Rachel Nabors

11:34 pm: We've broke $8000!
We are now at $8,207.27!! Squee! I wanted to post sooner, but I was unable to get to my PC today.

Anyway, major kudos to everyone who came through and to Katherine Keller, the awesome woman behind Sequential Tart, for offering to donate an additional $500 if we broke $8000 by the end of September.

Thank you all so much!

I am continuing to try hard. Joe and I are moving a little further north, near Chapel Hill, which might mean I have to find another ortho (again??) before I start. *grumbles* But luckily there seem to be a lot of orthognathic surgeons in Chapel Hill! I'm inquiring about my options. The last ortho I spoke with implored me to get health insurance before I started, just in case it covered anything. I'm finally starting to see some work come in, so fingers crossed that I can afford some in the future. We'll see. But I'm going to start with or without it. (Thankfully, he also said a few months weren't going to kill me.)

So big update, and a big honking thank you!!!!

Tags: teeth, update

06:53 pm: Toothy update...
Just a weekend update on the jaw fundraiser. We have we have collected $7,945.94! If we get an extra $55 before the end of the month (thus reaching $8,000), Katherine Keller has kindly offered to kick in an extra $500.

Tags: teeth, update

11:49 pm: Comics setback...
Hey guys,

I know I said that I had more comics coming your way, but unfortunately I just got wind that gURL.com isn't in a position to take any more on until December. I'm sure it surprised them as much as it surprised me, and I assure you that it is through no fault of their own that this has come to pass.

However, I realize that everyone is waiting for comics, and I desperately want to get back to making them.

So, over the next few weeks/month, I will build an updater onto my site and promise you something, something comic-licious to read at least once a week.

I hope you will understand the delay and will not be too upset with either gURL or me for it.

Thank you,
Rachel Nabors

Tags: update

01:16 am: Art post.
Listen up, you. Huzzah:



Heheheh, I bet that made you look twice. No, the art is not mine, but the colors, the flowers, and the general design are. You can see the original inked pencils by Leigh Dragoon here. You're looking at artwork for a comics/graphic novel synthesized by Leigh and I. It's the chapter cover for the first part. I'll be writing, coloring, and laying out the panels for the comic, and Leigh's on character development and art. We both work on the story.

Now for shameless promotion!

Do you know my friend Justin Jordan? Well, he's got a creepy, mechanical, mysterious comic up at Zuda. (If you want to know how it ends, you'll have to vote for him so he can stay on the site!) Best of luck to him! I enjoyed reading it!

A friend of mine asked me to spread the word about a friend of hers who is looking for his missing daughter. Hey, the internet sometimes does wonderful things. Lets see if it can reunite a family. Please check out this video if you have a spare moment.

And just a reminder that if we can cobble together an additional $300 or so to push the donation drive pas $8,000, Sequential Tart's Katherine Keller will donate $500 of her own money to help fix me jaw.

And Salon is doing a series of essays on being, well, poor. How in keeping with the times. (But if it ever becomes so widespread as to come in vogue, I was poor long before it became fashionable! Hahaha, just kidding. It will never be fashionable.)

Tags: ayli, update

11:53 pm: Katherine Keller is a good woman: Sequential Tart lends a hand


Katherine Keller posted about my toothy dilemma on Sequential Tart. She said that if we reach $8,000 by the end of September, she'll pitch in $500 of her own.

If you like comics, and you like women, you need to check out her site, SequentialTart.com. She's head Editrix there, and it shows through the quality of their offerings.

Once again, I am touched by the kindness of others. Economic times are rough, and there's little to go around. I don't expect anyone to have much to spare at all. But here's a woman kindly offering so much. I feel honored.

Tags: teeth, update

07:35 pm: Teeth update: No fall color for you!
I had a $50 Sephora gift certificate. I thought, hey, why not get some Kat Von D eyeshadow? (I love the Beethoven palette for it's mod vibe and versatility.) They were sold out, but I noticed the new Urban Decay lipsticks. The manager helped me find a shade that looked fabulous, Gash, a subtle maroon. They even had a matching lip pencil!

