The aftermath...

So let's start off with the bad news...NOTHING HAPPENED! =)

I met up with my friend, Huxley at Penn Station and we got in line for comicon, which was very long. As soon as we entered, we sat down and stapled my business cards to the flyers. I saw 3 editors, one of them, Interverse Comics, gave me praise. So that was off to a good start and said he would keep in touch (which he has not, lol). The others, not so well. I was able to meet Terry Moore, the author of "Strangers in Paradise" and "Echo". I asked him about his whole process and he told me how he did everything from beginning to end without ANY use of computers. I always thought people used computers to fill in the black parts....O__O

I went onto the anime floor and there, I started to pass out flyers to cosplayers and random people.

As expected, I passed out a lot of flyers and my fan count did NOT go up, but that is ok.

The rest of the day, I explored and tried to go to more portfolio reviews, such as ONIPRESS (publishers of Scott Pilgrim). A lot of them, I simply dropped off my stuff.

I was able to meet the creator of "Paradigm Shift", Dirk L. Tiede. He gave me a lot of pointers on where to go from my level. He was a very nice guy. He told me what all the other editors told me..that my basics needed work, meaning I should take some life skills. With a class and another year, I would level up...

Then the rest of the day, I went to the artist's alley and saw some AMAZING art...very amazing. Now I finally know it feels like when an anime character thinks he's become strong and than gets his ass KICKED by another character...

It really made me know where I was...now onto the GOOD NEWS!

While touring the anime part of comicon, I saw a man passing out flyers and low and behold they were for an art school! I asked my dad if I could take these classes since they would be every Sunday and would be $250 for 10 classes! AND HE AGREED! =DDD

So after my birthday extravaganza, my awesome friends drove me there for me to have an appointment and they offered me a deal where I would spend half the time in a fine arts class and the other half working on manga! I checked out their stuff..and WOW!
http://nillia.deviantart.com/gallery/

This is the chance I have been waiting for and am VERY VERY excited...I will be working with not one...but TWO teachers....so essentially I will be going back to the basics and relearning how to draw from scratch.

FUTURE OF SPOON:

I will keep on drawing Spoon and continue to get better, but releases may become slower since I have a lot on my plate, but along with this, my drawings might get EXPONENTIALLY BETTER! =D

We will see...as of now...things are looking up! (knock on wood)

EXPECT CHAPTER 14 TOMORROW!!!

COMICON!

hi everyone!

so tomorrow is finally the day (well comicon started today but I had work, lol).

The two images above are the pictures I will be showing to the editors...so I hope they will AT LEAST notice me, haha.

I'm almost certain nothing great will happen, but it's the effort that counts, right?

So wish me luck! Maybe I'll see some of you readers there??? haha.

COMICON news and reasons for delayed release of next chapter

Hi!

As some of you may have noticed, I will be releasing chapter 14 on the 20th of October (which also happens to be the day after my birthday =D). I usually would release every other week, hence biweekly, but this next week, I will be dedicating my heart and soul for comicon. But do not worry, I will be posting up some pics to show to editors and I hope to hear everyone's heartfelt opinions! So for that reason, I will not be spending this next week inking chapter 14.

And for those of you coming out to comicon...LOOK FOR ME! I enjoy all the support I can get (not that I will make it this year or anything..but just getting my name out there..ya know?)

So if any of you want to meet up, my e-mail is neostar8710@msn.com

So stay tuned and I hope you all will enjoy chapter 13!

=)

Comic Con

Hello!

As promised, I will give some information about comicon, which is OCTOBER 8TH-10TH.

I am planning to buy the 3 day pass which is 50 bucks as opposed to a one day pass, which is only 20 bucks.

It's only about a month away!

I plan to go there and meet some editors and other aspiring artists, networking basically.

So between now and then, my goals are:

-Make business cards
-design shirts (maybe???)
-Make some sample booklets for editors to see

For the booklets, I plan to redraw some pages of chapter 1 or just show some original pages..we will see...

Also for those who read SPOON and want to come out to show support or just to meet me, here is my e-mail:

neostar8710@msn.com

e-mail me for info or just to talk! All opinions are welcome.

