doing everything on the comic myself, so it's nice when at least the hosting is something I do not have to take care of as well.

JK: As a Zuda contestant, you're getting feedback via the comments section. What has that been like? Have you had any second thoughts about your entry based on any of the feedback you've received thus far?

Sal: Not at all. The comments have mostly been positive and very encouraging, and Zuda has a great community. I mean, it's not like there are trolls posting "ur comix sux!!1!!"

On the contrary, even the people who don't like the comic are very polite about it and offer valid, constructive criticism.

JK: I'm also guessing you've had the chance to look at everyone else's submissions by now. If you weren't in this month's competition, who do you think you'd be voting for?

Sal: Furman's art on A Stinking Corpse is awesome, but the one comic where after the eight pages I was disappointed there wasn't more yet was Bow & Arrow Detective Agency, so I think I'd vote for that. But it really is a tough month.

*****

Antique Books

Antique Books by Scott Boyce

JK: What's your entry about, and where did the idea come from?

Scott: The idea just sort of showed up shortly after seeing Coraline. It made me think great films where the heroine saves herself are not common enough. The obvious geek touchstone being Ridley Scott's Alien. This story was taking and odd creature I'd drawn before, but who didn't have a home, and throwing him into a Coraline/Alien blender.

JK: Is this your first comics work? If not, what else have you worked on? And what do you do when you aren't creating comics?

Scott: I've done a few drawing jobs for writers through Digital Webbing and had my own website with my own stories for awhile but Zuda is my first big exposure. When not drawing I'm spending as much time as possible with my two boys and my missus. Running also helps to stay creative.

Antique Books

JK: Why did you decide to enter your comic into the Zuda competition, versus, say, trying to publish it somewhere else or setting up your own site for it?

Scott: The fact that there is this large community out there, that was never there like this before. Of comic book creators and readers sharing their work. Every month readers get to become the creators on a worldwide stage.

JK: As a Zuda contestant, you're getting feedback via the comments section. What has that been like? Have you had any second thoughts about your entry based on any of the feedback you've received thus far?

Scott: More action, color gets more views, boredom as subject matter was not my best idea. The slow start works for the complete story, for eight pages it makes for a nice finish. Still surprised no questioned me for cramming 13 panels into one page. I'm already planning my next submission.

JK: I'm also guessing you've had the chance to look at everyone else's submissions by now. If you weren't in this month's competition, who do you think you'd be voting for?

Scott: Arctic for its loose, kinetic yet precise line work and a fast-paced set up I'd like to see developed.

*****

Absolute Magnitude

Absolute Magnitude by Robert Burke Richardson and Martin Morazzo

JK: What's your entry about, and where did the idea come from?

Robert: The idea for Absolute Magnitude came from artist Martin Morazzo; a few months after our poor showing on Zuda with Urbis Faerie, Martin sent me an email asking if I would consider working on a science fiction story with him, and gave me a really basic plot, as well as a drawing of a bunch of cool-looking space pirates. The only stipulation was, he’d written “The captain is the one with the eye-patch” on top of the picture. He was extraordinarily gracious, and let me make everything up from there.

Somehow the story coalesced in my mind around the notion of a man -- Captain Pace -- who loves people, but hates humanity; which is to say, he loves individual people, but finds no value in civilization and society -- to the extent that he could bring fundamental reform to his own culture (being the heir to the SecuriZone royal family), but he won’t bother. Absolute Magnitude is the story of what happens to Pace and his crew when that view gets altered in a fundamental way.

Absolute Magnitude

JK: Is this your first comics work? If not, what else have you worked on? And what do you do when you aren't creating comics?

Robert: I’ve done Elf-Help and Urbis Faerie with Martin, and just published my first full-length OGN, The Matriarch, with Steven Yarbrough. I do lots of other comics at http://www.comicspace.com/robert/.

Martin works as a graphic designer by day, and his OGN, The Network, with writer Jay Busbee should be out from Arcana soon.

Absolute Magnitude

JK: Why did you decide to enter your comic into the Zuda competition, versus, say, trying to publish it somewhere else or setting up your own site for it?

Robert: I’ve had a chance to meet the folks behind Zuda face-to-face, talked to some of the creators, and have seen how Zuda shaped up over its first (nearly) two years; it’s a classy operation, and it’s where Martin, Kuen and I want to be!

JK: As a Zuda contestant, you're getting feedback via the comments section. What has that been like? Have you had any second thoughts about your entry based on any of the feedback you've received thus far?

Robert: I’m getting compared to a lot of writers -- some that are indeed influences, like Joss Whedon and George Lucas -- some I’m familiar with, but don’t see in myself, like Chris Claremont and Frank Herbert -- and some whose work I don’t know that well (yet), like Cuervoscuro (who does Earthbuilders at Zuda) and Katsuhiro Otomo. It’s always interesting to see what others see in your work.

JK: I'm also guessing you've had the chance to look at everyone else's submissions by now. If you weren't in this month's competition, who do you think you'd be voting for?

Robert: Martin is a Rogue Royal man, but I think Octane Jungle just edges it out. In all honesty, I’d love to see any of this month’s comics continue -- it’s a little creepy to know that, by trying to win, I may in fact be killing some of them.

Find out more about Absolute Magnitude at its official site or by joining Robert's Facebook group.

*****

Arctic

Arctic by Ghost

JK: What's your entry about, and where did the idea come from?

Ghost: Well, a friend of mine said I couldn’t draw anything but sexy chicks. Since my other e-comic is an Azpiri-influenced adult fantasy romp. So I went, I’ll show you A****** I’m gonna draw a moody story…in the snow!…where everybody is covered head to toe…and there are only male characters…so…err…that’s it.

JK: Is this your first comics work? If not, what else have you worked on? And what do you do when you aren't creating comics?

Ghost: When I’m not creating comics, I’m illustrating for magazines and whoring myself to anyone who wants to pay for my scribbles.

JK: Why did you decide to enter your comic into the Zuda competition, versus, say, trying to publish it somewhere else or setting up your own site for it?

Ghost: I did the entire thing in like three or four days, and I know Zuda hosts competitions, so I sent it in. Also all the rights belong to me so that was always a plus. Already I’ve been approached by an editor for Arctic to go into print. Nothings finalized but I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

JK: As a Zuda contestant, you're getting feedback via the comments section. What has that been like? Have you had any second thoughts about your entry based on any of the feedback you've received thus far?

Ghost: Comments have in majority been really good. Most people liked it, some people didn’t like it. Meh. Win some, lose some.

JK: I'm also guessing you've had the chance to look at everyone else's submissions by now. If you weren't in this month's competition, who do you think you'd be voting for?

Ghost: I’d vote for Furman for the sheer amount of effort that went into his art. Hats off to that guy.

*****

Physikon

Physikon by Alexander Drummond Diochon

JK: What's your entry about, and where did the idea come from?

Alex: Physikon is about a group of people "us" that are like walking natural disasters. Like being at the center of a hurricane they see and are a part of the destruction around them but are immune from it. This only cancels out when two of "us" come into proximity of each other, like two storms hitting each other one will be swallowed by the other. So it is a comic about how this would effect a group of characters if they were unaware of which of them was one of "us."

The idea came from looking at reoccurring characters in movies, video games, books etc. And seeing that they always seem to be at the center of trouble and strife. That these characters are the unluckiest people around, because of the situations that keep finding them, and at the same time the luckiest, because they seem to survive a multitude of hardships in which others bite it hard. Then I had the thought, what if it isn't these situations finding them but an effect that they carried? To always be at the center of these events because they brought this bad/good luck with them. It was that idea that was central to developing the concept of the "Us" which is the driving force behind Physikon.

JK: Is this your first comics work? If not, what else have you worked on? And what do you do when you aren't creating comics?

Alex: As far as Zuda goes this isn't my first entry. As far as the world of published and indie comics goes this is one of my early forays into the industry of professional comics. Other than comics I am one of the lucky people (and I do mean lucky as I have been very fortunate in getting the contacts in illustration that I have) that I get to draw for a living. To date it has mostly been text book illustrations and broadcast work that has been paying the bills. If we are talking about outside of drawing and art type things I am a huge fan of playing racket ball. I am most likely not very good (I only have a few friends that play so I don't have a wide enough sample group to provide a definitive suck/not suck pronouncement) but I like to play whenever I get the chance.

JK: Why did you decide to enter your comic into the Zuda competition, versus, say, trying to publish it somewhere else or setting up your own site for it?

Alex: I originally started with Zuda because I love drawing comics, but the practical part of my brain always seems to pop in and say "you could be doing something more productive to getting illustration work, those bills wont pay themselves." So up until Zuda came around I had created comics as more of a hobby. The type of illustration I wanted to do but that I ha no "in" to be able to devote my time to them. A decision I regret at this point because I got all shades of rusty and stagnant in my sequential work (see S-Type for an example of this ) But when Zuda's competition came along with the possibility of seeing some return on the time invested weather you win or not was the motivation and reason I needed to put that bill nagging internal voice in it's place. Since then I have rediscovered my love and drive for telling sequential story's and am much more focused towards making comics.

As for other publishers, I always thought it would be fun to put a pitch together but I think (looking at what was out there) I somewhere inside knew I wasn't ready for it....again see S-type as an example and of course I had that nagging voice that foolishly kept me from pursuing that type of thing properly. Zuda became something of a test for me, see where I was at with what I could do. A good thing too because, although I still love the idea of s-type and would love to continue it in the future, I don't think any publisher would have thrown their money behind it with what I had. Perhaps they would see an interesting idea but not knowing if it would have an audience or any legs at all I can't see it being green lite. Zuda on the other hand could look at it, make a small initial investment and see if that "interesting idea" could find an audience to support it. A system I like very much because it is more geared to saying yes and giving creators a shot than the one in which they have to dole out large sums of cash for an experimental property.

Physikon

JK: As a Zuda contestant, you're getting feedback via the comments section. What has that been like? Have you had any second thoughts about your entry based on any of the feedback you've received thus far?

Alex: Getting comments on Zuda has been glorious for me. Deviant art is great for an ego stroke, forums can be hit and miss but having other comic enthusiasts and creators around has been great in getting actual, useful, and precise feedback. And I think I have improved greatly from my first entry in large part due to these crits and comments. It is also great having the comments come in before the comics are completely finished I have more than once had an idea that I wanted to work into the comics (if they had continued of course) arise from peoples comments and crits. It is quite an exhilarating prospect to have the comic be a fluid thing that can change as it goes rather than just having a book out and hearing all of the crits at the end of the process.

JK: I'm also guessing you've had the chance to look at everyone else's submissions by now. If you weren't in this month's competition, who do you think you'd be voting for?

