Desmond Miller – Doing what he loves best, writing comic books

By Cailie Skelton
STAFF WRITER

Desmond Miller has always known that he wanted to write comics. When be was rejected by the publishing companies at the top of the industry, he knew just what to do.

Miller, a former City College Guardsman staff member, started his own publishing company, Slumberland Press to publish his comic books.

“It was really hard breaking in myself and getting picked up by a company like Image,”  he said. “For the longest time I was trying to break into the business with just my writing.”

That is until he spoke with Bob Schreck, a former DC Comics editor at a comic book convention. Schreck encouraged him to accompany his writing with illustrations, even if they were stick figures.

“I’m always looking for more artists,” Miller said. So far he has found two artists via Craigslist and a website called Deviant Art. He is trying to pay them a meager sum of what he makes from the comics.

Miller acquired his editing skills at the City College Guardsman newspaper where he started out as a writer and then continued as an editor. “Going through the journalism department,” Miller said, “has taught me how to think more critically.”

Aside from not always getting his comics accepted to better known press companies like Image Comics and Red Five Comics,  Miller has faced hardships with Slumberland. He often struggles to cover even the cost of printing, however  he doesn’t let that weigh his spirit down.

Miller encourages other students to start and expect to fail, learn from it and then try again. “You know when they say you don’t make money in the first three years?” he said. “They mean it.”

Miller doesn’t let the rejection get him down either, because his comics are gaining fans. “For every two people who say ‘Oh this is stupid’ there is at least one person who thinks ‘wow this is awesome!'” Miller said.

Millers comics range from Western-themed story lines, to comics about the children of golden-age superheros. They are sold at a comic book shop in Fresno called Heroes Comics, at San Francisco’s Whatever comic book shop and on ComixPress.com.

“Desmond is a man of a million thoughts,” said Rich Boutell, the owner of Whatever, a comic book store in the Castro, who picked up two of Slumberland’s comics about a year ago.

While he still wants to get picked up by a bigger publisher, Miller plans to continue building his company. His vision is to turn Slumberland into a magazine called SLP that will be in the same vein as Geek magazine, which covers comic-related stories.

In 2010, Miller will be market his books at comic book conventions across California, one in Oregon and as far east as Chicago.

Slumberland Press can be found at http://slumberlandpress.com. You can also search for them on Facebook by entering  ‘Slumberland Press’.