Tag: news

Art, Main, News

New Year, New Hats, New News!

Hello everyone! It’s 2013! Isn’t that crazy? I think so.

This year was my first as a Real Live Cartoonist, and it’s been a hell of a ride. I was about to start writing a list of all the stuff that happened, but I got exhausted just thinking about it. Let’s just say A Lot of Stuff went down. Comics, dance, work, travel, freelance, moving, breakups, unbreakups, practice, growth, change — and 2013 just keeps looking better. I have another two months at Periscope (which, for the record, is the most inspiring and wonderful work environment ever), two of my comics will be published by people who are not me before July, there’s a new issue of Baggywrinkles in the works, and it’s looking like I’ll be traveling to at least FIVE conventions this year. I’m excited, inspired, and ready to make more art. What more could a girl ask for?

I also got a very kind mention in Tony Cliff’s 12 from 2012 list for Paste Magazine. Tony is the mastermind behind the adventures of Delilah Dirk — one the most beautifully-executed and delightful webcomics out there today. I’m immensely chuffed to see Baggywrinkles alongside such an impressive gaggle of names, and I highly recommend that you go check out the rest of the group. There’s just too much awesome stuff happening in comics right now.

Speaking of awesome stuff, here’s some exciting news! The story I’m illustrating for Symbolia Magazine is now officially underway. Here are all my thumbnails laid out and ready to go:

A_o7l3oCQAEUhGK

The issue with our story won’t be out until June, but expect several sneak peeks as I work through pencils and inks over the next couple months. Sarah Mirk has put together some really powerful stories, and I can’t wait to start working on them in earnest.

Weekly drawing challenges continue unabated. Here are the 50 Hats I promised last week:

HatsDone

And I’m making noises about doing an alphabet series involving figures from Classical Greece — gods, goddesses, heroes, legends, etc — as a tactic for improving my inking technique. Here’s a photo of the Athena sketch that got me started on the idea.

athena

If you have any favorite Greek figures, perhaps you’d care to leave their names in the comments? I’ll probably be taking suggestions as I go…

Apart from that, work continues unabated. I’m in California until next week, and then it’s back to the grey northwest for more drawing, more food carts, and more…nope, those are basically the only two things I’ll be paying attention to for a while. OH! I’m also going to be teaching some workshops later this month: Freelance Badassery and Kickstarter Bootcamp. Keep an eye out for dates and times as soon as I have them.

OKAY. PHEW.

We’re really done now.

Art, News

Live Wire! Radio & Other Escapades

Busy times, everyone! I’ve got a recap of the last couple weeks (including the awesomeness that was VanCAF) up over on the Kickstarter blog, and since I’ll be bum deep in fulfilling rewards for the next lifetime I’m going to let that speak for itself for now.

In the meantime I’ve been buzzing around Portland getting my draw on — most recently with the excellent folks at Live Wire! Radio, who were kind enough to invite me over to live sketch one of their shows. For those of you unfamiliar with Live Wire!, they make audio-based delights to enrich the mind and tickle the fancy of any discerning radio listener. I strongly suggest you check them out. This particular taping featured rock star guests like Lizz Winstead, Ted Rall, Daniel H. Wilson, Mike Russell, Star Anna, and Kasey Anderson, as well as Faces For Radio Theater, the house team of actors and entertainers responsible for keeping things real on stage. And here, in all their messy glory from my much-the-worse-for-wear sketchbook, they are!

Sadly, this was the last show of the season, but I’m looking forward to more of these in September. Keep an eye out!

I’ll leave you all with a couple Vancouver-themed pages from my sketchbook…

Until next time!

Main, News

24 Hours

You guys remember when I was all excited about having hit $3,000 on the Kickstarter? Well, I’ve been remiss in not posting on the blog these past weeks, so things have gotten a little out of control.

The campaign closes in 24 hours, right before I receive my diploma and graduate from college. Currently, the figures stand as follows:

– $11,000 in pledges

– 300 backers

– 730% funded

I’m kind of speechless at the moment, but I hope you can glean some sense of my mood from the following sequence of images:

Thank you all for chipping in and making this such an extraordinary experience. I’ll be sure to post something a little more eloquent after things settle down next week, but for now I am full of gratitude and sunshine. Keep being your amazing selves.

News

Progress Report

So, you guys may’ve noticed that things have been a little quiet here on the comics front. Fear not! Things are happening and this post will hopefully clear up a few questions about where my energy’s going these days and when you can expect to see some new sequential work.

Oooh! Aaah! Pages!

I’m currently neck deep in my 34-page thesis comic (tentatively titled “True Believer”), which should be out in time for Stumptown this year. I wrapped up the pencils last week after a grueling page-a-day push through February, and am now taking the opportunity for a little downtime over Spring Break. I’ll begin inking in the next few days, then do color, layout, and printing in April. This is, of course, on top of full-time school commitments and a few freelance jobs, so there may be delays, but the progress in February was really encouraging. I’ll be posting some more pictures as I start inking so you can get a sense of what it’ll look like.

