A Hidden Little Door

Happy Tubesgiving

2011-11-18T22:31:00.001-08:00

Let it be said that I was the first. That way if this thing ever goes "viral", all hands will point to me! ME! I realized the other day that there are some things on the internet I've loved so much that I can't imagine not having experienced them. These things are the blood and sweat and tears of people who sometimes make it but often don't. And since the internet is what it is, let's celebrate these tubes by giving thanks. So what are you thankful for?

The more specific the better (i.e. a certain YouTube channel instead of YouTube itself); it really has to be something that belongs on the internet (i.e. Amazon, not bestbuy.com); and the number I'm shooting for is five.

Allow me the honor, friends, of the first Tubesgiving celebration.

Homestar Runner

Oh how I miss those Monday mornings when I would traipse down to the computer lab and watch the newest Strong Bad email. Sure, the Flash menu is a little clunky, but God help me if I don't love the sound of "TOOOOOOONS", "GAYMES!", "CHAWACTUWS?" So sad to see it in perpetual hiatus.

Dino RPG

Every day for the last couple years, I take five minutes to move around these little animals called "Dinoz". It's a free-to-play, pay-if-you're-a-sucker kind of game, but I don't mind only having one turn a day. It's nice to have a little casual distraction.

Homestuck

Homestuck is, without a doubt, the greatest comic the internet has ever known. The sweeping story, the bizarre humor, the committed cabal of musicians that produce its "soundtrack", the epic animations... I die a little inside whenever I realize I'll never produce something so grand.

BoingBoing

This blog serves me as a news aggregator, a media compass, and occasionally as a moral guide. Almost all the cool things I've encountered over the last 6 or 7 years has been filtered through the crust of the interweb and distilled here. My passions, though many and shallow, I share with 9 million other readers - TED talks, protests, gadgets, books, movements, comics, games, you name it.

The Wotch/910 CMX Forums

How do you explain to someone for the first time that you've spent the last six years as a core member of a... ah... magical gender transformation webcomic fan forum? How do you explain that even though the comic that seeded this community is poorly drawn, sometime poorly written, and rather fitfully updated (and that its premise can sometimes leave a bad taste in one's mouth), you still can't stop reading it? No matter how lame the whole thing seems, I have friends here who have seen me grow from a middling amateur to a committed web comic artist. We're all in this weird little basket together, and somehow we make it work.

So now it's your turn - can you think of five internetses that you're thankful for this Tubesgiving? Let's see em!

Ockypoos for Punkin Contest

2011-11-04T17:32:00.000-07:00

I'd like to thank my fellow teammates at work for helping me in my pursuit of PG-13 business-appropriate pumpkin decorating glory. We won, of course.

Eet's Ready!

2011-09-17T18:52:00.001-07:00

Effing Decaf is up and running - go check it out!

http://www.effingdecaf.com

Bear Quest Fan Art

2011-08-31T21:36:00.000-07:00

Maybe you don't read Bear Quest.

YOU DO NOW.

Here's some fan art.

Preview of my 1/3-LIFE CRISIS OPUS!

2011-08-21T22:20:00.000-07:00

As I approach 30, I realize it's time for a milestone in my life. So I've spent the last year laboring over a 215-page beast that is soon to be serialized on new website (domain not yet purchased). Here's a preview of the first few pages - enjoy!

Hey Kids!

2011-07-11T19:04:00.001-07:00

16-Bit Breakfast

2011-06-11T16:25:00.000-07:00

Alright sooooo if you grew up in the 80s, you may have eaten Nintendo Cereal. It was split down the middle, with Mario Cereal on one side and Zelda Cereal on the other. I was inspired by this to make comics. For some reason. Enjoy!

Lil Cubies

2011-02-14T13:44:00.000-08:00

I'm bringing some friends with me to Staple! in March. Maybe you'll want to take one home!

Interview!

