As previously mentioned, I am in the midst of a prolonged attempt to see if I can’t eke out a living by drawing comic books.

For most jobs distinguished enough to be called “professions”, one can at least expect to earn a living wage. Not so with cartooning. Many of the very best (non-mainstream) cartoonists have to supplement their income with side-jobs. Others live in abject poverty. Only a very talented and lucky few are able to make a comfortable living at it free and clear.
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Image from Tonoharu: Part One

Since the raison d’être of this blog is shameless self-promotion, I suppose it’s high time that I introduced the graphic novel I mean to promote.

The name of this “graphic novel” (or “book-length comic book”, or whatever you want to call it) is Tonoharu. It follows the lives of a diverse group of expatriates living in Fukuoka, Japan.

The main character of the story works as an “Assistant Language Teacher” (or ALT) at a rural junior high school. I previously worked as an ALT on the Japanese government-sponsored “JET Program” (“Japanese Exchange and Teaching”), so it goes without saying that a lot of my own experiences shaped this story. But by and large, I think the similarities between my real life and the story are anecdotal. This is the most fictional comic I’ve written in years, and crafting the somewhat complex story has been alternately fun, frustrating, and illuminating.

I’ve been working on this thing for a little over four years now. Out of the planned four parts, I’ve finished the first part and about 8% of the second part, so I’m a little over a quarter of the way through the whole thing. Were I to continue at this breakneck pace, it’d take me another 12 years to finish the whole thing. God, how depressing. Granted, part of the reason it took me so long to get this far is because for the first three years I was working as an ALT full-time. But no matter how you spin it, it takes me a loooong time to finish a comic book. Yet another reason why I feel it’s important to devote myself to comics full-time…

Anyway, here are a few artwork examples. Click on each of them for a bigger view. I’m still deciding on the final color scheme; so what’s shown here is just temporary.

I’ll write more about Tonoharu than you’d ever care to know in future blog entries. Next week’s entry, however, will be devoted to my experience with the JET Program.

After going through a dozen of different concepts and then spending weeks refining the one I ultimately chose, I’m finally done with the dust jacket for Tonoharu: Part One.

The colors will probably change a bit (for example, the mustard color will probably be printed in a matte finish metallic ink), and I have to talk to a printer to find out exactly how thick the book will be before I can completely finalize the spine width. And of course I’ll be making nit-picky little changes right up until I go to press. But it’s basically done, and for the most part I’m happy with it.

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I would prefer to self-publish my comic book Tonoharu, for reasons described previously. In fact, if I knew I was going to be in the United States for the next, oh, twelve months or so, I think I’d just bite the bullet and do it.

The thing is, if my bid for a Monbusho Scholarship is successful, I’ll be out of the country beginning in April of next year. Even if I put it on the fast track, I probably couldn’t have my comic printed up & ready to go until this November. This would only give me four or five months to sell them before I left. That’s just not enough time to do all the tasks associated with starting a new publishing business, like soliciting distributors, sending out review copies, and doing all the marketing (all while preparing to go to Japan, no less). Granted, thanks to the Internet I could do some of that stuff while abroad, but not all of it, and not while studying full time.

So in a nutshell, if I get the Monbusho Scholarship, I should probably give up on the idea of self-publishing (for now) and just solicit a regular publisher. If I don’t get the scholarship, self-publishing would be the way to go after all. So until I get a final answer regarding the Monbusho Scholarship, I can’t really make an informed decision one way or the other.

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Sweet, sweet Ninja Turtle Money: Coming my way soon??

As mentioned in last Friday’s entry, whether or not I self-publish depends heavily on the outcome of my bid for a Monbusho Scholarship to study in Japan. The problem is that I won’t find out about that for another five months or so. This uncertainty about even what country I’ll be living in come April makes it difficult for me to take any concrete steps towards self-publishing (or anything else).

But actually, in addition to the Monbusho Scholarship, there is one other factor that asserts major influence over this decision. And thankfully, this other factor should be resolved one way or the other in just a couple short weeks. That is my application for a comic book self-publisher’s grant from the Xeric Foundation.
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Pictured: Shingu Port, a fifteen minute walk from where I lived.

