Dieselpunk + Steampunk Culture
INTERVIEW - JL Jones & Marlon de Rivera of Ever Tomorrow
JL Jones & Marlon de Rivera of Ever Tomorrow
Steampunk stories from the skies of Garland
www.evertomorrow.com
Ever Tomorrow is a steampunk fantasy created by JL Jones and Marlon de Rivera following the exploits of teenage Andrea Corsair. Miss Corsair lives in the country of Garland, currently at war with the distant nation of Denmore, and her father owns a small clock and music box shop in its capital, St. Emile.
Andrea has a peculiarly strong sense of hearing which allows her to discern tiny sounds within clockwork and machinery, and thus has a rather unladylike affinity for all things mechanical. A natural, daydream-like curiosity, along with her understanding of clockwork, leads her to become involved with the war at a level she never expected, and lands her head first into the kind of adventure she always dreamed of... but is it everything she hoped for?
Please introduce yourselves to the Dieselpunks audience. Behind the pens and the pixels, who are you two? Where did you come from?
JL: JL Jones, writer, inker, colorist, cover artist. Currently I'm in Atlanta, but I'm originally from Southeast Texas. I shan't get more specific than the Golden Triangle, people from there would know what I'm talking about. However, I won't say I feel very much kinship to my hometown, I have a few friends there and my family, but I get more teary eyed and nostalgic about where I went to school in Savannah, Georgia. Ah, the blue beaches, marshes, Spanish moss... and crazies. So many crazies.
Marlon: Marlon de Rivera, penciler, letterer and webmaster. I'm originally from Toronto, Ontario by way of Atlanta, GA and I've been living in the U.S. since about 1992.
There are two types of art students. Those who never complete a project, and those that stay up 72 hours straight to finish their masterpiece right before final evaluation. Since you both graduated from SCAD, I'm assuming you're the later, but there must have been some crazy nights, right?
Marlon: Most of the All-Nighers I took part in were mostly from my own poor planning or needing every second till the deadline to get something done. One of my longer bouts of sleep dep actually got me talking to a friend of mine who wasn't even in the dorms anymore. They aren't kidding when they say that if you go without sleep for long enough and you start to hallucinate.
JL: Oh, jeez... this is a bit embarrassing, but during school I didn't complete comic projects to my ability too often, and often not on time. So, there were many of those nights, believe me. One of the most memorable included me carrying around a cardboard sweat drop on a stick with a manic grin. Then there was the night I ended up stepping in honey mustard...
Marlon: I remember the honey mustard. And your roommate was dead to the world for all of it. Every time.
Did you grow up with comics? If so, do you have any favorites?
JL: Absolutely. In fact I was one of the oddly rare ones in my group of friends in college who read comics from the time I was a young child until now. Those early comics bring memories of sitting in a specialty meat store and reading Archie comics with my sister while my mom shopped; and the Robotech comics ravenously bought back issues of in middle school. When I started figuring out "this is what I love," I was into X-Men, Generation X, Bone, Kabuki, Castle Waiting, and especially Strangers in Paradise. So much so, that when I first started showing off my portfolio my freshman year I got a lot of "Oh, a Strangers in Paradise fan?"
Marlon: I didn't really grow up reading many comic books, but I grew up with the characters around me constantly. I grew up watching the Adam West Batman, Christopher Reeve's Superman movies, not to mention the old Superboy series, or Lois and Clark, The Flash- mostly adaptations of comics. As I was starting middle school I was picking up Spawn and The Savage Dragon and I got disinterested in comics since I didn't think there was any new ideas to be made in comics. Then in high school I found issue one of Blade of the Immortal and Johnny the Homicidal Maniac; and a combination of manga and indie comics brought back my interest in comics as a medium.
What inspired you to say "Mom and Dad, I'm going to school to draw comics?"
JL: That's a hard thing to ask, right? I actually owe a lot to my older sister, who spent her first year at Georgia Tech for computer science, thinking it may lead into computer animation. When she found out that wasn't going to happen, she somehow heard about the Savannah College of Art and Design, and through her I heard there was such an animal as a sequential art degree. By that point I already knew that my passion was storytelling, but not prose, and something like gallery art doesn't really allow for what I wanted. The likelihood of being independent as an animator is slim (this was before Flash, mind you), and I knew I had stories I wanted to tell, not anyone else's. So, at fourteen, after angsting about how much of a disappointment I was surely going to be, I managed to dredge up the request to them while having dinner at a Chinese place. To my utter surprise, neither of them raised an eyebrow.
