Nytt år, nya event!
Årets första är redan avklarat:
NärCon Vinter 2016!
Kallt, snöigt men ändå kul. Nosebleed Studio hade såklart ett bord, där jag även sålde mina böcker och speciellt Sword Princess Amaltea 1-3!
Jag ser verkligen fram emot detta året, att kunna åka runt på festivaler och sälja hela serien som en paketlösning. Det är mycket mer lockande för en läsare att investera tid och pengar i en serie som är avslutad. Så det känns så skönt att kunna leverera en avslutad mangabokserie på svensk marknad. Tyvärr är det allt för många svenska mangabokserier som blivit avbrutna mitt i av diverse anledningar (oftast faktiskt för att förlaget inte valde att fortsätta serien).
Sähär såg vårt bord ut:
Jag, Joakim Waller och Elise Rosberg.
Emil var också med och hjälpte till att bära och sälja,
även om han inte är med i studion.
Han är en sån klippa! ❤
Bordet låg sist i raden av Artist Alley bord, men det gjorde inte så mycket för det var mycket genomströmning och rörelse i närheten av vårt bord. Bland annat låg det en föreläsningsscen strax intill, så det lockade en del.
Det var på den scenen som jag höll mitt föredrag... kl. 10 på morgonen på söndagen...
Jo, jag vet vad ni tänker: "Men är inte det lite tidigt, på ett konvent? Sista dagen?"
Precis så tänkte jag också. Och med tanke på att jag var ute 2 månader i förväg med planerandet av föreläsningen med den ansvariga (eller ja, den jag trodde var ansvarig) så förväntade jag mig en lite bättre tid än så. Men det visade sig att flera scheman hade gjorts, att den jag hade kontakt med inte hade rapporterat in sina tider i tid, och då fick de arrangemang hen hade bokat in de sämsta tiderna.
Suck. Ok, såhär: NärCon är ett arrangemang som liksom alla andra mangakonvent bygger på volontärsarbete. Det innebär att ibland sköts inte saker på bästa sätt, för det beror helt på om personen som fick uppgiften kunde sin uppgift, eller för den delen inte fick för mycket strul under arbetets gång. Och jag kan respektera att inte alla kan få bästa tiden eller att allt klaffar alltid.
Så jag dök upp en kvart innan mitt föredrag. Min kontaktperson var inte där. Ingen scenansvarig var där heller. Trots att mitt föredrag stod med i det officiella schemat, på hemsidan etc.
Jag väntade till fem i. Fortfarande ingen. När klockan var prick 10 började några besökare sätta sig på stolarna (som f.ö. stod huller om buller efter föregående natts partaj). Men jag kunde inte sätta igång mitt föredrag för all teknik var instuvad i ett låst skåp (mitt föredrag hade en presentation som var på min dator).
Fem över dök en snubbe upp och frågade mig barskt om det fanns ett mixerbord här för han hade i uppgift att filma föredraget efter mig, som Samuel Anlér (med i NärCon Eventbyrå AB's styrelse) skulle hålla. Jag skakade på huvudet och sa att jag har ingen aning, för jag var inte ansvarig. Han verkade lite förnärmad och gick iväg.
Tio över tio (jag har nu stått och ursäktat mig för min pyttelilla publik över att jag inte kan sätta igång utan tekniken) kommer tillslut den scenansvariga, som först ber om ursäkt och sedan beklagar sig över att jag inte stod med i hens schema (för att min kontaktperson inte hade kommunicerat med hen). Detta var dock inte riktigt sant, eftersom jag fått mail från denna scenansvarig med schemat där mitt namn stod med på denna tiden, denna scenen och allt. I samma mail stod det att det var en VGA-sladd som fanns, vilket var toppen för min dator har inte HDMI-ingång, bara VGA. På plats visade det sig dock att VGA-sladden var trasig!
Suck....
Som tur hade jag lekt spådam dagarna innan och införskaffat mig en HDMI-VGA-adapter! Dock var den helt ny, så ytterligare 10 min gick åt att läsa instruktionsmanual och trixa med tekniken (japp, framför min lilla publik).
