Friend or Foe?

Article in the New Issue of CRAFT:

2007-11-07T16:49:00.000-08:00

I was tapped by the lovely people over at CRAFT to write and illustrate a how-to article in their new issue, which should be on the newsstands any day now! The issue is all "paper" themed, so they asked me to do an article on papermaking! All the illos are watercolor, which was fun to do... I was trying to give the whole thing aq bit of an "old-fashioned" look, which should be interesting to see in CRAFT since their asthetic is so clean/modern. Anyways, check out my article if you see it, and if you end up making some paper from it please e-mail me pictures!

2007-10-04T18:04:00.000-07:00

Wow, the Zine Fest is tomorrow! How time flies... I really do think that this year will be much cooler than last year, despite some issues we've had to wrangle. Everyone, please come join us!

Friday, October 5 from 2:00pm - 8:00pm
Saturday, October 6 from 11:00am - 7:00pm

The Women's Building
3543 18th St. (between Valencia and Guerrero)
in the Mission District of San Francisco

It's a FREE annual two-day conference for independent and underground publishing. Exhibitors come from all over the West Coast, and while the focus is on zines, all walks of DIY life are represented — comics, arts and crafts, literary presses, and more.

www.sfzinefest.com

36 Views of Sutro Tower (Dolores Park in July)

2007-07-21T10:54:00.000-07:00

Finally really getting started with this big project! As I mentioned in a previous post, ever since I first moved to San Francisco I've wanted to do a series of illustrations: "36 Views of Sutro Tower," (inspired, of course, by the incomparable Hokusai) as I've often been struck by how often that ubiquitous landmark will pop into view behind various everyday scenes here... A restful (yet unnatural!) background presence underscoring and countering what is going on in the foreground view. A month ago, I found a postcard book of Henri Rivere's "36 Views of the Eiffel Tower", which was an even greater inspiration, given the similarities of our subject matter (with the great exception of the Eiffel Tower being so truely magnificent on its own; the Sutro Tower is a bit ungainly in comparison!).

So, I have re-started the project with a renewed vigor. I liked Rivere's limited color palette, so I am planning on sticking with that. I'm very pleased to have this vehicle to explore my wonderful city and its environs.

The above scene is in Dolores Park in July... I happily ran into my friend Aliza, who obliged me by being my model.

Root & Branch Mini

2007-06-16T11:25:00.000-07:00

Jonas and I just finished up a little mini version of the first chapter of Root & Branch, our waaay too-long in the making collaborative fantasy comic... Just a fun little thing to have at MoCCA since neither Jonas nor I have a new issue out of our "regular" series (Ochre Ellipse and Friends, respectively). The mini's got a hand-sewn binding and fancy metallic ink on the cover! If you are in New York this coming weekend (june 23 + 24), come the Puck Building by and visit me at my little spot with Greg Means and Alec Longstreth!

MoCCA bound + Couple of Elfworld Reviews!

2007-06-06T19:39:00.000-07:00

I will be heading out to NYC for the MoCCA Art Fest on June 23 + 24! Family Style will be setting up camp with those affable chums Greg Means and Alec Longstreth, the brilliant masterminds behind Tugboat Press and Phase 7 Comics, respectively! It looks like they will have new stuff; Papercutter #5 (great line up for my favorite anthology with Elfworld contributors Kaz Strzepek & Liz Prince, and Bwanna Spoons, who I'm trying to get into Vol. 2!) and another part of Alec's "life with comics". Yay! I am trying to have a mini-comics version of the first chapter of the François/Jonas epic fantasy colaboration, Root & Branch, and of course the still fresh smelling Elfworld.

The reviews are starting to come in for good or ill:

From SFist, a local Bay Area general interest blog:
"Overall great art, very good writing, high quality throughout, and cast of indie darlings that are definitely, definitely deserving of more attention".

From Rob Clough at Sequart:
"The stories that work best here are the sort that take after Lewis Trondheim's approach in Dungeon. There, the sword-and-sorcery stories are ridiculous but told with a straight face, and the humor comes out of the situations that arise rather than with easy parodic targets. Walking the line between understanding what makes the genre work and how to transcend its limitations isn't easy, and only a few of the artists in Elfworld got it right to my eyes."

The one I was waiting for, Tom Spurgeon's review on The Comics Reporter: "Elfworld, for its part, is almost ruthlessly cohesive. While there's no one must-have short story within its pages, there are a number of solid shorts, among them one-pagers by Matt Wiegle (please someone give him a solo comic) and his longer, viscerally satisfying adventure story collaboration with Sean Collins "Destructor Comes to Croc Town"; funny and diverting stories from Kazimir Strzepek and K. Thor Jensen, a lovely two-pager by Jeffrey Brown, and fable-like stories from folks like Dalton Sharp that are modest but surprisingly satisfying."

