New Friday, new pages 17 & 18! Nothing quite as exciting as last week, but Yvette asks Bea the question that a lot of you were postulating about last Friday.

Well, Bea, I sort of know how you feel.  This week we got ENORMOUS Dreamer news.  If you missed the post earlier this week… The Dreamer was nominated for two Harvey Awards:  Best New Series and Best New Talent.  I’m floored, aaand….  I’ve been floating all week.  :)

Also, in the spirit of Independence Day on Saturday, The Other Paper, a local Columbus paper, interviewed me and did a feature on The Dreamer.  You crazy Founding-Father Fan Girls were the reason they wanted to interview me, lol!  So read it and enjoy.  It really is a great article!

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Now onto serious news.  Week in and week out I give you lovely Dreamer entertainment for free.  I don’t ask anything of you but that you enjoy it and occasionally drop me an email or a comment to let me know.  However, I do need to ask you all for your help again: the Graphic Novel is coming out in just two weeks!  It hits comic shops on July 15th!  And I need all of you to help me!  I’ve created a sell sheet that I’m hoping you’ll print out, and take to your local comic book store (or regular book store!) and ask them to carry The Dreamer.  And now you can even tell them, “Hey, did you hear it’s up for two Harveys, including Best New Series?” and if it’s a comic shop they’ll say “oOoOoOoOoh,” and will hopefully order it.  And if any of you live near, or work at, a historical Revolutionary War site that has a book store or gift shop I would be especially grateful if you would print out a copy of the sell sheet and take it to that store and ask them to carry the book.  When I visit those places I always notice a huge gaping hole between books for children and books for adults.  The teen historical market is sorely lacking.  So I think The Dreamer would do really great in places like that.

So wherever you’re planning on buying your copy of The Dreamer, please print off a Sell Sheet and ask the store to order a few more to sell to all those other people who would love The Dreamer… if only they knew about it.  :)  My color assistant Michael Motter works at a bookstore and he says if you pre-order your book now, the store is a lot more likely to order another copy once you buy yours.  I guess the computers see that they sold one, so maybe they can sell two.

Since I don’t make money off the webcomic, and I haven’t made money of the print comic, this really is important to me.  I haven’t made a profit off this project in the two years I’ve been working on it, and a little relief in that area would be huge.  So go Team Dreamer!  Go sell those Graphic Novels!  You can do it, I know you can!  :)

Download the Sell Sheet here:  www.thedreamercomic.com/sell_sheet.pdf (Give it a minute to load, it’s a big file.)

ISBN: 978-1600104657    Diamond Order Code: MAY090941

Thank You!!

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If you’ve emailed me in the last, ohhhh, month or so… I’m really backed up on my emails.  Like crazy backed up.  I did a lot of traveling in the past month, and also have been working on marketing stuff for the Graphic Novel and, unfortunately there’s only one of me.  So if you sent an entry for the Fan Art Contest–don’t worry, I got it!  And if you sent me a regular email, I apologize for being rude.  I’m going to try to get though those emails as soon as I can.

VOTE this week to see a BRAND NEW Dreamer Funny Strip!  This one is about the Harvey Awards–Bea and Alan discuss how to increase our chances at winning.  I hope it makes you chuckle.  As always, VOTE by clicking the banner in the sidebar that says “Vote TWC” and has Bea’s face on it.

Love you guys!

So… they may’ve spelled my name wrong, but the thought is there:  I’m up for TWO Harvey Awards.  Best New Series and Best New Talent.

I’m still pretty shell shocked.  Many thanks to whoever nominated me!  It was a huge surprise.  I didn’t even think we stood a chance, so I hadn’t asked anyone to nominate me or anything like that.  Total shocker.

Mike and I went to Cheesecake Factory to celebrate.  I told him I was ordering two of everything–one for each nomination.  Who knows when anything like this might happen again, I said!  But after just one meal, one latte, and one cheesecake I was stuffed…  (and brought half of it home.)  So maybe we’ll have to go celebrate the other nomination later.  ;)

Enjoy this week’s three page update!  Pages 14, 15 and 16!  And thanks for letting me take last week off.

I… really don’t have much to say about this week’s update.  Though… I have a feeling you will.  ;)  Let the commenting begin!

Fun Dreamer news this week!  Wizard Magazine featured The Dreamer right next to PVP and Achewood in a piece about webcomics.  How cool is that?  I grew up reading that magazine, dreaming about the day my art would be in there.  Cool.  :)

For all of you I met at Heroes Con this past week, Welcome! It was so fun meeting all of you!  Welcome to our little corner of the internet.  We’re glad to have you.

