I am trying not to complain out loud about these little sketchbook strips lately–I mean, these strips are pretty much the only thing I am doing lately besides working on conventioneering.  And using the bathroom.  So they’re a little rough out of necessity.  Also, I am digging the necessity to kind of rush them, which makes me concentrate less on the fussiness and more on what’s happening.  Not that that has made these any better, but I feel like it’s important to keep slogging away.  I definitely think that future “finished” strips will be stronger because of it.  I mean, as of this writing, I’ve been doing a weekly strip for all of… six months?  So I am fortunate in knowing that I will only get better, which not everyone is fortunate enough to know.

But also it’s interesting to see the effect of drawing small and blowing it up, rather than the reverse, which is normally the case.  For instance, I already work pretty small, at around 8″ x 10″, basically 125% of my print size of 6″ x 7.5″.  This is mainly because I letter better when it’s smaller, and also because I will OCD a bajillion little marks onto whatever, which is crippling when you work bigger. 

But these little sketchbook strips are just 4″ x 5″–125% SMALLER than they would print in a typical issue of DHARBIN! (#2 is available, I’ve just been too busy to talk about it.  Hit me with an e-mail if you want to buy one for $5).  Which is weird, right?  But check this out:

This drawing is maybe an inch high in my sketchbook, but if I scan it at a super-high res and blow it up, who’s to know?  And it took maybe all of 5 minutes to draw and color, and that was with most likely a ton of nose-picking thrown in.  If I were to draw it larger, I would fuss all day with the brush strokes and trying to make it look natural and all that, but by doing it small and quick, it probably looks 500% better.  This is something I need to work on more–if I could get good at doing tiny fast comics that looked good blown up, I would have finally found an acceptable workaround to my a) obsessiveness, and b) boredom.  I could be wrong, but I bet these two things plague a ton of cartoonists.  You can click on that image above to see it bigger.

Oh wait what were we talking about?  Oh yeah, a new strip.  Okay time for bed!

Just two days late (my first late strip since I started weeklies in December!), I have put up my strip for the week. I would say something wry, clever, or self-deprecating about it, but I have too much other work to do. I will do my best to write the last part of my WAY overdue TCAF report tonight, and will be sure to pack a double portion of wry self-deprecation into there, so you don’t feel slighted. But for now, enjoy this little mamba-jamba.

Okay I can’t talk long because I’m swamped under a bunch of HeroesCon work for oh… the next month or so. I’ll write the last part of my long long long TCAF report tonight before bed, but in the meantime please enjoy the last of my Canada-related “One Crazy Summer” strips. Special thanks to chums Kristin Garber and Ken Shaw for the assists on the French dialogue. They = the best!

Okay so where did I leave off yesterday? Oh that’s right. So I think I sold my first copy of DHARBIN! #2 around noon or so, which made me feel less emasculated. Everyone kept asking about Joe Lambert’s comics! I mean, sure, they’re brilliant and amazing and everything, but color is so EASY, right? Black and white is HARDER, right? Right??

Anyway, at noon-thirty I went off about twenty feet or so to be on my first ever non-HeroesCon panel. The subject was… well I’m not sure to tell you the truth. Originally it was sold to me as tracking the kind of “out” throughline from Jack Kirby to Bronze Age dudes up to today’s alternative cartoonists, but it kept changing. Regardless, and as I told anyone who would listen: I don’t know anything about that stuff and really had no place on the panel. The panel was moderated by Robin McConnell of the Inkstuds podcast, and my fellow panelists were (pictured above from left) Dash Shaw, Frank Santoro, and Robert Dayton.

I’m a big fan of Dash’s comics, and Frank Santoro is a straight-up smart dude in whatever he does (and I’m sure Robert’s great too, but I’d never met him). And Robin’s super nice. But this panel was a mess. Frank just started out talking about how wild Kirby comics were, and then some Steranko, and then everyone seemed to agree that Mazzucchelli ripped Toth off (maybe, who knows). I could never really tell what the point of anything was, and the one or two times I opened my mouth I said I thought most 70’s Kirby stories were terribly written and just lame stories, unless you were high. Whoa! That ended up being the controversy of the evening for me, although a pleasant one in the end. But I had a good time either way–I like all these guys, and who cares if the 70’s Jack Kirby comics have crappy stories? They still look great.

I came out of the panel and found TCAF packed with peeps, so I spent most of the afternoon doing so-so sales. Not TCAF’s fault–let’s face it, no one knows who I am. Especially in Canada. But I’m coming for you, new readers: one by one I will convince you all. Anyway, it was crowded and I sold some books and bought a bunch more. I never think of as cartooning as a money-making thing–until I do something “serious”, like a book that will stay in print and I can earn royalties from, I probably won’t–which makes it easy to relax and not worry too much about sales. As far as I’m concerned, everything at this point is practice. I made a lot of mistakes before and during TCAF, but I have been studiously jotting them down–by SPX I will be superhuman.

