Montreal Bonaventure Comicon 2009

2009-12-08T22:46:00.000-08:00

This was my first real comic book convention (as a vendor with my own books.) I didn't have as much promotional material with me as I'd hoped I'd have, but it was fun, and it was a great thrill to meet the original Capt Apollo from the classic TV series Battlestar Galactica, Richard Hatch. I grew up on that show, the characters and stories from that era of Galactica have remained a large part of my life. I have the entire series. (yes, lord help me even Galactica 1980). The only redeeming thing about G-80 was the last episode with Dirk Benedict showing what happened to Starbuck. After watching Richard for years on the big and small screen, finally getting a chance to meet Apollo; Mr. Richard Hatch was awesome!! It was also a surprise to see at least a dozen people dressed up in various Star Wars costumes, I was able to get a shot or 2 with them as well.. to bad there weren't any Cylons, that would have made great fun with Mr. Hatch, not to mention a great shot with him as well. I also got a chance to get his autograph on a picture I drew and inked of him as Apollo, that was way cool!! Mr Hatch, thank you for coming out here, you made my year sir!!!

As for these other shots, this is what my table looked like for the show, as one of the pics is labelled, welcome to Blonde World. Again, not as much as I wanted to have available; Modest beginnings I guess. I was supposed to have a life size cut out of Blonda, one of my main characters, but after figuring out how to achieve it, I discovered that the all in one printer unit we have doesn't print in poster size. The all in one is a 300.00 dollar HP ink jet, which does nice 8*10 prints. My Kodac 79.00 dollar juke box prints lousy quality anything, but does print poster size. **Sigh**, everybodys got to start some where! (Does it always have to be at the bottom??)

Blonde World at Montreal Comicon

2009-11-23T21:19:00.000-08:00

I will be at the Montreal Comicon this Dec 6 (2009) held at the Bonaventure Hotel with Blonde World 1 through 3 along with mini posters and other surprises. Come check it out! Thanks to the guys and girls organizing the event for linking to my blog Mucho Cudos!!

For more info about the Con, goto the following link;

www.montrealcomicon.com/home.htm

2009-11-07T20:30:00.000-08:00

Greetings, and welcome to Blonde World.

My name is Sid Vane, I am a graphic artist and illustrator, creator and (for now) self publisher of Blonde World, a graphic arts novel which is the culmination of 10 years of work and development.

The central character is Blonda, seen here on top.

This is an advertising poster I designed for use when attending conventions.

WHAT IS BLONDE WORLD ;

Blonde World is the end result of many changes to another concept I began in 1998. I developed characters for what was then to be espionage spy stories of intrigue, a female James Bond eye candy feature, running less than a dozen chapters. Now, far removed from all that it's an elaborate 2 world story following the life of Sheila, a blonde trying to make sense of her live(s).

HOW I DESCRIBE BLONDE WORLD :

Blonde World is the story of Sheila Marlen, a blonde living on Earth working as a sales support agent by day, by night....she goes to sleep. No alter ego, no super hero duality, like everyone else she goes home to bed. But, upon falling asleep she dreams of another life in another world where she is a powerful Blonde born named Blonda, who wields the Staff of truth and knowledge. With it she can fly, go through walls, cause massive electrical discharges and has unlimited strength.

Blonda's world is a nightmare of hitler's and genocide caused by prejudice and bigotry based on hair color instead of skin or language. She fights terrorist efforts on small and large scales designed to cause another war.

Subsequently when Blonda goes to sleep, she dreams of another world, a free world, where she leads a simple life, Sheila's life.

The question is, what is their

connection, and who is actually dreaming?

THE POINT OF THIS BLOG ;

This Blog, details my efforts as a graphic art novelist/comic book creator to get published. I have gone through many experiences of frustration, achievement, and discovery. Perhaps the journey I took can be of inspiration to others who dare follow in the footsteps I took, (and many others who came before me, Jeff Smith, Frank Cho to name a few) to realise their dream of seeing their creation come to life, and see their work being read and appreciated by others, even having developed fans. So, here is my dream child, my life in Blonde World.

