How to make a comic zine in 10 days, Bologna Children's Book Fair appointments, and my winter finds
Hi softies, welcome back to Soft Spot,
It’s been a while, I know! I have so much to share that I don’t know where to start, so I guess the best idea is to start from the last thing I’ve done: a comic zine about my dog, Pippin!
PIPPINOLOGÍA
This weekend (4th/5th of March) there’s the GRAF festival here in Barcelona, one of my favorite indie comics festivals. I’ll have a table, like last year, and I wanted to make something new, specifically for it (plus, I wanted it to be in Spanish this time). So I gave myself some time off from clients, and I jumped into a self-publishing marathon. It felt like the old days of Teiera1!
I managed to ink and color 30 comic pages in 6 days, then 2 days for hand-lettering everything in Spanish (thanks to Elo and Raquel!), and designing the booklet. Plus, 2 extra days for the cover illustration and design. I tried to do my best to keep the quality of my drawing at its best, even with the short amount of time, and I can say I’m very satisfied with the complex result.
The zine is getting published right now by the kind people of Do The Print. It will be a risograph zine: two colors for the cover and one for the interior pages. I missed making zines, it’s so much fun and energizing. I can’t hide that it’s been a very tiring process, but it felt like it was worth it. Here’s a little preview of the printing tests:
If you draw and you’re looking for motivations/clues on how to make a project in such a short time, I wrote down some reflections about what helped me to keep moving.
This is why I think it worked for me:
I already had prepared some stuff in advance. During the past months, I took note of ideas for short comics and comic strips related to Pippin. I was dying to draw them, but I was too busy working on other stuff so they waited and waited, until now. At the time I didn’t know they were going to become a zine, but they just piled up into 17/18 short comic ideas, so making more to create a small book felt like a good idea. Here’s an example from my sketchbook:
I knew in February I would have had a limited amount of days free from clients’ work, and I knew I had to stick to the plan to avoid postponing future deadlines.
I didn’t have to experiment with my style. I already had a clear vision of how I wanted the drawings to look. I used the style of the Comic Diary I draw for my Patreon. I felt it matched the vibe I wanted, so I trusted my intuition on that.
I knew I had a real deadline: sending the stuff to print on time for the festival. Having a schedule and respecting it, made the difference comparing it to other times when I felt like making stuff for myself.
I’m happy I wrote down this list, I hope it will help me for future personal projects.
I’d also love to print this zine in English and Italian, but making a multilingual edition is costly. I’m planning to open a preorder soon, in order to help me with covering the printing expenses. If you’d like a copy let me know either by replying to this email or in the comments, I’ll send you the preorder link as soon as it’s ready.
If you are curious about the process and you want to read more pages, I’ve been posting some of them on my Patreon and I’ll keep sharing more, including my working process, as usual.
Ragazze in capo al mondo
Next week I’ll be in Bologna for the Children’s Book FairI (I’ll arrive later, because of GRAF, but you’ll find me around from Tuesday to Friday). On March 8th, I’ll be presenting the new book I illustrated: Ragazze in capo al mondo, written by Laura Ogna, and published by Editoriale Scienza. I already shared my working process on my Patreon in my secret newsletter, where I give more details on how a project like this works, but I thought that next time I’ll share also here some of the process. The appointment is at 7.30 pm at the Libreria Giannino Stoppani.
Bologna Children’s Book Fair Appointments
I look forward to seeing Beatrice Alemagna’s exhibition curated by Hamelin, my dear friend Sarah Mazzetti has two books coming out, Elsa, Morandi e l’Uovoverde about Morandi for Canicola (there’s also an exhibiton about it), and Il Parco della Luna about Lucio Dalla for Ciao Discoteca Italiana. I’m super curious to see both of them, they seem pretty awesome from what I’ve seen so far. Atomica also shared two interesting meetings in the Fair, for March 7th, in her newsletter:
• Diritti e welfare per gli autori - Illustrators Survival Corner
• Fumetto Young Adult: nuove politiche editoriali - Caffè Autori
I think I’ll join them, she made me curious about it.
What else should I see? Feel free to share your recommendations in the comments below, I’ve been very slow about preparing myself for this trip, so any suggestion is very welcome!
Nice stuff
Wool stuff
It snowed in Barcelona yesterday, it’s very rare, look at the beautiful photos of the Tibidabo! One of my favorite things I bought for myself this past winter is Bonbonolli’s handmade vest and balaclava. I fell in love with her PUNK pattern and I asked her to make me a pink and red vest with it, but then I didn’t resist, and I also got a white and black balaclava. This last one was the perfect thing to wear during the Angoulême festival, as the weather was freezing AF!
Comics
As mentioned, I went to the Angoulême festival and I tucked myself with good comics, I feel this year was even better than other times! One of my favorite reads was Merel by Clara Lodewick, which is the story of a 40 y.o. woman that has a very free and independent life, and the struggles she goes through in the small town she lives in. It’s all about the consequences and dangers of prejudice and conservatism. Thank you very much to my friend Giorgia Marras for recommending it to me.
YouTube
When I need some cozy time, I really love to watch @hige_to_watashi channel. They are a Japanese couple that shares their daily life in Tokyo. Their videos are mostly oriented to show where and what they eat, their explorations in the city, their travels, and their finds. They love plants, illustration, and ceramics. I really appreciate the calming vibe, and they make me miss Japan even more than I already do.
Magazine
La Revue Dessinee Italia is coming out this march with its 4th issue and there’s also a comic I drew, about my relationship with passatelli. If you don’t know what they are, they’re a typical noodle soup from my region Le Marche. I’ll share more about this in the future, but the issue already looks amazing, and the cover is beautifully illustrated by Bianca Bagnarelli. You can check it out here.
Thank you for reading, see you next time! 🐩
Teiera was a self-publishing label I curated together with Sarah Mazzetti and Cristina Spanò between 2010 and 2014. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, let me know in the comments, and I can make a post about it!