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INTERVIEW: Discovering Jane's World  PopImage: How would you describe Jane's World to the uninitiated? Paige: I usually say, if Jane's World were a sitcom it'd be like Ellen meets Seinfeld... It's a comic about "nothing," with an androgynous gay female lead. Meaning, the story meanders all over the place, with the humor being character based. My goal for upcoming stories is to really build the strength of each character. I recently moved from a daily "comic strip" format to a full-page comic book format... I'm hoping this will allow me to add depth to the stories and art while also playing with the pace of the story a little more. Right now, the story is offering a bit of a flashback to Chelle's past life. She's the dark, mysterious character in the book. I'll try not to give away all here secrets... Part of what makes her fun is that she reveals herself to the cast of the comic and to the reader at the same time. How autobiographical is the book? I would say about 50 percent of the stories start with some kernel of truth/reality... I was never actually abducted by aliens, but I hope to meet one some day. Most all of the characters in the cast have a "real life" counterpart... Most of the characters are based on friends or evil ex girlfriends. You've got a very impressive track record for a self-publisher. You published 12 monthly issues on time and recently switched to larger bi monthly format. As a self-publisher myself I'm blown away that you can maintain that schedule. How do you pull it off? I would say luck and a good archive of material. I started doing Jane a long time before I ever got up the nerve to publish the books... I ended up not publishing the first 2 or 3 years of the strip because I didn't think it was that good... I picked a starting point for the books where I thought the characters had matured a bit. At that point I had about 3 years of material in the waiting... Unfortunately, with that print schedule you catch up with yourself pretty fast... So ask me that question in another six months.  I love the new 56 page issues. It seems the perfect happy medium between single issues and trades. What was the impetus to change your format? That change in format was actually Diamond's idea (Diamond Comic Distributors). My account manager, Rob Randle, wanted to keep the book in the previews catalog, even though my numbers weren't quite high enough. Diamond sort of has two magic numbers... One can be number of issues sold, the other can be total price (price point)... Rob thought a bimonthly would give me enough of a price point, even with lower numbers to meet Diamond's criteria. Actually, aside from keeping Diamond happy I think the switch has ended up being a good thing for Jane because the bimonthly gives each book a longer shelf life, which improves the chances that a new reader will pick it up and also gives a new reader more story to start with. I wasn't so sure it was a good idea to begin with, because as a comics fan myself, I get impatient waiting for the monthly new books to come out, but I think this was actually a good move for Jane. How much of your audience is in the comic shop vs. alternative venues. I've heard you advise "know who your audience is". How do you achieve that without alienating other possible audiences? I ask mostly because I find your book has such a universal appeal. Well, I don't know if I have all the answers to this one... Because I think this presents the biggest area of learning for me... ie: promoting your book. I sort of realized early on that I could probably have a really good readership outside comic shops, given the subject matter in my books, but I wasn't sure how to reach them. One lead I got was with Last Gasp Distributors... They sell to Gay/Lesbian book shops and small, alternative bookstores... They liked the book because it had gay content, but it could be sold "in front of the curtain"... Meaning, it was okay for a teen reader. The other thing I did was I bought a gay travel book and started calling bookstores that were listed in the book... That gave me my second big break... This comic shop in Vegas gave me the name of a distributor on the east coast that they work with, Bookazine. The only buy the trade paperbacks so far, but they've been able to get Jane into foreign markets... So that's pretty exciting to me.  What brought you into comic books? Did your parents encourage you to be creative? Do you remember your first one? I always wanted to do a newspaper comic strip... I just sort of stumbled into comic books... And now I regret not getting into comic books MUCH sooner. I mean, I always loved comic books, but I didn't really think my slapstick, girlie comic would work there. I think in the last several years comic books have changed... The alternative titles are gaining in popularity... I think that's what gave me the encouragement to create the books. That and Terry Moore (SIP) telling me I should do it. If a cartoonist has to have a day job, I would say it would have to be yours. Can you tell us a little bit about it? I'm the Creative Director at Charles Schulz's studio in Santa Rosa, CA. When I first started publishing Jane, and would be asked to be on panels, I kept that pretty quiet. I really wanted Jane to succeed on her own merits and not through my connections at the Schulz studio. I think after self-publishing for two years I feel more comfortable talking about my "day job." Mr. Schulz and I were friends through comics and about 5 years ago he asked me if I'd move to California and work at his studio. He was ready to let go of his leadership role on the licensing art side (books, t-shirts, toys, etc.)