Sarah Morean had this to say on the delightful Daily Crosshatch: "The familiar art of Liz Prince, Martin Cendrea, K. Thor Jensen and Souther Salazar, among others, is a treat. It’s rare to see an anthology so slim busting with notable talent... The title of the anthology clearly had a huge influence the contributors’ imaginations. Each story contributes to the greater land of Elfworld, which is mapped out on the first page. The map is a clever touch, but there are words on the back cover promising “a swords-and-sorcery anthology” that really only consistently delivers elves. Wizards, trolls, royal romancing, trebuchets, dwarves, and yes, even fairies appear to be missing from the Kingdom of Elfworld’s treasury of tales."

Click on the links above for the reviews in their entirety!

Hard Working Nerds

2007-04-30T20:17:00.000-07:00

Some bios for the amazing contributors to Elfworld...

<Jeffrey Brown has yet to write any autobiographical comics about his nerdy, D&D-loving, Tolkien-reading, Magic-card collecting days of youth. He looks like a big Hobbit.

Martin Cendera is a continuing contributor to MOME and also has a new continuing series titled Sublife, both published by Fantagraphics.

Sean Collins has written about comics and popular culture for Wizard, The Comics Journal, Stuff, Giant, Complex, WWE, and the A&F Quarterly. His comics have been published at TopShelfComix.com. He lives on Long Island with his wife and their cats.

K. Thor Jensen lives in New York City with his wife and their dog, cat, and unborn child. The child will probably be born soonish. His graphic novel, Red Eye, Black Eye, is in stores now.

Dave McKenna’s comics have appeared in House of Twelve, Mauled!, and Legal Action Comics. He dwells inside an enchanted Roger Dean poster in the mystickal land of New York City.

Erik Nebel recently finished writing and drawing a 234 page graphic novel called Happy Birthday. His next project is a graphic novel adaptation of War and Peace. Erik believes that if Tolstoy were alive today, he'd be big, big comic-book fan.

<Jason Overby lives with his wife and their cat in Portland, Oregon. He works on comics all the time, but he's generally too lazy to scan them in and print them out.

Liz Prince has been drawing comics ever since she was in 3rd grade. Her first full length book is Will You Still Love Me If I Wet the Bed? (Top Shelf Productions).

>Ansis Purins is an artist who resides in the ancient port town known as Boston. A freelance illustrator who's clients include Wheelhouse Pickles, he self publishes the comic series Zombre and Duppy.

Ron Regè, Jr. lives in Los Angeles, where he has been playing drums in a musical group called Lavender Diamond. Their debut LP will be released in May 2007. His most recent books are "The Awake Field", and "Skibber Bee~Bye" from D&Q, as well as Yeast Hoist 12 from Buenaventura Press.

<Jesse Reklaw has been drawing the self-syndicated, weekly comic strip Slow Wave since 1995. It's currently printed by ten newspapers around the United States, and online at www.slowwave.com. Currently he is working on a comics memoir, one chapter of which was published in the 2006 Best American Comics by Houghton-Mifflin.

Grant Reynolds lives in Chicago and is a regular contributor to The Skeleton News, a monthly underground paper. His books “Smaller Parts”, “To the Mouth of the Source”, and “M'Lady Serene” are available through Short Pants Press.

Souther Salazar lives and works in Los Angeles.His many works include the children’s book Destined for Dizziness (Buenaventura Press).

Dalton Sharp works on his comic Love is Lava. He is a member of The Crown Commission. He lives in Toronto.

Kazimir Strzepek RACE: Higher Nerd DIETY: None ALIGNMENT: Neutral Chaotic STR:7 INT:13 WIS:14 DEX:13 CON:10 CHR:14 SKILLS: Jump +4 Handle Animal +2 Drawing +1 Bicycles +1 Tetris +3 BACKGROUND: Kazimir was raised by Owlbears and draws Mourning Star put out by Bodega Books.

Jason Turner & Jody Turner are Canadian brothers, born in Manitoba, but spent most of their lives in Ontario. Jody builds props for television and movies in Toronto. Jason works crappy day jobs in Vancouver and recently had his first graphic novel, True Loves, published by New Reliable Press. When the brothers are in the same place they sometimes write goofy comics together.

<François Vigneault has recently converted his alignment from Chaotic Good to Lawful Neutral, much to his chagrin. He draws the comic Friends and lives in San Francisco.

Matt Wiegle lives in Brooklyn and draws things. He is responsible forthe mini-comics "Ayaje's Wives," "The Ghosts," "The Four Husbands" and "Seven More Days Of Not Being Eaten." He is a member of the Partyka comics collective.

