El MacFearsome Comic Squares: News and Products

Hmm, the last 7 months have been pretty crazy, both professionally AND personally. We've done conventions, put out a new book (the Return Of The Lovin' Dead trade paperback), had a party for the new book, did several interviews, and...oh yeah, had a baby! (HI, AMELIA!) A quick way to catch up (or KEEP up) would be to check out my facebook page, I'm pretty good at updating that one regularly. Today we've got a spotlight in our local Gambit Weekly magazine (along with a cover for the magazine I drew!) which we're REALLY excited about! I think tomorrow I'll do a more detailed summary (including PICTURES!) of what's been going on recently so feel free to check back then

Okay, spent the past week uploading Return Of The Lovin' Dead as a daily webcomic and doing so in COLOR! Well, that's about to come to an end...the color part at least. I've been doing a rather quick and simple color version but it's still taking up WAY too much time, time that should be spent drawing the actual book (I've only gotten 1 page drawn in the past week...usually it's about FOUR OR FIVE pages done in that time). So yeah, no more color for quite a while, at least not until I'm all caught up.

Seeing as how I've been slacking in regards to updating this site on a regular basis (though I have been quite busy in keeping up on the comic book work) I've decided to force myself to come here on a daily basis by making Return Of The Lovin' Dead a WEBCOMIC! I'll be uploading a page a day to this site's FRONT PAGE and once the initial flashback/set-up pages are done, the rest of the pages I put here will be in COLOR!

I will still be putting out limited edition single issue print versions of the comic (that will feature extras not available on the webcomic) which will be followed by a single graphic novel/trade paperback collection of the entire series later this year. So check back regularly to get your daily fix of zombie lovin'!

  A few weeks after the Alternative Media Expo, Karen and I were off to Columbus, Ohio for the Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo (or S.P.A.C.E. for short). SPACE was the first convention I ever exhibited at, back in 2002 when I was a fledgling part-time self-publisher. I had one copy of my first ever comic book (full-size, professionally printed) and an oversized, horrible, rushed copy of #2 that I printed at Kinko's. Trying to cover 8 feet of table with 2 lonely little comic books is an interesting task and despite having made only a handful of sales, I had a great time. I made friendships with people that have lasted to this day like Bob Corby (SPACE founder & organizer), Margaret Liss (my first customer at my first convention, check out what she's doing at www.cerebusfangirl.com ), Ray Tomczack (funny guy and awesome cartoonist of Wasted Potential ), and Sean McKeever (who at the time was the writer of The Waiting Place for Slave Labor Graphics but has since gone on to write for Marvel, DC, and even won an Eisner Award!). I enjoyed that little show in 2002 so much that I've tried to make it back every year since (except 2005 and 2008 when it just wasn't possible).

   Fast forward to 2009 for this year's show. It was great to see familiar faces ("Wassup!" to Margaret, L nny, Larry, Jeff Tundis, and Jeff Seiler, and thanks for buying my books too! Hi Ashley, I hope you gave Katelyn a hard time for me.) and meet some new ones as well (I met Lora Innes and she signed my copy of The Dreamer #1 'cuz I'm still a fanboy when I meet someone whose work I like). The day before Day 1 of the show (it's a 2-day event) Karen and I went out with my buddy Sean to a Mongolian BBQ restaurant that was awesome. Afterwards we went to Sean's favorite watering hole and had a beerific good time. The next morning we dragged ourselves up and headed off to the show. We did quite well, selling a bunch of comics and posters. We also picked up some cool stuff as well, among my favorites were Super Maxipad Girl, Cerebus Readers In Crisis #4, Zombie Trouble, and the SPACE Survival Guide. After the show we were so exhausted that we just went and had dinner at a Japanese Hibachi restaurant in front of our hotel, went up to our room, and fell asleep almost immediately.

   The next morning we woke up, packed our nags and headed off to the convention for a few hours. Our flight home was for 5:00 so we left SPACE around 3-3:30. Even while we were packing up we still had people coming up and buying our stuff. We completely sold out of posters and Rise Of The Wombat softcovers! Oh and special thanks to Tundis for helping us pack up and get our stuff out front! Check out what he's doing with Dave Sim over at www.cerebustheaardvark.com and www.judenhass.com ). So yeah, I had a great time again this year and hopefully we'll make it out again to SPACE '10! Below are some pictures from the show:

Karen at our table. When I had the flash on the camera it kept causing a massive glare on our banner behind her so I turned it off (hence the bad, fuzzy quality)

Me signing a book. Photo by Margaret Liss.

Some of the comics we picked up from S.P.A.C.E.

Well, our mini-season of appearances is coming to a close so it's time to give some highlights...starting with the New Orleans Alternative Media Expo. The event is held annually by Antigravity Magazine and showcases a wide array of comics, movies, music, fashion and more. This was my 3rd or 4th time exhibiting here and each year is pretty successful. And while we didn't make quite as much as last year, we still sold quite a lot of books and saw a lot of familiar faces and made new friends as well, most notably Chi Tran and Kody Chamberlain.
   Chi is an old friend of mine who I haven't seen since high school. It was great to see him and catch up on the last 15 years, he also took the photo below of Karen and I at our table. And if you'll notice behind us is a giant iRead banner, this was the first time we used that banner at an appearance. I'm really happy with the way it turned out and so were many attendees.
   Kody Chamberlain as a somewhat local artist (he lives about 2 hours outside of New Orleans) who has done such comics as PUNKS, 30 Days Of Night:Bloodsucker Tales, and assisted in the art of Tales Of The Black Freighter DVD for the Watchmen movie. He's a great guy, bought one our Dexter Breakfast graphic novels and traded one of his comics for one of our comics: the first issue of a mini series we're doing called Return Of The Lovin' Dead.
   So overall, it was a great time. We weren't able to do the after party because the next day we were off to Las Vegas for our overdue honeymoon.

...just drawing. Here are the first 2 pages to Season Three. This one's going to a pirate-noir story.

Got the proof copy for The Adventures Of Dexter Breakfast: Rise Of The Wombat hardcover a few days ago. It's basically just a collection of Seasons One and Two and the bonus material from both books. And man it looks cool!

Here's the front cover:
 



And here's a shot of the book in action:



It's 272 pages, sold only online and at conventions, and is a Limited Edition of only 500 signed and numbered copies. We're selling it for $35 here. A softcover edition will be available through Diamond Comic Distributors to comic shops sometime next year.