#then come November I can draw rough drafts and send them to the collab artists by maybe December

[thedemisapphic]

Thinking about the comic I want to make —> :D

Planning the comic amidst everything else —> D:

[kidgezine]

Check-in #2 is Next Monday!

Some of y’all have already turned in your sketches or drafts (and a few finished works) but for the rest of us be sure to email your work to kidgezine@gmail.com by 11:59 pm EST on Monday October 15th. Just like last time, putting your work in the WIP channel of the Discord server is great but it does not count as turning them in so be sure to email them. Here’s some details to help out:

Artists

Sketches for Individual Pages: This is where you need to make sure your image is the right size and all set up for printing. We made a template with an illustrated tutorial to help you with that. Just check out this post and follow the instructions there. The image in Step 3 is a sketch. It’s a bit of a rough sketch but a good example of the minimum expectations for what your sketch should be. It’s ok if you’re already past the sketch stage. Just watch the gif at the end of that post for a quick animation of how to make sure your image is ok for printing. If you need help with that jump into the Discord server and ask umbraja to give you a hand.

Sketches for Journal Images: These are going to be framed to look like old school Polaroids so the print specs aren’t as exacting with journal images as they are with full page pieces - no need to worry about the bleed. They do need to fit into the frames though. Polaroids have about a 3x3 inch picture area so your journal sketches need to be square. We'd rather you draw at a minimum of 6x6 inches (1800x1800 pixels) so you can get better detail but they will end up printed 3x3 so not too much detail.

Thumbnails for Collaborations: Many of y’all turned in thumbnails for collabs last month but they’re not actually due until this one. You can turn in more if you like or go ahead and send sketches. Be sure to send your writer thumbnails and sketches (preferably before you send them to us) so they can give you feedback too. Please let us know if your writer has not been working with you on the collaborations so we can pester them about it. Thumbnails for collaborations should follow the same guidelines as Individual pieces but with a bit more room for creativity. Collaborations do NOT have to follow the 6x9 page size rule. Because there is text to work with in the layout you can make your Collaboration image(s) any shape you want and we will use the fic’s text to fill in the extra space. You can even do organic shaped edges and full spread layouts. We’ll do a tutorial on this later so don’t be afraid of doing fancy things. We’re here to help y’all get it done.

Writers

Drafts for Individual Works: Page count is tight for the printed zine so we made y’all a writing template that you can copy/paste your fic into and get a feel of how many pages you’re using. Just check out this post and follow the instructions there. Don’t panic if you’re over the page count. We’ll work with you to trim it down. If we can’t trim it then we’ll select an excerpt for the printed zine and will put the rest of the pages in the digital copy. We would like to have some complete works in the printed zine though so not everyone can have an excerpt. As for the drafts, these do not need to be polished works but they do need to be complete from beginning to end. They can be super rough with no consideration for grammar or style so long as there is enough detail for us to get a feel of where the fic is going. You can have long sections of dialog with no description (I actually find this to be the best way to draft dialog) or summaries of conversations to be fleshed out later so long as we get the gist of what’s going on. It’s ok if you’ve got notes on things you haven’t figured out yet. You can even put questions in your draft if you want specific feedback such as “I’m not sure if this is physically possible, do you know?” and we will respond when you get your feedback. It’s also Ok if your draft deviates wildly from your outline. We understand how narratives can evolve. Your final story should resemble your draft though so be sure you’ve pinned down where this thing is going to end up.

Drafts for Collaborations: It is very important that you get your drafts as well as any notes, comments, descriptions, or other resources to your artist(s) as soon as possible. The draft itself should follow the same guidelines as an individual work but you also have to communicate with your artist(s) to make sure they have what they need to get their part done. Your artist(s) should be showing you thumbnails by now. Please give them feedback. If your artist doesn’t send you something by Oct 15th let us know.

Journal Entries: We’re going to wait until we get sketches for these cuz we had so many different versions we’re not sure which thumbnails are getting finished. There are a whole lot of really great images so we’re super excited and can’t wait to show you guys so y’all can pick which ones to write for.

Betas

We’ve gotten all the betas paired up so go to your Check-in page and see which fic(s) you got. Each fic should have a Beta Level listed. Most of the writers only want feedback on a nearly finished work (that’ll be November/December) but some wanted feedback on each stage and a few want to work directly with their beta. You’re expected to give your writer(s) this level of feedback so if they only want a single read then you don’t have to do anything till later. Feel free to hang out in the Discord and help any writers that ask for it though. If your writer wants feedback on each stage then you’ll need to read over what they’ve got and send an email to kidgezine@gmail.com with your feedback by November 1st so we can add it to their Check-in page. Don’t contact your writer directly unless their beta level says they want to work directly with their beta. 

There should be a link below each fic’s summary that will take you to that writer’s submission folder. If your writer does not have a link below their fic that means they have not turned anything in. Right now we mostly only have outlines so you should probably wait until after the draft deadline to give feedback. Feel free to read the outlines though. Some of the writers have given us Google Docs with comment permissions turned on so you might be able to leave comments in the doc itself. Please still email us a copy of your comments so we can keep our information up to date and know not to pester you about doing your feedback.

A Note on Missing Deadlines

Holidays are coming up and we’ve got Inktober then NaNoWriMo to keep y’all busy so we understand the next few deadlines could be a crunch. That’s why we have so many of them. It’s Ok if you miss a few of the deadlines - except the last one, that’s absolutely final. Just be sure to contact us (in the Discord or send us an email) to let us know that you’ll be late and when we can expect you to have your work turned in. This way we don’t worry about you (we worry cuz we care). If there’s some special circumstance we can even work out an alternative schedule and any other assistance you may need to help get your work done. All you gotta do is ask.

That said, it is not fair to everyone else if you miss too many deadlines. Thankfully we only had a few people miss the first deadline and one of them has set up an alternative schedule. So long as the rest of y’all get your work in before the next deadline (which most of you have) you’ll be ok. If you miss another deadline without turning in last month’s work though, we will start to have problems.

The deadlines create a process that is designed to give y’all some structure and help you do your best work while letting us make sure that work is right for the zine. If you don’t follow the process you might end up doing work that has to be redone because it doesn’t fit the zine. No one wants that. So, please, follow the process and turn your work in on time (or at least close to it). If you don’t follow the process we may not accept your work into the zine.

Feedback on Progress

Y’all should have gotten an email with a link to our Check-in page which has all the information we’ve got on you and what work you’ve turned in so far. There should be feedback on your first check-in there and we’ll be adding feedback for every other check-in right under that as we get it in. Let us know if your feedback is missing or any other issues with the information and we’ll get it fixed. Also let us know if you did not get that email so we can send you the link. 

We won’t be sending a notification email for the next round of feedback but we will have it posted to the Check-in page no later than November 1st so just give it a look then to see our comments. If you want feedback sooner than that just put ‘Feedback Please’ in the subject line of the email when you turn your work in so we know to look at yours first. We’ll respond to your request email to let you know when to check the page for your feedback. 

 It’s up to you if you want to wait for feedback before continuing your work but you might have to make some adjustments if you get too far ahead. We won’t force you to do what our feedback says (unless it’s about following the zine’s requirements) but we will give suggestions for development. The decision is ultimately yours if you want to follow that or not. So long as your idea fits the requirements we’re not gonna be picky.