Rollin' Hatin'

2007-04-27T21:59:00.000-07:00

Here is kind of what the Elfworld contributor's section in the Rollin' Hatin' art show looked like:

From left to right: Ron Regé, Jr. + Souther Salazar, me, Grant Reynolds, Jeff Brown, K. Thor Jensen, and Jesse Reklaw. Not sure where Ansis Purins' and Liz Prince's work got to...

Comic Conventions: Somewhat Exhausting.

2007-04-18T20:30:00.000-07:00

APE happened! Wow... this was a huge big year for me, with Elfworld Vol. 1 coming out for the show... The reaction to the book was very warm, with lots of people who's opinions I respect giving me great, positive feedback. I had a bit of an over-inflated idea of how the book was going to do, I have to admit... I imagined that at least once there would be a crowd three deep around the Family Style table, clamoring for their copy of the hot book of the show... but we had strong sales for our first book ever, and we didn't even stick out like a sore thumb down on the main floor (tho' I was very sad our constant APE neighbors Tim and Stephanie weren't next to us this year!

Because the work on the book was done so early (Jonas and I finished work on it over a month before APE, and it arrived on the Monday before the show (50 boxes x 60 books each = 3000 books or 1400 lbs!), I had a bit of time on my hands! I Occupied my time with various "extra-credit" projects... like this special edition version:

It is actually a sort of hard bound folio slipcase that goes around a copy of the actual book. I would have loved this when I was actually still playing D&D... I'm a dork.

A short list of some nice things I picked up this year:

PS Comics #3 by Minty Lewis: Sooo funny! I hadn't read Minty's comics before she gave me this issue, and now I'm in love! "Fruit Pals" is just full of little mannered details that read perfectly.

Monsters #2 by Ken Dahl: This amazing series continues... very sad, beautiful, and bitter work.

Range Life by Tim La Juenesse & Ellis Parker Walks Into a Bar by Stephanie La Juenesse: As always, Love Letter Press delivers a couple of delighful gems... Range Life finishes of Tim's series well, and I like the stories from Stephanie's chap book that I have read thus far (still have to finish it. Nice letterpress covers on both.

Sidewalk Bump #2 by Dan Moynihan et al: I have been waiting for this to come out for a long time... not only am I in it but I really like Dan's loopy, open artwork... There is an unexpected theme of "night skating" in many of the stories, including my own...

Hunter & Painter and Three Very Small Comics Vol. III, both by Tom Gauld: He must be in Elfworld Vol. 2!

Monster Parade by Ben Catmull: Another person I want in Vol. 2... Damn these too busy cartoonists!

Back from the Dead!

2007-04-07T20:50:00.000-07:00

Due to a lack of other large sheets of watercolour paper and my impatience to begin working on my painting for We're Rollin', They're Hatin', I went ahead and brewed another cup of tea (see last post for info on my tea disaster) and doused the rest of the drawing with it, giving it an uneven tea-stain all over... it worked! I began the painting yesterday night and I reckon it is nearly finished!

I'm pretty happy with it... Not perfect, and the birds at the top aren't quite showing up very well, but I think I am improving as a watercolorist! It is a theoretical scene from Root & Branch, the fantasy comic that Jonas and I were doing, and perhaps will start up again.

Share the Pain

2007-04-06T09:03:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning to discover that in my sleep I had knocked over a half-full cup of tea (a remenant from a lovely breakfast in bed I made as part of Hannah's birthday festivities) onto not only the pencil drawing for my piece in We're Rollin', They're Hatin', but also several pages of artwork from my colaboration with Jonas, Root & Branch!

Oh, woe is me! I can start my new drawing again, and I guess I can digitally knock out the coffee stains on Root & Branch, but still. What a thing to wake up too. Ugh. I've got to be neater.

Family Style Jamboree #8 out for APE!

2007-04-04T10:59:00.000-07:00

Sarah Gion has spearheaded a monumental effort to get Family Style Jamboree back on track to finish up this year (we've got 4 issues to go)! It looks like No. 8, the Gabe Ramos issue, is definitely going to be out for APE... we're still going to try and see if we can get the Nicole Issue out by then, too, ut it looks less likely. I am editing that issue (No. 9), so if you have any tales of Miss Bennett you'd like to share with the world at large, contact me.

(The above image is from my 1 page contribution to the Gabe issue).

Elfworld Cover Art Preview!

2007-03-05T14:39:00.000-08:00

Yup! Beautiful watercolor painted wrap-arround cover art for Elfworld Vol. One by Master of the Northern Forests Jesse Reklaw! Soon to be available for pre-order online and at APE!

