After Daylight - Vampire Comedy: Volume 1

Comedy in an age of self-parody?
over 7 years ago – Sun, Feb 12, 2017 at 05:43:24 PM

So yeah, that all happened.

I mean, in a way, my conscience is clear? Because I really did do all I could to stop it? Tried to save the world -- and it turns out the world just...didn't feel like being saved. Everything we all did, it wasn't enough. I was supposed to be WELL back to drawing funny vampires by now. That's what the plan had been as of November 7th.

Of course, if After Daylight is about anything, it's about fate having different plans from you. :-) (Right, Cat?)

This is my country and my people -- I intend to go on fighting for them. No one who studies history like I do can put their head in the sand and pretend that these are normal times, that you can just live normally in. They're anything but. In fact, to some extent the delay on relaunching the comic has been due to a fundamental need to retool its approach. It was built as a wry parody on vampi-- I mean human nature and sociopolitics -- but how do you exaggerate that which is already unbelievably out there? How do you parody something that is inherently a tail-consuming Ouroboros serpent of self-parody? A freaking Moebius strip of I CAN'T EVEN?

Well, I'm working on that. And I am finding some delightful inspiration in comedians who are managing to do a bang-up job of it. My larger plot arc for Vols 2 and 3 is probably going to be taking, uh, some turns I didn't originally anticipate ;-)...but I am trying to have faith that it will find its footing again. Trust the process -- you can't edit what isn't written yet -- and all that annoyingly true creator wisdom.

Accordingly, I'm announcing a deadline for myself for the resumption of Volume 2. That deadline is -- please restrain your eyerolls -- April Fool's Day. Come hell or high water, weekly updates will resume at that time!

In the meantime.I am continuing to work both on the custom-art pile:

And on character designs for upcoming chapters of Vol 2:

(This is a character in the conceptual phase who is known only as -- wait for it -- New Blood...)

So yeah. April Fools' -- be on the lookout!

I am wishing everybody a spring full of delights. (Mind you, I'm not really in charge of that department, so I can only suggest, but I did put it in the request several times on y'all's behalf and HR knows by now that I don't quit on these things. :-) )

Love to all the bats in all your belfries! --

Sarah

Makin' it rain marker portraits!
over 7 years ago – Tue, Dec 06, 2016 at 10:43:09 PM

Hello, beloved belfry bats!

Well, I think I can speak for us all when I say, "2016, darling -- don't let the door hit your butt on the way out."

It's been a long, long season of volunteering. And as I said in a previous newsletter -- I felt that is was just too important to this country, to important to our history, not to do. I still feel that. I have no personal regrets.

But for the moment -- it's now to turn back to the true business of America: funny vampires. Some of my plotlines may be taking off in a few different directions from what I'd been thinking before all of this -- but mark my words, they shall always be vampires and they shall always be funny. Some things are eternal!

Accordingly, I've sent out an email to everyone who's waiting on a custom marker portrait. If you are one of these people, check your mailbox! I've asked y'all to send in your reference pics, and I will be completing the portraits in the order that I receive those reference pics. THE POWER IS IN YOUR HANDS. :-D

In the meantime, I've been working more on character designs (and experimenting with styles and digital media in the process)...

AAAAAAND thumbnailing for Chapter 3! Woot!

And now, if I may get sappy as hell for a second: I hope that each and every one of y'all gets the chance to gather with folks you love this holiday season, and hold that warmth through you to carry you through all of 2017. Watch this space for the announcement I'll make when we are back to regular updates!

--Sarah
[email protected]

Why's saving the world gotta be so hard?
over 7 years ago – Sat, Oct 01, 2016 at 09:01:39 PM

Time flies when you're trying to ward off apocalypse.

First, a small business item. I've realized that chasing down one person at a time for their custom pieces -- specifically, for the reference photos I need to do those pieces -- is proooobably not the best approach. Folks get busy, email goes into their spam filter, the world threatens to teeter into chaos, etc etc etc, and the upshot is, delays.

So instead I'm going to be doing this: Those of you still waiting on custom pieces (including in-comic cameos) will get an email blast from me -- I'll make it from my own AD address instead of the one I use for Mailchimp so hopefully it'll be less likely to fall into spam. And whatever order I receive folks' reference pictures in? That's the order y'all get your work in. :-) So when you get that email, please do respond as soon as you get the chance! And as always, feel totally free to contact me at [email protected] with any questions.

In other news: The comic is still on hiatus, as anyone still dropping by the website will notice. Yes, I'm feeling exceedingly guilty about it. My drawing arm itches. My Twitter account molders. I'm spending my days doing stuff that, aside from the old chestnut about life experiences feeding one's AHHT? Has nothing to do with my chosen career. I worry about losing opportunities, losing audience, losing momentum.

