Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, entertainment, kickstarter

I Am An Alien

Published Sun, 25 May 2014 12:00:48 -0500

Joseph Hewitt – Writer, Illustrator. Ambs Myers – Illustrator. Eunsuk Seo – Translator. Kirsten Thompson – Editor. Closes on June 8, 2014.Comic to be published June 30, 2014

Alien Lives is a collection of weird comics designed to confuse and delight you. The stories include tales of young love, nuclear powered fertility symbols, huckster space gods, and why you should never send a robot to do a machine's job. It is being printed simultaneously in English and Korean.

Joseph Hewitt writes

My name is Joseph Hewitt, and I am an alien.

By that I mean that I'm a Canadian who has been living in South Korea since the 90s. So, you could even say that I've gotten pretty good at being an alien. Since 2011 I've been attending the Comic World comiket under the banner Polar Bear Comix.

The Korean comics scene is a bit different from that in North America. For one, we have comikets happening every month or so. A "comiket" is a "comics market"- creators come to sell their self published comics, posters, bookmarks, and other assorted character goods. It's like an artist's alley that stretches on for hundreds of tables. About 75% of the stuff for sale is fan art of whatever characters are popular at the time, but there's treasure to be found if you're willing to search.

Another big difference is in demographics. At least half of the attendees and the vast majority of the artists at Comic World are women. In fact, I'm not even sure "demographics" is the right word to use, since there doesn't seem to be one. Comics here are read by everyone from schoolkids to grandparents. There are comics cafes where you can sit and read comics for hours. Almost every internet portal and social networking site has its own comics section. It's great.

My most popular series here has been SnowCone City, a penguin superhero story. This one started as a joke on the whiteboard when I was teaching at an elementary school. Every day the students asked for more stories about the super penguins, and over time I built up a large cast of characters.

Now, I'm running an Indiegogo campaign for my new book, Alien Lives. It's an anthology of weird science fiction and fantasy stories made to delight and confuse you. Some of the stories in this collection are being printed in English, while others are being printed in Korean. A translation for the other language will run along the bottom of the page, like subtitles.

This comic marks a return to my minicomics roots, with short, focused, self-contained pieces drawn traditionally rather than on the computer. It's also the most ambitious project I've ever attempted with Polar Bear Comix, being printed in color and involving the talent of more artists than just myself. Ambs Myers of the webcomic Killer Spoons is doing the art for the story "Requiem of a Marionette". Hopefully if this comic is successful, I'll be able to make it a regular series and collaborate with even more artists.