Hey everyone, we've been approved for distribution into comic book stores, but we need to complete 15 more pages. Raising the money to do so on kick-starter. Please check out our campaign website. Contribute if you can, and help spread the word for those who might be interested in high quality Scripture based stories.
Things will get better.
Time wanders along with or without us.
We are just along for life's journey.
Time mends, Time heals.
Things, Things will get better.
Everyday i spend with you is a precious GOD given gift.
I enjoy the passing moments of my daughter's youth.
I do my best to delight in your presence.
I am grateful and content in our time together.
Things, Things will get better.
I miss my Sophia.
Her sweetness and childish innocence gave me reasons to love.
She is with her creator, in his love, in his arms.
When my time here on earth is complete, I will see my sweet pea again.
Thank GOD for his eternal mercy and forgiveness.
Things, Things will get better.
GOD, He is watching us, Taking good care.
Nothing escapes his wisdom or love.
Priase his name for all he give's and take's
For someday we will see his loving face.
AND
Things.... Things will BE better....Forever.
Amen.
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Went to comic store after an appointment. Not one comic interested me enough to pick up. Not. One.
This means...if you interest me enough...I just may buy yours.
I recently posted Page 100, which is a small milestone compared to many writers but still feels significant.
I've also added my first Store item, a glossy, 8 1/2 X 11" signed print of a two-page spread (pgs. 106-107, which are due to post to the site soon). It depicts the Star Hunters' first glimpse of what makes the Atlantis Zoological park so unique: live dinosaurs. I've attached the image here for your perusal; it took between 25-30 hours to finish counting the coloring. I'm selling the prints for $10 per copy.
I'm looking any artist that can help draw my comics for free. I know I said the free to most people that's a bad word. The reason why I am a missonary at the L.A. Dream Center and I don't make any money
Just to let everyone know that I'm asking to help a fellow christian brother out I'm not doing it to insalt people or hurt people. The main reason is I'm tierd of seeing all the garbarge in comics today like gay super heroes and half naked women. It's like what are have the younger generation look at and GOD bless everyone
Here are two amazing sites to help you in your creation process:
As I sit beside the still forests of Yavin 5, I can hear echos of the olde teachings of Jedi of Yore… Ok enough with the Star Wars Jedi stuff. But learning our craft feels like trying to crack the knowledge from A holocron or learning how to wield a light saber at times. I learned the hard way and want to share the next trick I learned. The much needed skill of flatting. So you have photoshop / gimp / manga studio / painter and the magic wand tool. So go flat! WRONG. Using the magic wand tool though quick and easy leads to down the path of the dark side. The Lasso and masking tool are the better choice padawan. Why? Because of a irritating thing called anti aliasing. Works wonders to make you black lines look cool but will leave that telltale white/gray halo where your colors meet. In older (more civil times) printers used a tactic called “overprinting. Simply overprinting black over the color. (those old school artist will appreciate the terms overprint, choke, and trap, especially if you work with t-shirts).
Step 1.
Set up your drawing. I use blue lines. (A throw back from Offset printing. This allows for you to ink and not have to erease when your project is copied) In modern digital times it allows for the inker to differentiate between his lines and the pencilers lines. I will be making a tutorial on how I quickly do this later. REMEMBER TO SAVE OFTEN!
Step 2
Create your line art. I like manga studio because the inking tools are unmatched. Plus you can flat in layers there or export it out to photoshop with layers in tact. But you can use photoshop, gimp, illustrator, freehand or draw it on paper and scan it. (here is my take on paper… “why”. I say invest in a wacom tablet, go digital. Its easier to keep up and correct errors, but Master Steve Crespo has scolded me time and again for relying on digital tools. Steve is much better then I am, and he is the Master. I’m just lazy and on the move a lot and its more practical to tote a laptop and Bamboo tablet. Then I can draw anywhere.) Try to use a contour line around the outside of your art. This is a thicker line that separates the character from the background. This will help the colorist better find where the background ends and the character begins. Visually it also helps but at times can ruin it, like your kid brother coloring over your finished art with a crayon ruin it. But it’s up to you if you do it or not. I sometimes do and sometimes don’t… it depends on the project.
Step 3.