2006 Self-Published Favorites

2007-02-23T11:39:00.000-08:00

I recently wrote up a few reviews for the upcoming issue of Best Zine Ever, a wonderful, charming and super useful guide to some of the best zines and comix of the year... Greg Means of Tugboat Press and the excellent I.P.R.C. and a whole slew of contributors put it out every year. Greg said that my submission was late enough that not all my reviews will make it in (Me? Late?), but it is pretty cool to be involved at all and get to promote some of my favorite self-published comix from the last year.

Anyways, here are all the reviews I wrote... obviously, these aren't all of my favorites... I just wanted to highlight a few that really struck me.

Spacecase
By Tim Le Jeunesse
Love Letter Press
The premise of “Spacecase” is like the set-up of your new favorite joke: “An astronaut, a cowboy, and a French pirate with a peg-leg land on the moon...” The hapless protagonists (mysteriously thrown together in the previous installment, “Out to Sea”) wander around their Little Prince-esque environment, bicker endlessly, and eventually meet up with a garrulous cosmonaut and his space-faring doggie. Tim’s spare drawings are nicely balanced by the vast, solid black of space that fill up nearly every panel, and there is a great, absurdist quality to the dialogue. There’s one more chapter left in the trilogy (the cowboy’s chance to take a star turn, one surmises), so maybe we’ll finally get to know what the hell’s going on here, but I doubt it. I’ll just go along for the ride and enjoy the company. By the way, Tim and Stefanie (the other half of Love Letter Press) also make tons of great silk-screened t-shirts, underwear, and more under the name Confiserie Lingere!

Animal ABC Book
By Ayumi K. Piland
Apak Studio
I was super pleased when I saw that Ayumi had put out a print edition of her Animal ABC images... I had been planning to buy one of her prints (I would still like to), but it was so hard to choose! The original prints, reproduced here in super-mini format, are linoleum block prints with added accents of pasted-on bits of Japanese washi papers... The animals range from the expected (lions, monkeys, elephants) to the exotic (unicorns, queenbees, x-traterrestials), all drawn in a festive, earthy style. This book (or even better, one of the actual prints) would make a great present for any parents or little kids you might know.

Let Me Tell You Where To Stick It/ Let Me Tell You Where Not To Stick It
By Jay Howell and Audrey Erickson
Mt. St. Mtn.

This book was amongst the funniest things I’ve read in a long time! “It” is just what you might suspect it is, and Jay and Audrey give you a quick and informative list of places where you might want to try and “stick it” (somebody’s vagina, a birthday cake) and an equally essential set of situations which might be icky, unpleasant, or downright dangerous for “it” (a bucket of nails, a time warp), all illustrated, of course!

Trilobite
By Josh Frankel
Hungry for Brains

This is a follow-up of sorts to Josh’s equally brilliant comic “Seafood” from a couple of years ago... like that comic, “Trilobite” silently follows a day in the life of it’s hero, this time a trilobite, a common inhabitant of the Earth’s seas during the Cambrian Period, about 500 million years ago. The little guy scurries along the sea-bed, seeking out a meal while avoiding becoming one. Josh’s loving depictions of the utterly bizarre inhabitants of the primordial ocean are a delight, bringing to life creatures unlike anything we can see in the world of today. It’s a bit harder to relate to an extinct invertebrate then it was to see life through the eyes of a tuna (the protagonist of “Seafood”), but the sheer thrill of peeking into such a seemingly alien world makes “Trilobite” a must-read.

The Basilisk
By Kazimir Strzepek
Available from Bodega Distribution
Short, sweet, and nearly perfect, this fantasy comic cracked me up so much that I embarked on a gigantic publishing project just to see the rest of Elfworld in print! Kazimir perfectly captures the nuances of a Dungeons & Dragons style adventure story in this tale of a obnoxious Audubon-esque illustrator looking for new monsters to add to his bestiary. When he hears about a dangerous Basilisk in the vicinity (after getting clues at a tavern, naturally) he goes searching for the creature with his barbarian bodyguard Boor and the friendly local kobold. The fruits of his quest are, suffice it to say, not what he expected. Kazimir’s cartoony, textural style is perfect for this sort of story, the characters and environments pull you right in from page one. The cover to this mini is a screen-printed onto a parchment like card stock, and the whole thing is bound up with thread; it really adds a fantasy feel to the comic. If you missed this version, I will be publishing this story again in Elfworld Vol. 1, which is where it was meant to be in the first place!