Alex: There is a plethora of great comics this month, a lot of really cool ideas and possibilities. But if I had to pick on that I would vote for it would be Bow & Arrow Detective Agency. Octane and Rogue are really cool ideas and beautiful comics but having watched Shyborgs work on deviant art and seeing the consistent quality of his work gives me that little bit of "faith" in the creator push that tips the scale towards it. If anyone thinks thats a dumb reason just think of the sigh of relief or feeling of despair you get when you hear what director has been assigned to a movie property you are a fan of. These things do matter

Check out more about Physikon at Alex's website, his deviantART site or on Twitter.

*****

A Stinking Corpse

A Stinking Corpse by Furman

JK: What's your entry about, and where did the idea come from?

Furman: Once a month I make myself come up with a new comic idea. Usually fantasy, the next one is sci fi!

A Stinking Corpse is a love story, in a nutshell the ugly ass frog needs to get a princess (or bar maid for that matter, status is not so important) to kiss (fall in love) with him to get out from under a life times worth of sinning and whoring. The catch is, not only is the guy incredibly ugly he is undead . If he does not find true love he has to wander around forever... This is all based in an alternate universe Europe in 73 BC...

JK: Is this your first comics work? If not, what else have you worked on? And what do you do when you aren't creating comics?

Furman: I have self published perhaps 16 comics that have never seen more than an audience of a hundred or so each. I did a comic called Into The After (2 issues) for Dakuwaka (Wowio) before I canceled it due to money issues. This is my third time on Zuda, 'Alone' and 'A Single Soul', my first two eight pagers.

During the day I am a cover, interior and card artist for the gaming industry, mostly fantasy and sci fi. Among the big ones... Conan, Lord OF The Rings, Dragonlance and Babylon 5.

JK: Why did you decide to enter your comic into the Zuda competition, versus, say, trying to publish it somewhere else or setting up your own site for it?

Furman: I love DC comics. I get a kick out of being on Zuda. All I ever really wanted was to be an inker for DC, maybe someday this will all get me there.

JK: As a Zuda contestant, you're getting feedback via the comments section. What has that been like? Have you had any second thoughts about your entry based on any of the feedback you've received thus far?

Furman: I agree with the majority of the fans. I am a decent artist and a crappy writer.

JK: I'm also guessing you've had the chance to look at everyone else's submissions by now. If you weren't in this month's competition, who do you think you'd be voting for?

Furman: They are all great! I do love that 'Ghost' guy's line work, though...

*****

Thanks again to Jeff Mccomsey for the name "Zudist Colony." Join me here again next month to learn more about the September contestants, and head over to the Zuda site to vote for your favorite this month.

Loviathan by Mike Cavallaro

ACT-I-VATE and IDW have now officially announced the ACT-I-VATE Primer I mentioned back in May, and have even posted a 17-page preview that features a page from each of the stories.

The ACT-I-VATE Primer is an anthology of stories by creators from the webcomics site, including Joe Infurnari, Roger Langridge, Mike Dawson, Nick Bertozzi, Tim Hamilton, Dean Haspiel, Simon Fraser, Molly Crabapple and John Leavitt, Mike Cavallaro, Pedro Camargo, Jim Dougan and Hyeondo Park, Ulises Farinas, Michel Fiffe, Maurice Fontenot, Jennifer Hayden and Leland Purvis.. The collection is due in October and will include a foreword by Warren Ellis.

JAMIE S. RICH: So, Chris, I suppose the best way to start is how you and I met. We both have stories in Portland Noir, the Kevin Sampsell-edited anthology that features crime stories set in the town where we both live. You and I started talking at an event for the anthology that was at Powell's Books, where you were reading and I was just hanging out. How did you end up in Portland Noir?

CHRIS A. BOLTON: First off, Jamie, thanks for inviting me to chat. In my day job, I work for Powells.com, sometimes doing data entry for book pages. A few years back, in 2005 or so, I was beefing up the pages for Akashic's Noir series when it occurred to me that there should be a Portland Noir. I emailed Akashic to inquire about it and they said they were planning to do one at some point in the future.

Fast-forward to spring 2008: I read in The Oregonian that Akashic was seeking submissions for the Portland anthology. And it was being edited by my co-worker, Kevin Sampsell, whom I knew mainly through email exchanges.

And what led to your specific story, "The Red Room"? You get to use a setting that is pretty unique: your workplace, Powell's City of Books. For folks who aren't from Portland, that's one of the largest and most revered bookstores in the U.S. It's just huge, and it has both new and used books. The graphic novel sections would blow most comics fans' minds.

I'd like to say it came to me instantly, but that would be lying. Each story in the Akashic Noir books is set in a different part of town, to give a feel for the overall city. My initial thought was to write about the Sunnyside area, since I've bounced around there for most of my ten years here, but that failed to generate much in the way of story ideas.

I can't recall precisely when Powell's jumped into my head, or why.

(Random aside: I need to start jotting down the genesis of ideas, because for some reason the lightning bolt is the first thing to eject from my memory. I've done a few interviews for Smash, and the first question is almost invariably, "What was your inspiration for the character?" I have a vague recollection--enough to provide a semi-coherent answer--but I cannot for the life of me recall my Dr. Frankenstein moment when I threw my head back and hollered to the stormy heavens, "Eureka! SMASH IS ALIVE!!!")

Anyway, as soon as I thought of Powell's, the years of colorful stories I'd heard from co-workers came flying at me, and I knew I had something. After all, it's a bookstore that encompasses an entire city block and is four stories tall! A lot of devious things can happen in that much space, and a great many honorable intentions can go horribly, utterly awry. I emailed Kevin with the idea and he was intrigued.

What about you? Did you come up with "Gone Doggy Gone" on your own impetus, or was it conceived specifically for the anthology? And did Kevin approach you, or did you come to him?

Kevin came to me. He knew that there was such a vibrant comics scene in Portland that it had to be represented somehow, and so he started to feel around for someone who might be willing to do it. I knew him from the late '90s or thereabouts, when we were both writing reviews for some of the Portland arts papers. He actually set me up with a reading at Powell's in 2000 when my first novel, Cut My Hair, was coming out. It was only after that I found out what a big deal that was, you just don't walk into Powell's and get a reading.

It was the perfect book at the right time for Joëlle and I. We were already working on our own crime-related stuff and were maybe about halfway through You Have Killed Me and Oni Press was on board for publishing it. I had also written, and I think she already drew, "The Jailhouse Swing" for the third Popgun, which was our boxing story. We both like stories where boxers are used as the heavies.

Anyway, I doubt Kevin knew that, but I had heard of the Akashic Noir series and jumped at it. I almost immediately had the idea that I wanted to work in my neighborhood, the upper Northwest, and I wanted to do something about a lost dog. It's loosely based on a sort of true, sort of urban legend from the neighborhood. A dog had gotten stolen, and there were these posters everywhere, it was on MySpace, the award kept getting bigger. I took that idea and thought, okay, where can that dog be and who should find him. I tied it back into the notion of Portland being a comics town by making our main character an indie cartoonist. It all kind of fit.

I remember asking you why you hadn't done a comic when we ran into each other, actually.

Honestly, it never occurred to me to submit a comic--but after I heard what you and Joëlle were doing, I was instantly envious! Kyle and I have talked about doing a noir comic based on Prohibition Rose, Portland's legendary bootlegger (who was, to my knowledge, the only woman bootlegger in the country), and I realized too late how perfect that would have been for this book. But you never know, maybe there will be a Portland Noir II...

There may have been one other city that had a comic story in the book, I am not sure. They kept calling it a "graphic story," and I was like, "No! That makes it sound like it's full of sex and violence!"

I've heard it was Wall Street Noir. Which... I mean, really? Does Wall Street scream "comics" to you? Makes me curious to check it out.

I guess we'll never really come to terms with the whole graphic novel/comic book labeling issue. At least manga has a name everyone can agree on!

So, have you participated in any of the readings yet? (And how would that go, exactly? Would you describe the panel to the audience or use an overhead projector?) Kevin does a great job hosting the events, coming up with a noirish intro for each writer. In mine he mentions my "suspicious" middle initial, wondering what it could stand for: "Adolf, Anarchy, Abraham? The mind races with possibilities."

For the record, it's "Addison." (Not nearly as cool as the suspicious versions.) I added it mainly because there are a great many Chris Boltons in this world. There was even another Chris Bolton working at Powell's a few years back, which caused much confusion.

As a fellow middle-initialer, I wonder how you feel about this. Did you add the "S." to be mysterious, or controversial...or because you run into a Jamie Rich everywhere you go?

I get asked about it all the time, and I haven't told anyone what it is in years. I never go on the record, and it became a gag with some local baristas at a coffee shop where I used to go and write, they'd write different guesses on my coffee cup. For me, I don't think I've ever run into another Jamie Rich, though I get Google Alerts for a guy who runs the Gay & Lesbian Film Festival in Kansas City. I added the middle initial when I was 10 or 11 because I was tired of being told I had a "girl's name" and decided to spruce it up. It just kind of stuck. It's funny, because I get annoyed when people refer to me verbally as Jamie S. Rich like it's some ostentatious thing, and I get annoyed when they drop it from something in print. You can't win with me.

I haven't done any readings for this story, but I did a performance of "The Jailhouse Swing" once. I broke it down by panels and did a power point. I also once did a reading from 12 Reasons Why I Love Her, my first book with Joëlle, where I took a few pages of script and pared it down to the essential narration and read it as a dialogue between the two characters. It worked pretty well.

Now, people are always curious when they talk to me about the difference between writing comics and prose. It seems to boggle the mind that one might do both. Personally, I have no problem going from one to the other, they serve different functions for me. What draws you to do something in prose vs. doing it as a comic story?

The biggest factors in choosing my medium are probably difficulty and available resources. In July I premiered a web-series called "Wage Slaves" (www.WageSlaveSeries.com) that I shot last summer, and spent most of the past year doing postproduction. Shooting a film or web-series is a huge undertaking, even with a minimal budget, so I have to really love a project to endure all of that. [IMG: cast.jpg]

By comparison, sitting down by yourself and creating all of the characters, settings, and dialogue on a piece of paper feels like a vacation. When it comes to prose, the strongest advantage for me is Voice. You can work that into film and comics, of course, but prose is where the author's voice is strongest because it's pervasive; if all you have is the author's words, then you're completely at the mercy of her Voice.

The only comic artist I'm involved with creatively (or even personally know) is my brother Kyle, who's too busy with the artwork for Smash to work on anything else, so that presently limits my options with comics. I hope that will change once we start hitting the convention circuit this year and I get to meet more artists.