This is the first post in a series describing the creative process behind my graphic novel Tonoharu. This augural installment deals with the circumstances that allowed work on Tonoharu to begin.

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Pictured: Art I admire

This is the second post in a series describing the creative process behind my graphic novel Tonoharu. This installment covers the formation of the basic idea.

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If there’s a common thread to the experiences in my adult life that get me excited in a kid-on-Christmas kind of way, it’s those that make me feel like the world is a big, terrible, exhilarating place with untraveled roads, fascinating strangers, and infinite possibilities.

“Feel” is the key word here. It’s easy to duly profess the belief that there’s a world of possibility beyond your front door, but I’m not talking about an uninspired intellectual awareness. I’m talking about when you feel it in your guts, when you’re intoxicated by curiosity about what might be around the next corner.
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My series of posts entitled Creating Tonoharu will resume in a few weeks. I had to put it on hold in light of the following: I have been selected to receive a Xeric Grant to self-publish my graphic novel Tonoharu: Part One! For those who don’t know about the Xeric Grant, see the previous post about it here. To learn more about Tonoharu, click here.

I just received word about this last Saturday, and have been running around like a chicken with his head cut off this whole week trying to get everything ready. It’s been exhausting, but terribly exciting.

I’d like to get it published and out there just as soon as I can, but of course these things take time. So I’m shooting to have Tonoharu: Part One released sometime during the first quarter of 2008, or maybe even a little before then, like late December 2007.

Well, I think I’ll leave it at this for now. This is a short entry I know, but I’ve got a lot to get to. Check back next Friday for more details.

In the meantime, check out my newly-expanded “About Me” page (http://larsmartinson.com/about/), and my newly-created “About My Comics” page (http://larsmartinson.com/about-comics/).

One more thing: next Tuesday’s installment of “JET Program Reflections” is cancelled, to give me more time to devote to publishing-related stuff and to give this entry top billing on my site for a full week. “JET Program Reflections” will be back on Tuesday, October 30th.

As mentioned in my previous entry, I just found out that I have been awarded a Xeric Grant to self-publish my graphic novel Tonoharu.

Since then I’ve been rushing around trying to get everything ready. I’ve contacted printers for quotes, secured an ISBN number and barcode, started drafting and sending out press releases, worked on the design and content for my forthcoming business website, wrote this longwinded blog entry, etc., etc., etc….
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Image from Tonoharu: Part One 

This is the third post in a series describing the creative process behind my graphic novel Tonoharu. This installment deals with writing the early drafts.

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The more I write, the more I’ve come to appreciate the subtle nuance that is a well crafted story.

The old saw “they make it look easy” applies; a well told story flows forward in such an honest and natural way that it’s easy to forget that it had an author in the first place. That behind that timeless tale of love & death was some poor schlub who struggled over countless dead-end drafts, debated with himself over what events to keep and which ones to lose, fretted over settings, timeframes, character histories, dialogue, etc., etc…

The real world doesn’t have an author (well, probably not, anyway), and a good story does such a good impersonation of Life that it’s easy to forget that there’s someone behind the curtain, pulling the strings. The more skilled an author gets, the more invisible his touch becomes.

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Pictured: Detail from the title page of Tonoharu: Part One 

This is the forth post in a series describing the creative process behind my graphic novel Tonoharu. This installment (along with the next two) deals with the design considerations.

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These posts are organized so that each one addresses a different stage of my creative process, in chronological order. In practice, the stages bleed into each other so it’s not always clear where one ends and another begins, but basically my process boils down to: 1) Inspiration, 2) Writing/Editing, 3) Drawing, and 4) Editing again.

There is, however, one important element that doesn’t neatly fit into the above chronology. It began when I first started working on Tonoharu, and came to a close when I finalized production details earlier this week. That is the overall design.

I figured that this point in the Creating Tonoharu series is as good a time as any to address this unruly topic, so following are some of the design decisions I made for Tonoharu and why.

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Pictured: A chunk of Tonoharu: Part One, page 83 

This is the fifth post in a series describing the creative process behind my graphic novel Tonoharu. This installment, along with the one that proceeded it and the one that will follow it, deals with the design considerations. Those who haven’t already are invited to read the previous entry before diving into this one.
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