posting when i should be drawing

I just wanna post real quick about the upcoming WINDY CITY COMICON, so
when mid September comes around, nobody's all like "WHAT?! Nobody told me about this?!" Consider yourself warned. The Windy City Comicon is Windy City Comicoming!

This show will be super awesome! I'll be there with all my books, so will Short Pants Press (towing behind them, at least Sarah Becan, Grant Reynolds and Bernie McGovern). Jeff Lemire, Jeffrey Brown, Art Baltazar, Matt Kindt, Andy Jewett, and Nate Powell will all be there! Plus a ton of people whose reputation I really should know better, but don't. Check out the guest list. Also, I'll be smuggling Kevin in my back pack, so you can meet the dude who writes Alpha City Comics, as we unveil issue two!

Not to single him out, but Nate Powell needs a little spot lighting. This'll be his first year at Windy City, and he should get a big Chicago welcome. His work is AMAZING! His latest graphic novel, Swallow Me Whole (Top Shelf), won (and rightly so) the 2008 Ignatz for outstanding debut, and the 2009 Eisner for best graphic album. It blows my mind! Well, the book blew my mind when I read it, and it totally blows my mind that it's damn near IMPOSSIBLE to find it in Chicago right now! Luckily, Windy City has hooked you up, because with admission to the show, you have the opportunity to buy the book, as well as meet the dude. And meeting Nate Powell is an opportunity all on its own, because this guy is one of the nicest guys ever. He's super friendly and nice, and has some really funny arm gestures what's not to like?

Windy City was a great success last year, there were tons of folks, and everyone had a good time. The ticket price has increased from $5 to $10, BUT! You're getting 30 more creators to meet than you would have last year, plus, the program is expanding from a half-sheet of paper, to a FULL COLOR COMIC BOOK! Each creator got a page to do whatever they want with. I drew a brand new comic, and you can only get it in that program!

This'll also be the first show that I'll be selling What is This? my children's minicomic. I'll also have buttons and stickers and free comics for you. That's all I gotta say. go to the friggin show.

i have books

I wasn't sure how to follow up my previous post, as it was so serious. It seemed like anything I could possibly write would seem shallow compared to it.

SO I'VE DECIDED TO SHAMELESSLY PROMOTE MY WARES!

I started an etsy account, it's a more public means of selling my books, over my website's store. I have my four comic books for sale, The Trugglemat, Spitting Pennies, What is This? and Alpha City Comics Issue One.

I've also changed how I am producing my books, i used to sew the interior pages together, and then use rice paste to glue the covers to the pages. Every time I would glue my books, I would get nervous, thinking my recipe was somehow wrong, and the books would fall apart. They never seemed to fall apart, so I kept on making my books that way. Then finally, at MoCCA this year, I put a BUNCH of copies of What is This? together, to give away, and show off. Sure enough, some of the covers started to fall off, and I was super embarrassed handing them out to people. One woman ran up to me at one point waving the book, telling me how much she liked it and as she opened the book...crack! I could hear the brittle dried glue breaking.

While I was in New York, I decided to stop using glue on my books. And as if the Universe wanted to make sure I meant what I said, it drove the point home: My favorite pastime on the way back from a convention is to sit on the Amtrak train, and read read read all the comics I got at the show. So, I sat down in my seat at Penn Station, and opened up my first read of my trip, Kazimir Strzepek's The Mourning Star, Vol. 1 (which, by the way, is AWESOME). As I read the book, the glue gave, and chunks of the book dropped one by one into my lap. I pulled out my needle and thread, and went to work sewing it back together, which took me until Albany.

So short story long, I'm sewing all of my books together now, and I think they look and feel better than ever. Alpha City Comics now has a shiny foil tape spine. And Spitting Pennies will eventually get a black tape spine, if I can find some good black tape. I'm also making a more conscious decision about what color thread I'm using for each book. I'm far more satisfied with the finished product.

summer reading recap

Last night was the zine reading/fair at the Fun House, and it was AWESOME! All the readings were super super sweet, and I ended up going last, which made me really nervous. I enlarged copies of pages from What is This? and read it out loud with sound effects, and a funny voice for Lucy, the alien. Everyone seemed to enjoy it. Then I traded for a bunch of zines, and a couple of folks insisted on giving me money for my comics, so I made back about half of the printing costs, which was an added bonus I wasn't planning for.

I'll add it to my "I Just Wanna Draw Comics Fund" savings account I'm gonna try to reopen today.

I've got the day off from work, so I'm running some errands, and then heading down to Hyde Park to have a drawing date with Ryan Alexander-Tanner. I'm drawing my page for the Windy City Comicon program, which is a full-sized comic book, with each creator getting a page. I'm also working on Alpha City Comics #2, I'm 10% done with penciling the book.