Come visit us at Booth 2003 in the Independent Press pavilion!
Fun at the Alternative Press Expo
By D. Lynn Smith
Earlier this month Kymera Press and yours truly were in San Jose at the Alternative Press Expo. This is a small convention, but it still has the fun that we’ve experienced at other conventions. Usually, I wouldn’t attempt to write anything while being this busy, but my friend Lorraine Watson suggested that I post pictures from the convention … so here we go.
First, I’d just like to say that Kymera Press is an equal opportunity employer. Here are my husband Paul and nephew Dustin working the table for me. Of course, I’m not paying them so I’m not really sure they qualify as employees.
Second, I did receive the graphic novel of Gates of Midnight the day before I left for the con. It looks great! Here, you be the judge:
Our cover artist for the wide release of Pet Noir, Katrina, is here at the convention as well! Here she is in her booth:
There aren’t many cosplayers, but this one was really fun:
Finally, there were two outfits I really liked.
I picked up some great indie comics in San Jose, as well as a couple of fabulous prints. It’s a small convention, but there was some really great work here.
Kymera Press is a Gateway to Comics
By D. Lynn Smith
Last month, Kymera Press went to Bubonicon in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Bubonicon is New Mexico’s oldest and best science fiction and fantasy convention, held in Albuquerque every August. This year there were 850 attendees. Yes, it’s a small convention, but it is not small when it comes to the writers who attend every year.
Who are some of these attending writers? They are Daniel Abraham, John Barnes, Richard Berthold, Livia Blackburne, Ben Bova, Adam Jarmon Brown, Craig A. Butler, Aaron Campbell, Suzy M. Charnas, Yvonne Coats, Dr. Larry Crumpler, Doranna Durgin, Zachary Gallegos of Mars One, Josh Gentry, Raya Golden, Steven Gould, Sally Gwylan, Loretta Hall, Darla Hallmark, Betsy James, Darynda Jones, Jeffe Kennedy, T. Jackson King, Susan Krinard, Jane Lindskold, Christine MacKenzie, Emily Mah, George R.R. Martin, Victor Milan, Gail Gerstner-Miller, John Jos. Miller, Pati Nagle, costumers Charles & Tauni Orndorff, Scott Phillips, John Picacio, C.S. Plesko, science speaker Benjamin Radford, M.T. Reiten, John Maddox Roberts, Joan S. Saberhagen, Jon Sanchez, Debbie Lynn Smith (me!), Melinda Snodgrass, Jim Sorenson, Caroline Spector, Gabi Stevens, S.M. Stirling, David Lee Summers, Pari Noskin (Taichert), Lauren Teffeau, Sarena Ulibarri, Robert Vardeman, Carrie Vaughn, Walter Jon Williams and more.
If you are deeply into comics, you’ll notice there are very few comic creators here, and even fewer artists. However, if you are a fan of science fiction and fantasy, you’ll be wowed by the above list. I mean George R. R. Martin? Come on. Ben Bova! You must be kidding. Carrie Vaughn and Walter John Williams…Steven Gould and Jane Lindskold…
Bubonicon is a convention where fans can meet and talk to their favorite writers. Novels and short stories are the focus, not comics.
The theme of this year’s convention was “Women of Wonder.” Guests included Tamera Pierce, Mary Robinette Kowal, Catherine M. Valente and Ruth Sanderson, all wonderfully creative women. So this was a great time to bring Kymera Press and its message of supporting women in comics to Bubonicon.
I mentioned in a previous post that Bubonicon fans were very good to us this year. We sold almost as many comics as we sold at the much bigger San Diego Comic Con. That was great, but it wasn’t the most interesting part of the convention. The interesting part was just who was buying those comics.
Of course we had comic fans stopping by the table and picking up issues. Science fiction and fantasy and comics have a lot of crossover fans. But what was really interesting were the people who said, “I don’t usually read comics, but this story sounds really interesting.” Or the people who commented, “I am really caught up by the artwork.”
These people bought our books. They weren’t regular comic readers. They were at the convention because they read novels. Looking through our books, most of these people were surprised by the quality of the artwork and the depth of story. We even had people who bought Issues 1-4 of Gates coming back to our table looking for Issue #5, which hasn’t been printed yet.
In another case, a girl about 8 years old wanted to buy Pet Noir. She finally convinced her mother, but as they walked away her mother said to her, making sure that I could hear, “But you can’t stop reading books.”
To me, this is an example of the stigma comic books have. People just don’t realize how complex reading a comic can be. I talked in a previous post about how reading comics involves looking at the art as well as the words because most of the story is told in the art. Hopefully that mother will read Pet Noir herself and see that it’s a worthwhile reading experience.
I don’t want people to stop reading novels. I read novels and will never give them up. But there is a place for the comic reading experience as well.
Bubonicon showed me that there are people out there who are willing to give comics a try. What we have to do as an industry is reach these people who would be too overwhelmed or intimidated to walk into a comic book store or go to a comic book convention. Actually I get overwhelmed with the amount of great material out there.
Because I also write short stories, I’ve attended a lot of conventions like Bubonicon. I thought that comic conventions were going to replace them in my schedule. Now I think that Kymera Press will probably be attending more of these cons in the future. When there are only two or three tables of comic sellers in the dealers’ room, it’s easier for someone to find a comic that appeals to them and take a chance. And quite honestly, I’d love for Gates, or Pet Noir, or our upcoming Dragons by the Yard to be a gateway into comics for these hungry readers!
