The Wonderful Resource that is Paper Cat Press

long haired black cat
I don’t have any ready-to-post sketches of cats, so have a picture of my cat Scarlet.

I wish I had known about this site back at the end of February, when I got laid off from my day job and transitioned to making comics and art full-time. It would have made life easier.

But at least I found it now!

Paper Cat Press is a handy dandy website that aggregates links and shares new ones once a week. These links are for…

  • Calls for Submissions
  • New KickStarter Campaigns
  • New Webcomic Debuts
  • Grants and Scholarships
  • Workshops and Residencies

And a whole bunch of other stuff, all geared specifically towards comics artists and illustrators! All I can say is…

THANK THE GODS.

So in case you couldn’t tell, I am currently on the lookout for new opportunities for comics-making work.

Don’t get me wrong – the KickStarter for the Validation buttons has finished up just a few days ago. We far surpassed the asking goal of $100 and got $826 in funding! Holy banana pants!

But that money is specifically for KickStarter stuff – for fulfillment of orders and printing up the buttons we were raising funds for (and a sketchbook we unlocked as one of the stretch goals). That money will NOT go towards bills or food until all the backers have their rewards. And that could take a little while.

So that’s why I’m REALLY glad for sites like Paper Cat Press. They’re going to make looking for a paid gig SO much easier.

The first thing I’m going to apply for is a grant. Why? Because I want/need to take a residency at a comics place in Pittsburgh so I can do on-location research for Traveler’s Road, the story of two ladies traveling through a post-apocalyptic United States to find a lost friend. The lost friend in this story is supposed to be in Pittsburgh. I don’t live in the city, so I would REALLY like to just take a weekend, stay there, and draw what I need for the story. The grant can cover room and board, and if there’s enough left over, gas and art supplies.

However, I DID find another, different micro-grant (it’s micro because the grant is less than $1000, the usual minimum given in a grant). This micro-grant is called the Cupcake Award, and it’s given in association with CAKE – the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo. I’ll try for that grant first.

Wish me luck!

Thanks for Reading.

You. Are. Awesome.

The Perils of World-Building

the final page of johnson and sir
Ah, the final page of Johnson & Sir.

The other day I was on YouTube, and I came across this video about world-building. It starts out innocent enough, talking about world-building and how it applies to Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, etc…

But then it suddenly takes a left turn and talks about world-building and its use in politics, and I thought, “THIS IS NOT WHAT I WANTED.”

This guy talked about the perils of world-building in politics instead of the perils of it in literature, and I am MUCH more interested in the latter. So that’s what I’ll be talking about today. Continue reading “The Perils of World-Building”