Steve Sunu from Comic Book Resources has posted up an exclusive first look at WAYWARD along with an interview with me all about the series, giving more insight into the supernatural-action roller coaster Steve Cummings and I are planning. Click on through and gawk at Steve’s killer page art.
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WAYWARD Arrives in August!
I can’t properly express to you how proud I am to finally reveal WAYWARD, my new creator-owned comic series being published by Image Comics starting in August.
This is the first new creator-owned project I’ve launched since Skullkickers in 2010. So much has changed in the past four years and I’m incredibly excited about showing readers a whole new side to my storytelling.
Artist Steve Cummings, colorist John Rauch, and I are working really hard to create an engaging and bombastic supernatural series about myth, magic, and finding friends who will stand by you against all odds.
Expect to see a slew of interviews, previews, and drum beating here as we build towards the launch. In an industry where everyone is trying to get your attention I’ll need to push harder than ever before in order to stand out on the shelf beside well known comic titles.
As always, I deeply appreciate your support and encouragement. If you like the way this story sounds, please, please consider sharing the info with your friends and pre-ordering a copy from your local comic retailer. It’s the best way to build up interest and ensure that we start off strong.
With everything else whirling all around me and convention season well under way, I’m electrified and nervous. It’s a great time to launch a new creator-owned comic.
Here’s the official press release that went out today:
Can Rori unlock the secret to her powers in time to fight mythological monsters?
Writer Jim Zub (SKULLKICKERS, Samurai Jack) teams up with penciler Steve Cummings (Legends of the Dark Knight, Deadshot) and color artist John Rauch (INVINCIBLE) to create a Buffy the Vampire Slayer for a new generation in WAYWARD, coming from Image Comics in August.
Rori Lane is an outsider by nature, but moving to Tokyo to live with her single Mom has only exacerbated her weirdness. She’s feeling out of sorts, worried about fitting in and, as if that wasn’t enough, strange things are begining to happen. Glowing symbols and patterns are starting to appear before her eyes… and she’s the only one who seems to notice.
“Wayward is a coming of age story filled with mystery and emotion. It’s also an ass-kicking joy ride with teenagers beating the hell out of Japanese mythological monsters,” said Zub. “Steve and I built this series from the ground up to play to both our strengths. I can’t wait for people to see what we have planned.”
In WAYWARD a group of teens living in Tokyo find a common bond in manifesting strange, supernatural abilities. As they begin to unravel the mystery behind their powers and their common source they’re drawn into a war with the vestiges of Japan’s monstrous mythic past.
WAYWARD #1 arrives in stores on 8/27, and will be available for $3.50 with special variant covers by Alina Urusov (Birds of Prey), Jeff “Chamba” Cruz (Street Fighter), and Adam Warren (Empowered).
—
And here, in case you missed it, is the teaser we put out on Monday…
Zubby Newsletter #81: Crossing The Gap
“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit.
Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
– Ira Glass
I definitely felt this frustration when I was starting out, and see it a lot in first-early comics from new creators. That nervous-awkward feeling because they finished a comic and are proud of it, but know it’s not clicking like the work that inspires them. They feel that gap.
Getting their first project done was incredibly hard and finishing it didn’t hit that high, so clearly they’re not cut out for this because creativity is supposed to feel good and inspiring and this doesn’t feel like that at all, so they quit.
The bad news is that it’s not destiny or the muses driving the work. You making this stuff is not inevitable or unstoppable. It’s messy and annoying and jam-packed with doubt because there are no guarantees on the other side of completion and there never will be.
And the people you know who aren’t in this field tell you you’re “brilliant” because they want to be supportive and don’t know any better, and that’s incredibly kind, but the compliment doesn’t fit how you feel or the quality you see, so you carry this dichotomy around with nowhere to put it.
