Raven Nevermore 2, Tempter Sent. Nuno Xei (Writer), Xerx Javier (Art), Axel Rator (Colours), Ed Brisson (Letters), Samuel Cassal (Cover Artist). XEI (2019)

Second issue of an engaging fantasy series that moves the story forward with confident storytelling. Corvan Moore, a law enforcement office in Cog Town had discovered a horrible event at the end of issue one. Corvan starts out to deal with this and finds that he is getting deeper and deeper into trouble and danger for himself and others.
Raven Nevermore has two stories running at the same time, the upfront story of Corvan More and his fight with a criminal organisation in CogTown. The there is a second story that in running underneath this one. In issue two these two stories start to cut across each other more explicitly as it revealed that Corvan knows less than he should and others know more. This places Convan at a very dangerous disadvantage and leads to a terrible result.
Nuno Xei writes with wonderful confidence, moving from one story to another with assurance and deft skill, this allows the reader to relax into the story and enjoy the hints and revelations as they arise. The suspense is carefully created and maintained as the cast become more diverse and the circumstances considerably more dangerous and threatening.
 Xerx Javier art is friendly and engaging, the cast move though the crowded streets and strange drains of Cog Town with physical force and impact. The lovely costumes give the scenes a great sense of place and time that hold the story firmly in place. There is a mix of historical context and science fiction, fantasy that is all presented as natural and coherent.
The colouring is crucial to the success of the story, it bring out the details of the art , gives force to the action, and captures the emotional context for the action. Axel Rator uses muted colours to bring the different elements of the story together with understated skill.
Ed Brisson letters with care and attention to detail that allows the words to flow in the artwork, reveal the story and cat without ever interrupting the action.
Samuel Cassal cover is a joy, it announces the work of a very talented group pf creators with force.
There is a very enjoyable glossary at the end of the issue which I read with pleasure, the details gave a greater depth to the world of Raven Nevermore.
Raven Nevermore is unfolding in a most intriguing and engaging way, I am very happy to be along for the ride.

A Writing Life- Denial and Focus

I am a publisher writer which is astounding and I am deeply grateful.  This is the link to my Amazon page: amazon.com/author/conorhcarton

 I am diabetic. Type II. It is an appalling thief of physical and mental energy. What I have found interesting, as a individual and a writer is not the fact itself but the mechanics of denial that have been associated with it. I want my stories to engage my readers, to pull them into the story by having plots and cast that will intrigue them. To this end I try to imagine responses to different situations, some of which I know from experience, some I just have to invent and hope are plausible. I had always thought of denial, the refusal to accept a fact apparent to everyone else, to be a blanket sort of response. In my response to sugar brain I have been surprised to find how subtle and insidious it can be.
I never claimed not to be diabetic, I simply refused to take it seriously, I  know I have has high blood sugar levels for years, my body functions in that way. So when I got the official word, which I got at first as a result of a blood test for something else, I simply parked it part of my existence. I did take my tablets and adjust my diet a bit-it was never a sugar heavy diet at any point, I did stop drinking fruit juice. This continued for a few years, I would get a check up, take a course of tablets and continue. Clearly I was not in denial, I was saying I had diabetes.
Having slid slowly into a period of sugar zombification I went for a check up again, got the usual results and medication and started to come out of it. Suddenly I had a revelation, sparked by nothing except having a day when I was awake and functioning all the time, that I was in a state of very effective denial about sugar brain. I was saying I had diabetes not that I am a diabetic. The loss I had incurred from sugar brain became clear, the subtle mechanics of denial were revealed. I was really surprised at the clever construction I had st up to avoid engaging with the problem.
Some advice for writing I had seen suggests tat you should write about what you know. I like to write about things no one knows, science fiction with a fantasy element, fantasy with a science fiction framework. I  want my plot mechanics and cast to be as engaging as my denial about sugar brain. Writing, finding and engaging an audience of readers is really hard work, it needs a lot of energy and focus. I have to be both committed and have the mental resources to deliver on that commitment. Sugar brain robs me of those resources while denial allows me slide on the facing the facts. A very toxic combination.
I am at the start of what I hope will be a long and productive writing career, I have one book of a trilogy published and the second is under construction. Which is a problem. With sugar brain being actively managed I have mental and physical resources and I also have a demanding job and a family. To make myself happy at work and maintain my best chances for remaining employed I need to be very involved at in my work. This is satisfying and resource consuming. I want to be engaged fully with my family, make sure that they are getting my time and attention. This leaves me little time for actually sitting and writing. When I do sit down I spent time doing writing like this, which I consider to be vitally important, rather than story building. No one else is going to build my stories for me and my audience is built on my stories. All of which sounds like whining about having won the lottery. I am very grateful for everything, I have had a significant birthday recently and am very happy to say that the big story of my life is happiness, laughter, love and fulfillment. I am trying to understand a writers life and get myself organised to effectively accommodate it along with everything else. It demands a degree of focus that I had not really understood and I hope to train myself to accomplish.

