Everyone must eat.

This weekend I did a lot of eating, and not much drawing.

But there's comics up at the website.

Convention Season!

First, HAPPY St. PATRICK's DAY!

The spring convention season is upon us. I've had to cut way back in the number of shows I'm attending this year, which is probably for the best as my schedule was kinda crazy the last two years.

First up, The Stumptown Comics Festival in Portland, April 28th and 29th!

I'll be sharing a table with the lovely Nomi Kane, and we're putting together a split mini comic just for the show.

Unfortunately I'm going to have to miss TCAF this year, couldn't afford the plane tickets and the time off of work. But you should stop by the Quatro Monstro table and check out comics by Laura Terry, Katherine Roy and Jon Chad! And of course, don't miss the Koyama Press table. They might have some copies of Island Brat left!

I will make it to the CAKE in June, though. Looking forward to seeing Chicago again, and having a hot dog and a Green River.

And...that's it for this spring. Wow. I'd better make up for it this fall!

Comic updates on the website!

Hey look, it's a comic! We haven't seen one of those in months.
I decided to start regular updates here again, there will be comics every Monday-Friday. Not new comics, but they might be new to you.

Recently I read this article on comics for kids, which refers to zines as "code for 'not available anywhere'", which got me thinking about how many zines and anthologies I've drawn comics for, where only like 100 copies were printed, most of which were given away to the contributors, and that was it. It's...a lot of pages.

There'll be comics from Caboose, Trees and Hills...other stuff that's been out of print so long I can't find a working website. Hope you enjoy!

Comic!

It's still Wednesday for a few more hours. Here's a comic-
http://www.tragicrelief.com
Gonna start updating every M/W/F again, until I have something better to do.

Working...

There ate two pages left to finish in Drag Bandits, the book for Retrofit Comics. TWO! ...and then I still have to tone the book and finish the cover and all that other nonsense. Why am I on the internet? I should in the studio be finishing the book right now!

Here are some random panels to make me feel like I've accomplished something (written by Betsey Swardlick, I'm going to keep linking to her blog until she updates!):

"Island Brat" in Vermont's "Seven Days"

They're not always great about updating their website, but I totally had a comic in Seven Days last week. Decided to just take a photo of the newspaper page.

This is the third time I've gotten to do a page of comics for our local alternative weekly paper, and it's always exciting. Many thanks to Joe Lambert for keeping the White River Junction cartoonist's relationship with the paper going.



And here's how the page looked on the computer, just wanted the comparison because the colors are so different. (click on the pics to enlarge)

Talking about clothes, like a girl.

Before I got into comics, I'd wanted to be a costumer and love fashion history. I find it's as much fun to research, sew and wear these dresses as it is to draw them.

The research bit is something that I've noticed gets ignored in a lot of comics- the way this kind of clothing changes the shape of the wearer. These clothes were heavy, structured, and involved layers of undergarments (bustles, corsets, farthingales) that dramatically altered the human form.

 

Like, in this panel here from Fables,  Cinderella is wearing what looks like a corset, full skirt and petticoat, but everything just kind of hangs off of her. Why can you see the outline of her butt through two layers of skirts? While I really enjoyed the comic and admire Shawn McManus' art, these off details pulled me out of the story.

Anyway, both of the comics projects I'm currently working, though completely unrelated to each other, are set around the 1870's, so I'm getting to do lots of costume research and draw bustles, top hats and cravats!



This first is a character sketch for a Retrofit Comics story. Retrofit is the brainchild of Box Brown, inspired by the subscription model of mainstream comics, using 16 amazing indie comics artists (more info coming soon) and I was really honored that he asked me to be a part of it.

When I first got the assignment, I was totally excited about it and quickly came up with an idea.  When it came time to start working, I totally froze and had to call some friends for help. Betsey Swardlick came to the rescue, and agreed to write a yet-unnamed highwayman story. This is gonna be so fun to draw!

The other project I'm working on is a 6-page adaptation of Age of Innocence for the Seven Stories Press Graphic Canon anthologies. Costuming plays an important part in this story, the clothing being as restrictive as 1870's New York society.

Lots of comics to draw to keep me busy all summer!

SO CLOSE!

The fundraiser is almost over! I'm getting on a plane tomorrow, and so far I'm just under half of the pre-sale goal at 24 copies. Thank you everyone who has ordered a copy so far! This has at least funded my ticket to Seattle.

They're is still time to order a comic to help fund this trip, if you'd like to help make my night. The printing has been funded by Koyama Press, and the final product promises to be much fancier then I'd originally intended.

 BONUS COMIC (so that I still feel like this blog is entertaining people, and not just about endless self-promotion)-



I drew this way back in September, for the Picture Book Report, but since that blog has ended it seemed safe to post it.

Statistics!

I work in a library, we like statistics. Blogger now has a feature where I can see all sorts of fancy stats about this site, like where most of my readers come from.

Surprisingly, South Korea is in the #2 spot, so here's a few pages from my "Basket Ogress" story translated in Korean by my friend Jonny, who's over there teaching English:





I don't know if his translation is accurate. It could be full of swears. I'm sorry if it's all swears.
THANKS FOR READING, MYSTERIOUS STRANGERS!

Sick Day 3

Back at work but still feeling pretty foggy. Avoid the flu, wash your hands!

