Post-CAKE

The road to CAKE has been traveled and I have returned from my hero-journey a changed man.

Joseph Campbell-inspired ramblings aside, CAKE is over. It was a great experience. It wasn't always what I expected it to be, but it was fantastic none-the-less.

First off, I have to thank the organizers and volunteer staff. This was my first show and organizers did a great job of making me feel welcome. As a newbie, I never felt lost or confused.

The best aspect of anything like this is of course, the people. Seriously, I know I sound trite but there were a handful of people who made this totally worth the cost of admission (meaning the cost of the table and printing). I've heard and read it more times than I care to say, but making comics is a lonely business. Especially when, like me, you hardly know any people who make comics. To be in a big room that is full of makers just like you is a sublime experience.

So without further ado... here is a LINK DUMP!! (In no particular order).

My neighbors at the show, Shane O'Shaughnessy and Julia Barr (sorry can't seem to find a link to her stuff) were very cool people. You can find Shane's book, Spuds Malone, Private Eye here. Shane and Julia's superhero erotica, GLAM BANG POW is available.... somewhere....

My other neighbor, Joel "Crave" Maxine, Jr, was another great person who I really enjoyed spending two days with.

Eric Taylor was not actually tabling at CAKE, which is really too bad. He knows a thing or two about comics and gave me a phrase that has been in my head since he uttered it on Sunday: "Can't draw? Just rock-star it." (Sorry, that's a bit of a paraphrase and also way out of context).

Roxy Drew, two tables down, had a cool book about a mutant dog called Futur Dog.

Emi Gennis gave me her comic about the Collyer Brothers that was really great.

Reid Psaltis can draw crows way better than I can.

It was also great catching up with my old friend Olivia Arrow who hung out my table a bunch on Saturday.

I'm sure I've forgotten someone. With so many great comics artists around, that's easy to do.

I didn't take many pictures, but here are a couple:

To my left:

 To my right:

My table again:

My wife brought the kids down on Sunday, which was a nice Father's Day treat


Also, I sold  bunch of books. And people seemed actually like them! (I forgot to mention I printed a book of comics? Stay tuned, more on that later.)

The Joy of a Supportive Wife(Road to CAKE part 4)

To encourage me while working towards CAKE, my wife made me this awesome calendar. She gave it to me on May 16, or 31 days before the expo. It's basically a countdown that includes encouraging messages like:

She made it so that I could tear the pages out everyday, but I didn't want to destroy it. Instead, I put rings in it and hung it over my drawing desk.

I figure I can reuse the calendar when I'm on some other 31-day deadline.

Also, today is actually 24 days from CAKE, so I'll have to update my Calendar when I get back to my desk.

Anyway, I'm really lucky to have such a sweet, supportive wife. This calendar is also a reminder of that!

You can see a comic I'm working on in this picture called "Everyone Hates Their Job" (Which I know is not grammatically correct, so save it!) and is a little different from anything I've done before. I'll be posting that soon.

Since this is a "Road to CAKE" article, I better post a picture of a cake. My daughter's third birthday was a week ago, so here is the Shaun the Sheep cake we made for her.

Onward to CAKE!! (Part 3)

I just finished the class I was teaching this term (I teach at a local paralegal program) and I don't have to teach another class until October. This will free up time to work on my comics for CAKE. Boy, do I need it.

I have been working, no worries. In fact, I'm almost finished with a new Bone Dog page. A friend of mine generously upgraded the RAM on my computer for me, and I just got it back. That means I can scan some art. I have a couple pages I've been holding back and I not really sure why. I decide a while ago that I should post them, but my aforementioned computer was away getting its innards fixed. Expect to see those pages soon.

Also, here is my new ghetto-ass light box:


Old record bin +  Ikea light + sheet of plexiglass = awesome light box!



CAKE is only a month and a half away. Better get to it. Here is another cake, this time for my youngest son's recent 1st birthday. Don't forget to like CAKE on Facebook, you bums!!

The Road to CAKE (part 2) - Who doesn't like CAKE?

Apparently, most people don't "like" CAKE. I'm talking of course, about CAKE's Facebook page. At this point, it only has 271 likes and I find that kind of shocking.

For the love of alternative comics, please, "like" CAKE!

Anyway, I'm finally settling into my new apartment and I have passed a most momentous milestone. I set up a drawing desk! Here it is:


I also finished the second page on my top-secret PK story (in the picture you can see the first page on my drawing board).Next up is another page of Bone Dog, so keep an eye out for that.

Now that I have a dedicated space, I'm hoping my output will increase dramatically. It will have to if I'm going to have anything to show for myself come June.

I leave you with another cake. This time, it's a cat cake that my wife and I made our daughter for her second birthday.

The Road to CAKE (Part 1)

The exciting news here at King Crow Comics is that I will be exhibiting at the first ever Chicago Alternative Comics Expo (CAKE). I can't tell you how excited I am about this. I feel like I'm taking my first steps into a larger world.

I've felt I needed a deadline for as long as I've been doing this. Up until this point, I've been drawing and making comics with no real goal besides completing a story. Now, I have an actual date (which, by the way, is June 16). This is a much more concrete target.

Still, I'm sort of terrified. I have a lot to get done between now and then, and I really am new to the comic-creating lifestyle.

So I've done what I always do whenever I have a lot to get done: make lots of lists!

The first list is of projects listing their completed and thumbnail pages. It looked like this:


Ok, you probably can't read that because of my sloppy chicken-scratch.

Basically, I have 5 pages of Bone Dog complete and 2 more that I've thumbnailed. I have two other projects that I'm calling PK and NMV (Sorry, these are two projects that I want to keep under wraps for now). I have one page of PK completed and there is a second page on my drawing board at the moment. I haven't done anything for NMV besides thumbnail about 9 pages.

I also have a "Needed" column which is how many pages I need to have completed by June. I'm planning on collecting my Bone Dog and PK in a mini-comic (8 1/2 x 5 1/2), and NMV is a stand alone story that I will be doing in micro-mini size (5 1/2 x 4 1/4). I'm not sure how long the mini is going to be since I see it as an anthology of all my work. The micro is going to be two full sheets folded into quarters, so it will be 16 pages including the covers.

Whew, that's a lot to think about.

Anyway, expect more on this in the coming months and weeks. In the meantime,CAKE-lovers, here is a picture of a cake my wife made this weekend:
Note: we're not religious; we're just into self-denial.