After The Gold Rush Issue 2. Miles Greb (Writer), Isaac La Russa (Art), Adrian Geller (Colours) Jamie Me (Letters), Barry Blankedship (Cover Art) Gold Rush Comics (2019)

Scout has crashed on Earth, a returning hum from the great migration to other planets that had taken place long before. She is taking a careful scientific approach to the exploration and has survived an encounter with the local humans. She does suffer an injury and has an extended encounter with one of the locals and the deep miscommunication between the two is wonderfully set up as the reader get to be the only one with a complete understanding of what is going on.
Miles Greb has sidestepped a problem by making the encounter peaceful and rather baffling for both parties rather than a violent confrontation. This allows the encounter to be more extended and gives a chance for the context of the story to emerge naturally. Scout is entirely in scientific explorer mode and the local human is immersed in his mystical understanding of life and living. There is a genuine attempt to communicate, the starting point for each is just to far apart for it be be successful. It is not wasted either.
Isaac La Russa is lovely, the rough lines are inviting and friendly, the cast are engaging and move comfortably in their context. The body language and expressions are expressive and the conversation is engaging and given a nice slightly humour tilt by the pacing and the layout.
The colours by  Adrian Geller are muted and give depth to the details of the art, they bring out the energy of the cast and the natural context of the planet.
The lettering and sound effects are great, the lettering is easy and natural to read, pacing the conversation very well, the sound effects give a depth to the action which is nice.
An intriguing problem is being established and a carefully set up hint of, perhaps, more dangerous forces  is given at the end. After The Gold Rush is striking a very agreeable pace and an engaging cast. I am very happy to be along for the ride.

A Writing Life - Marketing

I am a publisher writer which is astounding and I am deeply grateful.  This is the link to my Amazon page: amazon.com/author/conorhcarton

  I have been thinking about marketing, what it means for me as a writer and how to do it. Marketing is the process that I use to find an audience, people who will buy and ready my stories. The publishers are doing this work as well, as I have a huge stake in the success of my stories I need to contribute. Finding an audience is hard, I have realised that as a reader I say no much more often that I saw yes to anything. I browse physical and digital bookstores, look at a limited range of books and buy a small fraction of what I look at.
This is a process that every reader goes through, So now I am trying the engage reader enough to get them to commit money, time and attention to my story. This is hard work and I can understand why so many writers shy away from it. They leave their work to find an audience by itself. Some do take on the work and do so somewhat resentfully, they market in an awkward way, their discomfort in the process is clear to the potential readers and it can be more off putting that doing nothing.
The problem is that you have to be positive in marketing, you have to want to connect with an audience while accepting that you will be ignored or declined by nearly everyone.
I do have experience of selling to draw upon, I was pretty terrible at it. the one thing that I did lean was that getting declined was nothing personal. I got a lot of experience at being turned down.
So now when I look at what I need to do I am starting from the fact that I am going to feel like I am, simply howling into the void, getting no response and attracting no attention.
It does not matter, I know there is an audience for my stories, I just need to be persistent enough to find them and smart about keeping them when I have done so.
At the moment I am using some third parties to do most of my marketing, AllAuthor and Write Media, both of which I recommend. My expectations are low, I am a new author with only a single published story. This is foundation setting, they are establishing a profile for me in the crowded space of social media. I have no skills in social media and am very happy to use others to do the work. Right now my focus is on finishing the second part of the Spoils of War and developing a presence, however small, from which to grow.
This writing life is proving to be considerably more complicated than I had thought, which is nice as it is also a lot more engaging than I had imagined. I have a demanding job and find I have little time or brain space to manage my writing tasks. As I get further into them I am making more decisions about how serious I wish to be about my creative work and am discovering that I want to be really serious so rearrangements of my time and workload are emerging. Good.

