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Great Things for Graphic Novel Kidlit Creators
It’s been a while since I’ve been able to post any events or opportunities. It’s been a busy summer for me and there hasn’t been much time to write anything. Also so much going on that I haven’t been able to think to write. Just now I’ve started 3 different blog posts. 2 of which I may never finish. But maybe soon.
I want to let you know of a few things I’ve heard about recently! These just happen to all be in the realm of Graphic Novels (though the first is for more than just graphic novel people!).
Creator Advisor on Twitter regularly posts job & contract work opportunities. These are not all kidlit jobs, and are mostly related to comics. I believe the person running it may be from Canada, but I’ve seen jobs from the US and remote jobs. https://twitter.com/CreatorAdvisor
Graphic Novel: Nuts and Bolts with Ken Lamug, award-winning author & Illustrator
October 9th, 2022 2:00-4:00pm PDT.
Award-winning & Multi-published Ken Lamug will be talking about everything Graphic Novels! He will be talking about how his book Mischief and Mayhem started as a picture book and became a graphic novel! Ken is a teacher, filmaker, KidlitGN organizer and former SCBWI Illustrator-Coordinator for the Nevada Chapter of the SCBWI. https://nevada.scbwi.org/events/graphic-novel-nuts-and-bolts-with-ken-lamug-award-winning-author-illustrator
KidlitGN is having their annual pitch event on October 5-7th. You can pitch your GN on both Twitter and their website! https://kidlitgn.com/ There have been a lot of people who have found success from this wonderful event!
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The Not So Whiny Whiny Lisa Chen-Wing
Lisa Chen-Wing is just hilarious. Anyone can write a story about their life, but it takes a special kind of person to make other people laugh about that experience. Lisa’s webcomic Whiny Whiny Pancakes is all about Lisa’s life with her kids. This comic is hilarious and very dear to my heart. I love reading this comic and I hope you will too!
Lisa’s website: http://whinywhinypancakes.com/
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9 Reasons Why
By Lisa Whiny Whiny Pancakes
2 Reasons why I started a semi-autobiographical web comic
- My friend looked at a web comic and said ‘Hey, you could do that!’
- I said ‘Hey, I could do that.’
5 Reasons why you should start a web comic.
- Making more social media accounts is extremely easy.
- The best way to get better at something is to do it regularly.
- It’s a great way to practice new skills and techniques.
- Getting a few likes from randos on the internet is a great ego boost.
- It’s not a huge time commitment.
1 Reason why you shouldn’t start to draw a web comic
- Nobody really cares about your web comic.
1 Reason you should draw your web comic anyway.
- Outsider artists, the ones who toil their whole lives in obscurity, are the real heroes.
Since I don’t have the integrity of an outsider artist, only the same number of followers: (Instagram @whinywhinypancakes, Twitter @WhinyPancakes, Facebook @whinywhinypancakes, URL: whinywhinypancakes.com, other URL: elsiedub.com)
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Graphic What?
I just can’t wait until Spring into Writing. It is going to be a fantastic event. I have so many wonderful people sending me their posts right now. Things are happening. You can register here if you haven’t yet: http://ngi.c96.myftpupload.com/register-for-spring-into-writing/
So what I should have done for the last few weeks is set up posts. What I have been doing is working on artwork. I swear sometimes I’m the only one who procrastinates working on work with other, more complicated work. I mean it makes no sense. There it is. I’ve been skipping out on my blogging duties with my art drawing.
I am currently working on a graphic novel pitch. If you don’t know I have been working on picture books for the longest time. I was so devoted to making the picture book that I created the event Smart Dummies to help others do so as well.
Now I’m just cheating on picture books with my love of the graphic novel. My work is still for children. I’m working on a middle grade graphic novel, so that’s fun, but I didn’t know what I was doing when I started.
I started in Mira’s Children’s Book Academy making this book. https://www.childrensbookacademy.com/ I took the Craft and Business of Illustrating Children’s Books. I finished two spreads and went blissfully on creating lots of sketches to send in. The graphic novel package is pretty open to interpretation and there is no one size fits all.
