A Few Words About Words

I never considered myself a Writer, so when I set out to compose my own children’s book I went about it as a total novice because that is exactly what I was. I wanted to create a children’s book that I thought I would enjoy if I were still a child. Since I always loved stories that included beautiful pictures, entertaining verses, and rhyme, I decided early on that my book was also going to contain all of those elements as well. Based on the success I had with my comic strip, I knew that I was pretty good at writing gags–short, concise bits of humorous text–so I decided that I’d also break my children's book story down into short, easily digestible verses. From there I just started writing…

The Story
Dozi the Alligator would be a prologue to my comic strip, and tell the story of how my two main characters met. When I started writing it, I truly had no idea how the two characters would meet. The premise had always been that a little boy named Byron Hoxwinder secretly brought a baby alligator home from a family vacation in Florida. Since my strip didn't deal with that early part of the story, I never needed to explain it. Now I did. In my mind I always had a vague idea of how Dozi meets Byron, but until I actually sat down to write the story I really had no idea what I was about to write. Looking back, I’m fascinated by how the story seemed to naturally just write itself once I started brainstorming about how it logically COULD happen. The creative process is something else! I'm very happy with how it ultimately turned out.

A Big Break!

After I finished writing the book, I reasoned that I should have somebody evaluate it and tell me what reading level it was best suited. A friend of mine was a teacher who knew an education consultant that leveled books for a living (yes that’s a thing). Expecting only to pay the fee and get a professional evaluation, I sent a PDF of my Dozi the Alligator manuscript (including the first handful of finished illustrations) to the consultant for review. The following morning, I was both shocked and elated to find an extremely enthusiastic response from the consultant–and an offer to help me find a publisher!

(the response from the education consultant who was leveling my book)

*Happy Halloween!

A few more WIPS from the book. Have to say it again; the artwork Nicola Sammarco was creating for me was phenomenal: This book was going to be something very special!

Early work in progress shots (WIPS) from the book. I was beyond happy with the art Nicola Sammarco was producing!

Learning to be an Art Director
One of the most crucial roles I assumed throughout production of my children’s book was that of Art Director. There is an art to choosing an illustrator whose skills most perfectly match the assignment. In Nicola Sammarco, I had hired an extremely talented artist, and now I had to learn to walk the fine line between effectively conveying my vision while also allowing him to infuse his own creativity into the story. That was not easy; these characters were my babies and I had a specific idea of how I wanted all of this to look. The process took a lot of trust, and much to Nicola’s credit–between my verbose descriptions and rough sketches–he always understood exactly what I was going for. His final artwork nearly always exceeded my expectations.

(my rough sketch)

(my illustrator, Nicola Sammarco's, interpretation of my sketch)

(Nicola's final rough sketch)

(final 2-page color version of the illustration by Nicola Sammarco)

(changes for the digital 3D Dozi the Alligator sculpt by Shane Olson.
Figuring out how Dozi should look from all sides was not easy!)

KickStarter

Funding My Project
Producing a high-quality children’s book is not easy or cheap, so I decided to try funding the endeavor through Kick Starter, the popular crowd-funding website. It had been several years since I had successfully funded my Hoxwinder Hall book project using InidieGoGo. This time I wanted my campaign to be much more polished and professional.

I began designing the campaign, giving a lot of thought to how I would present my project to the public. I referenced other very successful Kick Starter campaigns as a template for my own campaign. After about a week of thinking it all through, I started creating my reward graphics and a storyboard for the video that would tell my story.

I was also very fortunate to glean the wisdom of Kevin Kallaugher (KAL), the editorial cartoonist for The Economist magazine of London and The Baltimore Sun, who had an extremely successful Kick Starter campaign months earlier. I met Kevin through a mutual friend on Facebook, and he graciously spoke to me over the phone, offering his very helpful insights on crowd-funding.

(reward graphics for my Kick Starter campaign)

(storyboard for my Kick Starter video)

More about the very talented editorial cartoonist, Kevin Kallaugher (KAL)

The Power of Social Media

I joined Facebook in 2010, after becoming a finalist in the Washington Post's America’s Next Great Cartoonist contest. I joined Twitter after that. Social media has been an excellent way to connect with other artists that I never would have met otherwise. I’ve been extremely fortunate in that respect.

