LCC Holiday Gift Fest Coloring Contest Winners

On November 10th at the LCC Holiday Gift Fest, we held a coloring contest at the Captain Cheeseball Books table. Here is the winning piece! Colored by Sydney age 9. Congrats Sydney and thanks to everyone who participated. A selection of some of the best entries can be found on the Captain Cheeseball Books Facebook Page.

New Captain Cheeseball Books Ad

This ad will appear in the 2012-2013 Worthington Swim Club Ad Campaign.  Will be visible throughout the year at four Central Ohio swim meets hosted at the Worthington natatorium on route 161 near Thomas Worthington High School. 

Captain Cheeseball Arrives in First Store!!!

Starting tomorrow, Wednesday September 26th, The Saga of Captain Cheeseball book series will be available at Larson's Toys and Games located at 1617 W. Lane Avenue Columbus, Ohio 43221. On November 10th, from 10am to noon, I will be at the store doing a book signing. Please come and check us out if you can! Thanks!!!

GROUP COMIC IS FUNDED!!!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1082051566/one-drop-comic-project

The UCLA group comic project looks to be a go!!!  I will post news about the book when it is complete! 

Group Graphic Novel Project

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1082051566/one-drop-comic-project

A number of UCLA graduates are collaborating on a group graphic novel project which we're looking to debut at the Alternative Press Expo in October. Here is a link to that event... http://www.comic-con.org/ape/

It should be a fun project. There are about fifteen artists throughout the animation and comic book industries contributing to this book. Please take a look at the kickstarter.com link above and think about supporting the effort if you can. Many thanks and here's to a successful effort!!!

Upcoming Short Comic

I am currently collaborating with some fellow UCLA Animation Workshop graduates on a graphic novel which will be a compilation of short stories from many different artists. It might be available by the end of this year (I will keep you posted). I wanted to share a page in progress from the piece I am submitting. My short story elaborates on the dream sequence in Book II. I'm excited that the book will be printed in color!!! Enjoy!!!

1000th Page 'Like' on Facebook!

Yesterday, the Captain Cheeseball Books Facebook Page reached its 1000th like!  Its exciting to see that many eyes on the page!  Writing the book was easy compared to getting the word out on the book.  Reaching your audience takes some time and effort.  'Thanks' to all those who have checked out the Facebook page and an EXTRA special 'Thank you' to those who have purchased the books!!!  If you or your kids have read the books, please let people know about them.  Word of mouth can be extremely powerful.  Thanks again and its exciting to move into this next stage of the life of The Saga of Captain Cheeseball!!!  

$1.00 off Both Books!!!

This week, you can save a little cash on both of The Saga Captain Cheeseball books!  Go to the Facebook page 'Captain Cheeseball Books' and 'like' the page if you haven't already.  Then, look at the top two posts on the page and you will find information on how to save $1.00 off of each of The Saga of Captain Cheeseball Books!

If you've already 'liked' the Captain Cheeseball Books Facebook page, you can just click on the links below to go straight to the books.  Use the code next to the link for your $1.00 off coupon!!  Enjoy!!!

VOLUME I     GQ4M8LCN

VOLUME II    4THUDCRL

July, 2012

Though the next volume of Captain Cheeseball won't be out until early next year, there will be a few things to look forward to over the next six months.  First of all, I am working on a short piece for a compilation comic book that will be out later in the year.  The piece will elaborate on a section of the book and feature Captain Cheeseball.  Also, I will be working this fall to get the first two volumes into stores around Columbus.  Stay tuned!

100th 'Like' on Captain Cheeseball Books Facebook Page

Today, the Captain Cheeseball Books page on Facebook hit the 100 'Likes' mark! Thanks to everyone who has been supportive of the book. I'm really looking forward to the continued adventures of Captain Cheeseball!!!

Book Trailer for The Saga of Captain Cheeseball: Volume II

Follow this link to purchase the book.

Volume II of The Saga of Captain Cheeseball is AVAILABLE!!!

