Please Say It! The protest and advocacy

As I described in recent posts, my latest project has emerged due to three factors: 

1. producing basic page art quickly using Procreate; 
   
2. the development of a YA story at Oxford; 
3. my interest in protest and advocacy in this gay moment. 

You can scroll back to refresh your memory about the art and the story. But, lastly:

The protest and advocacy

To prepare for summer school at Oxford, I reviewed a decade worth of sketchbooks, looking for ideas I still liked but had never developed. I was prepared for any assignment thrown my way! One of the "fresher" ideas I has stemmed from disturbing news.

A number of parental rights (aka "don't say gay") laws were popping up. I don't fully understand the rationale, but I do think the motivation is misguided at best. If you disagree, I will gladly sit down with you and explain my perspective. 

By the time I got back from Oxford, even more anti-LGBTQ+ stuff had gone down:

• the Nebraska student newspaper shut down over preferred pronouns
• the Christian school in Florida asked its LGBTQ+ students to leave
• the town in Michigan that voted to defund its town library as the library refused to drop three LGBTQ+ themed graphic novels

Whatever the motivation, the message to LGBTQ+ youth is clear: you're not wanted. You're not welcome. At least, I'm sure that is what is felt.

There is nothing new or special about Please Say It! It's simply a quiet story to add another positive narrative to the mix. It's not all sweetness and apple pie, of course, a good story has conflict! To me, it was important to launch it quickly, and for free. A story about the past for the right now. Content with a message, for younger readers who may not have the means to pay. It's not perfect, just my way of offering some
hope and encouragement.

I hope you stick with the story and support it if you can.

Please Say It! the story

Poison Press-style cover for the series

I'm still a little surprised this has come together the way it has!

The project sits at the confluence of three factors: 

1. producing basic page art quickly using Procreate; 
2. the development of a YA story at Oxford; 
3. my interest in protest and advocacy in this gay moment. 

I've discussed learning Procreate in a recent post, so you can scroll back for that leg of this tripod. So, secondly:

The story

To prepare for summer school at Oxford, I flipped through a dozen years of sketchbooks, looking for old ideas I still liked, but had not developed. And, I brainstormed new ideas. For my YA class, I settled on what is now titled Please Say It!

Our primary assignment was to generate the first 1,000 words of a YA novel. To do that, you kind of had to know where your story was going. So I mapped out the story outline first--based on common themes and pacing of realism-based YA (as opposed to fantasy-based)--in a modified three-act structure:

In class, our instructor shared with us the common YA "template" which more or less followed along a classic three-act structure, in 13-ish steps. This translated well to the standard 26-chapter format of Webtoon. So I'll stick with the Webtoon format, but it translates back to the template, and back to the three-act structure.

This gave my first 1,000 words more heft and purpose. My instructor (Carnegie Medal short-lister Julie Hearn) praised my theme, pacing, action, and dialogue. And the zazz, which a major goal of mine and my friend-from-Oxford Daribha's. What Julie advised needed the most work (and kept me from first class marks) was my "mechanics of language." Fortunately for me, narration mechanics is less important in comics than the things she thought I did well! 

So there, I was confident that I could complete this story as a YA story for teenagers, which was important to me for reasons of protest and advocacy. 

I'll speak to that in my next post.

For now, please check out the comic!--the first chapter is live at Webtoon and Tapas, with exclusive content at Patreon.

Procreate and Project Progress

I've made a lot of progress since my last post! At that time, I was about to draw pages 6-10 all digital. Not only did I do that, but I drew pages 11-25.Again, thanks to Monica who gave me the tone and pattern brushes she loves to use. They are really fun!

Basic color work for the upcoming project.

For this project, I think I have my drawing style "down" and working well in Procreate. So, I was happy to have (essentially) Act I drawn, so I ended up lettering it as well, so I could have the PDF as reference while I'm at Oxford next month.