2010-11-17T06:16:00.000-08:00

The guys at nerd-culture podcast Geek Bombast interviewed me and Zach Taylor at our table at Wizard World on Saturday. Check it out mayng!

http://www.geekbombast.com/?p=743

Influence Map

2010-09-25T10:35:00.000-07:00

I see that this is the "thing" going around the internet right now, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

(click to enlarge)

Basically, I was going for a loose chronological order. You'll notice that the larger influences are gathered closer to the top. I feel like, the more time has passed, the more I can feel the influence's weight on my work. It's sort of like laying the foundation stones for a building. The bigger ones near the bottom support the more detailed intricacies near the top.

1. NES games, specifically, boss battles

Like many kids of my generation, the original NES was a fountain of ideas to build upon. Its simplified forms left a lot for the imagination, which is why so many of us are still nostalgically addicted to those old hunks of plastic.

For me, the biggest source of inspiration came from the boss battles. Oh, the bosses! So grandiose! So epic! There was nothing I loved more than those bosses. The five games I placed in the map are ones that I found particularly enthralling: Contra, Legend of Zelda, Megaman 3, Abadox, and Godzilla. Mario's great and all, blah blah blah, but Bowzer got old real quick. Anyway, the point is, these battles would forever lead me down a path with a preference toward drawing creatures instead of people.

2. Maurice Sendak

My absolute favorite children's book, which I share with so many others, is Where the Wild Things Are. Something about Maurice Sendak's snarling characters, bratty protagonist, and intricate linework are pure imagination fodder. That book has stuck with me my whole life, and I still have my original copy.

3. Kevin Eastman, Peter Laird, and Fred Wolf

Most people know the first two, but the third guy is the animator who designed the televised version of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This cartoon, like others in its time period, would inspire in my art the themes of mutation and anthropomorphic heroism, and, unfortunately, would draw me toward the messy, blobby, formless style so prevalent in the late '80s (see Carebears, Smurfs, cereal mascot redesigns, etc).

4. Caleb Davis

Caleb was my best friend from 3rd to 5th grade, and my penpal for several years thereafter. He and I built off of each other. In your formative years, there's no artist more influential than the one you're best buddies with.

5. Gary Larson

From an early age, I was obsessed with his surreal one-panel non-sequiturs and made a point to adapt my humor to them. I own ten collections of Farside comics.

6. '80s fantasy movies

The animatronic-driven, Jim-Henson-created/inspired fantasy movies of the 1980s were one of my favorite things about my childhood. These had more of an effect on my storytelling than my actual art, so they tend to appear in my more recent comic work than in my past art.

7. Matt Groening

I don't ever remember sourcing the Simpsons per se, but I am told every so often that my work reminds people of his. I suppose, without realizing it, this ever-present cartoon found its way into my style.

8. Late '80s - early '90s X-Men

This one stretches back pretty far into my childhood. Like many boys do, I started out drawing a lot of super heroes. For some reason, the X-Men always stuck, and it would be these teams of varied-powers mutants that I would always favor in creation.

9. Peter Chung

For those of you who didn't watch MTV Liquid Television in the mid '90s, you missed out on some good stuff, specifically, a cartoon called Aeon Flux. Peter Chung's sloppy, Schielesque forms stuck in my mind. Although I don't think I adopted any of his particular style, I strove to be a better artist after seeing his work.

10. H.R. Giger

I saw Aliens when I was ten years old, and Giger's bizarre alien forms made a huge impact on the sort of creatures I would draw. For a short while, I would only draw "Alien" aliens, and took great pride in my ability to do so.

11. Jared Markgraff

Jared was a fellow Boy Scout in my troop, and he was a way better artist than I was. Around the time I was in 8th grade, I had come to the apex of this really horrible bubbly/curved style that I wouldn't break from. But after watching Jared draw on a dry erase board one night, I suddenly realized I needed to incorporate straight lines and hard angles. This one night made an enormous difference in my evolution as an artist, and I am forever thankful for it.

