Convention Season!

Start your engines! And by engines, I mean staplers and paper-cutters. Next week kicks off my comic convention season for 2011 - woo! It begins with Staple! a super cool, independent comic show in Austin, Texas that I'm super thrilled about attending for the 3rd time. The rooms are lofty, the creators friendly, and the work for sale is amazing. One of the things that's fun about going to different shows in different parts of the country is the trends you notice -- in Austin, I sell more prints and original art than anywhere else. In Portland and New York, they were into my series about a female assassin. And in Toronto and back here in Maryland, autobio was tops.

So if any of you are curious about how I prepare, one of the things I spend hours doing is making my comic books! Here's the typical process I go through: (here I'm using my book Lipstick & Malice #2 as an example)

First, I print out all of my pages (apparently on a very dusty Canon printer ...)

They're all double-sided and black and white.

Next, I put them all together in order, and fold them over, careful to line up the paper on the ends as best as I can.

I also do this to the cover (the insides are printed on regular weight paper, the covers are on cardstock) ....

Next, I unfold both the cover and the inside pages and place the cover on top of the pages.

Then I take them over to my fancy shmancy long neck stapler, and put 2 staples into the spine.

Lastly, I trim off the white paper around the edges of the book.

And voila! A comic book, ready and eager to be sold and read!

This year I'll be debuting my 3rd Bonnie N. Collide, Nine to Five comic, as well as a special mini-issue of Bonnie, featuring all art done by the magnificent Tim Fish. If you're in Austin, stop by table #30 in the Hall and say hi! Otherwise, the books will be up and available in my store when I get back. Also, I might be debuting a few prints for the show ... more on that later!