Indie Comics Publication “The Gathering” to Bring Hope to a Troubled World

Writer and editor Andrew Goletz is working on an ambitious new project called The Gathering, an independently published comics anthology bringing together artists and writers to tackle a single theme in a variety of styles and methods. The first issue, Hope, will be released in July of this year. Goletz recently spoke with Suvudu about the challenges and pleasures of working with such a diverse group of creative people.
Briefly describe The Gathering. What is it and how did it first come to be?
The Gathering is the umbrella title of a series of anthologies that will see publication beginning in July of this year and hopefully continuing for quite some time. The idea was that there are plenty of talented people who have stories they want to tell but sometimes don’t have the means to do so, so this is their opportunity to create or add onto their ‘resume’. Years ago I created a little fanzine called GrayHaven that I self published for a number of years and even though that ended the idea of doing something else always stuck with me. I’ve seen small press projects get announced, get hyped and then completely fall apart and always thought that if I had the opportunity I would want to do it right for the lack of a better word. Not to sound too arrogant but I figured if I could build this project up with people I knew and trusted and maintained control throughout then I could keep The Gathering from becoming another one of the many ‘what could have been’ stories. The plan was for the first issue to be a test drive of sorts and see how everyone did getting their deadlines in, taking criticism, adapting on the fly. In particular, it was a test for me to see whether I could maintain it all, find artists to match these writer’s story styles, encourage them to keep at it when they doubted themselves and cheer them on to make deadline. And if we hit those goals and got this done without me jumping out a window maybe we could make this into a recurring thing. And we have. As soon as everyone who was slotted a story for Volume 1 turned in their final art I opened up the teams for Volume 2 which is currently being worked on.

Who are some of the artists and writers involved? How did you meet them?
Over the holidays last year I began thinking a lot of this anthology idea in my head and running the show from top to bottom. I’ve made a number of friends on a message board I frequent and figured who better to participate in this that a group of friends that I knew and trusted already and had similar goals as I did. I proposed the idea to them and we were off and running from that point on.
I believe I brought up the topic in early January with deadlines for scrips being middle or end of February and finished art in late April. This would allow me to keep track of who was actually doing their story instead of just agreeing to participate and dropping off the face of the Earth as tends to happen. And we did hit some bumps in the road where artists backed out but fortunately there were enough backups in place that all the creators met their deadlines which allowed us to get this to the printers pretty much exactly when I placed my self imposed goal.
Assembling the group of writers was relatively easy. A lot of people have ideas and a lot of people think they can write. If you can’t draw you don’t really fool yourself into thinking you can. I wanted to make sure these guys had some ideas that wouldn’t overstep each other and we’d end up with 15 stories of super heroes fighting their arch nemesis. Fortunately I lucked out because our group of writers turned out to be insanely talented and came up with a dozen great ideas. To pair them with artists I went to the same board and just asked for interested people to contact me and it ended up going very smoothly.
As for the teams themselves, I just can’t speak highly enough of all of them. For most of the contributors this is their first published work. A few like Donal Delay, (who illustrated Doug Hahner’s story) Michael Lapinski (who drew my sons’ Liam and Ethan’s story) and Brett Peeples (who worked with Glenn Matchett) have done some small press work but this was mainly about giving newcomers a chance. There are well over two dozen creators on the book and God forbid I forget one so I’ll end it there. But I can’t speak highly enough to the quality of work they did here. I was hoping for a decent looking comic that didn’t end up being the same old same old and they really just blew me away with their imagination and skill.
I understand that this is an entirely self-funded and published project. That’s quite an undertaking. Have you done anything like this before?
I’ve been involved in a couple anthologies before as a writer and have done some freelance work in comics (and have been putting together a book about the Spider-Man Clone Saga that I will self-publish) but nothing on this level where I was responsible for overseeing the entire project. It’s a challenge that I love, though. And I knew going in that there would be a lot of costs involved with the production and promoting of the book so I tried to account for that. Not to bore people with numbers but basically I hope to break even with the first or second book which would allow me to reuse that same money to fund the next installments and hopefully along the way we’ll generate some positive buzz. Those who’ve seen the finished pages are already impressed so I know we have a good comic here, but the key will be letting everyone know about it and take a chance. And is my way, I’ve already figured out what to do with the next five or six installments in terms of themes, pages per story, etc which is why I wanted to get a little bit of an advantage and use the Kickstart site to raise a bit of money early. This way I could put a few issues into production well in advance of the sales results from the first two volumes and not cause any sort of long lag time between issues. So yeah, if any of your readers want to help support an indie book trying to bring some attention to a new generation of writers and artists please go to the site and make a pledge donation. We have some pretty cool rewards there for those that do.
The first issue is constructed around the theme “hope.” Why hope and why now?
I thought it would be the easiest to tackle first especially in light of the current state of affairs in the world. Everyone, no matter how much of a grump they are, can find something to be hopeful about. This theme gave the creators something a bit positive to rally around and considering everyone involved is hopeful about where this comic may eventually take them I just thought it made the most sense overall.
What do you anticipate for the future of The Gathering?
Volume 1 (the Hope issue) will be out by the end of July) and a new crop of talented creators are hard at work on the next volume (Despair). As of this interview I’ve also assigned teams for Volume 3 and 4 which will be anthologies of 7 pages stories called Heroes Pt 1 and Heroes Pt 2. I’m hoping that between the already positive reaction to Volume 1, the comic convention appearances and Kickstarter campaign that we’ll be able to easily get these first 4 volumes completed by next Spring at the latest. The more successful we are early on, the more volumes I can pre plan for and the quicker they will come out. I’d like to go back and forth between smaller story formats allowing for newbies to have an opportunity to tell a story, the 7 pagers to allow for more creative freedom and of course I really want to do a few self contained issues as well. I hope that people take a chance on a small book in a crowded marketplace and discover just how good some alternative comics can be. I also welcome the opportunity to have both established and newer creators participate in future volumes and most of all I really want to see some of the contributors to these first volumes get out there and make more comics whether its with me or for a bigger publisher that gives them a look now that they have a little something of their work to show off.
Where can we find The Gathering?
I’ve spoken with a few comic retailers who are interested in possibly carrying the book but nothing is confirmed as of yet. We’re also going to be attending a couple of cons this season (Baltimore in August and NYCC in October) and we’ll have plenty of copies available. The easiest way to make sure you get a copy is to go to the website and order directly from there. The website also has story pages from the first issue as well as thoughts and extra art from some of the creators. It’s a great way to get to know the people behind this book. And of course by pledging to Kickstarter people will get copies of the book signed as well as other goodies.