Update!

http://cargocollective.com/talkweirdpress

Spruced up the portfolio site a little bit. (And didn't get my ass handed to me by HTML, surprisingly.)

New comic! - "xip"

"xip"

STUDIO YOLO is brand new artist collective and a collection of some pretty cool cats - I was invited by my friend and ye olde classmate George Folz to participate in this first string of collaborations. Different artists are invited to reinterpret a script written by one of the members. Jay Ragorshek, one of my favorite screen-printing whizzes and a visceral comic magician, were invited to join the collective on their inaugural project. I think re-interpretation is a really fun way for cartoonists to collaborate, and, in a way, very quickly revealing of each artist's point of view. I feel very honored to have been a part, and this comic honestly almost kicked my ass. 

And then I turned it around, faced its butt to me, and kicked it back.

But yeah. I'm very happy with the result - it was a lot of fun to draw - and now it's sitting in some very good company.

Go READ some!

("xip" is the band's name, for any of the wondering.)

fast-approaching dead-line

Currently, in the studio, the temperature is a moderate 77 F, the air is still, and smells like burning rubber and polyester with a strong, distinct, inexplicable overcast of nursing home.

Between the clunk-whir of the inkjet printer jimmy-rigged to print the poly plates for my press, I thought it'd be a good time to go update.

I'd meant to be done printing said plates earlier today, but instead of actually rising after I'd hit the snooze button a generous eight or nine times, I instead dreamt - pretty linearly, actually - of getting up, checking my email in bed, then getting up and dressing and leaving for the studio - without having done so in the least.

Lutefisk Sushi is due Saturday. No sleep 'til booklet!

tee to the i to the tee to the s, exclamation marks.

So, learning that I do not really want to field all the Russian porn-hounds who apparently are putting such mild terms as "t i t s" into their Google and Meendo searches and ending up here (and I'm assuming pretty disappointed), we'll just call this my submission for Lutefisk Sushi E, rather than it's real title.

go read!

She's a Spiny Northern Maid

Just finished pencils for my submission to Lutefisk Sushi E!

from a tiny room in the moony city

go read!

(holy shit, it's already the ides of August?)

'Sea Change: A Choose-Your-Own-Way Story' - and now a Xeric winner, what?

I'm proud (and still surprised, honestly) to say that thanks to the Xeric Foundation, I've received a very generous grant from them to self-publish Sea Change. It'll be the first major printing project I tackle on my printing press, under the moniker of my micro-press, and I am just so goddamn excited for it. 

The Xeric Foundation started giving out grants in 1992 (as I like to call it, "Ninja Turtle Money") and this round in 2012, after twenty years, was the last of the grants in its current incarnation. Since print-on-demand and online-publishing has become widely viable, and changed the how print and book industries operate in a big way, they've decided to redirect how they distribute their charity and focus on other things. Which is great. Good for them. I'm incredibly happy to have been chosen to be a part of - which puts me in the company of some extremely wonderful cartoonists - and to have their support put behind this book. It was a year ago now that I started drawing this, in the rudderless feeling that came immediately after graduation. Which sucked. This mostly certainly does not.

I really can't thank them enough. It's wonderful.

I did wait a while before telling most people, but the press release for the May 2012 winners should be coming soon, so it's going to happen, whether or not I feel comfortable with it, or not.

Haha, wait, it is, out. Today. Have at, people. There are a lot of books coming our way.

(true story.)

My plan is to settle myself into Minneapolis this month, put all my printing dominos in a row, and move Maisie from home in Wisconsin back into the moony city in August.

And not drop her. (knock on wood)

POST - CAKE

From a room with a great view in the Windy City.

some more pictures + the comics reporter round up + john p.'s

It. Was. Great.

I'm incredibly proud to have been part of this convention in its very first year - while I've heard reports from different 'toonists and publishers of less-than-astounding sales, mine were enough to at least fund my 'stimulation of the local economy' (read: BUYING COMICS FROM EVERYBODY) and it was a fantastic time in a fantastic town. And that line-up of exhibitors! UFF-DA, as my people say.

We all owe a huge debt of gratitude to the organizers, Neil, Grace, Edie, Max, and Jeff. I'll go every single year.

 Nate Beaty came by and snapped the picture below while Grace worked Ms. Park's table and I lurked off to the side (I guess I do that a lot?) and Grace rejoined with, "What the hell, man? I'm not Laura Park!"

credit: natebeaty

(SWAG PICTURES AFTER I UNPACK IN THE MOONY CITY.)

Summer, 2012

dec. 1990.  i was probably always doomed. my first word was 'batman'.

Well. It's officially been one year out from graduating. I don't feel like it has been, and that it's been five years out all at the same time.

I miss Minneapolis sunrises, though. 

This summer is shaping up to be pretty busy, at least this first month of it. CAKE is just a little over a month away, and I still have books to print, for Sea Change. Lots of books to print, collate, and bind. It's going to be a little crazy. Probably a lot of pictures of me up to my elbows in rubber black ink and desperation to come. But it looks like it's going to be an extremely fun time and the start of another great convention.

I've applied for the last round of Xeric grants. News will come in June, as I'm leaving for Chicago. 

Maisie James (AB Dick 360 printing press extraordinare) is also moving to Seward, in south Minneapolis, sometime this summer. She's going to Amaya's garage and our fledgling, teeny print shop, working-titled 'Milkshake'.  

Huh. That's a lot of 'm's, I just realized... (for anyone interested, here's her "handsy" previous owner looking dorky with her)

I'll turn 24 this August, too. 

And maybe get back to where I belong, too. 

here's to a productive summer.

Some drawings in which curly hair looks more like Astro-boy hair.

Post-Chicago

Chicago Trip, March 23/24

(everything is as chronological as I can remember it)

Not Pictured: A dead black bear on East 94, four teenage girls doing the Macarena in a field thirty miles north of Beloit, IL, nor me.

March 23/24

Going to Chicago. Be back, a few buck shorter, a few slim jims fuller, and happy to be out of the car. Seeing these guys, in a new and different setting.

Drawings and disposable-camera-photos when I get back, I promise.

 

34-94-90 from raquel_el_pillo on 8tracks.

CAKE!

The good news came in this morning: I'm going to CAKE in June!

Or, the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo, run by Quimby's own Neil Brideau.

Doubly exciting is that it'll be my first official trip to Chicago - being stuck on a bus full of middle-schoolers in the eight grade in traffic on the way through Chicago doesn't exactly count.

In the absence of another Minneapolis Indie Expo this cartooning year, I'm very, very happy to see another Midwest indie get-together forming due to the efforts of a few very enthusiastic people, and very grateful to the panel of many different artists who decided to give me a shot at representing my neck of the woods in the Windy City and choosing me as an exhibitor. I think it's going to be a great time for all involved, and hey, I'll get to see Quimby's for the first time, too!

I'll have copies of Dirty Van #1, Sea Change, and hopefully some more small minis of shorter stories to fill that space I've been generously afforded. I'd planned to fire Maisie up once it got warm enough, anyway, and now I've just got that extra incentive. YEAH.

If anybody's interested and/or in the Chicago area, they could ALWAYS use volunteer power, and people to come and mill about, too.