A note from the mission commander:
I’ve created a new paid subscription tier here on Random Orbit, where I’ll be writing and drawing a graphic novel, called The Walk. Subscribers to this section of my newsletter will get to follow along as I post sketches, notes, commentary, and even finished pages while I make progress on this thing. It’s kind of like a Kickstarter, but you’ll get to watch the sausage being made. While all of this work will live behind a paywall, this post introducing the project is free for everyone.
I’ve formatted this as answers to questions I’d want to know myself. Background of the project, my goals, and lots of sketches and drawings. If you have any questions after reading, please leave a comment.
I hope you support The Walk with a paid subscription, and if you know of anyone who is into the process of writing, drawing, and storytelling, please, share this with them.
Thank you.
-Brian Biggs
The Walk is a work in progress. It’s a graphic novel that I’ve been poking at for a little more than a year, never quite able to make it a priority in my work schedule. It’s time to change that and bring it up to the front.
Right now the story exists as several hundred sketches and drawings in two notebooks, a folder on my iPad, and a script in a word-processor. Together, these things equal the nascent, beginning stages of what will be a full-color, real-life 200-page (more or less) graphic novel.
An astronaut, alone in space in a cramped and cluttered ship, who just wants to get outside. He wants to take a walk.
He’s incessantly harangued by Ground Control, through his ship’s radio, constantly reminding him of his schedule and the repetetetive tasks he has to accomplish each day. Our astronaut is scolded for inattention as he’s caught staring out the ship’s porthole, dreaming of getting outside on a space walk. When he finally gets his wish, it may not be everything he’d expected.
I wrote the story following a similar structure of my favorite picture book, Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are. In my story the “child” is an astronaut, his “mother” is Ground Control, and whether it’s in his imagination or in real life, he ends up on a wild and life-changing journey.
If you’re five years old, or more accurately if you were five years old in 2019, you might have had this story read to you. A different version of the story was originally published as The Space Walk, a 40-page children’s picture book, by Dial Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Penguin, in 2019. It got great reviews1. Kids loved it! But the mechanizations of corporate publishing don’t always align with what should be in an ideal world, and the book crash-landed on a distant moon. The Space Walk went out of print, and now the rights to the story are, once again, mine.
I love this story so I decided to resurrect it, reconstruct it, and completely rewrite it.
I’ve been in publishing for more than two decades. I have an excellent literary agent. So, why am I asking for supporters, for Substack subscribers, rather than just pitching it to big publishers?
Well, I think this project has a few things working against it.
Since it’s a retread of a children’s book that didn’t do well, its prospects in my traditional publishing route are limited. Probably off the table.
I’ve considered pitching the idea to some of my favorite independent “grown-up” comics publishers2. But I’m not sure that works, either. Years of success drawing children’s books doesn’t really work in my favor for a project like The Walk.
For any sort of real publishing path, I need to get the work done, and I just haven’t been able to bring this project to the drawing table, ahead of actual paid and contracted work, for an extended period of time.
Lastly, I like an audience. In 1993, after Fantagraphics published Frederick & Eloise, my first book, Gary Groth asked me what I was working on next. I explained the general idea of what became Dear Julia, to him, explaining that I intended it as a four-part series. He said he’d be interested in seeing it as a complete graphic novel. I imagined the four or five or six years of work that book was going to take, and I knew that I’d lose my mind and never get it done in the dark. In 1993 there was no internet, no Instagram, no way for anyone to see what I was doing until it was long done. I needed to get something out there, a part one, as a catalyst for completing a part two, and three. I knew this about me then, and I know it about me now.
I’m doing this here, on Substack, rather than Patreon or Kickstarter, because I’ve been on Substack for more than two years publishing Random Orbit, and I have a community here. I have more than 1200 free subscribers reading my newsletter, and I like the platform. It’s simpler and, to me, more direct. I’m not managing multiple tiers like Patreon. And I’m not offering the finished book some day in the future if enough people support it, like Kickstarter.
It’s in the form of a newsletter, it lands in your email, it’s the process of making this thing, and it will be cool.
Sure, someday. Though, I’m not looking that far ahead yet. When it’s time, I would love to get a proper publisher behind it so that have a team of collaborators helping get it edited, printed, publicized and distributed. If it makes more sense, I’ll do it myself. Whatever it takes to get this out into the world.
I don’t know. More importantly, I’m not sure I care.
