Thanks to our buddy Kevin who let us play Soul Calibur 5 with him… see what happens when you let us out of the house!

Hey guys!

Only another month and a bit to go until we’re back to updating Cottonstar! You guys are awesome for being so patient.

This other project we are busy with is looking really nice, and we’re excited to be able to share it with you once we’re done, if the client is okay with it. At the very least I’m sure we’ll be able to show you one or two pages.

The next few months will be really busy, especially for Cottonstar. We have the Open Book Comics Fest, in which we will be showcasing the comic as well as joining in a panel discussion about webcomics with the awesome Moray Rhoda and the very talented Ben Winfield. There is also an exhibition component to the festival which both of us will be involved in. 😀

Both of us will be making some pinups to go into Velocity Graphic Novel Anthology, volume 4. These are due at the end of July. Luckily we’re not doing full on comic strips – pinups ought to be more than manageable, and are loads of fun.

Danelle will also be participating in a group show at the end of August, curated by the lovely Stefanie Schoeman. The show will be called Pieces & Puzzles, and will focus on nature/spring – open to artist’s interpretation. It will be held at the Lovell Gallery in Woodstock.

ALSO at the end of August is Danelle’s favourite (and only) brother’s wedding! She is a bridesmaid so there will be lots of running around for her, but she doesn’t mind, because it’s kind of a big deal. 😉

So yes, as you can see, there’s lots of things going on. But it’s okay because it’s all really exciting! We’ll still do our best to get pages up on time. We’re restructuring the workload a little to streamline our process, which will hopefully result in a faster rate of production. The current project we’re working on has proven that the new system is a lot more efficient.

NOW, for some more exciting news:

Two of our local boys (namely Moray Rhoda and Ray Whitcher)  have been invited to attend San Diego Comic-Con, to present a panel discussion on the Velocity Anthology, which will deal with comic art in South Africa and Australia, as Velocity is a collaboration between these two countries. However, they were given VERY little notice, with the con being barely more than a month away. This means they have to gain funding ($5000 JUST for the airfare), get their visas sorted, organise transport and accommodation, etc,  in a very short space of time. They’ve made an indiegogo campaign which managed to raise $1410 – which is awesome, but not quite enough. There’s talk of making a Paypal portal to raise more funds. South Africans are also welcome to do EFT donations. Just contact Moray at moray@gaining-velocity.com for more details. There is now also a Pozible campaign, so you can go there to donate!

Please donate! Anything at all is better than nothing! This is a huge opportunity for South African comics. It will be so amazing to be put on the international comics map! 😀

So there you have the latest news roundup.

Thanks as always for your patience and for being just the kiefest kids on the block.

Ben & Danelle

PS! Check out this GORGEOUS pic of Reka that was done by none other than the wonderful Maya Kern, creator of Monster Pop! and various other amazing projects. Follow her on tumblr and on deviantArt.

So Free Comic Book Day 2013 was just… fantastic.

Wow. In just 7 hours, we’d managed to cover all our printing costs, even including the cost of the posters. The turnout was insane, I think this was the biggest one yet. And the cosplays! Oh my gosh! There were over 50 entrants in the Cosplay competition, and the characters spanned across multiple genres, which was really cool.

We sold quite well, but there’s still a lot of stock left, so anyone who wants to order a comic is welcome to do so. We charge a flat rate shipping fee of R35. Comics will still be R40 for regular and R80 for the sketched editions.

Some fellow local artists also launched comics at the event. Kay Carmichael with Sophie, Giant Slayer, Chris Beukes with WRATH, Alastair Brauns with Crimson, to name a few. It was great to see such a good energy among everybody. I’m guessing that next year will be even bigger and better. We may have to move to a new venue… No pressure, Readers Den. ;D

Now, for some photos! 😀 We were stuck at our booth most of the time, which is a good thing, because it means we were busy – but a bad thing because we didn’t get to take any photos. So our thanks go out the fine photographers who so kindly allowed us to use their images here. 🙂 We don’t know the names of all the cosplayers, so if you recognise any of your friends, please comment below and tell us who they are! Thanks :3

The queue to get into the Readers Den shop. Photo by Damian Fisher

“I’m sorry, please spell your name again for me?” Photo by Marchelle Hermanus

(Featuring our buddy Clarence Musson from Zero Edge on the left there)

The crowd looked like this from start to finish! Photo by Damian Fisher

“NYAAARGH!” Ben at the booth shortly before the proverbial doors were opened. Photo by Shameema Dharsey

Posing with the lovely Tamryn from Crimson and Clover Leatherwork. 😀 Photo by us, for once!