But since I was still waiting for feedback on my thesis draft from my second and third readers, I cracked open Procreate again again and started practicing coloring. I flatted pages 1-25 while I determined my color style with the help of Monica and Christophe. Then I finished colors.

Though I received feedback from my second reader early, still waiting on the third reader. So I tackled the story's preface. I had written a 5-page story, and pencilled and inked 3 pages of it, back in 2011 for a publisher. But the project fell through before I finished it. With some minor edits, I decided it will work nicely as the preface to this new project. I colored said three pages, and drew and colored from scratch on Procreate the other two. 

Love the tone and pattern brushes.

So basically, I exceeded my pre-Oxford goals:

• Draft the OGN chapter breakdowns--DONE
• Write chapters one through three--DONE--PLUS four, five, and the preface
  
• Draw chapters one through three--DONE--PLUS four, five, and the preface

PLUS--colored preface, chapters one through five.

PLUS--lettered preface, chapters one through five.

Which sets me up nicely to meet my during-Oxford goals:

• Edit OGN chapter breakdowns
• Write short story version
• Edit chapters one through five of the comic if needed
• Write more comic chapters

But for now, this amazingly fun (for me) experiment will be shelved as I turn back to my thesis for the next month. Then it's off to Oxford.
 

Too much, too soon, too fast--playing with Procreate on iPad

Page one inks by hand

Converging threads here, bear with me!

For grad school, I am attending the Oxford Summer Program in creative writing. Excited! I am in two modules: scriptwriting, and YA writing. To prepare for both modules, I have been pulling together an idea bank and brainstorming.

For the YA module, I hope to develop a particular idea I've had (more on that later!). Though I'll likely work on it in prose form at Oxford, I'm more likely to continue the project as a comic. Hence, I've started writing out a simple comic script, for:

1. It's helpful to get my mind in the space of the project.
2. It's not likely to interfere with the Oxford version (ie I won't get too far along).
3. I have time to draw now.
4. I intend to use the project to convert to full digital (pencils, inks, colors).
5. I have time to learn something new (full digital), and should in advance of Oxford.
   

And here we are, the real point of the post! I am playing with Procreate on one of my neighbor's six iPad Pros with the goal to adapt to full digital. I am concurrently practicing sketching from scratch, and inking those sketches, but also inking pencils from paper.

For the project in question, I penciled the five pages of the first chapter, and took a pic of the blue line roughs. I've inked them both by hand, and in Procreate. This is both helping me get back in drawing shape, improve my inking faster in Procreate, and compare the two methods.

I was really frustrated at first:

1. 

   Page one digital inks
   

   It's a new project with new characters that I am not used to yet.
2. I decided to draw at a slightly smaller scale (9x12 Bristol rather than 11x17), which wasn't going well, oddly. I've drawn some really great dense pages on 9x12 Bristol, from Arche-Lady stories to "I Like Mozart" and ""On the Roman Road." But here, wasn't going so well!
3. Since I plan to post this as a web comic, getting my head around sizing of the font and how much room I should be leaving for balloons was throwing me off.
4. One of my goals is to produce pages faster. Fine, but that broke me. Pages were turning out badly, so I took my foot off the gas for this goal. I know the more I draw, the faster I get... so I decided this one will happen naturally, or, I can focus on it later, when I am used to the characters, and used to Procreate.
   

In some ways, I prefer paper. Likely, because it's what I am used to. However, there are elements of digital that are unbeatable, such as undo and no more smudges. There are some things that I think should be really, really simple that I haven't figured out how to do yet. Such as drawing a straight line, like with a ruler, and creating a panel border box. Should be a no brainer, right? I'll watch a youtube tutorial at some point, but I have enough to keep me busy for now.

Page one pencils, if you can see.

At some point, I'll tackle coloring. But to start, I'll be drawing the next chapter, pages 6-10 all digital. I'm excited!

Special thanks to Pier (who was generous enough to loan me his iPad and give me an intro tutorial), and Monica (who has endured my nagging questions about converting to full digital pros and cons). 