I was very content, and then I remembered that tomorrow I am getting evaluated for braces. Lipstick + braces = bad idea. You want to keep your lips natural and attract attention to your eyes. I was a little sad to put back the pretty lipstick. I guess I'll hang onto the certificate for when they restock the eyeshadow.

(If you don't know what all the fuss and charity surrounding my teeth is about, check out the official donation page on my site to see some rather disturbing pictures of the inside of my mouth!)

I know I should be happy about knuckling down to the braces thing, but it's really scary because I don't have a job. Mom and Leigh tell me not to worry, to use the $7,600 of donations to cover the braces and stop putting it off (that jaw is still thinning, after all). But I know that the surgery will cost at least $10,000, and donations have cooled off, with last month accounting for less than $100. I worry about being able to swing through it. The braces alone are an additional $5,000. It just scares me a bit. I want to make sure I don't stop half way because, oh, I didn't have enough for the surgery. Then I will be even worse off than where I started. I just can't go about it half-cocked.

We are currently at $7,637.21 in donations for the teeth. And even though I'm sorry it's not growing as fast as it was earlier this year, I realize that the fact that it's growing at all is still stunning. I shouldn't feel down unless no one had donated anything to begin with, and for that reason, I'm still fairly positive that this can be done. The kindness of so many people is, after all, allowing me to get the braces and start this thing even though I currently have no major source of income. (Yes, I'm working on that!)

Some good news from the other side of the country!
The wonderful Barry Deutsch of Hereville (read his comics!) was kind enough to take the charity sketchbook Leigh started (back at MoCCA in New York City) all the way to the Northwest to gather the art of great comickers like Patrick Farley, Steve Lieber, Derek Kirk Kim. It just came back in the mail, and I still have to go through it and post a list of the people who have contributed. There are so many!

Leigh started the sketchbook at MoCCA, but I think the artwork from Oregon is very impressive. My mother has offered to help auction it off on eBay. The account will loop into the special PayPal account that Leigh is monitoring.

The sketchbook isn't completely full yet. What should I do with the rest of these blank pages?

Tags: teeth, update

05:46 pm: Teeth update... seeing new ortho in August.
We're currently at $7560.74 USD. I'd like to thank everyone who has been donating. It's super awesome of you.

I have finally settled on a shirt idea I like. It features Tuna dancing, and I hope to be able to show it to you online shortly.

At the insistent proddings of my mother, I've arranged to see an orthodontist on August 24th. It's the earliest they could take me. This would only be the initial, consulting visit before I get braces. After a year of braces, I get surgery. Six hours of orthognathic surgery totaling about $10k, if I'm lucky.

I've been putting off this visit because we haven't raised $10,000 yet. Now I don't have a job anymore (stupid economy), so I don't know how I'll pay for the monthly braces and the frequent cleanings they entail. But Mom's right. I can't put it off any longer. The pain is getting more frequent.

Tags: teeth, update

10:42 am: I can haz distribtution now? (My books available on select few shelves!)
Distribution. For most comickers, distribution is the one hurdle they cannot leap on their own. The comicworld's only distributor, Diamond, is a total bitch to indies. If you aren't under the protective wing of an established publisher and/or have six bajillion preorders, you're going to be turned away with a great big 'L' stamped on your forehead.

When I first self-published 18 Revolutions, I sent copies to Barnes and Noble and made my case for why my comics should be on their shelves. And they wrote back! I still have the letter! They said basically said get a distributor, and they'd gladly order a hundred copies. Unfortunately, when I called the people on their list of acceptable distributors, most were like, "Graphic-whoozawattsiz?" But it turned out that Barnes and Noble would accept books from Diamond, so I called them up, too.

And I got the shittiest treatment in my comics career. I won't even try to describe it, but I will say that the impression I was left with was that the higher ups at Diamond were disorganized, discourteous, rude, and had way more puff than is healthy for a specialized distributor. Now, this was about four years ago, so maybe things have changed, but from what I hear about their treatment of indies these days, I sincerely doubt it.