Marlon: Specifically, it was lunch during fall at my old high school. A college recruiter from SCAD had a table outside in the amphitheater next to the cafeteria. I picked up a class book because the guy had mentioned architecture, and I was on the Drafting track so I decided to see what they had. Randomly flipping through it I found the major for Sequential Art, and these beautiful comics pages done by one of the grad students, Paul Hudson, and was immediately hooked. Paul would end up being one of my professors.
Do you have any heroes in the real world? How about in the four-color world?
JL: For a long time, my sister has been up there, no matter how much it may seem to the contrary to her. However, within the last year I've grown and struggled so much that I've now seen my father in a light I never did before. This is more than likely the first he'll hear of it, but I have the deepest, sincerest respect and admiration for him, and for how much he fought for my sister and myself. He tried so hard to tell me how to grow into an amazing person, and for too long I was stubbornly, selfishly, not listening. As far as in comics... it's odd, I don't really have characters that I admire, mostly creators. While I've never met a single one of the them, the round table of Webcomics Weekly have become sort of mentors, I follow as much of their words as I can-especially Brad Guigar of Evil Inc. and Dave Kellet of Sheldon. Then there's Jeff Smith of Bone, Terry Moore of Strangers in Paradise, or Wendy and Richard Pini of Elfquest. Although... maybe I shouldn't be happy about this, but I always felt a sort of respect and desire to be as uncompromisingly dedicated as Rorschach.
Marlon: As far as living people, not many that I've met in person. Artistically, the people I look to are Yoji Shinkawa, Moebius and ceators like Alex Toth, Dave Sim and Kohta Hirano for their work ethic.
Tell us about Ever Tomorrow. Where did it start, and how did you two bring it to life?
JL: Ever Tomorrow is a strange child, to be sure. I wrote a blog about it in detail (which can be found in archive form here: http://acquana.livejournal.com/5958.html ), but the nitty gritty is that sometime in 2003 I had a dream where a lot of the themes that would define Ever Tomorrow's setting took shape. Airships, a floating city, and a harsh caste system diving the populace. However I didn't know much more about the setting, only a single character who has become one of the most chatty voices in my head I've ever had... but because I just wasn't getting anything specific about the setting out of him, I instead asked Marlon to help me flesh it out. I wanted to know what kind of history had led up to what I "knew" would happen.
Marlon: I remember you mentioning that dream back in 2003, but not thinking of it, until two thousand...?
JL: 2006.
Marlon: 2006, we were really bored. And you asked me to run a tabletop game just for you... I remember asking you to make a character about Andrea's age, and within a couple of hours I had a pre-Steampunk Steampunk setting starting to form for her to be in. Though I'm actually much better at settings and world building than themes and specific plots for characters outside of games.
JL: That's where I come in.
Marlon: Yeah, we'd talked about the idea of taking Andrea's story from game to comic, but we didn't seriously sit down for that until this year. And after both of us talking it out and deciding on a real plot, it was then that Andrea's story really fit in with that dream you mentioned. Once we talked out it, the stories fit together scarily well.
JL: It was really a sort of the spur of the moment thing that pushed us from just idly tooling around with the idea to finally taking the leap. We were in sales, but neither of us were happy with it. We both talked about what we were really, honestly passionate about, and we knew we had been looking for happiness in places other than comics for just too long. And Andrea's story just seemed the natural choice. Steampunk is getting bigger, and something more family friendly would be a challenge (for me it is, anyway).
When you're feeling sapped, where do you turn for inspiration? Do you have a favorite movie, OAV, or album you can quote from start to the end due to hearing it so many times, or do you like to get outside when you need a creative lift?
JL: Honestly? Half of what keeps the two of us motivated and inspired is just every day talking about what we do. I bring up something that's coming up in the story, both of us bounce ideas off of each other until something sounds "right."
Marlon: That's pretty much right. Though I also read other people's webcomics, mostly for motivation. Specifically Dresden Codak, I used to read VG Cats... Gunnerkrig Court... and Lucid TV. Since most of our stuff is currently in Texas (with JL's parents), and I don't have my favorite movies with me, I find clips of them on Youtube...
JL: I read Girl Genius, Girly, Girls with Slingshots... I think those are the only ones that start with some variation of "girl." Also Gunnerkrig Court, Penny Arcade... And a couple of relative unknowns like DIS: Life is Hell, Reliquary, Filtered Fuzz, and Dovecove Crest. Getting out is good, too, though mostly to get fresh air and not be trapped where we're living right now.
