Throwshift

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have noticed me blathering on about something called Throwshift. Consider this post an introduction to this is, what it means to me personally, and how you can help out.

The quick explanation is this: Throwshift is to be an anthology of illustrated stories (a graphic novel), created by a collection of very talented and diverse artists (and writers). Each story will have one small thing about them that ties them all together, but they will each stand unique in personality and appearance.

A little history.

The idea has been with me for a few years now (it almost happened in 2007). This year (2011) is the year that it becomes real. The history behind it is that I have always admired comic artists, but my hesitation in telling a story through comic panels has always held me back. So I decided to start small. I wanted to commit to just doing about 10 pages and offering it online.

But that wasn’t enough. I realized that there are other artists out there like me, who have similar goals. People who want to push their own limits without any tight restrictions. People who may or may not have experience in doing comic-style work, but are interested in pursuing it further. Even people who just want to try to expand their current drawing style.

Borrowing inspiration from the amazingly beautiful Flight books, created by Kazu Kibuishi, I knew exactly that getting together with a band of other creative people is the solution that I was seeking. Somewhere in that seed is the book I want to create.

I started out by inviting a variety of people, many of them friends. Then I let those friends suggest other friends, and so on. Some of whom had never even done comic book style work before. But people I trust nonetheless. There are a lot of small roles that can be done on this, not just art-related, but from a production point of view. I have writers interested in coming up with scripts and story ideas. I’m also considering reaching out to my typography friends to help make the text look pretty.

Do it for the right reasons.

My goal is to just produce a book of work that we can all be proud of. Success will be measured in our enjoyment of creating it, rather than in any amount of profit. Speaking of profit, as the book sells, the income will be distributed among those who helped. But some of us have already decided to put portions toward a charity. Because this isn’t about making money, it’s about doing something new for ourselves that we can be proud of and learn from.

There are a number of people who have either not responded to my proposal, or have declined. So, I am opening this up to a public request: if this sounds like a project that you can truly get on board with, I will certainly be open to talking to you about it.

You can find the site here: http://throwshift.com, and if you’d like to help out, you can send me an email at this address: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

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