A Shout Out to Men Supportring Women in Comics
By D. Lynn Smith
When I decided to found Kymera Press, I was somewhat hesitant because of all the press about online rape and death threats women in comics were receiving. I was afraid that might happen to me as well. However while some women continue be harassed, I have not been harassed at all. As a matter of fact, I have found men to be very supportive of what Kymera Press is all about.
At conventions I’m constantly talking to men who are looking for comics with strong, women protagonists that are drawn realistically to buy for their daughters. Recently, I got a letter from one of those men:
I am a long-time comic fan and have been enjoying this iconic form of storytelling since I was a little boy. I read the information you provided on your webpage and I find it fantastic that the medium has inspired you to create comics. I’ve recently realized the voice and experiences that people are not getting in the comic world due to the lack of women’s vantage points and style being present.
A woman’s ideas and vantage point are necessary to be able to get a full life’s experience and one of our greatest ways of sharing with one another is with storytelling. My daughters are amazing and I don’t want anyone, or more importantly any idea/culture breeding into their minds that they are supposed to be a certain way or have limits because they are females. I feel comics are a medium that can get positive, supportive, influential concepts, and cultural ideologies out there in our society even though so few people read comics. I admire and respect very much what you are doing with Kymera Press and the people who are doing it with you and I wanted to just say to keep on keeping on and to make more amazing female characters for women and men to appreciate.
Curtis Shellman
This is just an excerpt of a much longer letter. I can’t tell you how much it means to me to have men sending me letters like this. And I’m not alone.
I attended a panel at the Amazing Las Vegas Comic Con on women in comics. One of the women on the panel was Renae Geerlings, the managing editor of Darby Pop Publishing. When this issue came up on the panel, she also commented that she has received nothing but support from the men she works with and from male fans.
At the Amazing Las Vegas Comic Con, a Marine who was working at a recruiting station stopped by and picked up Gates of Midnight. He came back the next day and told me how much he enjoyed the comic. A marine! This told me I was doing something right with Raven’s character.
There is still a very real problem out there when it comes to women in comics. Just this past month at Gen Con a Women in Comics panel had all men scheduled on it. When women were added, the moderator interrupted and generally treated them with a lack of respect. So the fight for women continues.
However, as with all things, not all men are like this. But as with all news reporting, we only hear about the bad things that happen, and not about all the support many men are giving to the advancement of women in comics. So this blog post is a shout out to all you men who are supporting women in comics and are looking for a strong, women protagonist for your daughters. Thank you for your support, your comments, your reviews, and your letters. They mean the world to all of us.
Translation of Comics
By D. Lynn Smith
Earlier this year, my friend Lorraine Watson started a discussion on Facebook about dialog. Since it was very interesting, I thought I’d give a synopsis of that conversation here.
Lorraine asked, “Do you know if word and/or bubble placement changes for comics written in languages read right to left?” I had to admit that I had no idea, but when you think about the popularity of Manga, it makes sense that the bubbles would be placed differently. Mary McFarland chimed in and said that Arabic and Hebrew were also read right to left. Mary describes herself as an Aramaic amateur researcher and a girl geek, so she was very interested in the answer to this question as well.
I went out to a board I’m on and that very same day, I had the answer courtesy of Laura Sneddon. She said, “Manhua, Hebrew and Arabic comics/cartoons are all read from right to left. Japanese, Chinese and Korean were all traditional right to left vertical languages, though left to right is now more popular, and Hebrew and Arabic are of course, right to left too—all comics and cartoons in these languages are right to left.”
I never stopped to think about how my comics would translate into other languages. My new colorist for Gates of Midnight, Sandra Molina, is a Spanish to English translator and has offered to translate Gates into Spanish. But that wouldn’t involve the kind of changes these other languages would entail.
So when Mary asked me how I would go about getting my comics translated into these languages, once again, I had no idea. This is where Chris Krone joined the conversation. Chris said he’d seen some manga which was relettered for English sales, the artwork had been flipped into a mirror-image before the bubbles were added.
So a new letterer would have to be hired to reletter the pages. However, that’s not what really struck me. When I was talking about writing each page, I talked about placement of some of the panels. The penciller does a lot of the arrangement, but the writer has a certain rhythm in mind—meaning I place things inside the panel in certain places for a story reason. To do a mirror image of the page, well wouldn’t that change the flow that the writer established?
I know this seems like a little thing, but it really got me thinking about the integrity of the work. Maybe the mirror image wouldn’t have much of an impact except in the writer’s mind. I mean, the pages would still be read the same way, right. But if you think about the bleed and the safety zone of the pages, how much you leave on the side so that art and words won’t get lost in the fold… I don’t know. I think there’s a lot more to this than simply printing mirror images.
The conversation then moved on to how the deaf and hard of hearing community who use sign language might be depicted in comics. A friend of Chris’ gave him a great link to a web comic that does just that. You can see it here.
You can see that putting together a comic book is much more involved than one might originally think.
I’d also like to say that this conversation was probably the most fun I’ve had on Facebook. It’s amazing how we have all of these connections where we can get answers to questions that stump us in less than 24 hours. Thank you Lorraine, Mary and Chris for expanding my mind!