So what's a hen to do? Why, go local of course! While in Roanoke, I was selling my comics through a New Age shop and the local music exchange, called Plan 9 (the most wonderful music store I have ever been to). My books sold incredibly well at both locations. I always had a notion that comics paired nicely with music, because I like to put on a CD while reading a new acquisition.

As I was leaving Roanoke, the excellent people at Plan 9 (like I said, best music shop in the world) put me in touch with their headquarters to see about getting my comics and minis in all of their stores. And now you can! My comics are officially available at the following locations:

Roanoke, Virginia (New Location!)

1314 Grandin Rd., SW
Roanoke, VA 24015
Phone: 540-985-6699
Hours: Mon-Thu 10-9, F-S 10-10, Sunday 11-6

Lynchburg, Virginia

Candlers Station Shopping Center
3700 Candlers Mountain Rd., Suite 220
Lynchburg, VA 24502
Phone: 434-845-7909
Hours: Mon-Thu 11-8, Fri-Sat 10-9, Sunday 12-6

Charlottesville, Virginia

On the UVA Corner
1419 University Avenue
Charlottesville, VA 22903
Phone: 434-979-9999
Hours: Mon-Sat 10-8, Sunday 12-6
  

Albemarle Square, Route 29
214 Albemarle Square
Charlottesville, VA 22901
Phone:434-974-9999
Hours: Monday thru Saturday 10-9, Sunday 12-6

  

Harrisonburg, Virginia

Spotswood Valley Square, Kroger Shopping Center, Rt. 33
1790-96 E. Market Street
Harrisonburg, VA 22801
Phone: 540-434-9999
Hours: Mon-Thu 11-9, Fri-Sat 10-9, Sunday 12-6

Richmond, Virginia

Carytown
3012 W. Cary Street
Richmond, VA 23221
Phone: 804-353-9996
Hours: Monday thru Saturday 10-9, Sunday 12-6
  

Williamsburg
200-M Monticello Ave.
Williamsburg,Va 23185
Phone: 757-220-3246
Hours: Monday thru Saturday 10-9, Sunday 12-6


If you don't see them on the shelves, just ask, and you will be pointed in the right direction or new books can be sent to the store.

Tags: update

10:12 pm: Teeth update ('bout time)
Now that my site is working (for the time being), I feel I can update the crossbite fund:

$7,451.04

I have decided to get braces when we make it to $10,000. I'll be ordering t-shirts soon. And I have a sketchbook filled with the work of many fabulous artists to auction. I was really shy about asking for people to doodle in it because, well, I don't like begging. But Leigh put me up to it and Theresa started getting doodles, so I had to keep going. (Thanks, guys.)

Oh, I hope we can pull this off.

This surgery is the biggest reason I haven't been making comics. I had to get a real job so I could get reliable money with which to pay for braces and save for surgery. I miss comics, but I have to do this. The sooner the better.

Tags: teeth, update

09:46 pm: MoCCA Report One: Call Outs
 I just got back yesterday, and I have an awful lot to write about. I haven't had this much fun since I was seventeen. I hope I can go again next year. It outpaced both SPX and Philly in sheer awesomeness. Other cons pale in comparison.

Why? Why???

1. It's in New YAWK. You can go shopping after and before the con starts!

2. It's small.

3. It's surprisingly full of big-name professionals, not super hero pros, but graphic novel pros.

It was worth it because I got to meet so many people, even people I've known and worked with for years like Leigh Dragoon and Heather Bradley. So this was an excellent opportunity to catch up with old friends. Here is where I highlight the most awesome people I can remember with my sleep-deprived brain. Tomorrow I will try to post an account of the adventures. So let's hear it for cool peeps (forgive me if I'm forgetting anyone--I am still giddy!):

Leigh Dragoon (or ldragoon)
My friend of so many years, I finally got to meet her in real life! She's so cool! Why must she live on the west coast? Favorite Moment: She brought a sketchbook for me to get artists to doodle in for my teeth charity. We're going to auction it off later. (More on that in the next post.) She's the one who set up the fund raiser in the first place. I could not ask for a better friend. Check out her site.

