A Year of Firsts
This will be a year of firsts for me. Even writing it feels audacious, and borderline untrue since this year seems to already be about repeats. I’ve just seen another version of Nosferatu, I've just thrown my back out for the third time, and the United States has collectively turned the dial on their time machine back eight years. None of that is new, including the wild ambitions of saying, in January: "No, this is the year."
The good thing about having an early January birthday is that I can give myself little treats like “forgiving my wild ambition.” But, this time, I'm trying to come with receipts. I can proudly say, to you, my friends and family, who may not remember signing up for this: This is my very first newsletter! And that's not even this year's first "first".
Rootfolk is Coming Soon!
In case you missed it on social media, I have launched my very first Kickstarter for my very first comic book! Each of these are things I've always wanted to do, though up until recently I thought my first Kickstarter would be for a board game. (More on that in a future newsletter.)
I've been working on Rootfolk for a long time now, but I've been hesitant to share it. I've always wanted to be a writer, and I had a very particular idea of what a debut as a writer would look like: A thick-spined hardcover sci-fi novel at a Big Publisher. It's where I set my sights, and, on the topic of firsts, one thing this will not be the year of is the first draft. I've written tons of those. But in all my dreams of being a writer, I never thought that the first piece of writing I'd publish would be a comic, and that I'd be doing it myself.
"If you always imagined yourself getting professionally published, why are you self-publishing on Kickstarter now?"
Rootfolk started as a character sketch. I was trying to teach myself to draw, but without a character in mind or a story to tell, the actual work, practice, felt like a chore. So I invented Alva. With limbs made of thick vines and roots, she was not beholden to inconvenient things like "correct anatomy". But after my first drawing of her, an awful sketch that I will not be sharing here, I realied I needed to know more about her.
Where did she come from? Why were her limbs the way they were? And, the critical question from which the rest of the story was born: Does she see herself as human?
Rootfolk, all six issues of it, came really quickly after that. Like I said, I'm good at the first drafts. And then I surprised myself by actually doing the work of a second. I kept going after that. My initial readers gave me great feedback and encouraged me to keep working on it. I stated to imagine it with good art, real art, instead of my shaky scratches. I decided I wanted to capitalize on my momentum and pitch it.
It was the beginning of 2024 when I sent out my first ever cold submission. And then another. And more after that.
I wound up submitting Rootfolk to every publisher I could think of who I thought would publish my comic. I only had one reply.
The strangest thing was... I didn't mind. As much as it would have been nice to have the power of a publishing house behind it, as much as I knew the power and importance of a traditional publication process, my confidence in my work was left unshaken. I really did, despite the rejection, feel like I had a good story on the page.
But Kickstarter's don't succeed based on one person's belief alone. It requires many people to see the vision and believe as well.
Will you be one too?
See you in the next newsletter,
Lukas
