Hey everybody,

been a while since posting here. The past weekend was incredibly busy, but also a great time. The Bachelor Auction on Saturday night was a huge success. (I tried to get photos, but I was borrowing a camera and couldn't get anything to look halfway decent. If anybody else got photos, please share them!) I want to thank everybody who came, everybody who placed a bid, and most of all, our bachelors! Comic Heads made over $500 and we're really pleased with the outcome. So again, thank you! I hope everybody had a good time, and that winning bidders and bachelors enjoy their dates.

The Will Eisner meet on Sunday was also very successful. It was a little out of the ordinary, but by no means in a bad way. We had a lot of people come in from outside the college, and it was definitely a larger crowd than normal. Which is good, because those cakes we had were not only delicious, they were huge and the normal CH meet could not have eaten all of that. Thanks go out to Barbara Schulz for doing most of the work in putting that meet together, and also to Chris Couch and Frenchy Lunning, our guest speakers, and Andrew D. Cooke, for letting us show his documentary.

There have also been a few other meets I've neglected to post about here. In fact, I have a bit of a back-log of photos built up. Let's go in reverse chronological order...


For the "Let's Talk About Love" meet, we had a closing activity where the cool people who stuck around made Valentine's with old romance comics. Also somebody made a spiffy badge.


This jam poster is from the wiener club fair! Hence... wieners.

A long long time ago, you could see the ground. The snow had not yet come. And Comic Heads held a meet about alternative media, followed by the greatest jam comic to ever jam... on MCAD's sidewalk.

Well, forgive the delay on these photos. Better late than never, am I right?

BUT you DON'T want to be late with your submission to Comic Heads! That's right, the deadline is March 16th, and as warned, it is rapidly approaching. Send your submissions in! You can find a copy of the submission guidelines on the MCAD message board, OR hanging in the Comic Studio. Give us your comics!

~Sam

Final meeting of the semester with Pizza

Just reminding everyone that the last Comic Heads meeting of the semester is coming up this SUNDAY!!!
1PM in the COMIC STUDIO. You know.. the one next to the giant mural on the first floor.

There will be pizza, emergenC, and a supportive community of artists. Come to work, destress, talk, or get some feedback on your projects.
As always everyone is invited and welcome.
We would also love to hear your feedback on how you think ComicHeads is going and if there are any topics you would like to have discussed.

~Ali

Hey guys,

One new 24-hour challenge comic has come to me, from Caitlin Warner--here it is! Dead Bird

Also, many apologies to Alex Fukui, whom I mistakenly listed as Alex Fubuki when linking to his 24-hour comic. I'm not sure how I got to that, but I'm sorry, and also sorry it's taken me so long to notice!

~Sam

Networking

I promised I would post this at our last meeting and I apologize it has taken me so long to get it up but I really wanted to go through all my bookmarks and try to organize everything in a way that would make sense.

When starting online networking its best to start with a piece of paper and a pencil. Write down the 5 things about yourself that you want the world to know and the 5 things you never want spread across the internet. Because keep in mind, anything you put online, stays online.

When your ready these are the basic pages where you can begin your networking.
Facebook
Flickr
Twitter
Blogger

If your in Minnesota you can also join
MNartist.org

I know this seems like quite a few but set aside half a day and write up one profile and a username that you can use across all of these sites. Trust me it is well worth it. Upload some of your best artwork and your ready to rock. A quick note about blogger, this one is extra nice because you can use it as a quick website until you can find the time to make or hire someone to make a real website for you.

The next websites to get on are LinkedIn and Coroflot .
I've put these both separately because, if your in your freshman or sophmore years they aren't ones that you'll need right away.

LinkedIn
Think of LinkedIn like the formal professional Facebook. You can upload your resume and join professional groups as well as keep in contact with other business contacts. This is a good site to get on once you start making connections and start attending cons as a professional artist.

Coroflot
I just found Coroflot and its a website that was created for the young designer. Its got space for your portfolio and your resume and also has a great forum for all those questions about starting freelance and what to get paid.

So what do you do once you've got all these profiles and web spaces? None of these get your name out there, how does anyone find you. The best way to get people to find you is to talk. Join forums that share your interests. Join art fourms like The Drawing Board or comic forums like Girl Wonder, you could even join groups like The Star Trek Forum or a discussion forum about lost. Just make sure that your website or blog address is set in the footer of every message you post. That's all you need to do. People who like your message or are curious about you will click on it suddenly you have traffic. The more you talk, the more traffic you'll get and I can assure you, eventually some of that traffic is going to think your other ideas are just as cool as your message and you'll have a contact.

So now you've got your networking tree started you're facing the most difficult part. Keeping it updated. To remind myself to update my profiles and activities I use Netvibes.

Netvibes is a website where you can create a customizable home page. You can link directly to all your most used websites, your facebook and twitter feeds and every blog that you're interested in. The cool thing is that this page is completely private, you can put whatever you want on it, no one else can see it, and it'll come up every time you open your web browser. The image is a screen capture of my private netvibes page.

Netvibes also has a public page. This functions quite a bit like the private page but is completely open to the public. You can actually use this page like a networking train station. Instead of linking to your blog in the footer of emails and forum posts, link to your public netvibes page. For an example of excelent netvibes networking check out Aydin Mohseni's public netvibes page.

So that's all I've got. Here are some other resources that I've used for online networking,
17 websites to boost your designer profile
25 Absolute Essentials for Networking Success
Manage Your Online Reputation

24-Hour Comics!

Hiya,
I've gotten links to a few scans of some of the awesome comics people made for the 24-Hour Challenge. If you have yours scanned and uploaded online, please let us know so we can post it here too!

Alex Fukui's comic is here

Ed Choy Moorman does Blue Blue Blues

Spencer Ruskin's Fall Comix

Diana Nock: Ghostly

So, hopefully, more to come.

~Sam

A much delayed post, with photos from when we went to hear Jaime Hernandez speak. He was, all in all, an awesome guy. I've heard a lot of different comic artists talk about how they got to where they are today, and every one is different, but each one adds perspective and hope to my own goals of becoming a published money-making artist. It was a great time!

Anyway, photos of Jaime Hernandez with Zak Sally, then Vanessa and Salina (comics get you the ladies), and then one last photo of Jaime and myself. 

~Sam

More 24-Hour Comic Challenge

More follow-up from 24-hour comic challenge: we were blogged over here on the MCBA's 24 hour comic challenge blog, though you might have to go back two pages or so to see it. More photos are there, and they've all be uploaded to facebook too!

Next updates I will post: Jaime Hernandez and the October 12th discussion. Mostly the photos!

~Sam