I was pointed here not long ago http://www.mariavicente.com/blog/graphic-novel-pitch-package This isn’t a new site to me, but I didn’t think that my book pitch would be longer than a picture book. Or at least not enough to change my submission style. I think I was wrong, so now I’m finishing up 3 more spreads for my submission. I am a bit frustrated that I spent so much time doing all those extra sketches, but I think it’s going to benefit me in the long run. It’s going to help me edit my story better. When someone picks up my story, I will have extra preliminary work done. In the end it’s a win-win for me. Now to work on setting it aside so I can get Spring into Writing up and running!
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Perspective & Loose Drawing
Design
Before you go into perspective or loose drawings make sure that you can visualize your pictures. If possible fix your problems in your thumbnails, because that’s when it’s easiest to make changes. Here are a couple of links for some great design principals.
https://www.johnlovett.com/design-overview
https://www.creativebloq.com/digital-art/tips-composition-31514496
Perspective
Perspective is one of the necessary evils of drawing, but it’s not too hard to learn. The most important ones to learn is 1 and 2 point perspective. 3 point perspective is also fun, but most useful if you are drawing the tops of buildings/from an overhead perspective. Three point perspective can also be used to draw an object floating/above the ground.
Scrapped room layout for a picture book dummy. I learned perspective in high school. We may have gone over it briefly in university, but being out of practice for so long makes remembering the finder details difficult. I’ve recently had to do a refresher myself to reacquaint myself with perspective. Instead of explaining it myself I’m going to give you links for 3 great videos and some extra explanation for one point perspective!
One Point Perspective: https://www.studentartguide.com/articles/one-point-perspective-drawing
https://thevirtualinstructor.com/onepointperspective.html (video and reading/pictures of what’s in the video)
Two Point Perspective: https://thevirtualinstructor.com/twopointperspective.html (video and reading/pictures of what’s in the video)
Three Point Perspective: https://thevirtualinstructor.com/threepointperspective.html (video and reading/pictures of what’s in the video)
Loose Drawings
It helps me to work on a full-sized loose version of all my drawings before I start on my finals. Some people find it helpful to use a copier or their computer to increase the size of their thumbnails and draw on top of that.
Some people work best going straight into their full sized work after they finish their thumbnails. How you want to proceed is up to you. If you aren’t sure at all how to proceed, please ask!
The finals can be somewhat sketchy. There will be some final images to include with your dummy so an editor/agent/art director can better envision the final book.
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The Prince and the Dressmaker
My aim is to review one book every week. I will be doing a lot of picture books, because I usually have time to read a few of those. I’m only going to be talking about books I like. I’m also going to try to stick with books written in the past couple of years. I read “The Prince and the Dressmaker” by Jen Wang, and it gave me the push I needed to start reviewing books. This book just happens to be an awesome graphic novel!
This is my first step into doing book reviews, and I hope I almost had the text done for this post before I said anything about the actual story. I also realize that I sent this out without any images. I’m a bit new at this so stop judging me!
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Story
Not long after Frances is offered a job by a secret patron who turns out to be the prince. Sebastian (the prince) wants Frances to make dresses for him. What happens next is a wonderful journey of self discovery for the both of them.
The story starts with Frances a dressmaker. What I love about Frances is that she seems to look into people’s souls and knows how to make dresses that are perfectly them. She quickly gets into trouble by making the perfect scandalous dress for a Lady.
It is a roller coaster of feelings throughout the story. All the bad things that can happen, do happen! There is so much nice in the book that it all balances out in the end.
Art
The Prince and the Dressmaker has everything 7 year old me loved when deciding adult me would become a fashion designer. That obviously never happened. (I didn’t even try, but I know I’d be an awesome fashion designer.)
There are so many beautiful frilly dresses in this book! I love them all but my favorites are Lady Sophia Rohan’s dress (page 12), The first dress she makes for Sebastian/Lady Crystallia (page 50) and the magical dress (page 266).
Jen’s whimsical art style is absolutely perfect. I don’t know that I would change anything. Well I would want a second book, or just another book with Jen creating dresses! I adore everything about this book and will be looking for more books by Jen Wang in the future!
Get the Book
Buy the Book: https://www.powells.com/book/the-prince-and-the-dressmaker-9781626723634
Jen Wang’s Website: http://jenwang.net/
More about the book: http://jenwang.net/archives/939
If you can’t afford to buy this book consider leaving a review or requesting your library buy this book!
