AMBER LOVE 31-JULY-2013 For the first time prose and comic writer ADAM P. KNAVE joined Vodka O’Clock from his palatial estate in New York City via the magical connectivity of Skype to discuss his projects such as AMELIA COLE.
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Adam’s first foray into comics was editing the Popgun anthology which then immediately won a Harvey Award and an Eisner Award in consecutive years. He still had to face the submission process in a later volume of the anthology and faced rejection. AMELIA COLE is the result of when Adam and his collaborative partners DJ Kirkbride and Nick Brokenshire wanted to launch a creator-owned series with a strong female protagonist. AMELIA COLE is digitally online at Comixology through Monkeybrain Comics; and the collected first volume will be printed through IDW. After they launched, Adam was able to bring letterer Rachel Deering on board along with several pinup artists.
“If we were going to do a female protagonist one of our rules was she had to wear actual clothing and be human shaped.†-AK
Adam describes AMELIA COLE as a hope-based coming of age story with monsters and magic. Amelia is a vibrant young woman who practices magic under the tutelage of her Aunt Dani. She learns about the other realms of existence and not all of them have magic. The hero’s journey takes Amelia on a path to discover her true roots. She wasn’t born where she had been lead to believe. In this universe, magical tools like wands have to be passed down through families.
At the end of volume one, Amelia is offered a job which may be akin to selling out or selling her soul to the Devil. Adam shares a personal story about a time when he was offered a large salary working on MUD servers which of course had a caveat.
I asked Adam about the writing advice often given: Write what you know. For Adam, comics and prose are entirely different writing processes. Adam’s comics work is highly collaborative so the Easter egg characters in the background are the work of the artist and the character/story evolution isn’t just Adam since he writes with DJ.
Adam goes in detail about the comic market that all indie creators should pay close attention to. When it comes to releasing your comic in arcs, if you give each arc a distinct title then Comixology will not show readers previous arcs/issues. Adam and his team saw this gap and renamed the series AMELIA COLE leaving the subtitles as descriptions of the arcs than have AMELIA COLE & THE UNKNOWN WORLD for example. Comixology has reminders only if the title is consistent. AMELIA COLE & THE HIDDEN WAR was being prepared but Comixology wouldn’t relate THE UNKNOWN WORLD as past issues.
Be prepared for the audience participation where Adam answered questions from Twitter! Codpieces! Nuff said.
Also, if you cosplay any of Adam’s characters at a convention and stop by his booth, you’ll get free stuff.
LINKS:
https://twitter.com/adampknave
Founder and Editor-in-Chief of AmberUnmasked.com and Vodka O'Clock Podcast. Author of The Farrah Wethers Mysteries, comic book short stories, prose, and non-fiction. Cosplayer and figure model.