Welcome to Alumni Live: The Podcast.

These are conversations with Grand Valley State University film and video

graduates about the industry, the film, video, major and alumni profiles.

Hello and welcome everybody to an episode of GVSU's Alumni Live podcast.

Thank you so much for tuning into this very special episode.

My name is Griffin Sheridan, and I'm joined by Rory and Amanda Webb.

Rory and Amanda, how are you guys?

Good.

Good.

Doing great.

How are you?

Good.

We are going to be talking about a different kind

of

sequential storytelling on tonight's episode.

We're very excited to talk to you all about our own careers

in graphic novels and comics, a different side of sequential art.

Amanda, Rory gives us a little bit of background as to your time at, at

GVSU, when you graduated and such.

Yeah, so I'm Rory Webb.

I graduated with a Film and Video Production major in 2005.

It was, , a really great experience.

My emphasis was in video, which was really cool 'cause I could take a few classes

and dabble into some of the other pieces, like 16 millimeter as well as animation.

I am Amanda Webb.

I'm actually Rory's wife.

I graduated from Grand Valley in 2006.

I got a degree in Art and Design.

I was very heavily into comics.

Still am.

Again, I'm Griffin, graduated class of 2019 from GVSU.

I didn't graduate a film and video major either.

I have a Communications degree from GVSU, I was about halfway through the

film and video degree when COVID-19 hit.

I decided that it was maybe better to just go ahead and take the

degree that I had finished, and see what happens to the world.

That is actually what even allowed me to kind of have the

time to get into writing comics.

I guess that's something we could touch on too, is the specific sides of the graphic

novel industry that we all work in.

I'm a Writer.

Rory?

I would say, Writer, Creator.

I am not blessed with the artistic talent that Amanda is, but I have a thirst for

telling all sorts of stories in pretty much whatever medium you can think of.

And he is a great reference model.

If I'm like, "I can't figure this out, I need your hand."

He's done that lots of times.

That's what you find, I feel like with so many married creatives.

For every comic book artist partner there is the reference model spouse.

It's beautiful really.

He had to do, there was a scene that I had to draw in the comic where

it was like a guy like flipping.

And Rory famously, you can do a very good back flip.

He filmed it on the trampoline and I just took it frame by frame.

I was trying to emulate, Steve Skroce.

He's one of my favorite comic artists.

He does a lot of that, like really cinematic stuff.

Yeah.

So, I do the drawing, obviously the illustration, but the book

that we make together is more of like a co-written thing.

It's a thorough mind meld, I imagine, when you guys are in the same house.

That's really awesome and I imagine makes for some really great creative sessions.

That's always so interesting to me where like, I co-write mostly

with my best friend, but he lives on the other side of the country.

So, everything is always remote and we can always leave something behind.

We can walk out of the Streamyard and, and have our fumes with

each other, whatever it might be.

Do you find that you guys are pretty creatively, like in step,

like in sync with each other, or is there a push and pull?

I would say so, 'cause we both have similar interests, obviously.

It's more interesting because like I'll see something that he doesn't,

and then he'll come back and pick up on something that I totally missed.

And then, it's kind of like a really collaborative effort.

Oh, I was just gonna say, there's a lot of times I'll turn around in my

chair and I'll be like, "So I was thinking..." and I could just see

it, she's like, oh, oh my goodness, here we go, here's another change.

As soon as the chair swivels around, she can feel it.

But I, I think you know, it's not so much that we clash or anything.

I think it's just making sure we're moving in the same direction.

And it's not even so much that, but I would say at the same speed.

'Cause there's ebbs and flows to this creative process and sometimes,

maybe I'm not moving as fast and she's moving faster or vice versa.

And that I think is where it can sometimes get interesting.

Sure.

Sure.

Well, there you go folks.

That's what it's like to never be able to, uh, escape the

side of your creative partner.

It should be copacetic.

I mean, that's maybe even part of what we're gonna be getting into when we talk

about the process of making these things.

The, collaborative nature of it as is with filmmaking or any other

sort of video production and really any multi-pronged person creative

endeavor, whether that's music, movies, comics, a team sport, really.

There has to be collaboration, and understanding, and everyone should

be on the same wavelength, but doing it all in a hopefully special and

unique way to make something cool.

Let's talk about, what is the relevance of this to the film video major folks?

What can you do not just with the degree itself, but with the skill sets

that you pick up in these classes?

And I think actually this thing I'm talking about, this collaboration is

the perfect thing to bring up when we talk about what's the crossover between

making comics and film video work?

It's creative collaboration.

You have a bunch of different minds in the room that all have a different

idea of what this final product could look like and all have different skills

that they're bringing to the project.

And so finding all of the right ways and right conversations to have, to get to

an end result that everybody feels really happy and proud of, I think is the same

whether it's comics or film and video.