I'm sure you heard, Marvel Studios and Disney are now kissing cousins. Is this a good thing or bad thing? Do either of you have your eyes set on big studio work?
Marlon: I'd like to think that people being up in arms about Disney buying Marvel is just alarmist.
JL: With how long it will take for any changes to actually take place, the internet will no longer care. Some people seem to forget just how long DC has been owned by Warner Bros. (since 1969) and there really hasn't been some big, earth shattering change in the way comics are done because of it.
Marlon: People were worried when Disney teamed up with Square-Enix, but now Kingdom Hearts is one their most popular titles. I know that a team-up isn't the same as a buy out, but I'd honestly like to see what they'll do with it. And remember, Disney was the one who okayed The Incredibles, which is one of the best tributes to superheroes... so, I don't think it's gonna be that bad.
JL: On the matter of getting the "big" contract... I would honestly see working with one of The Big Two as more of a promotional thing for what I know I can do myself. I would never give up rights in any way, and honestly with some of the decisions I've seen either of the big studios make over the last twenty years or so, if I never have their logo on the cover of my book I won't be crying myself to sleep.
Marlon: As far as working for any of the big companies... I did have notions of wanting to do something for Marvel. I remember Editor's Days at SCAD and having the most engaging critiques with Axel Alonso of Marvel. I know I didn't catch him at the beginning of the day, but he would still share ideas and he was awesome to talk to. In general, working for any of the big companies is intimidating because of the history, and no matter how good your work is, a couple of years down the line someone else will come around and invalidate anything you've done. My biggest example of that was the Green Lantern, but that's neither here nor there so I won't talk further.
Speaking of Marvel, we all know great power comes with great responsibility thanks to Uncle Ben. Since Ever Tomorrow is turning out to be a big hit with the Steampunk community, how has it affected your lives?
JL: Ever Tomorrow came to us at exactly the right time in our lives. The time I spent in sales toughened me up just enough that I was willing to stop coming up with excuses as to why I shouldn't be devoting as much as I possibly could to creating comics. Andrea's story is similarly about finding what it is you really want, as opposed to what you think you want, or what others have told you is what you want. What is it that will finally cause you to stop letting your past decide your future? What is it that will give you enough tenacity to ignore what others say? To no small degree, her struggle is my struggle. Also, working on a deadline has caused me to use more discipline than I ever have. Am I exactly where I want to be? Goodness, no, I've barely started. But I know that Ever Tomorrow is going to be where I learn everything I need to be the creator I want to be.
Marlon: One of the biggest pitfalls in creating comics is that too often people wait to "get good" before they ever start. The problem is, if you don't just start you're never going to get there. With Ever Tomorrow's deadline, I've posted things that I know could be better, that had mistakes, a lot of them only JL or myself would notice... but we still got it out there, and it being there means I can see where I need to improve next time. It's changed my life mostly because it's slowly making me less conscious about what I do, and stuff being out there means I can watch the tiny improvements as I go.
What can we expect in the future from Ever Tomorrow? Print-on-demand? Flash movies? Talkies! A fly-by cameo from the Davenport Sisters perhaps?
JL: Of course, there was an insistent request from a good friend about slipping in Clay Aiken somewhere... but I make no promises. What I can promise is that after issue 5 is done, we'll collect them in our first trade, more than likely with some serious editing of some of the earlier pages. If we get enough demand for single issues, we'd be more than happy to print 32 page issues through Kablam! or something of the like.
Marlon: A soundtrack wouldn't be impossible, we know a few people that do music.
JL: Plus we have plans for buttons, necklaces, small merch of the like, and what webcomic would be complete without some kind of t-shirt?
Marlon: Personally, I giggle to myself about the possibility of a point and click adventure game.
JL: Oh, and as far as anything I can promise in the future of the comic itself... Pirates. Lots, and lots, and lots of pirates. Air pirates.
Other than Ever Tomorrow, what else keeps your drawing room messy? Any other projects on the horizons?
Marlon: As far as other projects, we're kind of like 7/11. "We may not be doing business, but we're always open."
JL: We have a good deal of ideas we brainstorm about constantly... but as far as a serious project there is one that will be a four person project. We're keeping it under wraps because we all know how long it's going to take for it be ready, but I can say that if someone wants to see my writing be less kid friendly, then this will be exactly what they're wanting. Plus, I'll be the main penciler as opposed to everything else.