Raven Nevermore Issue 1: Days of Yore. Nuno Xei (Writer), Xerx Javier (Art), Axel Rator (Colours), Ed Brisson (Letters), Samuel Casal (Cover Art). XEI (2018)

A very engaging and enjoyable opening issue to a fantasy story. Corvan Moore is a a law enforcement officer in the city of Cog Town and he is involved in a case where a new drug is being distributed by a local crime family. Corvan makes an arrest matters take a turn for the worse. The crime family respond directly to the pressure Corvan is exerting and a strange episode involving Corvan's son hints at unseen forces lurking in the background.
The story starts in one direction and steadily moves in a different one without confusion or the story mechanics tripping each other up. This is a considerable achievement by Nuni Xei as the story lines seems to be moving in two very different directions. The sort of standard fantasy story story  featuring a law enforcement office is set up very well and has a nice edge to it. There is enough force and menace to the crime family to give the storyline weight. The second storyline that emerges in hints and flashes is very different, it does not upset the balance of the cover story, instead it point neatly to new possibilities for the story and the reader. This issue announces its intentions and gives enough sense of the possibilities to capture the reader.
 Xerx Javier's art is done with a flourish  that both story lines need. The cover story of the fight against a criminal gang in a city id observed in close detail, the cast are full of energy and determination. Both Corvan Moore and his opponents are determined and willing to fight for what they want. The details of the city they move through are st up so that the physical context frames them and gives the action a real force. The second story is nicely bound up in a domestic family setting as Corvan's family are enmeshed in a very strange day. The cast are all individual and strongly expressive, they wear their costumes and move in a natural way, their body language is lucid and expressive.
The colours by  Axel Rator bring out the details of the art as well as strongly expressing the emotional tones of the story. They create an atmosphere of tension and threat that nicely picks up the nuances of the story.
Ed Brisson's lettering is natural and easy to read, they flow in the story never slowing down the reader. The sound effects are neatly place and expressive, they give a extra push to the story.
The cover is a pleasure to read and look at, Samuel Casal has captured the sense of the story and provided an intriguing image for the reader.
Raver Nevermore: Days of Yore does what a first issue should do with confidence and flair, establish the story, introduce the cast and invite the reader along for the ride. I am very happy to accept that invitation.

After The Gold Rush 1. Miles Greb (Writer), Isaac La Russa (Art), Michael Shepard (Colours), Jamie Me (Letters), Barry Blankenship (Cover Art). (2017)

