2016 2nd QUARTERLY EDITION

EMERALD CITY COMI-CON 2017 APPLICATION

Like a number of other small press comic creators and artists last year, QEW Publishing was denied its reservation for an Artist Alley exhibit spot at Emerald City Comi-Con. A change in ownership by ReedPOP ushered forth new managerial decisions that slightly altered the criterion for reservation approvals. ECCC had originally been a 3-day event, but had now been extended to a nearly week-long, 4-day event. Considering the logistics and cost for attending admittedly made the choice of taking a break from cons for 2016 a bit easier. Nevertheless, an application to attend ECCC 2017 for next year has recently been submitted. The application is merely a formal registered request for a reservation, and in no way provides a guarantee for an approval. QEW Publishing is hoping to receive an approval. Attending Emerald City Comi-Con again would offer showcasing opportunities for new printed editions of 2016 1st Quarter New Releases, BLOOD & SILVER #3 and BLACKSTONE #0. Penciling story illustrator for the horror comic, ARACHNE, Steven Millage, has been invited to attend as QEW Publishing's official guest artist. There would also be a wonderful chance to see friends and colleagues again, review and scout new talent for future projects, and it would be particularly great to attempt to reunite a few of the QEW Gals, QEW Publishing's cadre of lovely lady volunteers who help out at the show.

OPERATING THE ACTIVE TDL--"TO-DO LIST"

The result of some of the massive changes that were implemented earlier here this year at QEW HQ resulted in the formation of QEW Publishing's Active TDL, or "To-Do List." This has helped keep control of QEW Publishing's limited internal resources and finances while it currently focuses heavily on the challenging determination  to produce multiple projects through vigorous multi-tasking. So far, it's been very effective. Within the TDL's Active Operations section under "Writing," a total of ten developing projects are listed. Script production for five of these comic book projects, ARACHNE, MAGISPHERE, BLOOD & SILVER, REPO KATZ, and P.I. McQUEEN has made significant progress. This even includes the progress on the rough draft manuscript for QEW Publishing's first novel of vampire fiction, BLOOD ROOT. The level of accomplishment here is an important milestone for productions in the area of writing. This certainly encourages extending these efforts to the remaining four other projects, THE BUGS NEXT DOOR, G.O. GIRL, NIGHTMARIUM, and BEAUTIFUL BEAST. Completing one or two of these previously mentioned projects could make this extension much easier. More disciplined usage of the Active TDL should continue to help streamline productions even further.

EAT & RUN #0 SHOWCASE & SIGNING

May 13th and 14th were the dates for QEW Publishing's signing and showcasing event for the EAT & RUN #0 printed edition comic book. The event was held at the Finders Keepers retail and trade store located in Bellingham, Washington. Despite a few minor challenges with paying for parking every hour for one day, the overall experience was fun, enlightening, and rewarding. Finders Keepers has a great location there in downtown Bellingham. Owner and manager Roger, and his assistant, Embry, were exceptionally welcoming and accommodating. Friday yielded a surprisingly steady amount of foot traffic throughout the day, resulting in some favorable interactions with patrons. There were some fruitful opportunities for editions of EAT & RUN #0 to be showcased and even sold. Printed editions of ZOMBIES MINUS ZERO #1 were on display there, too, but only because Finders Keepers kindly advertised it as part of the store's promotion for the event. All parking in downtown was free on Saturday and it was not as busy as expected. There were two fun twists that still made it worthwhile. EAT & RUN's character model and all-around awesome QEW Gal, Sarah Williams, who's actually a Bellingham local herself, joined in to help showcase and sell EAT & RUN comics for a few hours. And though the live video broadcast scheduled around noon didn't garner any large numbers of viewers, the technical operations managed to go well without any hitches or glitches. The event concluded very favorably with QEW Publishing proposing another signing event in the future after the release of the EAT & RUN full-color, 75-page graphic novel. 

NEW PATREON CAMPAIGN VIDEO PROMO AD

QEW Publishing's new promo video ad for it's ongoing Patreon Campaign is short. sweet, and to the point. The ad features the wonderful Ad Twins, who hail from the popular oddjobs website, Fiverr. The "twins" really perform exceptionally. They clearly and succinctly describe QEW Publishing's purpose and its goals for being there on Patreon. The video wraps-up quite nicely with them happily mentioning the rewards available there and then inviting visitors to like QEW Publishing on Facebook and follow its tweets on Twitter. This video in its current form is actually very raw. Very unrefined. Plans to incorporate more visual graphics and musical soundtrack are currently underway. Friend and associate of QEW Publishing, Louisa Benitez, is in collaboration now to ply some her know-how to help achieve this goal. Being that this video is well done and professionally produced, there is great confidence a refined version will no doubt be as great as its original.

