Coker CoOp

2019 was going to rock for our little Afrofuturist comic, Outcasts of Jupiter. I said as much at the start of the year, but I’m not sure I really believed it. 

I knew it represented a crossroads for Shof and me on the book. After five years of spinning our wheels, we felt a desperate need to tell the story we began in a Kickstarter in 2014. So we looked for comic book grants online.

I can tell you that searching for comic book grants online doesn’t return a whole lot of truly viable options. Most of what you’ll find is relatively small (but nonetheless vital and welcome) endowments that focus on funding a modest self-publishing run, or covering the cost of materials. 

We needed something more. 

When we found a grant that pledged $30,000 to support the production of a creator-owned comic, we thought it was too good to be true. We applied anyway. One year later, here we are, working on an Afrofuturist epic, getting sent monthly checks to support the building of a brand new science fiction universe of our own design.

Shof and I were awarded the 2019 Creators for Creators Grant, and I kinda feel the need to talk about it, because I believe it’s an incredibly important and unique grant for the medium. More people need to know about it. What is the grant, and how does it work?

You get $30,000 paid out over the course of one year, in support of the creation of a 64-100 page comic book or graphic novel.

Single cartoonist or writer/artist duos welcome. 

An incredibly simple application process. Look.

It’s an international grant, with no geographic restrictions.

Some very impressive creators behind the grant, including Charlie Adlard, Jordie Bellaire, David Brothers, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Nick Dragotta, Leila del Duca, Matt Fraction, Kieron Gillen, Jonathan Hickman, Joe Keatinge, Robert Kirkman, Jamie McKelvie, Rick Remender, Declan Shalvey, Fiona Staples, Eric Stephenson, C. Spike Trotman, and Brian K. Vaughan.

You retain all rights to your work. This was massively important to us. Best of all, the grant opens up some seriously exciting publishing options, including Image and Iron Circus Comics.

There’s precious little paperwork or legalese to stress over once you’re awarded the grant. The entire process has felt surprisingly painless, and help/advice/guidance is only an email away.

The grant is not an “advance.” Let that sink in for a moment. This is money that you, as a creator can use in any way you see fit to support the creation of the comic. That could mean ditching ramen for proper food, or exhibitor passes to experience-enhancing cons, or simply the ability to take a little time off work and focus on the comic.

There’s a ton more information on the official website. You should have a look.

A few words in closing...

We weren’t lucky. We worked hard for it. 

Anyone can apply for a grant, but to “win it,” you’ve got to get your act together. That means producing the best pitch you can possibly muster. I’ll talk more about that soon. For now, if you’ve got a dream and a burning passion, you owe it to yourself to apply for the C4C Grant. Most importantly, always remember you aren’t alone. There are folks out there who want you to succeed.

Greetings, People of Earth! First, Shof and I would just like to say thank you. Thanks to everyone who’s waited patiently while we hammered away at the second half of the first half (yikes!) of Under a Jovian Sun. Thank you to everyone who’s been reading the pages we post on Tumblr and on Tapas, who’s commented, shared and offered precious words of encouragement. 

We set out to expand the Jonahverse in an unexpected way, and thanks to some awesome collaborators like Claudio Grassi, Francisco Muñoz and Yinfaowei, we think we’ve done just that. It’s been a supremely fun project for us, but also draining (financially and mentally). Most importantly though, you guys seem to really dig the adventures of Nasco, Bahira, Bayo and the gang.

There are just a few pages left to publish before we hit what we believe is the halfway mark of the book (about 50 pages). At that point, we’re going to pause for a little while and switch our focus. We’ve been working on Under a Jovian Sun for a couple of years now, and we’d like to get back to working on Book 2 of Outcasts of Jupiter.

Book 2 is going to be much more ambitious and much bigger than Book 1 was. For a good deal of the preproduction, we’re going to be working in public. This means you’ll be hearing from us a lot more often. We’ll be posting lore dumps, sketches, videos and much more. We’re also revamping our website, and launching a brand new shop with some really cool items we hope you’ll love. (www.cokercoop.com - sign up for the newsletter!)

