Getting Away with Murder: A Comic Book Kickstarter

I can’t say I had it tough growing up. At least, not in an outward way that would make sense of the heroin cravings and passionate strangulation of “Getting Away with Murder: A Lowlife Story”.

For me, the mental maelstrom and cynicism I experience daily is what shapes my characters. This inner struggle reacting to an outside force is where my stories start. The chaos and constant fight of addiction and the overwhelming corrosive force of guilt are the internal struggles of the nameless main character in, “Getting Away with Murder: A Lowlife Story”.

Back when I was more of a musician, playing shows all around New York, my band had played a show at this lounge in Brooklyn. The lounge has since closed down and at the time it was not thriving with activity. But when you walked in there was a huge empty floor with a couple pillars disrupting the view across the lounge. There was a stage that was painted the same matte black that coated the whole interior of the building and just past it was a hallway to a couple dressing rooms. There were three acts playing that night and only two dressing rooms. We were first to arrive so we put some of our equipment in one of the dressing rooms thinking ourselves grand that we had as large a room to occupy before going on.

However, as the other acts showed, we were relegated to the hallway, letting the “bigger” acts have the preparatory space. I remember having forgotten a piece of equipment in our former dressing room. I opened the door while knocking, not expecting anyone to be naked but instead seeing the 12-piece band, the headliner that night, all turn to look at me, aghast that someone should walk in. The lead singer was hunched over in front of the makeup mirror, the kind with the clear bauble bulbs so bright you don’t see a crevice in your skin, with a line of coke just below his nose. Their brief look of fear quickly changed to anger. Who the hell was I and all that nonsense.

But really, who the hell were they? We were, all of us, nobodies.

Our story, “Getting Away with Murder: A Lowlife Story” came somehow and somewhere from that idea. The main character, a rocker who had a brush with money and fame, now forced to live a middle class life not only addicted to heroin but addicted to the thrill of playing. He thirsts for the old days of people cheering for him, of having “rock star privileges”, and the parties where he’s the focal point. He’s on the downslide of stardom, plummeting toward being a nobody and it’s the most painful thing. Also, he just killed his ex-groupie.

Two MoCCAs ago, I was walking the floor when I met MJ Steele (MJ's Site). He had an 11” x 14” inked drawing of Kurt Cobain mid-air playing his lefty fender strat in a warehouse to a silhouetted crowd, the Seattle Space Needle seen through one of the warehouse windows. No doubt about it, I had found the artist to help me tell this story. 

MJ’s style could be compared to more known talents like Sean Murphy or Rafael Albuquerque. Could be. If I were forced to make the comparison. The reality is, he draws inspiration from those artists while still maintaining his own unique style. He’s a balance of precision and broad strokes. Sharp black lines meeting swooping water colors. MJ studies illustration and cartooning at the School of Visual Arts.

Once MJ started churning out fully inked and beautiful pages, we need a letterer. We were lucky my brother, Thomas Griffin (Tom's Art), who can do any part of comic work artfully and skillfully, stepped in. He lettered the pages without the black outlines typically seen on word bubbles and captions. This let the bubbles fit MJs artwork without the obvious outside source that can sometimes disconnect the words from the pictures.

Currently, we’ve started a Kickstarter campaign to help us raise the funds and some buzz for this one-shot comic. Check it out at this link:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/583569168/getting-away-with-murder-a-lowlife-story

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Article by Sean Griffin. Sean is a writer and co-founder of Gryphon Knights Comics. He currently writes the comic book "Hero" for GK and is studying Creative Writing for his MFA at Manhattanville College.

Webcomic Review: Black Mudpuppy or "How the Word Chumblenuts Invaded my Vocabulary."

Face the god of death... I mean 

The Black Mudpuppy is a action comedy webcomic written by Ethan Kocak. The first question you might have when you read the title of this webcomic, is "what the hey is a black mudpuppy." Well a mudpuppy is a type of salamander. The same type of critter that the protagonist Xolotl, the crazy god of death, is imprisoned in by another god Quetzalcoatl, for blowing up goats and terrorizing villagers. Now imprisoned in that form he terrorizes local small wildlife for 500 years until Quetzalcoatl offers him an ultimatum, be good and slowly he can regain his godhood.