Amanda, Rory, how do you guys feel?

I didn't do any film classes, and in art it's not like a team

sport, you're doing it by yourself.

I mean, you can show your stuff to other students or whatever,

and then there's obviously the critiques, which can be interesting.

The critiques is a great overlap, I think with the film and video stuff.

Nobody, I mean, at least I didn't like critiques, because nobody likes to hear

anything negative about their work.

But, it is a very useful tool having a room full of other creative people

who are in the visual arts, and you all have to put your same projects on the

wall and the professor talks about it and then everybody else gets a chance

to kind of give their 2 cents about it.

And obviously, it's been like 20 years or whatever since I had a critique, but

I do remember it was very nerve racking, but you would get a lot of good feedback

and then you could take that and, you know, rework the project or whatever

you were working on to make it better.

Absolutely.

And that's not too dissimilar to working.

You know, whether you are an artist on a book, getting feedback from a, a writer

or an editor, I'm hoping that it goes both ways with all the artists that I work

with and that I'm going to be giving input on, uh, the pages that they're turning I

hope the artist feel comfortable enough to come to me and say, "I don't know

if any of this that you're doing with the story makes sense." And of course,

then there's editors too, depending on how big the operation might be.

But you might also have an editor that's looking over, both shoulders saying, " I

don't know if I agree with this, this, or that." And you sort of have to put all of

your notions about it aside and if you're making something that's for a big company

like a Marvel or a DC something like that, you'll have to sort of put it aside

and say, well, this is bigger than me.

In that sense, you know, it's like work for hire, right?

It's like going on and making a commercial for a client or something like that.

What is going to get us the best result to please the folks who hired us?

I do a lot of illustration commissions right now, and so I guess it's similar

to that because like they'll tell me what they want and I'll sketch

it and send it, you know, "tell me what you want changed" or whatever.

And they'll come back with these, I think this is gonna look wrong,

but if this is what you want, like you're the one paying me.

So, it's similar to that you just kind of have to put your own ego in

check and let the people with the purse strings or whoever's in charge.

Rory,

Rory, do you have anything to add?

Yeah, I got, uh, a few things.

I think about what sort of interests me when going into film and video.

It sort of goes into middle school and high school a little bit.

I really started to get into playing around with my parents video

camera and making movies and stuff.

And I was like, "Hey, this is pretty cool. It's a cool way to , jump in there

and tell a story." That went into, at Grand Valley, the film and video

program and it was really interesting seeing that new tools I had available

from the program, I was like, oh, cool, look at this awesome camera.

This thing blows this camera away.

And so that was really cool to, to have all these different tools

that I could make a better product.

The other thing was working with people.

You think, I'm just shooting this movie behind this rickety little video camera,

and then you have all these different tools, and you suddenly realize, I need a

team of people to put this all together, to make this the best version it can be.

And you really start thinking about working with other people.

And then in the creative aspect, that's a whole nother animal.

You got a lot of people who are just as passionate about these projects

as you are, and you work with each other and you try to figure

how are you telling the story?

And that was a really cool experience.

After graduating I had worked at the Public Access Television

station for about six years.

And we would sometimes do short videos whether it was a PSA or,

a promotional video, it was a nonprofit in Holland, Mac TV.

It was really cool to work with these other organizations, these other

nonprofits, and they're trying to explain what they want and you're trying to build

this project for them and bring their vision to life, which was pretty cool.

And it was cool to go out after I graduated in the real world to

really work with people who are doing really great work and to showcase

what, what they're doing and what their vision is for this project.

Absolutely.

Both mediums have this collaborative nature to them and sometimes have this

hierarchy of folks involved as well.

We're gonna talk a little bit about the business side of it all too later.

Everything that I learned in my film and video classes, I feel

were very helpful in making comics.

Obviously not the exact technical specs of a camera or what settings to use in Adobe

Premier Pro, those were not necessarily perfect for making comics, but they were

the right tools I needed to do all of the gigs that led me to making comics.

I will say too, your film theory classes.

I think a lot of the things that I learned in those classes also play a

big role in how we make the comics.

Which we can sort of move into in a moment here.

Real quick, why are you making comics?

I think they're really cool.

It comes from a lifelong love of the medium.

It's hard to know who came first, film or comics.

Both of them are really early loves for me, and both were kind of a pipe dream.

And it became clear that, one of them was possible on a professional level.

I want folks to understand that you can make comics and you can

make films at any level with whatever you have at your disposal.

And you don't need any sort of distribution or anything to make

you a comic book writer or a comic book artist or a filmmaker.

You don't need any sort of validation besides your own reality.

But of course there is some sort of switch that flips in your

brain after you get paid to do it.

