doctorbaer

Something I often tell my students: Your first idea may be the best, but you won’t know that unless you test it. I want to start by spoiling the ending: I’m feeling grateful and comfortable with where I’ve landed with this.

I recently discovered there’s a character named Baron von Bear in a popular series (if you’re really interested, you can search for it). It was tough to sit with this, especially right after finishing a 217-page graphic novel and ten years of sharing drawings of my Baron. All sorts of angry and sad voices shouted inside of me. I’d spent so much time developing this character. Revisiting what to even call him felt like ten steps backward.

I sat with those frustrated voices for a while. I’ll bet there’s a good chance we can prove we used the name first, they said. Let’s go get them. I thought about what fighting for the name might look like.

Then I remembered that the character’s name wasn’t always Baron von Bear. Ten years ago I had been calling him Doctor Bear:

He’s a scholar of the occult, I remembered. His character is inspired by sage heroes like Professor Van Helsing. Like Dr. Sam Beckett, my bear probably has dozens of degrees in various fields. So yeah, why wouldn’t he be a doctor? I liked the title baron as it’s someone who has inherited something regardless of deserving. But a doctorate is something you earn. So he’d be even more invested in his identity as an occult expert. Which could make his confrontation with that identity even more delicious (spoilers!).

What if the first name, Doctor Bear, was the right one all along?

So here’s to Doctor Baer, Occult Archivist:

I came across the name von Baer while searching for derivations of Doctor Bear. And I liked the German spelling. It leaned a little more toward that Van Helsing influence, it was farther away from Baron von Bear, and I could get the dot com domain.

I’ll also admit I liked giving my character a name people would likely misspell or trip over. He’ll companion me every time someone addresses me as Jerry or Jersey.

Now I’m off to update the landing page, the cover art, the interior art, marketing materials, and everything else I’ve slapped that name on over the last few years. Not a terrible tradeoff for making a book that matters to me!

Colors on the drawings from the Feb 4 live stream! I still don’t know how these might/might not fit into Count Fishravin’s repertoire of tech magic, but this design was fun to play with.

A 20-minute excerpt of the February 4 live stream. Follow me on Twitch to be notified when I’m drawing live!

I’m on the road a lot lately with school residencies and out-of-town workshops, but here and there I’m exploring character designs for future books. Here’s another look at Count Fishravin, who seems to be a loud, theatrical kind of villain.

I streamed live while inking this piece. You can watch the replay here.

From this weekend’s live stream. Join me Saturdays, I’ll be drawing more Baron von Bear materials.

The other night I finished coloring Baron von Bear and the Case of the Two-Faced Statue. Looking at the hourly production breakdown I’m very pleased to see that I hit my estimated pace. Around 5 hours per page, including thumbnails, pencils, lettering, inks, and coloring! For me that’s speedy.

But while it took fewer hours to make this book than any I’ve ever done, I had to spread that time over a wider frame than I had intended. I had originally intended to finish the book by early October 2022, but here I am wrapping things up at the top of 2023. All told I worked on the book over a span of twenty-four months instead of the eighteen I had hoped for (and bless my editor for her understanding!). Cite the usual reasons for the delay–I had to take on other work to keep the lights on while I made the book. Production hiccups happen along the way.

This can be even more frustrating when you look at the numbers on their own. The breakdown says I spent just under seven work months (40 hours/week, 4 weeks/month) to make this book. In other words, if I were able to commit to my comics full-time, I could crank out a graphic novel in just over half a year.
But my experience has taught me it’s not that simple. I’m sure that authors who do make 100% of their income from comics have other demands on them as well, whether it’s traveling for speaking events, signings, or other promotion around their work. I’m not above envying other author’s careers, but after a cursory look, I’ve found some of them put a substantial amount of work into keeping a social presence, whether it’s YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, or whatever.
We all have to hustle, and making comics full-time would be no escape from that. When I’m not making comics, I’m helping kids make their comics. As hustles go, mine is pretty meaningful.

In other words, I’m going to focus on celebrating my wins and avoid going down the dark path of what C.S. Lewis called the “alongside world” of what could have happened.

What’s next?

• While I wait for notes from my editor I’m going to start developing assets for the book’s design. Endpapers, little cute creatures to surround copyright info, that sort of thing.
• I’m going to work on some BvB in-world products to sell on my website when the book launches.
• And I’m going to revisit some marketing homework I started when BvB production began.
• But before I do any of that, I’m going to send out my holiday cards and take a nap!

Thanks, as always, for believing in this book! I’m so happy with the way it turned out, and I can’t wait for you to read it.

While I finish coloring Baron von Bear and the Case of the Two-Faced Statue (just under 100 pages left to color!), I’m journaling and sketching to see what a second book pitch might look like. I’m continuing to wonder about characters, listening to what they have to tell me, and seeing what might be revealed. Like I said nearly a year ago, I’m often preparing myself for inspiration.

Right now I’m considering having Gallus Lugubrious return in the second book, but with a new group of “friends” to help him with his next venture. And one of the themes I explore in Two-Faced Statue is the narcissism of minor differences. Gallus hates Baron von Bear because he’s a scholar, whereas Gallus is a practitioner. I got to wondering what other ways Gallus could irrationally hate someone, especially if he’s partnered with them. And it occurred to me that he’d really hate someone who used magic but wasn’t a sorcerer or wizard. A technomancer. Someone who built and hacked machines to tap into the primordial forces that fuel sorcery.

Count Fishravin first appeared as a sorcerer in the first Baron von Bear minicomic, which I published in 2018:

This bulky version was informed by the Fish Don’t Have Teeth minicomic I made back in 2015 or so.

But as I considered changing him from a sorcerer to a technomancer, I thought I’d also take the opportunity to play more with his body type. A google search for “long fish” took me down a rabbit hole around the lancetfish, a frightening-looking creature. So we get this new take on the good Count.

This guy could be fun to draw! I’ll keep playing and see what captures me.

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Inks from Baron von Bear.