Fox Bunny Funny
By Andy Hartzell
Available from Global Hobo
I feel that I almost can’t call this a mini-comic, it is such an elaborate, lavish presentation; but Fox Bunny Funny was by far the most interesting and accomplished self-publishing effort I saw last year. I had previously been a fan of Monday, Andy’s still unfinished take on the Garden of Eden, but his new comic really blew me away. Really a self-contained series of three books, F.B.F. comes packaged in a handmade, silk-screened black slipcover. The art is bold and attractive, and in the third book (“Funny”) Andy’s illustrations take on an extremely graphical style.
Inside, Andy has created a silent, fable-like story of anthropomorphized Foxes and Rabbits. Unlike your typical funny-animal story, F.B.F. doesn’t shy away from the ethical quandaries of having carnivores and herbivores sharing the same world; the Foxes wantonly prey on the Rabbits, going far beyond hunting them for food: the Foxes live in a virtual death-cult society, vilifying the Rabbits and inculcating racial hatred in their young. The protagonist of all three books is a Fox who is secretly drawn to the oppressed Rabbits’ society. His fascination torments him throughout his life, and he eventually ends up going “down the rabbit hole” and entering a world where everything he has ever known is turned upside down.
Like the best fables and myths, F.B.F. doesn’t give any easy answers, the symbolism can be read in a variety of ways and parallels can be drawn to any number of real world problems, from state-sponsored violence to gender and identity issues. This comic is a real work of art.

Elfworld on the Horizon!

2007-02-18T11:18:00.000-08:00

Work on Volume One of Elfworld is gaining momentum... We are looking good for our premiere at APE here in San Francisco on April 21st + 22nd, and the Elfworld contributors have also been asked to participate in We're Rollin', They're Hatin', an massive show of D&D themed artwork (it is a part of Chicago's Version Fest 07)! I love this amazing flyer art for the show:

Awesome! The show starts April 20th, so Elfworld will be making a sort of dual premiere! Whoa... We're so big time!

Teenage Angst has Paid Off Well...

2007-02-15T14:09:00.000-08:00

Years and years ago I had an idea for a short story titled "Dear Diary, It's Me, Starscream" about, yes, the trials and tribulations of that misunderstood Decepticon second-in-command, Starscream. I kept putting of working on it because I really didn't think I could do the idea justice(get the teen-angst tone just right, etc.), and it ended up on the "indefinite hold" shelf in my brain (And I missed the boat a bit, a couple years later I saw Journal of a New Cobra Recruit!).

A couple of weeks ago my friend Kim Vo contacted me about doing a comic strip for the new issue of Tea Party, a local litterary magazine she works at... Well, the theme was "TRANS______", as in "trans-gender", "trans-portation", "trans-fats", and, yes, you guessed it, "Trans-formers!" I threw up my hands to Fate's machinations, got over my fear of failing, and polished off a single page comic in less then a week! Click the image below to read:

Well, I'm pretty happy with it... I was super nervous about having to draw the various Transformers, what with all those various mechanical parts and what not, but it was actually a lot easier than I thought! I'm now totally ready to draw the comic's adaptation of the film... Any takers? Anyone?

Keep an eye out for that issue of Tea Party, they say it will be out this Summer! My thanks to Kim for getting me to finish this little story.

A Bit of the Rambling Thought Process Behind my New Fantasy Story

2007-01-16T22:27:00.000-08:00

Almost done with my story for Elfworld Vol. 1! The thing grew to a semi-respectable 10 pages... I had my doubts as I worked on it, but in the end I'm pretty happy. I just hope that no one thinks that I am unfairly including myself in the anthology because I am the editor, but looking at it I'm convinced it won't stick out like a sore thumb... The story is silent, yet I somehow got it into my head that I might attempt to shoehorn some ideas I've been pondering about the allure and horror of violence, loss of childhood innocence, and cultural conflict! A hard task, which I probably wasn't up to...

It sounds ridiculous (and more than a little pretentious!), but my first inspiration came from the "Nick Adams" stories that Hemmingway wrote, esp. the one where Nick and his father visit the Indian village and Indian kills himself... I started with a drawing of a wounded elf and a boy discovering him and went from there. I wanted to do a short story about a traumatic event in a child's life which night shed a light on some aspects of his future character, if I chose to revisit him.

Another inspiration was cultural and racial clashes in history. I remember when I was a fantasy-obsessed kid I would always think about how great it would be if there were elves and dwarves and other intelligent beings other than just humans around, how much we could learn from the different cultures, traditions, minds of these other souls! While still young I sadly realized that such diverse beings would inevitably be caught up in never-ending racial conflict; if humans can barely stand each other how would we react to a whole other species competing with us for resources, land, etc. (I was interested to learn that humans did actually face this situation, long ago, with Neanderthals, who were a distinct species from Homo sapiens rather than our progenitors... and that didn't go so well, at least for the Neanderthals: Our ancestors seem to have killed off, out-competed, or perhaps eliminated them through inter-marriage by 24,000 years ago). Thus, the world I imagine here suffers from at least as much cultural conflict as our own has, the situation is somewhat similar to the conflicts between Native Americans and European settlers; the elf is a fugitive, pursued relentlessly by humans, he in turn is equally vicious when he has the chance. Only the still innocent child believes that all parties can share something with each other.

