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Hi everyone! The deadline for the big 200th issue of the Alpha-Omega APA-zine is coming up soon, so as a reminder for anyone interested in participating, here’s an updated F.A.Q. list:
ALPHA-OMEGA #200: FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (v2)
What is Alpha-Omega?
Alpha-Omega is the Amateur Press Association of the Christian Comic Arts Society, and is the ink-and-paper-through-the-mail counterpart to the electronic forums and social media fellowship we have online.
What’s the plan?
Alpha-Omega #200 will be a special issue featuring content from our past and current members, as well as from friends and supporters within the Christian comics movement. We envision the book as a “best of” tribute to our past 33+ years of Christian comics fellowship, and a celebration of both Christian comics and Christian comics fandom.
If you haven't already done so, please RSVP to alphaomega@crosshatchery.com if you want to participate.
What are we looking for?
The length of your submission is up to you. You can submit anything from essays and short stories to a single pinup page of art. It can be new content, or “best of” reprints. Possible ideas include…
- Essays about your own personal memories, experiences or lessons learned within the Christian comics movement during your time as a fan, amateur or pro.
- Artwork in the “Congratulations on 200 issues!” tradition of those Comic-Con Souvenir Books. Our official theme for this issue is “Celebrating Christian Comics Fandom”.
- Self-contained short comic stories.
- Also, feel free to share and promote your own Christian comics work. Members and friends of Alpha-Omega and the Christian Comic Arts Society have produced a lot of content over the years, but much of it was in the form of small-press indie comics from the pre-internet era and so many of our comics may still be largely unknown to wider audiences. Give us a look back on what you’ve worked on, and how to find it!
What should we NOT include?
- Personal contact info. If you’re a creator who wants to promote your website, social media or email, great! Go for it! But it’s probably not a good idea to share your home address and phone number, since extra copies of this “best of” book will eventually be available for sale to the general public.
- Mailing comments to other members. These are usually the lifeblood of an APA, but this issue will have many new one-time readers, so mailing comments referencing any specific back issue content will be needlessly confusing. Save it for next time, regulars!
- Serialized stories. Like above, don’t share “Chapter 2 of 5” or start a teaser cliffhanger that will never be resolved for our guest readers. Let’s stick to standalone stories this issue.
- Copyrighted material. Feel free to share any of your own art and writing, but avoid photocopying articles or artwork from elsewhere.
- All our usual AO content restrictions apply: no graphic sex/violence/objectionable content, no personal insults, no inter-denominational arguments, no political flame-wars.
Who owns the copyright?
You will retain all copyright ownership of your individual work. By submitting your work for this issue, you are granting Alpha-Omega/CCAS a nonexclusive right to publish it as part of this 200th issue compilation.
This standard disclaimer will be included in the front page of the book: “The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual creators, and do not necessarily reflect the Christian Comic Arts Society or the Alpha-Omega Amateur Press Association as a whole. The copyrights for all contents of this compilation are the property of their respective creators, and are printed here with permission.”
How should we send our pages?
- The printed book will be 8.5” x 11”, B&W. Try to design your pages accordingly.
- Have your submission clearly labeled with your name somewhere on the front page. (Also please include your own copyright notices if you want to be more specific than our generic AO disclaimer listed above.)
- If you can send your ‘trib digitally, send it to Kevin Yong via alphaomega@crosshatchery.com or by using a file sharing upload site like Dropbox. TIFF, JPEG or PNG accepted for artwork, while PDF is the preferred file format for documents.
- If you prefer to create your ‘trib in hardcopy form, you can mail us ONE clean set of B&W pages for your ‘trib, and we will scan it as needed for the final book. You can mail your printed pages to:
Kevin Yong, P.O. Box 254, Temple City, CA 91780
Deadline?
The 200th issue will be dated May/June 2018. The deadline for contributing for the issue will be May 7th, and the printed issue will be sent out (Lord willing) by late May.
What will this cost?
As an all-volunteer APAzine, the costs of printing this issue will be paid for out of pocket by the participants. We estimate a printed copy will cost around $4 or $5, plus postage.
The book will be printed as a squarebound trade paperback using Createspace print-on-demand. In addition to copies being printed for participants, the book will later be available for sale at Amazon.com to the general public. (Any money eventually raised from sales of the book will go back towards funding Alpha-Omega and the Christian Comic Arts Society.)
For those who want to be a part of AO #200 but who don’t want to purchase a physical copy, a free digital PDF version will also be made available to all participants.
Who do I contact with more questions?
Ralph Miley is our main contact person & coordinator for this project. Kevin Yong is the Central Mailer who is compiling all the ‘tribs and will be formatting the book for print. If you don't already have our contact info, you can send us an email at alphaomega@crosshatchery.com and one of us will follow-up.
Thanks, and God bless you all!
This was took longer than I anticipated, and I couldn't get the images to line up, so still working out the kinks in the scanning process.
Post 1 like and 1 dislike
Hi all:
Tooled around with the cutting technique I used last week, think this one works.