Äntligen runt 10.20 kunde jag sätta igång mitt föredrag. Scenansvarig sa att jag kunde köra igång, så jag gjorde det.
Mitt föredrag handlade om hur man kan bli professionell tecknare och leva på att rita. Ett föredrag jag hade hoppats att fler i Artist Alley skulle deltagit i, men på grund av den dåliga tiden blev det en liten men intresserad skara som deltog.
Fem i 11 kom en panda (arbetare) förbi och viftade med två fingrar. Jag förstod inte så jag frågade vad hen menade, och fick svaret att jag skulle avsluta på 2 minuter. Då hade jag ca 10-15 min kvar på mitt föredrag (eftersom jag förlorat 20 min i början ju). Jag sa att jag helst fortsätter tills nästa föreläsare är på plats och kan lämna scenen snabbt då, men pandan svarade snäsigt att Samuel redan var på plats. Vilket han inte var. Jag har träffat Samuel. Jag vet hur han ser ut. Jag svarade att jag inte ser honom, och pandan pekade på en snubbe som INTE var Samuel. Visste pandan ens hur Samuel ser ut? Hm...
Jag fortsatte i rask takt och snabbspolade slutet på 3-5 minuter, tackade för mig (fick en liten applåd för nu var min publik ca 3 ggr större för att folk hade stigit upp - klockan var ju 11!) och gick av scenen.
Lite sur och sårad smet jag tillbaka till Nosebleed Studios bord som ju stod granne med scenen. Därifrån kunde jag se hur de började rigga upp kamera och mixerbord för Samuels föreläsning. Ingen Samuel. Han dök först upp en kvart senare. Så bråttom var det att få av mig från scenen.
Förstå mig rätt. Jag klagar inte på folk som jobbar gratis. Jag gör det också, jag vet att man inte kan ha så höga krav på ideella arbetare. Jag klagar inte på att Samuel var sen eller att VGA-sladden var trasig eller att jag fick en dålig tid. Sånt kan hända, det är ingen fara.
Det jag tycker är sårande är behandlingen av en person som jag som tagit mig tid att göra ett föredrag som tog mig flera timmar att bygga och hålla, som får så illa bemötande. Jag har hittills inte ens fått chansen att träffa den person jag hade kontakt med, hen dök inte ens upp och bad om ursäkt.
Det värsta är att hur mycket jag än gillar NärCon och peppen (jag har ju faktiskt t.o.m. arbetat för dem, var ansvarig för Artist Alley på NärCon Sommar 2015), så är det just NärCon som vi i Nosebleed Studio brukar ha mest strul med. De är de enda som brukar bolla runt oss och glömma bort oss eller behandla mina föredrag såhär. Alla är inte onda såklart, det är många som känner till oss och det vi tillför på konventen i form av inspiration, föredrag, workshops etc.
Som NärCon är uppbyggt saknas det tyvärr viss kontinuitet (vissa personer väljs för en arbetsuppgift för ett år, och sedan inte mer). Detta leder till en del rörighet och okunskap. Jag hade verkligen hoppats att det skulle kunna fixas, så att det inte behöver gå ut över folk som mig som vill bidra och lyfta konventet med den kunskap jag kan tillstå med.
Denna kritik är i all välmening, och jag hoppas fortfarande på en ursäkt från min kontaktperson.
Nu över till något roligare!!
Jag var med i radio igår!
PP3 på P3 har temavecka "Sailor Moon 20 år i Sverige" och jag fick chansen att prata om svensk mangahistoria med dem!
Här kan ni lyssna på inslaget (ca 1 timme in):
Så blev mangan stor i Sverige - PP3 i P3
Det var så superhedrande att få prata om Sailor Moon (ååh, min barndom!) och svensk mangamarknad, och jag hoppas att jag representerade den väl! ☺
Nu ska jag ta tag i tråkiga saker som deklaration etc.