When I was coordinating the Animation program at Seneca, there was an inevitable drop in student morale during second year (before it slooowly climbed back up). We’d warn students that drop was coming and they’d chuckle about it on the first day of class when I brought it up, but it always happened. Foundational learning was done (but not yet mastered) and we were moving into more advanced lessons, assignments where we wanted them to not just follow along and demonstrate the basics, but show us their creativity in storytelling and design. The vast majority of material handed in was poorly stitched-together monstrosities of current trends and obvious influences, surface level aesthetics at best, and when we called them on it they’d absolutely crumble. Maybe they weren’t cut out for this art thing after all. They wanted the work to be just as good as the stuff that inspired them and the gap was so damn obvious.
But, what they didn’t realize, was they were actually making important progress. They weren’t as good as they thought they were and were finally aware of it. They’d pushed through a crucial barrier – They could finally see the gap and work to close it!
The process hurts, but take comfort that you have a goal to achieve and see quality worth striving for. Being aware and chipping away at improving your craft is far better than producing utter trash and thinking you’re brilliant. Oh sure, you’d love to have that mind-melting level of confidence, but ignorance and hubris is so much worse in the long run. As frustrating as it can be, seeing quality and striving to reach it is a crucial aspect of the journey, wherever it leads.
Mind the gap and carry on.
Free Scripts
A new writer reached out with questions about how much detail they should have in their comic scripts. Every writer I know approaches it differently, and the amount of detail given when describing panels varies from project to project depending on the artist, specific reference required, and complexity of each scene. I have a lot of writing tutorials free on my website and, for more direct examples, browse these free full issue scripts available on my Patreon:
• SKULLKICKERS #1 and WAYWARD #1 full scripts
• WAYWARD #6 full script
• CARGO, a sci-fi short story script
For the price of a coffee you can dig into my Patreon script archive – over 300 scripts produced for practically every major comic publisher in North America – and compare the script I wrote to the published version to see how it all came together.
Last Chance Bundle
Speaking of Skullkickers, you have only a few days left to take advantage of the Skullkickers digital Bundle of Holding deal! Over 1000 pages of comics and gaming goodness for $10? Ridiculous.
If you’ve never read my creator-owned action-comedy series, this is where my sword & sorcery writing career begins!
Back to the Cimmerian Source, Part 3
In previous newsletters I mentioned Cimmerian September, with bloggers and vloggers reading and chatting about Conan stories. I’m hoping to reread all the original Robert E. Howard Conan prose stories and jot down a few thoughts about each one. I don’t want to overwhelm this newsletter with text, so if you want to read what I think of more of the original Cimmerian stories, click on through to the posts linked below:
9) Queen of the Black Cost
10) The Devil In Iron
11) People of the Black Circle – Part 1 Part 2
12) A Witch Shall Be Born
13) The Servants of Bit-Yakin
Quite a Trip
The 2024 Tripwire Awards have been announced and Conan creators are nominated for 4 awards:
Best Writer, Best Cover Artist, Best New Series, and Best New Talent!
Current + Upcoming Releases
Upcoming Appearances
Oct 15, 2024 | Kowabunga Comics | Oconomowoc, WI, USA |
Oct 17-20, 2024 | Gamehole Con | Madison, WI, USA |
Oct 25-27, 2024 | MCM Expo: London | London, England, UK |
Nov 4-8, 2024 | D&D In a Castle | Newcastle, UK |
Links and Other Things
• Blood and Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard, Mark Finn‘s excellent biography of the creator of Conan, is now finally available as an ebook on Kindle.
• The documentary Mike Mignola: Drawing Monsters by my friend Jim Demonakos is now available on a slew of different platforms: Amazon, AppleTV, Google Play, Microsoft, Vimeo, YouTube.
• I made this pork tenderloin recipe last night for Stacy and friends and it turned out great. I don’t usually try out a new recipe with company coming over, but in this case it was a solid choice.
Have a great weekend!
Jim
Long Time Coming
Short version: Submitted my grades and my teaching sabbatical starts TODAY.
Long version: In 2018, I was co-writing Avengers, writing Champions and Dungeons & Dragons, and wrapping up Wayward.