At midnight on June 18th, The Saga of Captain Cheeseball: Volume II became available!  The adventure continues with the loveable but fairly inept captain as he moves deeper into his quest to find a treasure for the king of the island nation of Flinginghamdunbergville.  Captain Cheeseball finds himself in a few tight spots in the second chapter of the story and also meets a few new friends who accompany him on his adventure.  Its time to continue your adventure with Captain Cheeseball!!!

A book trailer promoting volume II will be online in the next day or two.  Keep an eye out for that!

3 Days and Counting!!!

I'm currently working on a book trailer that will come out on Monday along with the book.  Doing some motion graphics with the artwork I have.  Don't think I will have time to animate anything.  Would have liked that, but didn't really have the time this week.  

My kids grabbed copies of the proofs when they arrived the other day and read through them quickly.  Its nice to have a little test market right in our house.  They seemed to like this one.   I can't wait to start the next volume!!!

They're Here!!!

7 Days and Counting...

Volume II of Captain Cheeseball is ON ITS WAY!!!

Book Trailer Coming Soon!

Volume II of The Saga of Captain Cheeseball will be available on June 18th, a week from Monday.  I will be attempting to 'get the word out' on a larger scale by also releasing a book trailer.  The trailer will be about a minute long with original music created by my brother Keith Richner and will introduce the characters and describe the basic set-up to the stories.  If you check out the blog, please forward the links around.  Very excited about this upcoming volume and looking forward to building some momentum. 

Ten Days and Counting!!!

Volume II of The Saga of Captain Cheeseball is almost here! Look for it on June 18th, 2012!

Volume II Challenges

This second volume of Captain Cheeseball posed some challenges in the area of margins. With a longer book comes more pages and a wider margin in the gutter of the book. I had to do a little reformatting to get all the text to fit properly on each page. I think I finally got everything worked out last night so I should still be on schedule for a June 18th release of volume II.

Fun Facts #3

Cover for Volume II

My son Christopher colored the cover for the upcoming Volume II of The Saga of Captain Cheeseball! Nice work Christopher! Special thanks to him and to Lauren for coloring the Volume I cover as well!

Fun Facts #2

Update on Book VI

I am about 1/2 way through roughing out book six. Can't wait to get it done! Should be able to put some time in on it tonight. June 18th is fast approaching!

NEW PAGE!!!

Captain Cheeseball swag has arrived!!!  Click on the page  above.  Lots of fun stuff from coffee mugs to baseball jerseys!  I think I want to get a couple things!

Preview of Volume II on CreateSpace

Click on the link below to get a short sample from the soon to be released Volume II of The Saga of Captain Cheeseball series!  Enjoy!

https://www.createspace.com/pub/community/give.review.do?id=1102282&rewrite=true

Fun Facts #1

Sneak Peek!!!

Sneak Peek!!!  This is a page from the upcoming Volume II of the Saga of Captain Cheeseball.  This is from Book IV, The First Real Adventure.  Tonight, I just finished Book V, A Whale of a Weigh Station.  Now its on to Book VI, Let the Trials Begin!!!  June 18th is the release date for Volume II.  Please stay tuned!!!

Working Tonight

I'm almost done cleaning up book five, then on to book six. Should still be able to get Volume II out by June!

More Ebook Blues

I'm working on getting an Ebook version of Captain Cheeseball available through the Kindle and it's not an easy process it seems. Tried to upload my PDF file; however, even though they SAY you can upload a PDF, they say there are usually problems and that seems to be the case. Looks like I will have to create a new version of the book through Word. Not a huge deal but will probably take a couple days. If it works, it's worth the effort. Will be nice to reach a larger audience. Just opened Captain Cheeseball up to overseas purchase which is cool. Will be fun to see my first international sale. Not sure how to market for that.

Half Way Through Volume II

I'm currently finishing up the roughs for book five of the Saga of Captain Cheeseball: Volume II.  This puts me at about the half way point for finishing Volume II.  I'm still shooting for a June 1st release, but it will most likely be a little after that.  However, things are going well, and I'm excited to get this volume done.  There will probably be a bit of a break between volumes II and III as I will be devoting much of my time to my animated film this summer and also looking for ways to raise awareness on the series.  I will also need to start writing the next books in the series as I only have up to book six written so far.  

