Paper Rocket at MoCCA this Weekend!
It’s that time again! MoCCA is this weekend. Stop by the Paper Rocket table (G205) to see what’s new. And visit with our table guests: Ariel Bordeaux, Rick Altergott, Jesse Reklaw, Ellen Lindner and (of course) myself (Robyn Chapman).
MoCCA Fest
April 6th & 7th, 2013
11:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
The 69th Regiment Armory, 68 Lexington Avenue in NYC
We have a lot of new stuff!
Lovf New York: Destination Crisis
The Complete Deep Girl
Crafts and jewelry!
And more! Be there or be square.
KGB Recap
What a night! This year we had six readers, which is the max capacity for a two-hour show. I’m pretty proud that we didn’t go over our time slot (a concern for this venue, as stuff is scheduled all night) and we had no major technical difficulties (two years running!)
The readings were diverse, ranging from funny to trippy to informative to dark. As always it was a warm crowd. KGB Comix Night is a feel good show–basically, it’s a party with friends I can throw in a really good bar (plus live entertainment). Look for next one on the Sunday after Thanksgiving!
CCS Industry Day
I think the question was something like “who likes whiskey?”
Man, I keep busy these days. I just got back from a two-day trip to White River Junction. I hitched a ride to CCS Industry Day with Heidi MacDonald and Carol Burrell. Jesse Reklaw was in town for MoCCA, so he tagged along for an impromptu LOVF launch party.
Industry Day is an annual event that introduces the students to various players in the comics industry. There’s a panel discussion followed by portfolio reviews. I felt a little weird participating, since I’m basically unemployed. But, gosh darn it, I’m a PUBLISHER. Maybe it makes sense that I was there.
Everyone made me feel welcome, and the students seemed genuinely interested in my micro press (and micro presses in general). I think I contributed something to the event. But I’m still figuring this stuff out–what is my place in the comics industry? How can I make this publishing thing work? Can it sustain itself?
On our last day in town we had a release party brunch for LOVF. The students are so smart and engaged and in tune with self publishing. It’s easy to talk to them. I think I left CCS with some new ideas about how to move forward with Paper Rocket.
Apart from all that business, it’s always great to visit the Junc. The fresh air, the familiar faces, the familiar everything. Not too much has changed. Heidi, Carol and Jesse made fun of me when I got really excited about the new covered bus stop on Main Street.
BONUS! Here’s a sneak peek of what’s to come next. While I was in Vermont I met with micro publishers Sean Knickerbocker and Alex Bullet. And, for the first time ever, I set eyes on a real Risograph machine. It was not unlike the one in my dreams. I’m going to write all about these guys in an upcoming article.
Easter Sunday KGB Comix Reading!
It’s that time again! I’ll be hosting the annual Easter Sunday KGB Comix Night. And we’ve got an all-star line-up! Count them, SIX readers! Don’t be late! Note that the event starts at 7:30, not the usual 7.
AND, at Comix Night we’ll also celebrate the debut of LOVF New York: Destination Crisis.
Easter Sunday KGB Comix Night
KGB Bar (85 East 4th Street in NYC)
Sunday March 31, 7:30-9:30
Join us for our annual Easter Sunday Comix Night, a free night of live comics readings. Donating five bucks or a graphic novel (new or used) will get you entered in an awesome raffle! Book donations benefit SAW, financial donations will be split between the host and the readers.
Sam Henderson has been self-publishing Xeroxed minicomics since 1980. In 1993 he began self-publishing his best-known title, The Magic Whistle. Also in 1993 he began the wordless comic strip “Scene but Not Heard” in Nickelodeon Magazine. It was the magazine’s longest-running comic strip. In 2003, Sam’s writing and storyboard directing work on SpongeBob SquarePants earned him a nomination for Best Animated Program (for programming less than one hour) in the 55th Emmy Awards.
Star Fruit is Gretta Johnson’s first book. She is a visual artist living in New York and for the past three years has worked as a chocolatier’s assistant and personal comic book illustrator to Sebastian Brecht. She has taught and continues to teach drawing and sculpture classes at the Children’s Museum of the Arts in Manhattan.
Caroline Paquita runs Pegacorn Press, a feminist, queer, and “total-art-freaker” publishing house that specializes in producing small-run art books, zines, and comics. So far, nine official publications have been released since the fall of 2011, including Caroline’s comic Womanimalistic. Caroline has also published comics by other authors, such as FUTURE TENSE, Late Era Clash #24, FAG SCHOOL #4, Burn Collector #16, and Those Fucking Unicorns.