How can we help promote Ever Tomorrow? Do you hang out anywhere other than Dieselpunks and your official website (www.evertomorrow.com)?
JL: Okay, here we go. Currently, I'm a member of Brass Goggles, Twitter, DeviantArt, Atlanta Cartoonists, Atlanta Comics Creators, Family Webcomics, LiveJournal, MySpace, Facebook, Steampunk Empire and Scroll of Colors. *phew!* I don't keep up with all of them all the time, and it's pretty plain why. LJ, MySpace, and my DeviantArt journal are just other places where I archive Ever Tomorrow's blog (mostly, though I find that I get a few good responses to Ever Tomorrow's blog and pages on DA and LJ), and Twitter and Facebook often have the same posts. On DeviantArt I showcase a lot of my freelance illustration and personal side projects. The best bets of finding me checking regularly are on LJ, DA, and Twitter. I love hearing from anyone following Ever Tomorrow!
Marlon: you can find me on DeviantArt, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Conceptart.org, Escapist magazine, the Atomic Think Tank... I'm doing better at keeping up with these places, though I keep up with my DeviantArt the most. Aside from DA, the easiest way to find me is on AOL Instant Messenger.
Will you be showcasing your work at any cons or art gigs this year?
JL: This will be the only con that we'll be attending this year, and one of the last of the season coincidently: Anime Weekend Atlanta in the Renaissance Waverly hotel and Cobb Gallery Center in Atlanta.
Marlon: AWA is September 18-20, and we'll be sharing booths 13 and 14 with a handful of friends from SCAD.
JL: We're really excited since it's our first con since we started, other than a sliver of promotion at DragonCon. We'll have some promo books, and we'll be premiering our buttons and necklaces before we put them up on our site. As far as this upcoming year, depending on finances and what my friends from Texas will be doing, I'd love to have an artist alley table at A-Kon in Dallas.
Any words for your fans?
JL: The first thing that comes to mind whenever someone tells me they're going to be following Ever Tomorrow: Stick with us, the best is yet to come! We have big plans, and Andrea's adventure has barely begun.
Marlon: I'm probably gonna be up when you're up, so feel free to say hi. My AIM name is psionronin
Steampunk stories from the skies of Garland
www.evertomorrow.com
Ever Tomorrow is a steampunk fantasy created by JL Jones and Marlon de Rivera following the exploits of teenage Andrea Corsair. Miss Corsair lives in the country of Garland, currently at war with the distant nation of Denmore, and her father owns a small clock and music box shop in its capital, St. Emile.
Andrea has a peculiarly strong sense of hearing which allows her to discern tiny sounds within clockwork and machinery, and thus has a rather unladylike affinity for all things mechanical. A natural, daydream-like curiosity, along with her understanding of clockwork, leads her to become involved with the war at a level she never expected, and lands her head first into the kind of adventure she always dreamed of... but is it everything she hoped for?
Please introduce yourselves to the Dieselpunks audience. Behind the pens and the pixels, who are you two? Where did you come from?
JL: JL Jones, writer, inker, colorist, cover artist. Currently I'm in Atlanta, but I'm originally from Southeast Texas. I shan't get more specific than the Golden Triangle, people from there would know what I'm talking about. However, I won't say I feel very much kinship to my hometown, I have a few friends there and my family, but I get more teary eyed and nostalgic about where I went to school in Savannah, Georgia. Ah, the blue beaches, marshes, Spanish moss... and crazies. So many crazies.
Marlon: Marlon de Rivera, penciler, letterer and webmaster. I'm originally from Toronto, Ontario by way of Atlanta, GA and I've been living in the U.S. since about 1992.
There are two types of art students. Those who never complete a project, and those that stay up 72 hours straight to finish their masterpiece right before final evaluation. Since you both graduated from SCAD, I'm assuming you're the later, but there must have been some crazy nights, right?
Marlon: Most of the All-Nighers I took part in were mostly from my own poor planning or needing every second till the deadline to get something done. One of my longer bouts of sleep dep actually got me talking to a friend of mine who wasn't even in the dorms anymore. They aren't kidding when they say that if you go without sleep for long enough and you start to hallucinate.