12. Kevin Dart

One of my two "best" friends starting in 6th grade, Kevin has impacted my work in ways which no other single artist has. We collaborated constantly, bounced ideas and styles off each other, and grew as artists together. When I went off to a different high school, we remained friends, but I experimented artistically on my own. Kevin stagnated for a couple of years, and then, all of a sudden, skyrocketed past me. I've been playing catch-up ever since. I continue to source him as an inspiration, and occasionally as a tutor. The long vertical shape I gave him suggests the bridging effect he has had in my life, from the past into the present.

13-15: Rumiko Takahashi, Hijime Yatate, and Akira Toriyama

Some time around 10th grade, I started experimenting with anime/manga-style art. The only anime were some random video clips and images from Ranma 1/2 (I still hold Rumiko Takahashi's style in very high regard, even though her storytelling skills are garbage), episodes of Ronin Warriors (Hijime Yatate is the collective pen name of a team of artists, btw), and of course, the seminal anime for American audiences, Dragonball Z. My real first exposure to Akira Toriyama was actually the box and instruction manual art for Chrono Trigger. These were the only things I had access to at the time, since the world's new glut of manga-style webcomics was yet to be created, and I didn't have any knowledge of manga.

For two years, I drew almost exclusively in the style I hybridized off of these three artists, until the aforementioned #12 shook me out of it (thank goodness).

16. Doug TenNapel

I started listening to Five Iron Frenzy years after playing Earthworm Jim, but both occurrences of Doug TenNapel's art gave me a taste for thin appendages with thick forelimbs.

17. Peter Sis

Peter Sis is my second-favorite children's book illustrator, but I didn't know about him until I was an adult. I became enamored with the level of detail in his linework, and I started mimicking his particular way of drawing fur and tree bark.

18. Craig Thompson

I stumbled Thompson's seminal graphic novel Blankets at a transitional part of my life, and his sensuous brushwork stuck to me like glue. Because of him, I learned to experiment with painting ink onto large bristol. I've begun to notice the effect of his style on mine only recently, and it's an honor to be inspired by such an accomplished artist.

19. Hope Larson

Salamander Dream is, to date, my second-favorite comic book, right after Blankets. Hope Larson's loving attention to botany drove me to pay more attention to plant life when drawing.

20. Frank Miller

Unlike most "true" comic fans, I found out about Frank Miller WAY too late (after I saw Sin City in a movie theater). But once I got my hands on his comics, I never looked at shadows the same way.

21. Mayan Art

I've recently become enamored with the fluid shapes and lines of Mayan frescoes. They have almost a silliness about them. Scroll back a page or two on my blog and see what I've done with the style.

22. Dave Shabet

I've known Dave informally since 2005. Since then I've seen him grow into the webcomics juggernaut he is today. He's been an encouraging force and muse, and I occasionally chat him up for advice or a fresh opinion.

23. Evan Dahm

The minute I read Rice Boy, I knew Evan was a kindred spirit. I can see in his work many of the things that led me to my current state, although he's clearly on a higher plane. I've tried to pull some of the epic grandeur of his colorful little comics into my own work.

24. Andrew Hussie

Anyone who reads Problem Sleuth or Homestuck knows that Andrew Hussie is the most powerful force webcomics has ever known. His rapid update schedule, his perfection of the hybridization of graphic adventure games and comics, his perfect humor and timing, his sense of place and composition... every update brings a little more hope into my life. It is his work that most informs my current project, which I have yet to reveal but on which I have been working almost nonstop for the last three months.

Texas Comicon 2010 Recap

2010-06-23T13:41:00.000-07:00

So I've tabled at three comic conventions now, and I think I'm getting the hang of how this works. There seem to be two main types - artist cons, and collector cons. Texas Comicon was a collector's con. Lots of toys. Toys and toys and more toys. Nothing but creepy dudes with arms-full of G.I. Joes. Blah.

Needless to say, I didn't make half of what I did at Staple. There was just a complete lack of indie kids and a glut of sweaty, hunch-backed, toy-hoarding hermits.