I was at work at a car wash when I first drew Blonda, in between serving customers and washing cars. On the slower days I was able to draw and doodle. I also created Delilah, a brunette with a dominatrix look, and Savannah, an unscrupulous virtual social path Red head. This was 1998. I had no idea where I was going with these characters. In the years 99 to 2001 I created support and filler characters Nuance, Blonde Raven, Blonde Heart, Black Eagle, Techno Blonde, Suicide Blonde, and other Brunettes. Savannah was the only Red I came up with. (Pics of these originals are at the end of this blog entry. )

THE BIRTH OF BLONDE WORLD;

In 2001 while working at a telemarketing company I developped the story base of spys, intending this to be a realistic 'spy vs spy' with female secret agents, with alot of flash, gadgets , high tech cars and other weaponary. Some of the costumes, were "little" excuses for outfits, hence the eye candy approach. Somehow, this went from this, to life on another world, a world with out men. An all female planet. I thought it was getting to ridiculous, knowing how I thought at the time this would end up in an adult only read with lesbian emphasis-eye candy indeed! So I shelved the whole thing for 3 years.

In 2003 I picked it up again, creating the dream angle, this mundane blonde dreams of being a spy, is she really a spy and she has amnesia, forgetting sometimes who she is, and actually leads 2 lives, each vaguely aware of the other, chalking up the whole thing to wish full thinking, the spy wants a normal life, and the normal life person wants excitement yet they are the same person. Then the other planet approach came back, and the story took on a life of its own, mushrooming out from there.

Ok, enough history on the story, on with getting it printed; I completed a 40 page story of chapter 1, starting things off in the middle of the action, which is the best place to begin an action story. The very first Star Wars was what we know today as Episode 4, A new Hope. George Lucas began what was supposed to be his 9 story epic in the middle trilogy. It was of course very effective as we all know, and I took my cue as to where to begin from that.

The art work was B & W images, no color, no shading, figuring this would be cheaper to reproduce on a somewhat large scale. I found out otherwise. Flash forward a bit to the present;

PRINTING BLONDE WORLD ;

In the last year, I was able to take the original inked black and white drawings I did on paper years ago and put them on the computer and use the magic of photoshop and illustrator to enhance and "color" the images, to give them a sense of realism not possible using only stark B & W contrast images. Although I can't afford to print in actual color, the grey tones and shading I achieved really brought out the artwork, the images come alive and the stories can be told with greater dramatic emphasis. I liken using photoshop to 'coloring with light.'

The power and realism achieved with these effects

are indeed superior to straight linear back lines on white paper, not taking away anything from Frank Millar and the great work he did with Sin City, I appreciate however the 'full' look the grey shading and what looks like real light as seen here.

Looks great, but getting to this point was an ordeal of unbelievable proportions. Going back to 2007, I completed 40 B & W pages of the first Blonde World story, or chapter, and I was astounded to learn that it would be impossible to print up a book digitally from conventional copy machines, such as those in use at Staples, or Bureau en gros, (as they're called in Quebec) or even professional digital copy centers, that use 20,000 dollar copiers.

Problem one, the art work was on traditional 11*17 comic book page size format, in many cases they were a bleed image, meaning the artwork would take up the entire page, with no boarder around them at all. I would first have to scale them down to the actual finished copy size of 6.65 " * 10.25", (standard comic book format size) and have the correct pages pasted together, 1 with 40, 2 with 39, 3 with 38 etc, that's how comics and magazines are printed, (take one apart and you'll see what I mean, page 1 and 40 are on the same side of the same page, and on the back would be page 2 and 39). Even after doing that, I was told that digital machines are not capable of getting perfect registration, meaning that you would not have an exact line up of page 1 and 40 in relation to where pages 2 and 39 would be placed on the other side, so if you try to cut your book down, as your going to have to print this up on 11 * 17 paper, you may be cutting into the imagery and even dialogue on the other side of your page.

