Dawn's Dictionary Drama – A Dictionary Comic by John Bintz

Blake Snyder, the author of “Save the Cat!” and the Blake Snyder Beat Sheet (the structural framework of this very comic) passed away yesterday. He was a super nice guy, his books are a great read and very inspirational, and he even answered an email I sent to him once (really!). Needless to say I was shocked at the news. My condolences to his family and friends. I’ll keep on Saving the Cat in his honor.

Dawn’s Dictionary Drama is gearing up for the next round of conventions that are going on in the Baltimore area (Small Press Expo and Baltimore Comic-Con), and that means new signage and promotional materials. And, if you listened to the latest Comics Coast to Coast (and you should!), you’ll hear about how I’m going to get the words for the next run of Dawn’s Dictionary Drama. They won’t be coming from a generator…they’ll be coming from YOU, the convention attendees!

To promote this new venture, I’m creating a postcard that I’ll be handing out at the convention with a matching banner that shows you where to return said postcard. On the postcard will be places to write your name, where you live, a Website you want me to plug (teen-safe, of course), and the word that you want me to use in the next storyline. All personal info is optional. This will work a lot like the comic I did at Heroes Con (and I’ll be doing one of these too, across both shows).

For the image on the banner and on the postcard, I’m going to have Dawn, Natosha, and Tommy in some sort of single-panel scene, and one of them will be using a word that I want provided by those fans of Dawn’s Dictionary Drama that are on Twitter. Send the word you want used in the contest as a tweet to @dawnjacobson with the hash tag #bannercontest. Example: want to enter the word “bacon”? Send:

@dawnjacobson bacon #bannercontest

Usual rules apply: the word must be teen-safe (my call), must not be a proper noun,  and, for this project, must be a real word with a real definition (I’ll check on WordNet most likely). I’ll select the winning word with a random number generator, and the winner gets a mention on the postcard as well as two free minicomics of the first Dawn’s Dictionary Drama story. Only one entry per person, please. I’ll be accepting entries until Friday, August 28 at 5pm EDT. If I don’t receive any words I deem acceptable, I’ll pick a word myself and send myself the minicomics.

I look forward to seeing what youall come up with!

@mandiferous with the word “sigmoid!” Thanks everyone for playing! I’ll post the new banner and postcard designs here in the next week or so.