Thankfully, I got to sit at the cool kids' table. To my left were three talented lady-types. Jessica Correa, Amanda Coronado, and Jerrie Goto; and to my right was the equally phenomenal Mark Nasso. We all traded goodies, so I came home with a bag of lovely prints and a shiny new TPB.

Friday was a complete bust - practically no one showed up. Saturday was good, though. My pappy and my brudder came along for the ride. I sold enough to cover the cost of goods and transportation. I skipped Sunday to have some Father's Day fun. I'll probably go back next year, but I'll be a little better prepared for what's in store.

No LSD required!

2010-06-10T03:24:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you feel like a nut.

They snuck aboard a mystery ship

2010-06-02T17:59:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it's better to forget. But sometimes we must remember where we came from. And sometimes... that place is terrible.

Draw Muhammammammad Day 2010

2010-05-20T20:03:00.000-07:00

Here's my entry for this most sanctimonious of days (may it never be canceled). I got to wondering why Muslims get to have all the fun, so I mixed things up.

Dance Crew Culture

2010-05-11T08:34:00.001-07:00

So I somehow accidentally got blown away this morning. I was watching the finale of last year's Britain's Got Talent and saw Diversity's winning performance for the first time - I was completely blown away, natch. But then, realizing that Simon Fuller's shows are replicated in other countries, I decided to see what sort of dance troupes had performed on India's Got Talent last year. The finale performance by Prince Dance Group starts with the exact same choreography as Diversity, but then goes in a completely different and utterly awesome direction. You've got to watch these side by side, because there is enough r0xx0r between the two of them to kill you.

Coming soon.

2010-03-23T22:23:00.000-07:00

Right now I'm building a new website. It's going to be lurvely. I should have that finished by week's end. I'll finally have my illustration gallery updated and organized by date.

I'm currently working on the sequel to 2 Specks of Light, which will be called Two Motes of Dust. I'm four pages in and it's been really fun so far, so expect to see pages as soon as my buffer is a little bigger.

I've also been working on two children's books: one is written by my friend Sonya Palmer and stars a tree frog with an overdose of wanderlust. The other is one I painted all the illustrations for back in 2003, but I put on the backburner when I couldn't get it published. Whereas it once was a Christian allegory, I've rewritten it to fit my current philosophy. It'll still have the same "flavor", but I think the main character is a little more emboldened now without the burden of any sort of spiritual agenda. I'll be self-publishing it through comixpress.

As you can see, I've been a busy little bee, and I am excited to show you the honey of my hard work!

Staple! 2010

2010-03-07T14:20:00.001-08:00

Wowwy zowwy, Staple! was fun this year. It was my first time as an exhibitor, and I sold a buttload of stuff. Thanks to everyone who came out to the table, especially a certain fan by the name of James. This dude had bought one of my original first-volume Grackle comics back when I had them on commission at a comic shop in San Antonio back in 2005. A rare gem indeed!

I was a little sad that I didn't get to see Andy Runton present, but I was able to spend some time hanging out at Zach Taylor and KC Green's tables. Both excellent fellows, I must say.

I'll be in San Antonio June 18, 19, and 20 for Texas Comicon, at one of the Artist Alley tables, so I hope I'll see you there. I lived in San Antonio for most of my life, so it's nice to be exhibiting at their first convention.

It's a secret to everyone.

2010-01-03T09:19:00.000-08:00

I love doing Nintendo-flavored art (hell, I did a webcomic for two years because of that), so I was pretty psyched when my friend Dan asked for a commish based on the Secret Moblins.

Batman/Blue Beetle Commish

2009-11-22T19:41:00.000-08:00

I don't do superheroes as a general rule, but for a small sum, I'll do whatever you want. This one was for my friend Rachel.

Dead Winter Costume Contest

2009-11-01T19:08:00.000-08:00

So guys, I won third place in Dave's costume contest! Here's my entry:

If you don't read Dead Winter, read it gosh darnit!

http://www.deadwinter.cc

Mayan Showcase

2009-09-06T21:58:00.000-07:00

I kinda got the art bug this weekend and drew myself and some of my forum friends in Meso-American-inspired style.