As a kid, I liked books and movies that took me seriously, even if I had to grab a dictionary at times. As an adult, my favorite stories are often those that were originally intended for young readers that have stayed relevant, like The Hobbit and Where the Wild Things Are, and stories for grown-ups that aren’t just grown-up stories. Is Close Encounters of the Third Kind for kids or adults? How about Star Wars? Stranger Things? I read a lot of books and stories that are ostensibly “for kids” but deal with heavier themes, as well. When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead is exhibit A. There’s a lot of this out there: Jon Klassen’s The Skull. Even classics like The Wind in the Willows.
The first thing I knew about this project was that it would have limited prospects in my known world of children’s publishing, and once I stopped fretting about that, I chose to use it as an opportunity to age the story up, somewhat. Less cute than the picture book, less about making friends in space. More action, more mystery, and a bit more into the psychology of my astronaut as he pushes back against the authority of Ground Control and deals with the potential consequences.
Often, illustrated stories are pegged as children’s stories, limited to the kid’s department at the bookstore. Graphic novels included. I don’t buy this, and I never will.
Ah, you mean, do I know how to make a graphic novel? It’s a legitimate question. If I were being asked to give money to someone who says that they plan to make this thing, I’d want to know that they know how to make it.
I’ve been drawing pictures and writing stories for more than thirty years. I’ve got about 80 published books out there with my name on them. The first of these were two graphic novels: Frederick & Eloise, published by Fantagraphics in 1993, and Dear Julia, published in four parts by Black Eye Press, and collected by Top Shelf in 2000 where it was nominated for an Eisner Award for best graphic novel reprint in 2001.
Almost all of the children’s books I’ve written, and many of the ones I’ve illustrated that were written by someone else, include elements of comics storytelling. Everything Goes, My Hero, and of course, The Space Walk each have sequences where the story kicks into comics-mode. I almost can’t not include sequential bits in my stories. I want my scenes to work in sequences, which actually makes my creating picture books more difficult. Comics is my native language.
Sometimes I doubt it myself, but yeah, I know what I’m doing.
Hard to tell. The more subscribers I have here joining me on this journey, the less other illustration and freelance work I have to take on, and the more time I can give to The Walk. The newsletter updates will be a good regular measure of how it’s going and how long it might take. You can always bail and end your subscription if you think it’s getting old. Or if it’s taking so long that you’re getting old.
Spoiler alert: buckle up.
Space is infinite and I don’t work at light speed. I’m asking you to be part of the process of making this book, which I expect will be as interesting as the the actual book.
Substack offers three paid subscription options. They all provide full access to everything I post about The Walk, as well as my regular free newsletter.
Monthly: $5/month
Subscribe for a full year: $50 (17% cheaper)
Mission Control: All of the above, plus get things in the mail, starting with a drawing.
Regular progress updates and status reports with words and pictures. The posts would include sketches, drawings, story ideas, and even abandoned directions. When finished pages are completed, I’ll post those, too. Substack partners with the Panels app for reading comics online.
The goal is consistency. As I wrap up a picture book deadline over the next couple of months, it might be in fits and starts. Then, come late May, if enough people get behind this, this work can really get going.
I’d love to post weekly. If it looks like there will be an extended pause for some reason, I’ll be up-front about it.
Live chats where I can answer questions about the work, and can even ask you what you think about this potential scene, or that art choice.
Mission Control supporters and continuing monthly/annual subscribers will, of course, get a signed copy of the finished book, when and if it’s published. And, if you subscribe as Mission Control, I’ll draw you a picture (see the video below).
Your name in the acknowledgements of the finished book.
You’ll be a paid subscriber to Random Orbit, my newsletter mother-ship, so you’ll also get all the other Random Orbit things. These include my free newsletters and all things related to the hit YouTube series, Sitting Around Talking About Art Supplies. You control what you get through your Substack preferences.
My undying gratitude. It’s a real thing.
Excellent. Here’s a timelapse of me drawing a robot for my first Mission Control subscriber, Mike. (Thanks Mike!)
Want your own? Subscribe!
Drawn & Quarterly, Fantagraphics, Top Shelf… I don’t even know who else is out there. I miss Koyama and NoBrow.
This looks absolutely brilliant. I'm pumped!
Hello.... ! Say I was just about to scribble you a note, inviting you to contribute to our latest issue of Trouble. We are creating a collaborative "exquisite corpse" novella, called Chromatose. Please take a look at my substack post and consider contributing text or images or both. Would be great! Thanks! And love your work Brian!