If all goes well, here's what will happen pre-Oxford:

• Draft the OGN chapter breakdowns--DONE
• Write chapters one through three--(ch. one is done)
  
• Draw chapters one through three--(ch. one is one)

 During-Oxford:

• Edit OGN chapter breakdowns
• Write short story version
• Edit chapters one through three of the comic if needed
• Write more comic chapters

After the summer program, fingers crossed, I'll continue drawing and start posting. I'm excited to convert to digital, excited to work on this series, and excited to workshop it at Oxford. Making it better is maybe 95% of my goal, and saying "this was workshopped at Oxford" is admittedly 5%. OK that I admit that?

 

 

Genesis of "Liebestrasse" (available June 2022!)

 This has been a very long time coming, and I couldn't be more pleased with this news. Excepting of course, we never had the history to draw from.

The project first started as I toured the Theresienstadt and Auschwitz camps. As the Nazi's attempt to show the world how well they were treating their ghetto inhabitants, Theresienstadt had detailed records that made their way to the museum their today. Reading the stories of the inhabitants, it was easy to read between some lines, as to who there was queer.

Sitting on a bench in Kraków's Planty, I began imaging how normal life must have been like, and one moment later, everything on its head. I imagined what my life might have been like, and the lives of the men whose stories were in the museum. And the first sketches made their way into my sketchbook.

Years later, after Greg Lockard and I had successfully collaborated on several short stories ("Trying Something New," "RE-Infinity," "A Sincere Lack of Manners and Subtlety," and "Star Players") I wanted ask Greg to work with me on the short story version of "Liebestraße" for my collection of romance stories On the Romance Road. All I had were a few sketches and idea for the opening scene (a bait and switch of a normal life upended). Greg and I brainstormed the two main characters, the feasibility of their meeting, and he developed the story. He enlisted the coloring talents of Hector Barros, and we completed the story in 14 pages.

The story was translated to French for the magazine La Revue de LGBT BD and Greg made a mini comic in English for convention sales... and quickly  the folks at ComiXology Originals hired us to expand the short story into a full original graphic novel.

Greg's research and care was a real inspiration for me, both in my drawing of Liebestrasse as well as forging my own goals as a writer as I entered graduate school. 

The book was completed, debuted at Thought Bubble late 2019 as a digital-first publication, and was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Comic as well as for a Tripwire Award for Best Graphic Novel. I don't recall the original print plan (thank you Covid brain!) but I am proud to share with you that it will be available from Dark Horse in June 2022. 

And, PS, I took liberal inspiration from an old movie poster of the 1940 Hitchcock version of Rebecca to make this unofficial promo graphic!

Star Players

High on my list soon after "First Date, Last Date" was a story penned by Greg Lockard, titled "Star Players." It's a sweet story about rival soccer players who met at a summer camp.

I was thrilled when Monica Gallagher agreed to ink my pencils for the story, and Chris Beckett agreed to color it.

The down side of the whole affair was some miscommunication that led to the story not completed until 2020. But it's released as a single and as part of On the Romance Road, so now harm no foul I guess.

About this time, I also finished all my art tasks for Baby Makes Three. That too wasn't published until 2021, due to time in Matt's coloring queue. But the first half of 2018 was a productive golden moment for me. 

 

First date, last date

 

At this point in 2018, I was going gangbusters with gay romance short stories, having amassed shorties I wrote and drew ("Quickies," "I Like Mozart," "Every Journey..."), or drew from others' scripts ("Liebestraße," "Cross Check," "The Most Incredible Magic"). I intended to combine these new stories with the best of my romance shorties from past anthologies.

One story haunted me. Originally posted to the web series Young Bottoms in Love was a tattooed tale I drew, as written by another author. The story hadn't turned out the way either of us wanted it to back in 2003. Yet, I liked the vintage art.