Where was I? Okay so after the show closed for the day we did one of my favorite things you can do in Toronto–just walked down the street and picked a place out and ate there. There are restaurants and brewhouses and teeny eateries all over the place, and they all seem to have fascinating food on the menu. I don’t think a single time during the weekend did anyone have a clear idea of where we were going, but we always found something delicious.

In the middle of dinner, who happened by but Chris Pitzer, leading Josh Cotter, Tom Scioli, Jim Rugg, and a person I’d never met who might be named Bill.  I hope so–Bill’s a good name.  [UPDATE: It's "Dave." Still not a bad name.] Anyway, we shamed them into sitting with us and tipped back more delicious beers–that’s when I made the mistake of bringing up my earlier Kirby comments.  Jim had been at the panel, and had made some points I liked, so I brought it up.  But whoa! I think I accidentally offended Tom, who is a cool dude and a big Kirby guy.  Does any of this make sense?  Hopefully we smoothed it over later, because I like Tom and he definitely knows what he’s talking about. 

And I LOVE Jim Rugg.  He’s got a big brain and an interesting take on things, and I always love to hear the direction he comes from.  He also made me blush all the way to my toes after dinner, when walking down the street he told me, “Whatever it is you think you’re practicing or getting ready for, you’re there and it’s time to start taking yourself seriously.”  That’s actually a pretty liberal paraphrase, probably halfway between what he said and what I wanted to hear, but I loved it.  I am hoping that later in life, when I am filthy rich, I will point back to this moment (in the very few interviews I’ll grant) as the turning point between being an aspiring cartoonist and just being a regular old cartoonist.  Thanks Jim Rugg you RIP!

I wasn’t sure what picture from my Flickr set to use next, but I have to give it up at this point to Naseem Hrab possibly my new favorite Torontonian. After dinner we ended up at Chip Zdarsky’s party at a bar called Pilot, where pretty much everyone was. I met people I’d loved for ages like Jay Stephens, but then we started talking to some girls and that was it for chatting with cartoonists. I think Jay would understand. The girls were led by the lovely Naseem, mightly lady-love of also-mighty Kean Soo, and they invited us to some Korean-style karaoke. Wow did this night just get perfect or what?! So off we went, and in a trice ended up in a giant room crammed with people singing karaoke. Man that was so much fun.

The discovery of the night was Derek Kirk Kim, who is a total karaoke stud. This is speaking as a karaoke stud, mind you–the dude has moves. In fact, pretty much everyone did–the song choices were uncommonly terrible, and the mikes moved freely around the room, with people collaborating when they weren’t sure. I did the “Ghostbusters” theme with someone, then “Lust For Life” with Kean, and later on me and Scott C. NAILED “Sister Christian,” which was probably the highlight of the night for me.

The great thing about hanging with Scott is that he’s like the most fun, positive dude in the world. The bad thing is that all the women in the world want to talk to him–he’s like delicious heroin to them or something. But he’s so loveable–how can you get mad at a guy like that? Also kudos to poor Joe Lambert, who was pretty tired but who we kept dragging along: “I think we can make last call at this place if we hurry–that’s okay, right Joe?”

Speaking of last call, I’m sleepy. Tomorrow the last installment, including my first ever original art sale, more night-time fun-times, trauma at the airport, and more! Excelsior!

See a ton of pictures in my Flickr set, with way less words!

Well Good Gravy, after all my excitement and lack of sleep getting ready for it, TCAF is not only been and gone, but two days gone–heckfire, it’s already Wednesday! As you can see in the photo above (which I swiped from my man Chris Pitzer’s Flickr stream), I came to Toronto ready to conquer it. But in the end, it was I who was slain by sweet Toronto. All my villages were razed; even unto the foundations thereof.

But I will get to the coolness of Toronto in due course, make no mistake. Let us begin at the start of the beginning:

Barely in time for TCAF (the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, for those of you who don’t know [hi Mom!]), I finished stapling and folding 120 copies of DHARBIN! #2, the second iteration of my heavily self-referential minicomic. Unlike the first one, this one is good, so you can imagine my excitement in traveling to Canada armed with a book I was actually proud of. Just with the time I saved apologizing to each and every person who bought one, I could be halfway through drawing #3, but instead I spent all that time just relaxing and having fun. OOP–It’s time for the LOST finale. I’ll be back in a little bit.