I posted a blog yesterday answering your questions about the Fan Art Contest.  If you had a question, check it out and see if it is answered there.  I can’t wait to see what you guys are working on!  The deadline is July 15th!  The prize is a signed & doodled copy of the Graphic Novel!  Happy Creating!!

And VOTE this week to see what colorist Michael Motter did while coloring page 14.  He had me rolling when I opened the file.

All right, I’m going to try to answer the questions I got in emails.  I hope this clarifies!

How should I submit my entry?

Email me with a file or a link to a file if it’s posted some place on the web.  You can also post something on DeviantART (and I’ll add it to the Contest Gallery so everyone else can see it) and send me a note or leave me a comment on my profile with a link to the Deviation.  There’s no need to actually mail something to me via the post office… unless it’s the cutest plushy I’ve ever seen and I cannot live without it.

Will you be posting entries online?

Yes.  If you submit it via DeviantArt, I’ll collect them all into a Contest Gallery in my Favorites Folder.  The rest I will post here on The Dreamer site.  I might post them in a blog with other entries, or I might use some of them for Voting Incentives if they’re really clever.  If it doesn’t get posted right away, don’t worry,  I’ll get to it when I have several more I can post at once.

Can I redraw a picture you’ve drawn, but add my own touch?

If it’s from Issues 1-6, yes.  But the more creative your entry is, the better chance you have at winning.  That being said, the world’s most amazing painting of the First Kiss or a 3D sculpt of it might steal the show.  Remember, last year’s winners were an amazingly researched Fan Fic about Nathan Hale, an awesome fan video and… a Dreamer song.  There was also that cake that would’ve won if it hadn’t been made by one of my best friends.

Can I write a story/draw a picture of something that happened between scenes, or was alluded to within the first six issues.

Yes!

Can I enter more than once?

Yes!

Can I enter a piece I’ve already created?

So long as it wasn’t an entry in the last Fan Art Contest, you’re good to go!

What about bloopers?

I’m not entirely sure what you mean by that, but sure, why not!

The deadline is July 15th, midnight o’clock.  I’ll announce the winner Friday the 17th.  Have fun!!

I hope that answers all of your questions!

I’m back from Heroes Con.  The fam was in town helping repair the house yesterday so today is really my first day back in front of my desk.  A lot of you have emailed me with specific questions about the Fan Art contest.  I’ll be posting a blog later this week to answer the questions I’ve been asked, rather than answering each email individually.  It’ll be a lot easier on me, so just check back in a day or two.

(Here’s my friend Asha running the table.)

I bought the Grand Union flag at our stop to Colonial Williamsburg.  It wound up being quite the conversation starter.  No one knew what it was, lol.

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The Graphic Novel release date is getting closer and closer.  July 15th!  You’ll be able to read all six issues of Dreamer Goodness in one sitting, in one super-beautiful collected edition.  This event required more than just a few balloons and a bottle of champagne.  Beth and I talked this week and decided the only thing grand enough to commemorate this occasion was… another Fan Art Contest!!

If you were a Dreamer Reader last summer, I’m sure you remember the FanArtPolooza Contest last summer!  Entries included plushies, CAKES, dolls and songs!  (Here are just a few of last year’s entries.)  We’re going to do it again!

The deadline for the new contest is, when else?  July 15th! I’ll announce the winner that Friday, the 17th!

The Winner gets an autographed copy of the Graphic Novel, with a doodle of their favorite character inside!

The theme of this contest is “Recreating Your Favorite Dreamer Moment in the Graphic Novel.” You can use any moment in the first six issues as the inspiration for your artistic creations, or, of course, any of the covers, either mine or Jenny’s variants.  You can recreate a scene in Cosplay, write a song that epitomizes an event, redraw a favorite moment in your own way, or even retell a story as your own fan fic.  Any kind of artistic medium is fair game!  (Did you hear me say we had a cake last year?)

Send all entries to me with “Fanartpolooza Entry” in the subject line, and I’ll be posting submissions as I receive them.  The more creative, the better!

And don’t forget, the new cover is fair game as well!  Let the games begin!

(Members of the Dream Team are of course encouraged to enter but… are exempt from winning!  Sorry guys!  We’ll leave the prize for the fans!)

So Asha and I stopped at Monticello on our way to Heroes Con in Charlotte yesterday.  It was really misty and rainy the whole time.  In fact, when we got the Scenic Drive Look Out points in the Shenendoah Valley it was so foggy you could only see about 20 feet in front of you, let alone mountains and valleys.  I looked around and said, “Oh, Crap, we could still be in OHIO for all we know.”  Yeah, not very scenic unless you really like white and guardrails.

Monticello was beautiful in the mist, though.  We got pretty soaked wandering the grounds for four hours but it was well worth it.

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