DHARBIN!

Check that out! I embedded one of my own strips in a blog post! Phillip Duncan of Superheroes-R-Us.com has been souping up my website big-time. He’s not quite done, although he’s most of the way there–not only does everything look super spiffy, but he’s put in all these great little widgets to help spread my comic around different places. I used his little awesome popup “Click here to share..” code to embed the comic above, but there’s also links to Reddit, Stumbleupon, Facebook, and some others. Phillip’s pretty great to work with, and I highly recommend him to anyone who’s looking to hire someone to help with their website, especially if it has anything to do with CSS or Wordpress or advanced coding or any of that stuff I’m terrible at.

I posted one of my strips to Reddit yesterday and got insane traffic right away, which is really really encouraging. I would like to end 2010 with my status as a cartoonist cemented–I’m pretty poor, so I need to start earning money from selling stuff, and to do that I need AUDIENCE. And to get that, I probably need to improve my strip, but listen that’s on me, you can’t help with that. However there are still some rubes other people who might like it out there in the world, who need us to alert them to me.

If in your wanderings online you find yourself in a position to help pimp my strip a little bit, I’d be most appreciative. You can embed them like I did (I even changed the pixel dimensions, just cos I felt like it), or link to them, or “Like” them, or whatever you like. No biggie, but every little bit helps! Even just chucking a link in your blogroll or whatever is great–these things add up over time. Together we will become famous! (You by extension)

Oh yes ma’ams and sirs! The SPX 2010 programming slate is up on their site, and lo and behold I’m moderating a panel with Kate Beaton and Julia Wertz. Let me rephrase that, I’m moderating a panel on the two of them, with them–meaning the one thing the panel isn’t about is me. *reminds self forcefully* So with luck I’ll be able to evade my usual penchant (that’s French) for talking over everybody. How gauche.

Kate Beaton and Julia Wertz in Conversation
1:30 | White Flint Amphitheater
Two of the most popular and entertaining cartoonists of their generation, Kate Beaton and Julia Wertz have both attracted dedicated audiences online with their uniquely humorous comics. This special conversation moderated by Dustin Harbin will investigate the similarities and differences between the creators of Hark, A Vagrant! and The Fart Party.

“Investigate” eh? To that end: I would love to hear your ideas for questions to either or both of these awesome ladies. I don’t mean in a “the next question comes from Silas M. of Poughkeepsie..” kinda way, but what do you think we should talk about? Whenever I would moderate a panel at HeroesCon, I’d always wing it cos I never had any time to prepare–so for this one, I’m going to actually prepare and see how that works. Should be pretty easy though–I love both of these ladies and am a fan of their work(s), as I’m sure you are too. If not, then you should check out Kate and Julia’s sites tout de suite!

Last night I was getting all my supplies together to start mailing out the rewards for my Kickstarter thingie back in April, when I realized that instead of needing to do four more to be done, I had four extra! Which gives me the luxury of dumping the four ugliest ones. I would feel bad about being so late, but on the other hand the drawings are pretty good, they’re all sort of different and ALL really strange, I’m not sure what’s wrong in my head but it’s wrong in a good way. Maybe.

Anyway! Here are a few of my favorites. You can see all of them right here, my friends. I hope you like them! Thanks EVER-SO much to everyone who helped with this project, so amazing you guys! I can’t explain how valuable that has been to me, not only as economical development for my nascent career, but just psychological development–it’s amazing to get real, palpable support for what you’re doing, especially something as idiosyncratic as what I do. The next time you hear someone pooping on Kickstarter, remember that it can have real benefits for artists, and that’s an immensely valuable thing.

I love Milton Glaser. L.O.V.E. I’m not a huge fan of his work over the last 20 years or so, from an aesthetic point of view, but that’s subjective, and I’m uneducated. But his ideas, his approach, those things I love unabashedly and without reservation.

I first discovered Glaser–who is literally one of the most famous designers of all time, to give you an idea of how out of the loop I am, to be talking about “discovering” him–in The Push Pin Graphic, a book by his former studiomate Seymour Chwast, who is quite famous himself. I just went to look the book up on Amazon, and whoa, apparently it’s not only out of print but worth some money. Sucks for you, suckers!

Anyway, Glaser is pretty amazing, and a guy who has mastered most kinds of drawing/painting/printmaking on his way to where he is. It’s fascinating to hear him talk about doing things on the computer, knowing he’s someone who used to mix ink on the printer rollers themselves to get effects. I’d say more but I just remembered that I already wrote about all this years ago, back when I did this swipe of some of my favorite drawings from a series of fake ads in the Pushpin Graphic:

Thanks to Dylan Chorneau for putting me onto that video. Dylan is my official TED watcher, he always alerts me to anything interesting via TED. Which is easy, since it’s all pretty interesting.