JL: Oh, jeez... this is a bit embarrassing, but during school I didn't complete comic projects to my ability too often, and often not on time. So, there were many of those nights, believe me. One of the most memorable included me carrying around a cardboard sweat drop on a stick with a manic grin. Then there was the night I ended up stepping in honey mustard...
Marlon: I remember the honey mustard. And your roommate was dead to the world for all of it. Every time.
Did you grow up with comics? If so, do you have any favorites?
JL: Absolutely. In fact I was one of the oddly rare ones in my group of friends in college who read comics from the time I was a young child until now. Those early comics bring memories of sitting in a specialty meat store and reading Archie comics with my sister while my mom shopped; and the Robotech comics ravenously bought back issues of in middle school. When I started figuring out "this is what I love," I was into X-Men, Generation X, Bone, Kabuki, Castle Waiting, and especially Strangers in Paradise. So much so, that when I first started showing off my portfolio my freshman year I got a lot of "Oh, a Strangers in Paradise fan?"
Marlon: I didn't really grow up reading many comic books, but I grew up with the characters around me constantly. I grew up watching the Adam West Batman, Christopher Reeve's Superman movies, not to mention the old Superboy series, or Lois and Clark, The Flash- mostly adaptations of comics. As I was starting middle school I was picking up Spawn and The Savage Dragon and I got disinterested in comics since I didn't think there was any new ideas to be made in comics. Then in high school I found issue one of Blade of the Immortal and Johnny the Homicidal Maniac; and a combination of manga and indie comics brought back my interest in comics as a medium.
What inspired you to say "Mom and Dad, I'm going to school to draw comics?"
JL: That's a hard thing to ask, right? I actually owe a lot to my older sister, who spent her first year at Georgia Tech for computer science, thinking it may lead into computer animation. When she found out that wasn't going to happen, she somehow heard about the Savannah College of Art and Design, and through her I heard there was such an animal as a sequential art degree. By that point I already knew that my passion was storytelling, but not prose, and something like gallery art doesn't really allow for what I wanted. The likelihood of being independent as an animator is slim (this was before Flash, mind you), and I knew I had stories I wanted to tell, not anyone else's. So, at fourteen, after angsting about how much of a disappointment I was surely going to be, I managed to dredge up the request to them while having dinner at a Chinese place. To my utter surprise, neither of them raised an eyebrow.
Marlon: Specifically, it was lunch during fall at my old high school. A college recruiter from SCAD had a table outside in the amphitheater next to the cafeteria. I picked up a class book because the guy had mentioned architecture, and I was on the Drafting track so I decided to see what they had. Randomly flipping through it I found the major for Sequential Art, and these beautiful comics pages done by one of the grad students, Paul Hudson, and was immediately hooked. Paul would end up being one of my professors.
Do you have any heroes in the real world? How about in the four-color world?
JL: For a long time, my sister has been up there, no matter how much it may seem to the contrary to her. However, within the last year I've grown and struggled so much that I've now seen my father in a light I never did before. This is more than likely the first he'll hear of it, but I have the deepest, sincerest respect and admiration for him, and for how much he fought for my sister and myself. He tried so hard to tell me how to grow into an amazing person, and for too long I was stubbornly, selfishly, not listening. As far as in comics... it's odd, I don't really have characters that I admire, mostly creators. While I've never met a single one of the them, the round table of Webcomics Weekly have become sort of mentors, I follow as much of their words as I can-especially Brad Guigar of Evil Inc. and Dave Kellet of Sheldon. Then there's Jeff Smith of Bone, Terry Moore of Strangers in Paradise, or Wendy and Richard Pini of Elfquest. Although... maybe I shouldn't be happy about this, but I always felt a sort of respect and desire to be as uncompromisingly dedicated as Rorschach.
Marlon: As far as living people, not many that I've met in person. Artistically, the people I look to are Yoji Shinkawa, Moebius and ceators like Alex Toth, Dave Sim and Kohta Hirano for their work ethic.
Tell us about Ever Tomorrow. Where did it start, and how did you two bring it to life?
JL: Ever Tomorrow is a strange child, to be sure. I wrote a blog about it in detail (which can be found in archive form here: http://acquana.livejournal.com/5958.html ), but the nitty gritty is that sometime in 2003 I had a dream where a lot of the themes that would define Ever Tomorrow's setting took shape. Airships, a floating city, and a harsh caste system diving the populace. However I didn't know much more about the setting, only a single character who has become one of the most chatty voices in my head I've ever had... but because I just wasn't getting anything specific about the setting out of him, I instead asked Marlon to help me flesh it out. I wanted to know what kind of history had led up to what I "knew" would happen.