Anyways, once again I've bitten off a bit more than I can chew, narratively, despite some serious restrictions placed upon myself this time! I mean, it's 10 silent pages! What am I trying to do here! Oh well... It also has a pretty cool fight scene in it! My story, entitled "Mêlée," will be in the first Volume of Elfworld, due out in April of 2007!

California Pride!

2006-10-10T20:31:00.000-07:00

My newest stationery design is now on my Etsy shop: "Greeting from California!"

This is my rendition of a California Quail (callipepla californica), one of my favorite semi-local birds (I usually see them whenever I'm up in Marin, which is pretty rarely, unfortunately). This little guy, of course, is the official bird of the Golden State... I like the idea of representing my home state a bit with this set, although I am planning on doing a few other bird sets in the coming months (honestly not trying to jump on the "crafty bird" bandwagon, I just like 'em! If anything, I am a bit of a bird-watching wanna-be, which is bad enough). I might also do a few more state-themed sets... After I came up with this design (inspired in part by the use of quails in a postcard for Oktoberfest at Suppenküche) I realized that they could just as easily be called "Quail Mail"... that might be a bit much even for me, however!

Anyways, click on the picture above to check out my Etsy shop! Thanks!

"Territorial Pissings", Pt. ? of ??

2006-09-24T20:19:00.000-07:00

I have been putting the majority of my cartooning energy into a multi-part story about graffiti, the creative impulse, and human nature called "Territorial Pissings." While the springboard for this story is my own long past experiences as a neophyte tagger, I am planning on straying from the my own experiences quite freely for the sake of the story, and my protagonist Evan (returning from the very autobiographical story "Speak Now, or Forever" from Friends #1) is certian to go down at least some paths I never went down... That said, this first completed (tho' not nescessarily first chapter) is based rather directly on something that happened to me back when I lived in Chicago... Click each thumbnail for a bigger image:

Just thought y'all might want to take a look at what i've been up to when I'm not putting on the Zine Fest, promoting Elfworld, or being comically love struck these days!

Zine Fest!

2006-09-18T22:51:00.000-07:00

Photo Credit: Scott Beale/Laughing Squid

Well, it happened...the SFZF 2006! First off, let me say that I was well and truly impressed with the great turnout of creators and everyday folks at the show, I truly cannot believe that it all came together in two months! And of course, two months of work just fly by in two swift days, and you're left with a vague feeling of "That's it?" It was the same with our house's famous "One Dollar Vegan Breakfast" back in the day, or like putting on a party only to feel a bit empty when all the guests clear out.
The overall feedback I recieved from attendees and exhibitors was quite positive, with many people telling me this was the best SFZF yet! Very nice to hear...

Having worn so many hats at the show the whole thing is a bit of a blur, but some highlights:

The "Secret Lives of Zine Librarians" panel I helped organize seemed to go very well, I was super charmed when I wandered over to check up on it and saw the group all huddled at Andrea Grimes' (of the SFPL's Little Maga/Zine Collection) feet, hangin g on her every word... I know it was probably 'cause we didn't have any P.A. for the panel, but it put me in mind of a Socratic zinester academy!

I met Scott from Birdstand and was just super pleased with his vaguely 70s-esque illustrations... Purchased a fantastic print of a French sailor-type and his amorous pursuit of a stylish lady, then my roommate Danielle bought the same one... Scott is evidently a neighbor of mine, I guess, so perhaps I will try and be social with him, go borrow a cup of sugar or what not.

My friends from work Dana and Laura were sharing a table next to Family Style and it was great seeing them with their artwork... Dana makes a pleathora of crafts, including some very popular fold and mail chipboard televisions... Laura makes these really great splatter painted bags and purses under the name Mokomoda.

Talked to Briar from Oven Door Owl about her elegant book Inside The Brambles and possibly working on some sort of urban enviromental nature zine project someday...

Chatted all too briefly with the ever wonderful Jennie Hinchcliff of the ever popularPod Post and she gave me an adorable package which I CANNOT FIND in my hellish, post Zine Fest room! Good lord. Knowing her it will be the absolute best when I find it.

Doing the raffle was an unexpected blast for me, tho' I can't speak for the room. The most time I've ever had to spend behind a microphone, it went better than I could have hoped... I think I was actually mildly funny.

We only got one "Bleah" on our survey, which was from a dude Sarah Gion and I got into a mild argument over computer access on CELLspace's computers with... How many times must you tell someone you don't know what the fucking password is before they leave you alone?

Anyways, can't wait for next year... Think of what we can do with a whole year!

Baby's First Screenprint!

