After many many delays in printing and shipping and getting stuck at customs….they’re finally here!
Book proofs!
It’s one thing to work on a book for years…and a whole other thing to hold it in your hands. It was amazing and overwhelming! We’re feeling so incredibly grateful to all the backers, reviewers, folks who signal boosted to help make this book real.
Since this is our first major project, we opted to get a proof even though this meant some delay in the print schedule. Thank you for your patience as we make sure the book is the absolute best it can be. Gabi and Sheika met up to go over the proof with a fine-toothed comb. They ended up getting the exact same cafe table as the one in this photo from the very first planning session!
The bookplate rewards are ready! You can barely tell from this photo but they’re so GLITTERY. Don’t worry, the glitter is embedded in the paper and won’t come off. Gabi signed them all during her visit. These will be pasted by hand into the book.
Gabi also finished drawing the sketch-plates! These little pieces of original art have archival adhesive backs and will be placed on the title page of the book. This was a very limited number of rewards during the kickstarter. We'll update if there are any spots left for those who missed it the first time around!
Cake 2018 & a Kids Comics Workshop!
While Gabi was in town, we did a few events to help promote the book and meet fans. She hung out at the Cow House Press table at CAKE (with fellow CHP creators H-P Lehkonen and Sara Valta!)
Followed by a kids workshop at Challengers Comics. Gabi read from the stories Strays and Ro & Ella then showed them how to make a tiny book from one sheet of paper. These kids made some awesome mini-comics and came up with very cool characters.
On her last night in Chicago, Gabi came out to Women’s Comics Night hosted at Challengers Comics. The theme was "slumber party!" Here's Gabi in a dinosaur suit, WCN organizer Samantha as a shark and Cow House Press chief Sheika (always on brand) in a cow sweater.
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Gabi read from Witching Hour and Aventurera, led everyone in making origami stars and played her ukelele. In this video, she sings the song featured in the comic Aventurera. This is also what the comic is titled after! Thank you to those who came to say hi to Gabi, pre-ordered the book and have continued donating copies! We’ve got tons more work to do but we’re getting closer every day to getting the books out to you. Follow along on social media for in-the-moment updates.
Lettering & Formatting
Back portraits
Here's a behind the scenes look at how Gabi draws and finalizes backer portraits for the book's acknowledgment pages!
Fulfilment schedule
And now...more work!
Just because the Kickstarter is over doesn’t mean we get to rest. In fact, we’re now in full on production mode! We’re organizing all our backers, finishing our rewards, figuring out our budget….oh right, and still finishing the book!
Book revisions & Book donations!
We’re currently knee-deep in final edits on Lemonade Summer! Gabi is now finishing up revisions for Ro & Ella based on sensitivity readings and editorial notes. We want to make sure we’re representing our characters as well as we can!
We’ve also chosen the recipients for our book donations!
Once the survey is sent out, backers will be able to choose among these three organizations and books will be delivered directly. You can also have us choose for you or have books sent to you so you can deliver them yourself to a library, school or youth space in your area.
Time Out Youth Center located in Charlotte, NC offers support, advocacy, and opportunities for personal development and social interaction to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning (LGBTQ) youth ages 11-20. They have a drop-in space, host workshops, social activities as well as offer services such as housing for homeless youth, counseling, testing, helping with finding jobs and getting a diploma/GED and so so much more.
See everything they do here: http://www.timeoutyouth.org
LGBT Books to Prisoners based out of Madison, WI is a trans-affirming, racial justice-focused, prison abolitionist project sending books to incarcerated LGBTQ-identified people across the United States. They have been doing this for over 10 years and have sent books to nearly 8,000 people in that time. They want to acknowledge, and work against, the oppressive functions of the prison system. Their project shifts some control back into incarcerated people’s hands.
Learn more here: https://lgbtbookstoprisoners.org
Lambert House based in Seattle, WA is a center for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth that empowers youth through the development of leadership, social, and life skills. Lambert House serves a diverse group. Over 50% of the youth who come to Lambert House are youth of color, and from all over the region representing more than 130 zip codes equally distributed to the North, South, East and West.
Check them out: http://www.lamberthouse.org
We made it! Thanks to YOU!!!
A great big THANK YOU to all of you for believing in this project and in our ability to make it happen!!!
We knew we had the odds stacked against us as a brand new press with an unknown creator and a first-time Kickstarter. We're so grateful and will be working even harder to complete this project.
We'll be updating you every step of the way! You can also find us on the internet:Website: CowHousePress.comTwitter & Instagram: @cowhousepress
Look out for the survey coming to you soon so we know where to send these awesome rewards! From every single one of us here at Cow House Press - THANK YOU!
We're Fully Funded! But There's More?
With 48 hours left, the CHP team chatted online as we watched our Kickstarter campaign hour after hour, updating each other as we drew closer and closer to our goal of $15,000. Then...IT. HAPPENED. We reached $15,000! Some were speechless, some in denial, but overall we were ecstatic!
Lemonade Summer is officially funded! But there's still time to hit our $20,000 stretch goal. In these last 24 hours, if we can push to $20,000, EVERYONE who pledged for a physical book will get a behind-the-scenes zine. "Making Lemonade" will be a booklet full of character design sketches, working scripts, thumbnails, color palette tests, editor notes, a comic we had to edit out of the final book and much more. This will compile a year's journey to making this book happen! Check out some previews below:
"Making Lemonade" mockup
We went through so many cover ideas! It took us about 3 months to decide on a cover. These sketches are just the tip of the iceberg.
