Chris Schweizer

$8 six-inch bristle brush? Nooo Four $0.25 bristlechips glued together? Yesss

Chris Schweizer reposted

Joaquín Baldwin

@joabaldwin.com

Go see Wildwood. Seriously, don’t wait—go see Wildwood. What a piece of art. The love for the manual craft, for story that doesn’t hold back, for filmmaking that is not here to answer to stockholders, it weaves all through it. Incredible stuff.

19h

Full house tonight at the special called county magistrates meeting to discuss data centers, lots of rural Kentuckians of all political stripes pretty darned unified on this issue

Chris Schweizer reposted

"Shelob had an out-thrust head with two great clusters of many-windowed eyes and great horns and a short stalk-like neck. Her head had a beak that dribbled venom. She had a huge body that looked like a bloated bag. Her body was black and blotched with livid marks with a pale and luminous belly."

Chris Schweizer reposted

John Allison

@badmachinery.com

Out next month, I just carried these over the threshold

We went to see Wildwood and holy moly, what a picture! I'd say eight and older, it's pretty heavy. An absolutely gorgeous, Monument endeavor. See it as soon as you can on the biggest screen you can.

@kingfridayjoe.bsky.social

Prototype for the Broken Blade keychain (minus the chain part) that OUTLAW'S APPRENTICE Kickstarter backers will be receiving. Some tweaks still needed (for instance, I'll probably put a bevel on the blade edges with a dremel or drum sander) but on the whole I'm happy with it!

Chris Schweizer reposted

James Lawrence

Surprise!! I’ll have a new Legend of La Mariposa comic at Thought Bubble this year! This is the first part of a longer story and I’ve only printed a limited run, so come grab some while stocks last!

Chris Schweizer reposted

Abacus Wizard

@abacuswizard.bsky.social

Replying to @rabagast.bsky.social

An interviewer once asked Charles Schulz if he had ever considered hiring assistants to write/draw Peanuts for him. Schulz laughed and responded “I’d just as soon hire someone to play golf for me!”

Chris Schweizer reposted

Caitlin Yarsky- PROMETHEUS GRAFT #1 FOC 11/02!!

@caitlinyarsky.bsky.social

Trying to get back into music after I stopped in 2020. This is Ashokan Farewell, a simple old timey Appalachian tune Side note did you know @davechisholmcomics.com and I used to play in a band together? Small world ✨

Working* portcullis gate for the trunk-or-treat castle, which will have to be raised each time a youngster wants a candy *no clever mechanisms, I'll be lifting it up with a handle, I'm too busy to be clever

We didn't get pumpkins and gourds to put out front this year (traveling too much/too busy), but here's a sketch from a few years back of the trailer stand where I get them when I do, about an hour away at the Clifty (formerly Lickskillet) crossroad, where the Pennyrile & the Western Coal Fields meet

Nice weather means working outside, working outside means new friends

@simodasketch.bsky.social

From this month's Patreon LOTR paper figure set: Aragorn's companions on the paths of the dead

Chris Schweizer reposted

下田スケッチ【絵の描き方】

14 June

石畳に落ちる草木の影のスケッチ

Chris Schweizer reposted

Guy Pradel

@pradaldi.bsky.social

Not a lot of people can brag they did something new with the classic "telephone pole sketch" !

下田スケッチ【絵の描き方】@simodasketch.bsky.social

電柱のスケッチ

While I was getting ready for bed I started singing "King of the Road" in a minor key and you know what, "King of the Road," slow, in a minor key, is spooky! But so is anything sung slow and in a minor key, I guess

Knowing all of the names of all of the engineers' children is suddenly extremely ominous

Chris Schweizer reposted

John Allison

@badmachinery.com

Writing has begun today on the next exciting epoch of Solver. Danger, glamour, and discounts are the watchwords for this next run.

Chris Schweizer reposted

Mike Manley

@drawmanley.bsky.social

Old con sketch of Falsh and Dale

Chris Schweizer reposted

David Petersen

@mouseguard.bsky.social

Replying to @mouseguard.bsky.social

Chris Schweizer reposted

Daniel José Older

@djolder.bsky.social

Good morning! We're suing Meta for stealing our shit 😎 let's goooo

Not for nothing but I think our so-far A+ governor Andy (who I believe is entertaining a 2028 presidential run) checks all these boxes

This post is unavailable.

Fried chicken, the Hoptown Goblins, Jim Kelly, George Clooney, Bourbon, and Andy Beshear, we got a lot going for us

comicsbeat.comIs Artist Alley even sustainable any more?It's more expensive than ever to set up in artist alley or at a comics show - and here are some of the numbers

Excellent write up on cost/benefit for artists at increasingly-pricy shows. One of the reasons that I, and so many others, so esteem HeroesCon, is that they curate and comp tables for a LOT of artists, including "new" artists. My first "real" table was at Heroes... www.comicsbeat.com/is-artist-al...

...off and make an already trying time in a career more precarious. I have no idea what a n ideal setup might look like, or if there even is one - I love that different shows have very different approaches.