Quite a few industry friends told me it was ridiculous that I kept my full-time teaching gig at the college. Clearly it was time to quit. I mean, damn, I was writing Avengers as the Infinity War movie hit theaters. There were project opportunities and conventions aplenty.
And yet, I couldn’t help but keep going with the pragmatic approach that got me to that point.
Juggling full-time teaching with a full-time writing slate has been stressful. Most evenings after school I have dinner with Stacy and then write until late at night. Most weekends are writing days instead of social time.
Even still, having both jobs has given me financial and creative freedom. Bills being covered by teaching income meant I couldn’t be forced to take a writing project I didn’t want or an insulting page rate.
Having creative projects kept teaching from feeling stagnant. Teaching kept my creative batteries charged with student enthusiasm and made me a better communicator.
In 2020, I finally had my finances set up so I could take an extended teaching sabbatical. One job instead of two. Better work-life balance and more travel for fun. The world spun off its axis and that didn’t happen.
When a bunch of projects crumbled and my regular writing gigs had ‘pencils down’ for 6 months during the pandemic, I was okay. Teaching came through. My pragmatic approach kept things steady despite the crunch.
I see so many creative people, incredible creators, sideswiped by layoffs or let go from dream projects and I am so, so thankful I’ve been able to weather the storm.
Starting today, I’m finally taking that teaching sabbatical, exactly 4 years after the original plan.
16 months away from teaching.
I know I’ve worked hard to get to this point, but it also feels strange. I have to keep telling pragmatic Jim that the plan is solid.
I feel happy, I feel a bit guilty, I feel relieved, and a bit paranoid.
It’s a maelstrom of feelings, if I’m being honest.
So few people get a career they love that fills them up and I have had two. It really is a blessing.
But I also need a break to make sure I don’t burn out.
Conan the Barbarian (and related Hyborian projects) charges forward for the foreseeable future. The D&D Young Adventurer’s Guides continue and a couple other fun projects are in the wings.
On the creative freelancing front, things are as solid as they’ve ever been.
There are so many factors out of our control, especially in creative careers where every part of the process (opportunity, execution, the market, the audience, timing) can make or break a project.
• Celebrate victories when they happen but don’t let them make you cocky.
• Shake off losses as best you can and don’t let them make you bitter.
If you figure out how to consistently do both those things, tell me your secret. 😉
11 years ago, I was unceremoniously dumped from writing Birds of Prey on the New 52 before a single issue saw print. At that moment, I was 100% convinced my career in comics was done.
But, I bounced back – Samurai Jack, Figment, D&D, Wayward, and a bunch of others.
Some amazing projects. Other deep disappointments.
At this moment, things are damn good.
Thank you for reading and helping me build this little dream. I try not to take any of it for granted.
Zubby Newsletter #22: Gen Conquest
A bunch of readers signed up for this newsletter at SDCC and Gen Con, so – welcome!
Zubstack is where I keep people up to date with my creative projects (mostly comics and games) and also dig into things on my mind, recipes I’m cooking, games I’m playing, articles I’m enjoying, and more. For my main website, go HERE and, for an archive of past newsletter installments jammed with info and links, go HERE.
Social media is more mercurial and annoying than ever, so being able to go old school internet and reach fine people like yourself directly is really nice. If you don’t want to read the whole thing, that’s fine, but at least you get to choose instead of algorithms choosing for you.
Okay, on we go~
Flights to Gen Con were annoyingly expensive for such a short hop, so Stacy and I decided to drive down to Indianapolis instead (9-ish hours on the road depending on traffic). It was a bit of a throwback to my earliest convention years racking up kilometers and crisscrossing the border at strange hours.
In my previous newsletter I talked about how much has changed for me at shows like Gen Con since I first started attending 20 years ago, but it’s even clearer when you see Darrin’s incredible booth set-up for Howard and I this time-
Conan the Barbarian comics, D&D Young Adventurer’s Guides, the D&D Ultimate Pop-Up Book, D&D comic trade paperbacks, Skullkickers, Wayward, and so much more. There were several times when I was asked which books I worked on and just motioned to my left and said “All of those”, which felt cool but also weird. There’s no way we can stock everything, but even this cross section of my work feels like a heck of a lot.