In the meantime, the blog will be featuring (surprise, surprise) more illustrations! I’m making the shift from my little Pentel Pocket Brush to the real deal Windsor & Newton Series 7 for this project, so I’m trying to do as much freelance work as possible with the W&N to get the feel of it.

Thanks for hanging in there, everyone! I’m getting really excited to share this new work with you. So excited, in fact, that I’ve taken to walking around like this:

Yup.

And with that burst of absurdism, I bid you adieu.

News

Freedom (from school), Censorship (on the Internet), and Everything Inbetween

Exactly eight minutes ago I sent in my last paper of the semester. I’m officially done with school for the next five weeks, and boy howdy does that ever mean it’s time to post some comics. Thank you all for hanging around as I’ve blundered through the last of my classes.

However, before I can post more comics, I wanted to make a brief post about something that will impact every single person viewing this page (or checking their email, or reading the news online, or promoting their webcomic, or blogging about their travels).

The ████ of the ████████ █████ in ███████. ████ ████████ ██████████!

Oh, wait. You can’t see that? Yeah. Here’s the problem. The Stop Online Piracy Act (otherwise known as SOPA) will be going through the House Judiciary Committee in the next couple of days. For those of you who aren’t familiar with SOPA, it will essentially destroy every trace of the Internet as we know it now. The Act gives any corporation and the US government the power to censor the Internet. To see the uncensored text, and to do your bit to make sure that this thing never sees the light of day, please take a second to hit the big ol’ button below:

Uncensor This

I not normally a big fan of promoting stuff like this through my personal sites, but this thing is important. It’s crucial. And I’m going to do my damnedest to make sure it doesn’t impact the way I express myself, whether through comics or anything else, via the net.

Thanks, everyone. Stay tuned for more frequent updates, a couple interviews, and some exciting news about next year!

Main, News

PDX Zine Symposium Tomorrow!

Hey sailors (and non-sailors)! Just a reminder that I’ll be at the Portland Zine Symposium tomorrow with a bundle of awesome stuff to sell. “What kind of stuff would this be?” you might ask. I WILL TELL YOU.

There will be Baggywrinkles 1 & 2, Tales from the Fragment, nautical button packs(!!!), squeaks of the coveted squeaky walrus (only 5 cents!), and (new for this event) genuine Monkey’s Fist necklaces! Check out this knot-tacular action:

A little bit of background, for those of you not familiar: The Monkey’s Fist is a knot generally tied around a spherical, heavy object (like a lead ball or, in this case, a marble) to create a long-flying projectile. The proper term for such a thing is a heaving line, which was often attached to heavier mooring lines when the distance required to get them to dock was too far for a sailor to throw the line itself. With the heaving line attached to the mooring line, it was possible for a sailor to launch the former a long distance (due to its weighted end) and then let those ashore haul the mooring line across.

While flinging heaving lines is damn good fun, it can become a bad habit for docking, so remember kids: they’re a privilege, not a right. And throwing a mooring line on its own inherently makes you more of a badass. So don’t get lazy.

EH-HEM. ANYWAY.

SOME BUTTONS!

I don’t know why having buttons makes me freak out in an “OhmygawdI’marealcartoonist!” kind of way (possibly because everyone seems to have them and they’re “cool”), but I’m really excited to have them. I’ll be selling them in packs of three, but if you ask nicely I’d probably sell you one on its own for 50 cents or something. There are a few nerdy sailor ones, several that say “Stay Baggy,” a rare few that say “The entire ocean is broken,” and some general nautical varieties. If I have leftovers from the Symposium this weekend I’ll get them up on the site.

That’s all for now! I really encourage you all to come out this weekend, since the event is free (FREE!!!) and there will be something like 140 awesome people tabling. Unfortunately we don’t get table assignments until the morning check-in, but if you really have to know where I am before you come, I’ll be posting my location on Twitter once I’m set up.

Hope to see you guys tomorrow!

Art, Main

The Fragment is Here!

Wow. Apologies for all the photos in this post, but there didn’t seem to be a better way to convey all this. Thank goodness for WordPress slideshows.

So here, in its entirety, is Tales from the Fragment. The first part of the slideshow is a walkthrough of the final product. Each new image corresponds to a folding out of one of the tabs or panels, if that makes any sense. The rest of the shots are all production related because, let’s face it, there’s something mesmerizing about seeing your work duplicated. Also: black toner hands of DOOM. It took forever to scrub that shit off.

There are few things that needed tweaking, spacing-wise, which will be corrected when I print a second run to (shh) sell through the site. For now, though, those copies will be going to the other members of the class.

[slideshow]

And as if that weren’t enough, I shirked academic duties today in order to stop being a wuss and finish laying out Baggywrinkles #1! The covers look amazing and I can’t wait to get it all assembled in the next few days. I’ll be sure to start squealing with glee as soon as it’s up for purchasing in the Emporium. Until then, no running with scissors!