Womanthology

Last week I caught a random tweet about something called Womanthology. I adore comics and I adore woman-centric projects, so I thought I'd check it out. (I always enjoy watching the process of how a project like this comes together.)

Basically it's a collaborative effort between some awesome comic book artists/writers (Barbara Kesel, Gail Simone, etc.) teaming up with unknowns to produce over 300 pages of stories and artwork for charity. It's spearheaded by Renae De Liz, who did the absolutely gorgeous graphic novel adapation of The Last Unicorn. (Yes, I have a signed copy. <3 )

According to their website:

"Womanthology is an anthology graphic novel created entirely by women for Charity. The purpose of the book is to showcase the works of female creators of every age and experience levels.

The Graphic Novel will majorly consist of many short stories interpreting our theme for this volume; "Heroic". We'll also have interviews and how-to's with some of the industry's top female pros, as well as talks with young girls who someday want a career in comics."

I've never tried writing for a comic, though it is something I'd love to check out someday. What I love about this project is that it was set up so anyone could volunteer to offer their writing/artistic/inking abilities, regardless of level of experience.  Obviously there's a limit to how many could be included (140 all told), but they've got a waiting list for a possible second volume already started. Yeah, I'm on it. >_<

Since the publication of the book depends completely upon donations (they needed to hit about 25k to make the printing happen with IDW), I tossed in a few bucks to get a numbered copy when it comes out in December - but when I donated last week, they were around the 19k mark. A few days later and they're already up past 50k, which is downright amazing...and they still have 25 days left to go. (Lots of fun things donated if you pledge certain amounts too, so it's worth checking out.)

Anyway, as anyone knows - getting published is a tough business. There are so many writers/artists out there trying to break into the business and it can be so disheartening and overwhelming -  so kudos to these ladies for making a project like this happen and giving up-and-comers a chance.