NaGraNoWriMo-Hibernating

I am not participating in NaGraNoWriMo (aka that bad idea I had in 2009) this year. Just moved across the country and went back to working retail. Too tired for extra comics projects. Or complete sentences.



While I whole-heartily endorse the challenge, I think I've gotten what I need out of the exercise. But, I will be following anyone else who's taken it on this year! So far the only participant I know of is the fabulous Beth Hetland. Anyone else in?



If you want to buy the collected 2009 and 2010 efforts, it's available at the Trees and Hills website. The book has been endorsed by this adorable small child and his monkey friend, I hope you will enjoy it half as much.

Even though I won't be trying to complete a whole graphic novel this month, I'll still be updating the website every Monday, Wednesday and Friday with new sketchbook comics. In color!

Hope that's an acceptable substitute.

Trials of Sir Christopher book now available for purchase!

The Trials of Sir Christopher book is back from the printers and looking sharp! I am ready to exchange copies of this fine publication for legal tender. You can purchase a copy online here! It's 6x9", 204 pages, b+w interiors with a color cover.

 
There are many boxes of this book taking up space in my little apartment, and it would be nice if they went away quickly.






Well, I'm excited.

And Sunday is the day of rest!

Hey, guess what? I finally got around to scanning the last quarter of my NaGraNoWriMo project. Actually, I had to scan it a couple of times because technology hates me.

Go read the whole thing HERE. I'm sorry it's so weird and depressing.



Okay, enough of this. I've got to go build a castle out of waffles (because that's what the holidays are all about).

NaGraNoWriMo- Catching up

I've scanned and posted up through page 74 over on the flickr set, check it out!

NaGraNoWriMo 2010- DONE!

Apologies for the radio silence, I was visiting family on the West Coast for two weeks with limited internet access. Plenty of time for drawing, though! I finished this year's NaGraNoWriMo project a 8:45 am on December 1st, so slightly behind schedule but I'm still happy with it. Above is a photo of the last page, with Georgie the dog as my witness (she's a good girl).

Now that I'm back home, I can get to work scanning and posting the rest of the pages!

Home stretch

A quick update- I'm in snowy Connell WA with the family, recovering from a turkey coma with just 15 pages left to go. I won't be able to scan them until I'm back in Vermont on December 3rd, but I'll make sure there's a witness to verify that I finished this thing on time.

NaGraNoWriMo- 8

More than half way there! Time to pick up the pace!

NaGraNoWriMo- 7

I'm up to page 50 (if you count the chapter break page, and I'm going to because this is hard enough as it is), and back on schedule!



See the whole story so far at the Flickr album.

NaGraNoWriMo-6

I was out sick for a few days, but I'm catching up! Ten more pages to the story, over at the flickr album.

NaGraNoWriMo- 5

Still plodding along. Don't run with knives, kids. Especially stolen ones.

You can read the whole story so far here.

NaGraNoWriMo-4

I was sitting on the couch, watching a movie and laying out panel borders, when Jonch leans over and is like "Draw me on this page." And I'm all "That doesn't make any sense, you don't even know what page that is." But he insists. So here you go.

NaGraNoWriMo- 3

Hasn't been a NaGraNoWriMo update in a few days, because I've had too many guests! Our favorite mystery man was in town Tuesday to turn over the reigns of I Know Joe Kimpel (not to me, that's too much of a challenge) on his way out to the west coast. Good luck, dude!
Then yesterday I had six people over for dinner in my tiny apartment. Which was a crazy idea because I only own two chairs, but totally it worked out.

The weekend will be all about eating leftovers and drawing this comic. I promise.

In the meantime, there are two other friends who have taken on the challenge:
David Yoder is working on his fictional vaudeville autobiography, and Josh Lees is going all space cowboy this month!

NaGraNoWriMo2010- 2

Hey look, it's a corny joke! I should really avoid jokes.
More tomorrow.

NaGraNoWriMo 2010

It's that time of year again.

Time to drive myself crazy.

You can follow my progress on the blog here, or on flickr, or on livejournal which I'm not gonna link to because I'm properly ashamed of it (as we all should be). And the Tragic Relief webcomic site will still be updating Monday, Wednesday and Friday. More comics than you can handle!

Is anyone else taking on the challenge this year? If so, send me a link! I'd love to see it.

Anyway, here's my first few pages.









Yup, doing another "Sir Christopher" story, for two reaasons- 1) I've already got the Winter Blues, and this character's depression and constant failures fit my mood, and 2) If this story ends up successful, I'd like to collect the two into a book.

More to come!

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!

Sir Christopher book

Available for pre-order at I Know Joe Kimpel, will ship out after 04/10.

CF-SC-01
The Trials of Sir Christopher
118 pages, legal digest (8.5" x 7")
B+W, color letterpress cover
$8.00

Drawn in one month as part of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), November 2009. The complete challenge is here, plus a bonus story. The covers are hand set type, made in the Baker-Berry Library Book Arts Studio.

It won't really be for sale at MoCCA (I'm not going as an exhibitor this year, just a fan), though I might bring a few copies in my backpack with me. It'll officially "debut" at Stumptown, April 24th and 25th in downtown Portland. Hope to see you there!

Can't trust that day.

News item #1- You can now buy my "Color Comics" mini online at I Know Joe Kimpel! It's legal digest, 20 pages, full color. It's all reprinted material, color comics I did for BASH! Magazine, Myspace Dark Horse Presents and Seven Days, but most of that isn't available anymore so I don't feel too bad about it.

News item #2- Still working on putting together a Sir Christopher book, with all of the online pages plus a new short story. Above is the title panel from the short.

And a sample from the story. It seems like I draw this image, or ones similar to it, quite a bit.

non News item- I've been trying to post things from my sketchbook every Monday. Here's an unfinished Sketchbook comic about my crazy hair, and why I've kept it short since I was like ten.

Apologies to my dad for joking about his bald spot/parenting. My parents are both pretty awesome, there are just things that moms are better at paying attention to.

Covers

I went to the studio after work this evening, and should have spent the time working on a comic I need to finish, or an anthology submission, or that animation project I was supposed to have finished two weeks ago. But, I'm not very good at doing what I'm supposed to do, so I goofed around working on cover ideas instead.

For a while I've been wanting to collect the painted comics I did for the (now defunct) BASH! Magazine with the other color work I've done into a mini. I'm no good at thinking up clever titles. The title on this cover idea might be too hard to read.

Also been thinking about printing up a Sir Christopher book. Jonch is pretty adamant that I should do a color cover, but I like just black and white. I checked out a few reproductions of medieval manuscripts out from the library for reference on this. They're pretty amazing to look at.





















Every year, Robyn organizes a mixed-cd exchange called "Diary Tunes". This'll be my third year participating, I'm really excited about it. My mix is always just made up of the songs that were stuck in my head that year, and I had thought that songs like that were called "brain worms". Turns out, it's "ear worms", so this cover might not work. But it was fun to draw. And I might be too lazy to do a different one.

Heading to Boston tomorrow for a Jason Webley concert (!!!)