I think that's just the nature of where we live and the lifestyle that we

all have to have to survive out here.

But I love comics and it became clear that there was maybe like a

North star on the horizon for me.

I spent a lot of time doing film and video stuff, like doing multimedia

projects, podcasts and YouTube videos, and running people's social media.

That's how I even fell into the right areas and stumbled through

the right doors that led me to making comics professionally.

So it's all this tangled web really for me.

Amanda, why comics?

I started reading them when I was nine, so it's been a very large chunk of my life.

The X-Men issue number one with Jim Lee which is iconic, of

course, everybody loves that one.

So I've been an X-Men girly for my whole life.

I don't really read it anymore lately, but it's holds a special place in my heart.

I think that and cartoons have a big influence.

I don't know if you do like storyboards when you write or

is that more the artists...

I think it's different for, a lot of folks.

The way that I will write a script is basically like, how can I

storyboard, but with words solely?

At least that's kind of what it feels like for me.

So again, the skills that we're picking up in the film classes, the

storyboarding and whatnot was very important in my creative process.

So it is very similar.

Yeah, because even when we were working on our comic, we wrote the script all

the way through and then I went and did thumbnails, like really, really

loose, panel positions and stuff.

But even knowing where the camera quote unquote is in each panel,

Rory helped with that a lot.

He's like, "okay, there's these rules in film, like you can't

cross the line or whatever." And he was explaining that to me.

And so I think there's a lot of overlap, like storyboarding to comics, pipeline.

His film knowledge helped me figure out what rules not to break, you know, or

if I was gonna break them on purpose.

Absolutely.

There are no rules.

There are, uh, guidelines, there are fence posts, that we like to pay attention

to, to make sure that there's a clarity.

Or sometimes you wanna throw the clarity out the window too, and just say, Nope,

we're going totally off the beaten path.

Going rogue.

Bring it back to the X-Men, going rogue.

Yeah.

Rory, did you, uh, how, how about you, man?

Yeah, for me it was a different path.

Like I haven't been a huge comic fan back in the day a lot of movies really

struck me, you know, whether it was Labyrinth or Willow or even like Alien,

Aliens, um, all those great movies.

Amanda mentioned it too, cartoons.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, man, I love the eighties version.

I'd even say a lot of video games, especially like the role playing games.

I remember playing through one of the early Final Fantasies and, chugging

along, I had no idea what was going on, and it just got pulled into the story.

Final Fantasy Four, uh, was two at the time, but one of the characters like died

and I was like, what is going on here?

This is crazy.

That was some of my early inspirations.

I think, just telling a story and pulling some type of reaction from somebody's just

one of the coolest feelings in the world.

I'll just tell a real quick story.

I was a senior in high school and we had this really tough English teacher

and he had taught college classes, so he was a really tough grader and one of the

projects we got to do I was like, "Hey, can I like do a movie on the book 1984?"

And he's like, "oh, sure. I guess." So I was like, sweet, this is gonna be awesome.

And so I made this movie.

This was just like a 15 minute movie based on the story and we played it and

I just remember he was just staring at the TV with a smile on his face and like

wondering what was gonna happen next.

And I was like, man, I made that guy, have that look on his face of wonder.

And I was like, how can I do this more?

What else could I do this with other than movies and of course

jump into other mediums from there.

Yeah.

That's sort of the answer to the question on a more heady level beyond just,

why comics, it's more so the emotional response from somebody, being able to

pull some sort of ethereal something or other out of your mind, and then to put

it into some sort of physical space, a comic, a movie, a video game, theater,

music, to put it out into the world and then have it resonate with somebody

is a thrill that is hard to describe.

It is a rush of dopamine that nothing else can really rival.

It's super special, I think.

And I think that is really what drives a lot of folks that are in

any sort of a creative business.

Um.

Let's talk about how we make these things, creatively, we're gonna talk technically.

What does the team on a comic book look like?

I think creatively you start with, you know, a writer typically will have

some sort of idea , or maybe if it is again coming from a more corporate

side an editor has an idea, reaches out to a creative team, typically a

writer first, to say "Hey, we have this idea, how do you feel about it?

Would you be interested in, working on this?" Or a writer will go to an

artist and say, "I have this idea.

How would you feel about working on this?

Is this something you like?

Do you have the schedule for it?"

Comics is super weird because it's like instant gratification where if

everything just lines up, you can have a finished product in a few months really.

You know, depending on like the scale of it, let's say it's a traditional

20 to 22 page comic book issue, you could have that finished in two months.

From, we need a script to, okay, here it is, I'm holding it in my hands.

A lot of other mediums, film especially, can take a long time.

But, creatively it starts, I think, in a really similar place.

I have this idea and now I need to assemble the team around me.