Make a overall selection of the total area to be masked/colored. (NOTE: I use green for a back masking, this comes in handy when you are dropping in the background). I copy that layer then lock it. This locked layer acts as your background white area. (T-shirt printers call this a backwhite for flashing – which allows for you to print colors more effectively on dark fabric). On the copy layer, I use the white pen to separate the colored areas. In this illustration I separated the boxing gloves, flesh, belt into separate layers.
Step 4
Copy the color separation layers and then place each element (by element or color) onto its own layer. I set a layer for gloves, flesh, earing&bandaid, and belt. Select the layers and color them accordingly. Or don’t color them, and shade them in different shades of gray. If you a perfectionist you can then make the colors butt together. But your contour inks should cover up the areas where the colors meet.
Step 5
Finish the background --- if needed. (This project used a photo because of time and effect. You may can see the finished piece on my blog in a few days.) Save your work (300 dpi should do it). Make color notes for the colorists. Now the colorist can add those super smooth airbrush effects to your art and make you look are Marvel or Image Comics-like. Good luck…more later.
Let your Art be the Proof of His LOVE & His GRACE!
"Squirt really likes this book. He recognizes Captain Sun - easier than he does the Marvel heroes adorning his walls. He sits still (which is a lot for this kiddo) while we read. He's excited about it!" (Find the whole thing here: http://ning.it/Qa2sfN)
Do you want your life to make a difference in this world? Do you have a desire to be transformed by God and combine your love for media & the arts to share the gospel? Do you want to effectively reach out to the unreached peoples of the world? Then the Create International DTS in beautiful Chiang Mai, Thailand may be the right place for you!
The CIDTS starts the 4th of January 2013 and ends the 17th of June (applications close Nov 15th, 2012)
Contact the School Leader at cidts@createthailand.com for more information
or check out the school webpage at: http://www.createthailand.com/en/training/22-cidts/64-cidts
I'm a big fan of WEAPONPRESS.COM's "The United". It's not only a great comic in it's own right, it gathers a fine collection of various Christian Heroes and Heroines from other series and brings them together in an exciting story! Because of this, it's also a great way to learn about other titles you may have missed up to now.
Among the characters that appear is Marc Moran's Conqueris, and I decided to get his graphic novel to see what she and Conqueror were about. It's a great book about a pair of super powered teens and their struggles at school, and as super beings fighting crime. While many of the situations they find themselves in are pretty natural extensions of having secret identities and powers, the writing is good and you don't feel like you've seen this before. I grew quite fond of the characters by the end of this book, which incidentally is a great value, glossy full color pages, and a nice hefty story. While the faiths of the character figure into the story heavily, the story does not pause for a heavy redemptive message, but deals with prayer and the intervention of God into the natural world. Personally I don't think every story needs to contain a complete explanation of the Gospel, but they all need to point to Jesus, and this book certainly does that! So, in closing, read Melchizedek's 'The United' and get yourself a copy of Marc's 'Conqueror and Conqueris'! I think you'll be blessed!
Joshua Jones displaced hero from 2029. Founding member of the Shock Cops. Catapulted into the year 1944 through a freak accident. becomes the 1950s hero Black Lion.
He is guest appear in the next Johnny B. Goode story.
I thought I would give a vote of confidence to two siblings in Christ today and recommend them to you. First, Ministry Comics announced today that they will begin selling their book "Adventures with Zoey #1"
If you'd like to see a couple of pages of this fun book, search through Sister Christina Cheeks' photos and you will see they are very nice! http://www.christiancomicarts.com/photo/adventures-with-zoey-1-back-cover-1?context=user
Order #1 Adventures with Zoey thru email @ ministrycomics@hotmail.com PDF $2.50 Comic $4.50 Retailers receive 35% off cover price!"
Secondly, you may know that I asked for an editor previously, and our brother Martin, who's talents I respect very much, volunteered. He did wonders for my script, giving me insights into how readers would probably view my story (which I totally need because I am very unobjective about my works). He did everything from editing to making very helpful story suggestions for the script. I highly recommend his services! His rates are very affordable. If you're thinking about hiring an editor, I encourage you to inquire with Martin Murtonen either here at the CCAS website or at:
Ok, here is the blog. It is open to only my friends on CCAS. Most of which are involved in the Christian in Comics Universe Project. I am posting what as been added thus for story-wise for your review, critique, editing and enjoyment.
