Anyone with a copy of Beards of our Forefathers has seen the 10 or so colored comics that it contains — similar to this comic from a few months ago. They were tons of fun to make, and I planned to do the same for my next collection, Clever Tricks to Stave Off Death. But thanks to a wonderfully busy holiday shipping season, I haven’t had the time to do so.
That’s where you come in! I’m inviting you to color one, two, three…up to six of my comic strips. The best entries will be printed in Clever Tricks (scheduled for release by Dark Horse Books in May 2009), and will be credited to you and, if you like, your website. The best colorists will also receive payment for their work — I’m not looking for free labor here.
The catch is that I need them soon. I’m hoping that you’ve got some days off this week, because I’ll be accepting entries only through this Sunday, January 4 (11:59 PM Pacific time).
Details are below the jump! Good luck to all.
Below you’ll find a link to download hi-res versions of the six comics that need coloring. Only colored versions of these particular comics are eligible for the contest!
I’ve provided layered .PSD files for each of the six comics. You can color the comics however you like, as long as you don’t change or distract from the joke. Creativity is a plus! Use your imagination. (Don’t worry about missing fonts; use the existing pixel data and I’ll replace them later.)
Aside: If you’re not into coloring but are curious how I build the comics, feel free to download and poke through the layers of #319. It’s the most complex of this bunch and I’m pretty proud of how it came together.
My single favorite submission for each of the six comics will be printed in Clever Tricks to Stave Off Death. (So your odds are better if you choose to color one of the more intricate images that fewer others might choose.) You may submit as many entries as you like.
For each comic chosen for publication, in addition to in-book credit the artist will receive their choice of either $25 cash or a $50 gift certificate to the Wondermark Goodsery (the in-house store, not the TopatoCo store). So it’s possible for a single artist to earn up to $150 cash or $300 of store credit. I may award other prizes as well, if there are entries that I can’t print but nonetheless really like.
To submit, simply email me a .PNG or .TIFF of your finished, colored comic. (Flattened is fine, so it’ll fit in an email.) If you win, I’ll send you FTP info so you can upload a layered file. The comics MUST stay at full-size: 400 dpi, 2870 pixels wide. Email your submissions to davidmalki at gmail dot com, with the subject line “Colored #319” (or whatever number).
Finally, here is a very important point: I can only print six comics in this book, but every single submission is an audition for more coloring work in the future. I like coloring, but I’m kind of slow and uncreative at it. I would love nothing more than to build a roster of colorists that I can hire for books, posters, etc. I will keep every submission on file as a sample for future paid projects!
You can download the full-res layered .PSD files here. Go to it — you only have until Sunday night! Update: The deadline has passed. Thanks very much to everyone who submitted; winners will be announced shortly.
I can’t help but think that colouring is going to draw attention to the fact that the girl is wearing a different dress in panels 1/3 and 2 in https://wondermark.com/326/ Oh well!