Temple Portfolio PDF

[dave hailwood]

Hi there,

I thought it was probably about time we tried to put together a portfolio of all our best work, as a PDF to be displayed on websites and put on CD to hand out at conventions.

Contributions should be 1-5 pages in size, with your own cover that contains contact details and a brief biography. You can put in sequentials, inking, pencilling, lettering samples, cartoons, pin-ups, scripts...basically whatever best represents your chosen field in the comics medium.

Each page would need to be 150 Dots Per Inch (if you're unsure what your pages DPI are, you can check them out in the properties) and 1200 pixels wide (so as to keep the PDF file down to a managable size, but still at a good enough resolution to not look pixellated on peoples monitors).

The deadline for submissions is May 1st, as that'll allow me to put the PDF onto a CD, hopefully in time for the Bristol Convention.

I'll also need a front cover for the portfolio, and a cover for the CD if there's any volunteers?

Feel free to attach the artwork you want to submit here (if you put it in the gallery, make sure it's clearly marked 'Temple Submission'), or send it to me at [e-mail]

Everyone's welcome to contribute, though please remember to make sure it's the best work you're able to produce. Once we have the issue completed I'll attach the PDF to this site and others, and also put out a few announcements.

If anyone has any feedback regarding content/putting the PDF together then feel free to speak your mind. If there's any other creators you think would be interested in contributing then please point them in the right direction.

Look forward to seeing what everyone comes up with...

- Dave Hailwood

[John Kirkham]

Good idea, Dave. The Temple definitely needs to get something out there.

Have you seen this:

www.createspace.com

Basically the site is part of Amazon you send them your book as digital files, they put it up on Amazon.com and only print the book when an order comes in and take the print costs out of the book’s fee. So in theory you could put out a 200 page Temple book and it won’t cost a thing. Only problem is that it’s US based so the postage will be more than the book.

[simon mackie]

Great idea, Dave. I'll be sure to send you on some stuff.

[dave hailwood]

Cheers for your support John and Simon, I look forward to seeing your work.

John, I'll check that link out in a minute. Sounds like an interesting way of getting more exposure for all the hard working artists out there. I'm certainly willing to explore every avenue available.

The key aim is basically raise awareness of what everyone's doing, catch a few eyes, and hopefully some people might get commissions out of it (at the very least, they might get a few more readers for their strips). If the first issue goes well, we can always put out another later in the year.

[Dave Evans]

Sounds good to me, I'll happily sort a recent strip out.

[dave hailwood]

Cheers Dave.

You're welcome to knock up an ad for Futurequake to go with it as well.

Well done in getting several Eagle nominations - let's hope they go through to the next stage. So far no one I've nominated has actually been listed, so I'm wondering if my votes actually counted for anything.

[Dave Evans]

Dave, all sorted, and i'm emailing the pages this morning.

The Eagle nomination did us a lot of good last year, so hopefully we can improve on that!

Dave

[dave hailwood]

Cheers, Dave - look forward to receiving your sub.

I've just spent most of the morning re-lettering Spare Parts for Futurequake (found all the other strips as PDFs as well, so relettering them all won't be a problem). It was in a 12pt font originally, as suspected. I've reduced it to 9pts though I'm not sure if that's going to look too small in Futurequake (it's fine on A4, but FQ's no doubt smaller). I'll send the strips next week so you can let me know what you think (I'm always open to making more adjustments).

By the way, if you have any lettering tips or tutorials you'd recommend reading, please let me know. Ilya of Best New Manga has given me a few more pointers, but I still need a lot of work (not being a letterer and all that). It seems that knowing how to letter greatly improves your chances of getting creator owned series professionally published these days, and I'm keen to learn more about the art.

Thanks again, Dave (and thanks, Jim Stewart, as well, for the strips you sent me. I'll email you later in the day if I get the chance).

[John Kirkham]

Hold on, didn’t I have this idea in July?

http://templeapa.ning.com/forum/topic/show?id=827304%3ATopic%3A181

Blimely, where does the time go.

How about calling this one - Temple issue zero, then we can use this to attract more people for the next one, Temple issue 1 volume 2. Even if we get half a dozen people on this first one it’ll be a good advert to put on the site so they know what they are contributing to.