I imagine you have a handy list of artists you can call up besides Joëlle when you have a comic idea. Does the nature of the project determine who you want to draw it, or is it more a matter of who's available and/or interested?

These days, I tend to write for the artist, I don't sit there and dream up a story and then wonder who might come with me on the expedition. In finding both Joëlle for 12 Reasons and Marc Ellerby for Love the Way You Love, it seemed like an endless trek to cast the right artist. It wasn't much fun, and I think part of that was trying to match something in my head, whatever vague image of what the book was supposed to look like. The flipside is now I have scripts, particularly for Joëlle, where I feel like I'd rather they not get done if she can't draw them. I don't want to readjust my thinking. I guess I'm an all or nothing kind of guy. Like, I would never want to work with anyone else on any follow-ups to You Have Killed Me. It just wouldn't be right.

You Have Killed Me

I think, especially in that case, the reader would also feel it wasn't right. More and more I find myself envying the writer/artist "two-fers," creators like Jeff Smith, Art Spiegelman, Alison Bechdel, and Craig Thompson, who don't have to rely on a creative partner to tell their stories in comic form.

On a related note, I love the portrait of the Portland comics scene in "Gone Doggy Gone," with the split between mainstream and indie creators. How close-knit is the Portland comics scene? I'm still a stranger to the community, but I hope to get a little closer after next year's Stumptown Fest. The fest has filled up before the application deadline two years in a row; next year we're submitting our application two seconds after they open!

A couple of years ago, Scott McCloud gave a presentation at the main branch of the Portland library where he noted that comics tend to be tribal, and that Portland is full of many tribes. (Though, now that I say this, I am starting to wonder if it was Scott or Douglas Wolk who made that point…) I elbowed Joëlle and said we must be our own tribe, since we tend to mostly hang out with ourselves. It's a little high school. The cliques all get along, but we still have cliques. That's also just geography, we are scattered. When we do come together, though, it can be fun. The Top Shelf guys hang out with the Oni guys, the different comic book store owners go to each other's events. I guess things have changed a little, too, since I've joined a book club that is all comic book professionals. It's really fun, though sometimes our literature discussions get derailed by industry gossip.

I like the notion of comic tribes roaming this city. Right now I'm something of a ronin, but I'm always looking for a group to join forces with. Maybe that should be a Craigslist ad: "Comic-writing ronin seeks like-minded samurai for Southeast Portland-based tribe."

Of course, in addition to your comics, you've written several novels yourself (including Cut My Hair, which I read in 2001 and completely related to). What makes you decide which form to use for which idea? What are the different functions that you mentioned?

Honestly, it's never a question for me what form an idea will take. I either have a comic book idea or I have a prose idea. I just know when it hits me. It's weird, I have a hard time getting some people to understand that, and I've been pretty adamant against switching gears midway. I have a script called This World and Body that was once suggested to me would be an easier "sell" as prose, and it made me have very violent thoughts against the person suggesting it. It's a script that is so fundamentally visual, to turn it into prose would be to suck the specialness right out. Like plucking the feathers off a chicken and sending it on its way. People are just going to wonder what happened to that chicken.

I love that analogy! It's just a shame Hollywood so often ignores the chicken and lunges for the handful of feathers. I wrote a screenplay for an animated film about lemmings that got some nibbles, but was ultimately deemed "too dark" for kids. Apparently, even the notion of mass suicide is a turn-off. But if you asked any child what a lemming is, they'd tell you (erroneously) it's a little rodent that stampedes to its death in the ocean. So, what's the problem here?

I've often considered trying to adapt it into a children's book or a comic series in the Asterix vein, but each time I try...well, your chicken analogy never occurred to me before, but it certainly will from now on.

Recently, I wrote a prose sequel to Love the Way You Love, and it was one of the toughest things I've ever done, just changing how I viewed the characters, getting a prose groove going. Even though it was successful, the difficulty of it...well, I think it proved my point. "Don't do that again!" For me, comics provide something a little looser, a little more free, while also more tightly structured--you must work within pages and panels, it must be a certain length. It's where I can collaborate, where I can start the process and let someone else finish it and share ideas. Prose is more private, it's all me. There's a split that fits my Gemini personality. Again, it keeps being all or nothing with me.

In your "Red Room" story, there is a feeling that some of the participants in the crime aren't really criminals. They are playing "dress-up," as it were, they are taking on the role and almost living out a fantasy. Is this something you thought about? Is it maybe a theme of yours? I ask because I don't think your Smash character is that different in that sense: it's a little kid putting on a costume and being his favorite hero. It's like Calvin actually getting powers in Calvin & Hobbes--which I guess would make him Captain Marvel, talking tiger and all, wouldn't it?

I hadn't really thought about that, but it makes a lot of sense. I try to avoid easy labels and flip expectations whenever possible, and I'm also enormously fascinated by the various roles people play in their own lives. Perhaps it comes from spending so much time in a day job and having to clarify to people that I'm really a writer/filmmaker/ballerina/what-have-you.

In the case of "The Red Room," I didn't want any of the characters to be what they seemed--the client wasn't really an anarchist punk, the crooks are actually cops, and the main character is definitely not a detective or an action hero. In fact, strangely enough, I envisioned him very similarly to the way Joëlle draws Craig in "Gone Doggy Gone."

Wow--I guess you're right about Calvin turning into Captain Marvel. Although, I think Stupendous Man would have wreaked a lot more havoc...and I can't imagine Calvin with actual powers staying on the side of good.

Incidentally, I like Captain Marvel (well, I liked Jeff Smith's version of him), but I think the major flaw in that character is he becomes an ADULT superhero. When I was a kid, I didn't want to be an adult--I didn't really like or understand adults. I wanted to stay a KID, but have the freedom to do what I want--and super-powers, of course. Rather than the kid being the hero of the story, with Captain Marvel it's like they just rolled the hero and the sidekick into one body.

Yeah, I wanted to be a kid that had extraordinary abilities and could whoop an adult's butt. That's the sweeter revenge. "You think I'm a weak kid? I'll show you!"

I just took a Facebook quiz the other day, the one where it tells you which Calvin alter-ego you are, and funnily enough, I got his private detective persona, Tracer Bullet. I didn't cheat or anything. And that oh-so-insightful quiz leads me to why I asked the question, that there is something inherent in what we do, regardless of genre, that is fundamentally us whether we know it or not. One of the common reactions to You Have Killed Me is surprise at how well I have transitioned from relationship literature to a pretty straightforward genre piece, and in answering that, I realized--and so did some of the askers--that my previous characters aren't all that different. I write about people searching for something, looking for answers to big questions, and a dead body can just be a stand-in for a personal foible.

And maybe now people will stop wondering, "Did this really happen to you?" Or I can pull my gat out of my trenchcoat and say, "Yes, yes, it did."

I took that same quiz and my result was "Safari Al," a character so obscure that, despite re-reading every Calvin & Hobbes book each year for the past 20 years, I didn't recognize him. (He was in one strip, which I remembered once I found it, but the mention of his name is so brief and insignificant that it sailed right past me.) I don't know what to make of the implications of that, so I'm trying not to read too deeply into it. At least he carries a machete.

As for your "transition," I'm not at all surprised by it. I felt that 12 Reasons Why I Love Her had a genuine noir edge: the search through the past for answers to something inherently unknowable, Joëlle's use of chiaroscuro lighting (I recall at one point there's even the noir staple of light slatted through blinds), and the nonlinear storytelling, which used to be almost exclusively confined to the crime genre (you had to go backwards and forwards to figure out how and why the crime happened) but has recently become more accepted into "mainstream" storytelling. It was noir looking for a crime, and I can't wait to see what happens with You Have Killed Me.

12 Reasons is one of those books that jumped off the shelves at me, and every single page was impressive. I must confess, I did slip into the trap of wondering, "Is this based on the writer's experience?" I think it's nearly impossible to avoid that when it feels like a very personal and intimate story. That seems like it should be a compliment to the writer, but I think it's more of a frustrating no-win situation. If you took it from your own life, there's an implication that you didn't actually have to write (as in, create) anything (WRONG). Whereas, if it is fiction, it's great that you "fooled" the reader, but they're probably going to think you just took it from your own life anyway.

Yeah, you have to be kind of polite and nod when people say that, and tell them no, it isn't me, that didn't happen, etc. Naturally, some of it did, some germ of reality makes it through, but I'm usually quite honest and say that the things that did happen would surprise them in how obscure and insignifcant they are. Though, none of You Have Killed Me is based on real life at all. Except me and Mercer both like having conversations with cats.

It's funny, I have a hard enough time getting words on paper the way they first arrange themselves in my head, I can't imagine trying to be true to an actual event. It always changes. It's like when people look at a performance by someone in a movie and say, "He is just playing himself," like that's nothing. I always say, "Can I put a camera on you, then, and have you recite lines I wrote for you?" They'd find it's not so easy.

You and Joëlle seem like a perfect creative match. Is the collaboration as smooth as it appears, or are there ever disagreements and friction?

Nothing too dramatic. We've had points where we haven't fully agreed on a decision, but we always talk it out. It's never turned into a big deal. It's usually just moving stuff around, maybe changing how we approach something. I've never changed a word of dialogue, though, I don't think, and I've never made her redraw a panel to match my own vision. We both are pretty respectful of the other's instincts, and once we hear the case for why something is the way it is, we trust the other person. With You Have Killed Me, we talked about the story as I wrote it, so any major objections on her part could be sorted out sooner rather than later. Stuff like layouts or small, inconsequential details that don't play well on the page, that's her prerogative to edit out.

What about you? You're working with your brother, so is there sibling rivalry or old childhood resentments that ever come out? Did you guys create Smash together?

Most of our friction comes from the involuntary muscle spasm siblings develop when they have to share a bedroom for the first ten years of their lives. Luckily, we've managed to overcome that "You aren't the boss of me!" pettiness. I almost never give Kyle notes on his art anymore--I agree with your notion that it's the artist's prerogative. However, I sometimes have to remind him that I need to include a large chunk of exposition in a given panel, and if he doesn't leave me room at the top, someone is going to get his head chopped off by a razor-sharp plot point.

The only real difficulty I have anymore is having to defend small details that are present for the sake of the narrative. I like to toss out a lot of plot/character seeds that can sprout later, or just lie there unnoticed if I decide not to use them. But if Kyle doesn't understand why something's there, he'll challenge me on it--which is good, because then I have to explain my thought process: "This is because, in episode three of Season 2, the Magus is going to buy a Cold Stone franchise, so I'm setting up his childhood love of ice cream that the reader didn't realize at the time would be a major plot development..." In doing so, I sometimes realize what a lame idea it is (the Magus is not buying a Cold Stone franchise). Other times, Kyle confirms that it's a good idea, and even seems impressed that his older brother is capable of plotting that far ahead.