I lost.

2009-08-26T19:42:00.000-07:00

Danger Radio posted a little contest on their Twitter to draw some kind of funny picture. The requirements were a little vague, so I did this.

It didn't win. The one that did was pretty lame.

Anyway.

Grackle - Now for Sale!

2009-07-03T13:09:00.000-07:00

OK guys, this is exciting for me. After a couple tense months of waiting, my first full length graphic novel Grackle is for sale at the comixpress online store. If you'd like to preview it, you can go to my website here.

The book is available for a mere $5.00. That's not bad for 128 pages of leetle birdy goodness!

Go here to purchase.

Lubbock Comic Book Expo Recap

2009-05-17T20:03:00.000-07:00

So, my first con. Not necessarily a success, not necessarily a failure. I broke even, which most people tell me is a success in the Artist Alley. So, I'll take it for what it is.

It was a retardedly long drive: 7 hours from Austin to Lubbock. We accidentally overshot our exit by 30 miles and ended up in a small town by the name of Throckmorton. Because of the ensuing adventure, I am once again certain that GPS is a fun-killer.

When we got into town, the Motel 6 was already out of rooms (argh!), so we drove around looking for anything less than $80. By then, it'd been raining for hours. We resignedly had Whataburger for dinner and went to bed.

The next day, I realized that I forgot my tablecloth. Jenny was mad. But I HAD TO HAVE IT. My whole display depended upon that specially selected piece of fabric to tie it together. Thankfully, Hobby Lobby opened at 9:00, and I was able to get a new one just in time.

I was in-between two artists - Ariel Walden and the super-talented Will Terrell. Ariel does a comic called Sparkling Trio, which looks something like a mix between the Ninja Turtles and Sailor Moon. She was cool, but her art needs a bit of work. Will's comic Black Dawn is lovely and has an absorbing storyline. Both people were a real pleasure to hang out with for the afternoon.

As the day went on, I got a little bored and started drawing alongside Ariel's friend, shown here on the left (Ariel is in the middle).

He was drawing a Fire-Emblem-inspired picture, and I couldn't help but join in. His is on the left, mine is on the right.

All in all, it was a pretty good time. I met some cool people, ate way too much fast food, had to listen to little kids bang on wood with hammers for seven hours, and sold a mess of comics. I might go back in November for the West Texas Comic Con. Here's hopin'!

2 Specks: The Sequel

2009-05-15T22:15:00.000-07:00

I've begun the planning stages to my comic 2 Specks of Light. It's a project I've been rolling around in my head for a while now, but it took a long time to come up with the basic plot structure. I like the idea of setting it many, many years after the first one. There's a mystery in trying to build closure over such a long gap. Here's the sneak peek:

Harvey James Kitty Jam

2009-05-08T21:36:00.000-07:00

Today I posted a little contribution to Harvey James' little kitty collab, where you choose one of his adorable little creatures and make your own. A lot of talented artists are taking a whack at it. Here's mine (his original is the tiny one on the left):

Lubbock Comic Book Expo

2009-04-26T15:22:00.000-07:00

Well, looks like convention-going won't be a total bust for me. I may have missed that table at Staple last month, but while attending, I ran into a gentleman passing out table applications for the Lubbock Comic Book Expo on May 2. So I filled out an application, and a week later, BAM! I'll be at table 22 - the map is here.

In addition to my recently finished graphic novel Grackle, I'll have copies of 2 Specks of Light and some B&W copies of Rabite Season, along with these lil' guys:

Other news:

I recently finished a six-pages filler comic at The Wotch, which you can find here.

And most importantly, a huge chunk of my time has been devoted to a charity project that I am organizing with some of my artist friends over at the Wotch Forum. It's a calendar about hawt girls living in a post-nuclear apocalyptic world. Here's my current progress on my first piece.

There's a lot of exciting art going on from a lot of talented artists, and I can't wait for it to be ready. You can see our progress over here.

