APE Stuff

I brought home a bunch of stuff from APE last weekend and I am starting to read through it. Here's the good stuff so far:

LOSE by Michael Deforge
This is a crazy comic with funny JLA satire strips, famous comic characters who are in hell, and great single-panel dog comics. The drawing is also very beautiful. It looks like this guy also did the cover for the issue #4 of Diamond Comics that was also new at APE, but I haven't read it yet. I think this dude will be as famous as Chris Ware.

STAY AWAY FROM OTHER PEOPLE by Lisa Hanawalt
I got this mini-comic and Lisa's other new regular comic but have only read the mini. There are some real solid laughs in here and good drawings. I guess it won a Ignatz award? That's pretty good. The dude at the table I bought it from told me I could get Lisa Hanawalt to sign it for me, but she was talking to some other people and I am shy around everyone and really unpleasant in general, so I just left. I predict she will be as famous as Chris Ware, too, if it's possible for three people be that famous at the same time.

DOOKIE-BALL JONES by Al Frank
Tim Goodyear gave me this thing and it's pretty good. But it's also extremely dirty and mean. There is poop-eating and Craigslist "encounters" and racism and pedophilia, but it's all in good fun/satire. Tim said people give it back to him after they buy it and don't even want their money back. Rated X for eXtraordinary, and because it's very disgusting and offensive--AND IT REALLY MAKES YOU THINK.

HENRY & GLENN FOREVER #1 & #2 by Igloo Tornado
I actually got these from Tom Neely at San Diego Comic-Con Int'l this summer and I think they were new two years ago, but still funny. Issue one posits that Henry Rollins and Glenn Danzig are best buds/lovers/roomies and milks that situation for what it's worth. Number two is more of the same, but now they live next door to Hall & Oates.

That's it for now.

APE This Weekend

I'll be in San Franciso this weekend for the Alternative Press Expo. Above is the cover of a new mini-comic I did, Crime World. It's 12 pages of action-packed fun about a life of crime. Pick one up at the Sparkplug Comics table, along with one of everything else and make all of us really wondrously wealthy and powerful. Click here for more details from Sparkplug's blog.

Printing Blog

I came across a new blog the other day, Quality In Print, that has lots of info on professional printing, of course. There's a lot of stuff about the business of printing and calibrating your workflow and saving ink and stuff like that that I don't know anything about, but there's also lots of useful info that people like me and you who make comic books can learn and use to do a better job and get better looking printed books. Specifically, check out these five posts on dot gain that I found very interesting, and another five about LPI and DPI. Even if you only make mini-comics on the sly at work, this stuff is good if one day you hit the "big time" and it's also interesting if you are a production nerd like Sparkplug Comics' Dylan Williams.

Claptrap #2 by Onsmith

Old pal Onsmith sent me a copy of his new mini-comic, Claptrap #2, got it on Friday. If you can get your hands on one you will be impressed. People just don't make mini-comics like this anymore, or if they attempt it they fail in comparison. Production value is off the chart with a nice two color silkscreen cover (I already got a spot of coffee or something on mine, unfortunately--goodbye collectible value), and he must've found the cleanest photocopier drum in town to do the guts of the comic; nice dense black, hi-res scans.

The quality of the cartooning in here is the usual grade of wonderful. Dirty gags, confounding doodles, comments on the miserable human condition--all in all a load of laffs. Also a color centerfold, and mine has an original small drawing taped in the back cover. Try to find a copy if you're near Chicago.

Anyhow, he's a good buddy of mine from way back, and it was real nice of him to send me one of these. It's nice to know I have such friends out there.

In the Pipeline

I'm working on a new mini-comic to have a grand unveiling at San Diego COMICON INT'L this summer, published by my friends, the team at Sparkplug Comic Books and Books and Distributors. It'll be an historical essay in comics form. I have to get it turned around pretty fast, it looks like (I might give up, too).

Rough Comics Pages

Some pages from my sketchbook for a mini-comic I've been working on since 2006. I get about two pages done a year and they look like this. Caution: bad language

Shopping, Prints, BFFs

I took a look in the Family store this past Saturday in L.A. I saw that they have a couple of the litho prints (titled Stamina) that John Hankiewicz made to commemorate our SPX '06 experience. John, Onsmith, Ivan Brunetti and I each did a little drawing and John did the prints, it came out nice!

Up above is the drawing that I contributed, scanned from my sketchbook. The four of us also made a mini-comic for the show that we were handing out free. I'm not sure where you might be able to find one of them now; I don't know if I even have one. But they were neat! Four new drawings apiece, very small size.

Anyway, the print was priced at $20 at Family. They also had more of John's prints for sale, and dozens of other things. Check it out and tell them I sent you. And then tell me that I sent you.

And don't forget to bookmark Hankiewicz's and Onsmith's blogs for a heaping helping of their naive artwork. Hankiewicz is in the new Mome #10; Onsmith is in the new Hotwire Comics #2. If you need help finding Ivan Brunetti comics, you're stupid.

New Mini-Comics for SPX

I won't be there, but my new mini-comic will probably be at SPX in MD, USA. Find it at the Sparkplug Comics table, #F1. It's 24 pages of fun and is called Danny Dutch and the King of Aliens part 1. Sparkplug also had the whole line of David King's Reliable Comics back at Comicon, but may have sold out or discarded them by now.

Porcelain Skinned Dandy

This is the cover to a mini-comic doodlebook I put together real fast for the San Diego Comicon in July. I think I still have a couple if anybody wants one, just one dollar.

NEWS

Sorry for the lack of new posts lately. I just started a new job, and haven't had much time. But I got a copy of the most recent issue of Make: to read on the bus, and it's kind of fun.

New Rough Comic Pages

Here's two pages from my continuing Vice-President, Shipping & Distribution, Office Machines Company story. Forgive the occasionally illegible text, and click for a slightly larger version.

WHAT

Sorry I haven't posted anything lately; my whole world is an upside-down wreck! I'll get back on it soon, though.

In the meantime, you can buy my four new mini-comics (two of which got a pretty good response at SPX, the other two of which experienced merely so-so reception) on my recently dusted off web store. And also, in the even meaner time, enjoy this picture of me.

"caption contest."

NEW COMICS COVERS

Here are photoshop dummies of the covers of my two new mini comic books. I haven't actually printed them yet, so the actual product may look different, but if I have any luck they'll look the same.

Reliable Comics, 7.75 x 6.5, 32pp, $3   preview panels

Vice-President, Shipping and Distribution, Office Machines Company
OR (help me decide!)
Sad Old Man Picaresque Stickman Adventure Comic #1, 5 x 4.5, 16pp, $2

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I just noticed the the guys on both covers are wearing the same clothes! I hope these comics don't put people to sleep...

I'll have these at SPX along with the also new Sorry! and Daredevil Pilot Jeff if it all goes according to plan. I also want to do a new Gocco print with art from Vice-President but getting that done remains to be seen...

Reliable Comics

I've been finishing a new mini-comic for debut at SPX in October, so I haven't been putting up as much stuff lately. If you're a regular visitor you might have noticed; if you're not a regular visitor it all looks the same.

Anyway, here's a few panels as a preview.