I am a little behind on drawing the next chapter btw, but I will try my best to finish it by the next set release.

More updates to come!

=)

START OF NEW SEMESTER!

Hello!

To start off school the first day of school (for most), is a new chapter of SPOON! =D

This summer went by pretty fast and I was able to finish 5 chapters...haha...

Well I have been doing a lot of thinking for what to do with Spoon especially since I have an end point in mind (for this edition before I go professional).

But since school is starting again and especially since this is my last year of school, and ontop of that, I got a job afterschool teaching kids how to draw manga!..well cartoons, haha.

So my day will be divided into 2 parts, 8-2:30 student teaching and 4-7 either teaching or going to class, then eating dinner, exercising, talking to my girlfriend..haha

As you can see, my schedule will be pretty packed leaving me little time for Spoon, but I will definitely try to keep up with Spoon since I am finally starting to get into the meat of the story!

So I might just release shorter chapters (14 pagers) or release monthly..so we'll see how this schedule works out.

Plus I do want to draw another one shot to submit to this contest:
http://morningmanga.com/micc/

Also I do realize that in between chapters, the site is kind of dulled with no progress, so I was thinking of posting little strips of what each character would be up to (character development) in between the chapter breaks, or simply just update the blog more. I will keep thinking about this idea and please give me feedback on it.

Next update will be about comicon in October!!!

Bone

During the one year hiatus I went on for Spoon (the edition before this one), I started to hear a lot of buzz about a comic (NOT manga) called "Bone" by Jeff Smith. And during that time, he compiled all 55 issues into one huge ginormous book.

"Bone" is about three bone cousins who got kicked out of their hometown, Boneville, and become entangled in a crazy fantasy adventure when entering the valley.


I went to Barnes and Noble and gave it a read and was stuck there all day. The art is very cutesy, but seeing the art outside of the bone characters proves his art is no joke (My girlfriend says Charles is cuter than Bone, but I believe she is just saying that..haha)Because of Bone, I was able to find a different way of telling Spoon. People who have read my manga before will notice huge changes in the way I started out the story, which is very inspired from Bone.

Once I finished Bone, I started to research how the author went about with drawing the story and selling it, thus becoming very successful.

Low and behold, the DVD called "The Cartoonist" came out, which documents the history of Bone. I asked my girlfriend to order it on netflix, but it had an extremely long wait. I waited a couple of months and just lost my patience and finally ordered it. Watching it was one of the most inspiring things in my life, simply because this man is doing what I want to do in the future, the only difference is that my field is with manga.

Another fascinating feature about Jeff Smith is that he draws the comic from start to finish, meaning he does not use the computer in any way. He does the lettering, inking, EVERYTHING all by himself. I on the other hand use the computer to ink and letter. The art is just fantastic and the way he inks everything with a stroke of his brush is just dazzling. The link below will show you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0FC9hmBm08

After seeing how Jeff Smith does things, it makes me realize how much more I need to develop....

I hope one day, I will get good enough to be able to do what Jeff Smith did, meaning self publish Spoon and become successful....it took him 10 years to complete his story...mine will probably take 30! hahaha

So for those of you who haven't read it or watched the documentary....what are you waiting for!?

p.s. If you are reading this Mr. Smith, I hope to meet you one day and collaborate? hahah :)

So much to do, so much time

So

Ever since I have RETURNS...I have been working diligently on chapter 9 which is about 80% done. It's quite a bastard to draw, haha.

And I am almost completely done penciling chapter 10, so Spoon is moving along quite nicely.

Other list of things I have to do are...

-Compile a portfolio for submission AND comicon in October
-Pencil/ink/color volume 1 cover

You have not read wrong..I will be attending comicon in October! So for any of you fans, who are not my friends in real life, can attend and we can all meet up!! I will hopefully have business cards and little booklets so I can start networking Spoon!

And for those of you who are reading Spoon, I realize it's been a little dull since the first chapter, but the story will begin to take a more serious turn...so watch out!

=)