Also: New Years Resolutions.
(Oh boy, this will crash and burn...)
First, the resolutions of 2015:
I will get myself a drivers license!
This was actually my resolution for 2014 too. Um.. yeah. I havn't even tried, I'm so sorry (mostly embarrassed towards my parents who gave me a gift card for some of the lessons at a driving school that I have so far not used... 2 years ago). I get extremely embarrassed by talking about this. I hate feeling like I've lost or failed in something, and this is such a thing. To be honest, I'm just too scared to drive. I am so scared for traffic, high ways, driving, myself behind the wheel... I just feel in my gut I will die in the roads some day!
That's why I think I'll have to deal with this in my own time.
So, if I should grade myself, then a E- perhaps? (Not so sure about this alphabetical grading system, haha)
But I also had another resolution! I will make an animation!
And this I did! Or at least started doing... Did I fail this too?! Bu hu hu hu...
Well, at least I did make about 50 seconds of my animation. Time is not in abundance and too many other projects and work is taking my time (not in a bad way, I like most of it).
I'll give myself a C+ for this. I didn't animate much, but what I did was good!
And that's why the first of the resolutions for 2016 is: I will make an animation! (I give myself a lot of second chanses, haha) I hope to be able to finish episode 1 (5 min animation) of Mjau! this year. Wish me good luck!
Ett filmklipp publicerat av Natalia Batista, mangaka (@nataliasmanga)
And the second is: I will go to Japan again!
This is a bit tricky. I want to go, mostly because I want to bring my boyfriend and do it together, but I also wish I had more time to go to London and Paris, and the two main comic events there.
We'll have to see how this year pans out...
Now over to some planning of the year!
I have already planned for some events me/Nosebleed Studio will have a table at.
Events of 2016 (so far): 12-14 of February: NärCon Vinter in Linköping 18-20 of March: J-popCon in Copenhagen, Denmark 25-27 of March: GothCon in Gothenburg
As I mentioned, I would also love to go to one or both or Japan Expo in Paris and MCM London ComicCon, but mostly as a visitor so I can get a chance to talk to publishers about Sword Princess Amaltea.
We'll have to see...
Apart from this, my year will be filled with working at Serieskolan in Malmö, making 2 books together with Nosebleed Studio (more about that in upcoming blog entries), and animating.
This will be a year I need to focus on what I want to make. So I'll use my time wisely.
Hope you have time to focus on your own passions too!
I usually do (as my long time readers of this blog knows) a summary of the past year. This blog has been my open diary for 8 years now and I like doing these yearly summaries to show for myself that I did a lot of amazing thing in a year. Sometimes you get discouraged by all the work and need some perspective, and I find this a good way to get that and pat myself on the shoulder.
This year has been shaped by one focus: finishing my biggest manga project so far. And also some international trips opening my eyes. A good change from the routine work of 2014.
Milestones of 2015:
January
When the year started, I was already working hard on the third and last volume of Sword Princess Amaltea. Since the publisher had some company changes in the end of the 2014 and my editor left for other adventurous jobs, the deal with book 3 was hanging loose for a while, but luckily the Editor in Chief Josefin Svenske decided to continue the series and publish the last book as well!
This decision came in the end of December 2014, and really made my holiday complete!
In the end of January I also got the amazing opportunity to be invited to 42nd Festival International de la Bande Dessinée d'Angoulême in France, courtesy of the Swedish Institute in Paris. It's the biggest comic festival in the world when it comes to size, since the whole town is involved. I made a blog entry about this inspirational and eye opening trip, and the new contacts I got there at the French publisher Kazé Manga. February
I took a short break a couple of days from the work on Sword Princess Amaltea 3 to make a 10 page short story for the anthology Freya – Sequential Love Stories, which I also was part of the organizers for. I tried a new technique on that one, and learnt some stuff. Even though I have my prefered materials and techniques, I believe it's important to never stop experimenting and try new things to elevate your creativity. I also kept on drawing and inking Sword Princess Amaltea 3 and my plan was still to have it printed before the Swedish event NärCon Summer in July... Yeah, spoiler alert; that will not happen.