Post one thing you like and one thing you dislike.
So ends the "Ian Needs a New Washing Machine" saga...
"Ian Gets a New Washing Machine" part 6 (click for full comic)
"Ian Gets a New Washing Machine" part 5 (click for full comic)
So, I started inking the second issue of Captain Orange. I was using the natural thicknesses of the pen set I have to give images in the foreground more umph. I'm looking at it and I was thinking... maybe I should just add thickness myself and not rely on what the pens say. Any thoughts?
So yesterday after watching a youtube video on art hacks, I thought I came up with an ingenius way to scan 11x17 art boards using the regular 8.5x11 scanning bed. I cut the boards at the center line but not enough to cut clean in half. The board was still one piece but could be folded, so I would scan in half, flip it over then scan it again. I thought this revolutionary and opened up limitless possibilities. Unfortunately this morning while trying to stitch together in photoshop, I realized some very big errors I need to work out before posting a completed piece. Mainly that the scanner didn't pick up the edges so there's missing pieces of the page that just didn't get scanned. So after much frustration I'm going to have to try scanning those pages again and getting all the image on the scanning bed.
But I did get at least two together and did some touch up work. The 2nd image is one I completed this week.
Post one thing you like and one thing you dislike.
"Ian Gets a New Washing Machine" part 4 (click for full comic)
"Ian Gets a New Washing Machine" part 3 (click for full comic)
Limiting the page to less than 6 frames did give me more time to draw, still details were very intimidating. Inking I feel is improving, though I still see shaky lines and I'm doing all I can (or know how to) to make smooth and straight lines.
Post one thing you like and one thing you dislike.
"Ian Gets a New Washing Machine" part 2 (click for full comic)
This will be the last page I setup so crammed like this. My original reasoning was I had to put as much action onto each page to get the story moving. A few comments left on previous blog posts have advised against that. So now the challenge is bigger frames on each page and less of them. Now I'll need to start adding detail, which with inking can be a very big challenge.
"Ian Still Needs a New Washing Machine" (click for full comic)
Hi! As some of you may know, I'm not posting here online that often because so much of my time is involved offline with Alpha-Omega, the Christian Comic Arts Society's long-running Christian comics APA (which stands for Amateur Press Association.)
For those who don't know what an APA is, there's a Wikipedia article on the history of the concept. It's basically a short-run, members-only fanzine that works sort of like a pre-internet equivalent of a private discussion forum, bulletin board and blog, printed out and shipped back and forth through regular postal mail. Each member of the APA produces their own mini-zine (called "contributions", or "tribs" for short), mails their 'trib to the group's "Central Mailer", who then collates and combines the individual 'tribs into complete photocopied/stapled issues of the APA-zine which is then mailed back out to all participating members, who then are generally expected to review/critique/comment on each other's work in the following issue. It's a much slower paced (and given the cost of photocopies and postage, much more expensive) alternative to the free and instantaneous fellowship available through modern online forums and social media, but it tends to provide an outlet for a different set of creative muscles and provides a different style of feedback and fellowship.
So, if you've never heard of an APA before and would be interested in joining, you can talk to Ralph Miley (the current "Editor" of our APA, who coordinates stuff between members) or myself (the current "Central Mailer", who physically assembles and mails each issue) to find out more.
However! This blog post isn't specifically about recruiting new members. What I'm trying to do is spread the word to former alumni members of our group and let them know that the Alpha-Omega APAzine will be celebrating its 200th issue this year! Ralph and I are trying to contact and invite all our many alumni members to participate in this upcoming special anniversary issue!
(Additional Note: I originally wrote this post with former Alpha-Omega members in mind, but the invitation to participate is open to other friends and supporters of the Christian comics movement as well. Contact us if you're interested!) - Kevin
And so, I hereby present: The official AO#200 participation Q&A!
Who are we looking for?
If you’ve been a member of the Alpha-Omega APA at any point during our past 30+ years, we’d love to see you back in our pages for this anniversary special. We have been trying to reach out and contact former members via our last known contact info from back issues of AO, but many of us have moved and/or changed email providers in the years since we first joined. That’s why I'm making a more public announcement here on the CCAS site, to get the word out more easily. (This invitation is also open to any other friends and supporters in the Christian comics movement who want to celebrate with us.)
Who to contact?
Ralph Miley is our main coordinator for this project. Kevin Yong is the Central Mailer who is compiling all the ‘tribs and will be formatting the book for print. If you don't have our contact info already, drop me an email at alphaomega@crosshatchery.com and we’ll follow up!
What’s the plan?
Alpha-Omega #200 will be a special issue featuring content from our past and current members, as well as from friends and supporters within the Christian comics movement. We envision the book as a “best of” tribute to our past 33+ years of APAzine fellowship, and a celebration of both Christian comics and Christian comics fandom.
The book will be printed as a squarebound trade paperback using print-on-demand, and in addition to copies being printed for participants, the book will later be available for sale at Amazon.com to the general public. (Any money eventually raised from sales of the book will go back towards funding Alpha-Omega and the CCAS.)
