Today is the deadline for artists working on ONE NIGHT STAND. As of right now, I have sixteen finished pages and I'm waiting on the remaining half. I'm getting anxious emails from anxious artists. I feel bad causing such torment upon the busy lives of comic book artists. Seriously. We're all swamped with work, and sometimes a project like this can be a real albatross (so thank you to everyone contributing). I set the deadline to have enough time to layout, print, and ship everything a week before the December 30th release date. It also coincides with end of my Kickstarter pledge drive -- five more days left -- so that funds will be available in time to print. The deadline wasn't completely arbitrary. My apologies to those artists cursing my name as they ink the final panel.
On my end, it's exciting. This is probably my favorite part of the process. I love seeing the art for the first time. And I've never worked with this many people on a single project. It was an interesting exercise to script all these one-pagers on a single theme. I tried to complete five pages every day. Each artist is incredibly talented, and the styles are all varied. This project includes artists I've worked with on other projects: Paul Milligan (How To Lose Big), Tom Kurzanski (Karma Incorporated and Antigone), Brock Rizy (Emily Edison), Daniel Warner ("50 Miles to Marfa"), ZeeS ("Siren Song"), Cal Slayton (The Last Babysitter), and April Wenzel (our relationship). This project also includes artists who are brand new to comics, and several pros I've always wanted to collaborate with.
My next step is to arrange the completed pages in an aesthetically pleasing order, and get the files ready. Then, I need to find a good local print shop. Preferably not Kinko's. After that, I'm sending fliers to the retailers I've contacted -- and doing a bit more promotion.