Gen Con was sold out every day, which also meant Saturday-style crowds every day. I have never seen the exhibit hall so consistently packed, hour after hour. I stepped out for some meetings around meal times and managed to visit friends after the floor closed, but during show hours it honestly felt better to have the table between us and the torrent of people moving through the aisles.
Each morning of the four day show, here’s how it looked before the exhibit hall opened-
Gamers were back in full force, ready to play and buy. Sales soared and a lot of the other exhibitors I spoke to said it was their best year ever. Most of the new books I brought sold out by Saturday and I ran out of Rick and Morty VS D&D sketch covers long before the end of the show as well.
Like at San Diego this year, I tried to slow things down to enjoy richer conversations with old friends or deeper impressions with new people I met. Tons of nostalgia and appreciation, that’s for sure. Lots of chatter about possible future plans as well.
Cromulent Interviews
I know this will surprise you, but I’ve been talking about Conan the Barbarian. Here are a couple interviews shot during San Diego a few weeks ago:
Speaking of Conan-
The reviews for issue #1 are incredibly kind and I posted a teaser of issue #2 on social media that I’ll include below-
Issue #2 keeps the momentum of our first issue going and then some, my friends.
Line artist Rob De La Torre and colorist Dean White deliver a stunner on every page.
Given how fast issue #1 blew off store shelves, make sure you get your pre-order in for our second slashing attack.
Current + Upcoming Books
- Murderworld – trade paperback released June 13th.
- Rick and Morty VS Cthulhu – trade paperback released July 18th.
- Conan the Barbarian #1 – released August 2nd.
- D&D Young Adventurer’s Creature Compendium – releases August 22nd.
- Conan the Barbarian #2 – releases August 30th.
- Unbreakable Red Sonja – trade paperback releases September 13th.
- D&D Young Adventurer’s Guide 7: Places & Portals – releases September 19th.
Upcoming Events
- Aug 24-27 – Fan Expo Canada in Toronto, Ontario.
- Aug 31-Sept 4 – Dragon Con in Atlanta, Georgia.
- Sept 15-17 – Edmonton Expo in Edmonton, Alberta.
- Oct 12-15 – New York Comic-Con in New York, NY.
Links and Other Things
Here’s a quick list of games I picked up at Gen Con, in case you’re interested-
- Berlin: The Wicked City
- Car Wars 6th Edition
- Dungeons of Drakkenheim
- Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game
- Mutants in the Now
- Pendragon Starter Set
- Scout
- Tiger & Dragon
- Wiz-War: Kill Them With Fire 9th Edition
My schedule for the rest of the summer is intense, but I look forward to digging into these when things calm down.
That should cover it for this week.
Jim
Predatory Publishing and You – A Tragedy in the Making
A brand new comic book publisher announces their arrival with a glitzy series of big projects and big promises. Within a few years, they implode and the rights to titles they published become hopelessly trapped in a legal labyrinth that may never get figured out.
Sound familiar?
If you’ve been in and around the North American comic industry, it should. That same excitement-to-apocalypse scenario has played out at least a dozen times over the past forty years. I’ve watched this cycle time and time again with independent comic publishers who try to build their foundation on ‘creator-owned’ titles that lock away rights in perpetuity and page rate promises that crumble when boisterous external funding runs out.
To help people avoid this awful ‘tradition’ of predatory publishing, here are 12 important warning signs to look out for:
• Publisher pops up out of nowhere with bold claims and unknown/vague sources of funding.
• Publisher tries to launch a ‘universe’ of titles (especially superheroes) all at once and you’ve never even heard of them before.
• Publisher claims to be ‘more than just comics’ and makes big media promises without a track record of work adapted into any other mediums at all.
• Publisher snaps up a bunch of existing independent books all at once to ‘strengthen their brand.’