Karen Luk (or dragonluk or "Take Out Girl")
A friend of Leigh's who turned out to be a friend of mine as well. She's a very talented comicker and artist and worthy of much of your adoration. Favorite Moment: Coming up with code names for each other in the Subway. (I am "Two Bucket Lass".) Check out her site.

Theresa Tschettar (or tscheese or "Fraulein Doppelganger")
Another online friend. She ran around the convention getting people to draw in the charity sketchbook. She is like a sister I didn't know I had! Our faces, height, feet and hair are all the same! Must be the Deutsch blood we share. And we love so many of the same things including but not limited to objectifying men and Sailor Moon! Favorite Moment: When we became Sole Sisters. I was in a pair of really high heels after the Lulu Awards, and we ended up walking a long, long way. I was in so much pain, I was kicking myself for not packing my boots in my messenger bag. Theresa kindly swapped footwear with me, granting me a moment of relief while she literally walked a mile in my shoes. Did I mention that she's been offering artwork to people who donate for my teeth? Seriously, she's one awesome, hot, talented babe. Check out her site.

Martina Fugazotto
Martina is this years Kim Yale winner. I was proud to hand my sparkling tiara to her. She also does comics for gURL.com, but we hadn't really met. It was she who invited me to meet everyone. She is a sweet girl with loads of personality and oomph. I look forward to seeing what awesomeness she brings the comics biz. Favorite Moment: When she put on her tiara. Check out her site (where you will find a picture of the both of us at Friends of Lulu's Awards)

Heather Bradley
Heather oversaw my work when I was weekly at gURL.com. We've known each other for many years, and it was nice to finally learn what a cool and hip woman my creative director is. Favorite Moment: Going to Ricky's or drinking cocktails, I can't decide.

Stevie Wilson (or sw_inku or "Urban Hellbilly")
Stevie Wilson is from New York and kindly offered to shuffle us about on Monday. She's a super cool girl with lots of spunk and way more talent than should be possessed by one person. She has fabulous taste in clothes, too. Favorite Moment: When she forcibly pushed me through the subway turnstile after Karen and I both botched out attempts to get through. Then she swore to kill Leigh if she Leigh couldn't do it right. Check out her site.

That's all I have in me right now, I'm afraid. I'll catch up the rest of the story tomorrow, but now you've met the key players!

Tags: cons, mocca, update

08:26 pm: Site working again... maybe?
I think the site is working again. Let me know if it gives you any problems.

See you in NYC!

Tags: update

12:30 am: Argh, still messed up.
My site is still slammed, even with the banner exchange moved. If you refresh a lot, sometimes it works. No time to fix it before MoCCA. Grr.

Tags: update

08:08 am: Yes, my site is messed up.
SubcultureofOne.com is displaying PHP errors not because of faulty code but because the Subculture Clique Banner Exchange is hogging all the resources. I'm hurrying as fast as I can to move the exchange to another server in my spare time. Thank you everyone who emailed me about it.

Tags: update

12:52 am: New (and last for awhile) comic: No more Mr. Nice Guy... please!

No more Mr. Nice Guy... please!

Here it is, the last comic for awhile. I wish I had been able to work on the Sparrow and Rachel story more. It's still in progress. But this was based on a huge blog post I did awhile back based on a so-called reformed nice guy's letter on craigslist. Leigh Dragoon made some funny comics about it, too, which you can read here and here.

This is probably the most directly anti-male comic I have ever made. But I stress it's not anti-all males. Just anti-the kinds of guys who hang around you all the time being nice and then getting upset because you don't want to sleep with them. You're not being a friend if you have ulterior motives. These guys need to learn to be honest with themselves and the girls they dig instead of resorting to asinine hissy fits online, in public, wherever.

But I've already ranted about this before. I'm not beating this dead horse anymore!

If you haven't heard already, this is my last weekly comic. I'll try to start doing comics again in May, but they won't be weekly. More like bimonthly. I'll send out a newsletter when I start up again, so please subscribe at my site to be sure you get the alert. There's a full announcement about it here, and an explanation of how this has nothing to do with my recent engagement here.

It's been lovely, everybody! Thank you so much! I hope to be back with more comics soon.