Comics can be such a close knit, tiny team of people, but

so can independent filmmaking.

It really just depends on the project.

It doesn't have to be this huge production.

You can have a few people on set in the same way that you can have a

handful of people making a comic book.

Usually you've got yourself a writer, an artist, or sometimes an art

team depending on if you've got one person or multiple doing the pencils,

the inks, and then the colors.

Amanda, you are an artist.

Do you do everything?

I do it all.

Oh my goodness.

That's incredible.

Yeah.

I'm the penciler, I'm the inker, I'm the colorist, I'm the word

bubble girl, the letterer.

A letterer is also very important.

Sometimes a designer.

Someone will get in there and stitch the whole thing together in a nice, pretty

package, and will maybe come up with the logo or any sort of what we'll call the

trade dress, where the names are going on the cover and that sort of thing.

Even just down to like, where's the barcode?

Where's the UPC?

If it's gonna be sold in stores, right?

The

graphic design of it.

Yeah.

I am not good at graphic design.

That's not your passion.

Oh, no.

Definitely not.

Yeah, usually I get stuck with some of those jobs.

See, this is the great part , or like a really interesting point, which is

that I think a lot of folks would just kind of assume, oh yeah, the artist,

someone obviously visually inclined and has a literal hand in everything that

you see on the page is not the person coming up with the logo, is not the

person dictating what necessarily is happening on each page or what goes on

each page, where each page goes in the file that has to be sent out to print.

That's a different person.

It's a designer.

A lot of times you'll see letterers and designers as one package.

Then an editor is a really interesting role in comics where, in film and video

we're thinking of somebody sitting at a computer and stitching the thing

together in some sort of software.

An editor here is not necessarily doing that or at least typically it's

not quite that invasive, but it is like a conversation in the way that

an editor is informing the work that a writer, director have put forth.

We talk about how a movie is made three different times, right?

There's a movie that's written, there's the movie that's shot, and then

there's the movie that's cut together and they can all be really different.

But an editor in comics is sort of more like a producer maybe for film and video,

saying "Well, I'm listening to what your goals are with the piece, and I

think actually you might want to do this instead of that." And making decisions

that will get them closer to what they think the director is trying to do.

I think that's about it for a team.

Would you guys say so?

Yeah, I mean, we're a two person team.

So many people wear so many different hats, right?

Yes.

Yeah, that's for sure.

It would be nice to have my own little pocket graphic designer or editor, but

if I can't do it myself, I'll have Rory do it and if he can't do it, and we just

kinda cobble together as best we can.

For sure.

Comics can be as small as one person.

It's not uncommon.

Hey, it's Randy.

We're taking a short break to tell you about the Morse-Cuppy

Film, Video, and Animation Study Abroad Endowed Scholarship.

The scholarship was established by Bill Cuppy with support from Deanna Morse to

help film, video, and animation students with the cost of studying abroad.

Alumnus Bill Cuppy talks about why he started the scholarship.

We created this scholarship because experiencing the world and other

cultures has been life-changing for us and we wanted students to

have a similar experience during this pivotal time in their lives.

Caroline Hamilton, the 2024 recipient of that scholarship, describes the

benefits of the support she received.

I'm a film video major and I have a German minor.

I've been studying German for about eight years now, and so I decided to

study abroad this past summer in Germany.

It definitely challenged me as a person.

I had to figure out how to do things and communicate and just

put me outta my comfort zone.

It introduces you to new things that you'd be afraid to experience because

you don't wanna embarrass yourself, but you have to just go for it.

The scholarship itself, just the almost permission to be

like, yes, go experience this.

Go learn, go see what happens, how this changes, how you see the world

and how you approach your work.

It took the pressure off of me a little bit to just be like, I can

experience this and not have to worry about everything else going on.

I can just go enjoy my time there and see what I can learn and grow from.

For more information, and to donate to the scholarship, visit

the link in the description.

Now back to the show.

But yeah, Then the creative side of it again is sort of similar.

There's a script that gets delivered to the artist.

Again, most comics are 20 to 22 pages typically.

If you're working in the zine space that's a whole different ordeal.

Zines come in all shapes and sizes and page counts, and that's why we love 'em.

But typically from my experience, handing over a script, film can be quite rigid.

It needs to be formatted this exact way, you need to have this information in this

exact spot, this is the font to use, this is the place to put the title, this is

the place to put your contact information.

In film, all of that is like really, really specific.

Whereas comics, there's just not really a sort of decided format

to use, everybody just writes in whatever way is most comfortable to

them and whatever way they think is going to most efficiently and clearly

communicate the ideas to the artist.

That said, a lot of folks write in screenplay format

for comics, myself included.