• Publisher promises too-good-to-be-true page rates (because they don’t intend to actually follow through on paying them).
• Publisher says they will let creators keep ‘the copyright’ to their work, while they handle the trademark and media rights.
• Publisher’s marketing and promotion has almost nothing to do with creators or their work.
• Publisher’s social media presence is smaller than most indie creators.
• Publisher seems to appear out of nowhere at conventions with a large booth and is flush with branding/sponsorship-style marketing before they’ve put out a single book.
• Publisher uses movie/TV/other media personalities to front their titles without crediting or promoting the artists and writers making the actual comics.
• Publisher will not negotiate on any points in their contract. They claim every creator operates under the ‘same deal.’
• You never actually see any of a publisher’s books in a comic shop, bookstore or even at their convention booth but, according to their marketing, they have a bunch of titles ready to be turned into movie/TV properties.
Don’t get me wrong, there are predatory indie film, music, prose and game companies as well (and most of the same warning signs covered above also apply), but the lower start up costs and movie/TV pitch-friendly packaging of comics seems to lend itself to these kinds of companies launching with all kinds of fanfare and then flaming out.
Most of these predatory publishers seem to operate on a simple 3-step model:
1) Acquire or generate large amounts of intellectual property as quickly as possible.
2) Pray that they can make a media deal and/or be acquired by a bigger corporate fish.
3) The people in charge profit. Everyone else gets screwed over.
When you’re starting out, I know that any and all credits feel like the path to legitimacy and being considered a true ‘pro’, but please don’t rush into any publishing deal for your original creations without carefully checking the paperwork.
Get a lawyer to review the legal paperwork you’re about to sign. Whatever you pay for that service will be worth it because they can outline exactly what the legal ramifications are and how that paperwork might be wielded against you in a worst case scenario down the road.
Back in 2014 when I pitched Wayward, we got a lot of interest. In turn, I received potential contracts to review from many of the creator-owned publishers in business at that time. When my lawyer and I sat down and reviewed all the paperwork, many of them had deeply unfavorable terms or ‘snake trap’-style clauses built in – ways a publisher could hide profits in and around other expenses, give themselves a disproportionate amount of earnings from our work, negotiate and sign media contracts on our behalf without any communication or approval required, or seize creative control and ownership in perpetuity with very little recourse to fight it.
One of the contracts was so bad, so ridiculously bad, that my lawyer said something to me I’ll never forget-
“If you signed this terrible contract I would have to stop representing you on the spot, because clearly you have no respect for yourself or your hard work and everything I thought I knew about you would be in question.”
(There’s a reason why Wayward, Skullkickers, and Glitterbomb were published by Image Comics. No company is perfect, but the creator-owned contract at Image Central is one of the most creator-friendly anywhere with ownership rights retained and few other strings attached.)
If you do jump into a publishing deal with a new and possible fly-by-night publisher, make sure you do it with eyes open – take the paycheck, cash it quickly, and mentally file that project under “Work for hire with slim chance of benefits” because in many cases that is the truth of the contract you signed.
Even then, before you sign anything, I also recommend you reach out to other creators currently working with that same publisher, even if you don’t know them beforehand, and make sure they’re being treated well and getting paid on time. There’s no guarantee there won’t be future problems, but some due diligence is better than none.
I don’t know of a single creator who wouldn’t respond to a polite message asking about a company they work with:
If things are good – they’re happy to tell you.
If things are bad – they’re eager to warn other people away.
One final point-
Legitimacy comes from the quality of work you create, not a particular company’s logo on your project.
There are more ways to get your work out into the world and independently fund creative projects than ever before. I wish crowdfunding and Patreon had been around when I began my career in the late 90’s/early 00’s.
A bunch of us started right here on the web, creating original work and learning the craft of comics, bit by bit. It may have taken us longer to build up legitimacy that way, but we kept ownership of our creations and quite a few of us have been able to carve out a readership and long term success in a business not known for its stability.