We didn't actually create Smash together: I came up with the initial concept, he designed the character, and it evolved from there. Since then, I would say it's been a very mutual collaboration--there's no element of the series, from the characters and their backstories to their costumes and powers, that we don't contribute to equally. And sometimes, fight about passionately...but always for the good of the comic!

In writing crime, I find it's far more exacting than the relationship stuff. I had to go back a lot and lay down things I didn't now I needed. Like, "Stick a razor in his desk drawer on this page so people won't be confused when he shaves on this next page." I was done with You Have Killed Me before Joëlle even started, so it was pretty easy to make sure she knew what was important and what may just be my fanciful thinking.

What's next for you, Jamie? Do you have any plans to revisit Craig from "Gone Doggy Gone"? Could there be a noir series about a down-on-his-luck indie comic creator who keeps stumbling into the criminal underbelly of Northwest Portland?

Nah, Craig is dead and buried in my mind. I had such a hard time writing that story, he's not really my favorite boyfriend right now, anyway. It's funny, it was one of the more difficult things I've ever worked on. There is an unfinished earlier draft, and a whole other separate script called "You Cross My Path" that has nothing to do with a dog or cartoonists or anything that we decided not to do in favor of "Doggy." It's way, way darker, plays up the anti-California xenophobia you find in Portland, as well as an old school punk vs. young hip-hop white suburbanites. And indie rockers. And drug-dealing cabbies.

My immediate future is another left turn, a high-school comedy about witches called Spell Checkers that Joëlle and I co-created, and we're working with an artist from France named Nicolas Hitori de. That's the one thing that's in production. I have some prose that I am currently shopping around, some stuff with Joëlle we hope to get to one day--she's a busy girl. She's doing Dr. Horrible comics for Dark Horse, and some issues of Madame Xanadu for Vertigo, and she's got lots of offers besides.

What about you? To wrap this up, what's the plan for Smash? You have "Season One" just about finished, correct? What is next for the little guy, and are there non-Smash comics in your future?

I've caught an online preview of Spell Checkers and I'm really looking forward to it. However, I'm dismayed to discover I haven't pointed something out yet, so let me say for the record: Joëlle's art is fantastic! The idea of her illustrating a Dr. Horrible comic fills me with enough glee to break into song. (Almost.)

Right now I'm busy planning and writing the next seasons of Smash and "Wage Slaves." This summer, Kyle and I had planned to work on a pitch for a new comic series, a supernatural comedy-thriller, during our (brief) hiatus from Smash. But we're also seeking a publisher to put out a Season One collection, so we're finding our hands a little fuller than we'd anticipated. Still, it's hard to complain about that.

Every now and again, I find myself pulling out the ol' Moleskin notebook and scribbling another chapter of a novel with my protagonist from the Portland Noir story. Except I'm going to have to change his name. He was dubbed "Jacob Black" a long time before a young adult romance novel about vampires became a huge success and the former Cedric Diggory forever claimed that title for himself.

And on that note...thanks again, Jamie, it's been fun! Anytime you want to continue this chat over beers, just drop me a line.

Sure. But if we're going to sit around and talk about more crime, make it something stiffer. We're writers, we've got a reputation to uphold! [insert laughter here]

Eisner Awards

And we're up! I had some technical difficulties with the wireless in the Eisners very lovely new venue at the new Hilton Bayfront Hotel, but it seems to be working for now.

In any event, here's who has won so far ... these first two were presented by comedian Patton Oswalt:

Best Publication for Kids: Tiny Titans, by Art Baltazar and Franco (DC)

Best Publication for Teens/Tweens: Coraline, by Neil Gaiman, adapted by P. Craig Russell (HarperCollins Children’s Books)

While Eisner winner Neil Gaiman presented these three ...

Best Coloring: Dave Stewart, Abe Sapien: The Drowning, BPRD, The Goon, Hellboy, Solomon Kane, The Umbrella Academy (Dark Horse);

Best Lettering:Chris Ware, Acme Novelty Library #19 (Acme)

Best Webcomic: Finder, by Carla Speed McNeil

Mark Evanier and the legendary Jerry Robinson presented the Bill Finger Excellence in Comics Writing Award to John Broome and Frank Jacobs. Murphy Anderson accepted on behalf of John Broome.

Next awards are being presented by Reno 911 stars Tom Lennon and Robert Ben Garant ...

Best Penciller/Inker or Penciller/Inker Team: Guy Davis, BPRD (Dark Horse)

Best Painter/Multimedia Artist: Jill Thompson, Magic Trixie, Magic Trixie Sleeps Over (HarperCollins Children’s Books)

Best Cover Artist: James Jean, Fables (Vertigo/DC); The Umbrella Academy (Dark Horse)

Next presenter is G4's Blair Butler ...

The comics journalism award is up next. I'm sitting next to one of the nominees, Jonah Weiland ...

CBR won the Eisner!!!

Best Comics-Related Book: Kirby: King of Comics, by Mark Evanier (Abrams)

Best Publication Design: Hellboy Library Editions, designed by Cary Grazzini and Mike Mignola (Dark Horse)

Tate's Comics in Fort Lauderdale won the Spirit of Retailing Award.

Having technical difficulties ... apologies for the delay

Jeff Smith and Terry Moore presented the following ...

Best Archival Collection/Project—Strips: Little Nemo in Slumberland, Many More Splendid Sundays, by Winsor McCay (Sunday Press Books)

Best Archival Collection/Project—Comic Books: Creepy Archives, by various (Dark Horse)

Best Humor Publication: Herbie Archives, by “Sean O’Shea” (Richard E. Hughes) and Ogden Whitney (Dark Horse)

Jason Lutes and Seth now presenting ...

Best U.S. Edition of International Material: The Last Musketeer, by Jason (Fantagraphics)

Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Japan: Dororo, by Osamu Tezuka (Vertical)

Russ Manning Promising Newcomer Award presented by Mike Royer -- winner is Eleanor Davis, writer/artist of Stinky

Hall of fame inductees: Two are judge's choice -- Harold Gray, Graham Ingels.

Also inducted: Russ Heath, Matt Baker, Jerry Iger and Reed Crandall

Seduction of the Innocent is giving the next set of awards ...

Best Writer: Bill Willingham, Fables, House of Mystery (Vertigo/DC)

Best Writer/Artist: Chris Ware, Acme Novelty Library (Acme)

Phil LaMarr presenting the next set of awards ...

Best New Series: Invincible Iron Man, by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larocca (Marvel)

Best Limited Series: Hellboy: The Crooked Man, by Mike Mignola and Richard Corben (Dark Horse)

Best Continuing Series: All Star Superman. by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely (DC)

Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award presented to Denis Kitchen

Matt Wagner and Amy Reeder Hadley presenting the next awards ...

Best Short Story: “Murder He Wrote,” by Ian Boothby, Nina Matsumoto, and Andrew Pepoy, in The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror #14 (Bongo)

Best Anthology: Comic Book Tattoo: Narrative Art Inspired by the Lyrics and Music of Tori Amos, edited by Rantz Hoseley (Image)

Jane Wiedlin and Maurice LaMarche presenting next ...

Best Reality-Based Work: What It Is, by Lynda Barry (Drawn & Quarterly)

Best Graphic Album—Reprint: Hellboy Library Edition, vols. 1 and 2, by Mike Mignola (Dark Horse)

Best Graphic Album—New: Swallow Me Whole, by Nate Powell (Top Shelf)

Congrats to all the winners!

Zuda

Today we kick off a bit of an experiment that hopefully will end up becoming a regular monthly feature. It's called Zudist Colony (thanks to Jeff Mccomsey for the name), and the idea is to interview all the contestants in Zuda's monthly competition.

Zuda, of course, is DC's webcomics site, where every month ten comic strips go head-to-head, and the one that gets the most votes goes on to be a regular strip on the site. The site started hosting these competitions in late 2007. Every so often we'll receive a request from one of the competitors, asking us to interview them, run some artwork, etc. to help them promote their entry -- which I certainly don't begrudge anyone for doing, as getting the word out about your strip is a big piece of the puzzle when it comes to the competition. And it may sound cheesy, but I've always felt that it wasn't fair to showcase one strip over another, that if I interviewed one of the competitors, I really needed to interview all of them. So I turned down the requests.

But I started thinking about it -- why can't I interview all of them? So I dropped a couple of emails, and soon had the email addresses for all the competitors. I should note that I sent the same five questions to all the contestants, and told them that their entire team -- writer, artist, etc. -- could answer them.

Anyway, that might be a little too "insider baseball" for everyone, so if you'd like to get on with reading their responses, just click on the "Continue Reading" link and have at it ...

*****

John Bivens, The Adventures of Mr. Simian

JK: Tell me a little bit about yourself -- is this your first comic-creating experience, or have you done other work in the field? What do you do when you aren't creating comics?

John: Okay, I graduated from Northern Illinois University about two years ago with a degree in illustration. Since graduating I've worked with Sam Costello for his Split Lip anthology, wrote and illustrated the story "Leather" in the Comic Book Tattoo anthology, competed at Zuda once before with writer and current competitor Justin Jordan. Currently, aside from the competition, I'm working on a graphic novel with writer Elizabeth Genco, and a couple of other comics with writers Josh Hechinger and Brandon Seifert. Then there's personal projects... that I will get to eventually.

When not doing the comic work, full-time day job and trying to spend time with my girlfriend.

JK: What's your comic about, and where did the idea for it come from?

John: Wanted to make a sci-fi, humor, buddy comic. Also, I remember reading an interview (when I was little) with a cartoonist who said, "Everything is better with monkeys." The idea gestated for a while, then I had to draw it.

JK: How much of your story do you have mapped out at this point, beyond the eight pages that you submitted to Zuda? And how did you decide what to put into those eight pages?

John: Probably have enough rough stories in my head to last at least three years (if I rushed it). The first eight pages are a simple introduction; I didn't want anything too convoluted.

JK: What are you doing to market your comic this month?

John: My marketing approach has been advertising on various forums, and using MySpace, Facebook and Twitter as much as possible. I've created a series of advertising illustrations that will pop up at these forums and sites as the month moves along.

JK: So no matter how great all the submissions are in a given month, there can be only one. Even if you don't win, do you plan to continue with your strip in another venue?

John: There's enough stories that I'm hoping to. I have a few places in mind, and will approach if the Zuda thing doesn't pan out.