Anyway, I love Heroescon, and its auction, which helps to make it to where they CAN comp tables to folks who may not yet be an audience draw but who show promise. Giving them a chance to reach and grow an audience is so important!

comicsbeat.comIs Artist Alley even sustainable any more?It's more expensive than ever to set up in artist alley or at a comics show - and here are some of the numbers

You only have to sell 18 prints at $20 to make back table because they only cost you $2 each to print. 18 is not a lot for a print! The math favors prints, stickers, doohickies. Were costs less, would we see more comics/books? Maybe!

A wholly-free-and-curation model built whose costs are entirely on attendee tickets isn't a perfect answer; it encourages a talent pool of exclusively established artists whose presence encourages attendance. Prioritize new folks, and established folks whose popularity may be waning get shuffled...

comicsbeat.comIs Artist Alley even sustainable any more?It's more expensive than ever to set up in artist alley or at a comics show - and here are some of the numbers

Don't get me wrong - I love making the ephemera, and sharing it! The Christmas stuff, the paper figures, the mountain monsters - it's still storytelling, it's still stuff with which I have a deep emotional connection. But it ain't comics!

Let's say a mid-size show (somewhere in the neighborhood of 40K attendees), and let's say the table costs $350. If you were pushing a $20 book that you get from the publisher for 10, you have to sell 35 copies just to make the table back. That's a lot of copies for a book people don't know!

comicsbeat.comIs Artist Alley even sustainable any more?It's more expensive than ever to set up in artist alley or at a comics show - and here are some of the numbers

...Outlaw's Apprentice is something I both want to do AND have the agency to do, having my own stock; I'll do shows where I don't necessarily make bill-paying money in order to get copies into peoples' hands. BUT this means that a lot of mid-size shows are out; if they're not giving me a table...

...but charging a few hundred bucks for one, the math doesn't add up. Since my prices are pretty low (important to me, having been poor at various times) I have to do a lot of sales, and quantity of offerings becomes necessary. Which puts me back into the ephemera territory.

comicsbeat.comIs Artist Alley even sustainable any more?It's more expensive than ever to set up in artist alley or at a comics show - and here are some of the numbers

And since I'm not trying to grow a readership at shows - if book publishers want you to, via direct sales and gladhanding, they don't make it easy - I only do the shows where I know I'm making money. And those shows tend to lend themselves to prints and ephemera (I bring my art books, and...

...those sell well enough, but hardly match what I make on my Santas or my Appalachian folklore stuff). Next year, I'll be changing my approach - aside from something like ALA, which is important for different reasons, I want to make sure I don't go in the hole, but growing a readership for...

comicsbeat.comIs Artist Alley even sustainable any more?It's more expensive than ever to set up in artist alley or at a comics show - and here are some of the numbers

I make ephemera for fun (and have generally turned what I do for fun into regular Patreon offerings), and if I do a couple of new prints a year then it is a big year. Comics are and continue to be my main artistic output, but at shows? You wouldn't know it!

After a disastrous book tour more than a decade ago when I received books late, and the wrong ones, I washed my hands of trying to get copies of my own books from publishers. I'll sell my comps, and that's it. It's not worth it to have to pay 50% of the cover price and shipping.

comicsbeat.comIs Artist Alley even sustainable any more?It's more expensive than ever to set up in artist alley or at a comics show - and here are some of the numbers

There's definitely a "shows are a business" with a lot of conventions, and sustainability absolutely matters. But, as mentioned in the article, what GENERALLY sells isn't books, but prints and other ephemera (my hands-down bestseller is a set of Appalachian Folk Monster cards). And when shows...

...cost a pretty penny, artists, especially young artists, are financially and logistically incentivized to spend their attention on that ephemera.

comicsbeat.comIs Artist Alley even sustainable any more?It's more expensive than ever to set up in artist alley or at a comics show - and here are some of the numbers

...twenty years ago this upcoming summer. I had a book in the works, but had only done minis and anthologies at that point. I still have readers (many of whom have become friends) who I met tabling at that first show. A show that size is not one whose table I'd've been able to afford at that point.

Costume reference sheet for Outlaw's Apprentice

New installment of OUTLAW'S APPRENTICE, free to read every Wednesday! Read today's on Webtoon: www.webtoons.com/en/canvas/ou... Patreon: www.patreon.com/ChrisSchweiz... Or from the beginning: www.webtoons.com/en/canvas/ou...

Jiminy christmas, a mix of lots of travel, some tech failures, unexpected civic obligations, and a visually busy scene means that I'm still far from being done with a batch of pages that drop tomorrow morning.Woof! It's been a very, very, very long time since I had this kind of unpleasant crunch.

I read-via-audiobook the first 3 of the 4 books in the recent English translations of Jin Yong's LEGEND OF THE CONDOR HEROES but took a break when it started to feel repetitive (book 3 is them running into the same people they've run into a dozen times before). But I'm back, and 4 is a delight!

Repetition is ALWAYS a fret when you're dealing with a serialized narrative employing a large cast of repeating characters and while there are ways around it for the writer, the best way to enjoy said narratives is to not read/watch years' worth of output in a couple of weeks