Tragic

2009-03-04T16:43:00.000-08:00

Well, I hate to follow a complaint post with another, but this deserves mention.

Surely, if you are a comic fan, you at least know the name Will Eisner. He's one of the genre's champion pioneers, so much so that the highest award in the industry is named after him. Perhaps one of his best qualities is his understanding of the human spirit and of the situation of the general downtrodden everyman.

Recently I checked out from my local library The Name of the Game, one of Eisner's later works. I was disgusted to find that some Christian censorship nut had gone through and scribbled out the word "God" from in front of all the "Goddamn"s and replaced it with "Goodness" in all the "For God's sake"s. I was livid with anger. How could some jerk think he or she was improving this comic by imposing visual censorship on it? As if we wouldn't know what was underneath the scribbles! I noticed none of the exposed breasts were covered; none of the other swear words scratched out; no act of violence hidden. Nope — just instances where Commandment 3 was broken.

At least in this last one (which chronologically is the first one) someone had the nerve to right the situation.

Anyway, I'm still pretty riled up about all this. But c'est la vie, no?

AAAAAAUUUGGGHHHH!!!!

2009-01-13T15:03:00.000-08:00

God damnit!!! I've been waiting a full freaking year to sign up for a table at Austin's alternative press convention, Staple!, and the tables sold out YESTERDAY! There were tables available till February last year, and with recent financial troubles, I've been saving up to reserve one, thinking they'd be available next week. I have been crafting and drawing my ass off, and now this.

You wanna know what the worst of it is? I've spent the last two months in sort of a "who gives a crap" daze, and now, when I finally get the nerve to update, I get a kick in the butt. Fan-freakin'-tastic.

So all the cool stuff I was gonna show you for Staple! is just gonna have to go unposted.

Argh!

APE 2008 - Full Report

2008-11-04T15:58:00.000-08:00

Well, friends and newcomers, here's how the whole shmiel went down.

I left on Friday morning for the airport and arrived at 5:30 AM, ready to go. The woman at the check-in counter, dressed in bedazzling neon red, informed me that the day's only flight to San Francisco was for 6:40 PM. I had misread my itinerary. For a second I was thunderstruck. There's just no way! I reasoned to myself. But it was true. Meanwhile, my friend Sam had been driving up from Orange County for the past 2 hours and was well on his way to pick me up at the airport. But Sam — poor, poor Sam — does not own a cel phone. I waited for his inevitable "Where the heck are you?" call from a payphone.

His call came at 9:30, an hour after he was supposed to get me. Turns out construction had backed up traffic. To his great surprise, though, he was not the late one. He would spend the next thirteen hours waiting for me.

Why thirteen?

Because my plane was also going to be an hour late, due to the sudden appearance of horrible rainstorms in the area. That's right — an Indian summer; and now, on the day of my arrival, a full weekend of rain. Meanwhile, I have to keep my cell phone off in the plane, and Sam, who has patiently waited twelve hours, must now wait one more, and he with no way to contact me.

I eventually arrive in San Francisco, plug my phone into a clandestine outlet, give it five minutes of juice, then sprint to the BART train and wait for his call. It comes. He is a bit frantic (understandably). Finally, at 11:00, I arrive at the Civic Center station, and we meet in person for the first time (for Sam and I are forum buddies, known under the aliases of Elijah Sight and DecafCoffee, respectively).

We drudge back to his car, exchanging pleasantries along the way, and get to the hotel. We are in no mood to party. We just want some hot tea. I go out a little later for a taco al pastor. And then it's off to slumberland. An entire day wasted, but happily endured for its own sake.

The next day, we wake up, dress, and head downstairs. It's off to Mel's Cafe for some much needed steak and eggs. But first, a witch! No really, a witch! A woman clad in black busts through the lobby doors, arms aloft, shouting, "Look whatcha did ta me! Look whatcha did!" The hotel manager bursts in front of us. "You must go! You must go now! I will call police again!" he screams, shoving her to the door. She slinks back towards me and Sam, but we've seen quite enough, and so we slip out for our munchies.

