Grand Adventure: PDF Edition!

GrandCoverGumroadHello loyal readers! Sorry things have been rather quiet around here lately. I’m working on a bunch of projects that I can’t say anything about on the Internet, so there hasn’t been much to discuss. HOWEVER! I’ve just released a new, high-res comic for you on Gumroad, so let’s talk about that.

Grand Adventure, my 29-page diary comic chronicling a rowing trip through the Grand Canyon, is now available in PDF form. I’ve rescanned and cleaned up all the pages and couldn’t be happier with how the colors turned out. There’s a even a couple bonus pages of illustration and comics from our trip prep! $3 bags you the whole package. Check it out here.

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To those of you holding out for a print edition, never fear. I’m getting quotes from printers as we speak and should have those ready to roll in mid-November at the latest. I think they’re going to look fabulous. If you prefer to read your comics digitally, though, today’s your lucky day! Proceeds from the PDF edition will help fund the cost of printing all these full-color booklets, so be sure to share this with your digital comics buds.

Enjoy!

Kevin’s Catch — Sneak Peek

Just finished a mad dash to finish line on my latest story for Cartozia Tales. Did I mention WE MET OUR KICKSTARTER GOAL? Holy cow, Internet. You really pulled through on that one and I’m so incredibly grateful. Thanks to all of you who helped spread the word and raise us over our massive goal. You’re all great.

Of course this means that I get to work on this series for an entire year! I can’t wait to see where it goes. Anyway, this is a small smattering of panels from Kevin’s Catch, which will appear in Cartozia #3.
PreviewWebWant to be the first to get your hands on a copy? You can subscribe right now! Otherwise I’ll be posting a link when the issue goes live.

Grand Adventure — Part 3

Here it is, friends: the final installment of Canyon Comics! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading along and experiencing the adventure secondhand — it’s been great to share it all with you. You can now find the whole thing in sequence on the Other Comics page for easy access.

I’ll be rescanning all these pages on the fancy new watercolor scanner at Periscope in the next few weeks so the print edition will really shine. I’m looking forward to making some quality full-color minis for you all.

Grand Adventure — Part 2

More comics! For you! Here’s the second installment of pages from my Grand Canyon trip last month, covering the Adventure with the Flash Flood and our run through Lava Falls. The last batch of pages will go up on Wednesday due to a Leaving My Sketchbook at Home Like an Idiot error.

For the many of you who have asked about a print edition, never fear. Your wild cries have been heard and I’ll be putting one together before the end of October. Thanks for convincing me to make ’em!

Grand Adventure – Part 1

As promised, here’s the first half of my diary strips from my trip through the Grand Canyon! I had so much fun drawing these. It’s been far too long since I had the space and time to just draw for myself every day. Part two should be up sometime next week, so keep an eye out.

Enjoy!

Cartozia! Rose City! New Comics! I’M BACK.

What ho, faithful followers! I’m finally back in the land of civilization after 21 days of hiking, climbing, rowing, and getting dunked repeatedly in very cold water-ing. I don’t have adequate words to explain what an extraordinary time I had, but here’s a picture from Day 5.

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I know. It’s ridiculous.

Despite my near-constant sogginess, I did manage to draw a page(ish) of diary comics every day during the trip as a sort of personal experiment. They’re a little grubby in places since my sketchbook was subjected to many indignities (most of them involving water, sand, or some silty combination of the two), but I hope they capture a small slice of what things were like. I’ll be putting that up for download tomorrow once I get within reach of a scanner.

In the meantime, here’s some exciting stuff that’s worthy of note:

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1. I’ll be tabling at Rose City Comic Con THIS WEEKEND! Come by Table G-03 to marvel at my fabulous sunburn and get your hands on some thrilling new comics. The show takes place at the Oregon Convention Center and runs 10am-7pm on Saturday and 10am-5pm on Sunday. I’ll have several standard titles on the table, including Baggywrinkles 1-4, True Believer, and the last, rare copies of Tales from the Fragment, but I will ALSO be debuting the following new n’ shiny books:

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WATERLOGGED: TALES FROM THE SEVENTH SEA features 200+ pages of  two-color nautical comics in a gorgeous hardcover package. I’ll be seeing the book in person for the first time on Saturday, so if you come by for a copy don’t be surprised if I’m clutching one to my breast and weeping tears of joy. Inside you’ll find stories by many fantastic Canadian creators, as well as my piece with Shannon Campbell: Navy Ink. By all reports this thing is gorgeous. It’ll be going for $25.

Meanwhile, CARTOZIA TALES is now on its second issue and I absolutely cannot wait to show both of them to everyone who stops by. I’ll even have the paper doll postcards I designed on hand, so you can take a couple and create your own Cartozian Battle Contingient. Or Peaceful Hunter-Gatherer Tribe. Whatever floats your boat.

Each Issue is $6 and includes 40-pages of all-ages fantasy and adventure. (You can find the wardrobes I designed for our two paper figures in Issue 2.) If you really like what you see, I’ll have flyers with rewards and a QR code for our very-close-to-finished Kickstarter Campaign, so you can be sure to sign up for a full subscription and guarantee an issue in your mailbox every five weeks!