It's very, very similar where all the dialogue is centered, and instead of

necessarily describing all the action that's happening in between dialogue,

it's just panel one: this is what's happening in here, this is the action

that's happening in this panel, here's some dialogue that goes along with it.

Panel two, so on, so forth.

Rory?

What's that process look like on your end?

You know, I never really thought about writing a graphic novel script

in the form of traditional script writing, but as comfortable to me

and that would be a great way to go.

As far as writing, I'm very much sort of big picture as far as the story goes

and trying to be very organized with it.

On several projects, Amanda jumps in and moves very quickly, and I'm more

methodical to begin with and I'm like, okay, let's get a, let's get a spreadsheet

out, let's figure out what's happening.

I love a spreadsheet.

I have not come across a spreadsheet in my own work.

Spreadsheet hates to see me coming.

I mess it up every time.

For every spreadsheet curator, there is a spreadsheet Messer Upper.

Oh, Yes.

Definitely.

I know with The Ascendants, the graphic novel we worked on, we

actually started with index cards . I did that in film video, you know,

these are all the scenes that I want.

We decided that, okay, these are all the scenes.

And then, laid 'em all out and we're like, what's the best

way to tell this in what order?

We would add things, we would jump between a primary story and a secondary story.

That helped really seeing that whole thing and really trying to

work on the flow of the story.

There are so many ways to do it.

I think it's really interesting, you know, you guys have the note cards and I suppose

you could definitely do that remotely.

But you guys being in such close proximity to each other, you get to

just exchange the note cards and look over the note cards and everything.

And that's something that I feel like is a good both point of comparison

and contrast between filmmaking.

Filmmaking, a lot of times everyone is there on set.

Everyone is in the same room when making the thing itself,

whereas comics is often remote.

I mentioned it earlier, my co-writer, Ethan S. Parker, lives

on the other side of the country and that's always been the case.

And we've written so many books like that where we just get on the phone or we're

sending emails or texts back and forth.

We've only met one artist that's worked on our books in person,

because that's just how it works.

It all happens over email and Dropbox.

I think sometimes it can be a really lonely experience.

There is a lot of solitude, that's part of the reason why I love having a co-writer.

It feels a little less lonely if the two of us going back and forth and

having someone to bounce ideas off of.

But certainly I know a lot of artists that are like, I have to hop on a video

call with other artists and we all chat while we draw because it makes it a little

bit like easier to hang out and draw comics instead of it being a lonely time

Sitting alone in the dark drawing.

Yeah.

But of course, filmmaking a lot of the times, everyone's on set.

What I'm trying to say is everyone on the comic book side of things is more

like the film editor, where it's just like, "I'm at my computer for 14 hours a

day, man." But there are ways around it.

And of course it's so great that you guys get to be, in the same room because

when you are in the same room, I can speak to the couple of times Ethan and

I have been able to do this, the energy can be quite different than over email.

Of course.

Sometimes I'm at home and he'll be at work and I'll get an idea

and I'll send him a discord.

But since you work with people that are so far away, like having the

technology today, like the texting and dms and all that makes it so

much easier

to get in touch with each other.

Yeah, it does.

Also, it opens the door up to being able to work with so many people that

you might not be able to work with.

In the context of like a local production, right?

If you have to gather a crew together, you're pretty limited on who you

can actually work with unless you have the budget to fly people out.

But, that's kind of the cool thing about comics, is that as long as you have

someone's email address and you're willing to work around time zones, which can be

frustrating, then you are good to go.

We have a gentleman, named Pablo Tanisha drawing a book for us right now, and I

think he lives in Italy, or Spain maybe.

So you're getting emails from him like at weird hours of the night

and he's, you know, vice versa.

Of course.

And English is not his first language, so that's the other part of it too.

There's the delay in communication where we're all able to take

the time to translate even if needed, which is kind of crazy.

And so that is a really cool part that I think is special to comics

is that we can just have this really wide net that we can cast.

But the writing, you write the script, or sometimes like you're

saying Rory, it comes in different shapes and sizes sometimes.

There's also something that some folks may have heard of,

it's called the Marvel Method.

It is just a paragraph or so description, maybe a couple pages describing the

story of the entire issue, and then the artist will go and interpret that

as they please and sort of draw that out in whatever way they see fit.

There's a lot less direction involved.

And then, the writer will come back in and fill in dialogue and make adjustments

based on what the artist has drawn.

So there's so many different ways to do it, but then of course, the artist

is in there doing their thing, Amanda, and you may have thoughts about the

script, thoughts about the story, and you're making judgment calls

on, on that sort of thing, or maybe bringing things up to the writer.

And that's where the collaboration really kicks off, is once the artist is

onboard and doing their thing, and then there is the back and forth on what is

this thing actually going to look like?

So again, just like in film, there's the comic that is written,

there's the comic that is drawn.