Sometimes the best ideas aren't the most fun to draw. Seen here are Gabi's notes saying "This damn car again because I'm a masochist."
Sketching out characters
Livestream - Chat with Gabi & Sheika
Thanks to everyone who tuned in to the Livestream with Gabi and Sheika! Hope you had fun hanging out with us (and Buckles the Cow-Cat)
One of the rewards we previewed was the "Secret Agents Only" tier. At $200, it is our highest reward! This tier comes with a copy of the book, postcards and a super cute USB drive packed with extra art, 10 original tracks and album art made by Cris Valles. The music was composed by Cris to accompany each story. Check out this preview video:
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....music?
It might seem like a strange combination but music was a constant presence as the team worked on Lemonade Summer. AV Cris makes video games and loves composing music that speks to an environment or mood. He proposed the idea of making a companion album for each story of Lemonade Summer - and we couldn’t resist.
Each track is specially composed for the story, including original lyrics!
A livestream!
Doing a livestream was scary and nerve-wracking! While there was a lot of interest and love in our book, we realized people hesitated to fund the project because it was out very first ever Kickstarter as a brand new press. Totally understandable! We decided to tackle it head on and answer questions ourselves!
It definitely wasn’t easy. Many of the questions were things like “What are you going to do if you fail?” . . . stuff no one wants to think about their work! But it was incredibly important for us to be upfront and hoenst about our plans and our commitment to making the book regardless.
Coming up with color palettes
During the inception of this project, we knew that we wanted to do it in color. Of course, the problem that was posed was what colors should we use? We knew that the most important theme to capture was summer, and so the challenge was figuring out how to capture summer with a limited palette.
AV Cris jumped in with some strong takes on color. We started by collecting color palettes we liked on Colour Lovers as inspiration. We started realizing we loved BOTH super bright summery colors and darker hazier night colors.
Laying it all out, we realized we had an overarching theme - the colors of water, the sky, and the sun throughout the day. During the day, the crisp color of the sky with the blue-greens of water, reflecting the bright yellow of sunshine.
Then, the deep, cooling colors of the night sky.
Gabi did color tests but coloring in sketches she’d done before of the characters, to see if the colors worked. As AV Cris kept reminding us “Just because it looks good as a swatch, doesn’t mean it actually works on the characters!”
What folks are saying about Lemonade Summer!
"We were lucky enough to get a glimpse at Lemonade Summer and the comic is lovely, showcasing a positive, sweet, and loving representation of the young queer experience! Mendez is clearly an amazing talent, and her sweet, soft art is a wonder to behold." Rosie Knight, The Nerdist
"The premise is sweet, the art is cute and the project itself is important — there just aren’t enough stories for queer kids about queer kids." Jameson Hampton, Rogues Portal & Women Write About Comics
"Positive narratives about LGBTQ and non-binary folks are sadly uncommon in popular media, especially when it comes to children centered works. This vibrant and fun collection would be a great addition to a summer reading list." Andrea Ayres, ComicsBeat
"FINALLY!! Queer comics for children!! (And I’ve seen some of these and I’m 30 and they were still amazing!)" HP Lehkonen, Short Gay Stories, Life Outside the Circle
"It’s a powerful debut that is emotionally raw while being sweet, funny, and playful on many levels." Alex Dueben, Smash Pages
"What I love about this collection is that these marginalized identities are important to each story. However, they don’t dictate the plot. These are just kids and young adults going on adventures." Ashley Wertz, ComicsVerse
We're 14% funded!
It's been a wild week! We launched during Emerald City Comic Con (ECCC) and got to tell a lot of folks about our project. We're currently 14% funded with about 28 days left to go.
Thank you so much for the support!
We'll be posting process posts to share the year-long journey we've gong through so watch this space!
It's All About The Cover
Over this last year, the project underwent tons of changes. We wanted it to be the best possible version before anyone else saw it.
Since the cover is the window to the book, we spent a long time going over possibilities. Gabi originally came up with over 10 sketched ideas. She narrowed that down to these 3 ideas and made more sketches. When we finally settled on the right image - we were a long way from done.
At this point, the covers passed through multiple group chats with the editorial team. Sheika was particularly thorough during the pencils stage. The stronger the foundation, the stronger the finished product would be! Cris lent his awesome talent for color and we came up with a distinct color palette to use throughout the entire book. (More on this later!) Charlotte and Jenna tirelessly pored over multiple revisions of the cover. Finally, Connie took the scribble we had for a title and turned it into a beautiful ribbon-text.
Check out this animated gif to see some of the stages in action!
Meet Gabi!
Lemonade Summer artist Gabi Mendez @hobbleshmobble is doing #MarchMeettheMaker over on Instagram. She's a queer Latinx cartoonist who just wants to draw kids being happy!
Kickstarter Live!
We've got postcards, bookplates, commissions, original music and more. Help us get this book out into the world: Click Here For The Kickstarter!
Technical Difficulties
To all our wonderful followers, the kickstarter has been delayed a few days! Nothing to worry about, we will be MARCHing Fo(u)rth in a few days! (Thank you Gabi and Jenna for this pun.)