Elsa, November, Her Kickstarter, and More
- matt fraction -
GUESS WHO
still pays for a newsletter? hey gang
In the next couple weeks a long-gestating project called NOVEMBER will finally begin its publication (in stores Nov. 6th! 80 pages! 17 bucks!), the first in a short series of interconnecting hardcover graphic novellas, affordably-priced and stunningly designed. NOVEMBER tells the story of three women, beginning as total strangers, as their lives interconnect over the course of a single, violent, and insane night in a nameless city -- a heavy formalist character drama dropped into a noir world of crime, paranoia, and people pushed to their limits.
I wrote it. Matt Hollingsworth colored it. Kurt Ankenny lettered it (and you should seek out his new book PLEADING WITH STARS because holy cats is he something else). Rian Hughes designed it. And my friend Elsa Charretier drew it, and that's really what I want to talk about.
Without Elsa there'd not BE a NOVEMBER, because without Elsa there'd be no one in comics I can possibly imagine that would be willing to put up with my fumbling and inarticulate searching for what the book was in the early days. I couldn't really explain it well. There was a gun in a puddle. It was told in a 12-panel grid. There were shapes and colors that were very important. It was a lot of tone but not a lot of, y'know. Drawable stuff. (Please now imagine what newsletter magnate Chip Zdarsky has had to deal with all these years. Right? Yeah.)
None of which shook Elsa though, who, like me, shares an ambition if not outright hunger to push herself, to learn, to make better and smarter work, and to seek out difficult tasks and take them on -- another weird comics zealot more interested in reach than grasp, more comfortable in interesting failures than easy successes, and willing to throw herself into a world of stammered-out half-baked shapes and colors and rules in hopes we'd find the place we knew we wanted to go together in spite of the dark.
Most of all though we have a lot of fun, I mean, look how happy my Christmas gift made her last year.
I AM A DELIGHTFUL COLLABORATOR!! Just look at her radiant joy!!!!!
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OKAY SO this week Elsa launched a kickstarter for her art book -- I'll let her chime in at this point:
It’s a collection of some of my best pieces commissioned by collectors, comic book covers, and detailed process of my storytelling work from NOVEMBER and STAR WARS: DR. APHRA. I’m hoping this will be an opportunity to understand how I think a page and work as an artist.
The book is a beautiful 8.27-in x 11.7-in hardcover edition, printed on high-quality 170gsm heavyweight paper. I’m a hardcore book lover, so putting together mockups is where my nerdiness expresses itself best.
Ever wondered why a specific panel was a close-up and not a wider shot? Why there is a background on this panel, and not on the next? In other words: the thought process behind each frame.
To celebrate the release of my new graphic novel, NOVEMBER Vol.1 (co-created with Matt Fraction and published by Image Comics), I’m also putting out a NOVEMBER: Commentary Edition, exclusive to Kickstarter. The entire Vol.1, 60 pages of art, in black and white, with thoughts and tips handwritten by myself straight on the pages.
THAT'S RIGHT, for all y'all process nerds like us out there, Elsa asked and I relented so she's crafting a NOVEMBER COMMENTARY EDITION full of the kind of making-of stuff people like us live for -- the good, the bad, and the ugly of building NOVEMBER is here on display.
THE BEST NEWS IS -- she got FUNDED IN LIKE FOUR HOURS. It's GONNA HAPPEN! All you gotta do is get in on the campaign at the 65 € level.
She keeps adding stretch goals like 16 more pages, and a collaboration w/Francesco Francavilla -- so I'm THRILLED TO ANNOUNCE a stretch goal for Elsa that I just made up right now:
IF SHE HITS 50.000€ ELSA WILL RECREATE HER KICKSTARTED VIDEO INTRODUCTION TO THE PROJECT WEARING THE FRENCHIE SWEATSHIRT.
probably i mean. i bet we could convince her. besides it's easier to apologize than ask permission, right? this will be fine i'm sure. and besides, what even is "€"? It's like some kind of crazy made-up moon man money.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/472072870/elsa-charretiers-artbook?ref=7tkoid
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/472072870/elsa-charretiers-artbook?ref=7tkoid
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/472072870/elsa-charretiers-artbook?ref=7tkoid
let's make it happen!
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I'm sorry I've been so quiet for so long. It's been a ferociously busy year, even for me, and while that's meant not a lot of books coming out (yet) it's been a shitload of writing. It's easier -- healthier, mentally -- for me to submerge under the water and swim through it rather than poke my head up and wave. It's a constant duel between time and psychic energy. Going dark and getting quiet is okay sometimes. Besides the work does the talking. Anyway. I'm okay. I hope you're okay too.
m