Deadline?
The 200th issue will be dated May/June 2018. The deadline for contributing for the issue will be May 7th, and the printed issue will be sent out (Lord willing) by late May.
Costs?
As an all-volunteer APAzine, the costs of printing this issue will be paid for out of pocket by the participants. We estimate a printed copy will cost somewhere around $5, plus postage, depending on the final page count.
For those alumni who want to be a part of AO #200 but who don’t want to purchase a physical copy, we'll work on creating a free digital PDF version to be available for all participants.
What we’re looking for
The length of your ‘trib is up to you. You can submit anything from a full length ‘trib to a single page of congratulatory artwork in the tradition of those Comic-Con “Souvenir Books”. Our theme for this issue is “Celebrating Christian Comics Fandom”.
Ideas for ‘tribs
- A “Best of” collection of your past Alpha-Omega content. Do you have essays, reviews, artwork or writing from your past time in AO that you would like to see reprinted? Also, If you previously wrote content for the CCAS 25th Anniversary book, we can reprint your essays/memoirs from there as well!
- You can share your own personal memories or experiences with the Christian comics movement, or updates on what you have been involved with since you were last in AO. (But don’t forget that this book will have a wider audience than normal, so don’t go into more personal detail than you would be comfortable sharing on a public forum.)
- Feel free to share and promote your own work. Members of our group has produced a lot of content over the years, but much of it was in the form of small-press indie comics from the pre-internet era and so many of our comics may still be largely unknown to wider audiences. Let people know what you’ve worked on, and how to find it!
- Artwork in the “Congratulations on 200 issues!” tradition of those ubiquitous Comic-Con Souvenir Books. Artwork can feature your own characters, or if you want a “mascot” character for AO, you can do a tribute using The Golden Protector -- a Christian superhero created by Don Ensign, the co-founder of AO & the CCAS who passed away a few years ago. (Reference art available if needed.)
What not to include
- Personal contact info. If you’re a creator who wants to promote your website, social media or email, great! Go for it! But it’s probably not a good idea to share your home address and phone number, since extra copies of this “best of” book will eventually be available for sale to the general public.
- Mailing comments. These are usually the lifeblood of an APA, but this issue will have many new one-time readers, so mailing comments referencing any specific back issue content will be needlessly confusing. Save it for next time, regulars!
- Serialized stories. Like above, don’t share “Chapter 2 of 5” or start a teaser cliffhanger that will never be resolved for our guest readers. Let’s stick to standalone stories this issue.
- Copyrighted material. Feel free to share any of your own art and writing, but avoid photocopying articles or artwork from elsewhere.
- All our usual AO content restrictions apply: no graphic sex/violence/objectionable content, no personal insults, no inter-denominational arguments, no political flame-wars.
Copyrights
You will retain all copyright ownership of your individual content. By submitting your work for this issue, you are granting Alpha-Omega/CCAS a nonexclusive right to publish it as part of this 200th issue compilation anthology.
This standard disclaimer will be included in the front page of the book: “The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual creators, and do not necessarily reflect the Christian Comic Arts Society or the Alpha-Omega Amateur Press Association as a whole. The copyright for all contents of this anthology are the property of their respective creators, and are printed here with permission.”
How to send your ‘trib:
- The book will be 8.5” x 11”, B&W. Try to design your pages accordingly.
- Clearly label your pages with your name, and your ‘trib’s title too, if applicable.
- Also please include your own copyright notices if you want to be more specific than our generic AO disclaimer listed above.
- If you can send your ‘trib digitally, send it to Kevin via email or by using a file sharing upload site like Dropbox. PDF is the preferred file format (Word Documents can be used if absolutely necessary, but we can make no guarantees that the formatting will remain consistent.)
- If you prefer to create your ‘trib in hardcopy form, you can mail us one clean set of B&W pages for your ‘trib, and we will scan it as needed for the final book. You can mail your hardcopy pages to:
Kevin Yong
P.O. Box 254
Temple City, CA 91780
Contact Ralph and Kevin to RSVP if you're interested. If you don't already have our contact info, you can send us an email at alphaomega@crosshatchery.com and one of us will follow-up. God bless!
Wow, I can't believe it's been a few years since I last updated my account here. Just wanted to log in and say hi, and let you know that I'll have some project updates to share soon.
For those who were wondering, no, I didn't drop off the face of the Earth. I've just been busy with my day job and various family duties, as well as working offline on several Christian comic projects, such as books like Ragged Capes and New Visions-- now with two volumes -- with Ralph Miley from New Creation Comics; assisting in the publication of Larry Blake's Psychozort trade paperback collection; and launching Silver Wolf, a new superhero series with Eric Jansen and Larry Blake.
The biggest project I'm working on at the moment is helping organize the upcoming anniversary issue of the Alpha-Omega APAzine, and I'll be posting a separate update on that shortly. :)