From Gerry Lee
The God Scene Show with Mel and Nicole tonight Tuesday Oct. 2nd 8:40pm-9:40pm EST at www.prolifick.com. Worship and Micheal Cameron Williams, creator of The Last Disciples interviewed.
I haven't written a journal entry in a while so I might as well, since this subject is very important to me. Though most of this journal will be of someone else's work. I'll be quoting from Chris Hedge's book "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America", since he seems to describe them better than I can. Chris Hedges is a cultural critic and what some people might call a liberal Christian. He was raised in church growing up and even graduated from Harvard Divinity School. Though he has made it clear on video that he doesn't believe in a personal relationship with God and that he thinks theres no real evidence to show that Jesus existed, he still believes theres much to learn from the Bible for good. I think his commentary on culture and war is mostly accurate. He even debated with Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris, who most atheists seem to look up to. Though I thought Hedges did a good job with them and had a better understanding of religion and it's purpose, most atheists seem to act like Hedges didn't know what he was talking about, even with his experiences. I don't agree with some of Hedges beliefs and interpretations of the Bible, I don't consider him a real Christian and believe he's unsaved, but he has enough knowledge of the world and written enough information in books and essays that should wake Christians up. I recommend some of his books, and even checking out his articles on truthdig.com, where he puts a new essay each Monday.
As some of you know, I don't approve of the New Apstolic Reformation. They are the perfect example of extreme Right Wing Christians who want to control everyone with Christanity and they ruin our reputation and hurt the message of Jesus. I already exposed Peter Wagner, the founder of that movement in my False Preachers series, and I got another big leader of that movement that will be exposed soon for even more nonsense, probably by next week. Even the documentary "Jesus Camp" shows this extremist attitude. Anyways, here's what Hedges's has to say about the dominionism belief the NAR or any extremist Christian wants to use. I'll be skipping some unecessary parts:
"America and the Christian religions have no monopoly on goodness or saintliness. God has not chosen Americans as a people above others. The beliefs of Christiasn are as flawed and imperfect as all religous beliefs. But both the best of American democracy and the best of Christanity embody important values, values such as compassion, tolerace and belief in justice and equality. America is a nation where all have a voice in how we live and how we are governed. We have never fully adhered to these values-indeed, probably never will-but our health as a country is determined by our steadfastness in striving to attain them. And there are times when taking a moral stance, perhaps the highest form of patriotism, means facing down the community,, even the nation. Our loyalty to our community and our nation, Reinhold Niebuhr wrote, 'is therefor morally tolerable only if it includes values wider than those of the community.'
These values, democractic and Christian, are being dismantled, often with stealth, by a radical Christian movement, known as dominionism, which seeks to cloak itself in the mantle of the Christian faith and American patriotism. Dominionism takes it's name from Genesis 1:26-31, in which God gives human beings 'dominion' over all creation. This movement, small in number, but influential, departs from traditional evangelicalism. Dominionsts now control at least 6 national television networks, each reaching tens of millions of homes, and virtually all of the nation's more than 2,000 religious radio stations, as well as denominations such as the Southern Baptist Convention. Domnionism seeks to redefine traditional democratic and Christian terms and concepts to fit an ideology that calls on the radical church to take political power. It shares many prominent features with classical fascist movments, at least as it is defined by the scholar Robert O. Paxton, who sees fascism as 'a form of politcal behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humilation, or victimhood and by compensatiory cultures of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restrains goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.'
Dominionism, born out of a theology known as Christian reconstructionism, seeks to politicize faith. It has, like all fascist movements, a belief in magic along with leadership adoration and a strident call for moral and physical supremacy of a master racy, in this case American Christians. It also has, like fascist movements, an ill-defined and shifting set of beliefs, some of which contradict one another. Paxton argues that the best way to understand authentic fascist movements, which he says exist in all societies, including democracies, is to focus not on what they say but on how they act, for, as he writes, some of the ideas the underlie fascistmovments 'remanin unstated and implicit in fascist public language,' and many of them belong more to the realm of visceral feelings than to the realm of reasoned propostions.'
