🗞️ An Actual Newsletter! 📰
🗞️ An Actual Newsletter! 📰
Some minor changes
It’s been a hot minute since I last sent out an *actual* newsletter.
The Big News
I’m just going to jump right into it. I have decided to remove the paywalls from this Substack newsletter. I have been hemming and hawing over Substack, Patreon and BuyMeACoffee. Substack will be the main website where I post free comics and content. Additional content will be available over on Patreon (early releases, Q&A, behind the scenes, a more in depth look at the art journal posts, etc.)
I’m still on the fence about BuyMeACoffee. I may use it to handle art commissions, because it seems to be built to handle that better than Patreon.
So in case you missed it, this newsletter is now and will always be free to read (unless Patreon disappears overnight).
Crowdfunding
Since I already did a post on this earlier today, I won’t take up too much real estate talking about it again. Day 1 of 30, the campaign has already raised nearly $1000 of its $6000 goal. I am beyond excited for this. I pledged to the “Retailer Bundle” with the plan to maybe hit up some local conventions this next year and try my luck selling them with some prints and single issue comics.
The Art Journal
This has temporarily taken the place of my Journal Comics for a little while. I decided I wanted to teach myself how to do watercolour art. I haven’t used watercolours since kindergarten, so I’m eager to mess around with them and add a little more colour to my work.
So I got myself a sketchbook full of watercolour paper and some watercolour pencil crayons and have started drawing/painting a page a day. I post them on Patreon as I make them, then post the rest to other social media a few days later.
Here is a look at what I have so far.
What Else Is New?
I submitted a pitch for another comic anthology yesterday. Today was the deadline to get our pitches in, so I barely got it to them in time. I need to bookmark these websites so I can find out about them further in advance. Since I have backed away from most social media, a lot of these calls for submissions have been flying under my radar and I don’t find out about them until after submissions are closed.
I had to put together a comic portfolio yesterday of some of my better work, and came across some very old/abandoned projects. Doing this gave me a renewed passion for possibly returning to those abandoned projects and either finishing them or starting over.
I have a good feeling about this one, but in case I don't get it, I think I’m going to write/draw it anyway and post it either here or on Patreon. It’ll give me some nice behind the scenes content to work with.
The Vlog
A few months ago I started a new job, so the vlogs kinda got pushed to the side. I think I’m going to start them up again and incorporate some behind the scenes footage of my art journal.
Diablo IV
Diablo III came out about a year or so after my wife and I first started dating, and we played it together and with friends for years. Then we got bored of it.
On our anniversary this year, they happened to release a free trial of the game for people to play over a weekend, and we jumped right back into it. It was fun. So fun, that I went out and pre-ordered an Xbox Series X and a copy of the game. It should arrive some time next week, and once the child goes to bed, we will kill demons and level up throughout the summer.
Why bring this up?
Because you will likely see a lot of Diablo inspired art here. Just letting you know why ahead of time.
The Pull List
For the first time in my life I started a pull list at my local comic shop. I don’t get to go there as often as I’d like, and since Amazon made it almost impossible to find new comics on the Canadian version of Comixology, I just gave up on digital comics. So I started a pull list of title for my family to try out, and to give us an excuse to visit the store once a month to pick up said comics.
I’ve been having a really hard time finding comics for my daughter that are age appropriate. Whenever I get to the shop, pretty much everything has been picked over already, so this is what I ended up ordering:
For my daughter:
My Little Pony
Sonic the Hedgehog
The Batman & Scooby-Doo Mysteries
For my wife:
Unstoppable Doom Patrol
Gargoyles: Dark Ages
For myself:
WildC.A.T.s
Titans
Ghost Rider
Dungeons & Dragons: Saturday Morning Adventures
Alpha Flight
Daredevil
We’ll see how many of these are still on the list by October.
I used to buy just and issue or two and if I liked a series, I’d order the TPB. Sadly, the cost of those collections have gone up so much, it’s not worth it anymore. Now I just order an omnibus if I really like a series. So far, I am the most excited for the new Titans series. I read issue #1 a few weeks ago, and enjoyed it enough that it made the pull list, and I will likely stick with it until the end, assuming the current creative team sticks around that long.
If you made it this far, do you have any recommendations for the pull list?
Parting Note
I think that’s all for now, if you enjoy this content and would like to see more of it, the best thing you can do is, like they say on YouTube, Like & Subscribe.
If you want even more, you can subscribe to my Patreon and join The Morning Coffee Comics Society as either a Junior Member, a Senior Member or a Founding Member.
Alternatively, if you are interested in commission or an experimental watercolour original you can reach out to me at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/MarkLiebrecht.