Frequently Asked Questions

Can I commission you?
If you’re representing a convention or some sort of official thing, maybe! It mostly depends on whether the price is right and I have time to do it. If you’re an individual asking for personal art: very, very infrequently. If I ever open up commissions I’ll be loud about it.

What about prose commissions?
Again, very rarely if you’re representing a publication, but it never hurts to ask! I don’t do any sort of writing for individuals.

Will you draw my comic?
I am never available for any kind of comic work, I’m sorry.

Can we collaborate?
If you had to check the FAQ for this, the answer is no.

Can I interview you for something?
Probably! Email me!

Will you attend my event as a featured artist/panel guest?
Depends what it is! Email me!

By the way, if you’d like to see me at a show near you, contact the showrunners and request me! It might work, you never know.

Will you come teach a class or run an educational panel about making comics?
I am happy to go places and discuss comics or webcomics or Kidd Commander or some other standard Nerd Event faire, but I’m not available for workshops of any kind.

Can you teach me how to build a website/read my novel/help me get My Own Thing Started?
I’m sorry, these sorts of things deserve more time and resources than I can afford to offer. I learned everything by looking stuff up on the internet and if you’re reading this it’s still out there, you can do it!

What programs or equipment do you use?
I use Clip Studio for damn near everything these days; even my traditional work is usually sketched out digitally first. I draw on an ancient Wacom Cintiq 22 HD and I don’t know what I will do when it finally gives up. I write both my prose and my comic scripts in Scrivener!

How do you make money?
I talk about that on this page!

Where do you get your books printed?
All my books are made by the wonderful folks at Avanti Printing in Denver, Colorado! They take very good care of me.

Why aren’t you on Webtoon or Tapas?
Basically any for-profit webcomic publisher is predatory, or at the very least functions as an unnecessary middleman complicating the communication between authors and their audiences. Also, any host running ads will eventually throw me and my content under the bus to please shareholders. My own site lets me write whatever I want.

What’s with the quality shift in the comics?
I’d sincerely hope there’s a quality shift while drawing the same thing for ten years.

Which is more canon, the comics or the novels?
If I do my job right, any differences between the novels and the comics will just be trivia rather than outright conflicts. Follow your heart.

How do I do what you do?
I don’t even know how I do what I do.

Can I make fanwork of your stuff?
Please do! KC has its own Ao3 tag and a tag on tumblr too. You can also tag me on tumblr or bsky if you like, I’ll usually share whatever you made.

Can I send you something in the mail?
Sure! There is a PO box on my contact page.

Why aren’t you published? (or, “Hey, why do you call yourself Unmarketable?”)
I get this one a lot.

From what I’ve gathered, my work looks very polished to folks outside the art scene. Almost too polished; people who see my layout at conventions especially tend to assume I’m representing a publisher rather than myself as an individual, because normally by the time you get this much accomplished somebody’s picked you up.

As far as the publishing world is concerned, Kidd Commander is a strange and unwieldy beast. It’s very long and very dense in an era where storytelling is treated as fast fashion, it’s got stylized art paired with challenging themes, and it’s been notoriously difficult to define an age range or gender for its audience. It’s also an extremely queer narrative in ways that go beyond the characters’ identities, in addition to being uncompromising about its views on christianity and authority in general. Essentially: my cute, brightly colored little animes are godless gay heathens with a lot to say, and while I’ve gotten many many kind responses from editors about the quality of my work, they have all been apologetic rejections. Nobody will risk touching it.

I think the other major issue is I have been a working, self-managing professional for over a decade, and I would be coming into tradpub on the very bottom rung of the ladder. I don’t have the pedigree to be given the respect or resources I’d expect from publishers, and any entry-level contract would be a significantly worse deal than what I’ve got on my own already. I’d suddenly need to answer to editors and marketers, and my core tenet of accessibility would be right out.

At this point, after getting quite far along in the process several times and having more than one contract negotiation fall through at the last minute, I am not interested in pursuing traditional publishing. There doesn’t seem to be a lot it could offer me that wouldn’t compromise the work, or complicate the things I can already do myself.

Why can’t I buy your books in shops?
See previous answer.

Okay but I run a bookshop and I’d like to offer your books.
Sure, send me an email!

Can I donate your books to my local library?
Absolutely! I have heard this process is complicated by the lack of ISBN numbers, though, apologies in advance.

Wait, why don’t your books have ISBNS?
Because they are expensive, and distributors won’t carry my books often enough to justify it.

What is Shinesurge?
My screenname! There are enough Aria Bells on the internet to get confusing, but if you look for Shinesurge I’m the first thing to come up.

Can we be friends?
Please don’t ask me this.

You’re like really intense.
I mean well.