'Fascism is...a kind of colonization,' the Reverend Davidson Loehr noted. 'A simple defination of "colonization" is that it takes people's stories away, ans assigns them supportive roles in stories that empower others at their expense' The dominionist movement, like all totalitarian movements, seeks to appropriate not only our religious and patriotic language but also our stories, to deny the validity of stories other than their own, to deny that there are other acceptable ways of living and being. There becomes, in their rhetoric, only one way to be a Christian and only one way to be an American.
Dominionism is a theocratic sect with it's roots in a radical Calvinism. It looks to the theocracty John Calvin implanted in Geneva, Swiitzerland, in the 1500s as its political model. It teaches that American Christians have been mandated by God to make America a Christian state. A decades-long refusal by most American fundamentalist to engage in politics at all following the 1925 Scopes trial has been replaced by a call for Christian 'dominion' over the nation and eventually over the earth itself. Dominionism preaches that Jesus has called on Christians to build the kingdom of God in the here and now, whereas previously it was thought that we would have to wait for it. America becomes, in this militant biblicism, an agent of God, and all political and intellectual opponents of America's Christians leaders are viewed, quite simply, as agents of Satan. Under Christian dominion, America will be no longer a sinful and fallen nation but one in which the 10 Commandments form the basis of our legal system, creationism and 'Christian values' form the basis of our educational system and the media and the goverment proclaim the Good News to one and all. Labor unions, civil-rights laws and public schools will be abolished. Women will be removed from the workforce to stay at home, and all those deemed insufficiently Christian will be denied citizenship. Aside from its proselytizing mandate, the federal government will be reduced to the protection of property rights and 'homeland' security. Some dominionists (not all of whom accept the label, at least not publlicly) would further require all citizens to pay 'tithes' to church organizations empowered by the government to run our social-welfare agencies and all schools. The only legitimate voices in this state will be Christian. All others will be silenced."
(American Fascists: pg 10-12)
Theres more to this dominionism movement explained by Chris Hedges, which I might go more into detail another time, but this should be enough for now. I do wish to put an end to movements like this and wake up all it's followers. I look forward to your thoughts on this.
Being an amateur comic creator can be very confusing and a bit bewildering. For example, you want to be a good steward and plan out your steps to publishing the best you can. At the same time, you want to trust God and be flexible to His leading at all times, and not rely on human understanding. Finding the marriage between the two isn't easy.
Let's compile a checklist of questions we wish we had asked ourselves early on and comment on them:)
1) Who is your target audience?
2) Are comics going to be your livelihood, or is this a personal project?
3) Do you want to do printed comics, comics on the internet, or both?
4) Is your work intended to assist in Saving Unbelievers/ Minister to Christians/ Primarily Entertain?
Finally, give any advice you feel you are called to share with other aspiring Christian comic creators.
My advice, as an aspiring writer, is to be aggressive with your story. Don't wait to write it until you have an artist. Don't expect experienced artists to get excited about a sketchy vague synopsis of a story. Show them how you write. Show them the story as much as you can. Show them you are -serious- about the story. Pray diligently and ask permission from artists you feel God -might- be indicating would be a good match up and ask permission to send them a packet of the first story script and any sketches/character bios, or anything you have about the project.
Be willing to pay your artist a fair wage. Be patient, and open to God's decisions. You may be certain you want to do a manga, and God may give you a Western style artist for example.
Be active in the CCAS and Christian-Comic Facebook communities. Try to show an interest in other people's works, that's a great way for friendships to begin. I know sometimes we get tunnel vision and fixated only on our own projects, but that isn't healthy.
Get an editor or start a writing group. You'd be surprised how God loves to give others insight into our pet projects! Be willing to pay your editor a fair wage.
None of us is rich. So, if you're saving up to pay an editor and an artist, how will you get your book published? Well, there is print on demand. I recommend Create-Space by Amazon.com very highly. It is true your book will end up costing about 6 dollars for a 100 page graphic novel in black and white, but you, as the creator can get your copies at a huge discount, buy in bulk and network with people to sell them or give them away.
God provides. If He isn't providing for a particular plan you have for your work, consider that He may be asking you to do a web comic or print on demand, rather than a couple thousand printed first editions?
Well, that is what I was thinking today. I'd love to hear from you all, to hear how you plan to take your current projects to publication! Please share your ideas, hopes and dreams for getting your story out to the public!