Marlon: I remember you mentioning that dream back in 2003, but not thinking of it, until two thousand...?
JL: 2006.
Marlon: 2006, we were really bored. And you asked me to run a tabletop game just for you... I remember asking you to make a character about Andrea's age, and within a couple of hours I had a pre-Steampunk Steampunk setting starting to form for her to be in. Though I'm actually much better at settings and world building than themes and specific plots for characters outside of games.
JL: That's where I come in.
Marlon: Yeah, we'd talked about the idea of taking Andrea's story from game to comic, but we didn't seriously sit down for that until this year. And after both of us talking it out and deciding on a real plot, it was then that Andrea's story really fit in with that dream you mentioned. Once we talked out it, the stories fit together scarily well.
JL: It was really a sort of the spur of the moment thing that pushed us from just idly tooling around with the idea to finally taking the leap. We were in sales, but neither of us were happy with it. We both talked about what we were really, honestly passionate about, and we knew we had been looking for happiness in places other than comics for just too long. And Andrea's story just seemed the natural choice. Steampunk is getting bigger, and something more family friendly would be a challenge (for me it is, anyway).
When you're feeling sapped, where do you turn for inspiration? Do you have a favorite movie, OAV, or album you can quote from start to the end due to hearing it so many times, or do you like to get outside when you need a creative lift?
JL: Honestly? Half of what keeps the two of us motivated and inspired is just every day talking about what we do. I bring up something that's coming up in the story, both of us bounce ideas off of each other until something sounds "right."
Marlon: That's pretty much right. Though I also read other people's webcomics, mostly for motivation. Specifically Dresden Codak, I used to read VG Cats... Gunnerkrig Court... and Lucid TV. Since most of our stuff is currently in Texas (with JL's parents), and I don't have my favorite movies with me, I find clips of them on Youtube...
JL: I read Girl Genius, Girly, Girls with Slingshots... I think those are the only ones that start with some variation of "girl." Also Gunnerkrig Court, Penny Arcade... And a couple of relative unknowns like DIS: Life is Hell, Reliquary, Filtered Fuzz, and Dovecove Crest. Getting out is good, too, though mostly to get fresh air and not be trapped where we're living right now.
I'm sure you heard, Marvel Studios and Disney are now kissing cousins. Is this a good thing or bad thing? Do either of you have your eyes set on big studio work?
Marlon: I'd like to think that people being up in arms about Disney buying Marvel is just alarmist.
JL: With how long it will take for any changes to actually take place, the internet will no longer care. Some people seem to forget just how long DC has been owned by Warner Bros. (since 1969) and there really hasn't been some big, earth shattering change in the way comics are done because of it.
Marlon: People were worried when Disney teamed up with Square-Enix, but now Kingdom Hearts is one their most popular titles. I know that a team-up isn't the same as a buy out, but I'd honestly like to see what they'll do with it. And remember, Disney was the one who okayed The Incredibles, which is one of the best tributes to superheroes... so, I don't think it's gonna be that bad.
JL: On the matter of getting the "big" contract... I would honestly see working with one of The Big Two as more of a promotional thing for what I know I can do myself. I would never give up rights in any way, and honestly with some of the decisions I've seen either of the big studios make over the last twenty years or so, if I never have their logo on the cover of my book I won't be crying myself to sleep.
Marlon: As far as working for any of the big companies... I did have notions of wanting to do something for Marvel. I remember Editor's Days at SCAD and having the most engaging critiques with Axel Alonso of Marvel. I know I didn't catch him at the beginning of the day, but he would still share ideas and he was awesome to talk to. In general, working for any of the big companies is intimidating because of the history, and no matter how good your work is, a couple of years down the line someone else will come around and invalidate anything you've done. My biggest example of that was the Green Lantern, but that's neither here nor there so I won't talk further.
Speaking of Marvel, we all know great power comes with great responsibility thanks to Uncle Ben. Since Ever Tomorrow is turning out to be a big hit with the Steampunk community, how has it affected your lives?
