Blueberry Mountain

Still working away on the bear story. I drew these panels in a Starbucks in Manhattan. It's pretty sad, but being from the Seattle area, I miss Starbucks. We don't have them in Vermont!

Rob Clough did a review of the first chapter of this story over on his new blog. You should read it, and then send him some comics. Or a pie.

...I think I need to go eat lunch now.

BASH magazine

I completely forgot I had a comic up on the BASH Magazine Comic Calendar yesterday.

Check it out. There's also lots of great comics up there by fellow CCS alumni Bryan Stone, Morgan Pielli, Sean Ford, and current student Dan Archer. You can pick up BASH for free if you live in the D.C. area. They don't offer subscriptions...but I really wish they did.

Update Blog- CHECK!

This weekend was for checking things off my comics "to-do" list.


New icon for IKJK site redesign. CHECK!

Finish another chapter of the bear story. CHECK!




2 page painted comic for BASH magazine #6. CHECK!


Ink and scan my 3-page submission for Side B. CHECK!

What's left on the list:

-Finish lettering my Side B comic (I've been working on this thing since Spring, but it keeps getting pushed onto the back burner for other projects. No more!)

-Submission for the "Love Comics" anthology that the current CCS freshmen are putting together.

-I was asked to draw a "Bearotaur" or "Minobear", half bear and half bull. Not sure how this is gonna work yet.

OH YEAH! And Rob Clough was kind enough to review some of my work on SeqArt again. The website seems to be down, but Penina found a Google cached version of it. Check it out. He also reviews some of my favorite books that the CCS alums have put together this year. Man, I know some amazing people!

"Side B" submission

Here are a few sample panels from my submission to Side B. I'm posting them here as a way to force myself to finish it!

Bikes and Bears and Books

I can't believe I forgot to post for the whole month of November! I had plenty of things I could have written about, too. Like the I Know Joe Kimpel gang and I went to APE in San Francisco, where we had a great time, sold a lot of comics, and met Matt Groening.

This last thing was huge for me, since Mr. Groening is a fellow alumni of The Evergreen State College. Go Geoducks!

After APE, I attended a library conference for work in Boston, taught a class of high school students with cartoonists Bryan Stone and Jon Chad, went home to the Northwest for ten days, then got back to Vermont and collapsed in a heap.

All the while (on planes, in hotel rooms, in coffee shops, and when I should have been paying more attention) I've been drawing comics!


Yup, I'm still working on that bear story. More here.

After I was done scanning pages, I attended a bike parade to celebrate the 37th Birthday of Jon Chad's bike, Scamander (hey, it's White River Junction. We welcome any excuse to have a party).

I don't have a bike anymore, so I stood on the street corner, yelling and taking photos.



And I learned that I don't take very good pictures in the dark. This was the best of the bunch, but there are more of these on flickr, too.

Giant Size Tragic Relief is now available at Atomic Books. Right now that's the ONLY retail store where it's available, so be sure to grab a copy.

Getting ready for APE

I work in a large, academic library, and we're lucky enough to have a letterpress workshop in the basement. Way back when I was an undergrad at The Evergreen State College, I took some letterpress workshops, and have been eager to get back in the practice of setting letters upside down and backwards.

This week I created letterpress covers for my new mini comic, Woman King, which will be debuting at the Alternative Press Expo this weekend, November 1st and 2nd.

Here's the setup on the Vandercook Press, with that lovely blue ink on the rollers.

...and here's what I'm going to be spending the next few days doing. Folding and binding mini comics.

The other mini I'm debuting at APE this year isn't so "mini", Giant Size Tragic Relief is a collection of issues #2-7 of the Tragic Relief comics. 85. x 11" and 52 pages. It's available right now from I Know Joe Kimpel.

Hope to see you at the show! I'll be with I Know Joe Kimpel at table #217.

A finished "St Lucia" page

It's kind of at a wonky angle since I didn't have a scanner- I just took a photo with the digital camera.

This is a mysterious project. Answers will reveal themselves in time.

Giant Size Tragic Relief

I got tired of having to reprint all of the issues of "Tragic Relief" and decided to just collect them all in one big book.

52 pages, 8.5 x11, xeroxed, $5.

It'll debut at APE and be available soon after that from I Know Joe Kimpel and wholesale through Tony Shenton.



I had a lot of fun layering all this linework for the covers.



I pasted origami paper hearts on the cover, partly because of the "sex, love and the 'unkowable other'" themes from the stories, and partly because I did this for one of my first zines and liked the idea of the little homage.

St. Lucia, Bless this Blog

A rejected panel from a current project (I drew the page at the wrong orientation).

St. Lucia or Lucy is the patron saint of the blind or people with eye trouble.

Bears on Dark Horse Presents

Check them out here on Wednesday, October 1st:
www.myspace.com/darkhorsepresents

Going to note that I only got this opportunity because the artists they'd originally booked dropped out at the last minute. Dark Horse contacted us at the INKubator looking for an 8-page color comic. The e-mail was sent out on Friday night, and they needed the comic by Sunday morning.

Rather than try to color an existing comic like a sensible person, I wrote, penciled and painted this story in about 12 hours. Please keep this in mind when reading it!

Bears on the move..

First stop, Amherst MA for a book signing and comics social!

Wed Oct 01 5pm-7pm
Amherst Books, 8 Main St, Amherst MA 01002
413.256.1547 / 800.503.5865 / www.amherstbooks.com
Jesse Reklaw, Ken Dahl, Robyn Chapman, Alec Longstreth, Clutch,
Samuel C. Gaskin, Colleen Frakes, and the Center for Cartoon Studies

More news to come...

