Holy Handgrenade :O

(Worms reference btw)

Hello! Long time no see, my dear patrons! :D

I've been away for a while now, with good reason I assure you, but nevertheless I feel like I have neglected you guys and I want to apologize for keeping you in the dark.

There are still certain details I am not sure whether I am allowed to go public about yet, but here's what I can tell you so far as it has already been made public by my publisher:

Long story short, I won a national comic / visual story contest! First place, apparently the judges all agreed, twice, that they thought I should win. And shit dude, that's high praise. Lots of famous Norwegian artists were in that panel of judges as well as other very important people in the industry. So I'm humbry greatful - although sort of not fully realising what just happened either XD I'm not someone who wins stuff, so I don't really know how to react to something like this. Also I rooted for my friends and for a long while felt really bad for getting first place cause they worked so much harder than me and I really wanted them to win. But I am of course very thankful that the judges deemed me worthy, regardless of whether I disagree or not xD (I've slowly started to realise I might be too self deprecating sometimes, but it's also perpetually hard for me to take compliments to heart).

Sorry, trailing off XD

What this means though, winning the contest, is that I get a financial reward and a chance to get my own series published by this publishing company.

Truth is I've been working on a publication with them for a while already, regardless of the contest. I've been drawing chapters since... oh gosh, since last January? No... March, I think. Heck I don't even recall... But that was in preparation for the grant we applied for, me and my publisher. Then we got the grant on our second try, and started working properly on the first publication. Turns out though that the over 50 something pages I had sketched and scripted had to be scrapped XD I think I redid the prologue twice and the first chapter is on its third remake now XD I didn't trust my instinct or my story enough, worried that my publisher wouldn't want to publish SPiKE if I allowed it to be as dark as it really is, so I sugarcoated it a bit. Which made it boring and dragging... Also my publishers suggested changes that made things a lot more complicated. But I finally grew the balls to tell them what the story was really about; I realised in one of the meetings I had with my editor that she really did care about the story and wanted it to be more thorough. I had just given her a sort of sugarcoated, brief synopsis of the whole thing, and she had a lot of questions for me. One of which were of Charles. She wanted to know if I had thought about how he was like a person, his motivation, reasoning etc, because she worried he was just a bad guy for the sake of having a bad guy. I told her I had so much more on him, complete backgroundstory and psychology profile, but that I wanted to hold back on that information until later in the story when it became relevant. I admitted it was far too much to elaborate on in our brief meeting, so she asked me to write a quick character profile on him for her.

On our next meeting I handed her a one inch fat pile of papers, as a brief, basic summary of Charles' life and personality.
Her expression seemed a mix of "holy shit that's impressive" and "holy shit when will I ever have time to read this brick" xD  But in that meeting she understood I was taking my story as seriously as she hoped I would and then some. She asked me a lot of other questions and seemed pleased that I had elaborate answers to all of them, but also open to change and/or improve on things and welcoming all sorts of criticism (like why wouldn't I want that, you know? She knows this industry way better than I could ever hope to know, I just write stories, I have no freakin' clue how to sell them XD ).
At the end of our talk she seemed very pleased. She told me to walk with her, and introduced me to my 'team', like the head of the sales department, and my graphic designer, and finally the director. I already know him, but it was still a somewhat intimidating moment when my publisher brought me to a meeting with him. Cause those two are - from what I gather - best friends. But in this particular setting, he was her boss, and it was a clear shift in the mood, sort of. Like, it went from casual to business as soon as the door closed behind us, and it is the first time I think I've seen my publisher show a hint of nervousness. So I was legit scared XD
She presented my story to the director, he asked us both questions about the story. He too seemed concerned about whether the villain would be just some bad guy or an actual person, and my publisher showed him the big stack of paper I'd handed her a copy of XD His follow up question then was whether or not I was gonna reveal anything about this character's depth in the story, and I told him my approximate plan on when in the timeline I planned on revealing that and how, and he smiled impressed. They had a few more questions, some innuendos and some technical and practical questions and information. And in closing wanted to give me his thoughts and feedback.

I kinda wanted to cry.
Definitely not scared anymore. Just amazed and humbly grateful and not really knowing how to deal with all that high praise. The director is allegedly (and self proclaimed) a very, VERY direct and harsh person when it comes to feedback. To be honest most of the people I've met there have claimed to be and yet I've never seen this harsh side to any of them. They've been honest, 100%, and I love that. Cause if something suck, they'll tell you straight out and elaborate on why and how much. But likewise if they like something, so if they tell you they think your work is really good, they really mean it too.
And now the director, the freaking director of the comic department in this firm, sat there and praised my story and art to no end...! <3

He asked my publisher what our thoughts and plans for the series where, like how far had we gotten and when could we expect the first book in the graphic novel series to be out. She gave him our estimate, and when he heard our approximate release date he cut her off and exitedly asked if it could be done half a year quicker.
They both looked to me, knowing I have struggled with deadlines in the past and had now been asked to complete a whole volume in very little time.