Fifteen years later, I turned to a frequent collaborator, MJ Isola, and asked he write a new story to the original art (an exercise he'd done before at my request). Rules were simple: keep as much of the art as possible, but feel free to cut panels, re-arrange, or add up to four pages of new material to make it work.

The end result fell right in line... I think he added three pages plus two panels, and I added a splash page (thumbnail here). The original art focuses on a couple's first date; and two new end pages are a flash-forward fifteen years, revealing it had been their last first date, as they'd remained a couple since.

A gay year for comics: Kevin Keller

A solo comics series featuring a gay teenage boy!

This, from Archie Comics—who in the 70s licensed out their characters for a line of right-wing Jesus-y comic series. Archie Comics—who is quickly become the most relevant comics publisher, with inter racial relationships (including a kiss between Archie and Valerie), gay characters, and entertaining off-beat premises aimed to liberal Gen Xers who are buying their kids comics.

So, Kevin, as idealized as Betty and Veronica are, in the adult comics is in the military and married to a man of color. Just like Northstar, just like Green Lantern.

While adding to the sum total of "wow, just like the other publishers," it's very difficult for me to find fault here:

These comics are aimed at 10 year olds. They are bought for and by 10 year olds. They are accepted and enjoyed by 10 year olds. Lots of them. Whether created to be sales-gimmicky or socially relevant, the outcome is the same—a group of kids is cool with sexuality and racial issues and will grow up Ok with homosexuality and inter racial coupling. I applaud you, and I thank you.

A gay year for comics: Northstar

Not a dream! Not a hoax! Northstar got married! On the cover even!

And, in the TPB version, my N'star story was reprinted for the 3rd time, yay. 

Ok, now I start getting a little cranky. All three of 2012's major gay comic stars are white. All three have BFs of color. At least two refer to their BFs with the pet name "love."

I understand from Adam that according to "the census" gay couples are more likely to be biracial than straight couples. Ok, that's cool. But when 100% of the slim representation of gay male characters are trying to be "not stereotypical" they just come off collectively as trying too hard.

I also take umbridge with this over-use of the pet name "love." Adam again goes out of his way to prove that he calls Lance "love." I point out to him that he most often calls Lance "babe." 

I've noticed the over-use of "love" since I was reading early Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes and Shadow Lass called Mon-El "love."  I have zero statistical data to support this, but in all my life, I've never heard anyone call their partner "love." I've heard "honey," "dear," "dearest," "my lovely," "darling," and many, many variations of someone's name, be it a formalization or casualization of it. Lest we forget the most common one I hear utilized in my gay travels, "sweetie." I myself veer toward specialty pet names like "puddin' pop," "mutton chop," and "fang face."

I am sure there might be others like Adam out there...but, again, when there are basically 2 out male heroes, how can they both call their BFs "love" and not "hotstuff" or "stud." 

More soon.

A gay year for comics: Green Lantern

"Green Lantern is gay!" we heard earlier this year.

Well, not really. 

"Alan Scott [the Golden Age Green Lantern] is gay!" we heard.

Oh wow, being 30 years old in 1940, he's well into his 100s...could work, coming out really late in life. Or, was he retconned as gay (NOTE: in comics, when a character is given a new past history it's referred to as "retcon" or retro-active continuity). Well, no, not really either.

In the new DC Universe, the brand new never been seen before Earth-2 Green Lantern who happens to share the same name as the original Golden Age Green Lantern is gay.

Hrm, Ok. I'll take it.

But get this—regular super-heroes have a penchant for wearing skimpy spandex outfits...regular gay men have a penchant for wearing skimpy outfits of any fabric...and this dude shows up in his comic wearing a skimpy tight t-shirt (maybe I'll color it)...but his super-hero outfit is bulky armor. Not the skimpy green square cuts and red T I drew him in here. Instead of gay fan boys getting to oggle a hot gay hero in spandex, we'll have to keep oggling the straight ones. Oh well. 