*****

Tyler James, Interrogation Control Element

JK: Tell me a little bit about yourself -- is this your first comic-creating experience, or have you done other work in the field? What do you do when you aren't creating comics?

Tyler: The Interrogation Control Element (ICE) creative team is four strong. It was conceived and written by me, Tyler James, who Zudaheads may remember from April 2008's competition, where my comic Super Seed finished 4th (behind two eventual Zuda contract winners.) I've been writing and drawing comics for most of the last fifteen years, and am currently the writer/artist of Over, a romantic comedy online graphic novel that debuted last month, and Tears of the Dragon, a fantasy epic, which began its weekly run the 14th of July. When not making funny books, I work as a video game designer and content produce for a small software company, and teach making comics to kids and adults.

I've been joined on ICE by the kick ass art team of penciller/ inker Damian Couceiro and colorist Paul Little. Damian is an award winning artist from Argentina, who is most known for his work on Joe Casey's Full Moon Fever, for AIT Planet Lar. Paul is a workhorse colorist who has made pretty such titles as Bomb Queen (Shadowline/ Image Comics), Dynamo 5 (Image Comics) and The Matriarch (Arcana Studios). (I've also grabbed him for work on Tears of the Dragon. He's too good!) And rounding out the team is editor Steven Forbes, who is copy-editor of Warmageddon Quarterly, co-writer of indy hit Fallen Justice, and writer of two must-read columns for any aspiring comics writers, Bolts & Nuts and The Proving Ground.

JK: What's your comic about, and where did the idea for it come from?

Tyler: ICE is a story that was inspired by a New York Times article about Deuce Martinez, the CIA interrogator who broke Al Qaeda mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Unlike his colleagues, who were using "enhanced interrogation techniques" to try to break prisoners, Deuce took a different, more cerebral approach. And he was incredibly effective and got the guy talking.

I thought such a character could make for a compelling protagonist. And as I started doing my research on interrogators in the war on terror, it was clear there was a very powerful story to be told here, and one that we haven't seen much of in film or comics.

As for the story, ICE takes place in a post-Guantanamo Bay world and tells the story of Trip Higgins, a brilliant senior interrogator for the U.S. military. Trip was one of the most effective interrogators in Iraq and Afghanistan earlier in the decade, a by the book kind of guy who used his wits, psychological ruses, and other legal means to consistently break prisoners and provide valuable, accurate intel to his superiors. However, as other interrogators seemed to rely more on those so called "enhanced interrogation techniques" and his superiors turned a blind eye, Trip became disillusioned with his work and left the military.

Jump forward several years and a new administration, and Trip is chosen to become the senior echo (chief of interrogators) of a new Interrogation Control Element on American soil. Here, Trip will be training a young group of 'gators how to break the nation's most valuable (and in some cases deadliest) prisoners, within the bounds of the Geneva Conventions. Some of the young interrogators will be extremely wet behind the ears, while others have done this job in the past and may have a different view on the effectiveness and legality of enhanced interrogation, creating conflict with Trip.

Trip's counterpoint is Fazul Shallah, a brutal extremist who, after an eight month stint in an Afghan prison, decides to eliminate the leadership of his multi-national terrorist organization and assume control himself. Once he's solidified his control, Shallah coordinates a series of terrible terrorist attacks and soon becomes Trip's team's number one priority. When faced with such a ruthless enemy, Trip's by-the-book tactics and respect for the rule of law will be tested, and the two men with diametrically opposed views are set on a collision course.

JK: How much of your story do you have mapped out at this point, beyond the eight pages that you submitted to Zuda? And how did you decide what to put into those eight pages?

Tyler: Well, there are another couple of pages already drawn by Damian and ready to go, but that was more because I decided I wanted to swap in a different short scene within my crucial eight submission pages. The story is mapped out. I've written it as if it were a limited graphic novel series or a feature film. So, all of the major beats, highs and lows, beginning middle and end, etc. are mapped out and a few choice sequences are detailed. Damian's also been working on some character designs for the rest of our cast who didn't make the initial 8 pages. But, should we win, I'll definitely have some full-scripting to do. (But hey, that's what they're paying us for, right?)

As for what to include, I think I was able to squeeze as much story into the initial eight pages as I could without going overboard. I felt I needed to set up the world, firmly establish the protagonist, introduce the main antagonist, and set the table for what's to come. It was important I also gave Damian the chance to show off his chops artwise, and I think he delivered.

JK: What are you doing to market your comic this month?

Tyler: What aren't I doing to market this thing? I pretty much feel that's all I've been doing for the past week. There's Twitter posts and updates (you're following me at @tylerjamescomic, right?) I've been doing some on the fly contests through Twitter and hooking people up with some gorgeous ICE prints. I've been running some Project Wonderful ads, but I'm determined not to blow my whole DC Comics check on marketing this time around. (That's the sneakiest thing about the Zuda business plan. Their outlays paying contestants for their work double as advertising. Pretty brilliant.)

Additionally, I whipped up a super cool trailer that has gotten a ton of hits over on YouTube. Watch it. It'll tingle those patriotic goosebumps Americans get when we here The Star Spangled Banner. I've banner ads on all my comic sites, and I'm currently running new content on FOUR different comic sites concurrently with the Zuda contest. So, check out Over, Super Seed, Tears of the Dragon, and CounterTerror if you need more comic goodness from me.

You know, despite the international nature of Zuda competitions, this is not American Idol. It doesn't take a million votes to win. In fact, it's more like a high school student body election. But you gotta work for those votes. The "best" comic has no guarantee to win. In fact, you can guarantee the "best" comic won't win if they don't match the intensity and hard work they put into the submission with beating the bushes to get the word out.

JK: So no matter how great all the submissions are in a given month, there can be only one. Even if you don't win, do you plan to continue with your strip in another venue?

Tyler: That's a great question. You know, the sad part of Zuda, is that there are a whole host of comics that were well-regarded, found an audience, clearly of quality, and yet came up short. The graveyard of Zuda runner-ups is full of a lot of good comics.

From a creator's standpoint, something bugs me about creators putting a ton of work into their comic, promoting the holy hell out of it, getting positive, constructive feedback on it, and then abandoning it completely because they aren't going to get the Zuda contract. As if Zuda is the be all and end all of webcomics.

Don't get me wrong, I love Zuda and I think it would be a tremendous opportunity. But there are SO many other things you can do with your comic properties! For example, I launched Over, a webcomic I'm self-publishing on its own site, overcomic.com, last month and it ended up getting about three times as many page views in a month as Super Seed did when it competed on Zuda. And that's without heavy advertising, the draw of the competition and the marketing might of DC/Warner Bros. Yes, Zuda is good exposure, but it's still just a small portion of the vast ocean that is webcomics.

All that being said, we may not choose to go full steam ahead with ICE should we not win the Zuda contract. This is for two reasons. First, ICE is a hard book to write. Writing realistic fiction, dealing with highly controversial, straight from the headlines topics, without any supernatural, suspension of disbelief stuff, is very very difficult. Because, the more realistic the world setting you're writing, the quicker people are to call bullshit on something that seems far fetched or inaccurate. With a jovial ribbing, this isn't a problem with entries where you have a talking lab rat and a car-driving monkey. Pretty much anything goes at that point. (I am a fan, though, Mr. Bivens.) Second, ICE is an expensive story to produce. Regardless of whether or not ICE is your favorite submission, from the comments thread on Zuda, there is pretty much universal agreement that this is a professional, quality submission. Professional work costs money. Damian and Paul both cut me a deal on page rates for the Zuda submission and were awesome to do so. Guys, Damian is a star in the making and the sky is the limit for this guy. And Paul is coloring God knows how many books every month. These guys more than earn their paychecks. Unfortunately, at the moment it would be awful tough for me to pay them what they're worth and foot the bill for a run of the full mini-series/graphic novel, without a publishing deal lined up. (Hint, hint, publishers.)

Regardless though, the story will get told. This will probably be the next feature length screenplay I write. (Everyone says you need at least two spec scripts...I only have one at present.) But I would absolutely LOVE to continue it on Zuda, and for the rest of the month, I'll be doing everything in my power to make that happen.

*****

Jeff Mccomsey and Jorge Vega, Bloody Pulp

JK: Tell me a little bit about yourself -- is this your first comic-creating experience, or have you done other work in the field? What do you do when you aren't creating comics?

Jeff: My name is Jeff McComsey. I live in Lancaster, Pennsylvania with my girlfriend Samantha. I‘ve got an ongoing, creator-owned series called American Terror: Confession of a Human Smart Bomb published by the fine folks at Alterna Comics, as well as a series I’m working on with Jorge called 9 Months. I also try and do as many short stories as my schedules allow, recently I’ve done a few for fellow Alterna creator and all around swell guy, Stephen Lindsay’s Jesus Hates Zombies. When I’m not working on projects, I try an make up for the time I’ve spent neglecting friends and family because of being glued to the drawing board.

Jorge: I'm the writer/creator/co-creator of several titles. I published an original graphic novel, Gunplay, last year with artist Dominic Vivona and Platinum Studios. Shortly after that, I started two indie press labels, Kidkong Entertainment and Two Fisted Press. Kidkong is a family friendly label. I publish a book call Kaeru-Boy there with artist/co-founder, Darrin Stephens. Two Fisted Press is a place for grittier, more mature stories. I publish another title called 9 Months there with Jeff McComsey. 2FP is also the birthplace of our Zuda entry, Bloody Pulp. Outside of comics, I'm a full time educator at a K-9 school in Massachusetts. I'm also a geeky family man, with three kids and a wife who is supportive enough to let me sink a good bit of our money into self-publishing.

JK: What's your comic about, and where did the idea for it come from?

Jorge: Bloody Pulp is the story of John "Pulp" Polpowski, the kind of guy you only see if you owe the wrong people a lot of money. He's a 1930's leg breaker who carries a dangerous secret; he's been quietly relocating some of the people he's been paid to kill. He's been moving them to an undisclosed farm house in the middle of nowhere. A place where they can get a fresh start. A place where the sins of the past dissolve in the present. This is the house that Pulp built and the rules are simple: No one leaves... EVER. But there's nothing simple about the arrival of Eustace Parks, a Negro band leader who has drawn the attention of the Kansas City syndicate-- the wrong kind of attention. When Eustace arrives, his presence causes lines to be drawn, passions to ignite and horrible acts to be carried out, leading to an epic standoff that will measure just how far Pulp is willing to go to bring order to his house.

