Archive for March, 2008
Anyone else think of Captain America when the saw this story?
The U.S. military has identified frozen remains found atop a California glacier as those of a World War II era airman who vanished more than half a century ago…Last year, two hikers found the frozen remains of a man with blond, wavy hair in a remote area of Kings Canyon, east of Fresno, California…”He was my idol,” one of his sisters told CNN. “He was tall and good-looking. And when he walked in, they said, ‘Here comes the blond bomber.’ And I would say, ‘That’s my brother.’”
Tall, blond, wavy haired, WWII frozen man. Thaw him out and have him fight Al Qaeda.
Tim Fischer, Matt Kish and I get reviewed on the Small Press News Room’s 3/06 and 3/07 entries here. Looks like we did okay.
Still stuck in Columbus, the mini-vacation ruined (best laid plans, an all that). But at least it was a gorgeous day on Sunday. Sunny, warm, and a lot less windy.
Wendy made Duncan a little fleece vest. Sure, the other dogs made fun of him, but at least he was warm!
Carrying Hanna is not as easy as it looks:
Swings:
And then I fell out of the tree:
Well, I was going to give you guys a bit of an intro to today’s artist, but given how damn good you all are, I decided against it. So start guessing:
(click image to Trekiesize)
(previous weeks: 9/12/2005, 9/19/2005, 9/26/2005, 10/3/2005, 10/10/2005, 10/17/2005, 10/24/2005, 10/31/2005, 11/1/2005, 11/2/2005, 11/3/2005, 11/4/2005, 11/5/2005, 11/6/2005, 11/7/2005, 11/14/2005, 11/21/2005, 11/28/2005, 12/5/2005, 12/12/2005, 12/19/2005, 12/26/2005, 1/2/2006, 1/9/2006, 1/16/2006, 1/23/2006, 1/30/2006, 2/06/2006, 2/13/2006, 2/20/2006, 2/27/2006, 3/6/2006, 3/13/2006, 3/20/2006, 3/27/2006, 4/3/2006, 4/4/2006, 4/5/2006, 4/6/2006, 4/7/2006, 4/8/2006, 4/9/2006, 4/10/2006, 4/17/2006, 4/23/2006, 5/1/2006, 5/8/2006, 5/15/2006, 5/22/2006, 5/29/2006, 6/5/2006, 6/12/2006, 6/19/2006, 6/26/2006, 7/3/2006, 7/10/2006, 7/17/2006, 7/24/2006, 7/31/2006, 8/7/2006, 8/13/2006, 8/21/2006, 8/28/2006, 9/4/2006, 9/11/2006, 9/18/2006, 9/25/2006, 10/2/2006, 10/9/2006, 10/16/2006, 10/23/2006, 10/30/2006, 11/6/2006, 11/13/2006, 11/20/2006, 11/27/2006, 12/4/2006, 12/11/2006, 12/18/2006, 12/25/2006, 1/1/2007, 1/8/2007, 1/15/2007, 1/22/2007, 1/29/2007, 2/5/2007, 2/12/2007, 2/19/2007, 2/26/2007, 3/5/2007, 3/12/2007, 3/19/2007, 3/26/2007, 4/2/2007, 4/5/2007, 4/9/2007, 4/16/2007, 4/23/2007, 4/30/2007, 5/7/2007, 5/14/2007, 5/21/2007, 5/28/2007, 6/4/2007, 6/11/2007, 6/18/2007, 6/25/2007, 7/2/2007, 7/9/2007, 7/16/2007, 7/23/2007, 7/30/2007, 8/6/2007, 8/13/2007, 8/20/2007, 8/27/2007, 9/3/2007, 9/10/2007, 9/17/2007, 9/24/2007, 10/1/2007, 10/8/2007, 10/15/2007, 10/22/2007, 10/29/2007, 11/5/2007, 11/12/2007, 11/19/2007, 11/26/2007, 12/3/2007, 12/10/2007, 12/17/2007, 12/24/2007, 12/31/2007, 1/7/2008, 1/14/2008, 1/21/2008, 1/28/2008, 2/4/2008, 2/11/2008, 2/18/2008, 2/25/2008, 3/3/2008)
Well, right about now Wendy and I should have been on our way down to Snowshoe, West Virginia for a weekend of skiing, celebrating our 5 year anniversary. Instead, we’re fucking stuck in Columbus and out a non-refundable $300 reservation fee, thanks to the blizzard of 2008.