2006-08-27T21:37:00.000-07:00

After many years of being a silksceening wanna-be I finally got around to do some genuine screenprinting (as opposed to the wonderful, but somewhat limiting medium of Gocco), with my pal Sarah Gion... She hadn't done any printing since high school, which was a relief; my rather paranoid fear of being chastised by a "pro" had kept me from asking various aquaintances for a leason. Anyways, the overall process was at turns fun, frustrating, and inspiring. Our first project: Posters for the fast approaching SF Zine Fest!

I am definitely going to be taking John Issacson's silkscreening workshop at the fest! This is one of the tidier prints! Hopefully practice makes decent, if not perfect...

Now that my roommate Danielle has vacated for the greener pastures of a sewing studio under Stitch I am planning on converting our house's back room into a silkscreening/comix making workspace for Family Style. Millions of thank yous to both Danielle and Jenny Dickow who has lent us tons of supplies. Very exciting!

There (and Back Again)

2006-08-16T22:04:00.000-07:00

Oregon!

Hannah cutting her sister Rachel's hair in their parents' backyard in Salem

I'm back now from a very summer-y trip to Portland and various other Oregonian locales... I have been strongly considering moving up to Portland for some time now, primarily for financial reasons, so I sort of view my occasional visits up there as little visions of a possible future... Will I be happy there? Will Portland be happy to have me? The jury's still out...

I met Hannah's parents, which wasn't really as nerve-wracking as one might have expected... Lots of time out-of-doors, swimming, climbing, and otherwise enjoying nature's bounty... Very slow days at the Portland Zine Symposium, but got some excellent cartoonists inquiring about Elfworld Vol. 2... Hannah and I went out booty-dancing at a horrible/wonderful nightclub(with Chris + Yolanda of Underwater Stories and Tim + Stephanie of Love Letter Press) and absolutely were having a great time, but everyone else hated the place and we left and played video games, which wasn't so bad... Some melencholy, but more joyfulness... Lots of time for watercolors...

Okay, that's it for now. I'm back and back to business.

Other Projects

2006-07-31T22:52:00.001-07:00

One of my new year's resolutions for 2006 was to make time to work on creative projects other than my comics... I often feel the need to spend every possible creative moment of my time on Friends. So with that goal in mine, I have a couple of new projects to try out:

I love stationery and letter-writing materials of all sorts, so I am going to try and make a new stationery design every month for the rest of the year... it's really nice to be working on something that isn't trying to have some depth of feeling or meaning to it; it's just cute! I am going to be posting my new designs on Etsy where the hand-made stationery lovers of the world can purchase it (I will also have my comics up, for good measure). My first design, "Snail Mail", is up now:

I really love watercolors, but I've never really been able to tackle it in the past, the slipperiness of the medium just threw me for a loop... but bolstered by what I felt has been an increasing versatility in my ink wash illustration I've decided to give it another go. Since I first moved to San Francisco I've wanted to do a series of illustrations "36 Views of Sutro Tower," (inspired, of course, by the incomparable Hokusai) as I've often been struck by how often that ubiquitous landmark will pop into view behind various everyday scenes here... A restful (yet unnatural!) background presence underscoring and countering what is going on in the foreground view. I have decided to combine these projects, so hopefully I will be able to improve my technique quite a bit between View One and View Thirty-Six... Here is my first try, as well as another, separate sketch (the Tower wasn't visable that day!). I will post these as I go, which will hopefully keep me on task...

As a side note, lately I've been reading the collected Concrete by Paul Chadwick... very good and inspiring, I remember really liking his work when I would see it back in the day (as a teenager I loved a lot of the stuff that Dark Horse was putting out), but my appreciation for him has really grown now that I am trying to craft my own comics and stories. Mr. Chadwick is very good at interweaving the "big themes" he wants to touch on into the minutiae of Concrete's (rather unusual!) daily life. You get the sense that he definitely knows where this is all going (Chadwick, that is, rather than poor, befuddled Concrete!) and I'm definitely looking forward to seeing the story unfurl over time.

My cup runneth over... on to the carpet.

2006-07-19T21:46:00.000-07:00

Oh kay... I think the trick is to just keep adding things to you plate until you don't even notice that there's even a chance that one or maybe all of your projects might fail at any second! So, here's my current round up:

Volume one of Elfworld is coming closer to being published. We are definitely planning on the book coming out for Small Press Expo, where I will be in attendance behind a tiny half-table, hopefully stacked high with copies of the book. As it turned out, we are going to have a couple of free pages in the book ('cause of how the signatures work... you need it to be in a multiple of sixteen (not twelve)) so I have decided to create a short story for the book! I hadn't planned on doing anything this time around, but I figured, why not, I'm going into debt to print up 3000+ of these things, I might as well have something in it! It's going to be 6 pages, I think, and it's tentatively called "The Wounded Elf" (a very literal title, as you can see from the drawing above).

