The comic that start it all for me, Harmless Free Radicals, is 13 years old today. The Epic of Sally Robertson is officially a chapter of that comic, it is, for all intents and purposes (and in name), Harmless Free Radicals the comic. And I want to celebrate somehow. For myself, I’m having a rather nice dinner. But for you, I’m doing something else. It’s small, really, but it should be nice.
I had special, unique plans about how I would like to publish the books for The Epic of Sally. But so many things have been getting in the way of that, and so many people have just been asking me “How do I buy the book?”
You see, I wanted to find a way to make it free, like the online comic is. But it turns out that even using a print on demand publishing company makes for a fairly inexpensive 26 page comic book, and you guys do seem to want to find a way to support it! (Also, I still have no ideas for a t-shirt design, which was going to be the primary reward in the Kickstarter). So, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m making an announcement.
Book 1 of The Epic of Sally Robertson should be available for sale online within the week!
click to visit larger image Stuck in Jam Cover Art: concept #2 From the Fenworks |
I’m printing through Ka-Blam and selling it through them. I’ve got a couple things to clean up, and there might be a snag in there, but if all goes well we might even see it up for sale by tomorrow! Maybe. Furthermore, once I’ve fixed up the type-os, I’ll put up a PDF for download. I’ll also look into how to get the PDF in the Kindle store, for those of you who prefer that. But that might take a little more time.
Anyway, I have a color proof of it and really is beautiful. I’m going with a magazine sized comic, so the pages are the same size as your typical Tintin book. I’ll be doing the same thing for the trade paperback versions, too! (but those will only come out every 72 pages or so)
Furthermore, I’ll price it so that you can happily afford it and still feel like you’re supporting the comic. A flat $5. That’s effectively a 100% mark-up. And a little more than your typical comic book these days, but these things are special.
In the mean time, you may also like to read up on the back issues!
Here are the back issues of Harmless Free Radicals
My very first comics can be read here:
http://www.harmlessfreeradicals.com/allthecomics.php
A prequel to those comics, set in Sally’s dad’s middle school days, is called The Dragon and the Radical:
http://www.grassdogstudio.com/dandr/
A series of gag strips illuminating daily life in Fairport can be found on the main site of Harmless Free Radicals, starting here:
http://harmlessfreeradicals.com/?comic_id=2&pindex=0
There are a lot of gaps in those comics, and there are a lot of comics (some with very questionable artwork). You may find some of it confusing, but it will give you a lot of background for The Epic of Sally. I am in the process of rewriting a lot of them, and finding a better presentation, but that may take some time.
Now if you’d prefer, you can buy the books of those comics as well! They’re just for sale over here.
Follow up
And, also, I’m going to finally put together a cast page. It’ll start by just using clips from the comic to identify the characters, but I should have that up sometime tomorrow.
And I’m going to make some contact pages for each of the characters, sometime soon, which may be fun to have as posters, even though they’re really just a tool for me.
And finally, book two of Epic of Sally is also almost done! We are six to eight pages away from needing a cover for it! At my current rate that should be sometime in September.
Happy 13th Anniversary, Harmless Free Radicals! originally appeared on Drawing Contraption on 2013/07/31.