The event of this month was J-popCon (Copenhagen, Denmark) the 21-22th of February, where me and my sister Catarina, both members of the Swedish manga collective Nosebleed Studio had a table in the Artist Alley and sold our latest book Nosebleed Studios Stora Mangasamling (in Swedish). The book is also selling amazingly well to Swedish libraries, who in the end of February had bought about 200 copies already!
March
All this time I had also started using instagram and uploading images from my everyday work. I realized I mostly used Facebook and this blog to comunicate with my fans, but since my fans are so young and can't have a Facebook account I was not reaching the kids. Most of them are haning out on "new" stuff like those apps and such. (Oh, I'm so old!) So I got myself an Instagram account.
And now I hear talks about Snapchat and all that... plz ppl staaap!!
I used instagram for showing my drawing and promote events I was visiting, but also to show some images from Serieskolan (the Comic Art School) in Malmö where I work twice a week, like here where the students held a mini-fanzine-event for practice (for the students only):
Ett filmklipp publicerat av Natalia Batista, mangaka (@nataliasmanga)
March was also the peak of the work on the fanzine market event Malmö Seriefest at the Malmö City Library that I was organizing on my own at this point. Blogging and facebooking and marketing with flyers and posters! This project was in collaboration with Seriefrämjandet (Swedish Comics Association), Malmö City Library and ABF (Workers' Educational Association). It all came to fruition in the last weekend of March, a huge success with over 500 visitors, and I made a blog entry about it all (in Swedish).
My goal with the event was to show it was possible and to create a new market space for fanzine and self press comic creators, with free table space at a central spot in town. A great collaboration and everyone seemed satisfied!
Sadly, the sound and light in the room made the videos we made hard to make something good of, and some videos also got lost... This was a way too big of a project for one person to handle on their own, so 2016's edition is organized by a fantastic team, more about that in a coming blog entry.
April
The month started off with both me and my boyfriend being sick and miserable, and missing out on the nerdy board game convention GothCon which is a tradition of ours. ☹
But I kept drawing and when I was finally up at my feet again it was off to PicaCon (11-12th of April)in Kristinehamn, a bit of a trip from Lund where I live. It was the first time I got invited to a manga convention and actually was payed for the presentation I did there, as an official guest!
I have been a guest before, but since Swedish manga artists are not as visually interesting to look at as cosplayers we are not usually on the VIP-guest list at the bigger cons here in Sweden. So I was glad to finally get some recognition~
At this point I was also trying to get the fifth edition of Swedish Comic Sin together for print, the indie-erotica-comic-anthology-project that I have been organizing since 2010. This edition had similar interest as previous books, with a couple of them dropping off through the project because of lack of time and inspiration. We did finish a 180-page book (and made a crowdfunding campaign for it too!) but since the drop off rate is still quite high, I have decided to take yet a years break and start the next one this Fall for a release Spring 2017. That one will probably be the last of the Swedish Comic Sin books. If you or someone you know wants to participate, I recomment reading about the project on the blog and read the project desctiption (in Swedish).
The other anthology I participated in was Freya – Sequential Love Stories, which we also did a crowdfunding campaign for and got international attention even! (Thanks to Anette Bengtsson who was in charge of it, good job!!)
The book came out nicely, but the crowdfunding success also ment we had to pack a lot of books and stuff to backers a couple of days, haha! Phew!
You can see more previews of my comic in Freya here.
May
This month was a crazy stressy funny time! SIS (Stockholms International Comics Festival) in 9-10th of May, the biggest comics-only-event of the year, started it off with a bang and we in Nosebleed Studio had booked three tables this time.
Sadly, they had done some rearrangement of the market tables and we got some shitty places in a sweaty and airless part of the locales. We could see how people didn't cope with is and turned away before getting to our tables, and even our fans told us later they didn't find us. And this showed in our sales, which was less than the year before even though we had our new Swedish book. Not satisfied, I sent a feedback email to the organizers, but only got a dismissive reply.