Overall, this is a good thing. More soapbox talk later.

Zeus Comics | Dallas Eagle

What a leap year this was!

Ducking out from day-job duties, I attended probably my best and most fun in-store appearance ever! The gang at Zeus Comics went all-out to make sure people showed up for me, and bought all the books I could sell!

We continued on to The Dallas Eagle, where I was guest of honor for their comics event. They even created a cocktail in honor of me (my comics). I have never had the red carpet rolled out for me so warmly! The walls of the men’s room—no shocker—was covered with dirty drawings. Borrowing Zack’s Sharpie, I added one while I clowned around with him and Ty.

If you are ever in Dallas, you must stop by Zeus and the Eagle.

Out and About

Fish-philes know I am not hitting the gay clubs with great regularity, but I have been "out" two weekends in a row. First, I was hosting Serge from Montreal (my friend Xavier's ex BF). Meeting up with other friends at Paradise, we remarked on a scruffy built guy in tight, tight T-shirt with amazing shoulders. I generally need strong motivation to draw someone...strikingly handsome, eclectic attire, exceedingly heinous, etc. But with this fellow, it was the shoulders. I still couldn't capture them, they were just perfectly sculpted. This past weekend, Matt was in town for business and wanted to meet up at Club Cafe. It was a, hrm, interesting evening—but what happens in Boston stays in Boston, eh? After he stumbled away, Adam and I noticed the shoulders dude, whom I promptly spoke to. Mike's a nice guy, and after I told him about my sketch, and the motivation (his shoulders) he told me he's having troubles with them. The coloring is courtesy of Adam. http://adamsredchalk.blogspot.com/

Love is the Reason

I'm very excited about my latest book, “Love is the Reason” which hits stores any moment now. The story stems from an idea I had in 2004 focusing on darker romantic tales, and I spent a lot of time planning, outlining, editing, and writing it. The overlapping stories of Aubrey, Michael, Tighe and Chase allowed for foreshadowing, and incorporated recurring motifs. While I was always true to the outline, I also let the story shift organically, as characters developed. I wrote the story in as a newspaper serial; those pages had to be a bit dense to bring readers back each week (Figure 1). As a counter balance, I planned for “mood building” and “character development” moments that would be book exclusive pages, including some cinematic moments (Figure 2). Stylistically, each of the main characters was giving a slightly different “theme,” with Aubrey’s heavy blacks to Michael’s ’60s background patterns to Tighe’s zip-a-tone to Chase’s angular grays. From the start, Aubrey is set up as a dodgey character. But then I began interjecting dark and somewhat disturbing panels to tease the reader: is this foreshadowing? a flashback? a glimpse into Aubrey’s mind? (Figures 3 and 4). I even used a metaphor!—representing the fragile nature of love and relationships to blowing bubbles (Figure 5). As crazy as it may sound to some people, this is the first time I’ve ever felt like an artist. I admit I’ve told some entertaining stories in the past, but I’ve never put so much care into a project, utilizing storytelling tools in a thoughtful way. Reaction to the book so far has been positive, which really makes the last 18 months really worth it.

Truth and Trust

Happy Armistice Day! Perhaps the best yet, for me—I finished my latest book! "Love is the Reason" is a bit late but should be on shelves early January. Barely finished creating the PDFs for the printer, I couldn't resist starting some work on the next book. Fish-philes recognize the pair to left from "Love is the Reason" as James Michael Chase and Terry as the same guys in my unfinished 2003 OGN (published in part on the Web). I couldn't resist coloring the image, and will likely use as part of my next book, "Truth and Trust." The book will be a collection—first, I will finish the aforementioned full-color OGN as the focus. Next will be the 2009 B&W newspaper strips. Instead of doing a serialized OGN for the paper, I will focus on snipets that form a short story each quarter. This book will include fan favorite Warren in "In Boys We Trust" and the much anticipated "Truth About Gordon." I'm not completely insane—I will be taking some time to rest and think; I haven't worked at this super-aggressive pace as I have been the past 3 months since maybe 4 years ago. I'm tired! I will, however, need to start drawing for the paper again in December.