To that point, and completely out of the blue, 3D artist Shane Olson reached out to me after I started posting glimpses of the new children’s book illustrations on Facebook. Shane said he really liked Nicola’s rendering of my Dozi the Alligator character, and said to let him know if I ever consider creating a 3D model of the character. I did not personally know Shane Olson, but soon discovered that that he was a greatly talented 3D artist who worked at Disney Interactive Studios. After spending some time messaging back-and-forth, Shane agreed to create a 3D digital model of my Dozi the Alligator character. What he created blew my mind...

(3D models of Dozi the Alligator by artist Shane Olson)

Collaborating through cyberspace
My illustrator, Nicola Sammarco, was a twenty-one-year-old Italian artist living in Italy. Fortunately for me, he also spoke English. We communicated primarily through social media, with direct messaging through Facebook. I sent Nicola the verses from my children's book, along with rough sketches and descriptions of how I envisioned each illustration. I remember thinking how remarkable it was that I hired an Italian illustrator, who I found through the internet, and was now working with him through cyberspace. The whole process was incredible, and also effortless!

I continued to be impressed with the images Nicola was creating. As the first few illustrations were completed, I realized that this book was going to be something very special...

(some of he first finished pages from my children's book.

©Daniel Boris. All Rights Reserved. Illustrations by Nicola Sammarco.)

The way I found a great illustrator was by searching through blogs and social media websites. I specifically sought out artists from the animation industry, because I knew those cats could DRAW! After several weeks I found Italian artist Nicola Sammarco. I was impressed with Nicola’s online portfolio, so I reached out to him via e-mail. I introduced myself, told him about my project, and asked if he was interested in being my Illustrator. After a few e-mail exchanges, Nicola was interested and agreed to create a “test” image for me, based on my description of how I envisioned Dozi the Alligator to look in my children’s book version.

(The test illustration Nicola created of my new, younger Dozi the Alligator looked great! I knew I had found my illustrator! A week later, we signed a contract and started work on the book.)

(final illustration of first illustration for Dozi the Alligator)

Deciding to hire an illustrator for my children's book

Initially I thought that I would illustrate and write my children’s book myself, but after I completed my first illustration for the book, I made the decision to pull a Walt Disney. By that I mean that Disney was a decent-enough artist himself, but he was also smart enough to not let his own ego get in the way of having his ideas brought to life by much more capable artists. The single most important thing to me was the idea of Dozi the Alligator. I wanted to introduce Dozi to kids everywhere. And since I needed Dozi to be appealing to children, I knew that I needed a much more talented artist to help me bring him to life in the way that I envisioned.

And so I began my search for an illustrator for my book project...

(the first illustration that I created for my children's book)

Creating a children’s book

In 2013, I began thinking about translating my comic strip into a children’s book. It was obvious to me that my Dozi the Alligator character resonated with readers, but as much as I loved creating Hoxwinder Hall, unless you are a syndicated daily cartoonist with your strip appearing in hundreds of newspapers, there wasn’t much financial reward in creating a comic strip. The effort it took to create my strip was simply not worth the reward. I decided that my efforts would be better spent somewhere else.

And so that got me thinking how much a younger audience would really love Dozi. So I set out to write a children’s book. “Dozi the Alligator” would tell the story of how Dozi meets Byron Hoxwinder. It would basically be a prologue to my comic strip “rebooted” for younger kids who may not have ever heard of my strip.

 

(a verse from a Dozi the Alligator children's book)

Putting the comic strip on Hiatus

Ultimately my syndication experience was disappointing. The income generated from it was not significant, and while I enjoyed creating my comic strip, the effort and sheer amount of time that it took to produce a quality comic strip was just not worth it. I had hoped that the experience would lead to bigger things–daily syndication in many major newspapers for example–but that never materialized. The world was moving away from printed newspapers and toward online content that they could get for free, and the entire syndication business seemed to be under siege; not a very encouraging environment for cartoonists. At least not for me. So, in 2013 I put my strip on hiatus and took a break. Time to re-group and explore other opportunities.

Weekly Syndication

In the Winter of 2011, all of my hard work seemed to finally pay off when upstart Ink Bottle Syndicate signed me to a deal where Hoxwinder Hall would appear in a new weekly humor newspaper insert called Funnies Extra!. It wasn't the big daily newspaper syndication that I had always dreamed about, but Funnies Extra! simultaneously ran in several U.S. states and Canada so I technically was now syndicated. The little newspaper also included established features like Wizard of Id, and B.C. so I was psyched that my own comic strip was going to be seen in print among the same comic strips that I had grown up reading as a kid! It didn't pay much, but at least I was now getting paid at all for my hard work... It was a start and I was psyched!

 

(my very first paycheck as a syndicated cartoonist. I never cashed it and still have it.)

