Halloweenie!

It's Halloween! And...I'm already feeling partied-out. Might just stay home tonight and watch movies. Need to go out and buy some candy in case we get any trick-or-treaters.

For my costume this year I was mostly concerned about comfort. Needed something that I could:

1) roller skate in for the costume skate on the 29th,
2) wear for the Gory Daze parade and not freeze to death in, and
3) dance in for the Curve Ball following the parade and not be too hot/awkward on the crowded dance floor.

So, I made a peacock tail and wore it with one of the many blue dresses I already had. I really like sewing and making clothes/costumes. Wish I had more time for it.


Paints, fabric and notions


Painting peacock feathers


The finished dress

There were some great costumes at the parade this year. Some of my favorites:


Beth's Star-Bellied Sneetch


Jon's bandit


and Old Greeeeegg! complete with The Funk and a Mangina.





It's been a fun holiday so far. I also finally got around to buying my own (cheap) set of roller skates. No more dealing with gross rentals, and I'm definitely a lot steadier out there now.

Keene!

Life? Whatever.

Sorry there hasn't been many comics here lately. Life keeps getting in the way. Like this nonsense:



My bed broke! I bought a loft off of craigslist to make room in my tiny cave-like apartment, but the center beam was rotten. You can't tell from this photo, but the bed is being supported in the middle by a copy of San Papel and a trashy airport novel.



But we fixed it. And by "we" I mean mostly Jonch and his eagle scout skills. Here he is hammering a metal plate into the side rail. This thing is never coming apart.

Also having trouble drawing comics because I'm out of bristol board. Friday is payday, and I'm picking up another one of these. That'll last me for at least a year.

While waiting for paper, I've been painting scary things:




because it's almost Halloween. Costume photos to come.

Cinematic Titanic in Rhode Island

Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu, Mary Jo Pehl and Josh Weinstein. Photo by Jen Vaughn.

Cross two more things off of life's to-do list: visited Rhode Island (24 states left, plus Puerto Rico) AND met the cast of MST3K. Not that I said much to them, had a shy attack. But whatever, it was still great. Also got to hang with a bunch of smart, funny and attractive young people (Curse them! Except don't really, they were lovely), meet some cats and eat a meatloaf sandwich. All in all a great weekend.

Then I got home and broke a loft bed. Pictures soon.

Guest blog

I did a guest post over at the Funny Aminals blog, where I ramble for a bit about Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and how Disney scares the bejeesus outta me.



Tragic Relief is still updating three days a week with pages from the Woman King story, if you like that sort of thing. Bears, I mean.

Tragicrelief.com is Go!

I finally grew up and got my a URL to call my own. Check out the new website:

WWW.TRAGICRELIEF.COM

Many thanks to Cat Garza for his setting up the site, and then fixing everything after I broke it. He's been very patient with my bumblings, and you should give him money to build your site or design your next tattoo.

ANYWAY...So I've got a webcomic now? It's going to update every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for the next couple months with pages from my Woman King book. Figured this was a good place to archive the story since it's almost out of print and I don't have any plans for a 2nd edition. Once that's all up, you'll start seeing new pages, but in the meantime this story is probably new to a lot of people.

I'll still use this blog, and update it with sketches, ramblings, and my NaGraNoWriMo project.

...ONE MORE TIME!

WWW.TRAGICRELIEF.COM

Ladies Drawing Ladies

Calendar cover by Nomi Kane

I did a page for the new "Ladies of CCS" calendar! This isn't the final product, just a watercolor sketch, but it's of Mel Gillman, a CCS '12, as Ms. June. Lena Chandhok did an artful illustration of me for the month of January.





Here's the info:
"The Ladies of CCS Pin Up Calendar $7 (plus shipping). Portraits done OF Cartoon Studies Ladies BY Cartoon Studies Ladies. 7"x8.5" (when folded) Full Color 2011 Calendar."

I'm not going to be selling copies myself, but you can pre-order the calendar from Beth Hetland's online shop.

All the artwork I've seen for this project so far has been cute and tasteful- pinups not centerfolds. I can't wait to see the finished project!

Crowds

I like to draw piles of round shapes.

NaGraNoWriMo!

Hey! The idea is taking off, Comic Mix is doing a version of the challenge, asking people to write a script for a 48-page graphic novel in a month. I'm not a script-person myself, but it sounds fun and very manageable, that's like 1.5 pages a day.

I'll be doing the same challenge as last year starting November 1st. Looking forward to 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!