An inviting and engaging first issue of a science fiction story. Humanity has travelled far from Earth and now someone has returned from the distance to Earth. The ship encounters a lack of technological infrastructure and so has a hard landing, Scout, the female scientist who has made the journey starts her exploration of the planet. She encounters the natives and there may be problems.
This is a very nice issue, it sets up the story, introduces Scout and pushes off the story with some force. Scout behaves like a scientist landing on an unknown planet and the reader is drawn into the story. Miles Greb keeps the explanations and information to a minimum, the sense of wonder that Scout has at the colours and environment are infectious. When trouble arrives it is very well set up and creates a very satisfying hook for the next issue.
 Isaac La Russa's art is friendly and inviting, Scout has depth and energy, she moves through the physical context in a credible and engaging way. Her body language and expressions are clear and natural.This is Earth, yet is it given a exotic tilt, we are seeing it like Scout as a visitor for the first time. It is natural and familiar with a layer of wonder and strangeness, The action is quick and sharp, it has impact and weight.The panels are varied and used carefully to control and frame the story.
 Michael Shepard's colours are bright and optimistic, they are classic romantic science fiction colours. They pop off the page and capture and express the emotional nuances of the story. The colours give depth and force to the details of the art, from Scout's expressions to the space suit she is wearing.
Jamie M's lettering is quiet and easy to read, the sound effects are a joy. They give the story an extra dimension and are a pleasure to read and hear.
Gorgeous cover by Barry Blankenship, just inviting the reader to settle in and enjoy the journey.
Friendly, engaging science fiction comics, what a fantastic idea.

A Writing Life - The ABC of published writers - Maybe not the one you are thinking of...

I am a publisher writer which is astounding and I am deeply grateful.

This is the link to my Amazon page: amazon.com/author/conorhcarton

So now I need to find out where I am so I can make plans, actions and movements. In supply chain management, which is what I work at for a living, one of the most important basic tools is the 80/20 rule. This holds that 80% of a result will be created by 20% of the actions. In inventory management this is the basis of the ABC process which allows for a huge number of items to be managed effectively.
A items are the items that move the most and or cost the most, typically these are 20% of the total number of items making up 80% of the total value and 80% of the shipments in and out.
B items make up the 80% of value and or shipments of the remaining inventory. Typically they are about 20% of the remaining total number  and value of the items
C items are what is left, the great majority of the number of the items making up about 20% of the total value and shipments of the inventory.
This rules aplies to published, self or otherwise, writers. The A listers a very few in number nd make most of the money, B listers soak up the majority of the remaining readers money leaving the enormous collection of C listers making next to nothing and frequenrly actually nothing.
I am deep in the lower depths of the C listers, I have one book and and am a new writer surounded by millions of competitors for reader's scarce attention and money.
I do have an enormous advantage, I am being published by a publisher rather than being self published. As I know from my working experience production is difficult, distribution and sales are insanely difficult. I also know from a time when I was a rather unsuccessful sales person I am not very good at it.
This makes the equation of having a publisher good for me. I share the revenue I get with the publisher nd so get less money in total for my work, this suits me as I would much rather pay a competent organisation to do that work than do it myself. I can leave it to the publisher who has a large stable of writers they are distributing and selling, all things being equal I should sell enough to keep their interest.
This does not mean that I escape the burden of actively marketing my work. It is squarely on me to try and find an audience that will be engaged by my stories and want to buy and read them them. Then having read them want to tell others about them.

I believe that my stories deserve more than that, I want them to be read and enjoyed by the most readers that is possible which means I have to do the work of attracting the attention of readers.
There are so many options for readers they are looking for a way to decide if they will pay any attention to a book. Reader reviews are a crucial component in this process, they are a quick and easy way to find out if a reader should stop and look more carefully.
Reviews should be the lowest of hanging fruit in book sales and distribution, in fact they are really hard to come by. I have directly asked four people to review my bok, so far none have. No lack of goodwill, it takes time and attention and they are fablously scarce.
I have this blog which is a review site and I find it hard work to keep up. Reading and writing much more are two of my goals for 2020. I intend to pay it forward, read more and write the reviews.
I have vague ill formed plans about what else I will do, I am starting with what I know I can do and will be trying to identify what esle I can do.
I am very proud of my story and think others would be engaged and enjoy reading it. So I will be looking for my audience rather than hoping they are looking for me.