Dave (H) have you thought about writing a short bit of propaganda to post to all the smallpress forums?

Dave (E) you’re ‘Mr Smallpress’ you must know a dozen or so people who’d like to contribute.

[dave hailwood]

You did indeed have the idea many, many months ago!

I think the reason that nothing got started then was because there was no set deadline, or specific format to contribute the work in.

This is basically an extension of that same idea, and contributions have already started to come in (got a lovely four pager from Dave Evans today, and a few pieces from Jim Stewart (which I may need to toy around with a bit, due to them being a different size and DPI).

Temple Issue Zero is a good idea, as is mentioning it to anyone we think might be interested (I may try knock up an announcement to go on Down The Tubes when I get the chance). I did send out a group email to not just Temple APA members, but quite a few people who contribute to the Down The Tubes/Rok comics ning sites as well. Hopefully some may join up/contribute.

This Temple's going to differ from the old Temple APA in one big way - feedback etc won't appear in the next issue, it'll appear on this site which makes it more immediate (and also cuts the contributions down to the bare essentials - a maximum of five great looking pieces of work from each contributor and contact details).

Whether we manage to get a CD together in time for Bristol will depend on how close contributions come in towards the deadline. At least it'll give us all something to build on for the next issue, even if it comes out at a later date. I'm sure this/the next issue could certainly benefit from your creative eye, John (especially in regards to logos, contents page, covers etc).

One thing I forgot to mention is that I'd prefer the pictures as JPGs if possible (don't worry Dave Evans - I'm sure the Tif's you sent will be fine. Great artwork, by the way!).

Cheers, and I look forward to seeing more lovely pieces of work.

- Dave

[John Kirkham]

Actually, abandoning the mailing comments was the whole reason I set up this website, the comments in the old Temple just seemed so redundant.

Couple more thoughts...

I think we should push the fact we’re British, there seems to little pockets of UK smallpress sites/communities out there but no central point, the Temple could fill that gap nicely. We could have features/adverts for all the smallpress comics out there or at least a rundown of the site links.

I thought about knocking up a template page for each contributor’s first page, but one of the things I really enjoyed about the old Temple was the individual look of each person’s pages (Dave Morris’s handwritten pages been the best example - it wasn’t the same when he went digital). What I’m thinking for the start of each person's section is a very simple almost blank page with the Temple logo and the person’s name, then their own page introducing themselves etc...

[dave hailwood]

I like the idea about listing links to all the small press sites etc, as well as having features and ads. We could quite easily start a forum piece going where small pressers post ads etc (and also have a listings at the back of the PDF perhaps. Not necessarily this one, as we need to keep things simple to start with)and perhaps gathering things in a more organised manner once the ball has started rolling.

Although pushing our Britishness is a nice idea, don't forget that we aren't all English here (Toshiro!!!). I wouldn't want anyone to feel excluded, and part of the joy of the internet is that we have access to people from all over the world. (Pushing the UK angle would probably be a strong point, though we'd need to word things so we don't exclude others, is basically what I'm trying to say).

Regarding the logo idea, what could work is if you post the Temple logo on the site here as a 150 DPI JPG. Then contributors can download it and put it on their front pages (or I can put it on the front pages for them). I agree about the individuality of each persons front page. Though feel free to post an example of what you think a front page should look like, as it's always useful to have a template to build that individuality around (especially for those members with no previous experience of the old Temple APA).

One thing I should perhaps mention is that although I've stated everyone should contribute 'their best work' this doesn't necessarily mean all work must be of a professional standard. It should simply be the best that you, the individual creator, can produce. The Temple's non-exclusive, and everyone from the rawest amateur to the most seasoned professional is welcome.


- Cheers for all your input John, and everyone else who's responded so far. All other input is welcomed, as always.

[John Kirkham]

Obviously I didn’t mean having a strict dress code for nationality, it just seems that all the comic/smallpress communities out there are American orientated. We’ve got a lot of top home-grown talent which is something that needs celebrating and there doesn't seem to a 'central hub'.

There was the Pencil Monkey forum but that seems to have died, does anyone know if something has replaced it? Perhaps we should start collecting links of all the UK smallpress titles, writers and artists sites out there. You can start pasting them below...