Kitten Squad and our first book

Kitten Squad all started when I was talking to my friend Beverly about wanting to make comics and perhaps in an anthology.

First,what is Kitten Squad,right?

Right now it's just Beverly and I making comics picking random themes using people of color as the main antagonist. What's that,what do I mean? Yes you read right,the hero's are strictly peoples of colors. Let me go on... the idea behind this is to bring more diversity into lead rolls. Sorry Ninja-Pirate-Lawyer just doesn't cut it. (it's an arty school class reference,sorry)

So most importantly we want to make comics with a main focus on diversity of hero and heroins. If you have questions on anything else,feel free to ask. I'll answer best I can and maybe we'll add even more things to Kitten Squad.

Next, on to book 1;Resurrection.

I had been trying to finish Gardenia for 6 months or so since 24 hour comic day 2012. Between our conversation about making an anthology Beverly said we should use horror or Resurrection as our first theme. Gardenia's pitch is pretty straight forward I think. Lesbian zombie romance set in 1947. Forever Young,Beverly's comic, is about a young girl and a strange magical item. SPOILERS SWEETIES,I cannot give them.

We had a long road of figuring out how to get things started. We had the page amount and story ideas ready at least along with deadlines and a small budget. What helped us was our prep work,research and me being a stubborn butt about finishing no matter what. We had a few issues with printing like finding a decent printer,price point and at the last moment not even getting the printer we were trying to work with to even get a test print out in time for us. We ended up putting the book together in InDesign and I went to Staples to print it out.

Friendly note to anyone else trying to make comics with out a printer like us,60 pages is a pain to cut. That was 17 pieces of paper plus cover. At least our long reach stapler was a huge help. Even with our somewhat rough cuts some people really dug the look. Overall I hope that our art and stories surpassed our first print snags.

Gardenia will have some pages added and some contrasts fixed with the second printing of the book. (Thanks to Deb and Jon for for suggesting Create Space to us and much more useful advice on book making.)

Our second book should be ready by mid to late next year! We are looking forward to the artists we have slotted for it including us as well. Here is one spoiler I can't hold back. Book 2 of Kitten Squad is superheros!