Jesse Reklaw is the author of the comic strip “Slow Wave,” which ran in multiple papers from 1995 to 2011 and was collected into the books Dreamtoons and The Night of Your Life. He is also the author of Applicant, a hilarious collection of discarded college applicant documents. He kept a daily comic diary from 2007-2008 called Ten Thousand Things To Do. In 2013 LOVF, a full-color collection of his sketchbook comics, will be published. He lives in Portland, Oregon where he taught at the Independent Publishing Resource Center in their Comics Program. He is currently working on his graphic novel, Couch Tag.
Karl Stevens’ first book, Guilty, was published in 2004 with a grant from the Xeric Foundation. His comic strips “Whatever,” “Succe$$” (with writer Gustavo Turner), and Failure ran in the Boston Phoenix. As an illustrator, Karl collaborated with Anthony Apesos on the book Anatomy for Artists: A New Approach Discovering, Learning, and Remembering the Body. His oil paintings and watercolors, predominantly portraits, have been exhibited at the Carroll and Sons Gallery Gallery in Boston.
Lauren Weinstein is a cartoonist who is still recovering from having a baby and moving to the suburbs of New Jersey (it’s been two years). Her comics books include Girl Stories and The Goddess of War, and her work has been published in Kramer’s Ergot, The Ganzfeld, An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, and The Best American Comics of 2007 and 2010. Her work has also appeared in the New York Times, Glamour, and Heeb magazines. She is currently working on a sequel to Girl Stories.
LOVF Kickstarter
What’s next for Paper Rocket Minicomics, you might be asking yourself. A lot! Today’s big news is that I’ve announced my next publishing project: LOVF New York: Destination Crisis.
But what is LOVF? It’s the intricate, vivid, inky, and manic sketchbook of Jesse Reklaw. LOVF New York: Destination Crisis is a 32-page excerpt of this sketchbook, drawn during an intense few weeks Jesse spent in New York. Visit our Kickstarter and listen to Jesse describe it, in his own words.
LOVF New York: Destination Crisis will be published in full-color, with a three-color screen printed cover. Just $10 will get you a copy–that’s basically the price of the book plus shipping. Consider this a pre-order drive, not a fund-raising drive!
Please spread the word! One of the reasons I’m using Kickstarter is to help cover the cost of paying Jesse. With both Deep Girl and LOVF, I am paying my authors. It’s a modest sum to be sure, but it does take a bite. With that added cost, making a profit on these projects is a challenge. And that is one of my goals: to make Paper Rocket sustainable so I can fund further projects.
Binding Deep Girl
I spent all last week printing, binding, and shipping about 40 copies of The Complete Deep Girl. It’s slow going, especially the binding. There’s a learning curve, I’ve never bound a book like this before.
The Complete Deep Girl is 128 pages, too large to be saddle stitched. I had to create a faux square binding method using paper, heavy duty staples, and binding tape. I’ll walk you through the steps.
First, I have to collate the book. It has a small color section and a large black and white section. To keep the printing cheap, I had to split the book into two pdfs and have them printed separately. By the way, my printer for the last two years has been Best Value Copy. They are super cheap and the quality is quite good. They’ve never done me wrong. They don’t have a brick and mortar shop, you have to order online and receive your copies through the mail. Tell them I sent you, I think I get something!
So, I ordered 70 copies of two printed files and they arrive by mail. I take that big heavy box to Kinkos, and pay them to use their fancy guillotine cutter to cut the whole thing in half. That leaves me with four stacks of pages to collate together (the first half of the color section, the first half of the black and white section, the second half of the black and white section, and the second half of the color section.
I colate the sections together, and sandwich them between two pieces of red paper (the end pages), the two pieces of the inner cover, and a red strip of paper (I need that for binding). I get the edges all nice and neat, then I hold it in place with a binder clip.
Next, I staple the stack three times along the edge using a high capacity stapler. These staples are heavy duty, you need pliers to remove them.
Then, I fold the paper flap back over the staples, and make the fold sharp with a bone folder.
Then I fold the red paper over the spine and hold it in place with a piece of binding tape.
I have to fold the cover against a straight edge, giving it a score so the cover can be easily opened.
So that’s it, the book is bound. I think it looks fairly classy. This approach is a little similar to “Sundays-Binding”. Check out their handy instructions!