After breakfast, we take off for the MAC pro store to buy my wife some makeup (her one vice), and then down to APE. We are soaked. We are downtrodden. We are finally here.

Being my first convention, APE is to me a wonderland of visual delights. Everything is "so neat" and "quaint" and "just so cool". Sam, having just come down from his ComicCon high a few months back, is less impressed, but enjoys himself nonetheless.

My first stop is the Fleet Street Scandal table, where I greet my childhood buddy Kevin Dart. His artwork is nothing short of dazzling, so much so that he garnered some unexpected attention. I hadn't seen him in three years. There's nothing quite as refreshing as seeing old friends.

Later on I got to meet the talented Angela Melick of Wasted Talent. Her comic is super cute and she is quite the nice person. I hope she liked my comic! Sam and I made sure to each buy one of her adorable Portal prints. I also got a copy of her annual convention sketchbook.

After taking our first rounds, we attended Jessica Abel's panel, the first segment of which I recorded below.

Megan Kelso's panel was also fun. I spent the rest of the afternoon passing out portfolios and comics, hoping to secure an internship; talking with Kevin (and meeting his friend Chris Turnham and girlfriend Elizabeth Ito); and just kickin' it with Sam. We had some burgers across the street at this little family-owned burger joint called Susie's cafe. After APE we headed back to the hotel, watched "Assault on Precinct 13", and recorded a webcast.

Day 2 of APE was a bit more relaxed. We walked the full fifteen blocks through the West Addition and the Tenderloin (eep!) and got inside around 12:30. We went to Chris Ware's panel right off the bat — I would've taken some video, but we were in the back, and Chris had a sore throat and thus was speaking quietly. Upon leaving, I went to bug the CCA table a couple of times — I was hoping so SO bad to meet Julia Wertz, but alas, it was not meant to be. I left her a comic and a drawing. I hope she likes 'em.

We skipped out at 2:30 to go meet my friend Sandy, who we had coffee with. Again, it was good to see a familiar face. She was a real angel and agreed to let us stay at her place for the night instead of sleeping in a parking garage like we'd planned to. Upon ending our meeting, we were confronted by a hobo who I gave some change to, but, upon receiving more than he needed from the next person, promptly returned my change to me! He then went on to explain his theory of mind control for Jesus.

Um.

So Sam and I went back, buzzed around for another hour point five, and then headed back to the hotel to check out. We drove down to the southwest side, parked on Dolores, and walked in circles for a while before settling (begrudgingly) on Pizza Hut. And then... another webcast!

Eventually Sandy came home from church, treated us to hot tea, and then it was back to slumberland. Five hours to go. We woke up, took a super myspacey pic...

...and left for the airport, whereupon I recorded a final video blog.

And that's it!

Here's my comic haul.

Top row - Bob the Angry Flower promotional freebie, Robin Enrico's Controller, Laura Park's Do Not Disturb My Waking Dream, Cal Wong's Hattie et Millie, and a holiday card from Elizabeth Ito
Rigth side, going down - five Jack Chic tracts (two of which are parodies)
Second row - Angela Melick's 2008 convention sketchbook, Der-Shing Helmer's Snowball in Hell (kinda lame, but only cost a buck), a how-to freebie from Ken Huizenga, Tugboat Press' Papercutter 6 and free Nerd Burglar, and a Dresden Codak sticker
Third row - Six adorable Sour Milk Sea comics and Angela Melick's Portal print
Last row - Alex Robinson's Too Cool for School, Jeff Lemire's Essex County vol. 3, and the Fleet Street Scandal art book

Heading to APE!

2008-10-30T18:07:00.001-07:00

Not that anyone reads this (do they?) but I'll be in San Francisco at the Alternative Press Expo. I'll bring back some pics and some goodies when I return. See you in four days!

OK, so, THIS is my new blog.

2008-10-12T19:13:00.000-07:00

Yeah, so, I tried to give LiveJournal a try, but those ads are WAAAAY too gawky. So yes. I am a blogspotter.