Jeff and I had our first discussion about Bloody Pulp on the last day of NYCC 2008, over a sandwich. We were both interested in what Zuda had to offer and Jeff already had the beginnings of the Pulp character in his head-- "a guy who's supposed to be a killer but isn't... except for when he is". Jeff also had the title picked out. For the record, I actually tried to get him to change it. Terribleterribleterrible idea, I know. My bad. Fortunately, Jeff is a lot smarter than I am and we kept it. A week later, I sent Jeff an 8 page script which would eventually become the submission now being showcased at Zuda.

Jeff: I’ve always been fascinated by the character that we see in films, novels and comics whose sole purpose is to make the main bad guys look badder. The guy next to the guy, if you will. Pulp is that guy who makes a good antagonist even nastier. I’ve always felt those guys and girls had great stories in them, Bloody Pulp has allowed me to finally tell the story of one of these characters. The other thing is I love a good period piece story.

JK: How much of your story do you have mapped out at this point, beyond the eight pages that you submitted to Zuda? And how did you decide what to put into those eight pages?

Jorge: We have all the story revolving Pulp and Eustace completely mapped and plotted out, as well as several of the subplots involving the other "guests" at Pulp's house. When it came time to actually decide on what we'd submit to Zuda, Jeff gave me a fair bit of elbow room.

Jeff: I’ve worked with Jorge before and know what he’s capable of as a writer and this Bloody Pulp script just far exceeded what I expected. He had taken my vague concept and given it depth, character and most importantly made it work in eight pages. He had come up with this band leader character named Eustace Parks as Pulp’s first “job” we see. The introduction of Eustace in my opinion insured that the story wouldn’t just become a bad re hash of other more successful gangster stories.

Jorge: I've put together quite a few pitches in the last three years and it's my opinion that, if you only have a few pages to grab someone's attention, you should ALWAYS START IN THE MIDDLE OF YOUR STORY or, in the case of BLOODY PULP, the middle of the beginning. If you've crafted your plot correctly, the MIDDLE should be an intense and exciting part to drop readers blindly into. Furthermore, if you tweak it for pitch purposes, you can very easily introduce all of your pivotal players, infuse some key character development and get to the heart of your story without all the boring exposition. That's exactly what we've tried to do in our Bloody Pulp pitch.

JK: What are you doing to market your comic this month?

Jeff: We've came up with a whole campaign from original promotional art, down to a weekly contests to win a “pulped up” avatar. The promotional art ranges from a poster for Eustace Parks and the Kansas City High Hats performance at the Half Moon Lounge, to a riff on the old Uncle Sam “I want you” poster with Pulp in the Uncle Sam role asking viewers to register and vote at Zudacomics.com. The plan is to release a piece of promotional art a week, so far so good! The Pulped up Avatar contest sprang from the matching Pulped up portraits I did for myself and Jorge to promote the submission. Basically I just drew portraits of the two of us after an ass whooping from Pulp. The contest goes like this: you get as many folks to sign up, vote and favorite Bloody Pulp as you can, you ask those you referred to leave your name in a comment in the talk back section on Bloody Pulp’s Zuda page. At the end of the week whoever has the most mentions gets an original piece of art featuring their mug all busted up.

Then there's the Facebook group for fans, our regularly updating Twitter feeds and TwoFistedFress.com-- the de-facto Bloody Pulp blog.

Jorge: In addition to all that, we've reached out to our network of family, friends, fans and fellow creators and asked them to help us. More specifically, we sent an email out to all of them. The email relayed the good news about our being accepted into July's Zuda competition and then said "we're contacting you because we'd like your support. We have a PLAN for each one of you. Please reply to this email if you're interested in hearing how you can help us." And then we waited to hear back. There was no follow up email, no SPAM, and within 24 hours we heard back from every person we contacted and more than 97 percent of them replied with "What do you need me to do?" Your biggest supporters are the people right around you (relatively speaking for the web). START WITH THE PEOPLE YOU KNOW. Invite them to be a part of what you're doing. Don't waste their time. Don't expect THEM to figure out a way to help you. HELP THEM HELP YOU and TELL them exactly what you need from them. Delegate jobs based on their skills and/or spheres influence. And when they've completed that first set of tasks, thank them for it and then give them two or three new things to do. People WANT to help you. But they want direction too.

JK: So no matter how great all the submissions are in a given month, there can be only one. Even if you don't win, do you plan to continue with your strip in another venue?

Jeff: Yeah, the story Jorge and I have cooked up has got into my guts. If we don’t get the much coveted #1 spot this story will continue. Stay tuned!

Jorge: Absolutely. Even if we don't win, Zuda has already proven to be invaluable as its given us the opportunity to see how this story would/will resonate with readers. The response has been overwhelmingly positive with folks like blogger Rob Berry praising Bloody Pulp as "something rare in handling, a pitch that presents readers with a quick overview of when and where to establish context, but pulls off a flip on the preconceptions we might hold that limit period to genre. In television that was Deadwood. This month at Zuda it’s the eight clean and straight-forward pages of Bloody Pulp." If this story can trigger THAT kind of response, well, yeah... we plan on continuing this comic win, lose or draw.

*****

Alberto Lanzillotti and Manuel Bracchi, 9th Year

JK: Tell me a little bit about yourself -- is this your first comic-creating experience, or have you done other work in the field? What do you do when you aren't creating comics?

Alberto: We have an online-comics website called Abelard Studio since 2001. 9th Year is one of several projects we set up in those years.

Manuel: I'm a professional comic artist here in Italy, and I’m a member of the Abelard Studio too. I’m also the co-writer of 9th Year.

JK: What's your comic about, and where did the idea for it come from?

Alberto: We like sci-fi and fantasy, so we tried to imagine what could happen after a classic fantasy war in our world. All the incipit part of “9th year” may sounds like a déjà-vu: the battle between good and evil, the chosen one’s sacrifice...and so on, but what will happen next? In “9th Year”, governments and military forces have forgotten the people living in isolated places who have now to fight the monsters hiding in the woods.

JK: How much of your story do you have mapped out at this point, beyond the eight pages that you submitted to Zuda? And how did you decide what to put into those eight pages?

Alberto: The story mapped out at this point…is just the beginning! We decided to show all the main characters and some typical scenes, but it’s nothing but a small part of the project.

Manuel: Yes, we tried to show just the atmosphere of the whole story by now.

JK: What are you doing to market your comic this month?

Alberto: All our friends are mobilized by social networks, forums and blogs ... manual printed flyers, too!

JK: So no matter how great all the submissions are in a given month, there can be only one. Even if you don't win, do you plan to continue with your strip in another venue?

Alberto: We'd like to continue 9th Year. We have the whole story, it’s a very big deal... and a big effort too!

Manuel: I think that 9th Year is a great story, and it would be a real pity if people wouldn't know it. If we don’t win it's going to be hard to go on with it…but who know what the future holds.

*****

Assignment

Justin Jordan and Anthony Peruzzo, Assignment

JK: Tell me a little bit about yourself -- is this your first comic-creating experience, or have you done other work in the field? What do you do when you aren't creating comics?

Justin: Anthony and I are both repeat offenders when it comes to Zuda. This my third go around, after Junk and Rumors of War, and this is Anthony’s second, after Unconscious Life. This is actually the second project Anthony and I have worked on together.

Er, I think. He’s given me a much appreciated hand on a few other comic things.

As for other comic, stuff, I’ve been a bunch of anthologies and self published a bit, and I’ve got a couple of projects floating around in the pitch stage. In the real world, I’m a freelance writer and I run a library program.

Anthony: I'll just add, we've both been making comics for a while. I started seriously about five years ago with a couple of self-published OGN's. I'll have work in a few anthologies from Image within the next year or so. Outside of comics, I really don't do much besides my day job at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and hanging out with my wife and dog.

JK: What's your comic about, and where did the idea for it come from?

Justin: Assignment is about a surprisingly cheerful assassin who becomes stuck in the middle of a supernatural conflict that could end the world. Which he’s generally against, on account of being in the world.

I’m not a hundred percent sure where the idea came from, to be honest. I know the genesis was Hatch, the hitman. I wanted to do something with a killer who wasn’t, aside from the fact that he was a killer, too bad of a dude. And dude is probably the right word, because Hatch is not too far removed, personality wise, from the Dude from The Big Lebowski.

After that, there were some interesting stuff from mythology that I thought might be cool in a modern day setting, and so it all kind of grew up from there, Kudzu like.

Anthony: A lot of people have mentioned the influence of the movie 'The Thing' directed by John Carpenter. While it's really only on the first page, this will be brought up much more later on. I believe there is a whole chapter in Antarctica. There's a bunch of cool stuff that happens.

JK: How much of your story do you have mapped out at this point, beyond the eight pages that you submitted to Zuda? And how did you decide what to put into those eight pages?

Justin: The whole thing. I have around a hundred pages of 120 or so already written, and the story is fully plotted to the end. I actually have three four concrete plots of other Assignments, should we make it that far.

Choosing what eight pages to submit to Zuda is always the trickiest part for me. I’ve written a lot of less than eight page stories, but the trick is writing something that is satisfying, intriguing and does justice to the story beyond the eight pages.

The eight pages for my first Zuda entry, Junk, were a mostly self contained prologue. They gave a feel for the story and the mood, but wasn’t part of the larger plot. With Rumors of War, I started right at the beginning of the story and ended on what was hopefully a pretty big ‘Holy Crap!’ moment.

For Assignment, I could think of a better entry point than the first eight pages. There’s a lot of stuff that has gone on before, but if we started there, it wouldn’t reflect the kind of comic you were going to get. If we picked up later, then it wouldn’t make any sense. As it was, we started at the earliest point that would make sense in the larger story and give people an idea of what the comic is like.

Anthony: I think it's really important to give a taste of the story and characters/personalities, while making sure you show there is a larger story behind it all. Hopefully you'll have people interested enough to come back. For Zuda, I like the cliffhanger ending. I used it in Unconscious Life, and we used it to a degree here in Assignment.

JK: What are you doing to market your comic this month?

Justin: Let’s see: Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, email, selling my body in exchange for votes, a production blog, you know, the usual. We are lucky enough to have some kind of recognition from our previous Zuda stuff, so that helps. Of course, so do half the other competitors. Heck, John Bivens, who has The Adventures of Mr. Simian in this month, did Rumors of War together.

Anthony: Ditto

JK: So no matter how great all the submissions are in a given month, there can be only one. Even if you don't win, do you plan to continue with your strip in another venue?

Justin: Absolutely. Like I said earlier, I have a hundred pages written, and we got pencils done up through page sixteen or so. We’d love to win, we WANT to win, but if we don’t, we have plans in place to continue elsewhere. Anthony and I are both committed to Assignment. It’s one of my favorite things to write, and Anthony seems to like drawing the horrible, horrible things I put in it.

