I promised and update, and after recovering for a day, here it is! I spent 4 days in Angouleme, France, for the biggest yearly comic convention in Europe. Prepare for the longest post ever made in Sister Claire.com history! >8D
For the majority of the time, I was meeting up with editors and comic publishers to introduce Sister Claire (and in some cases, concept art for Nightingale) in hopes of getting published. As you know, I’ve been working on Sister Claire for over a year now, so I had a lot more material to show for that. I brought 4 preview books and t-shirts, which were all given away to the most interested publishers. I met with a lot of big name publishers, most of whom were not interested. Publishers usually have a very specific idea in mind for what they are looking for, so this wasn’t a surprise to me. Nonetheless, I waited patiently and showed my work to every editor who would see me.
As a result, even if not everyone showed interest in publishing me, I made some unexpected contacts with some really cool people, including C.G. Marra from Passenger Press, an Italian publisher who is making an all-girl anthology soon. I’ll be in contact with him about doing a 6-8 page comic in Sister Claire style. =)
Sadly I didn't have any time to go to any of their meetups, but I'm sure it was really swingin'.
I met Tim Fish, Paige Braddock, and Abby Denson at the GLBT booth. They were all really sweet and interesting to talk to, particularly on the subject of the first gay superhero in Marvel finally being allowed to have a boyfriend. It was also nice to talk to them after 2 days of speaking on French and Italian, it was nice to have a moment in English again… XD
Thank you so much Mr. Grant! T_T You're a cool dude.
As for other artists I met, perhaps the most famous was Alan Grant, the writer of Tank Girl. I chatted with him for almost half an hour while I waited for my chance to meet some editors from Ankama. He was the one who stood up and waved at me when someone was finally free to speak to me!
Speaking of which, there’s pretty much NOTHING published by Ankama that I don’t love. (But my faves would be Maliki, Muthafukas, and of course now the french version of Tank Girl!) I think my Sister Claire style really matches their theme. I hope I’ll have more good news to bring soon regarding this soon. ;D
The waiting area to speak to Soleil editors looked like a fashion runway.
While waiting 30 minutes in line to meet the editors of Soleil (who looked at my stuff for about 3 seconds before brushing me off… lol, c’est la vie.) I met a very talented artist from Argentina named Alejandro Marmontel. He does some really nice digital painted coloring for a collaboration comic. This dude is totally gonna be famous someday. O_O
I also met Rosalys, a more manga-style artist who does some really gorgeous artwork. She’s also really cute herself, but I was too shy to tell her that in person. XD If you know the MMORPG FlyFF, you might be interested to know that she made the comic that started it all! She also has a video interview here! (Sorry… it’s in French)
There was a public reading room where people could vote on their favorite comics and listen to live interviews of the nominated artists/writers.
In the above picture room, there was also a public “drawing board” where visitors could leave messages and drawings. Of course I couldn’t pass up the pimping opportunity:
Claire left her heart in Angouleme...
Similarly, at a Wacom tablet exhibition I took it upon myself to do a little demonstration, leaving behind an unfinished sketch of Nightingale:
On the subject of Nightingale, I had a particularly interesting meeting with the heads of Tekneo, who have developed an application to bring comics to the iPhone and other portables. I was very excited to sample their technology, because they are incorporating slight animation, but more importantly, sound into the modified comics. This got me wondering… what if Nightingale was published on this platform, with audio supplements to make it accessible to blind people? It’s been long plaguing me that my comic, which focuses on a blind superheroine, is ironically inaccessible to the very people it’s meant to educate the public about. If I could team up with them to make the first blind-accessible “comic”, that would be pretty revolutionary! They seemed equally hooked by the idea, so we’ll be keeping in touch about this. The first release of Nightingale may end up not in print, but an interactive, portable platform! <8D
I also met some strange characters wandering about the city- some were more recognizable than others. I even picked a fight with the biggest one!
Lady Gaga’s super-tall French cousins from Yamino on Vimeo.
Also, possibly the biggest surprise wasn’t even at the comic festival itself. My host had a disko in her basement. No, really… with a full bar and everything. I made this little video while I was zoning out in between two conversing people.
Basement Disko from Yamino on Vimeo.