On the plus side, we had fun playing in the snow this morning. And Duncan had a blast too!
The side of our house:
A completely desolate highway (SR 315) around noon on Saturday, and Whetstone Park:
Me and Wendy taking Duncan for a run in the snow:
At least the dog had fun. Here he is playing with Daisy:
Photos by Wendy.
Snowed in like me? I killed the afternoon listening to the 2 part Indie Spinner Rack interview with Jeff Smith. Fun times. I’d rate it PG for the kids. Some language. Jeff unplugged, runs the gamut from chatting about Bone in color to the new RASL. And yes, I did pronounce it right. This was recorded while he was in New York.
While we were sitting around our tables at SPACE, Brent and I started discussing a possible collaboration. I mentioned I had an Invaders-style retro superhero story set during WW2 on my mind’s back burner and asked if he’d be interested in drawing it; he expressed some interest, so I sent him a rough outline; pictured below are the wonderful character designs I got back.
Here’s my description of these guys:
Mister Liberty: A Captain America type; slightly enhanced human– tougher faster stronger, etc.– who is the inspirational figure of the group. Used as a poster boy by the army for the war effort, recruiting, etc; is required to wear a costume that conceals the fact that he is a negro.
Code Talker- A native American who possesses the ability to understand any code or cipher, crack any safe combination, etc.
The Dunkirk Spirit: A British woman who possesses the power of flight. Her sexist superiors grudgingly employ her for courier or reconnaissance missions; she is angered by their reluctance to let her take a more active role in missions.
The Human Tank: (can’t tell much about him without spoilers. Read the comic when it goes online.)
(Brent also provided the names for Mr. L and the Tank.)
And here’s his take on the series’ main bad guy: the two faces of Colonel Styx.
Well, we all knew it was just a matter of time:
I shouldn’t give the kids such a hard time, though. After all, when we were young, we thought Airplane and The Naked Gun were comedy gold.
Sad news for the geek community (of which I consider myself a proud member): the co-creator of the Dungeons & Dragons game, Gary Gygax, died yesterday at the age of 69.
“Ernest Gary Gygax grew up in Chicago, moving to Lake Geneva at the age of eight.His father, a Swiss immigrant, read fantasy books that got his son hooked on the genre, according to Gygax’s widow Gail.”
My friend Jason introduced me to D&D back in the 8th grade, and I played it through most of my high school years, mainly with him and a few other friends. I have very fond memories of those years, and the game, and feel a small sense of loss.
Last night I finished putting up my Etsy Shop! It took me longer than I thought it would, and I think I will be changing the kind of boring banner and tweaking some of the shop details for a little while, but the foundation is there. It’s pretty exciting. Right now, there are 4 pieces of original art for sale for a wide variety of prices but I will be adding all of my comics and books this evening as well as adding 2 or 3 drawings a day until I have them all listed. I’m going to be selling about 30 of my original drawings, from pen and ink pieces to a few of the more elaborate colored pencil drawings. The decision to sell some of my art was very painful and difficult. I mean, some of these drawings have been with me for nearly ten years, and the only time I ever let them go was when I gave a few drawings to some of my closest friends. However I am desperately trying to finish the funding of a small portable darkroom so I can get back into doing some photography, and I am also turning a small portion of our apartment into a makeshift studio so I can do more art and drawing. Because of these projects, I kind of need some money to buy equipment, chemicals, a drafting table and some other supplies. In the end, I think that learning to let go of some of these pieces is important for me anyway because they tend to make me feel anchored to the past and unable to really move forward or challenge my current ways of thinking and drawing.
I hope you will all check out the shop here, but you can also click on the “store” link in the menu up at the top of any page of my web site and you’ll get directly there. Keep your fingers crossed and hope that I can sell some art and comics!
White Rabbit Award for Punctuality: Tony Goins
Casey Kasem “Long Distance Dedication” Award: Steve Black. The guy’s in California, but he’s still got at a bunch of books debuting at SPACE.
Bringing the Rock Award: Tom Williams. Who else? And who knew Tom could paint like that?
Michigan J. Frog Award: Dara Naraghi. For some reason I sell lots of his books when he’s not there.
Burt Bacharach Award: Kel, for his original karaoke compositions.
Outta Nowhere Award: Troy Gilogly, with three books this year. Where’d this kid come from?
