jackcomics

Here are a couple of brush-pen sketches of big rocks with shadows on them that I did in a teeny 4x6" sketchbook earlier this week while camping in New Mexico.





I hardly ever actually make the time to do on-site sketches, though I often think about it. I definitely need more practice building tones gracefully with just the brush. I've been spoiled by the pencil and ink wash in my regular comic.

A little while back, I was thrilled to get this unexpected (and VERY welcome) review from Unlikely Stories.

The reviewed copy of the comic wound its way over there through a trade for a chapbook of poetry at a Book Festival here in Alpine, Texas.

What's YOUR approach to reviews? Do you send out review copies of your comics? If so, where?

WOW. This one has been a LONG time coming. And it's not like I was doing a bunch of other comics all this time, either. Oh, well, both life and comics go on...

This is a product to help depressed people move about, get their groceries and things like that. Etiquette when encountering someone in a Mole Suit is to pretend that they aren't there. If you're working the checkout counter, keep interaction to a minimum. Make the change, and let them shuffle along without asking how their day is going or whatever.


I believe the last couple of months have been my least productive stretch since I started seriously working on comics six years back.

There have been lots of distractions both external and internal, but the end result has been a lot of evenings where we pop in a DVD rather than sitting at the drawing table. I finished inking the new episode of Jack yesterday, and then pretty much decided that I was so out of practice that none of it was up to snuff and I need to redo the whole page. Thankfully, my momentum has been a little better the last week or so.

Do me a favor and look at the two-panel comic below for a few seconds, and then, if you want, help me with a little self-amusement experiment:









Thanks! Now, I'm wondering...

As you looked at the second panel with the empty roof, where was the kid in your head?

Was he crumpled in pain on the ground?

Or did he go up and out of the panel?

For me, it was a bit of both. I was pretty certain he was on the ground, but with slight room for some uncertainty, which is what I wanted. I guess he could also have just climbed down the ladder, but that only just now occurred to me. How did it play in your head, if at all?

(AUTHOR'S NOTE: The Terlingua Ranch "bad rabbit" logo is used without permission. While I believe it to be an inspiration to almost any rabbit, I do not intend to imply that it has or ever would bring him or her into harm's way)

Even for a monthly comic, I've become ridiculously slow. The last two episodes have been delayed by finishing up my Grasshopper Mouse mini-comic, the STAPLE convention in Austin, and an anthology submission. But I have resolved to take on no side projects, other than continued collaborative experimentation with Ellen (see my last couple of posts).

My goal is to speed up enough to finish the story in another year or so. TPB, here I come!!!!

Everyone go check out Austin cartoonist Zach Taylor's new webcomic, Bear Quest! He's 10 episodes in now, so there's not too much of an archive to have to catch up with.



It follows a gleefully ravenous bear in an old atari-style video game, and shows what such a world might actually look like. I'm no gamer, but this took me way back to a few elementary school sleep-overs, playing Activision games all night long.

Jeeeez! I intended to post this image on the day after my last post, which was over a week ago.

But anyways, here's one more picture from the tag-team studio play day. I drew the bird, my wife Ellen colored it, and I cut it out and pasted it on the colored-paper-and-colored-pencil background.

My wife Ellen and I took a Friday off a little while ago and spent the day playing in the studio, something we often want to do, but VERY RARELY actually take the time for.

Part of the time we did some tag-team doodling. One of us would start a page and pass it over to the other, who would work it a bit and pass it back, and so on.

This is the winner for "Most Times Passed Back and Forth":



I think it had a total of 8 different passes in colored pencil (I think 4 different times), acrylic ink with pen and later with brush, white acrylic paint and collage.

Andrew Wales just gave a really nice review of my Night of the Grasshopper Mouse mini-comic on his blog, Panel Discussion.

Well, my comic signing last Friday at the Murphy St. Raspa Co. was an unqualified success!

Fun-loving printmaker Alan Vannoy had a bunch of new work on display while I signed mini-comics and sketched. Here's one of the dozen or so drawings I gave away:



This one was a gift for Vic, Raspa Co. co-proprietor. Many thanks to him and Cristina for inviting me to the event!

There was a really good crowd and delicious eats, and I had solid sales of my t-shirts and mini-comics.

Murphy St. Raspa Co.: a class act, all the way!

I did a comics swap by mail with Colin Panetta recently, and received the first two issues of Dead Man Holiday, his wigged-out sci-fi-mysterious-creeping-horror title.

Here's a mysterious creeping moment from the first issue:



Now, horror is most definitely NOT my thing, but I found Dead Man Holiday to be more intriguing than anything. It didn't hurt that there's no graphic bloodletting in these first issues. The first issue in particular was like reading a puzzle with only a fraction of the pieces available (in a good way!), and I found myself lingering with the introductory pages, pleasantly trying to parse what was going on. Both issues are available in their entirety for a free online read, so I encourage you to give them a try.

But I warn you, if you just skim you'll miss out, so you should probably buy a copy.

On the first page of my copy, Colin drew my rabbit character Jack and the Old Pocket Mouse from my Grasshopper Mouse mini-comic dressed up like his skeleton character:



I reciprocated by doing a version of his mysterious creeping horror. It reminded me of a moth, so I went all out with the moth thing:

Regional news blog West Texas Weekly (westtexasweekly.com) has started "reprinting" Jack: Adventures in Texas' Big Bend!

They will be posting an episode each week, starting from the very beginning.

If any of you happen to be in Alpine, Texas on Friday, May 8, you might consider attending this event at the Murphy St. Raspa Co.:



My good friend Alan Vannoy will be showing some new prints and I'll be sketching and signing copies of Night of the Grasshopper Mouse.

Since printing up my mini-comic, Night of the Grasshopper Mouse, I've had several parents telling me that their kids are really into it!

And now I've been given some pics of the characters by Berkley Baker (age 9) and Fisher Baker (age 7). Quite an honor, let me tell you! Below are takes on Mel in the same pose by both of them:



( Click for more )

Fiona Mae's parents tell me that for several weeks she has insisted on having the Night of the Grasshopper Mouse read at bedtime. One night, she was hopping to her bed, and when asked if she was a bunny, she replied, "No, I'm a killer mouse!"



I also got my first fan art the other day, passed along by another bewildered parent. I'll scan and post it soon. It's much scarier than my stuff.

So that's the end of Coyote, Kokopelli and the Sagebrush Bush.

Here's the botanical drawing of the actual plant from the inside cover, courtesy of my wife, Ellen:



I've also made a pdf of the whole thing with the covers, available here (2.6 MB pdf file)

"Well," said Kokopelli. "Let’s call it Sagebrush then and it can be your very own special plant." Coyote was so excited that he gathered lots of seeds from his Sagebrush bush and started planting them everywhere. That’s why we have so much Sagebrush in Nevada.

Later, when Kokopelli came to see how Coyote was doing growing plants he found Coyote sitting by his bush admiring it. "Coyote, what is this?" asked Kokopelli. "What have you grown here, Coyote?"
Coyote said, "It’s my special Coyote bush. Look it’s all brushy like my tail, it has soft silky fur just like me. It smells wonderful too; kind of like the sage seasoning my mama puts in stew."