My mind was blown when–quite out of the blue–my art school roommate, Scott Kristoff, surprised me with a 3D digital model of Dozi that he created based only on my comic strip images! He used ZBrush software to create the 3D digital model. A local technology high school used their 3D printer to manufacture the physical sculpt, then I painted it.

The 2011 IndieGoGo funding campaign was a success. Title of the book was, Hoxwinder Hall - The Very Beginning. I designed and produced the entire book myself and was very happy with how the final product turned out...

In the summer of 2011, I decided to create a commemorative hardcover book about Hoxwinder Hall  that fans of the strip could purchase as a sort of “thank you” to them. Knowing that I had a lot of people supporting and cheering for me, I launched a funding campaign for the creation of the book on the IndieGoGo.com crowd-funding website.

I was stunned when Michael Cavna–one of the judges during the Washington Post contest–agreed to write this beautiful foreword to my book:

After doing very well in two online contests, and some terrific feedback from some of the best artists and editors in the entire cartooning community, I was re-energized. Over the next year, I continued creating new strips and updating them to my www.HoxwinderHall.com site on a weekly basis. I created a Facebook page for Hoxwinder Hall, and posted all of the new strips there also. The many likes and positive feedback from readers was very motivating, and one thing quickly became apparent; readers liked my Dozi the Alligator character.

(sketch of Dozi for an upcoming strip)

(...and the finished strip)

Rick Kirkman Mentorship
In 2011 I entered Hoxwinder Hall in another on-line comic strip competition; the CartoonistStudio’s "So You Wanna Be a Cartoonist" contest. Over the course of several weeks, my strip garnered over 23,000 public votes and I was ultimately awarded a 30-day (e-mail) mentorship with Rick Kirkman, co-creator of the very popular syndicated Baby Blues comic strip. This was a runner-up prize, but it felt like I had won the jackpot!

©Baby Blues Partnership Dist. by King Features Syndicate

Over the course of the next month, Rick and I exchanged e-mails and conversed about cartooning, the syndication business, and what he thought about my comic strip. Rick provided very honest (okay, brutally honest) thoughts about my strip, and ideas on how I could and should improve it. I’d be lying if I said that we agreed on everything, but in hindsight many of his insights were invaluable for helping me grow as a cartoonist. I often refer to those e-mail exchanges and glean something new from them that I did not really hear when we were having the discussions. Thanks again, Rick!

Many of my conversations with Rick Kirkman can be seen here in a Note on my Facebook page.

A few weeks after the Washington Post contest, cartoonist Lynn Johnston (creator of the syndicated comic strip For Better or For Worse) did a very generous thing for me, sending a thoughtful and insightful critique of my comic strip. It was incredibly helpful!

  (a critique from cartoonist Lynn Johnston)

When Team Cul de Sac: Cartoonists Draw the Line at Parkinson's

When Team Cul de Sac: Cartoonists Draw the Line at Parkinson's hit the market, I was happy to be a part of several book signings held in the Washington D.C. area. The book signings drew huge crowds. Richard Thompson attended them all, which made it even more special.

For more information on an excellent cause, please explore these three links:

Team Cul de Sac blog. Team Fox for Parkinsons Research. Team Cul de Sac on Facebook.

And please visit Richard Thompson's blog !

(Richard Thompson seen front row, Second from the right.

And that's me wearing the blue shirt, top row on the left.)

(Richard Thompson signing a book, bottom center of pic)

 

(me and cartoonist Bill LaRocque)

Team Cul de Sac Book is Published

The Team Cul de Sac Book is Published

I'm extremely honored to say that my contribution to this book appears on page 12 of the hardcover book, Team Cul de Sac: Cartoonists Draw the Line at Parkinson's (Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2012.) Here is the cover, by Richard Thompson:

(cover of the book Team Cul De Sac: Cartoonists Draw the Line at Parkinson's)

All artwork in the volume was later auctioned off for charity. Sales from the auction raised over $100k. To date, TCDS has raised nearly $195k overall. The book was later nominated for an Eisner award, and won other accolades. Proceeds from sales of the book and art went to the Michael J. Fox charity for Parkinson’s research - a truly great cause! You can purchase the book at any of the major on-line book sellers.

Beyond the Washington Post Contest

The Washington Post contest was a re-awakening for me. Up until that time I had become complacent as an artist and let my previous dreams fade. I was happily married, the father of two young children, and I had a very good job as a professional artist in the on-line education field - life was good.

