On October 10, 2012, several comics creators will be crowdsourcing the making of a comic book while they're trapped on a train for seven hours, en route to NYCC 2012!
And you can participate via the Space Corps Facebook page and on Twitter following and tweeting at #spacecorps starting at 9:00AM Eastern Time!
Comics Experience Art Moderator and alum, Gannon Beck, along with writer and CE Alum Joey Groah, and writer Bryan Richmond will set a starting point, but then use reader input to shape the story.
The story will be set in the Space Corps universe, which follows the adventures of Space Marines on a planet-hopping campaign.
You can check out past stories via the free webcomic right here.
So, tomorrow, you don't have to be a stranger on a train: join Gannon Beck, Bryan Richmond and Joey Groah for some crowdsourced making comics fun!
Click for larger view for more details! Click for larger view for more details!
If you want to make comics, write, draw, letter, and color comics, or improve as a comics creator, you'll find like-minded friends and colleagues in our online workshops and courses. We hope to see you there!
Baltimore Comic Con 2012 was another big success for Comics Experience alums and Workshop members, and a great time as well.
Our second annual Baltimore "Comics Experience Meet-Up" happened Saturday night at Tír Na nóg.
More than twenty people showed up to talk comics (and more) including alums/Workshop members Chris Lewis, Elizabeth-Amber Love, Gannon Beck, George O'Connor, James Babbo, Janine & Ken Frederick, Joe Sergi, Joey Groah, Neil Fisher, Nick Dedual, Rich Douek, Rob Anderson, Ryan Murray, and Scott Dubin.
After the meet-up, some folks headed to other locations, including the Hyatt Bar. CE alum Amy Chu was there, post-Harvey Awards ceremony, and even filed her own "Convention Bar Report" after the fact on The Beat. You can read her report right here: On the Scene: Baltimore Comic-Con Night -- Part I.
Another highlight of the convention for many members was Tom Brevoort's Marvel Boot Camp panel.
For two hours, Tom shared the presentation he gives to new Marvel Editors each year. This was the first time the session had ever been given outside of Marvel, and attendees were asked to purchase tickets to benefit the Hero Initiative.
It was a very informative session and more than ten pages of comprehensive notes on the session are now available to our Creators Workshop members in our "Convention Panel Notes" thread. (You can see a screen capture from our forums of that topic and a few others below.)
Finally, the convention was a success for our members exhibiting at the show, with heavy crowds through most of the weekend. Some members were exhibiting at a con for the first time, while others are old pros at the convention circuit. One member, Chris Lewis, travelled all the way from Germany to debut his new comic, Drones!
Other Comics Experience-related exhibitors included Comics Experience coloring instructor Chris Sotomayor, Joe Sergi (Aliens Among Us), George O'Connor (Healed), Joey Groah and Gannon Beck (both of Space Corps), Amy Chu (Girls' Night Out), and James Babbo (The Moses Militia).
To check out more information on all these projects, including trailers and cover art, check out our pre-convention blog right here!
Thanks to all our members who attended the meet-up. It was great seeing everyone!
Hope to see you at our next Meet-Up at NYCC 2012...
If you want to make comics, write or draw comics, or improve as a comics creator, you'll find like-minded friends and colleagues in our online workshops and courses. We hope to see you there!
Baltimore Comic Con 2012 is this weekend, September 8-9, 2012, and a bunch of Comics Experience alums and Creators Workshop members will be attending and exhibiting!
In addition, we'll be holding a Comics Experience Meet-Up on Saturday night. If you're an alum and don't have the details, drop an email to rob@ComicsExperience.com.
Here's a run-down of some of the CE folks exhibiting at Baltimore!
Comics Experience Coloring Instructor, Chris "Soto" Sotomayor will be exhibiting at Artists Alley table A231.
CE alum and Workshop member, Chris Lewis, will be flying in all the way from Germany for the convention to premiere his new comic book Drones.
Drones is described as "The War on Terror - Now Playing in Las Vegas!"
Chris was recently interviewed on Liberation Frequency, where he discussed Drones and the impact of Comics Experience on his work.
Check out the comic book trailer below or visit www.epigamics.com for more info.
Chris will be exhibiting at the Epigamics table -- A5 -- in Artists Alley.
CE alum and Workshop member Joe Sergi will be exhibiting, showing off the latest Elevator Pitch Press anthology, Aliens Among Us.
Joe was a writing contributor as well as editor of the book, along with numerous other Comics Experience writing, art, and lettering alums and Workshop members -- including the cover shown by CE art alum, DaFu Yu.
Joe will be exhibiting in Artists Alley at table A105.
CE alum and Workshop member George O'Connor will be exhibiting, showing off his now-completed 5-issue miniseries Healed. In Healed, when all life-threatening diseases and illnesses are suddenly cured, it leaves confusion and chaos in its wake.
Reviewer Blair Butler of Fresh Ink Online and G4TV wrote it's "Fun, West Wing-type dialogue and I love the stories at play here."
