The previous Tonoharu: Part Two artwork previews were organized by theme: City, Party, Festival, and “Action”.

I’ve pretty much run out of artwork that fits into neat little categories, especially since I only want to show artwork that is spoiler-free (at least until after the book is published). So the artwork this the artwork in this entry are just random panels that I like.

I’ll do one more “odds and ends” artwork preview in a few weeks, shortly before the book comes out. Not long now, folks!

Tonoharu: Part Two will be coming out this November. For more information, visit:
larsmartinson.com/tonoharu2

Britt Aamodt recently interviewed me as a part of her KFAI radio documentary about independent cartoonists in Minnesota. The documentary is a part of a series funded by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Foundation.

It’s already aired,  but you can stream it online by visiting:

http://www.kfai.org/node/30184

The part about me is at the end, starting at about the 25 minute mark. But you should listen to the whole thing; it’s really well done.

Britt has a book on the same subject coming out this November, entitled Superheroes, Strip Artists, & Talking Animals: Minnesota’s Contemporary Cartoonists. More information about that can be found here.

Thanks to Mark Frauenfelder’s writeup about Tonoharu: Part One on Boing Boing, the book has made it into Amazon.com’s Top Ten Bestselling Graphic Novels today! Cool!

Amazon updates their top ten lists every hour, so if you’re reading this much later than 4:39pm Central on Friday August 27th, it might have slipped off the list (or gone up higher, who knows).

But for one shining moment, my book was selling better than Watchmen and three of the six Scott Pilgrim graphic novels. They can never take that away from me. ;-)

Buy Tonoharu: Part One from Amazon.com or
Buy Tonoharu: Part One directly from me

Tonoharu: Part One was just written up on Boing Boing, one of the world’s most popular blogs! Oh boy!

The post can be found here. (A word of warning though; the writeup has a fairly big spoiler about Tonoharu: Part Two.)

Many thanks to Boing Boing editor Mark Frauenfelder for the coverage!

***

Oh, and if you’re a new reader who came to this site because of the Boing Boing coverage, here’s a few things you might enjoy:

Posts about Tonoharu
Posts about the making of the book, etc.

Miscellaneous amusing posts
Most of which are Japan-related

Web comics by me
Not many of them, but do check them out.

Thanks!

Last Saturday I had a table at the inaugural Minneapolis Indie Xpo.

MIX is only the second convention I’ve ever sold my work at, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. But I wasn’t expecting much. My first convention (SpringCon 2010) was an interesting experience, but also quite humbling. Attendees showed little interest in my work, and my sales were in the low single digits.

Since I was lugging books to MIX in my backpack, I didn’t want to bring more than I needed. So I brought eight copies of Tonoharu: Part One and about a dozen copies of Young Men of a Certain Mind. That was 2-3 times as many as I sold at SpringCon, so I figured that’d be enough.

I’m delighted to say that sales were much better than at SpringCon; I sold out of Tonoharu a couple hours before MIX ended, and only had a couple copies of YMCM at the end of the night.

Granted, I was selling Tonoharu at a discount; 25% off the cover price. But I also think that the venue was a much better fit for my work. SpringCon is more about mainstream comics, and sort of has a flea market feel to it. Not the best place to try to sell artsy, hardcover graphic novels.

This is why I’ve decided my next convention appearance will be the Twin Cities Book Festival, instead of FallCon (they fall on the same day, so I can’t go to both). Guess we’ll see how it goes!

Oh, one more note: MIX was just awesome. If you didn’t go this year, I strongly recommend you check it out next year. I was damned impressed with the whole thing. Thanks to organizers Andy Krueger and Sarah Morean for putting together such a great show!

Just one last reminder to Twin Cities residents that I’ll be at the Minneapolis Indie Xpo this Saturday, August 21, 2010.

At my table I’ll be signing brand-new, first edition copies of my graphic novel Tonoharu: Part One for a special convention price of $15; that’s 25% off the cover price (cheaper than Amazon.com)! Also available will be Young Men of a Certain Mind, a comic I did just prior to Tonoharu which is not available in stores.

I’ll also have some original art to look at, and a preview of Tonoharu: Part Two. So stop on by!

Admission to the event is free, and they have tons of great-looking programming, so if you’re in the Twin Cities area, check it out!

Minneapolis Indie Xpo 2010 Details
Place:  The Soap Factory, 518 Southeast 2nd Street, Minneapolis, MN 55458
Date/Time: Saturday August 21, 2010 9AM to 5PM
Admission: FREE!

Further information can be found here:
http://mplsindiexpo.com/

(Note: I’ll blog a recap of MIX, so my usual Friday entry will be a couple days late.)

