Before We Begin
From Parts Unknown: Issue 1 prelaunch is LIVE!
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Some would say that I’m playing life on easy mode. I’m a DINK: Double Income, No Kids.
My time is my own (mostly) and so is my money. That means outside of the 9-5 and time with the wife, I don’t have too much put upon me.
More about said wife in this post:
What does one do with all this spare time?
Plan endless projects in hopes of filling the void left by unfulfilled potential, misguided ambitions and a mid-life crisis rearing around the bend.
Welcome to Pesto Comics. A project brought on by an overwhelming sense that life is short.
It’s not as though this entire project was launched blind or without any roadmap. This has been planned, in some form or another, for 20 years. Not in this exact incarnation, of course. 18-year-old me entered film school with a plan of making comics, films and video games to share with the world.
I was going to be a one-stop-shop of a creator.
Multiple false starts and half-completed projects later, I finally have the necessary experience to make Pesto Comics a real thing. Now we’re rolling with a full-fledged comic production company that has comics and novels slated through 2025 (plus more with co-productions and work-for-hire work on other people’s projects).
Too Much, Too Fast?
On the contrary, the only thing limiting me from rolling full steam ahead with a project a month is bankroll - and limitations of the Kickstarter platform. Everything I’ve made thus far goes to covering the cost of printing and some production. Profit is still a stretch goal.
The rest has been out of pocket- and those pockets aren’t terribly deep. It’s taken some juggling and a big stomach for handling risk. I haven’t put myself in a dangerous position as of yet, but it’s certainly less than comfortable. Anything less than an upward trajectory would be devastating.
Comics are hard and expensive. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Double that if you’re simply writer and don’t draw your own comics. (Though learning to letter - and doing it well - has not only been a great joy, but an excellent way to save some of those costs.)
See more about how I letter here:
All that said, the way to make this work from everything I’ve learned is to “ship”. I don’t mean that in the Gen-Z “let’s get these two together” kind of way, but the Seth Godin sense.
Keep making comics. High quality. Frequent.
(Same with the novels, coming soon.)
Fighting Shiny Object Syndrome
The most important thing in keeping all these projects rolling, while maintaining quality, is to give each the correct level of focus.
If I’m working on Project A, that’s my focus for some period of time.
The rest take a backseat until I’m done at least a block of Project A. When I feel my focus waning over the days and weeks, I’ll jump to Project B.
I try to leave some juice in Project A before leaving it though. Nothing is worse than giving future-you an unsolvable problem. It’s a great way to make sure that you don’t return or at least dread doing so. Procrastination becomes a routine if you do that to yourself.
I rinse and repeat this process through Projects A-Z. (I don’t have that many going yet, but some days it feels like it.)
It’s very difficult not to think of new projects when things get hard with whatever I’m working on. The “new” always looks more promising because it’s the fun part. I haven’t failed or struggled at all with a “new” idea. It’s barely real to start.
I don’t stop myself from exploring that muse when it hits though. Most times, it’s the light at the end of the tunnel when I’m stuck with a project. I know once I’ve finished this, I can jump to that.
Keeping a daily journal helps with this. It’s my opportunity to write with abandon. I get a lot of my brainstorming done while I’m talking to myself. I use Penzu which has a decent tagging system so I don’t lose those ideas later on either. I get everything out that I can in there—
— then I get back to the project I’m focused on.
Fiery Iron Logjam
The thing about being a comics writer is once you’ve written the comic, there’s a long wait before you get pages back. Some artists are really fast (Hi Daniel - the artist on From Parts Unknown: now in prelaunch!) and others take their time. I have no preference. I just know when I send off a script, I’m already feeling the idle hands looking for a new project to kick off.
That’s how I have so many irons in the fire. There’s not much for me to do but wait, so I throw another one in. The problem comes when they’re all ready to go at the same time.
To mix my metaphors: it creates a logjam — like I have now.