Tags: update

05:37 pm: Response to Changes
I received the following note on MySpace, and because she brings up some excellent concerns, I thought I would clarify what role my future husband did play in my decision to move. Posted below is her comment and a version of my reply to it.

Even though everyone is saying to you that they understand and that they hope you have a wonderful etc, I am sitting here wondering why you would give up your biggest dreams and live with a guy, away from everything that you once loved. I don't know you, and I don't know anything about this guy or your old home, but it pains me to think that one of the best comic chicks around is getting pushed over by some guy. It is not a good influence to show your fans that a girl can be easily woo-ed by a man and give up her dreams in the midst of it. A lot of girls do this to themselves, I didn't think you would be one of them to give up everything. I don't understand why you would do this and possibly won't ever.

It was great to hear from such a sensible a young woman. I understand her concern completely, and she's absolutely right. A girl should never abandon all that is important to her for a man! But I made my decision to get a day job long before he proposed, and let me assure you that I carefully weighed my decisions before deciding to move. I can only go so far in Roanoke. I could have requested that my fiance move up here, he was willing, but then I realized that I (and he) have a better chance of advancement and success in the urban area that is Raleigh. There are better colleges for furthering my education, better jobs and opportunities, more creative people to interact with, and a bigger comicking community. That's to say nothing of its proximity to some of the best facilities to work on my jaw. I had always planned to move camp, but I did not expect to move it so soon or southward. Life change is always bittersweet, and I am sure this is not my last move.

Also, the sooner I know where I will be for two years, the sooner I can start fixing my jaw, which is of prominent importance to me right now and the reason for my seeking a non-comics job. So all the more reason to move as soon as a decision has been reached. (Plus, I need a job to keep living, and I can't take the job up here and leave after only a few months. That's bad form.)

As you can see, my decision to move has more to do with business sense than my deferring to my significant other. As I have made sacrifices to move down there, so too is he making sacrifices. (I negotiated with him for hours before accepting his proposal. There will be sacrifices, but not of the virginal kind, thankfully!)

But I completely agree. A girl should never give up her dreams for a guy. Keep your priorities straight. Don't be afraid to set your foot down, to negotiate, to have demands or principles. They are worth fighting for.

It feels like I'm losing a dream, but as so many other readers have already posted, I'm not losing a dream. I'm leaving a job. As long as I keep making comics, even if it is in my spare time, the dream lives.

Tags: update

07:55 am: Changes.
After next week, I won't be doing a weekly comic for gURL.com anymore. It pains me to do it, but financial difficulties, especially those generated by my jaw and self-employment taxes, make it nigh on impossible to live my dream anymore.

It's a new life. I loved making comics for a living, but it was just too hard to keep making them when I was constantly worried about my security. I hope you can understand. Thank you for reading as long as you have. You made me feel like a star, no matter how small or how briefly, but a star nonetheless. I thank you.

Sometime mid-May I hope to start doing bi-monthly comic for gURL. I have to finish my Rachel-Sparrow storyline. I was going in a particular direction with it, and I don't like leaving loose strings hanging. Rachel's got a love interest, and we finally know that Sparrow isn't just a bitch but has horribly low self-esteem. There is so much left unsaid!

If you donated money to help with my jaw and want to retract your offer, I understand. I won't be self-employed much longer, and if you feel cheated that your donation is no longer supporting a struggling comicker's quest for a straight jaw but now just a struggling young person's quest for said jaw, I will understand. Drop me a note, and I can refund your donation with the click.

What makes me feel most terrible is that I get all these emails from girls telling me that I've inspired them to make comics and that I've shown them that they can make their dreams a reality. I feel like I've let them down. I'm so sorry. You should not give up making comics. I will not. The world may not be ready to support many full-time chick comickers, but it's close. Please do not give up on your dreams

Details
I had actually started investigating getting a real job before Joe proposed, so this has nothing to do with my future wedding. Like I said, it's all finances. At the end of the year, I just could not make the numbers work. So I will no longer be the girl who makes comics for a living. Now I will be the girl who designs sites/graphics and does comics as a hobby.