If you found this post helpful, feel free to let me know here (or on Twitter), share the post with your friends and consider buying some of my comics or donating to my Patreon to show your support for me writing this tutorial post instead of doing paying work. 😛
Talking Thunderbolts and Conan With Near Mint Condition
When I was at Lexington Comic Con I spoke to Near Mint Condition about working on titles like Thunderbolts, Wayward, and Conan the Barbarian.
Zubby Newsletter #1: Everything Old Is New Again
Before social media or personal websites were a regular thing, I had a “Zubby Newsletter” I’d send to 20-30 of my friends/colleagues (those few who actually had email addresses back then) as a way to stay in touch when I moved to Calgary. The first one I sent was on March 27, 1999.
In February 2004 I migrated that newsletter over to Livejournal.
In May 2012, I moved all the newsletter and LJ posts to my personal website at www.jimzub.com
Starting up a newsletter again 24 years later feels both familiar and strange.
Zubstack will be promotional (but not spammy, I promise) and also a spot for me to talk about process – writing and drawing – links to articles and tutorials that have grabbed my attention and games, books, or other media on my mind…
…Which, funny enough, is almost exactly what the original newsletter did 24 years ago. The only difference now is that it’s open to anyone instead of just a handful of people I knew in ’99.
It’s all cycles. Wheels within wheels. 😉
Let’s get to it-
Introduction
I assume if you’re on board this newsletter thing, you know what you’re getting into. It seems weird to do an introduction when people are actively choosing to sign up but, just to be on the safe side –
I’m Jim Zub (a pen name shortened from “Zubkavich”), a Canadian writer and artist probably best known for comics and TTRPG material I’ve been producing in various capacities since 2001.
Maybe you found my first webcomic during nascent internet days.
Maybe we met at a comic, anime, or gaming convention in the early 2000’s.
Maybe I popped up on your radar when I launched Skullkickers (2010) or Wayward (2014) during the Image Comics 2nd/3rd creator-owned wave.
Maybe you read one of my Making Comics/Economics of Comics tutorial posts around that same time.
Maybe you’ve enjoyed other comics or creative work I’ve done since then.
Whatever brought you on board, I’m thrilled you’re here.
Movie DNA
A couple weeks ago I was a guest on a podcast called Cinema Splash Page where host Michael Brodie and I went through key films from my youth that had a major influence on my storytelling sensibilities. Most of the interviews I do are about comics or RPGs, so this was a nice change of pace.
When I went back through those films, it was a bit surprising how deeply they drilled into my brain and still inform my work. If I had to summarize three key aspects-
- Heading into the Unknown: Venturing forth to somewhere new, mysterious, and unexpected.
- Swashbucklers, Underdogs, and Lucky Bastards: The protagonists I gravitate to tend to be caught off guard and in over their head. They’re doing the best they can, and will need to use everything in their arsenal to keep up with situations they find themselves in.
- Adventure and Wonderment: Things move quickly and the stakes are worthy, but there’s always time for a touch of comedy or a moment of awe to break up the action.
Being able to see those broader patterns and understand my taste in fiction is valuable. It helps me make clearer creative choices that really click for me.
Murder, For Fun and Profit
Last week, Murderworld: Game Over was released at your favorite local comic shop. It was the final chapter of a 5-part story co-written by Ray Fawkes and I all about Arcade, the classic X-Men/Spider-Man villain. Since Arcade always loses to the super heroes he faces, we wanted to show how he actually keeps his whole Murderworld enterprise afloat, while making him a much more effective and sinister presence all around.
Ray and I originally pitched Murderworld to then Marvel Editor-In-Chief Joe Quesada back in 2004, so this pitch was old enough to vote by the time it finally got the green light thanks to current Editor-In-Chief C.B. Cebulski, X-Men editor Jordan White, and our own amazing editor Sarah Brunstad.