Now as the Black Mudpuppy, Xolotl muddies his way through trying to perform good deeds while accidentally destroying charity buildings. The book is filled with such amusing ADHD antics that might remind you of some gems in the 90s, like the Warner Brothers and Freakazoid. While it starts off slow investing in the book is well worth it as its curve balls are sure to make the sternest person chuckle. To give you an idea some of the highlights; there is a brawl between a couple of dinosaurs from hell Stego-Stalin fighting Hitlersaurus Rex. Another nemesis is the evil anti-Ghandi whose passive aggresivism will leave you very upset!

Make my monster GROW!!!

The book slowly evolves from a bunch of gags to a more meaty storyline that is seasoned with bits of Aztec mythology and characters from those same tales, and truly challenging the english speaker in pronouncing something wholly different.

The artwork too takes a bit of warming up to. While rough at first the ink work begins to take on a liveliness and dynamism that resembles books like Bone and the colors go from a flat to dynamic lighting. Additionally the character designs, influenced again from Aztecian designs culture are refreshing and interesting. T
hey are so simple and visually inviting, as too often I think people think detail makes a dynamic and eyecatching spectacle.

The fresh injection of Aztec stylings and the clean cartoon asthetic make Black Mudpuppy a great tale to enjoy. My only regret is that there isn't an animated series yet...

Listen chumblenuts, Sir Thomas J. Griffin is a force to reckon with, as he is the god of gingers trapped in a speckled body creating work like Frankenstein vs. Dracula for Gryphon Knights Comics. 

The Daunting Comic Convention: Making the Sale

The last part of this series I talked about a hard seller. It was my feeling that hard selling is a broken method for a few reasons. Foremost was a quote from our neighbor at the last con "When people buy from me I love them, when they don't I hate them." Its treating people as a resource that you tap into and then throw out when its dry. Among this terrible perspective are a few other things that make hard selling simply terrible:

Fighting a hard seller.

1. Hard selling often works on pressure shame and guilt; these are the same things that have made Church so unpopular over the centuries. It pushes consumers away and doesn't invite people into your work, in addition most people are at conventions to enjoy themselves, not be slammed as "Bad parents" because they didn't buy their kids a book on comic history (True Story).
   
2. While there is not anything wrong with grabbing peoples attention, screaming at them and insulting them to pressure them to buy is counter intuitive. It works on a flawed concept. Pressuring people to buy comic book entertainment at a convention is yelling at a person in a grocery store to buy food when they are hungry. Screaming at them tends to just make them feel uncomfortable.
   
3. Finally you end up making yourself a Pariah; fellow sellers are going to not want a table near you, or want to work with you. You've made a name for yourself, but a bad one, and angry people who are losing sales because of you, then complaining to the convention managers could eventually get you banned from cons.

All this nonsense ends up alienating everyone! There are better ways, and they start with making a connection. Talking with people at cons might seem distracting to the major Ferengian goal of profit, but creating an impression is more important even than direct gain. The other gentleman made an impression, but it was a bad one-When a person talks badly about an experience they had at a store its likely to make them never visit the store again, its likely to make the listener choose to never visit that store, or even if they had visited the establishment to rethink their visit next time.That's why impressions are so vital; creating positive ones make people talk and advertise for you. 

Additionally making a connection makes them invest in you as a person. It will more than likely visit your table at the next con, and make them consider buying or setting a certain amount aside to buy from you next time. 

That is why I try to help people see beyond the direct buy or die relationships some salespeople have with their consumers. Its much longer term, and an impression made now can help you further down the line as you are adding to, if not your consumer base, then your fan base. Where the alternative is slowly burning one person at a time which will result in a dwindling pool of potential consumers and investors.