Comiczeichner und Künstler

Day one of my trip, I walked around Schöneberg, the goverment area, along the river Spree, through the Tiergarten, and was introduced to yummy Baumkuchen by yummy Felix. Baumkuchen is this cake-like treat that is a dough layered with chocolate and mayeb ground almonds; the layers are very fine, so it looks a bit like pinstripes. Then, it's covered with chocolate. That evening, I did a presentation @ Prinz Eisenherz to a cozy crowd. I was slightly nervous this time, and spoke a bit fast for non-native English speakers. And, I forgot to provide my handout listing the resources I spoke about. Arg! The next day, I spent some time @ the Pergamon Museum, and sketched out the cutest gay boys there.

My pretentious Euro-tour

I recently took a 3-week jaunt to Europe! About 2/3 of the trip was for my day job, and 1/3 was Tim-time. I sketched every day, but I will only share the most fun sketches with you. Oh—before you ask, I did not forget my camera as I did on my last trip (see prior sketch blog entries)! My office travel office screwed up and never bought my ticket. They had to scramble at the last minute to find an affordable ticket. The resulting itinerary sent me to Berlin via Rome. That turned out alright, as I got frisked by a very hot security guard!

Johnny's Crush

The last of the G-rated sketches I scanned from my collection in Adam's sketchbooks. This one is based on a sketch Adam drew of a fellow whom Johnny (a.k.a John, a.k.a. JD) saw on the subway or maybe spoke to or something. Seemed like a hot but angry looking guy. So I gave it the ol' Tim Fish try and Adam added the thought bubble, a tormented moment of sensitive desire juxtaposed with the jock's angry body language. Johnny should have called him!

And yes, if you read between the lines above, I scanned many X-rated sketches by me from Adam's sketchbook. Adam's sketchbook is the official home of my dirty drawings.

Convention Art

I do lots of commissioned art pieces @ comic conventions. Here are two from the past year, scanned by the purchasers and sent me. I ususally ask for this considering my bargain rates. :) Both of these are fan creations: the upper drawing is a demon-boy love thing, and the lower is a hero duo called "Dulcimer and Caterwal." I loved the fact that there was a hero with a chest logo of a stomped-on cat. Hilarious! I added the exposed leg hair to the upper thighs.

teiknimyndasöguhöfundur

Xavier had made his way back to Paris before returning to Lyon, and we met for breakfast before I left Paris. I then made my way to CDG airport, and flew to Reykjavík. The plane was chock-full of gay Icelanders who had been weekending in Paris. And, while my sketch does her no justice, I saw the most beautiful flight attendant I have ever seen. But, Iceland had so many beautiful people, perhaps she was considered a dog or something, I don't know. I checked into my lodgings, grabbed some food, and went on to Samtökin ’78, where I gave a presentation about gay comics. Samtökin ’78 is the LGBT community center in Reykjavík. Its director, Hrafnkell, assured me I had a nice turnout for a snowy Monday night in Reykjavík. I was very happy with the crowd and the discussion! Afterward, I went out for dessert with a few of the attendees, and had a very nice talk about Iceland, the US, politics, and Eurovision. Oh—"teiknimyndasöguhöfundur" translates to "comic book artist."

recontrer l'artiste

Back to Paris for my book signing and city-style merriment. Xavier escorted me to the train station, and was freaking out a bit to validate my ticket as the train arrived. I was confused, as I did not validate my ticket TO Angoulême. He explained how I should have. I guess the train was too crowded, but usually unvalidated passengers are ejected. Oopsie. I got back to Antoine's place, showered, then back into the city center in time for my signing at Blue Book Paris. I didn't have a huge turnout, but was not my smallest turnout, so that was good. And, it was fun!