Special mention to this really awesome DOOM Marine. Talk about a blast from the past! 😀 Photo by Damian Fisher (who also happens to be that Rorschach on the right)

The Wallies were there, too, in their natural habitat – the middle of a big crowd of people. Photo by Damian Fisher

Impedimenta is accosted by the vengeful spirit of a wild boar. Photo by Damian Fisher

We were pleasantly surprised to see this Fairly Odd Parents cosplay too! Photo by Chelsea Smith

Cosplay contest finalists. Photo by Zombiegamer

One of the most impressive cosplays of the day – a LIFE SIZE SPACE MARINE. Photo by Zombiegamer

For more cosplay pics, go to our Facebook page, where we’ll be linking FCBD photo albums as people put them up. Readers Den still has to put their huge one up, and I know there will be videos, blog posts and a whole bunch of other stuff from various people, so keep your eye on our FB page. That’s where we’ll be sharing all our finds.

This was so great. Thanks again to Readers Den, you guys are legends.

Hey guys! 😀

This will probably be our last blog post before Free Comic Book Day on Saturday. We are really excited!

This post is just to give you a heads up about our prices and special offers.

We will be selling 100 copies of Chapter 2 and over 200 copies of Chapter one, as well as four different kinds of A3 posters, 10 copies of each. The images on the posters will be the following:

20 of the 100 copies of Chapter 2 will be super special *~sketch editions~* (oooh) – which will be selling for R80 each. They come in a baggie with a backing board and a nifty golden wax seal with a star stamped in it. Totes worth the money. The normal comics, both Chapter 1 & 2, will be selling for R40 each. As usual, each comic is numbered, and we will gladly sign it for you if you want us to. 🙂

BUT WAIT, there’s more: As a FCBD special ONLY, if you buy both Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 (sketched or non-sketched doesn’t matter), you will get a *~FREE MYSTERY POSTER~*!! While stocks last of course.

Poster prices are R50 for all posters, except Mulleted Fury, which will be R80, because it is printed on super duper fancy archival paper and cost us a fortune to make.

If you live in South Africa and are interested in buying a copy of Cottonstar, but cannot make it to FCBD, fear not! We are willing to ship locally. You just do an EFT for us and add a flat rate shipping fee, which is R35.

Hopefully this info is useful to anyone who needs to budget for the day. Because, well, let’s face it – FCBD has this way of absorbing all your money via osmosis. You get home and suddenly you are broke, and you have no idea what happened, but your room is crammed full of cool stuff. Kind of like being a werewolf, just as a geek with a credit card.

Besides the awesome comics and things, there will also be a really cool new addition, namely a performance stage/arena! We will be seeing cosplayers and dance performances from 10am to around noon. Here is the program, as supplied by Readers Den:

We are so excited for this event. Please go over to Readers Den and support them. They are just amazing for organising this every year, and for selflessly pouring their time and energy into local artists, providing them with a platform to showcase their work and advance their careers. Thank you Readers Den, you are amazing!

See you all on Saturday! 😀

Hey guys 🙂

Ben and I spent most of our Saturday at the printing place that does our comics for us. 100 shiny copies of Cottonstar chapter 2 will be ready for collection in the week! We’re really excited!

Here are the proof pages:

We’re very pleased to have gotten the colours right the first time. Printing a zillion proofs is exhausting and stressful. In the end we only had to adjust one image, which was one of the ads in the back. Now everything looks awesome and we are looking forward to getting our comics so we can number and package them! 😀 There will be a limited amount of sketched editions too.