Anthony: Like exploding heads, walking decapitations, and exploding guitars. It's all fun.

*****

Metropolitan Siege

Eric Z, Metropolitan Siege

JK: Tell me a little bit about yourself -- is this your first comic-creating experience, or have you done other work in the field? What do you do when you aren't creating comics?

Eric: This was my first experience coloring my own work. I learned quite a bit throughout the project and I think the development shows a little from beginning to end. Other then this, though, I have various projects at different stages of development. I'm collaborating with Tim Simmons on a couple of projects at the moment (there should be an announcement pretty soon on one of them) and I did a WW2 project called "The Killers: Wars End" several years ago with Frank Tra that may be getting published early next year. There are preview samples of sequentials for a couple of these projects at my website.

JK: What's your comic about, and where did the idea for it come from?

Eric: The pretentious answer is that the comic is about the breakdown of a city. The genesis of the idea stems from the images I saw of city riots, but more specifically the LA riots in the early 90's. There's also a lot I took from the current police tazer debate going on. The lead character, Nikki, is a cop behind a scandal that started a lot of unrest in the city. The idea I'm working with here is that this demonic force feeds off of the unrest of a city (they were there during Sodom and Gomorrah and the LA riots). I like the idea that, in essence, they didn't cause the conflict, but they're stoking the fire and getting stronger for it. Their ultimate goal is the complete destruction of the city. And while an opposing higher power grants Nikki the ability to stop this force, the fact that her life and relationships are in a state of chaos means that these enemies are all the more powerful around her. This naturally leads to a lot of character development. And explosions. Lots of explosions.

JK: How much of your story do you have mapped out at this point, beyond the eight pages that you submitted to Zuda? And how did you decide what to put into those eight pages?

Eric: I have the middle and the ending all planned out. I introduced a ticking clock in the eight pages, which means that the whole story takes place over three days. All I wanted in the first eight pages was a decent introduction to Nikki's chaotic life, a setup for the mystery of what she did to get put under investigation, a scene where she's given a mission and an explosive climax.

JK: What are you doing to market your comic this month?

Eric: Honestly, I'm terrible at this marketing game and this isn't the most convenient month for me. Right now I've barely got anything to share, but I'm hoping to get some things set up in the next couple of weeks. There are a couple of images at my website.

JK: So no matter how great all the submissions are in a given month, there can be only one. Even if you don't win, do you plan to continue with your strip in another venue?

Eric: Most definitely. I'm very happy with the idea behind this comic, and I feel that I have something unique to say with it.

*****

Aluísio Cervelle Santos, RockStar

JK: Tell me a little bit about yourself -- is this your first comic-creating experience, or have you done other work in the field? What do you do when you aren't creating comics?

Aluísio: First off, I'd like to thank you for making this interview, and a second thanks for letting me have the opportunity to be in it!

I have been a comic lover since very early in life.. .probably just like everyone else in the interview, but until a few years ago, let's say ... three years, I never had the opportunity to make a comic that could be shown to anyone, primarily because most of Brazilian comics being sold are DC or Marvel stuff, so pretty much barely anything is made here! Besides I used to live in a very small town, so there wasn't any art or comic teachers that I could rely or ask opinions on.

Then, when I was about the second year in the university, I found entervoid.com, which is a really, really cool comic community, which gave me that possibility to make comics that people could see and give feedback!

So, yeah, properly answering your first question, I have been creating comics not for long, around three years or so, in a webcomic format!

When I'm not creating comics, I'm either drawing - I do several freelance illustration jobs for a Brazilian magazine Mundo Estranho, published by Editora Abril - or then I might be playing video games. Of course, in case you didn't notice by the tone of my comic, I LOVE to play the guitar.. though drawing recently has taken a lot more space than the music love .

JK: What's your comic about, and where did the idea for it come from?

Aluísio: My comic, named RockStar, is about a rich boy, born for some reason with six fingers, that loves to play guitar. In the Zuda comic, it shows some kind of alien force trying to force his alliance, which he doesn't accept. It doesn't explain why in the comic, because I didn't want to damage the reading experience cramming a lot of story AND action - which is a must in a super hero type of story - into eight pages, but the boy and the dragon dude are supposed to be allies! You can kind of tell by their dialogues, but yeah, I've been told that part of my comic is terrible haha.

The basic idea for the comic is based on my very cultural foundations that contributed to the path I've been taking with art - Tokusatsu shows (you know, those Kamen Rider, Power Rangers, etc., that were incredible successive in Brazil when I was a child), video games (as someone mentioned in the Zuda comments, ¨Megaman with a guitar!¨), mangas and my own guitar playing -- I love rock and blues from the 70s especially, and ¨soft metal,¨ like I prefer referring to blues based metal such as Black Sabbath.

JK: How much of your story do you have mapped out at this point, beyond the eight pages that you submitted to Zuda? And how did you decide what to put into those eight pages?

Aluísio: I have not properly written a script, but I have tons of ideas as to where to go to next, and I've gotten a notebook just to take notes whenever I have an idea, so that I don't forget it and what not.

Besides, since my entry is pretty much action focused, there's a LOT of room to work in the background. We all know the rich boy is a super hero.. but does he want to be a super hero? Does he like it? How is his ¨normal life¨? Does his parents approve of his rock passion (they clearly have no clue he's the superhero who saved them!)? What if he secretly plays music with his school pals and at home he tells his parents he wants to be an engineer?

What's the origin of RockChild's powers? And more importantly, why would aliens want him for ally?

As for what goes in the eight pager, in my opinion, aside from the tremendous online competition, the biggest challenge is to fit eight pages and make the readers curious to what comes next. So if this is a super hero story, I can't go throwing storylines into them if they haven't even seen if they like the hero, or what he does.. so for that reason I started off with an action scene, with a few hints of story, and then hope it's a good way to hook readers up! I'll let you decide, haha.

JK: What are you doing to market your comic this month?

Aluísio: Most of what I've been doing is online stuff really, I've been promoting it mostly over deviantart, and other sites I go too, such as Entervoid.com, gingerbox, and satellite soda, but also going to a few Mugen communities, which I used to participate strongly with games before I turned into making comics.

You can follow me on Facebook (name's Aluísio Cervelle Santos)!

You can also check any of those sites and take part in the contest I've started yesterday, already with a few entrants! (a pic of the promo poster for the contest).

And lastly, this is the piece I've made to promote the first week of competition.

JK: So no matter how great all the submissions are in a given month, there can be only one. Even if you don't win, do you plan to continue with your strip in another venue?

Aluísio: I don't know about that. I might, but I have no plans for RockStar if he doesn't make it in. I have a few book projects with entirely different focuses and themes, for example, I also LOVE drawing horror comics, though I suck at it, but I'm writing a script for a comic book anthology on that theme, and also an adventure story for another anthology with the EnterVoid.com folks! So while I can share time to work in Zuda comics while I make them, if I don't win this month's competition I have no previews for a RockStar comic so far.. unless a proposition happens, you never know haha.

To close this, I'd like to thank you again for the interview, and thanks everyone for reading it!

I know this month's competition is really tough, but I hope readers opt to stay with RockStar in the end! I won't disappoint you!

*****

Erik Valdez, Children's Games

JK: Tell me a little bit about yourself -- is this your first comic-creating experience, or have you done other work in the field? What do you do when you aren't creating comics?

Erik: I was born and have lived all my life in Mexico City. I began drawing at the age of two (according to official family lore) and it has been my passion ever since. A little bit later I started reading and therein was planted the seed for joining images and words. I have several published comics – as an artist only so far. The Sleepy Truth Vol. 1 and 2 for Viper comics and two books for Stone Arch Books fairy tale line: Snow White and Rumpelstiltskin. I am currently working on a graphic novel project with Outlaw Entertainment, which I am both writing and drawing. It is called Freak School, and I’m very excited about it.

When I’m not creating comics I enjoy painting (it’s very different from drawing or writing, engages a totally different sensation) reading, hanging out with friends, checking out a movie and especially traveling to places I’ve never been to.

JK: What's your comic about, and where did the idea for it come from?

Erik: My comic is called Children’s Games, it’s about a six year old girl named Paola and her cat Machiavello who find a piece of God that had been forgotten in an old tin box a long time ago. They take this piece of God into themselves, each in their own way, and thereby achieve the powers of God. So they begin to play around with their new abilities, which are literally endless. They create entire worlds and play around with the rules of reality. And then things get serious, because a piece of God is a powerful commodity, and it is something that draws interest. The first to make an attempt is the Devil, and from there on Paola and Machiavello will play increasingly more complex and serious games with beings of enormous determination and guile with only their childlike imagination, skill and friendship to rely on in order to survive.

On a broader scale, it’s about the value and power of innocence clashing against the malicious world of adults. How things are not what they might seem to be at first, and how even the most powerful and terrible beings have this soft, human childlike part, even if they don’t accept or show it.

The idea came from the text on the first panel of the second page:” One day, while in the spare room, Paola opened an old tin can and found a piece of God that had been forgotten there a long time ago” And I found the idea so compelling and so full of possibility that I had to go ahead and see where it would lead. That led to a short, 8 page story in 2006 which was very much liked – but as pleased as I was with that, I felt there was much more to explore, and so decided to rework the story for Zuda, and hopefully just take it as far as imagination will go. Beyond that inspiration comes from all places, Paola is based on my sister, I had a cat named Machiavello, and there are ideas all over the place that contribute to make this an interesting read. Ideas on religion and the nature of God, on creation and the responsibility it entails, on what comics can do – and one of the things I love about this idea is that literally, it can go anywhere, and I can do anything. There is humor and there is darkness, there are huge action scenes and lovely quiet scenes. There are jumps in style and genre and it all works together.

JK: How much of your story do you have mapped out at this point, beyond the eight pages that you submitted to Zuda? And how did you decide what to put into those eight pages?

Erik: In a broad sense, I have major plot points mapped out. I know where I start, the reasons behind the beginning, the road that the characters are going to travel, and where they end up. However, I leave space for new ideas, for meandering down side paths before rejoining the main road. Especially since the competition has started, I’ve been having many new ideas of what can be done with this story. Since the idea is that the characters have the power of God; anything is possible. I can change tone and style and genres as much as I want (As long as it serves the story, of course, nothing is gratuitous – even the Devil with her Bad Girl look has a reason) I’m looking forward to a big, Anime style action sequence, and some pretty horrific parts later on.