But I try to look on the bright side. You can't make comics about life unless you've lived, and at least now I'll have a solid hobby instead of "being my job". And once I'm in Raleigh, I can start getting my jaw fixed. I'm really excited about that, of course.

I spent most of this week in Raleigh, job hunting and moving stuff in. I should be fully moved-in by the 7th of April. It will be a strange new land, far from the bosom of my mountains, far from my dog and my mother and my friends. It will be very scary and probably lonely, even though I'll have Joe. (You wouldn't happen to live in Raleigh, would you?)

Men complicate everything. I had a nice job lined up here until he proposed! Then I had to carefully weigh my options. Stay, wait, go? In the end I chose to move to Raleigh because there are more design jobs and more opportunities for education and advancement there. Unfortunately, it's also hot and a commuter community, which means I'll have to drive a lot. I dislike that immensely. I hate cars, I hate driving. It's like throwing out an hour of your life every time you get in one. I will need many books on cassette tape (not CD, my car is from 1995, yo) to console me.

But I hope to move closer to where Il work so I might not have to commute. And some day I may even have a motorcycle again, to further help with gas.

So that's it. I feel like it's the end of an era. I kept it weekly for one year and five months. It's been so much fun. I already miss it.

Thank you very much. For everything.

Tags: update

04:19 pm: You Might Be a Subculture of One If...2!

You Might Be a Subculture of One If...2!

Big changes going on. More on that later.

Tags: update

06:45 pm: New Comic: Sparrow's Song Part II, and buy my boots and stuff!

Sparrow's Song, Part 2

It's actually how I named Sparrow years ago. I've been reading the comments, and I'm surprised by how many people think I'm trying to win them to seeing my alter ego's point of view, which was not the point. I wonder if I have failed at getting readers to follow my line of thought or succeeded in getting them to invest emotions in a character who, until I gave her personality a third dimension, was perceived as a mere bitch. I think I did a good job of showing Rachel's bad side, though.

I've been on both sides of this issue, from having judged girls who seemed slutty in the past to being like Sparrow, stuck in that kind of relationship and being judged in the not-so-distant past. I am working up to making a point about judging people, promise. But you're going to have to wait awhile. It's a delicate topic with me, and I need time to say my piece clearly.

Buy my stuff cheap!
I'm selling a lot of my things on eBay for cheap. You can even buy my beloved boots from the comic Das Boots!

My friend Leigh posted about a Dear Abby column about rape, and Abby's response is something I expected from a 1950's patriarch, not a modern woman. This is the kind of thing I expect in creepy art house films not every day life, and yet somehow Abby finds a way to suspect the woman.

(I suspect Abby is in fact a man.)



Tags: update

09:45 pm: Buy my stuff! (Bootsie and Tootsie are for sale...)
I seem to be selling quite a bit of my stuff these days.

Yep, the Tax Man has come to pay his respects, and it turns out I am sore in need of moolah to pay him back. Yay for self-employment tax. My loss is your gain, however! When I moved to Roanoke, I brought with me a box of delightful goodies that I could sell in a bind.

So go check out my eBay auctions, and getcherself something purty for cheap! Bargain prices! And do these babies look familiar?



It's Bootsie and Tootsie! From Das Boots! And you can own them! And wear them! On your feet!

*snicke* Have fun :)

Tags: update

02:33 pm: Almost at the $6.5k mark! Woo! (But I am still having nightmares.)
Agh, last night I had one of my nightmares where my teeth start randomly falling out. I lost a canine that looked like it had been dunked in battery acid. AGH!!!

So, this morning I thought I should update the thermometer. Yes, it's been awhile, and I apologize. Flu, turning 23, getting engaged, these things have a way of steam-rolling over the rest of your life. But I'm back! And imagine my delight to find we've raised $6,405.13 USD! Holy cow. We might actually make it near $10,000. I honestly did not think such a thing was humanly possible. I am so deeply and truly touched. If I could get that much, I think I could swing it. It's a two-year process. I could get enough for the braces. Provided they don't want to do any grafts or upper jaw widening, it could happen, it could really happen.

I am touched. Best birthday gift a gal could get, knowing so many people care.

Tags: teeth, update