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btrcp

@stephenmichaelmcdowell / stephenmichaelmcdowell.tumblr.com

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character/color sheet for the prologue issue of my graphic novel UM

//for more, check: patreon gofundme instagram twitter

// fyi, for those of u considering pledging to my patreon, im revising the pledging system to more accurately reflect ppls contributions over time & want yall to kno so u are aware what to expect ( & so u can spread the word to ur friends to come get some of this beautiful narrative im sculpting )

– pledging $1/mo offsets the middleman losses we incur based on what patreon takes out, rendering me extremely grateful, u get access to most online updates at this pledge lvl

– if we get 50 $5+ pledges by december 1st we will mail the 24pg prologue chapter to all $5+ patrons

– all $10+ patrons that pledge by december 1st get both the 24pg prologue chapter plus the first payment put down towards the march release of the first volume

// thank yall for yalls care & support ! & feel free to contact me for questions & inquiries !

// more updates soooooooon

#um#art#support black artists#support black art#black storytellers#nubiamancy#graphic novel#comics#artists on tumblr#btrcp
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here is the working cover for the 0 issue/prologue chapter of my graphic novel UM ! -- the prologue is set before the time of the white talkers, in the ahistoric days of the sunrise archipelago, at the v beginning of the island chains colonization by mainlander horsefolk & gold-seekers after a decade of rising tensions, it is the year of the monkey & the horse folk who came on boats from the westway have started turning into gigantic beings of light on the battlefield, & only the old midwife who lives at the foot of the sky mound knos why or how to change them back over the course of one year she takes on 3 students & trains them in the art of midwifery, & sends them out as the great warriors' magical cavalry in their battle against the horsefolk & their kin, touched by a powerful & constricting, possessive fear this is the oldest tale worth the telling, this is who we are, what we are capable of, & what we will become, this is um -- im in the process of tryna raise $50 to buy 'clip studio paint' so i dont have to color every page by hand as an example this took me roughly 8hrs to color-by-number using my tablet & stylus, making sure the lines all /appear/ colored in, while if i had the program i cld do it in roughly 2hrs & it wld auto-fill everything using math & w v few mistakes anyway, if u cld share this &/or my patreon [patreon.com/btrcp], gofundme [http://bit.ly/smmgfm], or paypal [paypal.me/btrcp] so as to expedite the process, itd wld be greatly appreciated ! 💖💖💖💖

#um#art#support black art#support black artists#black storytellers#nubiamancy#graphic novel#comics#artists on tumblr#btrcp
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some warm-ups from the past week im tryna post more process & practice-oriented stuff feel a deep need to standardize presentation, subject, & style over time but trying to draw things everyday thatre ( relatively ) unrelated to the comic, just to keep my hand moving, feels therapeutic

#art#warmup#support black art#support black artists
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one of the most difficult hurdles to get over writing/illustrating an anti-patriarchal anti-racist work of high concept fiction is just the psychological labor of combatting normative images, of bodies, colors, moods, ethics

my biggest struggle when waking up in the morning isnt whether or not i shld keep going anymore, its how tf do i tell a story that hardly any professional storyteller has had the audacity to tell for thousands of years while convincing myself & others that its worth excavating, worth retelling, that its worth my labor & compensation

imperialist yt supremacist patriarchic capitalism has done an impeccable job of erasing history & specializing the population, of convincing ppl u cant be one thing & another at the same time, its gotten to the point where it rigidly confounds the creative process

writing a yt cis-male lead is easier, globally, bc its the default, blk women leads are in minimal-vogue rn in the entertainment industry bc of the meticulous & endless work of blk femmes claiming space & demanding representation, but its still mostly yt cis-men telling the stories & coloring the narratives w their implicit biases & competitive ideals

what i want to do is create an ahistorical, metaphorical depiction of whats been done to our communities, to our species, to our earth to enable this erasure & appropriation

i want to bring to the surface the magic thats been warped & reworked into the illusion of the dichotomy of power & powerlessness, but its truly, deeply difficult to decolonize & exorcize the normative frameworks of martyrdom & resurrection, of abuse & retribution, of violence for violences sake

but im doing it, everyday i wake up in the morning & tell myself im still doing it, that my ancestors want me to tell these stories, that my community needs to be reminded of them, that the past 6,000-10,000 years of scamming, robbery, & fraud need to be exposed & relegated to the negligible blip on the radar of the past million years of our living continuity that it is

thats what im doing w this graphic novel, that is the task i need affirmed & corroborated, thats why i keep coming onto this platform to share links to my gofundme & patreon, bc its going to take a community of ppl who actually want to see our collective mythology radically reworked & re-remembered to move my hand to do it

if u can, pls send me ur support, i need every affirmation i can get in the face of this seemingly impossible task, & if for w/e reason ur not down w my steez, find a blk femme creative whos doing similar or more important work & affirm them & their lives & their labor, bc this.shit.is.swampy.as.fuck

#um#comic#support black art#support black artists
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“UM”//Patreon//Gofundme

I’m Stephen Michael McDowell a.k.a. Buttercup and I’m working on a graphic novel titled “UM”!

The comic will be about a group of superheroes called “midwives” who perform the equivalent of exorcisms on people who embody some of today’s most rampant social and ethical ills.

The Midwives also slowly uncover a global conspiracy, the success of which depends on the perpetuation of these behaviors in order to maintain malevolent power structures.

I’m focusing all my attention and energy on this project with the hopes of getting a version of it online and available by January.

Now, I’m aware a lot of webcomics are available for free, but I literally can’t afford to produce this without it also being my primary source of income.

So I’ve developed a plan to not only publish the comic online but also print each volume of the comic as completed, making physical versions of the entire comic available to the public as early as the end of next year.

Story development, thumbnailing, sketching, inking, coloring, lettering, arranging, & printing are all extremely tedious and technically difficult, which is why this job would usually be split between a team of up to twenty people, but I’m doing it all by myself.

In addition to all this, I’m moving into an apartment in September, meaning I will need to have $1000 rent plus $500 deposit by the end of August!

Now the way I’ve arranged this fundraiser is fairly straightforward:

If you would like to make a one-time donation/investment ensuring you get access to the webcomic, check out my gofundme.

If you would like to continuously follow the development of the comic and make monthly contributions to my rent and food money, check out my patreon.

I really want to put together a project that directly addresses a lot of today’s systemic social and ethical problems and gives representation to a plethora of minority groups here in the USA, so by contributing to this project you’ll be directly empowering a transgressive retelling of many of the whitewashed canonical myths that abound in today’s entertainment industry.

Thanks to everyone who has helped so far, updates coming soon!

#nubiamancy#support black artists#support black art#um#comic#graphic novel#patreon#gofundme
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