I hope they think about it to this year's event...
At this point I had realized that Sword Princess Amaltea 3 would not be finished before July, since it was 30 pages longer than the previous two books. I spoke to my editor at Kolik Förlag and we decided to release it in September instead, so I made a preview fanzine with the first chapter in the third book to sell at SIS for the fans that couldn't wait, haha.
The weekend right after we attended KodachiCon in Lund, my hometown. It was nice to be able to sleep in my own bed on an event, for once, haha. And the week end after that, me and my sister went to Düsseldorf, Germany, for the manga convention Dokomi! It was truly an eye opening experience to see how the manga self press scene has developed, and truly inspirational for us artists trying to grow the fanzine and self press market here. I made a happy blog report about it all (in English!).
June
This month was mostly spent on drawing and drawing to finish Sword Princess Amaltea 3 on time, but I also got some breaks doing an exhibition in Malmö with the team behind Freya.
July
Drawing, drawing, drawing! So close to the end of the book I could SMELL IT!
I also spent some time this Spring on the planning and organizing of the Artist
Alley at NärCon Sommar, the biggest manga/nerd/cosplay-convention in
Sweden with over 8000 attendees. Nosebleed Studio have attended their
Artist Alley several years, but most of the times it has seemed a bit
unorganized and a little sloppy. So when I contacted the previous
organizer and they told me that the spot actually was vacant, I took the
chance! I was determined to make the best Artist Alley in the history
of NärCon and I think I succeded. I knew what info the artists needded
and also made sure they ended up on the website with names and links and
all. I had invited guests with signing sessions, Q&A's and
presentations. Later I made a survey for the artists who had tables and the response was
overall positive and thankful.
The chiefs of NärCon also took
notice of my efforts and appreciated it! Sadly, this year they made a
rearrangement of the whole area, which ended up making the role I had
get a bit chopped up. After some back and forth I decided it's best they
try their new organization of the area this year, and if they want me
back next year I'll ask for the same postition I had 2015. I hope they
want me back, because I truly have grand visions for the Artist Alley at
NärCon! ♥
Oh, and:
Alexandra cosplaying Amaltea!!!!
August
This month started off with me FINISHING SWORD PRINCESS AMALTEA 3!!
I could finally get back to the blog and my life, and made a long blog entry about my summer.
At the beginning of August my boyfriend and I took a short vacation by train (mostly) to Oslo and Bergen in Norway. It was a nice and well deserved time off, we had both worked almost all Summer. He's been working hard, as a level designer on the game The Division at the game studio Massive Entertainment (a UbiSoft studio) which will be released on the 8th of March this year!! Stoked!!
And so I took a couple of months relaxing celibacy from drawing... NOT!!
Haha, nope, I started a new project instead: Mjau! - the Anime!
I first did some research, tanking to people that I met at events and online. But since I have been thinking of this for a while now, I already knew I wanted to do this and also how. I had been looking forward to this all through the months of working with Sword Princess Amaltea 3. Like a tasty carrot dangling in front of me...
I uploaded some videos of the process at my instagram, and when I had the time to animate I could make 2 seconds a day. Sadly, I had a new book to promote too (such a luxury problem, right?) and did only finish about 50 seconds during the Fall. But I have not given up on the project, oh no!
There will be more updates here and on instagram as soon as I have time to work on it again.
Ett filmklipp publicerat av Natalia Batista, mangaka (@nataliasmanga)
September
This is the other crazy stressy funny time this year. While working at Serieskolan again (with a new class of aspiring creators, ready to get their dreams crushed and get molded into strong warriors!) I went to a bunch of events. First off: Comic Con Malmö 12-13th of September.
This was the first time for this event, and it went very well from our (Nosebleed Studio's) perspective. The team behind the comics area did a good job and was very inviting and accomodating. I highly recommend it!
Sadly the third book hadn't arrived from the printers yet!