It’s now my go-to example on why you shouldn’t publicly blab about old storylines or other ones that got away. You never know when you may be able to take another shot or repurpose ideas down the road. I go more in-depth on how Murderworld finally came about in this video:
At each step of development, Sarah Brunstad championed Murderworld, encouraging us to tell the darkly twisted tale in our outline and made sure we didn’t have to sand down any sharp points. Every script I thought we were going to get push back, but she saw it through.
Our art teams – line artists Jethro Morales, Farid Karami, Carlos Nieto, Luca Pizzari, Lorenzo Tammetta, colorist Matt Mila and letterer Cory Petit – delivered the goods every issue.
Ray and I have known each other since college. We’ve watched each other navigate the highs and lows of the comic business. We’ve cheerleaded and commiserated on each success or setback. Finally getting the chance to work side-by-side with him on a project has been such a blast.
At the end of our Murderworld story, we sowed the seeds for a possible sequel and obviously we’d love to see that come to fruition but, whatever happens next, just having this story finally told after all this time feels like a huge win.
The trade paperback collection arrives in June and we hope people check it out if they missed the five interconnected single issues as they were released (Murderworld: Avengers, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Moon Knight, and Game Over).
Links and Other Things
• This digital drawing tutorial about how to get clean ink lines in Photoshop posted by BaM Animation was a nice one to pass along to my students:
• Questing Beast cracks the code on original Dungeons & Dragons worldbuilding and timekeeping. I grew up playing in the first edition era and yet the specifics of how it used to work in the rules as written (aka. RAW) still really surprised me here:
• Also, my buddy Karl Kerschl’s new Kickstarter campaign is looking sweeeet. Go get it: Death Transit Tanager
Okay, that’s enough for this time.
Thanks for your support and *ahem* zubscription.
Jim
Zub at Montreal Comiccon 2022
This weekend I’m back at Montreal Comiccon, my first time at the show since 2015. Stacy and I will be set up at BOOTH 2729! Come on by with your books to get signed or you can pick up some we’ll be bringing from home.
2:00p – Sunday, July 10
SPOTLIGHT ON JIM ZUB (D&D, CONAN THE BARBARIAN, AVENGERS)
516A : Salle de Conférence 3
This is the perfect opportunity to hear creators talk about your favourite comic books and their experiences in the business, their current or upcoming projects, and perhaps even some never heard before anecdotes. It’s a great opportunity to ask questions and be entertained in person by your favourite creators.
Zub at TCAF 2022!
After two years dormant, the Toronto Comic Arts Festival is back! TCAF is a wonderful comic and graphic novel event happening at the Toronto Reference Library that’s FREE to attend!
On both Saturday and Sunday Stacy and I will be set up on the second floor salon at TABLE 238 with copies of Rick and Morty VS Dungeons & Dragons, the D&D Young Adventurer’s Guides, the new Skullkickers Kickstarter book, and more! You can purchase those to get signed or bring any of my other books on by to get signed as well.
I’m also doing two panels over the weekend, one for the Word Balloon Academy online material and another on site:
Friday, June 17th 2:30 PM – 4:00 PM
DIGITAL PANEL: Whose IP is it anyway? (Livestreamed on site)
Featuring: Vanessa Stefaniuk, Megan Kearney, Ryan North, and Jim Zub
From Dungeons & Dragons to Disney Princesses, artists of all stripes can make a career working in established IP. Artists discuss how to get into existing IP projects and their experiences in this hybrid, live-streamed panel in the creative stream.
Location: Novella
Sunday, June 19th 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Adventuretime (Not the Show)
Come grab your friends to talk about adventure! From escaping rolling boulders to swashbuckling on the high seas, there are a million different configurations of action set pieces and adventure storytelling. Join an incredible line up of creators, Terry Dodson (AdventureMan), Jim Zub (Dungeons & Dragons, Wayward), Sweeney Boo (Over My Dead Body, Marvel Action), and Henry Brajas (Helm Greycastle), as they discuss how comics make the best action and how to make the best action in comics.
Location: Toronto Reference Library, Hinton Learning Theatre
If you’re in the city over the weekend I hope to see you there!