The Red Devil vs The Whole Fuckin' Show

Salutations. I know it's been a while. Rest assured, loyal reader, I am still hard at work on the next Trackrabbit. I have, however, been away for a week or so. During my sabbatical, I had time only for flights of fancy like the one seen above. Soon, dear reader, very soon, there will be more stuff about sad men and robots. For now, however, you will have to content yourself with tough men and even tougher dinosaurs. Ta.

Some Professional Looking Pages

Beanie's Folly, pages 16 and 17

Today was my first day back at the drafting table in a while. It was pretty frustrating. For a minute there, I thought about throwing in the towel and just drawing all lousy like everybody else. I thought better of it, though. You, my dear readers (both of you), deserve nothing less than my lazy, uneducated, chronically hung-over best. Enjoy.

Beanie's Folly, pages 14 & 15

The Folly of Beanie Boylan, pages 12 and 13

I haven't had to go to work for the last two days. I've spent most that time drawing. At the end of forty-eight hours, I can safely say that I am as good at making comics as I am at making lattes. By the way, folks: If you have any criticisms about how I could improve these pages, let me know. I figure since I'm posting the pencils, I might as well open myself up to criticism while I can still change things with relative ease.

Beanie's Folly, pages 10 and 11

I went to a comic store with a friend last week, and it only served to reinforce my hatred of the direct market. I asked for a couple things they didn't have, which is a problem I've had before with this particular store. Mind you, I wasn't asking for anything too obscure. On the contrary, these were well-publicized hot sellers that the store's eccentrically attired proprietor couldn't seem to keep in stock. Based on my inquiries, he handed me an expensive hardcover volume that he assured me was one of his picks for book of the year. I cautiously flipped through its pages. It looked like it was drawn by the mongoloid love child of Kent Williams and Alex Robinson. I didn't even bother trying to read it. I put it at the bottom of the stack of stuff I was thinking about buying, where I could feel its mediocrity infecting me. After a few moments of this uncomfortable exposure, I handed it off to my friend. I wound up buying the latest issue of Morrison and Quietly's Batman (why can't anyone seem to keep these guys on the same project for more than a few issues? Does DC really expect me to look at Phillip Tan's scrawlings after reading three issues of Quietly's exquisite renderings?) and an old issue of Mome (which I will continue to buy as long as they publish Tim Hensley). Anyway, the whole experience left a pretty bad taste in my mouth. The poorly informed recommendation, the inability to keep things in stock, even the music they were playing all served to reinforce the shame of my nerditude that I've been suppressing since junior high From now on, I will be happy to let Amazon undersell their dust-encrusted, socially inept, frequently obese real-world counterparts, except for The Joker's Child in New Jersey, where everyone has the good sense not to try to sell me anything that obviously blows, and Comic Relief in Berkeley, where I get a discount. And maybe Hanley's. I guess I'll just buy my mini-comics online or at shows. My issues with hipper-than-thou shitholes specializing in "hand-printed matter" are the subject of another rant entirely. p.s. here's some pages from my next book.

I'm being interviewed on Pirate Cat Radio

Tonight at (or around 6pm) I'll be on Pirate Cat radio Promoting SF Zinefest and making an ass of myself. http://www.piratecatradio.com/listen.php

Beanie's Folly, page 9

Beanie's Folly, page 8

I've had some trouble drawing since I've been back in San Francisco. I've only had one day off since I've been home, and I managed to fritter it away reading old comics and watching old SImpsons episodes. I've had some inspiring experiences since I've been back, including a flattering e-mail from a guy who is just about as "famous" as an indie cartoonist gets these days. I've also been enthusiastically re-devouring a lot of the comics I rescued from my childhood collection just before it was sold. I just finished Peter Milligan's 'Egypt.' Despite some lacking art by Glyn Dillon (I thought he was so good when I was in high school) and Phil Gascoine (I'd never heard of him before, and I've not seen the name since), it was pretty good. It's got a great, weird plot about time travel and re-incarnation. The ending doesn't quite pull everything together, but after seven issues, I was so endeared to the main character, a free-wheeling jerk aptly named Vincent Me, that I didn't mind filling in some substantial gaps in plausibility myself. Re-reading Milligan's stuff has really reminded me where my narrative voice comes from. I've been reading stories about glib sociopaths since I was fourteen. Everyone in my books just talks like the lizard from 'The Enigma.' Anyway, here's page eight.