In the conversation you have with them you need to assess their interests. Ask them questions, like what genres do they like, or even subtler what movies do they enjoy. If they are into mystery and all you have is sci-fi... well then its likely they won't be personally interested, however you should tell them about your product anyway, because their 3rd cousin's sister's best friend might LOVE sci-fi, and need to have it. When you are engaging with someone its not just them, but their entire network!

If they do seem interested though you shouldn't sit there silently and wait for them to say "I'll take it!" Instead after talking with them and garnering what their interests are ask them if they would like to buy! Its as simple as that! Especially if you think they would love your book! Additionally you can offer other incentives like a free small sketch perhaps even in the book that makes the book unique and gives it more intrinsic value.

Gotta have that sales
 knock out punch!

One last thought I will leave you with. You need to have a concise summary of what your work is. Going on a long schpiel and telling people spoilers to try to get them interested can result in them losing focus. Greasers in Greece while not our strongest artistic piece always piques peoples interest. Especially when our summary of the book is "what happens when you put Grease and Sparticus together" or "what Grease would be like if it was directed by Zac Snyder." Simple one sentence summaries can really boost peoples interest, work on them and have them ready for a con!

Now go... Sell my minions!

You can only slighty trust Sir Thomas J. Griffin as he is a ginger and will try to consume your soul. He will then turn your essence into paint, from which he creates comic covers like those for Greenpoint of view and other works for Gryphon Knights Comics.

The Daunting Comic Convention: Neighbors

Conventions are always filled with many characters! 

Neighbors... They can be amazing, sharing a spoon of sugar, a cup of salt. Or they can blast R&B music at 4am during the work week. They truly can make life hell.

In the case of conventions especially when you are just starting out its good to find people to share tables with. This can help cut costs and help your table appear full if you still only have a limited amount of product. The right person can also help you engage your audience and customers, as well as share their convention experience with you, for example providing insight on what are good events to attend as well as what the audience is like at those events.

To find people to table with you can attend a convention yourself, and search around. If when talking with someone at a table you gel well you might consider requesting to share a table with them in the future. Additionally you might want to share a table with someone whose content is different from your own. For example two people sharing a table that each have their own noir stories might cause a bit of redundancy, and end up unintentionally cutting out sales for the other.

A hard seller can be a bit threatening
and intimidating

At a convention its not just table partners that can depend on your success its also neighboring and nearby tables. These neighbors can either make or break your success as a salesperson. We've been fortunate to have had really good neighbors. The Barbarian Brothers, Henchgirl, Monster Haiku, Immortal Lycanthropes; these have all been amazing people to meet, and work near, even share a table with. People like these create a great atmosphere and help engage with the community of convention goers. However, everyone is not the salt of the earth like these. Recently however we attended a convention were our direct neighbor was a hard sell.


Hard sellers are individuals who use any method at their disposal to get people to buy. From spouting
the merits of their work to all out guilt and shaming anything goes with a hard seller. Our table mate
at this convention had this to say about our hardselling neighbor:

                     "The guy at the table next to us at East Coast Comicon was a real 

                hard sell guy -- he literally demanded a customer go out and prostitute

                himself to make enough money to afford the wares he was selling.

                Presumably he was joking. But he wasn't joking when he demanded that 
                people who already owned his book give it away to "a worthy friend" and 
                buy another copy RIGHT NOW. "Be a man! Be a man!" he screamed at 
                people who would not buy, as they slunk away from his table."

Its hard to do anything in this situation. You can't reprimand them or lambaste them as it only creates an escalating conflict. In addition to these comments the gentleman wreaked of weed and the smell and his shaming would have people steer clear of him, this included avoiding that section which included our table. In the end we did the best we could in light of the circumstances, but this is reality. You will always encounter individuals who tend to alienate people for their gain.


Our own belief in salesmanship is a bit different than this character but we'll cover that next week in "Making the Sale."