Comics being very serialized, sometimes the writer is thinking just way, way,

way ahead than an artist might be.

Amanda, how do you feel when you first get a script?

What is the first step for you?

The first thing I do is the thumbnails, which is just like a real tiny little

drawing with where the boxes would be and like blobs, like okay, this is this

character and then this is this one.

Then once I have that, I go into just straight up sketching the characters and

filling in the background or whatever, looking for reference photos if I need.

Which, I need a lot for like backgrounds 'cause we all hate a background.

Then I ink it.

I draw digitally, which I don't know how the old timey comic

artists did that all by hand, like all the perspective and stuff.

And then I color it digitally.

And then after that I do the word bubbles in Illustrator.

Once a chapter was done, like all the pages, Rory would look it over and he

was kind of like the editor where he would point out any continuity errors

in the art So . It's nice 'cause when you're drawing you're like really

in it and sometimes you can't pull back to like see the whole thing.

And it's nice to have another set of eyeballs that is like, " Why is bro got

a scar on the wrong side of his face?"

This guy's left handed now.

Yeah, I guess all my characters are lefthanded, 'cause they all had weapons

in their left hand, like, oh geez.

He's a script supervisor over here.

Excellent.

Yes.

Yeah.

I know sometimes the conversation is dominated by the fact that it

takes artists significantly longer to draw a page than it takes a

writer to write a page for comics.

Where it's like, I might do what we call a splash page.

That's when there aren't panels necessarily on the

page, it's one big image.

I might write out a description for a splash page that's like, "And then

the universe is born. Consciousness itself becomes present in the world."

And it took me two seconds to write that sentence, but of course now the

artist has to interpret it and really figure out how it works and can spend

a day, several days even, drawing that.

It is still a two person situation where even though there is that

discrepancy in the amount of time, you still wanna have both hands on

the wheel a little bit and deciding everything together, collaborating

on, it's still very important.

Well, and I think that's at least as like a writer and creator,

that's where I felt like, man, what can I do to help this process?

Because I feel like I, I need to be doing something 'cause

I know it takes a long time.

So I would pick up other skills.

I learned a bunch of about making a website, I would go in and

do some of the graphic work.

So, I can contribute in other ways that will help us get to that end

goal without just sort of waiting for this next chapter to be done.

Absolutely.

I actually think this is the decent point to transition into the business

side Once the art is done you hand it off down the line and then there's a

moment where everyone goes, "Yep, I think this looks good." And it gets sent

off to the printer, or to the website if it's a digital comic, of course.

And then comes the business side of it, which is, we have to market

this, we have to promote it.

Which I think is very similar to doing that for an independent film.

You finish it and then you have this thing that you spent so much time and

energy on and you care so much about, and it was such a great creative

endeavor, but I spent months and months doing it, and now I have no money

'cause I put all the money into it now I need this thing to make money.

It is, the intersection of art and commerce, right?

We all have to arrive there at some point on most projects,

and it's always a crossroads.

The business side of it is tough and it's all about in

what space you're operating in.

You can be over at a big place like your Marvel in DC in which case other

people are probably going to market that book for you or tell you how to

market the book, when to show up for an interview to talk about the book, so on.

But if it's an independent comic, it's just all on you, man.

And that is a full-time gig.

I mean, finding out how to market something today, where like, it felt

like for a while maybe you could get on social media and convince

some people to pay attention to it, and maybe it could start something.

That is the case still today to some regard, but social media is in such a

weird transition sort of space, I think, and it's a lot harder to tell what moves

the needle on this sort of thing anymore.

What, do you guys feel when you say, "Okay, it's time to get people to look

at this", what's the first thing you do?

Oh geez.

When we finished the first book, which was four chapters, so it's

like a graphic novel basically, we did our first Comic-Con,

which was up in Traverse C four.

We haven't been there in a while, but it was small enough where,

you know, we felt comfortable, but not like huge, like Gr Comic-Con.

We had no idea what we were doing though either, we were

just like, "let's do this!"

Yeah.

We had no idea.

We're gonna, you know, throw a couple hundred dollars at this artist

alley table and bring our books.

It was eye-opening, 'cause it's so hard to get somebody on board with something

that is not already established.

Indie comics, indie books, indie whatever.

They're like, " oh, it doesn't have Spider-Man, I'm not interested."

People go to Comic-Con and they're looking for pop culture stuff.

So, already we were kind of behind where we needed to be.

We learned quickly order to make some money back, we have

to have fan art that we sell.

So, I had fan art and all that, but it's just hard, marketing

yourself, talking about your work.

I don't know how to describe it.

You're like hyping it up to this stranger, you know, like, "oh, my book is so

awesome, you should read it." That's hard because we're just socialized into like,

oh, you shouldn't brag about yourself.

