More diary comics! You can read all the comics since January 1 right over here on my Flickr. Tomorrow is HOURLY COMICS DAY, so I’m trying to catch up my scanning for the wild 16 or so panels I will whip up for tomorrow. STRAP ON YOUR BOOGIE SHOES FOR EXCITEMENTZZZZ

There was another great quote from this night at the bar, where Jason and I were talking about the deleted scenes from Titanic where there are actually black characters. Y’know, sweeping up, serving drinks, snapping their fingers whenever the band plays ragtime. NOTE: fictional, guys, fictional.

You can read all the comics since January 1 right over here on my Flickr.

I recently finished up my Moleskine sketchbook, filling up the last page–pretty sure that’s the first time I ever actually used a whole sketchbook up. Whatever part of my brain that’s tricked itself into aspiring to OCD loves this, and has convinced me that I should post all those sketchbook pages, here on the “Internet.” So I am. I love my OCD brain; I do whatever it thinks is best generally.

I think I’m going to put them up 3 at a time, in this ever-expanding Flickr set. There’s 105 or so total pages, a little less than half of which are already up there, so it’ll take awhile. I’m basically filling in holes, so it won’t make much sense probably. Haw! Sucks for you!

The drawings aren’t always particularly good–or even interesting–but I feel like there’s something going on in this sketchbook. It basically takes up the last two years or so, which is when I really got serious about cartooning, started doing a weekly strip, etc. Plus on a personal note, there’s a quasi-diary hidden in there, or at least there is to me, who actually drew or wrote or scribbled all the stuff in here.

Hope you enjoy it! Feel free to NOT comment on any personal stuff you see; while I enjoy occasionally exposing myself like this, I don’t particularly enjoy discussing it. I know I know, it’s crazy.

New group of diary comics, just little moments throughout the day. All done without any real planning or pencilling or anything (as if you couldn’t tell already). You can read all of them since January 1, 2010 in the Flickr set.

A week late, sure, but here it is! This strip is an adaptation of a joke I heard around 10-15 years ago, possibly from an old girlfriend, but I can’t remember. Since then I have told it over and over and OVER again, paring it down over the years to what I think of as its essential elements:

Turtle gets mugged by a gang of snails: gets beat up pretty bad.
Cops show up; they say, “Mr Turtle, Mr Turtle, can you tell us anything about your attackers?”
Turtle thinks. He says, “I don’t know, it all happened so fast!”

I added some stuff for the comic version, but I think it really fits naturally into a one-page strip format. I think I’d like to do some more jokes, but I don’t know many. I’m open to suggestions! Although they need to be super simple guys, SUPER SIMPLE. Some of the replies I got for my “Ask Professor Cuckoo” post were pretty existential, or at least not the sort of things I could make into effective comics.

Okay! The real reason this strip is a week late is because of a different strip I’ve been slowly sloooooowly coloring, but it’s 8 pages! So I’ll post that in the next few days, more or less returning me to schedule. Phew!

Hey guys! I will be a guest at this Saturday’s Charlotte Minicon, which will occur literally almost within sight of my house. I have been stressing lately about the various travel costs I’ll have to wrestle with to do the other cons I’m planning (TCAF, SPX, maybe Stumptown, APE), so having one I can wheel a little dolly to is pretty convenient. I mean, real luxury at a con is being able to walk home to use the bathroom if you need to.

ANYWAY. The show happens this Saturday from 11 to 5 pm, at The Palmer Building at Fireman’s Hall. I know that sounds confusing, but for you Charlotte residents it’s what used to be the fireman training facility at the corner of 7th Street and 5th Street, practically across the street from Lupie’s. The address is 2601 E. 7th St, Charlotte NC, 28204, so Google that shizz if you dare!

While I am gainfully employed by Heroes Aren’t Hard To Find (we put on the Minicon), this is the first time I’ve ever set up at a Heroes event as a cartoonist, so I’m kinda excited. I would be even more excited to see you guys come out and say hello. I’ll be selling stuff, comics, t-shirts, originals, all that. Even most excited to take your money, I assure you.

Also excited to see you will be my pards J. Chris Campbell and Rich Barrett, who I’ll be sitting somewhere near. Plus there are a bunch of other local superhero dudes, plus South American Francesco Francavilla, who is exactly as entertaining as his name sounds. Tons of info right here!

ALSO, for those of you wondering why my strip is late this week, I am working on it! I am coloring my 8-page strip from J. Chris’s Ancient Age book last year, and it is taking way longer than I thought (why is that always a surprise?). But: soon. For now, you can read it for free!

Ask Professor Cuckoo! Go on, ask him!

In gearing up to begin a long memoir project, I need to knock out some quick strips in the meantime to stick to my weekly schedule but have the time to do all the planning and so forth involved in the memoir stuff. Not to mention to get ahead of schedule for once, rather than behind, behind, always behind.

TO THAT END: I want to do a series of strips called “ASK PROFESSOR CUCKOO!”, where readers send in questions and, well, he answers them. Any kind of question is fine, if it can be answered in a humourous, even absurd way by a fictional cartoon construct. Within the space of a single page of comics.

Personal problems? ASK PROFESSOR CUCKOO! Embarassing rash? Smelly discharge? ASK PROFESSOR CUCKOO! Love advice? Legal concerns? Questions of deep spiritual significance? ASK PROFESSOR CUCKOO!

If you have a question you’d like to ASK PROFESSOR CUCKOO!, stick it in the comments section below. If I use your question, I’ll credit you in the strip, and will also sell you the original if you want it. What a deal! I will also sell you the original even if you had nothing to do with it. I’m like the Statue of Liberty for questions and money with this thing.

Okay! You know what to do: ASK PROFESSOR CUCKOO!

This week’s strip is an adaptation of an Ezra Pound poem, “Salutation,” one of my faves by him. And one of the few not choked with Greek and Latin and French–come on Ezra, speak English. Us fisherman aren’t that well educated.

John Campbell of Pictures For Sad Children fame came up with this sweet idea a few years ago to spend the month of January making “hourly comics.” Basically you make a little quick comic for each hour you’re awake, picking one moment per hour to give a little incremental picture of your day. Not to mention a great little comics-making exercise. John posts his really pretty great ones at his The Hourly Comic site.

Well, I can’t do hourly, and most of my day is spent alone at a drawing board or alone at a computer, so. BUT I have been doing them when the mood strikes, on average a few a day. Good practice trying to simplify my style, get better at choosing the right line the FIRST time instead of trying to “fix” things later with a bunch of detail and silly hatching.

As a journaling tool it’s not the best, but not the worst either. The biggest challenge is coming up (quickly) with some sort of layout and sensible composition of words and pictures, without pencil! I hate all these drawings (sort of), but I’m loving all the lessons I’m getting out of them.

Check out my little guys right here.

My friend Anida, from last night’s SKETCH CLUB. She’s been posing for a big portrait by Dylan for a few weeks, and I’ve been taking advantage of her kind stillness to take a little crack myself. KIDS: I’m an adult though, and am careful to only use crack in moderation. When you grow up big and strong like me, you can have your own drawing club and smoke crack and everything, just like a big man.

The end of life can be a tricky time for all of us. Our bodies start to break down, the cowardly vultures begin to roost all around, and apparently there are flies all over us. I’m just guessing about all this; that’s how this week’s strip makes it seem, and I believe everything I read on the Internet.