Apparently, you can't direct or INSTRUCT ANY digital machine as to WHERE on the page it will print the image. On a single side of a page, yes, but that's concerning an image that is smaller than the full page size. A double sided page, where your images fill up nearly the whole page, (These machines enforce a boarder, whether you want one or not), will print an image 'somewhat' in the center, but if the paper was fed into the machine or 'pulled in' differently than the one before, the image will be printed position wise on the page differently than the last. There's no way to command a copy machine, "print all images with an quarter inch margin on all sides" astounding as our technology today is, no one who manufactures photocopy machines considers this to be of any relevance. Even the most top of the line digital printers, which the average Joe Blow would be able to have access to, cant do that.

So I had to look at Offset printing. this is real professional printing, the type needed to pull off comic books, magazines, paper backs, and brochures, and anything colorful and visual needed on a mass reproduction scale...you may want to sit down for this. Just to get one sample book done, I was told would cost around $350 - $400. One book! I was told by the larger companies like Quebecor World who prints for Marvel comics, they wouldn't even look at me unless I was ready to commit to a print of 10,000 or more. A straight B & W job like mine would cost me about a dollar a book at that size run. I don't have 100 lying around let alone 10,000.

Long story short, I decided to see what and why this stuff costs so much, what the heck is the big deal of getting registration that it does costs so *#&'@! much! I went back to school. First, to learn computers, While working at a variety of office jobs I used Microsoft Word and office, but I had no clue as to how to work with images on computer, and if I wanted to even think of getting work in the now graphic arts world, formerly the commercial art world, I had to learn illustrator and photo shop and whatever else was required.

Enter Rosemount technology center, where I indeed picked up this knowledge, at the cost of going to school full time in the day, and working at night as a telephone survey person. (When people asked me what I do for a living I tell them I bother people professionally). This made for an 18 hour long day with transportation, and that was my life for 13 months. I still don't know how I did that, (well, I do, but thats another story for another time. I wasn't alone when I went through that.) I learned the CMYK 4 color printing process, with a work in turn as a double sided printed page is called. I had 3 great teachers/Instructors helping me through the course, Tony, Michel and not sure of the spelling but his name is pronounced Deep.

Thats TonyThats Michel. I unfortunately don't have a pic of Deep, but while I'm in the Rosemount Era, let me share a few high lights with you ;Tony and Michel were a great help. providing alot of 1 on 1 hands on instruction.This was home for most of 2009Habibi, my computer buddyMy friend Jay on one of his million dollar dealsYou're too cool Sammy!What!?? Where'd it go"I didn't touch nothing and it just disappears!!Bud the computer doesn't eat your stuff, you either touched something or you didn't!Bud Bud Bud Bud, eh my my.These two, great designers...but they just WOULDN'T STOP!!

Hiedleberg GTO press.
With what I learned, I was able to print Blonde World myself, and saw first hand, how much technology goes into getting images lined up from one side of a page to another. The process is ridiculously detailed and intricate. Understanding the procedure is one thing, but to actually do it, and know what your doing to be proficient at it, I was in my 12th month and I was still learning the subtleties on how to get registration properly. For now, I'm my only printer and publisher. I used a Gto Heidleberg press machine (Shown above) which was built before I was born. Below are some pics of several hundred copies of Blonde World chapters 1, 2 and 3. Once printing and folding was completed putting it together took over the entire Kitchen.

These shots are just the 1st issue, and at least 200 were already assembled at this point.Assembled and uncut Cut, bagged and boarded.

The 'Launch' of Blonde World Happened at the annual Montreal Expozine, Nov 14 - 15 2009 at the Church of Jesus' Saint Children (Eglise Saint Enfants Jesus in french)

Not much space to work with, 1/3 of a table is all we get, but we made it work.At least we got a wall table, where I could post my posters on to help with attention getting.

Blond World

Montreal Bonaventure Comicon 2009

Blonde World at Montreal Comicon