It is very hard because there's so many other great artists making their

own comics or their own content, like what makes us stand out?

Like how do we get people to even pick up the book and flip through it, you know?

Our first time though there was a lot of challenges.

I don't even know how many, we've been to a bunch, mostly just in Michigan.

Every time, we talk about like, okay, what can we do better next time?

What can we change?

How can we better display this?

We had a little tablet that would show a little minute movie that

I made that you'd be able to sort of see some of the art in there.

It's just a lot of those little things that would bring people over.

But I think one of the most important pieces that we've both experienced

at these comic cons and other places, it's about some of the people that

you get to really meet and talk to.

There's so many cool people that we've talked to.

We'll be there and then we'll go the next year and somebody's like, "Hey, I stopped

by your booth last year and I want to pick up your second and third volumes".

for That's awesome.

You know, it's really exciting to see that.

I think it's about not getting discouraged, 'cause it's like you're

not gonna hit the ground running and just be this huge success.

It's just trying to encourage yourself and then also talk with

other artists, make those connections.

That's so huge 'cause a lot of times we can encourage them, they

can encourage us, and that's super important in a field like this.

Absolutely.

It's all about that sort of connection whether that is, "Hey,

could you give this a read? If you do can you say something nice about

it?" You know, that sort of thing.

Or if it is like, "Hey, I know that you have a podcast, wouldn't it be cool if I

came on there and talked about this book and then maybe I can promote the podcast

in the book." It is a lot of, when you're at this independent level, a lot

of you help me out, I'll help you out, and maybe together we can get folks to check

out the cool things that we're making.

But I think what you're saying too is you just have to not get discouraged.

You have to keep going.

You have to just do it.

How do you make this part of your, day-to-day life?

How do you make this a regular part of your life?

How can you face this sort of career?

And I think it's kind of the same with film.

I think film can take up a lot more time just because you gotta

transport a crew around, you gotta lug equipment around, you gotta shoot

the thing, it takes a long time.

You gotta know a lot of people, like just even getting actors and

actresses Like, 'cause Rory's done some of his own films just for fun.

And just finding people to actually be in the movies is hard.

So tough.

Not getting discouraged is really a huge part of it because it can be really

difficult to take this thing that is a passion for you and developing it.

If you decide that's the move you wanna make, 'cause I do think it is a

question that you should ask yourself is, do I want to take this passion of

mine and turn it into my livelihood?

Do I want to turn it into this thing that I do so regularly

that I will call it my job?

You should ask yourself that, 'cause sometimes that

might not be the best option.

I do want to make sure that folks understand that too, that just because

there's this burning passion for you don't have to push it into a space

that you don't want it to be in.

But I think if you're passionate about it, you should find a space for it in

your life no matter what, whether you're trying to make it your career or not.

But, just doing it, being very intentional about setting the time aside for it.

You don't have to quit your job to chase your dreams.

Turns out these creative endeavors, they don't pay so well sometimes.

We don't want that to be the case, but sometimes it is.

But I would say just being really intentional about it and making sure that

you are setting the time aside is really the only way that you'll ever get it done.

And stop waiting for like that perfection.

Just do it.

Another thing I'd like to add, like you just starting it is hard enough,

but then you'll go and you'll be like, "Oh, I can draw better, I should

go back and redo the old stuff." No, just leave it, keep moving forward.

You could spend your whole life going back and redoing the same thing over and

over again and making small things better.

I look at my, first couple books and I'm like, " I could draw so much better

than that now." But, back then that was my talent level and obviously I've

grown as an artist since then, but the big thing was I just had to keep moving.

I had to just keep going, don't stop.

Don't go backwards.

I think that's a very important point to make.

Not getting stuck on some of the details.

Even some of the more recent film projects that I've worked on you'd be

going through and maybe editing a scene like, "oh man I wish this scene could

have been different. Maybe I should go reshoot this." No, just get the thing

done 'cause you could just go shoot a whole new movie, a whole different movie.

The other thing too that I've learned over the last decade is,

you know, I went to school for film and video, do I enjoy making movies?

Absolutely.

Do I wanna continue to do that?

Yes.

But don't be afraid to pivot because maybe you'll find, I like writing

stories as the basis of a graphic novel.

There's a whole lot of other ways that you can tell stories without

it being a live action movie.

Think about those other opportunities and avenues and experiment a little bit.

Absolutely.

I always think about like some very famous writers, directors, and

filmmakers like, George Lucas and him being like, " I hate directing movies."

That's hilarious coming from the guy who gave us one of the most prominent

and influential movies of all time.

It takes so much out of you, so maybe there is a better avenue

for you, one that you hate less.

Even if it is a passion.

But really all it is is stringing together images to get a reaction out of people.

