Hosted by Washington, D.C., chapter of the Women’s National Book Association, In Between the Panels: DC’s Emergence on the Graphic Novel Scene featured local creators Carolyn Belefski, Molly Lawless and Matt Dembicki and was moderated by Mike Rhode of ComicsDC. While there were many comic fans and creators in the audience, this event was obviously for the WNBA members. That was actually a cool thing — we knew about comics and liked them and they wanted to learn.

After introductions, Rhode started with the questions that were submitted by WNBA members. The first presented to the panel asked what age range comics and graphic novels are for, noting that children and teens seem to like them.

Belefski said that while some of her work, like Curls is for all ages primarily, there are comics like The Walking Dead that are obviously aimed at adult readers. Lawless said that comics are for everyone, but she understands that they’re more accessible to children overall. Dembicki said he tends to create comics about things that interest him. While the anthology Trickster that he edited was aimed more toward younger readers (and it, by the way, just made Kirkus Reviews’ 2010 list of Best Graphic Novels for Teens), his upcoming Brewmaster’s Castle (with Andrew Cohen) is not.

Dembicki also pointed out that up until the late ’80s and early ’90s, comics were, overall, geared more toward children or all-ages audiences. He said he’s noticing a shift back to kids’ comics in a way.

The next question was about the process — basically, “How are comics made?”

All three creators seemed to share a similar process — an idea or script, then thumbnail sketches and then the creation of the final pages. Everyone had a little bit different take on collaborating, although each said they were flexible. Dembicki said he general starts out with a straight script when collaborating. Belefski’s process was more involved — she often collaborates with Joe Carabeo on several projects and they’re happy to listen to each other’s ideas when it comes to story or art.

None of these creators said they primarily use the computer to create comics. Belefski uses a tablet to draw a nightly sketch, but that’s it. They said they may use the computer to clean up art a bit, but all of them prefer drawing on paper.

Question three asked “Are some graphic novels more literary than others?” And while the answer is obviously “yes,” it did provoke a good discussion. Dembicki said there’s an entire range of comics — there have been some adaptations of Shakespeare, there are journalistic comics like Joe Sacco’s work, and then everyone talked about Chris Ware for a while. (Ware is undoubtedly important, but I’m not a fan, so admittedly, I kind of stopped paying attention for a bit.)

The next two questions were related — how each got into comics and the challenges of pursuing it as a vocation. Lawless said she always wanted to be an illustrator, but she found illustration work wasn’t fun. Comics gave her something to draw. Belefski said she liked cartoons and animation, citing Bugs Bunny specifically, and creating characters and world-building was exciting for her. Dembicki’s story was a little different — his immigrant parents bought him comics to help him learn to read and he was hooked through childhood. As an adult, he got back into comics after picking up The Sandman from his wife but didn’t feel interested in the superhero stuff any longer.

Belefski said that of course she’d love to do comics full-time — who wouldn’t? — but it’s nearly impossible. Lawless said “it’s very exposing” and it’s a challenge to make comics even when you love it. Dembicki joked that comics were a way of “avoiding contact with my family” but said he never wanted to do it full-time and is happy to do it part-time.

Belefski discussed how hard it can be to promote your work — it’s not enough to just make a comic, you have to go sell it to people. If you’re lucky, she said you may have a “staff of five volunteers” who help out, but no one is really getting paid.

After a discussion of inspiration (it mostly came down to that everyone wrote about what interested them and were making comics mostly to entertain themselves), there was a question about technology’s role in comics. Belefski said that while she still likes to make printed books, webcomics are easy — you just upload an image — and getting feedback is quick. Lawless said the Internet gives people a way to find you quickly and print-on-demand means you don’t have to pay to get your books printed upfront.

Dembicki said he uses his blog and Facebook to promote his work or to provide previews but he doesn’t really do webcomics and thinks it’s something that’s still emerging. However, he also brought up his District Comics project,which will be exclusive to the web at first.

There were another couple of questions that were basically already covered previously before Rhode turned it over to the audience. The first question asked if any of the creators had any formal art training. Both Lawless and Dembicki said they’d taken art classes growing up and in high school, but not in college. Belefski went to college for art but did communication/graphic design (which she said is the best way for artists to make money). She did also take a sequential art class and an animation class.

The most interesting audience question to me asked if there was any benefit to making comics in the DC area. Dembicki said it doesn’t matter with technology now — we can all be connected — and also pointed out that it’s a very transient area. However, he said there are a lot of different creators with a lot of different styles and it’s still an interesting place to be.

Belefski said it’s taking steps toward becoming a comics town. In the area, we have Small Press Expo and Baltimore Comic-Con a little farther to the north. Groups like DC Conspiracy provide resources and networking opportunities.

That’s something I’ve thought a lot about and I tend to agree with Belefski’s stance that it is growing but may not quite be there yet. The DC area isn’t necessarily cheaper than New York, but at the same time, there are cheaper areas around here (depending on how far away from DC proper you want to be) and people around here are actually hiring. I doubt we’re going to supplant any of the major comic-creating hubs any time soon, but I think we’re worth watching.

I enjoyed it, even though I already know quite a bit about comics (I do love any discussion of the creative process, though) and I hope those who didn’t know about comics learned something.

