WishTales needs your help! We still have tons of comics available for your summer reading pleasure.

If you have kids, you want to buy these books. They are high-quality, professionally printed comics, appropriate for all ages – kids won’t be bored by them and adults will love them too. It will give the kids something to do on those rainy days when you are sick of hearing the constant dim of video games and TV.

But even if you don’t have kids, but you love great stories and characters, you will want to buy these books. Our mission is the same as Pixar’s – great stories, great characters. And who can’t believe in that mission?

However, the trust is that we can’t keep going like this. We need you to help us get the word out: we have a library of books for sale, and we need people to buy them or WishTales can’t survive.

Go to the WishTales store and get yourself some great comics. Support WishTales. Help ensure that we can provide more great books in the future!  And remember, we ship our comics out of a central warehouse, so you can combine orders to save on shipping!

Today’s Artist Find is brought to you by Brian Anderson, the artist behind the wonderful and charming Dog Eat Doug. French artist Emmanual Malin has a portfolio full of great stuff to look at. So, go look at it.

CALL FOR ENTRIES:

Hackett Films, Sydney Opera House and Screen NSW launch competition to find graphic storytellers

Hackett Films, along with Australia’s most iconic artistic hub, the Sydney Opera House and Screen NSW are today launching an international search for the best graphic storytellers, as part of the Sydney Opera House’s inaugural GRAPHIC festival.

A weekend festival from 7 – 8 August 2010, GRAPHIC will celebrate the imagination and ideas of visionary creators in the fields of comix, anime, manga, 2D and 3D animation and illustration.

Over three rounds, competition entrants will vie for $20,000 in cash, by creating a 60 second story that weaves in compulsory narrative elements, such as an archetypal theme: ‘recovery’, a character: ‘a 7 year old’, and a sound fx; ‘a yawn’.  As each round progress, one more element will be added to give the competition an extra twist.

Entrants can be an individual or a creative team, and the story can be captured in any form, from a storyboard comic to stop-motion or 3D animation.

At the end of each round, the public will vote for their favourite stories. A judging panel including award-winning director James Hackett from Sydney-based production house Hackett Films, will then shortlist a handful of the best entries to continue to each subsequent round.

“Graphic novels are all about the story so entries should really focus this narrative process – we want people to be sucked into the characters and emotion of the story and left desperate to watch the next episode”, says Hackett Films founder and director, and GRAPHIC Competition Judge,  James Hackett.“We’re looking for entries that don’t just tick the box when it comes to incorporating the narrative elements, but approach these requirements in a considered, intelligent way to create a really rich storyline”.

In addition to the $20,000 cash prize, which can be used for professional development, post production or to invest in taking the animation to local or international market, the winner will receive an Adobe CS5 Master Collection (valued at $4,333) and have their film screened at GRAPHIC.

GRAPHIC’s keynote event will feature celebrated graphic novelist Neil Gaiman reading his new as-yet unpublished story The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains in the Concert Hall. The festival will also include an evening with independent filmmaker and comic writer Kevin Smith (Clerks, Dogma), the legendary Japanese anime epic Akira rescored live by Regurgitator, and Ben Walsh and the Orkestra of the Underground creating a live score to Shaun Tan’s The Arrival.

For more information about the GRAPHIC festival and online animation competition please visit the following website: www.sydneyoperahouse.com/graphic

Part robot, part muppet, part character from some incredible animated film that hasn’t been done yet, Brian Marshall’s found object robots are just fantastic!

I am very excited to inform you that ex-Disney animator Eddie Pittman is joining our little team over at WishTales! Eddie’s graphic novel Red’s Planet, full of gorgeous art, fantastic storytelling and a color sense that just won’t quit, is the perfect addition to our stable of books. More info at WishTales.

Thanks to Brit Steiner for the link!

There’s nothing like getting back to basics. I’m sure, if someone really, really wanted to, they could do something charming like this in 3D. But for some reason, they don’t.

It’s worth studying: it’s so simple. Everything happens in one shot. British director Simon Tofield is not cutting in and out for reaction shots and action shots. He’s not zooming the camera around the set. He even decided to do it in simple black and white, and so what? It just works.

Animators take note. Settle down and focus on storytelling, and if you don’t watch out, you just might create something nice.

That Simon’s Cat site is brilliant. Lots of stuff to dig through, and it’s a great example of how to generate a ton of charming, engaging material from a very simple idea. Keep It Simple, Simon.

Link sent to me by UK author Jack Eason. Thanks, Jack!

All right. Moon Town book #1 is off to the printer. In a few days, they’ll be sending me some proofs, and if everything looks good, they’ll print ‘em up and send ‘em to me, where I can begin selling them to you. If all goes well, delivery is scheduled for FEB 25.

UPDATE: 2/5/10 – Got the proofs back. Unfortunately they were way too dark. I’m lightening them up, will resubmit, and let’s try this again. Stay tuned.