Memories for sale

As I type this, I am sitting in my childhood bedroom in Fair Lawn, NJ. My mother is coughing violently in the next room as a Jamiacan woman with a barely decipherable accent tends to her many ever-changing needs. I'll be inking pages and getting drunk in the backyard all week, but not before the two most important parts of my pilgrimage to the Mother-land. Pilgrimage the first: to my father's grave; pilgrimage the second: to my favorite Jewish deli. I'll post the fully inked pages upon my return to the sunshine state. In the meantime, I thought everyone out there in blogland (both of you) might enjoy reading the text of the craigslist ad I posted to sell my childhood comic book collection. Enjoy, and pass it on to anyone who might be interested.

Beanie's Folly, pages 5, 6 and 7

The Folly of Beanie Boylan, pages 3 & 4 (pencils)

These pages were drawn in my room late at night while listening to the third Blue Oyster Cult album, which is great. Page 3 was partially inked in Portland while listening to the fifth They Might Be Giants album, which holds up really well. As I type this I'm back in my room, listening to the second Wolf Parade album, which is boring me to tears.

The Folly of Beanie Boylan, page 2 (pencils)

I'll be traveling quite a bit this month, so my plan is to pencil a bunch of pages at my base of operations here in San Francisco, then ink them while stylishly jet-setting from one hip local to another. This means the bulk of the book will be inked at a Denny's in rural Illinois. I'll post the pencils as I finish them. I'm sure you'll find the insight into my creative process utterly fascinating.

The Folly of Beanie Boylan, page one

After months of shooting my mouth off about it, I decided to start drawing the next issue of my book. This is the first page of the sci-fi epic I mentioned a few months ago when I posted those drawings of robots. The cars were inspired by those from beloved Super Nintendo racing game F-Zero, the building was inspired by some photographs of factories from the 40's and 50's I discovered while tooling around online, and the story was inspired by my cheerful disdain for humanity. I'm moving at a pretty steady clip, so I'll be able to post a few pages every week. That's right, I'm going to post the whole goddamn thing on my blog as I draw it. Hopefully, by the time I'm done someone in a position to offer me a lucrative publishing contract will have seen it and I can start making some money off this horseshit medium.

More Stuff About Ostriches

Here are the other two pages of the story Justin and I did for Always Comix. I've been working on them for six or seven hours a day all week. It feels great to be spending so much time on comics after so many weeks of drawing for an hour or two a day, if at all. I'm really excited to get started drawing the next Trackrabbit. Hopefully, I'll have the first few pages up sometime in the next week. In the meantime, here's more nonsense about huge birds.

How They Met, page one

This is the first page of a three page comic Justin DeCarlo and I are working on for the anthology Always Comics. It's a somewhat fictionalized account of our friendship. I know there are some glaring mistakes, and the title lettering is noticeably absent, but I was anxious to get it up here, since I haven't updated this blog in over a month. I promise weekly updates from now on, with the last two pages of this story following shortly. Enjoy.

Mastodudes

Anyone who's hung out with me in the last few weeks is totally sick of hearing me talk about the new Mastodon record, and how excited I was to see them at the Great American Music Hall. The show was last night and, as predicted, it was one of the defining experiences of my adult life. I woke up this morning fully intending to continue thumbnailing the next Trackrabbit, but found myself incapable of thinking un-Mastodonly thoughts. The solution: listen to 'Crack the Skye' and draw the dudes themselves. All wardrobe choices and outrageous facial hair were recreated from memory, so purists will forgive if they're not 100% accurate.

Neocurtilla hexadactyla

I've been hard at work on preparatory material for the new Trackrabbit. Buoyed by the achievement of usurping the last available table from an aging yuppy couple, I finished writing the plot yesterday in a cafe in Hayes Valley. Then I went home, drew some bugs and got drunk. I'll start posting finished pages next week. Until then, make friends with these guys.