An 8-page preview is available at www.homelesscomics.com and here's a brand new video preview:
You can find George at the Homeless Comics table -- A92 in Artists Alley.
CE alums and Workshop members Joey Groah and Gannon Beck (also on our staff as our new Art Moderator!) will be premiering the zero issue of the book Space Corps.
Gannon publishes and provides all interior art (as well as some stories), while Joey has also written a story inside. Space Corps is an ongoing comic series which gives the account of a platoon of Space Marines fighting in a planet-hopping campaign in an intergalactic war.
You can find Gannon and Joey at table A253 in Artists Alley.
CE alum and Workshop member Amy Chu will be offering her short story collection Girls' Night Out as well as CE alum Georgia Lee's scifi thriller Meridien.
Girls' Night Out is a collection of short stories written by Amy, each with different artistic teams. Georgia’s Meridien City follows a space detective in a world where the upper class dominates the only habitable living space on the planet.
You can find Amy at table A253 in Artists Alley with Gannon and Joey!
CE alum and Workshop member James Babbo will be debuting his new comic, The Moses Militia.
The Moses Militia is set during World War II, where four Jewish soldiers are determined to stop a Nazi alchemist’s plan to kill Winston Churchill with the undead. And it's set in Nazi occupied Casablanca!
The cover features work by Bill Wylie, Mark McKenna and our coloring instructor Chris Sotomayor. You can read more about the project right here!
You can find James at table A-56 in Artists Alley!
Best of luck to all our alums attending and/or exhibiting at Baltimore Comic Con!
If you want to make comics, write, draw, letter, and color comics, or improve as a comics creator, you'll find like-minded friends and colleagues in our online workshops and courses. We hope to see you there!
We're pleased to announce that CE alum and Workshop member Gannon Beck will be joining the staff here at Comics Experience as the Art Moderator of the Creators Workshop!
Gannon has also been a valued contributor to the Workshop forums with his regularly updated Sketch Thread and critiques on the Workshop. Gannon has been with Comics Experience ever since Workshop member Joey Groah brought him along to a CE Meet-Up at the Baltimore Comic Con -- and we're glad he did!
Gannon is also an entrepreneur who makes art for a living at OO-RAH.COM, producing custom designed t-shirts for U.S. Marine Corp units and Officer Candidate Training graduates. No wonder OO-RAH.COM's Facebook page has over 10,000 "Likes"!
Gannon is actively involved in making comics with his creator-owned title, Space Corps, set to launch at this year's Baltimore Comic-Con, and other projects in the works (including the awesome Shark Puncher, written by CE Book Club Manager and alum Paul Allor).
In his new role as Art Moderator, Gannon will be helping to keep things lively on the art front in our forums, working to ensure that our growing artist community receives feedback, and coordinating with our art instructor Robert Atkins on the art portion of the monthly challenge, to name just a few things.
We look forward to the energy, enthusiasm, and drive that Gannon brings to the job!
If you want to make comics, write, draw, letter, and color comics, or improve as a comics creator, you'll find like-minded friends and colleagues in our online workshops and courses. We hope to see you there!
In this guest blog, artist Gannon Beck, Comics Experience alum and Creator’s Workshop member, discusses his experience as a student in the recent Introduction to Comic Book Art class. You can check out one of Gannon's pages from the class below.
Who is your favorite teacher?
I’ve never had an answer to this question. Early on I wanted to study illustration, but few opportunities were offered in my academic sphere. I’ve always been able to learn more through books than through the teachers I encountered.
That was before I signed up for Introduction to Comic Book Art at Comics Experience, taught by Robert Atkins. Robert is an amazing illustrator who has worked on titles for Marvel, DC and IDW. Incidentally, his teaching is on par with his art.
The class Robert taught spanned over six sessions. During that time, the students worked to create four pages (one cover and three pages of sequentials). We built the pages up from roughs, then to breakdowns, then to final pencils -- all the while getting critiques on how to make our pages better.
Robert has the uncanny ability to make artists feel good about what they have produced even while covering their art in corrections.
During class time, Robert critiqued artwork in Photoshop (which we could see in our browser) and made corrections to the artwork by flipping panels, enlarging, adding, or deleting parts to improve the art turned in. At the end of a critique, rather than feel bad that I didn’t do the art better, I felt invigorated to have new artistic weapons in my arsenal. As a result of Robert’s instruction, I left every class a better artist.
I improved a great deal during the class and enjoyed it the whole way. The other artists that participated in the class seemed to have had a similar experience. It was great at the end to see everyone’s pages and how much we all improved.
I don’t consider myself a great artist yet, but I feel that I’ve been firmly placed on the path to become one. That’s what a great teacher does. Now, if anyone asks me who my favorite teacher is I can tell them: It’s Robert Atkins.
If you want to make comics, write, draw, letter, and color comics, or improve as a comics creator, you'll find like-minded friends and colleagues in our online workshops and courses. We hope to see you there!
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