The selection of the eight pages was complex. It is mostly based on my first 2006 play on this story. I knew I had to introduce the characters and give them heart, give readers a taste of what could be done (and mostly they have said that they want more of that) However it was a challenge to say enough without cramming the pages full of information or having the sequences suffer because of it. The point is to create a good story that flows well and in which the pages work with each other. And once again, everything has a point; nothing is there just because I thought it would be cool at the moment. Saying that, having a cliffhanger at the end, given the character of the competition, seemed like a good idea.

JK: What are you doing to market your comic this month?

Erik: Obviously there is e-mail to every single person I have ever known, as well as Twitter and Facebook. I have an interview in The Villains Corner as well as my webpage, which contains samples of all of my work. And then there’s getting the information out on blogs and forums, both here in Mexico and on a more international scale. Obviously I believe the comic is good enough to win on it’s own merits, but it has become increasingly clear how much marketing counts.

JK: So no matter how great all the submissions are in a given month, there can be only one. Even if you don't win, do you plan to continue with your strip in another venue?

Erik: Definitely, even if Children’s Games does not win, this month has shown it to a wide variety of people, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive. So beyond the fact that this is a story that I would love to continue telling, I now know beyond a doubt that there is an audience for it out there. It’s been interesting to see the preconceptions people have of this story based just on the eight pages on display right now, and it would be so much fun to just blow those ideas out of the water with everything I have planned. It’s going to be an awesome ride. Trust me.

*****

Don Kunkel, Charles P. Wilson III and Rian Miller II,Vigilante Granny

JK: Tell me a little bit about yourself -- is this your first comic-creating experience, or have you done other work in the field? What do you do when you aren't creating comics?

Don Kunkel: My first art job was drawing caricatures at Six Flags. My dream however was to work in comics. I ventured on to attend the Joe Kubert School in New Jersey where I met my comic book dream team: Rian (co-creator and writer), Charles (inks, letters, and covers), and Jhanie (colors). I have books published with all of them and they're not limited to the talents mentioned above. Some of my other creations that have gone to press include Zombie of the Month and Swimming with Razors. I have also found myself doing small pieces for movies such as Zombie Prom and Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated. You can check out more of my stuff on: www.Zombieofthemonth.wordpress.com and www.don-kunkel.deviantart.com

Charles P. Wilson III: Don, Ryan and myself attended The Joe Kubert School of Art around the same time a few years ago, where I think he and Ryan cooked up the idea behind Vigilante Granny. I think I remember seeing Vigilante Granny school assignments of theirs up in display cases at the time. Since graduation I've kept in contact with Don and contributed artwork to his Zombie of the Month project. I'm currently working on a book called The Stuff of Legend for Th3rd World Studios, due out sometime this month. That project is rendered entirely in tonal pencils, and when Don contacted a little while back regarding inking his project I remember thinking I was pretty hungry to work in a different medium for a little bit, and the subject matter seemed like it would be fun to work with.

Rian Miller II: My name is Rian Miller, and I graduated from the Joe Kubert School alongside Don in 2006. I've been reading comics since I was about 12 (my first comic was Aliens: Berserk #1 from Dark Horse) and have wanted to work in the the field ever since. As far as work I've had published, there isn't much, but if you own a copy of Invincible #30 from Image Comics, flip to the back and you'll find a pin-up I painted while I was still attending the Kubert school. I've got a lot more art on my deviantArt page, which you can find via my website: www.rianmiller.com

JK: What's your comic about, and where did the idea for it come from?

Rian Miller II: Vigilante Granny began as a funny title that Don came up with sometime around 2003 or 2004 if I'm not mistaken. He had this idea for an old woman who could kick your ass and asked me to help him flesh out the idea. Basically what it has transformed into over time is a story about a former super hero who got too old to wear spandex and decided to give up the life of a masked vigilante. Unfortunately for her (and fortunately for the reader) no younger heroes have shown up to take her place, so somewhat begrudgingly, Faye Justis still finds herself with the job of protecting the city where she and her family reside from all manner of wacky enemies. The only difference now is that she can't be bothered to don a costume anymore.

JK: How much of your story do you have mapped out at this point, beyond the eight pages that you submitted to Zuda? And how did you decide what to put into those eight pages?

Rian Miller II: The way we've worked out the story is similar to a lot of books these days like Hellboy or Atomic Robo, which have clearly defined arcs usually told in a mini-series format. Right now I've got a rough outline for the first "arc" and detailed outlines for the first ten or so eight page chunks of the story. Finding ways to work in a cliffhanger every eight pages has been tough, but fun. As far as the first installment of the story is concerned, an bombastic action scene seemed to be the best way to introduce Granny to the reader. The events of those eight pages (specifically Faye's apartment being destroyed) leads directly into chapter two, which begins with her temporarily moving into her son's house in the suburbs. From there things only get more awkward and exciting for our elderly hero.

JK: What are you doing to market your comic this month?

Rian Miller II: Basically we're just getting the word out via Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, deviantArt, and any other sites we're currently signed up for. There are a few art-related forums out there like Penciljack that I'm pushing Vigilante Granny on as well.

JK: So no matter how great all the submissions are in a given month, there can be only one. Even if you don't win, do you plan to continue with your strip in another venue?

Rian Miller II: It seems that Vigilante Granny has been around in some form or another at all times over the past few years through the web, anthology books, and mini-comics. So even if we don't make the cut on Zuda she'll still be around. Don and I are happy with the story we've crafted for Faye and co. and plan to continue work on the book past the competition whether we win or lose. If nothing else, the great support and reactions we've been getting in the comments section of our Zuda page has strengthened our resolve and proven to us that there is indeed an audience out there for a comic book about a septuagenarian superhero.

*****

Steve Ekstrom, Mikael Bergkvist and Jesse Turnbull, The Ares Imperative

JK: Tell me a little bit about yourself -- is this your first comic-creating experience, or have you done other work in the field? What do you do when you aren't creating comics?

Steve Ekstrom: I write for Newsarama.com as a journalist and I've had a couple of stories published in smaller anthologies like 803 Studios and Tin Star Studios—and I've also been published in Negative Burn. Currently, I've got projects slated for Popgun 4 and a few other large anthologies—and I'm working on a creator-owned project with Mikael Bergkvist and Jesse Turnbull alongside our work on The Ares Imperative.

When I'm not creating comics? I'm trying to find a way to create more comics. (laugh)

Seriously, I have a day job—waiting tables; it's not the most fun work but it's a decent living in my neck of the woods and the schedule is very flexible so I can work on my projects.

Mikael Bergkvist: I work in web development—which is boring, so comics are a lot more fun!

Jesse Turnbull: I live in Philadelphia with my wife. I went to art school in Baltimore at the Maryland Institute, College of Art. I've worked on a couple comics in the past, but nothing too major yet. I work at the University of Pennsylvania doing design work and helping students with most of my time.

JK: What's your comic about, and where did the idea for it come from?

Steve Ekstrom: The Ares Imperative is a 21st Century take on the pulp action-adventure and science fiction comics from the mid-20th Century; you know—old school EC stuff. It's a cross between Johnny Quest, 24, the Bourne novels/ films, and The Manchurian Candidate from outer space.

Our lead, Adam Geist, is the first Human Weapon of Mass Destruction--and he has to keep it a secret. Our submission to Zuda is a dense prologue that sets up a widescreen, fast-paced action-adventure story that has a little something for everyone--from rogue spies to Crocodiles in the jungles of Colombia to strange meteors from outer space to quasi-religious science cults from the past. We're trying to create something that's multi-tiered--we want to inundate the reader with as much information as possible on every page.

Mikael Bergkvist: With great power comes great responsibility, right? But how do you execute that in the real world, with real political issues, when you think you know better than everybody else?

We've seen that and it wasn't pretty.

Our hero is one powerful dude with a 4 digit IQ that's like Braniac 5 in a lot of ways and even though he's really trying to be a good guy, whether or not he's successful is another question; the other problem resides in his methods—which a lot of people aren’t going to like.

There's this pesky thing called “free will” that’s going to be turning up; humans have this capability to do stupid or bad things but that's an alien concept for someone as intelligent as Agent Geist, who never does anything stupid and who can't see the point of it. Or so he thinks…

JK: How much of your story do you have mapped out at this point, beyond the eight pages that you submitted to Zuda? And how did you decide what to put into those eight pages?

Mikael Bergkvist: We have a complete story already—and we’re ready to tell it.

Steve Ekstrom: Let me expand on that—we have approximately 180 slides ready to be lettered and colored. The project was originally destined for print—but Mikael (the creator of the concept) changed gears when he brought Jesse and I on board. I script and letter the project—and Jesse is the colorist. So we have the entire first 3 seasons/ chapters of our story completed.

Choosing "what" to put in--wasn't very challenging--because we're just moving in a straight line. Some of the more vocal readers at Zuda have expressed some dismay at the fact that our story doesn't jump straight to light speed with explosions and stuff. We selected a dialog heavy prologue--because once the story starts THEN you get non-stop action and a really cinematic approach to an action adventure serial. I just think that people need to trust us and give us a shot--we're not going to disappoint.

JK: What are you doing to market your comic this month?

First off, we sent out a press release with some quotes from guys like Liam Sharp and Mike Carey supporting the project. I did an interview on the project and my involvement with a newspaper local to my area. I’ve also done three radio spots including a lengthy interview on a talk radio show. I’ve also coordinated my efforts with two local retailers in the area—they’ll be passing out flyers and offering incentives to customers who take the time to vote. We’ll also be showing up on a couple of blogs like Forces of Geek and we’ve recently done an interview with Newsarama.

Mikael Bergkvist: I’ve also said that I'll do a commission, black and white, no backgrounds, single character, for anyone who can show they gotten two others to vote for us.

Steve Ekstrom: And he’s not kidding, folks! We also have a Facebook Fan group and we’re on Twitter!

Currently, I’m in San Diego—getting ready for Comic-Con; I’ll be making an effort to talk to local retailers in the area here as well. I’ll also be passing out flyers and talking to folks at Comic-Con. Also, keep an eye out for ads for the comic on the internet in places that comic fans frequent.

JK: So no matter how great all the submissions are in a given month, there can be only one. Even if you don't win, do you plan to continue with your strip in another venue?

Mikael Bergkvist: It’s not decided at this point in time—in the end, we’re going to win on some level whether it’s the actual Zuda contest or by preparing a comic that a publisher is going to really get into somewhere else.

Steve Ekstrom: Well, I don’t want to jinx it—but we’ve already had offers to run it elsewhere. I’m also going to be showing it off to publishers at Comic-Con with the hopes that maybe we’ll get it printed instead. Working in the comic book industry is our ultimate goal—so getting out there and being exposed via Zuda is great. We’re in a solid third place with the competitors and it’s still anyone’s game!