My mindset changed profoundly after the Post contest; that experience was a wake-up call for me that made me realize that perhaps my dreams still were attainable. It finally occurred to me that my dreams/goals were not going to come to me, I needed to go to them. And so I began working hard towards making things happen; I joined Facebook and began to engage in social media, posting my comics on Facebook and Twitter, and slowly my comic began to attract a small following. The recognition from the Post contest was a tremendous help in getting people's attention.

Team Cul De Sac
After the Washington Post contest, I was contacted by Chris Sparks about participating in his new Team Cul De Sac charity to benefit Parkinson’s disease. The centerpiece of the TCDS effort was going to be a printed book that included a collection of artwork from well-known cartoonists, all in honor of cartoonist Richard Thompson, the creator of the comic strip Cul De Sac who had recently announced that he had Parkinson’s disease.  All of the major cartoonists of the time were associated with the project – including Bill Watterson, the legendary creator of the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. I was extremely honored to be asked to contribute and I knew that having been a finalist in the Washington Post contest played a large part in getting an invitation to participate.

http://teamculdesac.blogspot.com/

I contributed the two pieces below to the Team Cul De Sac book. The first combined characters from my own strip with Alice, a central character from Richard Thompson’s comic strip. In the second illustration, I wanted to more closely mirror Richard Thompson's sketchy cool technique. Both are pen & ink and watercolor on illustration board.

Postscript on the Post Contest

Ultimately I did not win the Washington Post contest, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was the enthusiastic response my comic strip had received. Maybe my comic strip really WAS a good idea after all? Perhaps Hoxwinder Hall really would resonate with readers if only given a chance? The validation and confirmation from the Washington Post contest gave me the confidence to believe in myself again. I decided to revive the strip. Weeks later I launched Hoxwinder Hall as a web comic. For the first time in more than a decade, I began creating new comics and it felt grea!

 

(landing page from my newly launched Hoxwinder Hall website)

All of the comics that made the Top 10 list appeared on the Washington Post’s web site in July 2010. The Post also announced the contest in its printed version. Readers were then asked to go online to review all of the strips, then cast their vote for their favorite. After a week of public voting, the comics with the highest number of votes would advance into the Top 5.

Hoxwinder Hall voted a Top 5 finalist!

As great as it was to have my comic strip selected as a Top 10 finalist by a panel of judges, it was even more satisfying to be sent into the Top 5 by the voting public. This meant that ordinary everyday newspaper readers also liked Hoxwinder Hall. My confidence was at an all-time high!

(Top 5 finalist page from the Washington Post contest page. )

 (a letter from Sen. Mark Warner, one of my state's U.S. Senators)

One of the most rewarding things about Hoxwinder Hall being selected as a Top 10 finalist in The Washington Post's America's Next Great Cartoonist Contest was the fact that the strip was recognized by a panel of very successful industry professionals. These were people that made a living from knowing what is good, funny, and marketable. For me, that validated my comic strip on a professional level and that was incredibly gratifying. At the time I remember thinking, “Holy Moly! Stan Lee read my comic and liked it!” I believe all of the judge’s comments can still be seen here on that Washington Post contest page (please scroll down the link to view details).

(my six comic strips that appeared in the contest)

(some of the judge's comments from the Washington Post contest)

(a list of all the Top 10 Finalists)

The Washington Post Contest

The Washington Post Contest

After repeated attempts, and with no interest from the major syndication companies, I pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I was not going to be a syndicated cartoonist. Back then the internet and social media were in their infancy, and self-syndication was a full-time endeavor (of which I knew nothing about), so if the syndicate gatekeepers did not like your comic you were pretty much not going to be syndicated. Completely deflated, I tucked Hoxwinder Hall away and moved on with my life. I landed a job as an artist, got married, and twice became a father. I was happy.

Then one morning in 2010, while working on my computer, a friend sent me an instant message about a Washington Post comic strip contest call for entries. As I read the details about the contest I became intrigued...

Since I already had two weeks worth of strips completed from decades earlier, I selected six that I liked the most, submitted them to the Post and forgot about it. Several weeks later, I received a call from an unknown Washington D.C. phone number that I let go to voice mail. Turns out it was somebody from the Washington Post calling to congratulate me; Hoxwinder Hall had been selected as a Top-10 finalist out of approximately 500 entries! I kept that phone message saved on my cell phone for nearly a year.

The phone call was followed-up with this e-mail from a Producer at the Washington Post…

Suddenly, my dream of comic strip syndication was reawakened! I was on top of the world and anything was again possible!