Keep moving, keep moving

More bears are coming!

Hey, you!

There's a party going on over at Creepy Loser. You should totally crash it.

More pages from the bear story.

Look out! These bears are in a hurry.

Get out of the way, they've got places to be!

Some Love for Secret Acres.

You can now buy Tragic Relief at the Secret Acres Store.

We like the folks over at Secret Acres. They're publishing books by some of our favorite artists, and have always been sweet to us.

Works in progress

Talking bear fight!

These are just random panels from the story- some inked, some not, none of them finished.









Onward to VICTORY!

Want to buy Tragic Relief? Or read it in the store without paying for it?

RETAILERS:

Jim Hanley's Universe
4 w 33rd st
NYC NY 10001

Forbidden Planet
840 Broadway
NYC NY 10003

The Copacetic Comics Company™
1505 Asbury Place
Pittsburgh, PA 15217

Green Brain Comics
13210 Michigan Ave
Dearborn, MI 48126
313-582-9444

Comic Relief
2026 Shattuck Ave
Berkeley CA 94704

Chicago Comics
3244 N Clark St.
Chicago IL 60657


Midtown Comics Times Square
200 W 40th Street
New York, NY 10018

And coming soon to

Secret Headquarters ®
3817 W Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA

!

ONLINE

I Know Joe Kimpel

Panel to Panel

And coming soon to Secret Acres!

WHOLESALE

Tony Shenton

Issue #7 in July

I'm back on the bi-monthly bandwagon!

Tragic Relief #7, 5.5 x 4.25", 8 pages, $1



The story for this issue is called "Haircut". I haven't actually printed any of these out yet, I only just finished scanning the artwork this afternoon. It'll be up on the IKJK site as soon as the last copy is trimmed!

I've been drawing every day, I swear. I wish I could post more right now, most of it must be kept secret until around October.

Tragic Relief loves Sequart

Rob Clough was kind enough to review the Tragic Relief book at Sequart.com, check it out!

He also did a review of the Tragic Relief minis a while back, and has been very good about pointing people towards the work of fellow CCS alumni and students.

We like him, he's good people.

Issue #6 is here!

And you can get it here for only $1. Or, if you order a copy of the Tragic Relief book through I Know Joe Kimpel, I'll throw it in #6 for free.

Tragic Relief at the Tucker Box!

White River Junction FINALLY has a coffee shop! It's really good too. Eric, the chef and proprietor of the Tip Top Cafe just opened a second location, called the Tucker Box, on Main Street in downtown White River Junction. He set up three large frames in the middle of the shop, specifically for the purpose of displaying local cartoon art. My work is on display there now!

Each poster is representative of one chapter in the Tragic Relief book.

I have no idea how long these are going to be displayed here- I guess just until Eric gets tired of them. So catch them while you can!

MoCCA 2008

It's MoCCA time again!



I Know Joe Kimpel was at tables C25 and C26, which ended up being a pretty sweet spot to show off our sweet new banner.




My little end of the table. The Tragic Relief book had SOLD OUT by 4pm on Sunday. Wow!





While it was nice not to have to haul any of my books home, my bags weren't much lighter for it. Look at all these amazing books! And I hardly even bought anything (it was hard to sneak away from the table, we were so busy) most of this is trades. Thank you everyone who came by the table to give me stuff! Sorry to everyone I missed! Sorry to everyone I said strange things to because I barely slept in three days!

More photos (and adventures with FIRE TRUCKS) here.

"Secrets and Lies" and "Tragic Relief" book release party

Last Saturday, May 31st, we had a book release party at the Main Street Museum for Cat Garza's Secrets and Lies anthology and my Xeric-Powered Tragic Relief book.



The books arrived just in time, MINUTES before the party was supposed to start.




Then Morgan nearly set them all on fire with his laser vision. Close call!



Look at all the pretty books!



There was short dramatic reading of Denis St. John's story.



And the band played on...

We are now taking pre-orders

But it online for $7 + $2 shipping and handling

OR buy it at at the Main Street Museum on May 31st at 7pm, or MoCCA on Jun 7th and 8th for only $6!!

Orders received before June 1st will be shipped on the 4th. Orders received after may take up to 3 weeks for delivery.

Answers

The book is 80 pages

It is black and white with a two-color cover on toned stock

The paper is all 100% post-consumer recycled material

Marus is printing it

I did the artwork for the cover, then Jon-Mikel Gates designed it

The story is wordless and paneless, which works like this:

As you can see, there's a little nudity. There's some off-panel violence, too. Keep that in mind before showing it to any kids or your grandma.

It'll retail at $7, but if you buy it at MoCCA or the book release party, it'll only be $6. You'll find me with the I Know Joe Kimpel, tables C25 and C26.

...anything I missed?

Book Release Party!

Saturday, May 31st at the Main Street Museum from 7-11pm. Cat Garza is debuting his Secrets and Lies Anthology there, too. If nothing else, you all should come for the music and food. Cat's picking the tunes, and he's got great, eclectic taste. The Center for Cartoon Studies is donating some sodas for the party, and I'm bringing champagne and cupcakes! Hope to see you there.

Issue #1, the Xeric Powered edition

It's almost here! I've seen the proofs from the printer and pawed through paper samples, registered the ISBN #, dotted my i's and crossed all the t's. Pretty soon there's going to be a thousand copies of this sitting in my living room.

You want one, right?