Great Parking Space Award: David and Jordan from Pittsburgh, who spent the night in their late 80s Ford Taurus both nights. But they had bitching parking spaces the next morning.
Crashing the Party Award: The guy who wandered into the middle of Craig’s Day Prize nominee interview and was totally oblivious, even after being told they were recording. “Oh, is the red light on the camera on? That’s interesting!” Blahblahblahblahblahblahblah… Blahblahblahblahblahblah…” Craig seriously hopes the guys who were questioning him save that part.
Martha Stewart Award for Good Hosts: Monkey’s Retreat. I hope they sold a bunch of stuff while we were there.
The Bong Mask goes to …
The solid wall of weed books at Monkey’s Retreat. Culminating in the book title: Naked Women Smokin’ Weed. Which had some great production value for a book of pot related porn.
Fool me once Award …
Goes to the $h!7head Columbus Metro who ticketed Tom for parking in an unmarked ‘Residential Permit Parking’ zone Friday night. Nearest available parking from Monkey’s or Skully’s that night: probably the Gateway garage almost a half mile away.
Captain Random award..
Goes to whoever made the MOMO 2 karaoke videos. Completely inappropriate random stock footage throughout whole songs. The only one we saw was an ABBA song that had some footage of ABBA singing along. Hilarity ensues.
Moral Support Squad – Sean McGurr and Tim Fischer, for attending the Sunday panel on anthologies. If it wasn’t for you guys, we would have outnumbered the audience nearly 3 to 1.
PANEL Reunion Award – PANEL founder Tim Fischer and PANEL co-founder/early member Geoff Tolle for the special guest appearances at the show. It was good seeing you guys again, and I’m jazzed about Tim’s super secret project with Scott “PvP” Kurtz.
“Like the Deserts Miss the Rain” Award – S.P.A.C.E. mainstays Andy Bennett and John G. were unable to make it to the show this year. We missed you guys.
Future “The Girls Next Door” Reality Star Award – the annoyingly coy and trying-to-be-sexy girl who looked all of 16 and sounded all of 12, passing out her “Fashionista” card and giggling her way from table to table. Um, kinda creepy.
Community Love Award – to the half dozen or so folks who mentioned they remembered us from Comfest (www.comfest.com) last year, and eagerly picked up the new PANEL book. You made my day!
Peter Parker/Clark Kent Award for Outstanding Journalism – Ohio’s own Chuck Moore, of the http://www.comicrelated.com website, for the thorough and timely coverage of all things S.P.A.C.E., including the pictures of the parties. Thanks Chuck!
Wizard Magazine Award for Outstandingly Lame Journalism – All the other so-called comics news sites for once again completely ignoring this great indy show. Even with Dave Sim unveiling his secret project, they couldn’t show S.P.A.C.E. a little bit of love. Eff them.
Keeping it in the Family Award – our own PANELista, Craig Bogart, for making the short list of nominees for this year’s Day Prize. Craig didn’t win, but he made a great showing and if you haven’t checked out his Ineffables, what are you waiting for? http://www.theineffables.com
Mr. Big Time Award – Congratulations to this year’s Day Prize winners, Matt and Carol Dembicki, for their book Mr. Big. Check out Matt’s work at http://www.littlefootcomics.com (Matt also did a fantastic job of hosting the anthology panel discussion on Sunday!)
Quote of the Weekend: “It’s like shitting in a golden toilet” – Sean McGurr.
Because you guys demanded it: here’s the Jux link to the piece on Pricasso. The man who paints with his hmmm hummer. Here’s a video of the man in action. I’m afraid to even post a picture but if you check google it will haunt you.
Dara posted a link to some photo galleries on Comic Related, and I was browsing through pictures of various creator’s booths. I think I got books from a bare fraction of the artists pictured. And I still came home with a whole box full of minicomics.
Either SPACE is home to a tremendous diversity of small press comics – or I need to do a better job of browsing.
I’m glad to see the stalwarts still there. There was a while when I thought Ray Tomczak was leaving us, but he’s back and going strong. J. Kevin Carrier, Suzanne Baumann, Matt Feazell … it’s not SPACE without them.
A guy was talking to Dara about how SPACE isn’t as much of a zine show anymore. More and more people are going with print-on-demand, and fewer people are willing to trade. I’ll second that.
I’ll probably go to glossy myself for next year, but I want to always keep a few things on my table to trade. You really lose something if it’s just a bunch of guys in a room trying to sell stuff to each other.