WHOA! That was some season finale. WHOA! Okay so anyway.

I’ve been to Toronto a couple of times, and both times were AWESOME! But I think this time was the awesomest of them all. What is it about this city? I suspect that I spent all my time in fancy regions of town or something–the idea that all of Toronto is as cool as the parts I was in is mind-melting. I love my home city of Charlotte, but Toronto is like the clean friendly smallishness of Charlotte, except with a ton of culture and stuff to do like New York City. And even better, a ton of people from all sorts of ethnic backgrounds. A TON. I kept preventing myself from commenting on it; I’m always accidentally backing into racially charged conversations, OR just outright making fun of something like a jackass and then bending over backwards to apologize. TO AN ENTIRE NATION.

So I was psyched. But on the plane out of Charlotte I went into such a paroxysm of fear upon takeoff that I was exhausted by the time we got to NYC. But then running into Adrian Tomine–who immediately distanced himself–in LaGuardia, followed by Paul Pope and Jimmy Aquino, all of whom were on my flight, made me straighten up and act manly.

Once into town I immediately forgot all about meeting Pitzer to catch the shuttle bus, and caught it all by myself. Fortunately we somehow bumped into each other on the streets of Toronto while both hunting the Toronto Reference Library–both of us like to get our bearings before we get too adventurey. We had lunch at some Italian place, where we struck up an incredible conversation with two older ladies, both Toronto residents, although one was a native Kiwi (“not New Zealander,” she told me) and the other British. We pretty much talked to them for two solid hours, and it was a great relaxed re-intro to the city for us. THEY WERE SO NICE! I wish I could meet them in every city I travel to.

Good God I’m going into too much detail here. It’s still Friday afternoon. I’ll try to speed it up.

After meeting up at The Beguiling, which is about a well-stocked store as you could hope for if you’re into comics, although their superhero section looked kinda anemic. I say “looked”–I didn’t really. Superhero comics are not my bag either, Beguiling! Oh crap I wrote that first sentence all wrong. Man that LOST finale was so good it’s addled my grammar. At any rate, after dinner we met Pope and Jimmy and Mike Dawson and Awesome Marcus Ninja writer and artist Joel Buxton and Shane Heron and had some brewskis down the street. I have to say that one of the only low points of the weekend was not getting to see Paul more–this was really the only time we got to hang out. Oh wait there was a party. But we never got to really get down like in the old days. Plenty of time on the next go-round, but I like that dude.

But who I DID get to spend a lot of time with was Scott Campbell, who me and Mike met up with and headed over to a party at Ryan North’s house with. L’party (that’s how they say party in Canada) was pretty chill, and Ryan’s house is perfect. I met a ton of people there, including Kate Beaton, who I struggled to not embarass myself in front of all weekend, and Chip Zdarsky, who I’m pretty sure I didn’t embarass myself in front of. Oh! And also Roberta Carraro, which was a real blast from the past–not only a blast, but she and Chip were married? ZAP! Color me mystified!  ***NOTE: while hunting the link for Ryan North, I read my first ever (maybe) Dinosaur Comic.  And I LOL-ed!

Okay but let’s get to the convention already. But should I call it a convention? What’s the difference? I’m not sure, but let’s say “festival” instead, which is I think how organizer Christopher Butcher would prefer it. Regardless of what you call it:

What are you kidding me? Totally packed. The Toronto Reference Library is the coolest library of all time, five floors wrapped around a big courtyardy-atriumy thing. Plus I kept imagining Knives Chau and Ramona Flowers jumping around in a great big battle above the convention festival. I had the best seat in the place too–with Scott Campbell and Graham Annable on one side, and Joe Lambert, Chuck McBuck, and Alexis Frederick-Frost on the other; plus a little Alec Longstreth/Greg Means for dessert. AND a little scenic pool behind us, complete with babbling brook sound effects! I’m pretty sure that’s the difference between a convention and a festival. Vive La Difference!

One thing TCAF did NOT have going for it was people wanting to give me money, at least not on the first day. The show opened at ten, but I don’t think I sold my first book until after noon. Although I did give a lot away to buddies I knew or people whose work I just plain loved. I told myself I would be really tough and make everyone pay, but when they pulled their money out I just couldn’t take it. Ray Fenwick walked up and I practically threw one at him–I love that dude. He actually put me at ease in a weird way–I have a hard time meeting people whose stuff I like sometimes, but he started talking so much smack that I was like “okay I know how to do this” and relaxed and smacked back. I was so relieved too–I’m not very good at these quick con interactions, despite my work and kind of ridiculous exposure to bigtime comics types.