The SF Zine Fest is actually happening, Sept. 9th + 10th! Bay Area zinesters, cartoonists, etc. (more on the "etc." in mere seconds), please sign up for tables now now now! CELLspace raised their rental rates by 25% from last year, so we really need people to commit early in order to be able to pay them for the space... It really is a fun show, and I think that we can do an even better job this time than last year, even with the VERY late notice (Aside: I've been officially maintaining a very positive spin on the whole thing, but here on my supremely un-influential blog I can allow myself a moment to rant: Calvin (who organized SFZF last year) really fucked the whole thing over this year... I know he's been really busy (he's moving to Asia, blah blah blah), but I don't think he even tried to pass off the torch to anyone at any point this year; I had written him several times offering to help (because, honestly, we had felt SFZF '05 to have been pretty shoddily put together, esp. if you compared it to the Portland Zine Symposium which is the epitome of an organized, well run event with a huge amount of community support behind it), and now we have to try and put together the whole thing in two months! End of rant.)! About the "etc"... I've been noticing that at all the recent comic/zine shows I've been to in awhile (with perhaps the exception of MoCCA) there is an ever expanding amount of non printed matter making the rounds, with crafty things like hand-made monster toys and pretty stationery becoming the new "must buy" items... 'tho this rubs some zinesters the wrong way, I've decided I'm all for it, these more diverse offerings are helping to bring a whole group of people to zines and comics who might not be interested otherwise... So we are going to go out of our way to welcome crafters and D.I.Y.-types of all stripes to the SFZF this year.

I am almost done with all of the Moominvalley books, which have been just about the best thing that I've read in years... so sad when you are almost done with a series, but I see that Tove Jannson has some other, non-Moomin books she has written, and Drawn & Quarterly is publishing a collection of her newspaper strip this fall, I hear. Anyways, the books' oft-struck tone of nostalgic melancholy and joy is perfect. So much is going on here... My favorites are Moominvalley in November, Moominpappa at Sea, and Moominvally Midwinter. Please read these, everyone!

Finally, I haven't mentioned my overwhelmingly wonderful girlfriend Hannah yet... I guess this blog is supposed to be about my comics "carreer", but whatever... I'm fully and contentedly in love, it's crazy. She is just amazing and everything I can imagine wanting to find in another person. That's all!

What's Your News?

2006-07-12T16:22:00.000-07:00

Oh golly, I'm just not really all that wonderful at updating this, now am I? Well, here's what's been a' brewin' lately:

Misun Oh (contributor to Best Zine Ever, wife of John Porcelino of King Cat fame) contacted Jonas and I about working on this year's SF Zine Fest, since the prior head honcho had lots of other stuff going on and was bowing out this year; so we are currently on the planning dep't (given the lateness of the whole thing, perhaps "scrambling" dep't might be a better term) for the 2006 event. Right now it looks like we will be doing it in September/October! Fun times... we need lots and lots of exhibitors to sign up, we will have info up on the updated website any day now, so please check it out, sign up, and come to the show!

Elfworld is coming along... Volume One should be out for SPX in October (it better be, I signed up for a table already!). I've been getting all sorts of inquiries about contributing to Vol. 2, and I have a few confirmed contributors already working on stuff!

I have been working pretty dilligently on "Territorial Pissings", my comic about tagging, but lately I've been feeling creatively blocked (having a hard time splicing in all the various themes and what not into the narative)... My goal was to just work on that story and publish it all in one volume in Friends #4 next year, but I think that I'm going to work on a few other stories I have ideas for and serialize them all over the course of several issues. I think that this wil be good for me, as I've sort of been biting off a bit more than I can chew with some of the stories! I'm definitely going to be working on a story about an albino elephant and perhaps a story about the Garden of Eden (in addition to "Territorial Pissings"). This should make for a more regular publishing schedule.

Dan Moynihan's skateboarding anthology Sidewalk Bump #2 will evidently be coming out soon... I can't wait, I really liked the first issue, and of course this one has a pair of stories by me in it!

And... that's it I guess! Seems like a lot from my point of view, but when you write it all down it seems fairly under control!

Birthday Review, News, Excitement

2006-06-18T18:39:00.001-07:00

Optical Sloth was the first site to post a review of one of my comics, and now Whitey has gone ahead and posted a new review of Friends #3... What a nice thing to see on your birthday! Thanks Whitey...

Otherwise, all is well... back in San Francisco after a week in NYC for MoCCA, which was fun and exciting, if a tiny bit stressful... Met a lot of people and talked to some potential contributors to Elfworld Volume 2... Volume one is set to come out for SPX, so we'll have it for that show and also the Stumptown Comix Fest, both in October... so lucky you!

I'm gonna run now, this is my second time writing this post (my computer is having the same annoying problems all over again)! So great to still be alive at 28! Who knew!?!