Children’s Books: ABC Disgusting, The Princess Who Saved Herself, The Princess Who Saved Her Friends
Fiction: Planet Hulk prose novel
Non-Fiction: Cooking Will Break Your Heart, Kickstarter Secrets, Make Comics Like the Pros, Robot Stories and More Screenplays
Poetry: I Belong to You / Motherland
Comics: Click here for the full listing
Hey, Dallas! I’m coming to town! I’ll be a special guest at the Fan Expo Dallas from Friday, May 29 to Sunday, May 31. I’ll have a table in Artists’ Alley, so please come find me there to get your books signed — and to buy signed books!
The con takes place in the Dallas Convention Center. Hours are Friday, 4 pm – 9 pm, Saturday 10 am – 7 pm, and Sunday 10 am to 5 pm. I should be there pretty much the entire time until about 4 pm Sunday.
Thanks so much to everyone who supported the “Princess Who Saved Herself” Kickstarter last month! And here’s some good news — we’ve opened a pre-order page that will allow readers who missed the Kickstarter to buy hardcovers of the book, which is scheduled to ship in June! The pre-order period will last until 11:59 pm ET, Thursday, April 23, so please do place your orders now!
“The Princess Who Saved Herself“ is a children’s book based on the beloved song by Jonathan Coulton and written by yours truly with art by Takeshi Miyazawa, colors by Jessica Kholinne, and letters by Simon Bowland. It tells the story of Gloria Cheng Epstein Takahara de la Garza Champion, an awesome princess who lives with her pet snake and plays rock ‘n’ roll all day to the huge annoyance of the classical guitarist witch who lives down the road.
Read on for a 10 page preview! And buy it today!
Last Wednesday, Jonathan Coulton and I launched a Kickstarter to print hardcovers of The Princess Who Saved Herself, a children’s book based on Jonathan’s classic song.
The book tells the story of Gloria Cheng Epstein Takahara de la Garza Champion, an awesome princess who lives with her pet snake and plays rock ‘n’ roll all day to the huge annoyance of the classical guitarist witch who lives down the road. Hijinks, conflicts, and a fun reconciliation ensue, all showcasing determination, bravery, and understanding. The gorgeous art is by Takeshi Miyazawa and colorist Jessica Kholinne and the letters by Simon Bowland.
Our backers have blown our minds, hitting our first funding goal within six hours on the first day. They then hit our $50,000 stretch goal, which will allow us to make a digital Princess Who Saved Herself Activity Book, full of fun mazes, word searches, images for coloring, and drawing and storytelling projects, which will be delivered as a PDF to all backers.
Now we’re working towards our $70,000 stretch goal, which will unlock a digital Princess Who Saved Herself script book, which will contain multiple outlines and script drafts and provide “Making Of” commentary by yours truly showing how we put the book together.
Finally, we’ve also launched a Teespring T-shirt campaign so folks can get the PWSH tees they never knew they needed!
The Kickstarter ends around 10 am ET on Wednesday, March 25. Please do check it out, and feel free to spread the word, if you’re so inclined!
I hope you’ll get a kick out of it and thank you for your consideration.
The big New Year’s Sale at the Greg Pak Shop ends tonight at 11:59 pm ET!
All signed books are 15 percent off — including “Action Comics,” “Batman/Superman,” “Code Monkey Save World,” and “Make Comics Like the Pros” — just enter the discount code “2015” at checkout.
By Greg Pak
I spent more time than I care to admit the other week trying to come up with a title for a new comic book project. I thought I had the perfect title, but then the project changed in a great way, bringing a new element to the table that the title really should evoke. And it became surprisingly tough to come up with just the right replacement.
I was looking for two or three words that instantly create a picture and action in the potential reader’s mind. Two or three words that evoke a genre and create a sensation of forward motion and intrigue — while also being able to serve as a title for an ongoing series that stretches over multiple story arcs.
Tricky, huh?
So I made some lists to try to understand what makes good titles work, particularly for comic books and serial genre fiction. Here are the categories I came up with and what they made me think about:
Titles Based on the Main Character’s Name
Superman
Batman
Wonder Woman
Scott Pilgrim
Lone Wolf & Cub
Hellboy
Pretty straightforward, right? I’d love to embrace this solution and just name the book after my main character. But it’s worth noting that “Superman” and “Batman” only launched as books after the characters had debuted in “Action Comics” and “Detective Comics,” respectively. Before the world knew about superheroes, it didn’t necessarily make sense to launch a book with the name of a superhero. If you’re creating an unexpected genre or doing fresh worldbuilding, the character’s name alone may have trouble creating that image and effect you want in reader’s minds. Of course, in comics, the title will be rendered in a specific style and accompanied by evocative art, so the words alone don’t have do all the work. But there might be ways to help them along…
Titles Based on the Main Character’s Name… Plus an Extra Description
Nausciaa of the Valley of Wind
Elric of Melnibone
Hikaru No Go
Alice in Wonderland
Y the Last Man
V for Vendetta
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (etc.)