The Dreamer

High school senior Bea is beautiful, talented and rich. A theater lover, she’s a shoe-in to play Juliet this year and she’s finally caught the eye of hunky football star Ben. Everything seems to be going well for her.

But she’s having these dreams where she’s in 1776, in the thick of the Revolutionary War.

Lora Innes‘ The Dreamer: The Consequence of Nathan Hale (IDW, 2009) introduces us to Bea, her friends and her story. In her waking life, she’s far from being a poor little rich girl or anything as cliche as that — rather, she’s playful and popular, teasing her friends and tormenting her cousin. In her dream life, she becomes taken with the heroic Alan Warren.

Innes’ art is gorgeous. Her teenagers are drawn to look like teenagers and her faces are bright and beautiful. She’s as capable of creating action-packed battle scenes as she is drawing more intimate, quite moments between two of the characters. Innes also seems to have a lot of shoujo manga’s appreciation for clothes (look — it’s a comic about teenage girls. There are going to be — and should be — many different outfits here).

But as much as I love the art, it would just be eye candy without the story. Bea is likable and accessible. She has a little bit of a fantasy life (since most of us aren’t rich and beautiful) but she’s also capable and can think on her feet. While she makes a few asides while in the 18th century, she adapts quickly to the rules of that time period while still remaining strong. Innes has obviously done her research and the scenes in the past feel as authentic as the modern-day ones

You can read the whole thing online (the book collects issues 1-6; Innes’ site also has 7-9 with more coming) but I love having the collection. I’m completely dazzled by the comic and I can’t believe I haven’t read it before.

And I think you should stop what you’re doing and go read it right now.

Sure, I kept up with Diesel Sweeties for a while, but mostly, I have a hard time keeping up with them (this shouldn’t really come as a surprise, honestly, if you know I have trouble following monthly comics. That’s once every four weeks. Do you really expect me to be able to remember to read something every day or every week?).

But after seeing some of the creators behind ACT-I-VATE last night at Politics & Prose, I think I better start.

Featuring founding member Dean Haspiel and creators Jim Dougan, Joe Infurnari, and Simon Fraser (right to left in the photo above) this really surprised me.

Haspiel is obviously awesome, and I liked his story of how ACT-I-VATE came about — he started by showing a photo of himself, all alone, working at his desk. You see, he said, making comics is lonely, and he found out that if he posted stuff to his LiveJournal (yay, LiveJournal!) people would respond. It began that just his friends were saying things, but soon, people he didn’t know were leaving comments too.

He saw that some of his creator friends were experiencing the same sort of thing. He thought they could join forces and therefore combine their respective fanbases.

ACT-I-VATE is a noncommercial enterprise — it exists, more or less, to just promote these creators’ work. Infurnari echoed this sentiment, saying he liked having a portfolio of his work online and that he could get feedback immediately. Fraser liked that he got control over his work — as primarily a creator for 2000 AD, he said he didn’t often get a lot of say what happens to his creations. (That was actually a point that was brought up many times by everyone — comics, especially at DC and Marvel, are work-for-hire. Creator-controlled works are the exception and not the rule.) He said he travels a lot and likes that he’s able to point people to the site when they ask him what he does.

DC local Dougan’s story was a little bit more of an interesting one. He’s a writer of comics and not an artist, so he’s had to find people to work with, and while the point wasn’t so much made, it was clear that the Internet makes it easier for him (Hyeondo Park, the artist of his ACT-I-VATE comic, Sam & Lilah, lives in Dallas).

Haspiel also told the story about how he encouraged Dougan & Park to submit Sam & Lilah to Zuda first, with the understanding it probably wouldn’t win (everyone seemed to have words of praise for Zuda, though, and everything I know about Zuda makes it seem like it’s a good deal). They joked about how after Sam & Lilah lost, they actually scooped the winner with their press release saying the comic was going to be on ACT-I-VATE.

While the event was for the ACT-I-VATE Primer, that seemed a little secondary to most of the discussion. They wanted to do the book because there’s still a print audience (although Haspiel talked about how that’s probably fading) and that there’s not necessarily a crossover between webcomics readers and print comics readers (I’m probably somewhat of an example of that). It was a good way to push people to the site that may have otherwise not known about it.

Then they read from their comics, accompanied by Dougan’s wife Rachel. This was, for the most part, hilarious and utterly charming. Fraser did voices and Rachel sometimes playfully stumbled over her parts (she said she hadn’t rehearsed). Haspiel called for audience participation when it came to sound effects. I’m all for this and I now demand that everyone does dramatic readings of their comics during panels. This was awesome.

The Q&A section was better than most, and allowed me to realize much too late that I was sitting behind Mike Rhode of ComicsDC. (I seriously didn’t make the connection until a little bit later, otherwise I probably would’ve said hi. So I’ll just say it here: Hi, Mike!)

It was a good presentation and I left an ACT-I-VATE fan. I foresee spending many, many hours on the site now.

I would love to see more comics like this from the Smithsonian museums. It feels like a good way to reach an audience they may not otherwise. It’s a good use of new media.

Image taken from “The Secret in the Cellar”