Sept 23, 2008 - After sending proposals to a few publications, I finally received an email from MPH Publishing. They had visited my free comics website and was very keen on publishing my work! I was ecstatic!
Sept 26, 2008 - We had our first meeting. I brought a rough mock-up of my comic to show them what I had in mind and I made my pitch. Meetings are strange things. You can tell a lot about a person by talking to them. The 2 editors seemed like enthusiastic and very sensible people although they hated the cover I had illustrated. They also felt my mock-up was too small. We both agreed that the graphic novel should be bigger. We also talked about releasing the book in January 2009!
Cover #1 which the editors hated.
Sept 27, 2008 - We were talking contract! A softcopy of the memorandom was sent to me. I have a love hate relationship with contracts. Mainly because it takes too much time to figure out the technical jargon. But it is absolutely necessary that we got this right.
Oct 8, 2008 - Our second meeting. At this point, it was more about working out the details of the contract. A lot of emailing back and forth. I also had to resize all my previous artwork to the agreed specifications as well as come up with 2 new stories for a total of 7 stories. There was still a lot of work to be done! A January release suddenly seemed impractical.
Nov, Dec 2008 & Jan 2009 – I was drawing ‘fast and furiously’ at this point. I would teach art in the day and only start working on my comics at 8.30pm everyday, finishing in the wee hours of the morning.
It was quite a tricky experience trying to get your book published. I don’t mean all the late nights. That’s the fun part actually. Mostly it was because the publishing world and I worked, I discovered, in completely opposite paces. Coming from the advertising line, I am used to rushing deadlines (we could shoot, edit and finish a TV commercial in 5days! * fingers snapping *).
The publishing world however, moves at a gentle pace. This was frustrating because weeks would just go by where nothing happened. “When can the book be released?” I’d ask. Nobody ever seemed quite sure. But still I was hopeful…
Feb 5, 2009 - The fateful day arrived and I finally signed the contract! I also delivered the final manuscript to the editors. We talked about finding a prominent writer to do an endorsement for the book. I also had to create acknowledgement, contents and ‘about the author’ pages. “I’m sure we can anticipate an April/May release,” somebody said. By this point I was rather skeptic.
Feb 24, 2009 - We still had no illustration for the cover! I knew I had to get it perfect. I remember the general comment on the rejected cover was that the illustration style was too painterly /realistic. “Perhaps the cover should reflect what is inside the book?” it was said.
I worked for 5days and came up with Cover #2. That night I emailed the cover to the editors with fingers crossed.
Cover #2.
Feb 25, 2009 – I received an email. Would you believe it, the cover was rejected, yet again. The general consensus was that it looked a bit too "cartoon-ish". They felt my illustration style should be more “serious”. Whatever happened to “reflecting what was inside the book?” I decided to argue my case.
I had an email discussion with the main editor I was working with. She was, above all an incredibly understanding and diplomatic editor. I presented my case. She, hers. I realized book editors are amazingly efficient politicians, able to convince you of anything, even to convince you that it was your idea in the first place. I found myself saying, “Wow, how did she do that?”
So, over the weekend I got bits of newspaper, masking tape and acrylic paint, knocked it together, scanned the whole thing and edited it in Photoshop.
Cover #3 was completed on a Sunday night! I emailed it to the editors and waited.
Cover #3.
March 2, 2009 – I received an email. “The cover looks great.” I sighed in relief.
March 3, 2009 – Lo and behold! I received an email from the editors saying they weren’t sure if they were going with Cover #2 or Cover #3? Apparently they had a meeting about the covers and everybody gave their two cents. The in-house Creative Director opted for Cover #2 but the editors preferred Cover #3. “Why not print BOTH covers?” I suggested.
March 19, 2009 – To my surprise, the idea of going with both covers was very likely to happen!
March 27, 2009 – It was suggested that it would be nice to have some pages in color. But were we going to color certain big scenes only? That would be odd. Perhaps only the opening and closing stories? Nope. Finally, we decided to keep the pages black and white. However, we would close the book with some bonus full color ‘behind the scenes’ sketches and illustrations!
April 1, 2009 – I received the edit revisions and worked on them through the night. My editor told me a reviewer from NST (Rizal Solomon) has agreed to do an advance review! They’re also trying to see if there's someone (Kaleon Rahan perhaps) from The Star who's willing to do the same.
April 2, 2009 – My editor wrote a fantastic description for the back cover! She took the basis of something I had written earlier and made it her own. Actually, it’s the one bit on the book that's entirely hers. I think she quite enjoyed that.
The actual size mock-up.
April 11, 2009 – The first actual sized mock-up was dispatched to me today. I looked at the crudely bound book with yellow sticky notes jutting out from the sides and started to see the book take shape. It was also a good way to get a feel of how the pages interacted. “Now this looks like a graphic novel,” I thought.
April 21, 2009 - Murphy’s law : "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong." My computer experienced a bad sector problem today and crashed on me. Everything may be lost. Why didn’t I back it up, you ask? Who can say why I experienced a lapse in practical sensibility at the worst possible moment? My editor also tells me the printers just found out the paper we chose would result in wastage. So I had to either reduce the size of our book or wait for a new batch of paper to come in. Definitely a low point!
April 29, 2009 - It’s funny how much better things can seem after a week. I was able to recover most of my files and just in time, too! The endorsements came in today. A special thanks to Kaleon Rahan of The Star and Rizal Solomon of The New Straits Times for writing such fantastic blurbs for the book!
May 15, 2009 - After a lot of waiting, the new paper stocks were finally coming in. Just when I thought we could start printing, another issue pops up! I didn't even see this one coming...
At the eleventh hour, a last minute decision was made to bring the cost of the book down! I waited, nervously as ideas were thrown around. Our hands were tied until this issue was resolved.
May 18, 2009 – Fortunately, my editor was able to defend many aspects of the book, including the size. The only sacrifice was the 'behind the scenes' section, which was now going to be in black and white. A sensible decision, I thought. Things could have been worse.
May 19, 2009 - More or less to my surprise and relief, we started printing! Looks like it was going to be a June release after all!
June 1, 2009 – Two weeks had passed with nary a word from the printers. Apparently, no news is good news when it comes to printing. I waited as patiently I could, hearing the drumbeat all the while…
June 2, 2009 – It’s finally OUT! I almost can’t believe I’m holding my first graphic novel in my hands. My life long dream has finally come true! (sure, there’s the small issue of the missing blurbs on the covers but hey! I love those printers anyway!)
It’s been a challenging 9 months but also the most rewarding! >_<
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