Sick Day 2

Still out of it, here's another page from my "Daily Catch" anthology story:

Sick Day

I'd hoped to have something new to post, but I'm out sick. It's Nyquil and cartoons time.

Here's something new to anyone who didn't attend SPX- Jon Chad, Katherine Roy, Laura Terry and me sold 100 copies of our "Daily Catch" anthology at the show:






This is the first page of my story. There's no plans to reprint this book, but we are planning another one for next year. I'll post the rest of the pages later in the week.

SPX-cited part 4!

More books on Table H15 at the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, MD September 11th and 12th, 2010! "Daily Catch" is a small anthology with work from me and my table mates, Jon Chad, Katherine Roy, and Laura Terry, full of stories about the ocean.


Here's a sample panel from my story, which is a little autobio piece about growing up on an island in the Puget Sound. Quick note- these are not fat dolphins or badly drawn orcas. They're dall's porpoises. And they are pretty fat and funny-looking.

Leaving for Bethesda on Friday! Very exciting!

SPX-cited part 1!

SPX is less than a month away! We've got our transportation and accommodations all set, the 2010 Ignatz nominees were just announced, I'm pretty excited about it all, and will be bringing a couple of new minis to share. Been drawing a lot this summer- rainy summers are good for that.

Jon Chad and I will have a new split mini at the convention called "Guilty Pleasures". It's about how I can't stop reading this trashy manga series and he can't stop talking about Gordon Ramsay, among other things.

I'll write about the other new books later in the week. One is at the printers right now, and is scheduled to arrive on my doorstep Monday!

Tragic Relief #'s 8 and 9 now for sale online.

I don't tend to get ideas for short comics, so much as impulses. And when these impulses pop into my head, they have the voice of the guy from this Kids in the Hall sketch shouting "Let's boil the broom!"



In the case of Tragic Relief #8, the voice said "Let's draw a shark! Let's draw a guy PUNCHING a shark!" And then I had draw a story around that image, which ended up being:


Tragic Relief #8- Revenge! I've had this mini for sale at a couple of conventions now, but only just got around to adding it to the shop. Apologies for that. Rich Kreiner of The Comics Journal wrote a nice review of it here. Check it out!




Tragic Relief #9 is available now, too! I'm changing the format again with this issue, gotta the readers on their toes (all ten of them). For the next 6 issues of the Tragic Relief minis, I'll be serializing my next graphic novel "Basket Ogress". Each issue will also contain a short back-up story, for people aren't into the whole Pacific Northwest mythology kids story thing.

The back-up story for this issue is called "The Hunt", and started because I was looking at too much Frank Frazetta art after he passed away, and starting thinking "Hey! Let's draw a jungle girl story!"

I like feedback, and tend to do a lot of corrections and redrawing pages when making comics- I've redrawn and condensed about seven pages of this chapter of "Basket Ogress" since Rob Clough last reviewed it. So send me a your thoughts- ColleenFrakes@gmail.com








Issue #10 is already nearly done, and should available at SPX in September, and online a few days (or months) after that. I'm bad about these sort of things.

TRULY outrageous?

Time for the weekly update. Spent a lot of time in the studio this weekend, even managed to put in a full eight-hour day on Saturday. But the time was mostly spent on corrections.

One of the big projects was redrawing two pages I'd originally done way back in 2005.

Not sure if I'm allowed to write about this project or not, so here's a panel that doesn't give anything away. The top one was drawn in 2005, and the bottom redone over the weekend. So if nothing else, art school taught me to draw necks


Also been doing more little 4x6 watercolor paintings, because I enjoy them and in turn people seem to enjoy buying them. It's a nice arrangement. Here are three that are already in the mail:

















You can purchase one yourself, if you are so inclined,at my Etsy store.

Okay, enough with the shameless plugs. See you next week.

Page 100

I went into the studio this evening, but didn't feel like working on what I'm supposed to be. So instead, I drew a page for Jason Turner's Page 100 Project.

There aren't many prose books in the studio. I had a copy of "Candide", but that doesn't go to a hundred pages, or there's "The Phantom Tollbooth", but that's already illustrated. Ended up grabbing "The Prisoner of Zenda". Here's the page:



It's pretty girlie.



And my interpretation of it. Wasn't happy with how the watercolors turned out, and much Photoshopping took place.

Okay, now I suppose I should do some real work...or maybe not. G'night!

Ahem:

Look, it makes sense in the context of the story. OKAY?

Seven Days Comic

Check out the Drawn and Paneled section of this week's Seven Days, Burlington VT's alt weekly newspaper. And while you're there, check out the archives. There's some brilliant work there by some of my favorite people.

Some notes on this comic-

I know the colors look painfully bright online. Newsprint really soaks up the ink, so the physical copies are much easier on the eyes.

I think I've been reading too much Walt and Skeezix.

Circus Comic

No Basket Ogress pages or paintings his week. I had a deadline. More on that project later this week (I hope).



I realized I forgot to post the rest of the pages I had done from the Circus Comic. You can see the story so far here. This is just midway through the story, I hope to color it for SPX.

In case anyone cares, this is the first story I've done all with markers, and it was drawn on these DC Art Boards that a roommate left behind when he moved out, which are horrible and bleed like crazy. Fun!