No, this isn't one of the ubiquitous calls to give money to someone you don't know. I'm keeping this close to home - and fully creative.
Brad Huffman-Parent, who's been a member of the Washroom for a few months now is the comic-book creator I nodded to in the last post. He is involved with a competition to get his project, Steel Rising, a publication gig.
I'm all for it.
Dimestore Productions is running their sixth annual "Small Press Idol" competition, which is a big deal amongst small press comic-book types. It's a way to break into the industry, and it's a way to get their work seen.
Plus, what I've seen is pretty damn good. They've created a full, dynamic world that you want to read about. The artists are really good (and work in black-and-white, which I dig). On the Dimestore website are a few downloadable pages (via Adobe), but there's more art and information out there. (Brad, comment and give us some links to more of the background information, if you will. I suspect folks would like it.)
Small Press Idol is a four-round competition, and Steel Rising has made it into the third round. Currently they're holding at second place - with the first place entrant getting more votes from less people. You can vote once a day for Steel Rising - as I plan to do. I joined, and I hope some of you comic buffs (don't raise your hands; I know who you are) will do the same.
In Brad's words: "If we stay in the top 3 this round we advance to the final round where we have our #0 issue (which is 12 pages of story plus our character design and bios from round 2, plus any extras we want to add if there's space left, like pinups or the script) published and available for sale. Whoever sells the most copies wins the grand prize of $700 and a publishing deal for a 4 issue mini-series with the possibility of continuing into an ongoing series."
To do this, log into Dimestore Productions and join first. Only members can vote. There's a good chance that your confirmation email will go to your spam box. Mine did. You can then get the Steel Rising by going to the voting page and clicking on the Steel Rising logo. Just go through checkout without buying anything and you're good. Vote on the voting page. You can vote once a day. It's just a yes-poll; it only counts total 'yes' votes.
So...we can have a hand in helping one of our own see publication. Who's with me?
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I really appreciate the support.
ReplyDeleteI just posted all of the Tantalizing Tidbit's up on our blog. The Tidbit's were little bits of additional info that I post in the Idol forums during the voting that expand a little on what we've already revealed. The two posts are here http://steelrising.blogspot.com/2009/05/steel-rising-tantalizing-tidbits.html (it's a long one, all of the Round 2 Tidbit's) and here http://steelrising.blogspot.com/2009/05/tantalizing-tidbits-part-2.html for the new stuff for Round 3.