But...I'm afraid it's just going to have to stay on hiatus until after the election. To be honest, I haven't felt up to being funny (especially my absurdly sociopolitical brand of funny) in months. What's going on in my country right now? Is just not funny. Cannot be parodied. It is its own parody. It's a fricking Moebius strip of absurdity looping into itself eternally, okay? (I think that's accurate topologically.) And it's not just me feeling like that. Pretty well every commentator on events, from satirists like Andy Borowitz to Deeply Serious analysts like David Brooks, is finding themselves at a loss for language. 

Maybe it's delusional of me -- does the country really need MY particular time and sweat on this? My work in a field that isn't even close to my usual bailiwick (data entry and management)? What am I even doing here? I'm a comedian. I don't fix problems, I point and laugh at them. Who the hell do I think I am?

But then I remember that at the end of the day, somebody has to do this. In fact, a million somebodies have to do it, simultaneously. A tsunami is made up of tiny water drops. Unlike many people, I'm fortunate to be in a position where I can give time to this for a while without taking food out of anybody's mouth. And let's put it this way -- if I've been moved into a minor leadership role into an operation like this, which I have since the general election began -- then they're clearly pretty damn desperate. :-)

So. I will be back. I'm eager to be back. I'm jonesing to be back. I miss my real life and my friends and my beautiful readers and everything else that my heart usually revolves around. But I also truly believe that if Trump becomes our President in November...a lot of that goes out the window anyway. Everything changes. And not for the better. And it's people more vulnerable than myself who'll be the first to pay the price.

I guess in other words, I have to make the world safe for the funny vampires again? That sounds ridiculous, doesn't it, but it happens to be true. And on that note -- l'd like to encourage anyone who has the time to please please volunteer this fall...and anyone who needs a temporary paid job to give me a backchannel holler. Because the Florida campaign is still desperate for staff. And they train. And I know several of the organizers there, and they are awesome, energized, tough, starry-eyed, world-loving folks who are a real privilege to watch in action. :-)

If the Universe is kind, the next time I give y'all an update, it will be to say that I am turning my attention back to completely useless things. That's what I'm prayin' here. In the meantime, I want to give you guys a sneak peek of a character I've been designing for Volume 2. Not gonna say too much, except that he is a figure from Nick's past who may not be staying in the past for much longer... ;-)

 Everybody, have a delightful Halloween season -- and if you're in the Bay Area on October 8-9, be sure to stop by the Alternative Press Expo to visit my vendor table

 -- Sarah

Interesting times.
almost 8 years ago – Wed, Jun 22, 2016 at 07:13:13 PM

Er, only semi-joking.

As (I hope!) most of y'all already know from reading After Daylight -- in some ways it's a political kinda story, and I'm kind of a political gal. One of the reasons I love sarcasm and satire so much is that it's the spoonful of sugar that can help the medicine of having to pay all that attention to the news go down. :-) That's why, as a rule, the more serious a subject is, the more liable I am to crack jokes about it.

But I haven't been feeling very funny lately. This year has been different. And not just for me, I think.

I won't belabor the details, but I'm sure a lot of y'all can feel me on this. This year is not your average year. Not in politics. And that wouldn't be a big deal, except that for me, the real definition of politics, once you get past the optics and the horse races and the money, the 24/7 commentary and the endless search for a "narrative" whether it's really there or not? --

Politics is about what actually happens to actual people.

Boom. That's it. That's all she wrote. That's why politics has to exist, whether we like it or not. That's the only reason it matters so much. Look, I don't stand around subjecting myself to buffeting waves of recurring burning stupid for just anything (honest I don't!) :-)... But at the end of the day, after you take the hustings down, after the TV cameras drift elsewhere, what you're left with are chosen leaders with an actual job to do. Who those leaders are, and how those leaders do their job, matters. Simple as that.

To get hair-flippingly emo for a second: I really, truly feel like we are at a turning point in the history of the USA. Possibly in the history of much of the world. For so much of the last century -- in other words, since the two World Wars and the global devastation they nearly wreaked -- there's been this urgent understanding that humankind was collectively getting awful big for its britches, and if we didn't get our act together fast we were gonna be in a heap of trouble. And there's been so much progress on that, a lot of which we now take for granted -- which is good, in a way. Taking it for granted that of course humanity and sanity and reason and love will prevail in the end is kind of what we were aiming for in the first place. So, yay us?