... He wanted me to take over that so that he could just focus on his comic strip. Unfortunately I only got to help him out for about 6 months before he became ill and was forced to retire. My primary responsibility in the job now is to oversee all the Peanuts licensing worldwide. The studio maintains editorial control of the products so every month we review and approve or reject about 4,500 new product submissions. It's a pretty big job. Peanuts is much larger internationally than it is in the US... Especially in Asia. I didn't even have a passport until I got this job... Now I end up traveling quite a bit.  How much of an influence was Schultz on your own work? I think like every person who wanted to do comic strips for newspapers, he was my hero. I started tracing Snoopy out of the paper when I was a kid. As I got older I really appreciated and admired his integrity as an artist... That he did all the work on his strip himself, without assistants. He also gave me a few pointers about my own strip when I started working at the studio.  How long are your plans for Jane's World? Are there any other projects you'd like to work on? I had this big vision when I started Girl Twirl Comics (the name Jane is published under) that I would like to ultimately publish, or help publish, other comics by women... I wish there were more women and girls into comics... But I think that's a ways off... Maybe someday though... What books are you reading these days? Well, Bush has gotten me so angry that I've actually been reading more political books... I don't think I was that political before... But geez, he's so unbelievably manipulative... And just downright dumb... So the recent list includes "Dude, where's my country"... "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy".... And one I've put off buying for a while but finally picked it up, "Fast Food Nation"... I knew as soon as I read it I wouldn't be able to eat Filet o fish sandwiches any longer. And this may sound weird, but the book I bought last week was about lost paths of Christianity... Sort of about the early history of Christianity right after Christ's death and before the Catholics took over. I'm actually thinking of introducing a gay, Christian character into my strip... I think it's time the sane Christians reclaimed their faith from the right wing. The biggest piece of advice you could give someone looking to self publish? Anything you would have done different? First, be a strong editor of your own work... You have to get some personal distance from your work so that you can strongly edit yourself... That's one of the hardest things about self-publishing... Not having an outside editor is good and bad, so you have to at least be able to be honest with yourself. And when you decide to publish your own book... Do it with fervor. I think if I did things differently, looking back, I wish I'd moved away from the comic strip format sooner.  Okay, because the tension is killing me...are Jane and Dorothy ever gonna get together? The short answer is "no"... although they both have romance bearing down on them in the near future (beginning in issue 16). Jane is going to have a romantic mis-adventure of the "ex girlfriend" flavor, before moving on to something a bit more real. I think Dot has a man in her future... you know, she and Talia play for both teams as they say... which keeps everyone on their toes. Aaaaaargh! But they would be so cute together! Aaaargh! I'm going to have to trust you on this one. 16 issue's and there hasn't been one misstep yet. Good luck and thanks for your time Paige. Jane's World is published by Girl Twirl Comics and available from retailers everywhere. You can make it even easier for your local comic shop and give them these Diamond order numbers... SEP042742 F JANES WORLD #16 JUL042958 F JANES WORLD #15 MAY042739 F JANES WORLD #14 For more info about Paige Braddock and Jane's World visit www.JanesWorldComics.com.
 Jason McNamara writes and self publishes Less Than Hero also available from your local retailer or at Politestrangers.com.  PopImage Forum - Discuss this message at the PopImage forum. Industrial Archive - Read past Industrial articles |
I've discovered a new kind of crack. No not that Arctic Blue crap going around that burns your nasal cavity and makes you cry (as if trying to hock a beta VCR on a street corner wasn't sad enough). I'm talking Jane's World. While not officially FDA recognized as a drug, it's just as addictive. Jane's World follows the misadventures of Jane, a gay woman in a small town who struggles with her career, dating and a slob of a roommate. Her friends, town, job and dilemmas could easily be yours. Funny, sweet, hypnotically charming and full of observational humor, Jane's World is a welcome pleasure. 
