SR 1 PAGE ONE-HUNDRED AND FIVE

Wow, seems like there wouldn’t be much to say about this page, huh? Just two icons associated with the two characters we’ll be spending pretty much the entire issue with.

This is the last appearance of the black “intro page” because it’s the last part of Serenity Rose released in single issue form. Issue five actually came out over a month late because, just one year in, the schedule was already starting to slip away from me. Those endless hours of pencil shading were starting to take their toll! 

Well, shading and freelance work. Serenity Rose was never much of a bill-paying thing. To keep my cat alive I had to work lots of different freelance art jobs throughout 2002-2004. Illustrating those Stray Sheep preschool board books for Tokyopop brought in a few bags of kibble. So did that early character design work for the Tutenstein series. A few months scanning storyboards for the SpongeBob movie brought in a whole palette of kibble AND some sand to poop on.

Mostly, though, I kept Igor fed working in the legendary Development Hell. 

For those unfamiliar, Development Hell is where you’re paid to work for months, years, or even decades on projects that never actually get made. Some artists spend over 90% of their careers in Development Hell, doing sketch after sketch that briefly flutter before dead-eyed executives before being cast into the fires of oblivion forever. I heard about one guy who put his kids through college without his name ever appearing in a single IMDB listing. There are worse ways of keeping cats alive and children educated, but still: GRIM.

Luckily, I started my career with Invader ZIM, so my legacy as Some Name in the Credits of a Cult Show is secure! 

At some point in 2004 luck struck again and attached my name to another series built to last a long, long time: Avatar: The Last Airbender. And that was going to make scheduling Serenity Rose much, much trickier.

SR 1 PAGE ONE-HUNDRED AND SIX

Not much on this page, either! Fun little echo of the first page of issue one, though. Definitely knew I was wrapping something up with this one. I think issue five ends with a little “NEXT ISSUE: GOODBYE, CRESTFALLEN!” blurb, but I knew that was unrealistic. Juggling character design work on Avatar and producing Serenity Rose on any kind of regular schedule was a non-starter.

If Serenity Rose had been the kind of runaway JTHM-style success I’d hoped for, that would’ve justified going all-in and attempting to keep it on a quarterly schedule, but… 

ALAS. 

As important as Serenity Rose is to me (and hopefully you!), it was never more than a tiny flicker on the vast sea of cultural awareness. (Even “flicker” seems boastful, honestly.) Can you imagine? A black and white indie goth comic NOT becoming America’s sweetheart?? INCONCEIVABLE.

You know what, let’s look at the numbers! I got all this data from a site called comichron.com. Threw in the top-selling comic each month as a reference point, along with some other notable releases (some of which might be holdovers from previous months.)

So yeah, pretty steady drop-off from issue to issue there. No compelling reason to keep it going in single-issue form. By SLG standards it was doing FINE, and publisher Dan Vado was willing to keep it rolling, but we agreed doing the next chapter as a graphic novel made more sense.

But before we can get to that chapter, we have to finish this one.

BACK TO THE PRESENT!

BIG THINGS ARE HAPPENING.

Last week I mentioned the signing/panel discussion I’m doing tomorrow (Oct. 12) at Vroman’s here in Pasadena. But just over a week later I’ll be, get this, on an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT COAST.

The EAST one, specifically. NEW YORK CITY, even more specifically.

That’s right, two signings. One at the Penguin Random House booth at NYCC (11AM to 12PM), and another at the world-renowned (and extremely cool) Manhattan comic shop Forbidden Planet (3PM-5PM).

It’s very exciting! I haven’t made it out to the east coast since before the pandemic, believe it or not. You should probably come out and say hello before another pandemic hits. You’ll need lots of stuff to read! (Note: I will not be selling toilet paper at either event.)

NEXT WEEK: FISH STUFF.