But the struts of this thing still aren't entirely stable, you know? However you want to put it. The foundation's still curing. The flying butts are not buttressed. It sure as hell ain't earthquake-proofed to California standards. This little project we call human civilization is not...entirely...to spec yet. And every generation gets its turn to have a bash at fixing that. Sometimes it gets a little Tower of Pisa-esque, where you build several stories crooked one way, go oops, and then build several more stories crooked the OTHER way, and go oops, and start dickering with counterweights and cables, and...

You get me. But here's the thing. I decided this spring that maybe just maybe, simply yelling on Facebook or at the TV set was proooooobably not going to do all THAT much to help the situation. And was driving me bonkers anyhow. So, I decided to volunteer. And as it turns out, ::Shakespearean Crusader voice:: I HAVE CHOSEN WISELY. On multiple fronts. It put me in contact with a lot of fabulous folks who cared as much as I did, who quickly became fast friends. It turned energy into positive action, rather than letting it curdle over into bitterness and bad photo memes. And it gave me a ground-level view of how even very small efforts contribute to the whole, which means that yes, as dorky and bumper-stickery as it sounds, you can make a difference. I wasn't even doing anything that amazing -- data entry, phone banking, canvassing -- and yet I clearly saw how that, put together with everybody else doing the same thing, moved the needle the way we wanted it to go.

If you feel the same about 2016 -- if you feel like there are important choices for us to make as a society, if you feel history breathing all inappropriately hot-'n'-heavy down your neck? (History. Dude. Ease up.) Then let me urge you to do the same. Get involved however you can, even if it's just a little bit. Be positively involved. Do a Thing. Just moving in a discernible direction will take so much weight off your shoulders, believe me. And it's not like this has to go on with the knob up to 11 forever! This year you can make an exception. That's what I'm doing -- making an exception. Because 2016 is an exceptional year. It should be okay to recognize that and act accordingly.

Okay, whew. All done with what Nando would call the seriousface. Here, have a little more of the amazing watercolor-emulation powers of Rebelle, and I will be posting more photos of works-in-progress as the summer rolls on!

A Brief Comic Hiatus, and other Schtuff.
about 8 years ago – Mon, May 16, 2016 at 06:11:59 PM

(Well hey, bats are SORT of flying mice...)

Well, computer issues seem to FINALLY be totally sorted out ::hastily knock wood::...and Volume 2, Chapter 2 is put to bed! And by "put to bed" I of course mean "cruelly left hanging on the edge of a gravelly crumbly cliff by the thinnest of hand-talons!"

Oh, don't worry. I only hurt the ones I love. ;-)

So with that, as I announced previously, I am now putting the regular weekly webcomic on a temporary hiatus. (Right now I'm thinking two months-ish, but that may shift depending on how things are going.) Mostly this is to complete the last of the custom commissions in my queue, so that will be priority number one -- but I should also be able to use the time to get a bit more done in the realm of important businessy stuff. The things that have been gathering dust on my to-do pile for ancient ages. That means getting the Patreon page live, sending book copies to reviewers to get in their queues, dropping physical copies off at local retailers, and deciding on con appearances for the next fall, winter and spring. (I'll pretty much exclusively be doing West Coast cons while I learn my game, although I am hoping to make an exception for H-town -- Houston, my old Hometown! -- if possible.)

I am also going to be spending at least a little of my time doing some campaign volunteering. You may have noticed from the way I write the comic that I have a mile-wide political streak ;-) -- there's a reason I call it Vampire Doonesbury or Vampire Dykes to Watch Out For! I know politics is aggravating, and tiresome, and complicated, and rarely functions as intended; but it also materially affects what happens in the real lives of real people. And although the fundraising emails say it every single cycle, this time I think they're absolutely correct: this is the most important election of my lifetime so far. I really feel that a lot of what happens this November will determine America's direction for the next generation, if not the next two generations. And there are so many people who, because of financial reasons, transportation, disability, childcare issues, work schedules, you name it, simply don't have the option to take an active part in the election except for voting. (Voting still being the single most important thing you can do, of course! If you're not registered yet -- register!) I happen to be very fortunate -- fortunate enough that I do personally have the ability to take a little time out of my week for this. So I'm going to do my very best on behalf of all the wonderful folks I know who'd be joining me if they only could...especially those whose quality of life is even more at stake this fall than mine. <3

During this hiatus, as I said, there will be no weekly chapter page updates. However, I should still be posting stuff each week -- guest art such as the 1-shot comic Sam Dealey of Woohooligan! kindly made for me; completed commissions; digital-watercolor experiments, etc. There will be Stuff to ogle. :-) If anyone has any questions or comments or bouquets of milk-white roses, feel free as always to contact me at [email protected]! A fine May and June to all of you!

Toasting y'all with a nice toasty glass of the Sweet 'n' Red (O positive) --
Sarah