plot #2

I've been quite busy helping plan the 2012 Chicago Zine Fest, and running around the Midwest to various comics/zine shows, and hanging out with my awesome parents.  So the Plot #2, Your Curiosity Will Get You Killed has been progressing very...very...slowly.  But I am still working on it, and yesterday I had a few hours on an Amtrak train up to Milwaukee, so I worked on some cover designs for the issue. Here are some of the better designs I've come up with so far:

onward!

Saturday, November 26th (which, depending on when you read this is tomorrow, today or in the past) is the date during which the 3rd annual Genghis Con will be strutting its stuff all over Waterloo Ave in Cleveland, Ohio.  I exhibited at the show during its first year, and am excited to return, this year (smuggling Sam Sharpe in my suitcase). 

Here are the "deets:"

The Genghis Con

Saturday, November 26, 2011

11am - 6pm

Beachland Ballroom

15711 Waterloo Rd.

Cleveland, OH, USA, Planet Earth (sorry Martians)

Flyer by Kevin Fagan (related to Matt?)

It'll be tons of fun, so if you're near the Cuyahoga river, follow it to Cleveland, and the Beachland Ballroom.

Sam will be sharing a table with me and have his brand new (and freakin awesome) comic, Viewotron #1, which will soon be a name that is mentioned in the same breath as Optic Nerve, or Ganges, or maybe Betty and Veronica Digest.

I will have the Plot #1 which I hope you will read and enjoy.

the plot

Oh hey, I totally have a new minicomic!   

The Plot #1 A Monster in the Forbidden Forest debuted at SPX, and I got rid of all 40 copies I brought down (a trash can helped).  Kenan (who has taken on the job as my editor, even though I'm not paying him) has already written his review of the comic in a larger post about SPX. He summed up the story  better than I've been able to.  While you're on his blog, definitely read more of his posts, he's far more eloquent that I am, and pretty insightful with his observations, while I putter around with tweets like "Roller Derby is cool."  

 

  It's 40 pages of adventure with a stamped cover (I got custom stamps made for this thing)!

My website is in complete disarray, so I'm not going to make any promises to make it available for purchase on my web-empire any time soon.  BUT!  You can order it from Quimby's Bookstore, I spend 40 hours a week there, so there's no chance of it going out of stock any time soon.  While you're there, order more great comics from the store, we've got TONS, and the shipping rate doesn't change until your order goes over $30.

I will also be selling/trading it at the following events this fall: Madison Zine Fest, Milwaukee Zine Fest, Minneapolis Indie Xpo, and any other events that start with the letter M (I'll even bring some to the WFTDA's North Central Division Regional tournament, Monumental Mayhem).

 

 This comic is going to be at least 10 issues long, and the more I write, the more I realize it's probably going to be longer than that. I'm in for a loooooooong involvement with this story, and I am quite excited about that.  

Actually, maybe I should take a minute and explain where this comic came from.  I was flying back to Chicago from the Stumptown Comics Fest, thinking about my comics plans, as I really hadn't had time to draw any comics since the Fall (organizing a zine fest is really hard).  I had grand plans for a year-long comics experiment, inspired by Liz Baillie's Minicomic of the Month Club, and writing a dark, scary, gruesome graphic novel about the things that scared me as a child and as an adult.  To be honest, I was not excited about these serious endeavors.  Reading the few minicomics I picked up at Stumptown, I started dreaming of what I would enjoy drawing, images came to my mind. A bug the size of a house! A stranger falling from the sky! Telepathic abilities! Aliens! A strange secluded town! After thinking of these things, I couldn't shake them, and over a few weeks of working it out on paper, a story developed (though not all of these elements made it into the story).  So I dropped the serious comics I was going to make, and started drawing fun comics!  And that's what the Plot is.

I'm currently writing issue 3, and editing issue 2.  I'm actually kind of editing it while I draw it, and have 24 pages penciled.  Here's the first one:

Great!

scanner hiccup #2

 

Here's the other scanner hiccup I ran into scanning elements for the cover for the Plot #1.

On a more serious note, Dylan Williams is fighting cancer right now, and he needs support from folks.  "Who is Dylan Williams," you ask?!  To anyone who's spent more than five minutes with the guy, Dylan is a friend, and I've had the pleasure of hanging out with him on a few occasions, so I know from experience.  He's a cartoonist, an organizer for the Portland Zine Symposium, and he runs a gallery in Portland, Oregon, but he's probably best known as the main force behind Sparkplug Comic Books!  Sparkplug is one of the best small presses putting out comics today (and when I say "best" I really mean it...and when I say "small" I really mean that too). 