Oh man it’s almost midnight. Okay I’d better wrap up this first part. Tomorrow: panel with Frank Santoro, macking on pretty girls, and wild karaoke!  See all the pictures over in my Flickr set!

Okay my peoples: I still have packing and fretting to do, but for some reason I decided to finish and post this new strip today instead of Monday. I have to go to bed, so check out these bullet points, which are all mandatory but still very fun:

BULLET POINT: I leave tomorrow for this year’s Toronto Comic Arts Festival, where I will be tabling with my chums Joe Lambert, Chuck McBuck, and Alexis Frederick-Frost. They all have little linkies in the list of chums at right.  Wait, does Alexis?  He is a newer chum.  Anyway.  I will also be cold-kicking it in the evening times with a bunch of other chums, who I just decided not to name because that might be name dropping.

BULLET POINT: I have just installed a little widget on the sidebar at right which is all hooked into my Twitter stream. This means that every time I post something to Twitter, it will magically appear to the right in that little streamy widget. I would try to think of clever things to say instead of “Twitter” or “tweet,” but I’m too sleepy and that’s boring anyway. Anyway:

BULLET POINT: Daringly combining the first and second BULLET POINTs, I will be tweeting all weekend from TCAF, including during partying at night, and I will totally be namedropping then.

BULLET POINT:  Also at TCAF I will be premiering DHARBIN! #2, which will be available for sale here once I get back.  I also have pretty much all my original art, and anything else I could find that I might somehow translate into Canadian money.  If this plane crashes, all evidence of my artistic output will disappear!  Save my memory, Internet!

BULLET POINT: Did I mention I just posted a new strip?

BULLET POINT: I hope everyone has a great weekend. Think of me during my flying times (Friday and Monday), as I’m so terrified of flying that I literally make my peace with death each time a plane I’m in somehow launches itself into space and floats off, all hundred tons of it, defying all sense.

I won’t belabor the explanation of this strip too far, as the explanation is the subject of said strip, and that would just be a straight-up waste of time. But to sum up, for the next couple of months I’ll be following the progress of a hugely busy summer for me, one already in progress. I don’t want to have to drop my weekly strip in the process, though it is often an albatross around my neck, and of marginal at best quality at that. But it’s primo practice in terms of planning and executing cartoons, so it’s likely a friendly, curmudgeonly albatross.

In other news, Saturday was Free Comic Book Day at my work, and good gravy it was crazy. The very kind Neil Lambiotte Bramlette, follower of this blog/strip and a first-class supporter and cheerleader for struggling cartoonists, asked me to do a sketch for him. I was so flattered that I sold Neil a copy of the brand-new, not-available-yet, DHARBIN! #2, which I happened to have in my car. See how that worked? Neil flatters me, and in thanks I sell him something? That’s what makes me so great.

Oh but that reminds me: DHARBIN! #2 is done, printed, folded and stapled, and will be available for sale upon my return from TCAF next week.  This is presuming my plane doesn’t crash into the sea: my fear of flying is EPIC, and demands I drink 2 doubles in the airport bar before even thinking about boarding.  We’ll have to see how that works with a 7am flight.  My guess is it will be great.

Okay: more about that soon.  Also, I’ve been terrible about returning e-mails lately, and SOMEONE asked me to sell them a DHARBIN! #1, like a month ago, and I never did and now can’t find that e-mail.  If you are within the sound of my internet voice, mysterious and hopefully patient gentleman, please hit me up again and I will leap upon it and take your money. 

To review: NEW STRIP!

Today is Free Comic Book Day, and to celebrate, I stayed out super late last night at a Rolling Stones tribute I barely watched any of. EXCELLENT PLAN, DHARBIN! So, as I type this before going into work for the enormous Free Comic Book Day jamboree at Heroes Aren’t Hard To Find, I am looking and feeling my best.

BUT! There is a silver lining: today “The Ancient Age” is available for free from Wide Awake Press. It’s something like a NINETY-PAGE comics anthology, with a pretty dizzying level of quality. J. Chris Campbell has really outdone himself with this one, and I am ever-so proud to have been included. I have an 8-page story set in Ancient Rome called “The Under-Achiever,” but it’s kinda hard to read at the size it displays at on the site. Soon I think a downloadable .pdf will be available, so you can zoom in to your heart’s content. And I even think J. Chris is going to do a print version at some point, so you can then OWN IT! Regardless of the size of my story, the rest of the book is insanely good anyway, so go enjoy yourself. I’ve only flipped through it as I try to drink this coffee without throwing it up everywhere, but so far the Corinne Mucha and Pat Lewis stories are especially delicious-seeming. Pat Lewis is a drawing machine.

Okay! Off to work and Free Comic Book Day!