Everyone in the Cape Town area really should come to Free Comic Book Day* on the 4th of May (Star Wars day, my geeky friends!) at Stadium-on-Main in Claremont. The event runs from 8 or 9am until about 4pm. I’d recommend getting there even earlier to grab the best deals. Plus Readers Den usually gives out goodie bags to the first 50 people to spend R100 or more in-store.  There will be everything from figurines to graphic novels to clothing and bobbleheads… so bring loooots of cash!

We are really excited and hope to see all our CT buddies there. We also know of several other local comics/graphic novels/projects that will be making their debut at FCBD and we are super keen to see the crowd this year. It’s going to be beeeeeeg! I already know of some cosplay and dance performances. There will also be prizes and lucky draws.

If any of our overseas friends want comics, I’m afraid we’ll have to wait until after FCBD to sell to you guys, because we spent a lot of money on printing and if we can make it back in local currency/cash, we’d prefer to do so! We can’t really use Paypal money here because of the really dumb legal BS that we have to go through, plus by the time you get the money into your special bank account that you can only create at one specific bank and which you have to open ESPECIALLY just to get your paypal money, the fees and tax make it not worthwhile at all. :c Siiiiigh South Africa Y U DO THIS.. you’d swear getting strong foreign currency into the country is a bad thing.

Have a great day and thank you again to everyone for your support and love! <3 *To clarify - the "free" in free comic book day applies to the sampler comics and swag that big companies dish out to fans. The rest of the merchandise there is for purchase. The good news is that most of that merchandise is on special for the day.

We have to announce some bad-ish news.

We are faced with a rather large piece of work, which is pretty much the same type of work as Cottonstar, only much higher in volume, with a tighter deadline, and which pays. So instead of working on Cottonstar, our free time will now be going into this project, which will wrap in three months’ time. (There’s also the Grahamstown festival in between all that.) We are forced to take a break from the comic during this time, so as to give the other project our all. We will most definitely still try to get pages out for you guys, but just in case that doesn’t happen… this is why. We are very sorry, trust us, we feel really bad about this and it’s going to be difficult not working on our own comic, but work comes first.

In the meantime, please feel free to reread the previous pages, share them with your friends, make fan art, send us mail, play a tune on the kazoo, anything! We love all that stuff so please don’t be shy. 🙂 We love and appreciate all our readers. And without you guys, the comic certainly wouldn’t be as much fun to do!

Also some good news: We will be at Free Comic Book Day this year! We’ll have 100 shiny, fresh copies of Chapter 2 to sell, plus about 200 copies of Chapter 1. We’re going to the printers this Saturday to do test prints! We’re very excited! 😀 Come on down to Readers Den in Stadium-on-Main in Claremont. It’s going to be absolutely amazing. The crowd just gets bigger every year!

Here’s to you, hope to see you all again soon. Then it will be full speed ahead again!

Love

Ben & Danelle

PS: We will still be active on our Tumblr account and Facebook page. :3

Yup! That’s right, we now have a Cottonstar tumblr. Both “Cottonstar” and “Cotton-star” were already taken, sadly, but we managed to get “thecottonstar.”  😀

So… here is the link! Please follow us there for extra bits and bobs and things that don’t really fit in anywhere on the main site, but are fun nonetheless. 🙂 

In the meantime, please enjoy this delightful art trade of Reka and Vuis, done by tumblr user dojinski.

– Danelle & Ben

Those of you who have been on the site recently may have noticed some developments happening in the gallery section. We now have functioning fan art / guest covers galleries! We’re still sorting out a few technical issues and fiddling with the look and feel of it, but things are looking good so far.

Please let us know if you encounter any bugs!

If you have any fan art you would like to submit to the gallery, please email it to Danelle at danelle(dot)malan(at)gmail(dot)com. (<-spambot avoidance effort).

Welcome to any new readers! Thank you for taking the time to read our comic.

🙂

Ben & Danelle

Hey guys! 🙂

Thank you so much for all the cool comments and stuff we’ve been getting, it’s really awesome. 😀

This is just a post to announce that Ben and I will be taking a break from Cottonstar until January. He’s off spending time with family and I am recuperating from a really tough illustration contract. We’re very grateful for all your support during 2012. You guys are the best. <3

Have a wonderful and safe festive season, and a happy new year.

<3

Danelle & Ben