Elise Rosberg is our latest member, together with my sister Catarina and I.
The Saturday after I went on my own to Östergötlands Bokmässa (the Book Fair of Östergötland County). It's a pretty small event if you compare it to other book fairs I've had the chance to visit, but it was still an honor to be invited to hold a manga course there and do some signing.
And so, the week end after that, the biggest book event in Sweden, Gothenburg Book Fair, marked the release of Sword Princess Amaltea 3, the final book in my longest series ever! I was sooo proud! Many signing sessions and together with Henri Gylander who also released a book with Kolik förlag at the book fair, we held an awesome release party at a Kulturhuset Oceanen, with live music and live drawing and all! It was really fun and the best way to celebrate the completion of this 5 year project of mine! Here's my blog report about the events this month.
Oh, and Nosebleed Studio's book was selected to the prestigious children's books catalogue that was released at the Gothenburg Book Fair! This is probably one of the biggest achievements of our 10 year together!
Ett foto publicerat av Natalia Batista, mangaka (@nataliasmanga)
October
In October I took the chance to try the Inktober challange: to make one inked picture every day for a month. It felt like a good thing to do to fill my Instagram with illustrations... but I thought I could make it even more interesting! I decided I would make it into a give-away thing, and donated the image to the first person who commented on it on Instagram. I didn't know what I just started... but it became a monster! People where haning around my feed for hours just to get a chance, and even though I gave away 30 illustrations, there was still a bunch of awesome fans who didn't get any. Sorry about that. I'll make a post soon with all the pics so you can see them, but here's one:
This month also ended up getting quite event-heavy in the end: 17th of October: HBTQ Book Fair at the Malmö City Library
24th-25th of October: I Seriernas Värld, a childrens comic festival in Malmö 29th of October: Manga workshop at TioTretton in Stockholm 30th-1st of November: Comic Con Gamex in Stockholm
The HBTQ Book Fair was small but fun since we had Freya to promote. I Seriernas Värld ("In The World Of Comics") used to be bigger but they have changes the location again and that probably made them lose some visitors. A lot of them. The manga workshop in Stockholm was a huge sucess with 50 participants! And last but not least Comic Con Gamex, which was so fun, lot's of people and a good mix of different nerdy interests. Nosebleed Studio had a booth!
November
Since mid October, I have been working more hours at Serieskolan, because one of my colleagues was on parental leave. This went on until mid December, and even though it was super fun, it made me have less time to create stuff. But I still made time for drawing, and I had something I needed to make: my contribution to the next Nosebleed Studio anthology, our 10 years jubilee anthology none the less! We decided upon the theme of friendship. My short story (42 pages long) is called When I Close My Eyes. I'll make a blog entry about it soon...
December
I drew my short story manga, uploaded sneak peeks on instagram (like the one below) and worked at Serieskolan. Most of the days.
Ett foto publicerat av Natalia Batista, mangaka (@nataliasmanga)
A proof of Amaltea becoming popular is the fact that the library in Ängelholm asked me to make a painting to decorate their new comics section. I felt so honored! After some sketches we decided upon a 1:1 scale Amaltea with her sword so the visitors can take pictures with her!
The painting is digital and printed on canvas, which makes it less fragile compared to a painted... painting.
This was my 2015. A year of conclusion. A year of closing the door and opening a new. Of turning a page, starting a new chapter.
I also got some eye opening experiences and meetings. Trips to places, new friendships and old that came back. I also think that I now, the year before 30, feel I am finally quite satisfied with where I have arrived. And this is not the finish line, by far!
Oh, and the sales of Sword Princess Amaltea is hitting the roof! Till today the first and second book have gone into reprints again, and sold together over 5000 copies! The third book was therefore printed at a first edition of 3000! I'm looking forward to the coming year and being able to sell them all together as a full package, a proof of what you can accomplish with hard work, determination and a dream of creating manga.
I already know from the several fan letters I have received that I am inspiring the new generation of manga artists right now. And that feels soooooo goooood. ♥♥♥
