Don’t forget, there are two open invite minis with deadlines just around the corner! (But we all know that you never start a project until the week before the deadline anyway, so it’s time to get crackin’!!) We think these are two totally fun projects and hope that you’ll agree. Feel free to submit something for either - or both - projects!

Official deadline is October 1. Click here for the complete details and submission guidelines.  If you want to participate, but know you’ll need a couple extra days, don’t stress out! Just email me (Corey) and let me know which project you’re participating in, and when you’ll have it ready. We’ll work out the details. Also email me if you have any questions about these or other projects.

The entries we’ve received so far are awesome as usual, so don’t miss out on participating in these two cool minis!

For more comic making fun, don’t forget to check out 52 Comic Challenges each Monday!

We’d like to personally invite you (and everyone you know!) to be a part of What’s In The Box?: the sixth annual Open Invite Group Project from Young American Comics!

Write and draw a two to six page comic that involves an unopened box with mystery contents. It can be any sort of box and a part of any type of story, as long as the contents of the box remain unknown to the reader.

Deadline: January 21, 2008

Click here to download the official WITB Invite. We encourage you to print, copy and distribute as you see fit! Invite contains complete submission guidelines and some helpful hints.

Despite our name, we welcome submissions from all over the globe. You may work alone, or team up with others.Stories will be judged on artistic merit, overall story and originality. We love a variety of unique and traditional art and writing styles and encourage you to experiment within the comics medium! We look forward to seeing what you come up with!

Sincerely,
Tod and Corey Marie Parkhill
Young American Comics

So there are some new books out, more new books on the way, and we’ve stuck some of those goodies in the YAC Store. Go pick ‘em up now!

My Life in a Jugular Vein: The Second Snakepit Book. Ben Snakepit is back with a fat trade of years four through six. Get it in the YAC store for just $10! Includes a soundtrack CD with songs hand picked by Ben himself. His suggestion: “Play it Loud & Drunk!”

Budge Batch #2. You asked for it, and Budge is back. With a vengeance. If you’ve been lying awake at night hoping, wishing and desperately dreaming that Young American Comics would put out another batch of twelve crappy comics, then you’ll sleep like a baby tonight.

In case you’re not familiar with BUDGE comix, let me give you the scoop: When we get tired of working on the real stuff, (or after we’ve had a few too many PBRs) the YAC crew will sit back, and “take a break” by putting together a 15 minute comic. If you value hilarity over, well… taste, you’ll definitely want to check out the BUDGE batch.

We’ve also stuck some of our cool button packs into the store, so you can pick those up now as well. In case you want to wear your Nerd Pride on your sleeve, giggle at your favorite LOLCAT, or if you’re just the sort of person who likes comics, but would rather buy buttons.

More great stuff coming soon!

It is completely free to participate, although if you like, you can purchase the book that will contain the whole year’s worth of Challenges, in case you want to work ahead or keep them for posterity.  You don’t have to do every week, but we hope you will!  We will also be launching new forums, including a spot for people participating in 52ComicChallenges to post their work and get feedback from others.

We hope you will also post the challenges that you complete in your blog or journal, meme style, and encourage others to participate as well.  One of the main focuses of 52ComicChallenges will be to build some much-needed community in the Small Press Comics arena.  We always see the same awesome people at the conventions in the Small Press Ghetto, but then we say good bye and don’t see them again until the following year.  Come on, people, it’s 2007 and most of our phones can get online at this point.

Our other focus is to encourage people to push their limits and work outside of their comfort levels.  Some of these challenges will be hard.  You’re assuredly familiar with our stuff enough to know that we tend to do weird experimental comics anyhow.  But these smaller challenges will hopefully be just that — a challenge!  As we received the entries for small town/BIG CITY this year, we realized that some of our contributors have been participating in our group projects for the last four or five years!  When you compare their recent work to their older work, it’s jaw-droppingly-awesome to see how much everyone has improved over the years. (Which is not to say any of them were less than amazing to begin with.)  We hope that by offering weekly exercises, we’ll encourage people to try new things and tone their comic-making muscles.  And we’ll be right there beside you, doing cool challenges and getting buff.

To kick off 52 Comic Challenges and get you excited about this year’s Large Scale Open Invite Group Anthology (to be announced  July 26, 2007!),  we have put together two mini group projects:  Lost Lunches and Crash!Boom!Bang!

Click here to download the invite flyer for these two projects, or visit us at San Diego Comic Con or Wizard World Chicago!  We encourage you to print this flyer, steal some copies at your school or job (we won’t tell) and distribute to your artist & writer friends, bring to your local sketch night, pass out at school, or leave at your comic shop.

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Hey dudes and ladies! We’ve been putting together some cool new digs for ourselves here on the web, and we’re pretty pleased with them if we say so ourselves. (and we do.)

You’ll see a couple placeholders for some new sections that will be coming soon, including a wealth of resources for Small Press-ers and a brand new forum. While we don’t expect a ton of traffic in the forums, we know there are a lot of writers out there who would like to participate in a group project, but don’t have any artists friends (and vice versa.) So hopefully that’ll give those of you who are looking to meet your soul mate new partner-in-crime a place to do so, and we’ll get even MORE entries for next year’s group project…

…you didn’t think I was going to tell you what it is yet, did you? Tsk tsk. That, oh impatient reader, will be announced at San Diego Comic Con this year, or maybe - just maybe - a week or so early. (If you’re on your best behavior.)

Speaking of group projects, we are putting the final touches on small town/BIG CITY before we send it off to the printer. I should have a preview of the cover for you, hopefully soon.

By the way, all pre-orders for Snakepit Quarterly #16 have been sent out, and you can get your very own copy in the YAC Store.

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But unfair stereotypes aside, let’s assume that you can dress yourself and have a basic understanding of hygiene. Great! You’re ready to go to the Convention. Now read on to learn how to make it worth that hefty entrance fee AND your time.

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Here are some ways to get yourself over the hump from concept to comic and get started with your very first Mini-Comic. Sure, it may not be the 50,000 print run, full-sized, full-color, glossy stock ongoing series from Marvel that you truly deserve… but everyone has to start somewhere.

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