JL: Ever Tomorrow came to us at exactly the right time in our lives. The time I spent in sales toughened me up just enough that I was willing to stop coming up with excuses as to why I shouldn't be devoting as much as I possibly could to creating comics. Andrea's story is similarly about finding what it is you really want, as opposed to what you think you want, or what others have told you is what you want. What is it that will finally cause you to stop letting your past decide your future? What is it that will give you enough tenacity to ignore what others say? To no small degree, her struggle is my struggle. Also, working on a deadline has caused me to use more discipline than I ever have. Am I exactly where I want to be? Goodness, no, I've barely started. But I know that Ever Tomorrow is going to be where I learn everything I need to be the creator I want to be.
Marlon: One of the biggest pitfalls in creating comics is that too often people wait to "get good" before they ever start. The problem is, if you don't just start you're never going to get there. With Ever Tomorrow's deadline, I've posted things that I know could be better, that had mistakes, a lot of them only JL or myself would notice... but we still got it out there, and it being there means I can see where I need to improve next time. It's changed my life mostly because it's slowly making me less conscious about what I do, and stuff being out there means I can watch the tiny improvements as I go.
What can we expect in the future from Ever Tomorrow? Print-on-demand? Flash movies? Talkies! A fly-by cameo from the Davenport Sisters perhaps?
JL: Of course, there was an insistent request from a good friend about slipping in Clay Aiken somewhere... but I make no promises. What I can promise is that after issue 5 is done, we'll collect them in our first trade, more than likely with some serious editing of some of the earlier pages. If we get enough demand for single issues, we'd be more than happy to print 32 page issues through Kablam! or something of the like.
Marlon: A soundtrack wouldn't be impossible, we know a few people that do music.
JL: Plus we have plans for buttons, necklaces, small merch of the like, and what webcomic would be complete without some kind of t-shirt?
Marlon: Personally, I giggle to myself about the possibility of a point and click adventure game.
JL: Oh, and as far as anything I can promise in the future of the comic itself... Pirates. Lots, and lots, and lots of pirates. Air pirates.
Other than Ever Tomorrow, what else keeps your drawing room messy? Any other projects on the horizons?Marlon: As far as other projects, we're kind of like 7/11. "We may not be doing business, but we're always open."
JL: We have a good deal of ideas we brainstorm about constantly... but as far as a serious project there is one that will be a four person project. We're keeping it under wraps because we all know how long it's going to take for it be ready, but I can say that if someone wants to see my writing be less kid friendly, then this will be exactly what they're wanting. Plus, I'll be the main penciler as opposed to everything else.
How can we help promote Ever Tomorrow? Do you hang out anywhere other than Dieselpunks and your official website (www.evertomorrow.com)?
JL: Okay, here we go. Currently, I'm a member of Brass Goggles, Twitter, DeviantArt, Atlanta Cartoonists, Atlanta Comics Creators, Family Webcomics, LiveJournal, MySpace, Facebook, Steampunk Empire and Scroll of Colors. *phew!* I don't keep up with all of them all the time, and it's pretty plain why. LJ, MySpace, and my DeviantArt journal are just other places where I archive Ever Tomorrow's blog (mostly, though I find that I get a few good responses to Ever Tomorrow's blog and pages on DA and LJ), and Twitter and Facebook often have the same posts. On DeviantArt I showcase a lot of my freelance illustration and personal side projects. The best bets of finding me checking regularly are on LJ, DA, and Twitter. I love hearing from anyone following Ever Tomorrow!
Marlon: you can find me on DeviantArt, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Conceptart.org, Escapist magazine, the Atomic Think Tank... I'm doing better at keeping up with these places, though I keep up with my DeviantArt the most. Aside from DA, the easiest way to find me is on AOL Instant Messenger.
Will you be showcasing your work at any cons or art gigs this year?
JL: This will be the only con that we'll be attending this year, and one of the last of the season coincidently: Anime Weekend Atlanta in the Renaissance Waverly hotel and Cobb Gallery Center in Atlanta.
Marlon: AWA is September 18-20, and we'll be sharing booths 13 and 14 with a handful of friends from SCAD.
JL: We're really excited since it's our first con since we started, other than a sliver of promotion at DragonCon. We'll have some promo books, and we'll be premiering our buttons and necklaces before we put them up on our site. As far as this upcoming year, depending on finances and what my friends from Texas will be doing, I'd love to have an artist alley table at A-Kon in Dallas.
Any words for your fans?
JL: The first thing that comes to mind whenever someone tells me they're going to be following Ever Tomorrow: Stick with us, the best is yet to come! We have big plans, and Andrea's adventure has barely begun.
Marlon: I'm probably gonna be up when you're up, so feel free to say hi. My AIM name is psionronin
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