Thanks to everyone who backed the book!
layouts for the final, now 42 pages, of book one are done! Pencils are underway.

If you missed the drive but would like to help get the book done, you can donate here, or write me to arrange to get a post drive perk option [copy of the print or digital launch addition or a print].

Going to keep updating this site over the next few months
with progress and a few peeks at the art.
salgood – 01/11/12

 Text from Indiegogo page

I’m just 30 pages shy of completing Dream Life | a late coming of age.

Hi, my name is Max Douglas, I’m a cartoonist, working under the pen name Salgood Sam, and with your help I’d like to get the first half of the longest story I’ve ever tried to tell completed in time for TCAF 2013.

I’m very close already, over 115 pages are done, just a mere thirty left to complete the first three chapters. I hope with this campaign I can dedicate the rest of this year to making those thirty pages my primary focus.

This story is a labour of love. A work of fiction with fantastic and adventure elements. It borrows from my own life–as close to autobiography as I’ve dared in many ways. The cast is an amalgam of people I’ve known and myself, played off archetypes. The situations and conflicts borrow from my own experiences and stories I’ve been close to.

Charlie’s childhood friend is about to die.
Hitch hiking in BC PJ’s luck runs out.
Lionel is in existential free-fall.
Leslie is a therapist and part time drug dealer.
It’s just occurring to her she hates her job.
Dan’s daughter thinks he needs to grow up.
-
The story of five friends.
Dreams, drugs, & denial
all failing to weather
the arc of life unscathed.
Each coming to terms with lives peter panned,
and in danger of going off the rails.

I’ve worked both commercially and independently for others most of the 20+ years that I’ve been a cartoonist. I’ve been lucky to often make my living doing that but there are always trade-offs and limits to the work.

With Dream Life I’m trying to do all the things i’ve always wanted to, tell a story that I’d want to read–without compromise or conditions.

I’ve been very lucky to receive grant funding for Dream Life in the past. That had been a huge help getting this far. But life throws us unforeseen curves: In early 2011, I was diagnosed with testicular cancer, and had an operation to remove it. I got lucky, hopefully will stay lucky. But I did lose a lot of time to that, dealing with the stress, distractions, and recovering from the operation.

And just as I was getting back to feeling normal, I got slammed by a bacterial infection in my stomach in the fall, lost fifteen pounds in two weeks, and a couple months due to being laid out and exhausted by that. So while the grant made getting as far as I have possible, and recovering a lot less stressful, I did not get as far as I had wanted to. So close though. So so close.

So it goes. I’m grateful and I’ll keep at it one way or another, but the grant funds are gone now. Working as a freelancer takes up most of my time. Between finding the next job and doing the jobs, I’m left with little space to squeak out pages.

So I thought I’d try crowdfunding to make room to wrap up this first half of the book and put a small run of 100 B&W first editions in time for TCAF 2013.

I plan to self publish the book via CreateSpace [Amazon] and sell digital copies from my sites,  so it will be available to all right away, either in print or for your devices.

On my own I’ll have gooten there  but probably not in time for TCAF, and I have other obligations in 2013 that will probably cause even more delays. So now’s the time to make this happen.

And thanks to some very generous people, it is!

{Perks and funding drive details redacted.}

Other Ways You Can Help

I hope you’ll buy and read my book when it’s published, and consider checking out my personal anthology comic series as well, called Revolver. Available today either in print or for your tablet. But, if you’re really unable to support Dream Life financially, you can always help by telling as many other people as you can about Dream Life. ‘Like’ the fan page on Facebook, and share this link to the first 100+ pages online, on Facebook, Google+, or the webcomic page here, free to read.

Many thanks.

————————————

I would not have gotten this far without help.
Thanks to Jonathan Sugarman, who helped inspire this story, started the adventure with me and left lots of fun words to play with.

Thanks to Sadoceanspacebear, for the beautiful sounds.

To a.j.duric for showing me how to craft a grant application.

& A.J.Murphy for checking my grammar.

And many more too numerous to name.

And far from least, the generous funding of
the Canadian Council for the Arts

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $154 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country.

Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 154 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays.