Galaxion

My book is out at last! Actually, it was probably out months ago, but I only just got my copies. Here it is, my very first not-self-published book (yaaaay! *waves arms like Kermit the frog*)

Roberta’s Space Adventure is part of the Grade 6 space book club unit Mission: Space in the Moving Up with Literacy Place program by Scholastic Education Canada. Comics in the classroom—isn’t that awesome? There are, I think, eight comic stories in total in the unit, all done by different artists. In the ongoing struggle to get kids reading, this is going to be a pretty good tool!

Roberta’s Space Adventure is a fictional story set sometime in the nebulous future (where I like to set all my stories!), but the purpose of it is to teach the reader about the Canadian astronauts. The two main characters, who live on a large Canadian spaceship (because of course we have one, in the future), learn about their early space-pioneering ancestors. The more they learn, the more they appreciate how amazing those first Canadians to go into space—people like Marc Garneau, Roberta Bondar, and Chris Hadfield– really were.

The story is 40 pages long, and there is additional biographical information on the astronauts in the back. I did the pitch, script, script rewrites, art, and colouring (but not the word balloons or the title design) all within the space of about 5 months, which for me is insanely fast—especially considering the weeks of downtime where I was waiting for editorial approval before I could go on to the next step. It was both hideous and wonderful, and I hated and relished every minute of it.

Unfortunately, the book is only available to schools and similar educational groups (meaning I can’t sell you one). So if you’re an elementary teacher or if you know one, you may be in luck! Oh, and I guess you probably have to be in Canada, too… though if you represent a school in another country and have a burning desire to teach your kids about the Canadian Astronauts, I suppose Scholastic won’t say no to you! If you are in Canada… please spread the word!

There’s been some really amazing stuff happening on the internets this past week that I want to share with you all because it knocked my socks off! Over on The Webcomic List Forum (TWCL), one of the social sites I tend to hang around in, the topic came up—again—of which webcomics are successful enough to support their creators. One person had said that anyone with a webcomic that has a Wikipedia page survive the Great Mass Deletion must be raking in the bucks, and at that point I chimed in to say, look here, I have a Wikipedia page, and I’m certainly not going to be on that list of self-sufficient webcomics anytime soon! Then a fellow who goes by the screen name of lonelyfetus said something to the tune of, “well, for crying out loud why aren’t you?” And thus, last Wednesday, began…

Campaign: GALAXION (the thread!).

This came out of nowhere, from my point of view, and it seemed like it was up and away before I even had time to blink. I’m still not sure how many of the TWCL forum members who posted to say they’d Stumbled or Dugg or reviewed Galaxion were already fans, or how many were just doing it because they thought it was a neat idea, but… holy cow! I was, and still am, astounded and humbled that these people whom I’ve never met would come together for this kind of thing so selflessly. Now, don’t nobody groan at me for this, for I have to say I feel like I’m not, you know, worthy.

I suppose I’m a typical creative geek: I hole up in my basement and obsess about my creation, I’d do it even if I had no readers at all, and like many of us comic creators I’m inept at tooting my own horn.

…but I’m more than happy to toot the horn of other people!

First, you must go visit the thread just to see some of the banners that were created for this campaign. Oh. My. Gawd. There are also some suggested t-shirt designs in there… would you all like t-shirts? Do you like these? Something else, perhaps? Then, you must go to the webcomic Maskerman and see the cool Galaxion cameo!

Thank you to the creators of

• Crowfeathers,
• Marooned,
• Rampage Network,
• Millennium,
• Outrageous Fortune,
• Stud Kickass,
• Marsona’s Story,
• Goth Bunnies,
• A Mad Tea Party,
• The War of Winds,
• Luke Surl.

And big thank yous to the ringleader, lonelyfetus, who doesn’t have a page that I can link to, but I know you’d go click it if he had one because he’s been that great.

I’m sure I forgot to thank someone here—Varethane, you’re up next!—so please let me know who I overlooked in the comments. I love you all!! <3