POST-EVENT UPDATE: The show was really great! I was planning on writing a full update on Sunday or yesterday, but the show just wiped me out, so I think I’ll wait until this coming Friday after all… Thanks to all who attended!

Minneapolis Indie Xpo will be held in a little less than two weeks, on Saturday, August 21, 2010. 

They have tons of great-looking programming, and I’ll have a table there. Admission is free, so if you’re in the Twin Cities area, check it out!

Minneapolis Indie Xpo 2010 Details
Place:  The Soap Factory, 518 Southeast 2nd Street, Minneapolis, MN 55458
Date/Time: Saturday August 21, 2010 9AM to 5PM
Admission: FREE!

Further information can be found here:
http://mplsindiexpo.com/

Here are a few images from a festival scene in my forthcoming graphic novel Tonoharu: Part Two. If ever you wondered why the book took more than two years to draw, here’s your answer…

Tonoharu: Part Two will be coming out this November.

For more information, visit:
larsmartinson.com/tonoharu2

I’m please to announce that Tonoharu: Part Two is, for all intents and purposes, finally DONE! I’ll need to make little changes once I talk to the printer and find out the spine width and stuff (hence the 5% still missing from the Incidentals bar). But other than that, it’s all ready for release.

It feels weird that I don’t have to work on it anymore. Tonoharu: Part Two has become a part of my routine; for almost three years, I’ve worked on it daily, usually for hours at a stretch. It’d be like if someone told you that you had completed the task of “brushing your teeth”, and didn’t have to do it again for the rest of your life.

Now that Tonoharu: Part Two is all wrapped up, I’m going to ramp up pre-publication marketing, and start talking with printers. There are also a few other projects I’ve been meaning to get in some work on, which I’ll write about some other time. And then I can always get started on Tonoharu: Part Three (sigh).

Next week I’ll posting artwork from one of the book’s hardest-to-draw scenes. Stay tuned!

More about Tonoharu: Part Two can be found here:
larsmartinson.com/tonoharu2

(Very Mild) Spoiler Alert: This entry discusses the story of Tonoharu: Part Two in abstract terms. Unless you’re really spoiler-adverse you should be fine; I won’t be going over specific plot points or anything. But if you’d rather not know the overall direction the story is going in, this entry would best be skipped.

***

One of my main objectives in creating Tonoharu is to paint a portrait of what it’s like to live in a foreign country for an extended period of time.

Several friends who read Tonoharu: Part One told me they had no idea I had such a terrible time in Japan. Actually I had a wonderful experience, but I can understand why they’d assume otherwise. The first book focuses almost exclusively on the loneliness and isolation that are a part of any prolonged stay in a foreign country. But this isn’t the entirety of the experience; in Tonoharu: Part Two, I try to show other facets of life abroad, with a particular focus on the relationships that develop.

In your home country, your pool of potential friends is almost unlimited. You can pick and choose who you spend time with based on compatibility and shared interests.

But in a foreign country, the language barrier prevents meaningful interaction with the vast majority of the population. In the rural areas of countries where English education is poor (such as the Japanese countryside, the setting of Tonoharu), your pool of potential friends can be in the single digits. You either spend time with whoever is around, or you do without human companionship.

If you absolutely can’t stand the people who make up your minuscule friend pool, this can suck. But just as often it can be a blessing in disguise. It forces you into the company of people you’d probably otherwise never socialize with, which allows you to see the world through the eyes of people whose interests, beliefs and outlooks are very different from your own. In this way, even spending time with other foreigners can be a horizon-broadening aspect of life abroad.

Tonoharu: Part Two will be coming out this November. For more information, visit:
larsmartinson.com/tonoharu2

RANmagazine, a free English magazine based out of Nagoya,  ran a two-page interview with me about Tonoharu in their July/August issue.

The interview begins on page 32;  it’s available online at:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/33650987/RANmagazine-Issue-6-July-August-2010

My thanks to RAN and to reporter Adam Pasion for the coverage!

I’ll probably make some tweaks before the book goes to press, but I’m pretty much done with the front cover of Tonoharu: Part Two, so I thought I’d share it. A higher resolution version can be found here.

I’ve previously written about my design choices for the covers of Tonoharu here, so rather than repeat myself, I’ll send interested parties to that entry if you’d like more details.

I’ve also created a dedicated page about Tonoharu: Part Two, which can be found here:

LarsMartinson.com/Tonoharu2

I’ll update that regularly with any Tonoharu: Part Two news that comes up, so bookmark it if you’re interested.

And while I’m at it, I may as well throw in an updated progress bar graphic, for those of you who are keeping score at home:

Progress Bar Key
Story/Artwork: The Story, Drawing, Inking, and Computer Work
Final Edits: Post-Production Edits
Incidentals: Designing the Cover, Preparing for Press, etc.

That’s it. Back to work!