DIARY COMICS #1 is at the printers right now! Oo-wee, I’m excited! Here are the deets:

The book is being published by KOYAMA PRESS, which is run by Anne Koyama, who is so amazing it almost hurts to not add three more “amazings” after the first. What a lady!

The book is 48 pages, b&w with color covers and endpapers. The little box in the image above is a die-cut window opening onto the first color page. I have to say that, at least on my computer screen, it looks great. I don’t think I’ve ever done something I’m more proud of.

The book will cost you and you and you six dollars, both in the United States and lovely Canada. It’ll debut at SPX, September 11-12, and afterwards will be available through this site and from Anne. For you Canadians, I suggest you order it from Anne, which means the shipping will be easier and cheaper. Americans can get it from me.

The book includes the first six months of my daily diary strip, from January 1 to June 30, as well as this color introductory strip, colored by Maré Odomo.

NOW that I’m done with nearly a full week of working til 5 in the morning every night to get this book and Casanova #3 done, I will be focusing on finishing my Kickstarter rewards and getting them in the mail. Then, actually making some new comics and working on commissions! Let the summer end, and the fall begin!

Charlie Chu took a bunch of fancy pictures of my Enquirer Dharbin, holy crap it looks way better here than it does in real life, I’m pretty sure:

So good. You can see the rest of his stud photos here.

I thought I’d take this opportunity to let those of you who helped with my Kickstarter know that I’m about halfway done with the rewards, and will hopefully be all the way done by the end of next week, and then I’ll stick them all in the mail. I’ll probably stick some extra surprises in here or there, as I see fit (and as I have surprises to give).

I would have been done already, but I’m crunching on finishing Casanova #3 up (lettering-wise), and doing the covers and layout for DIARY COMICS #1, which Awesome Annie Koyama (Press) is publishing next month for SPX. Did I never mention that? I think I mentioned that. Anyway, consider that mentioned.

The sketches look pretty great, so you’ll be happy with those I think. And, if Charlie’s photos are to be trusted, the paper’s not too shabby either!

OH BUT HEY–I’m not sure if anyone reads this blog anymore, I was so delinquent about updating it around HeroesCon and before, but–if you’re on Facebook I’d really appreciate it if you “fanned’ me. J. Chris Campbell bet me I couldn’t get 1000 people to “like” my Facebook page by the end of the year, but I can’t proselytize it on Twitter or Facebook itself. What a jerk! A sweet jerk though. Like jerk chicken.

When I was in high school, me and my friend Ed would hang out in the Union County Public Library and smoke cigarettes. You could smoke in there, there were these big spittoon-looking floor ashtrays all over the place. I know, it’s crazy. Imagine going to the library to escape your parents and smoke cigarettes in peace, but that’s the kind of kids we were. Super boring kids.

Anyway. One time I remember having nothing to read and no idea of what to look for, and I just went browsing around the library seeing what popped out. What popped out was a copy of Carl Sandburg’s posthumously published collection Breathing Tokens, and the first poem in it exploded my brain. I don’t think there’s a piece of writing I’ve thought about more in the last 20 years–I’ve copied it into notebook after notebook, I’ve shared it with people over and over again. It’s like my Bible in a way. It’s a poem about possibility and self-creation and the ability of each person to manufacture or deny destinies.

What’s weirdest about it is how I came across it, utterly by random in the Union County Public Library, packing my Newports against my palm loudly enough so everyone could tell that I was the sort of person who really knew how to smoke. Breathing Tokens was out of print for years and years–you couldn’t buy the book if you wanted it. And as it turns out, the reason the poems were never published during Sandburg’s life is that he didn’t particularly like them in the first place.

Is it destiny? Is it luck? Who cares? But I’m glad that dumb kid packing his Newports in the public library found the book, for whatever reason. “Your personal doorways know your shadows / and number the times you enter, exit, enter / so often having no lines to say / though you are actor and audience to yourself.”

You can check ou the Amazon listing here–I couldn’t find the poem somewhere else online.

Hey all y’alls! A couple of quick things this morning. First and foremost, today is the day that Scott Pilgrim Volume 6 comes out, and tonight I’m going to see Inception, and in between I’ll make comics and fix my site and letter other comics and do some illo work. So lots of new media today, I just thought you’d like to know about all the media that’s happening. I will probably clean my kitchen and fold laundry too.

Less importantly, I started one of those Facebook fan pages this week. I’m trying to separate my public life and personal life a little bit, at least in terms of how many pictures of me with whiskey splashed over my face are available to the general public. I sent out one of those annoying “blah-blah-blah suggests you become a fan of” things that Facebook does, along with the promise that I’d never do it again. I mean, I hate that crap, honestly, but you have to let people know JUST ONCE.