I met a lot of cool people, both at the show and at the parties. Did it translate to increased sales? Maybe not. I was pretty disappointed with my sales when I left, but counting up my inventory the show wasn’t as bad as I thought.
A couple of other random thoughts (more random than the preceeding):
1. We have some bizarre folks in this little subculture of ours. God bless ‘em, I saw some shit this weekend I would never be able to invent. I’ll tell you more about that when I see you in person.
2. I was looking at Nightchild No. 2 yesterday … did I have cerebral palsy when I drew that? I have come a long way as an artist, although I still have a long way to go.
3. I’m really sorry I didn’t get that punch-out-and-make-it paper monkey. Did anyone else see that? Did you catch who was selling it? How cool was that?
Nominations for the 2008 SPACE edition of the Bankies are now open. Just e-mail them to me and I’ll include them.
Today’s page was provided through a generous grant by Panelista Tony Goins. As always, if you happen to have the comic this page is from, please recuse yourself from guessing.
(click image to Trekiesize)
(previous weeks: 9/12/2005, 9/19/2005, 9/26/2005, 10/3/2005, 10/10/2005, 10/17/2005, 10/24/2005, 10/31/2005, 11/1/2005, 11/2/2005, 11/3/2005, 11/4/2005, 11/5/2005, 11/6/2005, 11/7/2005, 11/14/2005, 11/21/2005, 11/28/2005, 12/5/2005, 12/12/2005, 12/19/2005, 12/26/2005, 1/2/2006, 1/9/2006, 1/16/2006, 1/23/2006, 1/30/2006, 2/06/2006, 2/13/2006, 2/20/2006, 2/27/2006, 3/6/2006, 3/13/2006, 3/20/2006, 3/27/2006, 4/3/2006, 4/4/2006, 4/5/2006, 4/6/2006, 4/7/2006, 4/8/2006, 4/9/2006, 4/10/2006, 4/17/2006, 4/23/2006, 5/1/2006, 5/8/2006, 5/15/2006, 5/22/2006, 5/29/2006, 6/5/2006, 6/12/2006, 6/19/2006, 6/26/2006, 7/3/2006, 7/10/2006, 7/17/2006, 7/24/2006, 7/31/2006, 8/7/2006, 8/13/2006, 8/21/2006, 8/28/2006, 9/4/2006, 9/11/2006, 9/18/2006, 9/25/2006, 10/2/2006, 10/9/2006, 10/16/2006, 10/23/2006, 10/30/2006, 11/6/2006, 11/13/2006, 11/20/2006, 11/27/2006, 12/4/2006, 12/11/2006, 12/18/2006, 12/25/2006, 1/1/2007, 1/8/2007, 1/15/2007, 1/22/2007, 1/29/2007, 2/5/2007, 2/12/2007, 2/19/2007, 2/26/2007, 3/5/2007, 3/12/2007, 3/19/2007, 3/26/2007, 4/2/2007, 4/5/2007, 4/9/2007, 4/16/2007, 4/23/2007, 4/30/2007, 5/7/2007, 5/14/2007, 5/21/2007, 5/28/2007, 6/4/2007, 6/11/2007, 6/18/2007, 6/25/2007, 7/2/2007, 7/9/2007, 7/16/2007, 7/23/2007, 7/30/2007, 8/6/2007, 8/13/2007, 8/20/2007, 8/27/2007, 9/3/2007, 9/10/2007, 9/17/2007, 9/24/2007, 10/1/2007, 10/8/2007, 10/15/2007, 10/22/2007, 10/29/2007, 11/5/2007, 11/12/2007, 11/19/2007, 11/26/2007, 12/3/2007, 12/10/2007, 12/17/2007, 12/24/2007, 12/31/2007, 1/7/2008, 1/14/2008, 1/21/2008, 1/28/2008, 2/4/2008, 2/11/2008, 2/18/2008, 2/25/2008)
Friend of the Ferret Chuck Moore, of the comics news site Comic Related, is covering this year’s show from start to finish, including pictures from last night’s party at Monkey’s Retreat. Check it:
My back, Tom Williams’ side, Brent Bowman’s mostly-obscured face, and my friend Tony’s profile…all hanging out by the keg o’ beer.
Friday night pic here, with more pics here from Max Ink. And you can see the PANEL gang at the right of the panorama pic here.
Thanks for the extensive show coverage, Chuck!