June 2023 Newsletter
Posted on June 10, 2023
Welcome to the June 2023 newsletter. Between helping get my son ready to go to college, taking care of car issues, and managing my two golden retrievers, writing is still getting done in the Clopper household. Hope you’ll enjoy the update and my trip back to my days as a cartoonist.
Project Update
I got a lot of work done during my three weeks off school. I finished going through my beta reader comments on Last of the Litter and started my final read-through and tweaking. I finished work on the first draft of Nell and Void. It’s my shortest work to date, clocking in at 25,000 words. It’s a very engaging and unique project. I also wrote 23,000 words of A Door Unmoored, a YA Fantasy that I’m excited to finish during my next track out in July.
I anticipate the following publishing schedule for 2023:
Last of the Litter: July
Nell and Void: September
A Door Unmoored: November
Book Funnel Promo
My May Book Funnel promo was a solid success. I’m doing my second one right now and want to encourage everyone to click on the link and find some awesome free books from a wide range of authors. Book Funnel helps you find your next favorite author, besides me of course. It’s a great way to sample a lot of science fiction and fantasy. Every click moves my status up at the site, so I hope you’ll give it a try.
Book Funnel Link
I Was a Twenty-Something Cartoonist
Back in the 90s and early 2000s, I was keen on becoming a comic book writer/artist. I really enjoyed my time in the field, but after working in obscurity for so many years, I hung it up to focus on family and teaching.
Here’s a little rundown of what I accomplished. My first project was published by Caliber Comics and was called Partners in Pandemonium. It lasted three issues before getting cancelled. I then self-published five issues of my own comic called Bombastic. It featured four stories in each issue and attracted sone great quotes from the likes of Mark Crilley, John Green, J. Torres, and Douglas Preston. I also helmed several anthologies: Monstrosity, Rampage, Son of Rampage, Brain Bomb, and Imagination Rocket, the last one even received an Eisner nomination. I got to know a ton of indy artists: Steve Conley, Dave Roman, Jenni Gregory, Jason Asala, Keelan Parham, Ted Tucker, and many more.
In addition, I worked with Insight Studios, lettering a Tarzan comic by Tom Yeates and background assisting Mark Wheatley on a Doom Patrol annual. I had a Bratterskain comic all done and ready to be published by Rich Rankin’s Comic Zone, but it got cancelled due to low orders of their new titles. I also worked with a great editor over at Avatar Comics, Barry Gregory. Barry was developing a kid-friendly line of comics and my book, Marshall Godling of War, was going to be released alongside Jenni Gregory’s Dreamwalker and Eric Powell’s The Goon. The orders came in low, which I fully expected since Avatar was known for rather cringy violent books. Barry fought for Marshall to still be released as a graphic novel featuring the first two and a half issues. It’s a book that I really loved and took place in the same world as Graham the Gargoyle. Maybe I’ll bring that character back in a novel one of these days. I had several stories in Love in Tights, an anthology overseen by J. Torres, helped Howard Bender out with a Spider-Man Look and Find project by doing the Times Square page, and even had a great interview in the All-Brian issue of Comicology.
My last comic project was a comic book birthday card starring Marvin the Dragon. I had a new Wingnut and Fidget one-shot all completed, and the first issue of a new series called Far-Fetchers, but my motivation dried up and I didn’t shop either around for a publisher or try to publish them myself.
I like to think I was a little ahead of my time with my comic projects. When I ceased working on new books, the market for all-ages graphic novels took off and many of the creators I worked with in the trenches all those many years ago stuck it out and have some great books finally finding much-deserved audiences. I don’t regret switching my focus to writing chapter books because I get so much of a charge out of doing it, but a part of me wonders what if I’d stuck it out.
Next newsletter, I’ll talk about my thirty years as an elementary school teacher and some insights on education nowadays.