We’ve got a ton more news to share, and if I’m honest, we can’t wait. This year’s been good, but the next one’s gonna be incredible. I feel it in my bones.

Much as we may wish it so, finished pages don’t just spring forth, fully formed from the loins of artists (ew). It takes hard work, a lot of patience, and no small amount of planning and revision. Claudio Grassi, our talented penciler starts with the script (naturally), and prepares a layout in the form of a thumbnail sketch. The very first thumbnail was a little crowded (we tried to cram just a bit too much dialogue onto it). 

After a bit of dialogue about how to fix the problem, Claudio went back, splitting the 1 page of script into two, before refining the pencils. As you can see below, it turned out quite nicely!

After much hemming and hawing, and a refusal to simply ask someone, we found a great webcomic template (made by the incredible geoneo1 - seriously, thank you!) to use as a dedicated page for Under a Jovian Sun. We’ll be updating with a page every two weeks. Alternatively, if you’d like to read the comic in a mobile optimized format, we’re posting a version formatted for small tablets and large phones on Tapastic. (where we’ve already managed to snag over 17K views and 1.8K subscribers, thank you again!)

We’re launching Under a Jovian Sun tomorrow at 8am. Pretty exciting!

Greetings, People of Earth!

Today, we’d like to introduce you to Jannah and Farah, two more characters from our upcoming webcomic, “Under a Jovian Sun.”

Farah: 13 year old human twin sister of Jannah. She has long, thick curly hair and an easy-going attitude. She carries a custom-made Moroccan banjo, slung over her shoulder and always goes on runs with her sister. Wears thick glasses, and her clothing is highly decorated with patches, pins and little flourishes that exemplify her neo-Bohemian attitude.

Jannah: She’s a couple of minutes older than Farah, and bossy because of it. Self-appointed second-in-command of the group of street urchins, and she runs a tight ship. Short hair, no-frills clothing, wears a scruffy sweater, jeans and a belt. Her and Farah sleep in the bed of a broken down 504 pickup truck. They're inseparable.

Greetings, People of Earth!

Last week, we posted an image of Bahira, but we didn't say much about her at all. This week, we'll be giving you a breakdown of her history, and introducing her best friend in the whole-wide world, Bayo.

Bahira: A 15 year old human girl. Originally born in Kebbah, Bahira was orphaned at a young age and sent to Lagos to live with her uncle. Ignored and uncared for, she ran away, living on the streets of Ajegunle for a number of years. Eventually, she chanced upon an upstart young thief named Bayo, with whom she formed a strong bond, and the pair have been thick as thieves since. Bahira is caustic, strong-willed and stubborn, fiercely protective of Bayo and distrustful of authority figures.

Bayo: A 10 year old boy and member of the Oremi race, who was abandoned on the streets of  Ajegunle and taken in by the community (hence his Nigerian name). Bayo is a ball of mischievous, dynamic energy, who loves tinkering and has an intense passion for reading and learning. He’s quick, slippery, agile, and takes a tremendous amount of glee in outfoxing adults and those bigger than him. Quick-witted and intelligent, he almost always gets both himself and Barhira into trouble, but is equally adept at getting them out of it. It was Bayo who convinced Bahira the pair should move back to her hometown of Kebbah, after the pair endured run of intensely bad luck in Lagos.

Greetings, People of Earth! Yes, we've been silent for a while, but rest assured that work continues on "Under a Jovian Sun," our new anthology series that takes place in the "Outcasts of Jupiter" universe. Because Shof is currently occupied, he won't be drawing much of "Under a Jovian Sun." That said, he's still designing characters and we're both writing stories together. We've finally found a penciler (Claudio Grassi) and colorist (Harrison Tombra yinfaowei), that we love. Over the next few weeks, we're going to be dropping some behind the scenes updates. You'll see sketches, read character bios, and suffer random musings, all leading up to our big launch on tapastic. To kick things off, here are some of Shof's sketches of Bahira, one of the main characters from our first episode of "Under a Jovian Sun," titled "Bread Duty."

Our little comic is part of the @comiXology Submit SXSW 15 bundle! 30 comics for $3, you want this!! ://bit.ly/SubmitSXSWBundle