Thanks to all those who have purchased books.  Stay tuned for more updates very soon!

Fan Art

Here is some 'fan art' from my daughter Lauren.  She wanted to clean up one of the pages in the book and this was her drawing.  Very nice job!

Interview with Animation Insider.com

An interview that I did recently with the website Animation Insider.com just came out today.  Click on the image below to check it out!  I talked about my work in the animation industry as well as The Saga of Captain Cheeseball.  Enjoy!

Recently Uploaded to AuthorsDen.com

The Saga of Captain Cheeseball is now available through the website AuthorsDen.com.  This website is a collection of authors looking to connect with readers.  The website boasts over 1.4 million visitors per month.  Check it out!  

AuthorsDen is focused on re-creating the historical face-to-face author and reader relationship where authors create, share, interact with each other and sell direct to their readers, but this time rather than taking place in a town square or temple it takes place online and throughout the world.

Color Sketch of Captain Cheeseball

Last night, I showed my Animation I class how to set up tones and highlights on their characters in Harmony.  So, I drew Captain Cheeseball and used him as our test subject.  More and more, I am thinking that I need to animate him.  I would expect that to be the next step after the books are finished! 

Old Picture

Found this old picture from a high school trip to Universal Studios.  Maybe this is where the idea came from for Captain Cheeseball to be wearing a sombrero.   

Half way through Book IV right now.  Pushed really hard to get through the first three books, but will probably be a little slower on the next three just with other projects going on.  Still shooting for that June 1st release date.  I do think that is attainable.  

Books on Amazon.com

If you search the book on Amazon.com, you will notice there are two books listed.  Originally, I had intended to separate all the books (for a total of eighteen books).  However, after going through the process of uploading the books and determining pricing, I felt like it made a lot more sense to combine three together into one volume.  I was able to set a lower price per book by combining them in this fashion.  I had wanted to delete Book I; however, it seems as if it will always be visible even if I delete it (will be listed as 'out of print').  Considering that I thought this would be confusing to see the first book listed as 'unavailable', I decided to make it available since it was going to be visible whether or not it was active.  Hope this post clarifies things a bit.

Just a sample page from the second book, 'I Wanna Go Home!!!'.  At the Amazon website, you can see more samples from the book.  Just started tonight on books IV, V and VI.  Hoping to have these available in the next month or so.  After the second volume is released, there will probably be a slightly longer gap between volumes two and three.  Very excited about this series, however.  I think I could also see it as an animated piece.  Maybe that is next!   

Volume I of The Captain Cheeseball Saga is Available!

The first three books in the Captain Cheeseball Saga are now available for purchase!  Go to: https://www.createspace.com/3844362.  In about a week, the book will also be available through Amazon.com.

There will will be a total of six books in the series which will chronicle the adventures of Captain Cheeseball, a misfit pirate, who is sent on a quest to find a treasure for the king of Flinginghamdunbergville.  There are details throughout the stories that kids can add and draw directly into the book.  The illustrations throughout the books can also be colored.  I hope to have the next volume completed and available for purchase within the next month or two.  

The story is based on a character my kids made up.  I love telling them silly little stories at bedtime and I decided recently to go ahead and actually make this story into a book series.  I had a lot of fun putting it together and hope you enjoy the stories as much as I did telling them and creating the books!

Enjoy!

Tom Richner

First Book Almost Ready!!!

I am about ready to release the first volume of the Captain Cheeseball saga which will include the first three books of the series.  It will be available on both CreateSpace.com and on Amazon.com.  The following link will eventually take you to the online store to purchase the book: https://www.createspace.com/3844362

I will eventually reorganize this site and place the links to purchase the books on a static page at the top of the blog.  Excited to release the first book!  More information to come soon!

COMING SOON!!!

An unlikely hero... An improbable task... An interactive adventure for the ages... How will your adventure look? Join Captain Cheeseball in a new series of books for kids that chronicles the adventures of this reluctant hero as he searches for a treasure without a map, befriends some quirky companions along the way and eventually finds his way back to his home on the island of Flinginghamdunbergville a changed man. The first few books of the series will be available online through Amazon.com in the summer of 2012. Please stay tuned for updates!