Love, Laughter, and Loss—A Comics Collection now available in Hardcover

This has been a long-time coming, but I’m very pleased to announce the publication of my latest comics collection! And, for the first time, this is a premium hardcover! Titled LOVE, LAUGHTER, AND LOSS: A COMICS COLLECTION, this edition features nine short stories in full colour. The printing and colour fidelity are top-notch; in fact, I don’t think my work has ever looked this beautiful.

These stories have appeared in print before, mainly in two separate periodical collections that are now out of print. The first periodical was titled WIZARDS FOR HIRE — CHEAP! while the second periodical was titled STORIES! 2015 TO 2019. While I was very happy to see these two editions published, keeping saddle-stitched editions in print was, frankly, a pain. Publishing LOVE, LAUGHTER, AND LOSS is a much better way of keeping them in print. On top of it, many of these stories were recoloured for this new hardcover. And that means a number of these stories have never looked this good before. Am I happy with it? Oh yes!

All of these stories have also been released on this very website in webcomic form. In other words, there’s no need at all to guess on what’s included in the collection. All of these stories can be found at https://www.vonallan.com/p/comics.html — and you can navigate from there to find each individual story. The stories included in this hardcover collection are as follows (with links to make direct navigation even easier):

• The Cowardly Clerics of Rigel V;
  
  
• Total Party Kill;
  
  
• The Planet With No Beer;
  
  
• The Two Magic-Users;
  
  
• The Street;
  
  
• Bubbles!;
  
  
• Bushido Bob;
  
  
• When I Find You Again, It Will Be In Mountains…, and;
  
  
• I Was Afraid For My Life…
  

I just want to reiterate how pleased I am with this edition. I was actually pretty nervous about it; I’ve never printed a hardcover before and there were a few logistical issues that I ran into that slowed production as I took my time ensuring the best quality control possible. I was holding my breath when the physical proof copy arrived and I was pretty nervous when I “unboxed” it. My fears were misplaced; everything turned out beautifully.

If you love comics, especially independent/small press comics, I think you’ll fall in love with this edition. I know I have — and that’s saying something!

Links to Purchase

LOVE, LAUGHTER, AND LOSS: A COMICS COLLECTION is still “propagating” out there, but here are some initial purchasing links that I know of for sure. More will be added as they appear.

• Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1989885160;
  
  
• Amazon.ca: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1989885160;
  
  
• Amazon.co.uk: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1989885160;
  
  
• Amazon.de: https://www.amazon.de/dp/1989885160;
  
  
• Amazon.fr: https://www.amazon.fr/dp/1989885160;
  
  
• Barnes & Noble: https://bit.ly/3fkS3Ca;
  
  
• IndieBound: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781989885161
  
  
• Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/books/love-laughter-and-loss-a-comics-collection/9781989885161
   
• Bookfinder: https://bit.ly/2Rn9nhT.

Photos of the Graphic Novel!

STORIES! 2015 TO 2019 released on ComiXology and Print

2021 Update

When I initially wrote this post, STORIES! 2015 TO 2019 was simultaneously released in print and digital. However, the comic book edition is now out of print, although the Kindle edition is still available. But! All the stories that were contained within it plus all the stories that were in the print edition of WIZARDS FOR HIRE - CHEAP! are now contained in a deluxe hardcover titled LOVE, LAUGHTER, AND LOSS: A COMICS COLLECTION. It's a beautiful edition that is now available world-wide. You can find more information about this new hardcover on the studio's shop page or simply by visiting here.

STORIES! 2015 TO 2019

So, what's inside STORIES! 2015 TO 2019? Well, this is a lovely collection of five short stories that have appeared right here on this website as short webcomics. The collection includes the following stories (and links to read them for free as webcomics are provided, too). Altogether there's about 40 pages of stories plus a few other bonuses. I'm pretty pleased with how this turned out.

• "The Street": https://www.vonallan.com/2019/07/short-story-street.html
  


• "Bubbles": https://www.vonallan.com/2019/07/short-story-bubbles.html
  


• "Bushido Bob": https://www.vonallan.com/2019/06/short-story-bushido-bob.html
  
  
• "I Was Afraid For My Life": https://www.vonallan.com/2017/08/i-was-afraid-for-my-life.html
  


• "When I Find You Again...": https://www.vonallan.com/2017/08/when-i-find-you-again-it-will-be-in.html

Please consider purchasing a copy! And if you have friends that you think might enjoy them, please share this with them!

 Thanks!

Short Story - Bushido Bob!

UPDATE! While you can always read the short story below, I have decided to start making my comics freely available to all for easier digital reading. Please visit https://www.vonallan.com/p/pirate-von.html for more information and download links!

Bushido Bob is a short story I originally drew in 2015. While I certainly would do a few things differently now, the main reason I haven't shared it before was that there was actually problems with the colours. This is a similar situation to another short story I did in the same year titled "When I Find You Again, It Will Be In Mountains."

To put it as simply as I can (Warning! Technical details ahead!), there were a few problems:

First, the colour palette I used was not optimized for SWOP (Specifications for Web Offset Publications); actually, even that's not totally true. SWOP uses an ink limit restraint of 300%, but the print specifications I need to use have a total ink limit of 240%. I needed to fix that.

Second, the way I approached digital colouring was to primarily do it in Photoshop but use the Brush Tool. While you can create certain beautiful effects with the Brush Tool, the problem is that it doesn't allow much editing. Colouring with the Pencil Tool does. Since I had moved on to other problems, tweaking certain effects that I had originally done with the Brush Tool was going to be a headache to fix. Fortunately, I recently figured out a short cut that allowed very quick editing and that allowed me to tweak the colours simply. The above is the result.

As I noted, I think I've grown quite a bit as a draftsman and artist since I did this story (see my recent work on WOLF'S HEAD), but it's neat to finally get this story online. And I still like the spirit of it, too.

This story first saw print in the comic book titled STORIES! 2015 TO 2019 back in 2019. Unfortunately, the print edition is out of print (though you might be able to find a copy using Bookfinder). But! This story — as well as a boatload of others — were collected into a beautiful hardcover edition titled LOVE, LAUGHTER, AND LOSS: A COMICS COLLECTION. More information about that edition can be found right here.

In addition, there is also a digital comic book version of STORIES! 2015 TO 2019 on Kindle that can be read anywhere in the world. That edition is available at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B089QX5LJC.

For more of my comic short stories, please visit my archive of comic books and webcomics.