Sir Gryphon is trying to sell people on edible chia pets, and Frankenstein vs. Dracula with Gryphon Knights Comics. Please patron to help these visions come to light and for blog content to continue!

The Daunting Comic Convention: The right convention.

Being an artist is tough, one of the difficulties is garnering an audience. Some are wizards at networking or social media, others not at times it may seem impossible to make dough, even elicit attention for your work. One sure way to garner the attention you need is having a table at a convention, and putting up a sign that says free candy. That's the way to reel'em in... BAIT!

Candy won't be enough if you don't have sufficient content to litter your table with. Having a book or two out even having some free swag or other extras like posters and stickers for sale will help you sell. Not everyone wants the same thing so having diverse merchandise is more certain to earn a sale. "Don't just hit up any convention!" He warned earnestly, as going big or going home can be soul crushing in this industry.

NY Comic Con might be your initial thought. It's one of the best promoted and largest conventions, touting an amount of traffic that would have the BQE jealous. They have an artist's alley for those newbies. Still the table costs are outrageous and your sales skills might be crushed under the pressure of breaking even over the long weekend.

It might be easier to start with cheaper cons like the Garden State Comicfest. At 150 bucks for two days its harder to lose out. Sometimes you can even find smaller inexpensive 1 day events like the recent con in Queens, First Con-tact. These are good testing grounds for what sells, though every convention is a bit different: sketchcards, indie comics, prints, toys, stickers, and anything else your twisted mind can conjure depends on the convention. Over time regularly attending a show can help you learn the audience better and adapt your skills.

In addition certain shows like the one in Boston seem to have attendees with deeper pockets who are into dropping fives for random memorabilia like stickers, or trading cards.

Other things that can help or hinder you at cons could be splitting a table with someone... But we'll talk about that in our next blog about conventions called "Neighbors"

The entity known as Sir Tom Gryphon is at a table in the dark waiting to throw goods onto passerbys for Gryphon Knights Comics. Some of these goods are books he's illustrated like HERO and WOW Signal and lettering books like Getting Away with Murder.

SASB: Artists Are Like Drummers

When Gryphon Knights first got their start around 2011 it was fueled by dreams and idealism. It was this tingling excitement that drew almost 2 dozen people to the company for that very first meeting. However after many shared what their hopes and vision for this group would be, it became quite evident that at the time we didn't have the organization resources or the manpower to bring to fruition the fictional universe we imagined. In the end many lost steam and it wasn't until a few years later that things kicked off again and we started small.

However, in all that ruckus one thing stood out. It was very difficult to find artists.   

Moral of the Story: Dreams and Idealism is bad fuel

Not that they were impossible to find, but it was gaining the talent of an artist and then retaining them, a process that was made daunting for 3 reasons:

1) THE MONEY: It was difficult finding an artist who would work for a percentage of the profits of a produced work. At the time that's all we could promise people as any assets were fueling the company. This is not an unreasonable thing when you garner a little bit of cynicism and actually see how many comic book projects are out there. It can be daunting putting in the amount of work for you to succeed, and often you have to have multiple releases before you get any attention at all. Additionally we were just starting, its hard to garner attention when all you can promise someone is a percentage of potential. Many artists would be happy simply to have the exposure, but again we were a no name company at the time, so our exposure was 10 people (including mom, dad, and the dog)!

2) RELIABILITY: Even if you do end up finding someone that's willing to work for a promise of glory its often a cointoss whether they are consistent or just blowing steam. Actually its more like a dodecahedron toss that has to land on 4 whether they are consistent. Even finding an artist it can be difficult for them to follow through. This could be because they are occupied with too many other life tasks or responsibilities or it could be they are just flaky. George once said "To get anywhere you have to be stupid and just love creating, because most of the time it won't take off." Another friend of mine who is a graduate from SVA and writes for a living said to me that she only knows two other people who graduated with her that are actually working in an artistic field. Its tough and to do it you just need to love doing it.