But honestly, I ironically work best under pressure. Like, not best necessarily (lack of sleep is not good XD ), but way more efficiently. And this deadline was about something I had been preparing for and working on since I was thirteen. Was I willing to do the extra effort of completing the fist volume on a much shorter deadline? F*ck yes!

 Needless to say I was pretty darn motivated after that meeting XD and still amazed and grateful and kinda moved at that kind of response. I sometimes catch myself thinking "did that really happen?" Cause all of this is happening so fast and it's like one good thing after the other and it feels so surreal. 

But most of the sketches I had done prior had to be scrapped. Cause now they understood my story more, now they were all "it's not dark enough! Stay true to your source material!"
But I am kinda three months behind now. Still, I'm catching up quickly too, now that I don't feel stuck or restricted anymore :)

I sadly don't think I'm allowed to tell you when the first volume will be published, or even confirm that it will be, but we are working on the first book, and it's all up to me basically whether and when and stuff.

Heck though, I'm still in the "is this too good to be true?" mode, cause I've kind of 'damaged' I guess after a lifetime of experiencing that good things don't last, and they usually go away or cause a shitstorm as soon as I relax and actually enjoy the good times. It's seemed to always be like that. I'm guessing that's why I struggle with taking all this praise to heart, or to rest too much on the notion that SPiKE might get published. I keep reminding myself that my focus right now is just getting it done. My motivation is showing the pages to my publishers and closest friends (btw Faye and James; I haven't shown you yet because I kinda wanna surprise you by sending it all in bulk when it's complete, and with the english translation ;) but lemme know if you wanna see it sooner :) ).
And yes, it will be in Norwegian. BUT -- If/when(?) it's being published, I'm pretty sure it'll be able to buy online from the publisher and sent worldwide. They know I am loyal to my worldwide fans, and if the sales numbers are high enough, like, if the series is popular enough, they seem willing to translate it to various other languages, including english, as this publishing company is a pretty huge one and is located in several countries across europe, I think they might exist in the US too, I'll double check though..
And if/when it's published and can be puchased online as well, I will provide a free, downloadable PDF translation (text format, would be bad business to share the pages for free :p Those sales numbers need to go up for the series to continue after all) in English. Not the best way to read a comic, I know, but at least it's something :) like a temporary solution, you know?

Gosh I lost track, uhm... where were we..

I forget..

Heh, speaking of always preparing for the worst lol; last month I got a message from my director. He wrote, "could you call me back when you have the time? We need to talk"

I had been a bit delayed with my previous, weekly delivery of pages to my publisher, so my immediate thought was "oh fuck I knew it, I'm gonna get fired...!"
So I called him back, nervously, and was like "uhm, hey, what's up?"
And he was like, "are you sitting?"
And even more scared now I go like "wh-- uh yeah." like oh fuck oh fuck everything's going to shit now I knew it etc.. and he goes:
"Well, I actually have the joyous task of being the one to tell you that... you know that contest last year? Yeah, you're the winner."
I was like " O___O  whu-wh-waidaminnit, what?? :D" and he elaborated and I was just freaking speechless XD I remember cursing at one point lol.. out of surprise and joy of course xD and asking "so what now? :O what do I have to do?" like still preparing for something bad to happen and he was like 'you don't have to do anything really, just continue with the plan we already had and enjoy your prize money,' (to be honest I had completely forgotten about those XD i mean, hell knows I need those! But hearing him tell me what the judges had thought about my work and that they had even agreed from the first time they saw my submission that they wanted me to win, I mean shit, that's a higher reward than I could ever dream of <3
lol in sheer bafflement I think I even laughed at some point on the phone and told him "I'm so relieved, for a moment there I thought you were calling to say I was getting fired or something XD "

Good thing comic book publishers have a mandatory huge sense of humor XD Not sure if that kind of thing to say would fly well with most other directors! lol

But yeah..

This is why I'm not posting any art lately; I'm not allowed to post my comic pages online - for obvious business reasons - but I do post little sneak peeks of panels and sketches and WIPs now and then on my second instagram account (oomizuArt I think..?). I am of course allowed to post regular non-spoiler drawings as much as I please, but I haven't prioritised that you know... I have lots of sketches and unfinished warm up drawings, but I feel like my deviantart gallery is already too much of a scrap gallery XD not the "portfolio" I wanted it to be but never seemed to bother making it as XD lol..

But yeah. Exciting news I guess :)

Consider SPiKE a sort of Schroedinger's publication project at this moment though XD
It is either confirmed, not confirmed, or both at the same time xD

But I am continuously working on the graphic novel pages. That much I can safelt confirm. :-)