Major Website Update

Well, if you haven't seen it already... you might want to check out our fancy new opening menu. Finally got that thing colored. Plus, there's some new hidden goodies on there... you might want to click around.

You can check it out by clicking on the nice little picture here. And then come back here and leave a comment telling us what you think!

Ugh... I'm pretty sick of website stuff for the moment. Back to good ol' pen and ink and paper!

Random Stuff

Here's a new sketch for ya. May it give you strength in the dark times.

Got a three day weekend starting. There's a lot I want to accomplish... continuing to update the website, finish Random Ink #1 for reprinting, drawing the comic strip for the Previews section of the Kansas City Star... Hopefully, this all gets done.

An update on the Moonfall project mentioned earlier... it appears that the book is on hold. The soonest it will be printed will be April. But you will see it... one way or another.

Also, you can now subscribe to the feed for this news page. Just click on the link to the right.

Back to work! Feel free to leave some comments!

Name Change

Well, if you click on our COMICS page you might notice that we've made a slight alteration to one of our main series of stories. What was once Edge City is now Rook City. Why the switch? Well, it turns out there already is an Edge City out there. Oh well. Stay tuned in the next couple of weeks for a big announcement involving Rook City.

In other news... Elton, Dusty, and I spent Sunday meeting with a couple of other up-and-coming comics creators from the area (Nathan and Dwayne). It was a lot of fun just hanging out, showing each other what we were working on, and talking comics. I introduced everyone to the excellent Set to Sea and Pup webcomics by Drew Weing. (Mr. Weing, we bow to your skill...) Anyway, we hope to be able to collaborate with these guys in some way eventually.

It's pretty amazing how many comics guys there are in good ol' Joplin.

This Means War

This should be fun...

Some of you may have heard of 24 Hour Comics. Basically, it's an artistic marathon where one artist tries to complete 24 pages of comics in that many hours. I really want to try that sometime... maybe in summer when sleep is not as precious.

Anyway, the people at 24 HOUR COMICS DAY are organizing another national event. Basically, it is a shorter version of the 24 hour thing... this time the goal is 8 pages in 12 hours. And you can work in teams! It's called COMICS JAM WAR. The trick is that everything has to be done at a comic shop who agrees to host it. The winners get some cash and their story printed in an anthology of the event. I'm really jazzed about this! A chance to get together with other creators, make comix, promote a local store, maybe get new readers...

We've already got the Vintage Stock down here in Joplin to agree to do it. They are pretty excited about it. So you know where we'll be on April 1st.

Anyone else interested?

The Coming of Dusty

Some of you have noticed already that we have added twelve new drawings to our SKETCH page from a new creator, our good buddy Dusty Roberts. Well, he's not really new, just new to the site.

Dusty, Elton, and I all went to high school together back in Montana. We made mini-comics together back then, some of which you may be unfortunate enough to see someday. Dusty and I were both art majors at good ol' Missouri Southern State University here in Joplin. Eventually, Elton came down, too.

So now, we're all making comics together again. Dusty is working on some new stuff... a pin-up for the reprinted Random Ink #1 and hopefully a story for #2. He's got some really cool ideas percolating. Some of these sketches are from back in high school and some are much more recent. The one above shows one of his Pixie Pirates, a great idea that I can't wait to see in story form. I think you'll all agree that this guy has way too much talent and creativity for his own good...

I Won?

I've been checking out some comics-related podcasts for several weeks now, my favorite of which would have to be INDIE SPINNER RACK. It's all about independent comics, and the hosts (Charlito and Mr. Phil) do a nice job of promoting books and creators that deserve more attention. Plus... they're crazy. This show is highly entertaining.

Anyway, they had a contest where listeners could write in about their favorite indie book of 2005. I wrote in to nominate the excellent Kabuki: The Alchemy series by David Mack, and somehow... I won! As a reward, I get to be on one of the upcoming shows, to talk about Kabuki and other stuff. Hopefully, we can use this to promote our books a bit.

I'll let you all know when the show is going to be available for download.

Here are some other cool podcasts:
- Digital Strips (all about webcomics)
- Comic Geek Speak (a very popular podcast about mainstream books mostly)

Moonfall Preview

These are some random panels from the nine-page story that I recently finished for the Moonfall graphic novel. It is being put together by members of the Kansas City Comic Creators Network. It is an anthology, but with one central theme... the end of the world. The moon is crashing to the earth and all life is about to end. What do people do in those final hours? That is what our individual stories explore.

My tale is about a man who is isolated from his family during the crisis and has to deal with his feelings of frustration and fear. It was pretty different from anything I've done before. Pretty serious stuff. The art was fun and challenging. I wanted it to have the look of scratchboard, but I also wanted to experiment with brush pens. So... every white area you see in the story was originally black ink and then inverted to white after I scanned it in. I'm really happy with how the look of it turned out. It was definitely what I was going for, and the feedback I have got from people about it so far has been encouraging.

Anyway, we'll keep you all updated on the status of the graphic novel and how you can get a hold of it when it comes out.