3) DIVERGENCE OF VISION: So you have someone working with you and they are fantastic. They make deadlines, they are consistently creating and investing in the work but suddenly you hit a roadblock. They don't like your story, or they think something needs to be different. That's the problem when someone is working for free: They get emotionally involved in the storytelling, because that is the thing they are most invested in. How many times do you hear people parting over creative differences? Well its not much different when there is no money involved, there is just no press about it. That's why sometimes people will have contracts at the beginning  so they can retain sole creative rights over a project.

So what do I do?

Well my friend, if you keep hitting blockades in trying to build a creative team, the only thing you can do is keep putting your work out there, telling people your stories, and one day you might meet someone that says "Wow... I'd really like to draw that."

If it kind of sounds a lot like dating it is. You really have to meet a variety of people to find a compatible creative team that shares a passion, drive, and vision with you. You can meet artists by joining clubs, going to conventions, or even find a bunch at www.deviantart.com. Another thing I found is if an artist's ability is still unrefined, but they are a beast at consistently producing work, you want them! If someone is consistently creating there is no way they won't improve, especially if they are open to critique, and they will appreciate the chance to work on something (Sounds kinda like the plotline of strictly ballroom).

Another way finding a good artist is like dating... If you have money, it becomes easier.

Sir Thomas J. Griffin is an artist and reluctant writer that has had nothing but maggoty bread for three stinking days. He has been too busy creating books like WOW Signal for GRYPHON KNIGHTS COMICS to go shopping.

Webcomic Review: Henchgirl

Henchgirl is a webcomic, created by Kristen Gudsnuk. The main character Mary Posa is the black sheep of her family, lovelorn, and unable to get a legitimate job even at the dankest restaurant. These circumstances bring our... er... "hero, " into the sordid arms of a crime syndicate in a metropolis called Crepe City. Mary then becomes the ever adorable Henchgirl! Meanwhile she tries to bring resolution to her esoteric ails all while surviving and trying to be not too evil.

Those MEAN STREETS!

Henchgirl is refreshingly not a "strong" female protagonist, at least not in the current traditional sense. In a world where female characters seem to have been homogenized into badass martial arts killing machines, absent of personality, Mary Posa is different. She is rich in character whose struggles are empathetic to both sexes. Her true strength is in her determination to move forward in spite of depressingly frustrated ideals. One of my favorite scenes of her trying to overcome, is when she discovered a super powered friend shattered. Taking each of their pieces she painstakingly puts them together with simple things like tape and super glue in hopes that it might restore them.

This scene is reminiscent of a few others throughout the book in a theme that seems to recur in people trying to put others, themselves or things back together; a hope to restore. A powerful inclination that echoes the original theme of persevering.

Well I think its adorable

And while many parts of the book are dark for such a bright character there are many hilarious memorable moments. Such as Mary's roomate whose only ability is to create an army of carrots out of her skin. Not giant carrots, just regular sized carrots... out... of... her... skin...

While her influences are evident of certain anime influences her art style is reminiscent of Bryan Lee O'Malley's, while remaining distinctly her own. A feat she accomplishes through the diverse textures of color she uses throughout the book. However one of the things I feel was recently lost was the progression the creator made over the course of its creation, by beginning to remake the earlier pages of her story to be comparative of her current work.

While "Lucasing" has become more common in the arts, and while her newer pages look excellent, I almost wish that both versions of her vision was available. I myself am a victim of being dissatisfied with earlier work and trying to bring some sort of resolution to it by modifying or remaking it, but by doing so perhaps I am erasing something in the history of creation.

Creative politics aside the twisted tale of the Henchgirl is a great summary of our generation as we are all a bit lost looking for something meaningful, while we are rejected from large chains because our fancy degrees tend to make us unwanted in those positions. Its speckled with pertinent, and the bizarre; then perfectly balanced with a helping of conflict and puns that make this story claw its way into my brain, and heart.

Sir Thomas J. Gryphon is a bunny who has lost all his eggs working for Gryphon Knights Comics on wacky books like "Meanwhile..."