Sex Criminals
Turok Dinosaur Hunter
This may very well work for my project. The character’s name in my project is evocative but not absolutely demonstrative of genre — but combined with a tag of some kind, it can evoke the genre and action of the whole story pretty well. I’m realizing this is a technique used frequently for fantastical stories and can be a great way to clue readers into what’s so fresh about the story in just a few words. I have a few strong possibilities that fit this pattern.
Titles Based on the Story’s Key Event
Attack on Titan
World War Hulk
Star Wars
Old Man’s War
Escape from New York
Star Trek
Love these kinds of titles — used one myself with “World War Hulk” back in the day. (Marvel editor Tom Brevoort gets the credit for that title, by the way, as I recall — it beat out “Hulkmageddon,” which is probably a good thing.) But I’m developing a book that I’d love to see go on for years, and I’m not certain that an event-based title will apply so perfectly four or five story arcs down the line.
Titles Based on the World
Planet Hulk
Battlestar Galactica
DMZ
Sin City
Astro City
Again, I love these kinds of titles. They’re particularly attractive when you’re building a new world. I’ve been rolling some world-based names around, but just haven’t found one that clicks just yet.
Titles Featuring the Inciting Character, Antagonist, or Objective
Lord of the Rings
Aliens
Predator
Akira
Wizard of Oz
Princess Mononoke
Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Princess of Mars
These titles are very interesting to me — they put the objective or antagonist front and center rather than the putative main character. But this doesn’t feel right for the way I’m building this particular story.
Conceptual Titles
Ex Machina
Fables
Powers
Saga
Tooth & Claw
Pretty Deadly
I love these kinds of titles and I had a few evocative, single word titles in mind for this project — but of course they were already taken. This is a problem — folks have been telling and titling stories for a long, long time. And thousands more stories are published every year. So it’s honestly pretty tough to come up with a one or two word conceptual title that hasn’t already been used.
If all goes well, I’ll reveal what the title is and how we picked it when the project actually gets announced some time in 2015. Knock on wood for me!
For more thoughts about the writing and comic book process, check out “Make Comics Like the Pros,” a how-to book I wrote with Fred Van Lente.
Big news! I’ve opened the Greg Pak Shop, an online store where you can buy signed copies of my books!
If you place an order by the end of day, Friday, December 12, we’ll do our best to get it to you before Christmas. Hot tickets right now include the signed “Code Monkey Save World” graphic novel, available here for the first time in an online store, and signed copies of “Storm” #1.
Enjoy!
I’ll be a guest at the Comic Book Club live show in New York City at 7 pm on Tuesday, December 9. It’s at Fontana’s Bar, 105 Eldridge Street between Grand and Broome, and it’s FREE!
It’s a fun show that I’ve done many, many times over the years. It’s a talk show format, with lots of hijinks and laughs and audience participation and even a bit of serious comics talk!
I’ll also have copies of “Code Monkey Save World” and maybe “Make Comics Like the Pros” for sale!
Come see, come see!
Fred Van Lente and I are signing our new how-to book, “Make Comics Like the Pros,” this Friday at Midtown Comics Downtown in NYC!
Friday, November 14
6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Midtown Comics Downtown
64 Fulton St, New York, New York 10038
(212) 302-8192
Come see, come see!
And like or comment on this Facebook post for a chance to get a seat at the special Q&A after the signing! Fred and I will both have nifty freebies for Q&A attendees!
I’m doing a signing with the great Fred Van Lente at JHU Comic Books in NYC this Saturday, October 25, from 5 to 6 pm!
The event is at 32 E. 32nd Street, NY, NY 10016. And yes, they will have copies of “Make Comics Like the Pros,” the how-to book co-written by Fred and me!
It’s all part of JHU’s awesome Halloween ComicFest.
In our book “Make Comics Like the Pros,” my co-writer Fred Van Lente provides some spectacular advice about how to work a comic book convention. This year at the New York Comic Con, I took Fred’s advice seriously and did my Artists Alley table up right for the first time. And I had my best con ever! So here’s what I did:
1. I’d printed up the “Code Monkey Save World” banner last year. But for the NYCC, I ponied up a few bucks to print a second banner featuring gorgeous Aaron Kuder/Wil Quintana art from our current “Action Comics” run. I figured folks who don’t know me probably know Superman, and might pause a few more seconds at the table if they saw his face. And they did!
