New venues!

[srbissette]

We need to PROMOTE the new venues we're all having a hand in -- this board, the Quechee Antiques Mall booth, the Museum happenings -- to attract and draw from the wider community.

Ideas?

[bryanstone]

I think, for the message board at least, that links on blogs and sites would probably be more than enough. Also, people should feel free to invite people to sign up!

As for other coming attractions, the Museum happenings and so on, I'm working on a calendar of events for the school as we speak. With that said, if anyone knows of something going down and you want me to get it out to the community/CCSers just shoot me an email:

[e-mail]

As for Queechee, I think the flyers and ads on people's blogs should help?

[penina]

Does it make sense to promote this board outside of the WRJ and surrounding area? I mean, it's a WRJ cartoonists board. I can see shooting a link over the Trees & Hills gang and any other cartoonists who are nearby, but don't really see the point in spreading it farther than that.

[Inky Solomon]

Penina makes a good point...maybe it should be by invite only. Of course, it'll inevitably come up on google searches and so on. There's not much we can do about that. However, what I have done is locked the board so that only registered users can post.

I could also make it to where only members could read the posts. I may even have the power to make it to where people can only sign up by invite only....any other input anyone?

[srbissette]

Well, actually, I'm talking about reaching OUT -- to the outlaying towns, like Norwich/Windsor/Lebanon/Quechee/Woodstock etc. -- when we have events, to bring in folks other than ourselves to the events we mount for the public. A museum event, for instance, with more than the immediate CCS circles, would benefit enormously from reaching o-u-t to bring in new souls who have never attended.

Whatever we think of the Claremont and Lebanon comics shops, we should be REGULARLY promoting our public events THERE, for instance. The local bookstores; bulletin boards at the food coops; etc.

We're still a new enough institution in the public eye that the curiosity factor is high -- we just need to promote those events that might attract the curious. In time, if we don't, complacency will dominate, and we won't be able to attract 'em if we pay 'em.

[bak]

See, what we all have to do is come up with weekly comics to pitch to little neighboring newsweeklies (maybe even a revolving door feature, or a "group" strip with a consistent theme we can all contribute to which is drawn by a different artist each week). This generates interest in the work of a group of cartoonists and after people start noticing, you schedule and promote events all over the place featuring these local cartoonists, many of whom happen to represent the local "Cartoon College". This shows you what it's like to get exposure to a lot of readers and also gets you to produce work on a weekly deadline, too, which can be really challenging. Ah, well, nobody listens (and, of course, nobody reads comics anymore, anyhow). Sigh.

[catgarza]

we could put together a monthly zine of comics. sorta like the daily texan kids (jeanette moreno, tom king, walt holcomb, chris ware, shannon wheeler, et. al) did with their MOKO zine back in the early nineties around the austin area.

we could just leave them places for people to pick up for free (mostly the places that were already mentioned). a total printing of about 200 copies maybe? 150? 8-12 pages max. for the zine itself (although 8 would be more manageable on a monthly basis since folks have work and school and assignments, etc.)

11x17 folded in half. semi-all ages closer to college age material. 1 to 2 page comics maybe? i'd be willing to put it together if the school would be willing to help print it. i've done it before and i really miss doing that sort of thing. it could be a great way to get people's interest and produce a zine that was loosely affiliated with the school...

an idea, anyway.

[catgarza]

the "loose affiliation" would be that it would have an events bulletin section for the school as well as comics (obviously) produced by the students with a call for submissions (which would help involve the community).

an idea, likes i said.

[srbissette]

We'd get 'em into HANOVER, too, where every year a batch of Dartmouth students into comics arrives. It's growing, folks, and with Ana Merino teaching a comics course this year, it's only going to grow. We need to tap these pockets of comics folks to get 'em to OUR events, HERE in WRJ.

[morgan]

I like the idea of pitching some sort of joint-effort to the local weeklies and freebies. Either a alternating comic like Bak suggested, or maybe a zine insert sorta like what Cat suggested.

Also, I'd love to get a catalogue together like the one Colleen made for IKJK for MoCCA to either get inserted in some of the local papers or at least left about. It could be a joint IKJK/Queechee catalogue/zine where we could include some origional comics to sweeten the pot.


-M

[bakalicious]

If people are willing to do some kind of rotating-week strip, I'll help pitch it around to papers. Ideally, with a weekly strip project, people would be getting paid, too. No reason why we couldn't do both, or even other stuff.

[catgarza]

i hope you can get something into the local papers. i've thought that this would be a great idea ever since we moved here a year ago but heard that it was kinda a losing proposition so never even bothered. i think it would be amazing if the local paper gave the school/community a page every week. here's hoping. as far as i know, marek bennett is the only "local" cartoonist to pull this off, but i think there should be some kind of representation of the school and its community in the local rags. maybe the spectator would be willing to do it? the valley news would be choice.

i think the zine would be the way to go if the paper thing doesn't pan out, though.

[morgan]

The Valley News was giving CCS students the back page for a while, so long as it was Vermont related (Chuck had a couple of sweet pieces in it). The Commons is also printing some student's work, but that ship might have sailed at this point; plus its a monthly.

Bak, if you are up for shopping this around, I for one would LOVE to work on a rotating strip/comic.

-M

[bakalicious]

As far as a weekly-rotating-door-comic feature, I'd like to propose an idea which might could potentially work on several levels. Basically, I'd like to create a kind of historic ephemera of the Upper Valley, focusing on historic events, people, places, things in the region. This accomplishes several things, not the least of which would be A) to bring some attention to the school, B) serve to entertain and inform the community, C) allow several artists to shine together, D) enable us to collect a body of work which could be published into a volume later on (maybe even State of Vermont funding?) and E) let the community know that the students are serious artists who, despite the fact that most of us will probably be moving on, are good neighbors genuinely interested in the area and in fostering a sense of community. I'm sure there is an Upper Valley Historic Society and other resources we could work with to develop a project. The more students (and, of course, grads) we can bring together for this, the better. I know that all of you will be busy with school projects, but this is not the kind of work you'd need to crank out every week; I'm thinking once every 2-3 months, depending on the number of people involved.

[bryanstone]

That sounds like a good idea. I might be interested in doing some stuff specific to White River Junction. I've had some ideas...