Character Designs for Trackrabbit #4

Here are some character designs for the next issue of Trackrabbit. The story centers around a scientist named Beanie Boylan who quits his job as a robotics engineer to move to a farm and lead a pastoral life with his new bride, Deborah. The shackles of robot-ology do not prove so easily cast off, however, as Beanie builds a new robot out of old boiler parts to help him around the homestead. The robot, Ponchito, seems sweet enough at first, but he doesn't like having to compete with Beanie's wife for attention, or deal with the sneering derision of their neo-hillbilly neighbor Brian. Also, the farm is infested with mysterious alien insects. Hilarity and chemical warfare ensue.

Visually, Beanie (center) is sort of a cuddly version of Steve Albini; Deborah is sort of an amalgam of Beverly D'Angelo and Goldie Hawn; Brian is based on my ex-girlfriend's dad, a rugged, out-doorsey type who once bought me a head-lamp for Christmas. The Robots Poncho (right) and Ponchito are based on a cylinder and a sphere, respectively.

A Knight in Shining Denim

Many claim that I come off as a cad in my work, and their criticisms are not unfounded. There are, however, moments like this, when I can be the very picture of chivalry.

There's Only Room in this Panel for One Success Story

Here we have another excerpt from my next comic for auto-bio anthology Not My Small Diary, the first page of which I put up earlier this week. Watch as I roll my eyes bemusedly while discussing my retail career with a future New Yorker cover artist. Who's laughing now? Nobody.

Showing the Hemlock the Scars of Your Recent Break-Up

Hey kids. I know you were all crushed when there was no new panel here at 12 am last Monday, so here's a whole page by way of reparations. Don't get used to this. I know you'll go to conventions and buy Fart Party books after reading it all for free online, but that's because you're a creep and you'll take any excuse you can to talk to that cute Wertz girl. Dudes gotta work a little harder to drum up attention at those sausage fests.

This one takes us all the way back to the halcyon days of 2003. Skinny jeans were just for gutter punks, Damon Che still had a few shreds of credibility, and people remembered Andrew Bird as the violinist from the Squirrel Nut Zippers (if at all). See if you can guess the identity of my chubby male co-star in this anecdotal buddy comedy. I'm not great with likenesses, so I'll give you a hint: if you're female, live in San Francisco's Mission district and were linked here from my MySpace page, you've probably slept with him.

Have Fun in New York this Weekend, Suckers

Really, this panel only touches on the myriad reasons why I won't be attending any conventions for the foreseeable future. Anyone venturing to brave the wretched hive of scum and villainy that is the Javits Center this weekend is encouraged to kick a Storm Trooper in the shin for me.

I've Never Heard That One Before

Here's an excerpt from my latest opus, a two page autobiographical comic entitled Look Back in Squalor. I have returned to this, what some girl once referred to as my "more confessional" work, merely as an exercise. I need to re-familiarize myself with the actual nuts and bolts of making comics, and the most readily available material can be found within the remnants of what I once called a life. I will probably collect these stories into another volume of A History of Increasing Humiliation, because people who read mini-comics will buy anything if you tell them it's autobiographical.

Rest assured, I do not intend to tarry in the auto-bio ghetto for much longer. I will soon return to genre fiction, thereby ruining what little credibility I have left in the small press community. In the meantime, my beloved readers will have to be content with stories about my relationships with women who suffer from strange maladies (of whom there are many).

Right Out of the Gate

Hey jerks. Welcome to my new blog. The above is a sample panel from the first page of comics I've finished in about four months. It represents my triumphant return to the medium I sorta love, after being pinned under the flaming wreckage of my life, where it was obviously impossible to draw. I wanted to hit the ground running, so I put the word "blowjob" in the title. You can see the full comic in the Guest Strip section on The Daily Crosshatch, whenever they print it (hopefully soon).

Keep watching this spot for updates on my "career." I'm going to try to put up a new page or panel or drawing of you on the toilet every week or so, because your atrophied attention span will forget I exist if you don't have some new "web content" to gawk at regularly.