Crazy Latte Thing Called Love is in fulfillment. The last pieces should have arrived by the time this newsletter is sent, so I’ll be busy putting packages together…
…while lettering From Parts Unknown: Issue 1…
…and getting the Kickstarter page ready for the above…
…while putting together Big Smoke Pulp: Vol. 1…
…and the Kickstarter page for that…
…and reviewing art pages for From Parts Unknown: Issue 2…
…ditto for Naked Kaiju Woman: Issue 1…
…and completing the final draft for From Parts Unknown: Issue 3…
…ditto for Naked Kaiju Woman: Issue 3 (Not a typo, 2 is done!)…
…and writing this weekly Substack…
…and prepping for cons like Vaughan Con this Saturday.
I could keep going. There’s a bunch more writing projects I have in some form of on the go. It seems like a lot when you consider that I have a full time job and I’ve bumped this newsletter up to every Wednesday.
Frankly, I love it.
I’ll Get Into This Later, But…
I love the pulp era of writers.
I know, the era in time has been sentimentalized. Pulp writers are seen as dogged artists, bleeding for their work, when the truth is that they were writing constantly just to put food on the table. That’s no way to dream of living - but I’m a romantic and can’t help myself.
I’ll talk about this more in-depth in a future post, when we’re ready to launch Big Smoke Pulp.
I want to be prolific. I always have, but never had the courage to take the leap and be that person. One rejection, one bad review or even a sneer would absolutely crush me back into obscurity.
I’ve been licking my wounds for way too long. I’m ready to take the lessons I’ve learned and put them into action. The first few projects helped me steady my footing (or laid the foundations…to mix even more metaphors).
Now that I’ve seen what a community of amazing readers (or listeners) and supporters like yourselves can do, I’m ready to start fulfilling that potential.
Have You Been Sitting on the Sidelines?
Do you have a creative project that you’ve been sitting on? Something you’ve been too worried or afraid to get out there?
Don’t be. Just do it.
I can’t tell you how fulfilling it is to work on something - and see it through to completion. It’s difficult. It always will be.
Yet…it gets easier the more you do it. Once you’ve cleared the path the first time, doing it again and again gets a lot easier each time out.
You need to be ready to fall on your face a bit too. Were my projects as big as some of the biggest performers on Kickstarter, hitting six-figure totals within hours of launching? Hell no, but I’ll get there eventually.
Don’t let whatever is scaring you stop you. If you have a story to tell, do it.
I want to see what you’re working on. (And I’m happy to help if I can.)
My Vow To You
I’ll be releasing work on such a constant basis that you’re going to get sick of me. Every ounce of (eventual) profit I make will just feed this machine and have even more come out.
This won’t just be content for content’s sake either. In fact, “content” feels like a dirty word. It’s not about getting things out there to feed an algorithm or some kind of machine. It’s to release these backlog of ideas that have continually come up as I dive more and more into this creative practice.
My goal is to give you the highest quality stuff I can muster. I’ll keep working with amazing artists, editors and other creatives to step my game up with every single project.
Some of you have supported everything I put out thus far and I thank you for it. I’m going to make that a real challenge for you to keep doing that with my planned output. (Of course, I’ll reward you well for it if you can keep up!)
The pipeline is beyond full — plus there’s a queue outside it waiting to join it. I can’t wait to share everything that I have planned.
From here on out, it’s going to be a wild ride.
Thanks for being here at the beginning of it.
Anything you’d like to see from Pesto Comics that you haven’t yet?
How do you balance your creative workload? Any tips?
Let me know in the comments!
As always, thanks for reading. I’ll be back next Wednesday with even more.
Find Me at Vaughan Con Saturday
I’ll be at Booth 1048 all day!
What’s Next?
August 14
Comics in the Ballroom
The weekend at Vaughan Con
August 21
Fun with Fulfillment: Crazy Latte Thing Called Love
The second part of the Crazy Latte Thing Called Love post-mortem
August 28
Hailing From Parts Unknown
A comic that's been lurking in the shadows longer than you know
Convention Schedule
Juggling Multiple Projects