Posted in: Comics | Tagged: comic, Gregory A Wilson, Icarus: A Graphic Novel, kickstarter, Kris Suida, Matt Slay, Ron Garner

Icarus: A Graphic Novel Or Dreams Change, And That's A Good Thing

Ron Garner writes for Bleeding Cool:

My name is Ron Garner, and I love writing. I mean love it. Like, I want to do this for the rest of my life kind of love.

There's only one problem. At this point in my development, I'm not very good at it. There, I said it. I've written some short fiction, and that was pretty good, but it wasn't great. You know, like the 'I can't put this down, OMG where's the rest!" kind of great.

Of course, a lot of that is because writing is not what I do for a day job. I write in my *choke* spare time. What I do for a living is publish stuff other people write. So believe me, I know good writing. I put bread on my family's table finding it.

My company, Silence in the Library Publishing, primarily publishes science fiction and fantasy novels and anthologies…though we do have a children's book out there titled "A Children's Illustrated History of Presidential Assassination" (and let me tell you, it rocks!).

I've always had this dream, though, of publishing graphic novels as well. Of course, when I dream this dream, sitting in front of my computer screen, trying to force the ideas that sounded so good in my head to come alive on my computer, the graphic novel I'm publishing is for a story I've written.

Then I read Gregory A. Wilson's novel Icarus. It was amazing. I knew my dream had changed. Greg's novel was going to be the first story Silence in the Library turned into a graphic novel.

Greg Wilson's language and the characters and the world he has created in Icarus paint such a stunningly beautiful imagination landscape that it was impossible to deny this story had to be a graphic novel.

So, Icarus it was. The only issue that remained was finding an artist that could bring that world to life in the manner it deserved. Then Greg and I saw this (insert Wilson.jpg):

Artist Matt Slay drew this for the prologue to Icarus in the Silence in the Library anthology Time Traveled Tales.

Game over.

As long as Matt was on board, this graphic novel was going to happen.

Strangely enough, though I intended to approach Greg about this as soon as possible, it turns out he had the same idea, and managed to call me first. We dialed Matt into the conversation and the rest was history.

When it came time to decide how to fund the project, there was no question.

Greg, Matt, and I all love crowd-funding.

We love the fact that the reader gets to decide what does or does not go to market. We love the direct relationship that is created between project owner (publisher in this case) and backer (aka reader).

We love the whole thing, so crowd-funding was the obvious answer.

And Silence in the Library has a track record of successful Kickstarter projects.

We've worked hard to develop a reputation for putting out great projects and delivering on time.

So, the Kickstarter project Icarus: A Graphic Novel was born. We launched it four days ago, and it has been going gangbusters. As I'm writing this article, we're sitting at about 71% funding.

And Matt's been churning out some amazing artwork.

He started with some initial character sketches (insert Icarus character sheet and Jellinek character sheet):

Those were great, but we really wanted to see actual colored pages from the graphic novel. And Matt delivered (insert icarus promo 1 & 2):

Needless to say, we continue to be blown away by what Matt is delivering. The pages are coming along really well, and we expect to have cover art up on the Kickstarter page within a week.

Putting together a graphic novel has been a learning experience. Silence in the Library has a successful track record in publishing novels and anthologies, but a graphic novel is a totally different beast. Luckily, my job has been made a hundred times easier by virtue of being surrounded by incredibly talented people. It starts with Greg and Matt, of course, but continues through the people here at Silence: the graphic artists, the editors, the whole gang.

Obviously, we want everyone to go out and take a look at the project (http://www.tinyurl.com/IcarusComic). We want to get funded not just because, as a small press, we understand the importance of funding to create a truly amazing product, but also because we think the story and the art of Icarus will blow you away.

We want our readers to get sucked in to this graphic novel and spit out at the other end, panting and disheveled, and aching for more.

We want to see a book that is as much a work of art as a graphic novel come to life.

We're all excited about welcoming backers from BleedingCool.com, and to show that enthusiasm, we've created a special "Bleeding Cool" Goal. It's Friday, January 17 and we're currently sitting at about 72% funding. If we reach 100% funding by the end of the weekend (11:59pm EST on Sunday, 19 January), we'll give every backer at a print book level a free 5×7 photo-quality print of Matt Slay's illustration for the Icarus prologue from Time Traveled Tales, and every backer at an eBook level a digital download of that illustration.

Come take a look, and join us in this adventure!

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