TSC.NS.17 :: Prepping for the campaign trail

f3@r.&.L0@thinG.2023

Hey ThoughtScape Comics gang!

Just over a month before we launch the grand effort to get ThoughtScape Comics #2 and #3 (and #1 if you’re new) into your hands or onto your hard drives! January 2nd is the big day: the New Year observed, and a chance to pack that new year full of sci-fi from me and some of the best artists in indie comics… because if we can make this first campaign of 2023 happen, issue #4 is 75% complete and ready to be Kickstarted in the fall.

Learn about all the ways you can keep up with the campaign below, along with a peek at one of our killer add-on rewards and a glimpse into the making of TSC #2 and #3! But before that…

Quick Bytes!

1. Kickstarter follower count

We’re approaching 125 followers on the TSC Kickstarter pre-launch page. If you haven’t yet headed over and clicked the NOTIFY button, go smash that thing and help us reach that number before the end of the month. If you have already clicked the button, consider encouraging your friends and followers to go click it as well. A big number on this page will help us out in a number of ways, which is why this is a huge focus and I never shut up about it. Also, did you know that KS pre-launch pages are now discoverable on KS (I learned this from the great Tyler James of Comix Launch Pro)?! I can only imagine that the greater the follower count the more likely the KS engine is to surface our page to folks who have never heard of ThoughtScape before, which could be extremely helpful. We NEED to add new readers/backers to pull this thing off. Anyway, click here and let’s go, 125!

2. I’m going to be on Blake’s Buzz LIVE TOMORROW night!

Live, TOMORROW NIGHT at 7PM PST/10PM EST, Eastin Deverna, Laurent Valles Jr. and me on Blake’s Buzz LIVE! Go hit the Notify Me button on YouTube and come hang with us and talk comics and crowdfunding and such.

---

Following along with the upcoming campaign

With the social media world in an even stranger state than usual these days, I wanted to come up with an approach to keeping folks as informed about the campaign as possible that wouldn’t result in any of us losing our minds any more than we already may have. So, here’s how I’m planning for updates to work once we launch on January 2nd.

* Here’s the lowdown and all the links *

Daily (or even more frequent) Updates: The ThoughtScape Comics Discord Server (and Twitter)

Join us on Discord if you want the up-to-the-minute scoop on what’s happening. You can also hit me there in DM fashion if you have questions and whatnot. And, if you are up for being a part of the TSC digital street team and helping signal boost my Kickstart-y pleas to the masses, this is the place to be. Here’s an invite link for the TSC Discord Server. Note: that link is only good for seven days, hit me up in the comments here later on if it’s expired and you want in. See you there! If Twitter stays intact, I will regularly and frequently post there as well.

Updates as warranted: Kickstarter Updates, the ThoughtScape Comics Facebook page, Instagram and Tumblr.

Anyone who backs the campaign will receive updates via Kickstarter as events and progress warrants it, likely 2-3 times per week. I’ll also post these same updates to the ThoughtScape Comics Facebook page and abridged versions on Instagram and Tumblr.

Update Digests: Here in the newsletter on Substack

Once per week, probably Friday or Saturday, I will update this very newsletter with a post that includes all the news from the week, any of the daily updates that are still relevant, etc.

---

Add-On Reward Spotlight: Commissions from Karl Slominski!

We’ve got some killer add-on rewards planned for the upcoming TSC campaign, including COMMISSIONS FROM KARL! So stoked to be able to offer these and help up to ten folks get some amazing original SloMoArt into their lives! Here are the details…

You’ll be able to select and add this ADD-ON REWARD to your pledge after selecting your initial pledge level (provided you select a physical reward tier)… if there are any slots left, of course.

Follow Karl on Instagram!

---

Making ThoughtScape: Lettering (Part One)

I initially decided to start lettering some TSC stories as a cost-saving measure, but once I got into it (on TSC #1’s A Spy Without a Face), I very much dug the process and realized that it was a somewhat natural extension of what I’ve spent most of my life doing - designing and laying out pages and screens - first as a print designer and, for the last (gulp) 20+ years, as a UX designer. I just needed to study up, learn some new skills and practice a bunch.

So, for my next effort, I lettered a story in TSC #2 called The Griever (one of my favorite things I’ve ever written). This was a good next step because I was feeling a bit possessive of the story anyway and had a vision for the letters and the overall vibe, so taking it under my own control would allow me to not drive some poor letterer person crazy with my ideas and notes.

Knowing that I might go this route, I asked incredible artist (and now Brian Michael Bendis collaborator!!!) Jacob Edgar to include suggested balloon placement in his thumbnails. Definitely either a big advantage to my first lettering effort that included dialog (Spy had only captions).

Here’s a thumbnail from Jacob with the balloon placements…

And here’s the lettered version of that page (lines by Jacob, colors by Lesley Atlansky), which was arrived at with LOTS of time and effort and lots of studying the lettering in comics that fit Jacob’s classic style, including significant amounts of time spent staring at Jared K. Fletcher’s work on The New Frontier: the amount of air in the balloons, the balloon shape and the minor variations that made the balloons feel alive, the leading, the tails, how much to add “effects” to the tails when it’s called for, etc.

I did the balloons for this one using a Huion tablet that I’d bought for my kids ages ago, the kind where you are not drawing directly on top of the page/art, which definitely took some getting used to, as did all the little ways you can tweak shapes in Illustrator, etc. (I would love to try hand lettering something some day but at this point everything I’ve done is digital).

I am definitely happy with how it turned out, but I knew that next time around I had to attempt to rely less on Illustrator shapes and get more freehand with it, and a story in TSC #3 was the perfect candidate in a number of ways. TO BE CONTINUED…

Until next time!
Matt

:: FOLLOW TSC on KICKSTARTER: ThoughtScape2023.com ::