Okay, so I’ve officially abandoned my old site, which was a little unsustainable under the weight of increased drawing by me. Blogs are better for those uninterested in web design, which I am (uninterested, that is). I found a little piece of code that lets that page redirect to this blog, but there’s a little lag, so I decided to stick something in there for you to look at during the lag, rather than making the entire “D H A R B I N” page load, etc. So this morning before work I whipped up a little me-as-playing-card, and now that’s what you see, for a split-second. Of course, it’s only about three inches high in my sketchbook, but I’ll probably go ahead and do a “real” one in color before too long, because all that noodly work on the clothes is too fun to think about.

Welcome to the Table of Contents for my little Aufauxbiography, a themed sketchbook I’m getting artists to contribute to, mostly at conventions, but maybe some by mail, too.

As pages are added to this continuing piece of folly, it’s easier for me to update one page rather than many with links to all the different pages. To that end, please reference this page in order to read things in order:

Title Page
The Rules
Our Hero
Page One
Page Two

Man, meeting Roger Langridge at SPX was a thrill. I’ve been a fan of his work for awhile, but meeting him made everything three times better. He’s a super courteous guy, and even put up with my many gaffs when trying to identify his accent, first as Australian (wrong!), then British (no, no!), and then correctly as New Zealander. Oh, the embarass! He was great about it, though–it probably didn’t hurt that I kept buying him beers in the hotel bar. Anyway, he whipped this up in less than an hour, while talking to fans and selling original art. You can imagine how sweet his stuff is when he has some time.

Nicholas Gurewitch is the man behind The Perry Bible Fellowship, and is pretty fun to talk to. It’s a challenge–he’s got a really singular rhythm to him, so you have to sync up a little before everything clicks. We had a good time hanging out, although not for as long as I would have liked. His addition to the book kinda bled through all over poor Brad McGinty’s, but that’s my fault. I should have given him some pens out of my man-purse, rather than letting him draw with Sharpie. I was just happy he spared the time–he was slammed all weekend, selling copies of his new “Trial of Colonel Sweeto” collection of PBF strips. Super-mobbed. I mean, it often took me several minutes just to work my way close to his table, enough to wave hello and then let the crowd sweep me away. He’s kinda blowing up right now, so good luck to him. Don’t you change, Nick!

You may find a reference to all of the pages in this little project right here.

So I started this at the 2007 SPX in Bethesda, Maryland. Lots of fun, with a lot of great artists in attendance–I had a hard time figuring out who I wanted to start this thing. I ended up deciding on two new buddies of mine, Josh Latta and Brad McGinty of Cute Girl Demographics. Josh (who did the first panel) zipped right along, but Brad was so busy at the show that it took him a lot of time to get his big panel (the rest of the page) done. And then when Nicholas Gurewitch did his panel in Sharpie on the other side of the page, it bled through a good bit, coloring Brad’s work a little. I tried to clean it up in Photoshop, but my deepest apologies to Brad. Nick informed me, but by that time the damage was done, so I figured it was best to just bully ahead, rather than have six different inks on the page. Anyway, a good start!

You may find a reference to all of the pages in this little project right here.

Never has my love of Chester Brown’s work been more obvious than here. I’d be apologetic about it if it didn’t look so good. Oh, that’s what I said.

You may find a reference to all of the pages in this little project right here.

Rules for persons contributing work. Just my feeble attempt to keep the train on the track in the future.

You may find a reference to all of the pages in this little project right here.

Okay, so I’ve been seeing these themed sketchbooks circulating at comic conventions for years now. I’ve never really been that interested, but this year I’ve seen two that were pretty cool/funny: one was Jacob Covey’s sketchbook filled with TMNT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, for those of you who aren’t very cool) drawings by super high-profile cartoonists, and another by Sean T. Collins, featuring even COOLER drawings of David Bowie. Now that I’m attending more of the conventions in full-on schmooze mode, it’s horribly depressing to stand in these lines and prostrate myself before these cartoonists, most of whom I’m a huge fan of, and thus even more embarassed by having our first interaction being me begging them to attend our convention.

Anyway, so I figured out a way to have something besides business to talk about, and have a themed sketchbook subject I can really get behind. So starting at this weekend’s SPX in Bethesda, I’ll be premiering my new me-themed sketchbook. Not only will the subject matter be me (Dustin Harbin), but I thought it would be even cooler to make it a narrative corpse thing, meaning that each drawer would draw a panel or two of a story they’re making up as they go along. Each new drawer would add on to what had gone before, making a wonderful patchwork of no-doubt inscrutable and often second-rate comics. And definitely fictional.

In true me fashion, the more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that I just had to have a title page explaining things, and probably a page of rules for prospective drawers. Thus this cartoon. Unfortunately this is my first Moleskine, and I didn’t realize the paper would allow the ink to bleed so badly, which is discouraging. But I persevere! Assuming I convince anybody to contribute, I’ll post them here as I get them. Wish me luck!

You may find a reference to all of the pages in this little project right here.