NEW QEW EMPORIUM

As stated earlier, some of the changes made here at QEW Publishing actually helped to nudge forward several new ideas to help earn a bit more revenue. One of these ideas is to set up a new online consignment venue on Etsy called QEW Emporium. It would help diversify the availability of alternative small press products not exclusively produced by QEW Publishing while providing commercial opportunities for other small press creators. QEW Emporium's has already settled consignment agreements with its first several clients. Two of these items are published books the other is a piece of furniture that has been refurbished by hand into an impressive work of art. There aren't very many selections on Etsy's QEW Emporium at the moment, but there's no doubt that more products will be added there in the future.

YO-YO PRODUCTION TERMINATED

Earlier YO-YO penciled/inked story art

Sadly, after numerous attempts to complete this 4-part superhero/action mini-series, efforts have once again failed to enable YO-YO to reach its printable fruition. YO-YO's penciling artist, Chandra Purnamakelly, has elected to terminate his agreement contract with QEW Publishing. After being directed one too many times to ply revisions to his submitted work, Chandra had become disheartened and discouraged and finally decided to call it quits. Despite efforts to help encourage him to understand that constructive criticism and editorial directives were normal protocols of the comic book production process, he was having none of it. Chandra had had enough. As disappointing as his decision was, Chandra, to his credit, actually achieved some significant progress. He seemed to strive consistently to overcome a language barrier in order to better comprehend YO-YO's visual plot scripts. He also still managed to complete all the interior story art comprising issues 1-3. Needless to say, this is a major loss of money and time, and effort--especially for the other artists involved. For now, YO-YO will sadly be consigned to an indefinite inactive status.

AMERICAN RIPPER RESUMES

Excerpt from AMERICAN RIPPER

Some time a while back, while returning from a Comi-Con International event in San Diego on a Sunday evening, an epiphany had occurred, the idea to develop a new horror comic project was created, and AMERICAN RIPPER was conceived. A formal project proposal that included a plot summary was quickly drafted and published. Veteran author, John Steven Anderson, was tapped to extrapolate further upon the original source material. He succeeded to form AMERICAN RIPPER into a more tangible story. Artist Conan Momchilov signed on as both penciler and inker. Writer David Berner signed on later as scriptwriter to utilize Anderson's work as secondary source material. A dynamic creative team had been assembled. Initially, Conan started out submitting a few samples of fantastic pages of story art for AMERICAN RIPPER until he suddenly took a hiatus. QEW Publishing halted production. But then after nearly a couple of years passed, the creative team miraculously reassembled itself. Conan reached out and recommitted himself to the project and David instantly resumed his scripting. AMERICAN RIPPER is a historical suspense fantasy about the pursuit of Jack Ripper across the United States some time after the infamous killer escapes England undetected and leaving behind his bloody legacy. Thanks to the renewed reunion of its creative team, QEW Publishing is confident AMERICAN RIPPER has a better chance now reach its completion.

ARACHNE

Penciled cover by Steven Millage

Spiders have been fascinating subjects for horror stories forever.  In 1977 writer/producer, Dan Curtis, aired a TV horror movie, CURSE OF THE BLACK WIDOW.  It featured a tale about a woman with a split personality, one of which, preyed upon men at night, and was able to transform herself into a giant black widow spider. A film adaptation of Ray Bradbury's SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES featured a skin-crawling scene of hundreds of tarantulas invading the bedroom of a terrified little boy. These are the cornerstone elements inspiring the production of ARACHNE, a 4-part comic that once again features spiders as the central focus of horror. ARACHNE will introduce the penciled story art of Steven Millage, who is also QEW Publishing prospective guest artist for Emerald City Comi-Con 2017. The production on the project is significantly making progress. Visual Plot scripts for Parts 1 and 2 are nearly completed. All story art comprising Part 1 has been completed and pages 1-12 of story for Part 2 is done with remaining pages to follow. QEW Publishing will soon be seeking an inker to join the ARACHNE creative team.

Next  Quarterly Blog Update: September 30, 2016