Out of the resulting smack talk that ensued, my good friend and comics bro J. Chris Campbell bet me I couldn’t hit 1000 “fans” on Facebook by the end of the year, without once directly soliciting fans on Facebook or Twitter. From what I understand, I can allude to the existence of the page, post content there, link to it, whatever, I just can’t do any “hey you should LIKE me, please LIKE me” stuff in either of those two places.

If I win, J. Chris is going to redesign the Wide Awake Press website for a week so the home page is a big DHARBIN IS GREAT tribute. If he wins, I’m going to do a special comic about how awesome he is (he is, too, it’ll be EASY) and put it up, give him the original, etc.

Do you know where it’s okay for me to directly solicit “fans”? RIGHT HERE! Although don’t worry, I won’t push it here that much either. But this first time, yes. If you like my comics and are on Facebook, “like“ing my page won’t noticeably improve your life, but it won’t hurt it either–I don’t really send anything out. I think when I do con appearances I’ll probably send invites to that, but that’s like 3 or 4 times a year or something. So you should be spam-safe from me.

I also added the last four spreads from my last sketchbook to the Flickr set devoted to that stuff, if you’re into that. 109 pages! Took me 2 years to fill it up, but that was a good sketchbook, I improved a lot. Hopefully my current sketchbook will improve much faster though–I’m not getting any younger, America. I was born way back in 1974, the same year that James Brown invented rap music/tiny female versions of self dancing on stage:

Good afternoon, yo, good afternoon! A couple of quick news bits for you, if you consider something I would say as news. I barely do myself, but I see here on my list of THINGS TO DO today that I need to “blog.” You can’t argue with your list, you can only comply, comply, comply.

NEWS BIT #1: If you were kind enough to donate to my Kickstarter way back in April or whenever, I am currently working on the sketches that donaters of a certain level were promised. I’m sort of on schedule with this, as I said something along the lines of “there’s no way I’ll be done shipping those things until the end of July.” In reality, maybe a little longer, we’ll see. Now that I don’t have a day job, I have to hunt money, and that means freelance work, and that means I have to be ready to turn jobs around real quick. Oh, what’s that? You’d like to hire me to do just that? Why heavens, that sounds delightful, why not drop me an email with more info?

BUT. Like I was saying, I’m working on these guys now. I’ve done 8 of the 28 or so I have on my list, and I’ll probably mail them all at once when I’m done, unless someone needs them earlier. Just let me know, I’m happy to prioritize if need be. I’ve included images for 3 of them with this very blog post. You’re welcome!

NEWS BIT #2: If you’re not on Facebook, feel free to skip ahead to NEWS BIT #3. This week I set up one of those annoying Facebook “Fan” pages for myself, in the interest of trimming back the 1000+ friends I’ve accrued over the last year or two. You would not BELIEVE the bizarre number of events and groups and Farmville crap I get invited to. Super annoying. Plus, frankly, seeing a bunch of pictures of me drunk somewhere is not going to help you in any event.

So, if you’re on Facebook, I invite you heartily to LIKE that page. I promise not to send out huge mass emails or constant updatey things or whatever. I would never do that to you! What we share, it’s … it’s special. Not special enough for my “personal” Facebook, mind you…

NEWS BIT #3: Did you know that a woman is born with all the eggs she’ll ever have? Crazy! I had this confirmed for me this week. So to all you ladies: be careful with those things okay? You’re welcome again!

Hey guys how you doing? A quick update before I have to go to kung fu in like two seconds. Did you know I take kung fu?? It’s true I do, so be careful if you’re thinking about stepping to me. Because I will totally kameha-meha you. Don’t believe me?

I put up some more pages from my last sketchbook; these are near the end, from around October/November of 2009. To give you an idea of how long it takes me to fill up a page, I’m only on page 12 or 13 of my current sketchbook, which I’ve been using for over 6 months. Hmm.

Oh, and speaking of the little “I Love Him” Dharbins above, you can see me wearing the shirt they were for in part 3 of this interview with Brian Heater of the Daily Crosshatch. My beard is WILIN in that photo, too! Brian is a cool dude and a friend, and it was fun to get interviewed by him. Although somehow in the transcription process he’s got me down as saying that the hotel parties we had at SPX last year were “obnoxious.” Which is not true, they were awesome. But in general I think hotel parties are obnoxious and usually avoid them carefully–that’s the point I wanted to make. English is hard.

Okay guys wish me luck at kung fu–I gotta keep this body of mine in good shape if I’m going to keep loving him. I’m super picky.