  Those who are "interested" by this "graphic novel thing," or those who mainly buy comics from Marvel or DC probably have never heard of Sparkplug (or its peers, Tugboat, Koyama, AdHouse, Picturebox, 2DCloud, LaMano, Grimalkin, Kilgore, or Chicago's own Shortpants), but to those who dig just beneath the surface of the world of comics know Sparkplug puts out some amazing comics, and support those artists who the bigger indie publishers (Fantagraphics, Drawn and Quarterly, Pantheon, Top Shelf) tend to ignore.  Actually, a lot of those who started off with Sparkplug have moved on to larger publishing houses, which -Dylan has stated- is part of Sparkplug's design.

  Dylan has spent most of the past two decades supporting comics that deserved attention, and now he needs some support from us who have benefited from his contributions.  If you've got some extra cash, go over to Sparkplug, and buy some comics, they're amazing!  You could probably pick them at random, and be blown away by the quality!

scanner hiccup #1

This happened when we were scanning elements for the Plot's cover last night, it only happened twice, but both times it created great results:

in the mix

Woo Hoo!  I've just been confirmed as an exhibitor for MIX, the Minneapolis Indie Expo!  I'll be sharing a table with my pal Sam Sharpe.  We exhibited last year and had a lot of fun in Minneapolis, and hope to repeat the good times.  Check out the exhibitor page, there are tons of really exciting folks at this year's fest, so if you're anywhere near the twin cities (AKA North America!), you should totally stop by the Soap Factory November 5 & 6. 

  I've been cramming my days with inking my new minicomic, the Plot #1, a Monster in the Forbidden Forest!  (see sample above) I'm on track to having it done by SPX, which is happening EXACTLY one month from today in Bethesda, Maryland.  It should be tons of fun, as I'm exhibiting with my partner in crime, Kenan Rubenstein (who's been acting as an editor for the Plot), and Matthew Ocasio who edits the zine the Matter.  We'll be the sharp kids with the awesome comics there, look for us. 

  In other news, the two festivals I help organize are both announcing their dates for 2012.  The Chicago Zine Fest will be happening March 9 & 10, and the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo (CAKE) will be taking place June 16 & 17.  So mark your calendars, and buy your train tickets, both shows are gonna be HOT!

  OK, enough gabbing.  Back to work, jerk!

comics comics comics

 

I took this week off from work, and instead of traveling to see my family or running off to some convention, I'm staying put in Chicago, and primarily working on a new minicomic, the Plot #1 (that name seems to be sticking, but could easily be replaced with a title that might actually make the comic sound interesting).  Above is a photo from a few days ago when I took thirteen penciled pages that share the same setting, and made sure the environment looked the same across all the pages. 

I am just past the half way point with penciling this first issue, below is page 36 of the 68-page comic.  For the most part I've been really excited with the story (I am also spending hours writing issue #2), and really happy with my drawings.  This isn't a normal situation for me.  Usually I'm fairly unhappy or at the very least unimpressed with almost every aspect of the comics I work on.  So either this means I've developed as an artist or I am oblivious of this new comic's flaws.  

I've been listening to a lot of interviews with comics artists I highly respect, like Sarah Oleksyk and Noah Van Sciver, as well as the Plinkett reviews of the Star Wars prequels (which are pretty amazing).  All of them talked about what they liked in story telling and what they hated in bad stories.  It made me wonder if I was actually writing a terrible story that might someday be used as an example of a stupid comic, or that could receive such a destructive review as Plinkett's.  It definitely helped bring that familiar sense of self-doubt back to my drawing and writing this week!  So, thanks for the help, guys.

This photo includes the thumbnail for the page, which shows how I write the comic, and its translation into the final page. 

  

 

Hopefully this'll be ready for SPX in September.

free comics! ...in the past. new comics! ...eventually.

Last Saturday was Free Comic Book Day (FCBD (pronounced fick-bud, for you uninitiated (not really))).  Sam Sharpe, Erik Schneider and I put together a free minicomic we put around comic book stores in Chicago (Quimby's, Chicago Comics, Thirdcoast Comics, Challengers). We named it Handout Comics.  We made a stencil cover, for it.  Here are a couple pictures from the process:

 Erik folding the comic's guts!

 Finished copies of the comic (we made 200)!

 Sam cutting the image stencil!

Sam printing the image stencil!

The whole process was a lot of fun, and I hope folks enjoyed the comics!

A while ago, you might have noticed me mentioning the Minicomic of the Month Club.  I won't go into its details, because I've decided to scrap the plan (which was going to commence in June).  There was very little interest (probably due to very little promotion by me), and I myself -while looking forward to the project- was not excited about it.

But on the way back from Stumptown Comics Fest (which will receive a review soon), I started coming up with imagery that was pretty exciting, and slowly -over the course of a few weeks- a story grew, and has stolen most of my free time and wandering mind.  So I'm excited to mention (which I'm sure will back-fire later down the road), I've started working on a minicomic series that will be a lot of fun to draw, and hopefully a lot of fun to read.  It will probably be 5 issues long, and I will hopefully have the first issue done by SPX in September.  Below is one of the initial sparks of the story, the working title of which is the Plot.