WOW Signal: Crowdfund

WOW Signal, the book by myself, SirGryphon is currently in the crowdfunding stage. Its been an on and off again project as I worked on other books for other creators, and I wanted to be able to put more time into it. To do that I have to show that there is a demand for this kind of science fiction.

The project has evolved and originally was just me testing the waters of working completely digitally. The process was fun as it allowed me to play around with not just digital pencils and inks but also starting my hand at digital painting to create more dynamic images that had symbiosis between each layer.

The book WOW Signal, has a group of explorers preparing to undergo a mission that takes a dark turn when Aliens try to dog humanities reach outside their own solar system.

It is an idea that I've been playing with for a long time, and originally was more of a space fantasy then the science fiction tale it is now. Inspired by sources such as The Cosmos (both Tyson's and Sagan's) Star Trek, Homeworld, The Hazards of Space Travel, and System Shock, my book tries to take our current technology and prognosticate what it will be like in 61 years into the future. It imagines a world post WWIII and a star system that is tamed by humanity.

One of the double splash pages introducing the NAMALSADIRAH II. A character of itself.

One of the challenges of scifi that is intergalactic is trying to figure out how a people travel from place to place and navigate space both functionally and efficiently. I tackle this in a unique way-where some scifi's try to have a universal form of transportation I realized that a diverse universe would probably have diverse travel. Each with its own unique challenges, pros and cons. In the first issue we see that humanity for instance uses fusion for their conventional travel and for vast distances employ something called the Trabean drive: A propulsion system that functions more like the Hitchhikers guides improbability drive in that it alters the nature of physical reality than propelling the ship forward. Another craft employs something called the Shadow Drive, a engine that warps the craft into shadow that is cast instantly to where it shadow lies, this drive while faster than anything else has a limited distance and takes time to charge.

These are just some examples of what I am toying around with in my series. To see more please bring this book to life by your support!

SirGryphon is an advocate for space travel and salutes all those who have undertaken the dangerous journey into space to help mankind fully discover the final frontier.

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

Help support us by donating and sharing. If you donate a minimum of $10 and mention this blog post you’ll get a special little something extra.

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.

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.