That's all we're doing when we're writing comics, when we're drawing comics.

It is all about what is image 1, 2, 3 A, B, C, and what is the

effect that happens when I put them all right next to each other?

And so maybe there is a different space.

So yeah, definitely don't be afraid to pivot.

Before we close it out what are some things that folks can go and find that

will maybe make all this conversation a little bit more concrete, to

put it all in a bit more context?

Myself, I've been making comics for a couple of years now.

At the moment there's pretty much just one big one that you can go and find, and

it's a book called Kill Your Darlings, that Ethan S. Parker and I wrote, Bob

Quinn drew, and John Jay Hill lettered and designed, through Image Comics.

It's a horror fantasy Ethan and I worked on while doing, multimedia

stuff with other, comic book creators.

We made podcasts and videos for, other folks like, Ryan Stegman, Donny

Cates, and Brian Michael Bendis.

Through all that we said, "Don't pay us, just help us make a comic book."

So that is exactly how we got to, making our first book and,

we're really, really proud of it.

You can find that in any comic book shops that carry Image Comics.

The trade paperback collection is out, so it puts the whole thing together.

The single issues have been done for a little over a year now.

You can check that out and maybe that will make the whole thing

make a little bit more sense.

Amanda, Rory, where can people find your work?

So we self-publish.

We also have our books through Caliber Comics, which is kind of like more of an

indie, smaller press, based in Michigan.

So you can find 'em on Caliber's website.

And then we also have our own website, legendsofaukera.com, which

is the name of our fantasy world.

I believe you can get 'em on Amazon too through, Caliber.

That's cool.

Here's the cool thing about independent comics, as with a

lot of independent art, all those profits go directly to the creators

on a lot of these sorts of things.

Obviously every publisher will have a different setup.

So I don't know what your guys' setup exactly is like with Caliber.

Over at Image, there's the cost to print the book, and then once we have

covered that cost all of that goes to creators which is really really cool.

And something that we love about comics, is that it is so direct.

We get to really see all of the financial side of things, and it's a

pretty quick turnaround in terms of what costs have to be covered before we can

start seeing some proceeds come back to us, which I think is pretty cool.

Last question here, what experiences have you had at Grand Valley State

University that have shaped or impacted your work and life positively?

So I currently work at Grand Valley, and, we have a lot of, student

technicians that work for us in IT.

We of course occasionally have the film and video students there.

And you know what's really cool?

Is talking with them about their projects.

Sharing some of my experiences, some of my projects, and they'll

tell me all about their projects.

They're like, " Would you wanna see it?" I'm like, "Heck yeah, I

wanna see it!" It's so cool to be able to see that come full circle.

I'll tell 'em some things I liked about it, some, honest feedback.

It's really cool to be able to, give them some of that support, that I had when I

was going through the, the process too.

Mine would probably be just a lot of the people that I met

while I was a student there.

I mean, I'm still friends with some of the people that I took art classes with.

Sometimes we'll yap about art and what we're working on and that's really cool.

Just sharing ideas and the projects that we're currently working on

or have worked on in the past.

Absolutely.

A lot of it is, all about those connections that you make, those peers

surrounding you for a few years and keeping in touch with them because it,

is a shared experience and there's an understanding, there's a kinship there.

I don't even know where to begin in terms of the experiences I had at GVSU.

Having that support system that came out of the film video program supporting me

as I was like, "Actually guys, I think I'm gonna go make comic books at least

for a little bit" was really important.

But again, so many of the skills that I picked up in, not just like a

screenwriting class, but your film theory classes and taking the time to think

about how images affect people and how we can get these emotional reactions,

what causes the emotional reactions.

That's all stuff that I carry in my work.

Whether you are a film and video major, whether you end up getting the

film and video degree or not, at the end of the day that doesn't matter.

What matters is your experience while you are there.

No matter your major, no matter the degree, if you can walk away from it

with something that you feel, shaped you, I think that's really crucial.

Really important.

And I would say my time at GVSU was exactly that.

Amanda, Rory, thank you for coming on.

Thank you for chatting with me.

Really quick, where can folks find you?

Social media, Instagram, I'm primarily on there, my handle's legendsofaukera.

Our website, legendsofaukera.com.

And of course always look for us at, any comic cons or any events, locally.

And you know, if you see Legends of Aukera, we'll be happy to

talk with you at the table.

Excellent man.

I typically go by Griff Sheridan online, GRIF.

That's on Instagram and Blue Sky.

There's actually a lot of comic book creators on Blue Sky.

So if you are a budding comic book creator, there's a suggestion.

We found our artists for Kill Your Darlings on Twitter, so you can never

underestimate the power of the internet.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Alumni Live and of course

we'll see you guys in the next one.

Have a great night.

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