Wednesday, May 24, 2006

MySpace Success Story


MySpace gets a bad rap for supposedly being nothing but perverts trolling for underrage girls. This pisses me off as it's just like saying all Japanese manga and anime is porn, when nothing could be farther from the truth. Manga is now breaking that stigma, and hopefully MySpace will too.

I've only been on MySpace for about a month and I've already found it a very useful tool. Originally, I set out use it as a way to network and promote my upcoming projects. Little did I know that it's also and amazing way to meet and get in touch with an incredible online artsitic community. There are thousands of artists posting here and if you take the time to look a little you can find so many talented people looking for work.

Case in point, I'm doing a short six-page story in an upcoming charity anthology. I wrote S.A.S.E. (Send Another Submissions Editor) which is about true stories of portfolio reviews I've done at cons over the years. I needed to hire an artist who was familiar with cons, could capture the real world aspects of the story, understood the humor of the script, and could bring a slightly skewed style to the project. And along comes MySpace.

I was just clicking around one day looking at different folks friends when I spotted a cool profile pic, hand-drawn in a sweet style. So I clicked it and came across the artworkof Rob Guillory. You can check his stuff out too at http://www.myspace.com/rob_guillory. So I e-mailed Rob and we got to chatting, I checked out his site and loved his artwork. He was just what I was looking for. I sent him the script for S.A.S.E, he dug it, and the rest is history! So there, the power of MySpace used for good!

As I'm the main character in the story, I sent Rob over a few pics of me, and he designed me as you see me above. He nailed me on the first try. And wait until you see what else he's done!! It's been a blast working with him!

Rob and I wil be posting more designs, art and info on the project in the coming months! Stay tuned...

4 comments:

TAK said...

What's your myspace url?

Scott Sackett said...

I can only imagine the portfolio stories you could tell. I once saw the artist in front of me yell at Bob Shreck, slam his chair into the table and stomp off! How dod you follow that?

Just thinking about standing in those lines depresses me! And it's only 8 weeks to the Comic-Con.

David Baron: said...

I use myspace to lurk... but the real lurking goes on at xpeeps.

RobSchwager said...

see...?

toldja it was good fer the networking.