KickstarterEventHeader2. Speaking of the Cartozia Kickstarter, the campaign is roaring forward and we’re entering the final 5-day push. We have about $14k left to raise, so it’s down to the wire! If you haven’t yet pledged some bucks, now’s the time. Remember: any pledge gets you access to PDFs of Issues 1 and 2, so you can get a sense of what we’re about before you subscribe.

We’ve added some stellar new rewards over the past weeks, including a special package for retailers. If you’re affiliated with a local comic shop, or would like to see Cartozia at a store near you, do check out the $122 Retailer Special tier.

Additionally, one of my absolute favorite creators, Kevin Cannon, has been hard at work on his story for Cartozia Issue 3. The previews he’s posting are making me weep with envy and excitement (THE LETTERING! THE HATCHING! THE PIRATES!), and you can purchase the entire set of original pages through the Kickstarter. The reward even includes a full subscription! Just be careful I don’t save up enough to pledge for it first. I’m sorely tempted.

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If you’d like to learn more about Cartozia and the campaign, check out this interview with publisher Isaac Cates over on Comics Bulletin.

PHEW. OKAY. ENOUGH NEWS.

Thanks to all of you who were patient with orders and emails while I’ve been gone. I promise I’ll be catching up on all that in the next few days. For those of you in Portland area, I hope to see you this weekend at Rose City!

 

New Guest Strip: Sam and Fuzzy

SamFuzzyGuest_PreviewYou can check out the guest comic I drew for my pal Sam Logan over on his webcomic Sam and Fuzzy today! Once again, my co-conspirator Shannon Campell took the reins on writing this one, and I think she did a pretty solid job of upgrading Devahi from a lovelorn sidekick to a fully-fledged homicidal ass-kicking philanthropic woman. The Woman of Tomorrow, if you will.

Thanks for letting me play with your characters, Sam!

The Cartozia Tales Kickstarter is LIVE

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You’ve heard me shouting about it for months and end, and now the day is finally here! The Cartozia Kickstarter Campaign has launched with an incredible outpouring of support from fans all over the world. I’m so excited to share it with you.

In case you’ve missed it the last fifteen times I’ve gushed about Cartozia on the web, it’s an all-ages fantasy series set in a shared world and brought to life by a core team of eight indie cartoonists. With the guidance of our fearless editor Isaac Cates, we’ve published the first two issues on our own dime, and now we’re aiming to fund an entire year’s worth of 40-page issues. It’s an audacious campaign, but I have faith that we’re going to knock it out of the park.

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From story to story and issue to issue, we swap characters and locations via a game of chance, building on one another’s ideas to create a dynamic narrative landscape. Two guest stars per issue help keep things fresh, and we’ve got some incredible names on the project (James Kochalka! Brittney Sabo! Evan Dahm! Eleanor Davis! Dylan Horrocks!).

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I’m fairly certain this type of storytelling has never been done before on such a scale, and the results so far have been fantastic — immersive and playful for kids, engaging and complex for adults. We’re making Cartozia Tales because we think the world needs more comics that will attract young readers and let them celebrate adventure, curiosity, exploration, and fun, but we can’t make it happen without your help.

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If you want to dive in and make this thing happen, here are some ideas to get you started:

1. Pledge to the campaign.

2. Spread the link (especially to parents and teachers!).

3. Find us on Twitter @Cartozia and get in touch.

4. Reblog this post on Tumblr.

5. Learn more about the world, our contributors, and our methods on the homepage.

6. Invite your friends to the campaign event on Facebook!

I’ll be posting more news as I get it, but right now the biggest goal is setting this campaign off to a roaring start. I can’t wait to see where it goes. As an added incentive, here’s a full gallery of all the ridiculous dances I was giving away earlier this week to celebrate early subscribers to the series:

 

New Comic: Mr. Tambourine Man

In honor of Mr. Tambourine Man making the official selection for Rock Ink Roll’s anthology (out in November from Altered Aesthetics!), I’ve decided to release the comic online for all to read and enjoy. It was great working with writer Shannon Campbell again, and I’m looking forward to the other projects we have planned for the near future. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, HAVE SOME FREE COMICS!

 

Cartozia Lives!

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Joy of joys! My copies of Cartozia #1 arrived over the weekend and HOLY COW they are bee-yoo-tiful. Isaac did a stellar job with the print quality and paper stock, and the stories all look gorgeous. I just can’t stop touching them.

We’ll be running a Kickstarter for the full year’s worth of issues later this month, but I encourage all of you to order or subscribe NOW, as the price will go up to account for Kickstarter fees and other sundry costs. The more subscribers we get now, the lower our target goal will be and the higher our chances of succeeding. Plus, this is a beautiful and innovative comic, and I’m excited to get it into as many hands as possible.

If you’re allergic to ordering things on the Internet, I’ll also have these first issues for sale in person at Rose City Comic Con next month. No excuses!