2. I got vertical! In “Make Comics Like the Pros,” Fred writes about the need to stand out in a crowded con by raising your stuff up into the field of vision of passersby. So I went to Staples and bought a few clear magazine holders, which worked beautifully for displaying single issue comics and bigger books. The three-level magazine holders in particular provided a great way to catch folks’ eyes with the titles of a variety of books.
3. I sat down for an hour or two and printed actual labels for everything. At past cons, I had handwritten labels with prices of things. That’ll work, but I think the clearly printed labels helped make everything feel more professional and encouraged sales. The clear label over the “Code Monkey Save World” books reading “Based on the songs of JONATHAN COULTON” saved me from having to explain the book as often as I’ve done in the past. Multiple Coulton fans read that label and bought the book without my having to say much at all.
4. It’s a little hard to tell from the photo, but that little black box is a portable speaker through which I played Jonathan Coulton music whenever I was sitting at the table. Bouncy music subtly encourages people to linger and buy. And multiple Coulton fans heard the music, then discovered the table and bought the book.
5. For the first time this year, I brought a short box of single issues of some of my work-for-hire comics, which I sold at cover price. I ended up selling all but one issue of “Action Comics” and every issue of “Storm,” “Doomed,” and “Batman/Superman” that I brought. The experience reminds me of advice a friend gave me about Kickstarters, which was to have a reward at every price point. At my table, I had the $20 “Code Monkey Save World” and the $23 “Make Comics Like the Pros” books for the big buyers. But I also had a bunch of $3 and $4 comics for casual browsers who might just like a little something to remember the con by.
6. Fred told me that after he did a panel about making comics at a small convention in Maine, he sold all of the “Make Comics Like the Pros” books he had within a few minutes. So I ordered what I figured would be too many “Make Comics Like the Pros” books to sell at the NYCC. And I sold them all. A big part of moving those books was doing the “Make Comics Like a Pro” panel and the Nerdist Comics Panel, where I shamelessly plugged the book. Some folks bought the book from me right there after the panels; many others found me at the table later to buy the book.
7. Sets of individual comics sold pretty well. I had a few sets of individual comics of a few miniseries I did, which I bagged together and sold at a slight discount. All of those sets sold. It makes sense — it’s nice to get a little discount and it’s nice to get a whole story in a single bag.
8. I was seated next to “Action Comics” artist Aaron Kuder and facing frequent collaborators Fred Van Lente, Ryan Dunlavey, and Charles Soule. That meant if someone was looking at a copy of “Action,” I could say, “And you can get Aaron to sign it for you, too!” I think that helped move a lot of books.
And now here’s a list of things I thought about after the fact and will try to do for the next con:
1. Make a little sign saying I take credit cards. Most Artists Alley vendors these days have little Square thingies that let them take credit cards. But not all visitors realize that. A little sign would probably have increased my sales just a bit.
2. Make a sign listing my collaborators who are at the con and where they’re sitting in Artists Alley. As noted above, sitting near Fred and Charles and Aaron certainly helped move single issues. But probably a dozen other artists I’ve worked with were attending the con. If I’d had a little sign at my table noting what books they’d worked on and where folks could find them, it might have encouraged a few more sales. And it would just be good karma to point fans to the tables of my friends and collaborators.
3. Bring a sheet to cover the table. On the first day of the con, I forgot to bring a sheet. So every time I left the table, I had to spend a few minutes moving books off the table. I brought a sheet on the second day and probably saved a half hour to forty minutes over the course of the con as a result.
4. I’d thought of creating a little insert to stick into books that I sold people that listed my name and website and Twitter handle. But I forgot. I think that’s a pretty good idea and will try to do that for the next con. Seems like a good way to help turn customers into Twitter followers, which can then help keep them informed about my future work.
And, finally, a quick list of things I learned.
1. Iconic covers and #1 issues sell. If folks aren’t following the storylines and looking for specific books, their eyes get drawn to iconic covers featuring characters they know and books with a big #1 on them. So “Action Comics” #28, the book in the rack next to the short box featuring the iconic Superman flying towards us with the explosion behind him, sold out very quickly. And every time I put “Storm” #1 on the table with its gorgeous Victor Ibañez cover, it would sell within a half hour.
2. There are tons of parents roaming the con with small children — including tons of small girls. But I didn’t have a ton of stuff to offer those families. I ended up drawing with those kids a ton, which was a blast. But I’m pretty eager to see what’ll happen when I finally have hard copies of the “Princess Who Saved Herself” book I’m doing with Jonathan Coulton and the “Code Monkey Save World” team.
3. I actually paid $30 for a Facebook ad saying I was at the con and providing my Artists Alley table number. I have no idea how many people actually came to the table because of that ad. I should have asked folks. But if only a few buyers of “Code Monkey” or “Make Comics Like the Pros” came because of that ad, it was worth it. As dubious as I am of Facebook in general, I’ll probably do it again.