This is my official reminder that I will be at Graphic Engagement next Friday on September 3, and the Lafayette Pop Culture Expo on Saturday, September 4.

I also have the privelidge of being a guest blogger on this week’s Comixtalk.  I want to post some meaty, worth-while posts there, so I’ve been working on those off and on all week.

Personal Anecdote of the Day: About ten years ago, at a huge flea market near Nashville Tennessee, I bought a old guitar with bent tuning pegs for $15.00 dollars.  It’s a Stella Harmony, built around 1950 to 1962, and they were very, very common as guitars went, often being used for starter instruments.  Anyway, flash forward in time, I finally got around to restoring the wood, repairing, and re-stringing  it, and, against all odds, it sounds fantastic!  The old thing sounds as good as some of my $300 to $400 guitars!  It’s only got 12 accessible frets, a wide old-style acoustic fingerboard, a floating bridge, and open tuning pegs, but it holds tune all over the neck! Sometimes life delivers little treasures.

Personal  Anecdote No. 2: I decided to restring my ovation guitar, and find out why its electronics didn’t work.  This is my favorite acoustic, and I’ve had it since 1988, not long after it was built.  Someone owned it for a short time before I bought it used, and I can’t imagine that anyone would voluntarily give this gem up, but they did.  So, I restrung it, but when I did two of the sealed tuning pegs fell apart!  I’ve never seen that happen, but there you go.  Benita advised me to replace all six tuners, because if two had worn out then the other four were probably going to fall apart too. This cost me about $40.00 for the new pegs, midrange models with a gold finish.  The electronics didn’t work because–wait for it—I had put the battery in backwards.  I adjusted the neck while I was at it, and now this beautiful, distinctive instrument has a new, clearer voice.  This guitar has a rich midrange, from mellow at the high end to rich and bassy at the bottom–it has a very even, beautiful tone.

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Well, Book 12 Episode 47 ends another issue of “Johnny Saturn.” This one has been an odd experience for me, because I spent most of the time doing other work, such as formatting the next trade paperback. As a result, this issue seemingly came and went quietly.

That’s appropriate, in a way. Issue 11 ended with the fiercest battle I’ve ever drawn, and issue 12 was intended as the long aftermath, or the eye of the storm, before things got crazy again. The rest of this storyarc, beginning with Issue 12 on Thursday, is going to be a hell of a ride.

Trade Paperbacks and Single Issues:

Benita and I have discussed it, and we will probably not be publishing any more single issues. We’ll still format the book that way, because it works well, but not print any. If you want singles, they will still all be available through Indyplanet.

This is a question of economics, really. Because of the nature of print-on-demand, single issues cost almost as much to print as they are priced, leaving a minuscule margin for us. Trade paperbacks, on the other hand, are money-makers for us, and the reader gets far more content at a lower cost.

Your comments on this are welcome.

Scott.

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Graphic Engagement seeks to explore the ways in which comics and film animation engage us politically and profoundly influence the way we define gender, race, religion, class, and nationhood. “Political” can be defined broadly, relating not only to affairs of state, but also the praxis of visual narrative and ways it affects individual identity and community dynamics.

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This news story caught my attention for obvious reasons, discussing the future of comics, print vs. digital. 

I live in both worlds.  I grew up on print comics, and drew dozens of comics that were printed in the 90′s.  Plus, Benita and I make the lion’s share of our money from selling trade paperbacks.

Beginning in 2004, I wasn’t what one would call an early adopter in web comics, but I brought “Johnny Saturn” to the web with enthusiasm.  More people read the comic per week than the total number of people who bought the hard-copy comics I drew in the 90′s.

I don’t buy single-issue comics anymore.  The cost grew too much, and the storage space in my home was shrinking.  I love comics in a very real way, but I now prefer trade-paperbacks.  That’s the future of print comics, the collected edition.  Collectors love to have something nice, be it the library edition “Hellboy” books, or the oversized “Watchmen,” or the huge “Invincible” collections, to whatever really.

As far as webcomics go, I believe the future is already here.

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In this trailer, we get to see Sif and the Warriors Three, Loki and Odin, the Destroyer, and a Tony Stark reference. Wach!

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