Hey y’all,

Been a non-stop busy year and I am loving it so much. Miss getting on this old blog, though. Haven’t even had much/any time to write for the Comix Cube. Thankfully, I’ve got some good reasons why.

PROJECT: BALLAD

The biggest reason my internet presence has dwindled is I’ve been busting buns getting ready to launch Project: Ballad. A collaboration with writer and critic Michael Peterson, Project: Ballad is a new long-form webcomic that I’ve taken to thinking of as a modern day Chronicles of Narnia with several dashes of The Wizard thrown in for kick. Michael and I have been developing this project for over a year together (and he on his own for much longer), beginning the process not long after I finished Spoilers at the end of 2010.

I’m trying a lot of new things with this one – first serious collaboration, first time really working on a schedule, really putting my color skills to the test. I think it will be a good time. For the first two weeks, we’ll update every weekday, so tell your friends. After the prologue, we’ll settle into three day week kind of thing.

SPACE

Speaking of Spoilers, my old labor of love got some recognition recently, earning a SPACE Prize in the webcomics category. Really honored to receive the award in Columbus this weekend. I don’t know my table number, but it’ll be either 51 or 53, which you can find on this map, borrowed from friend and table neighbor Rafer Roberts (he’s the table marked in red). Keeping me company will be best dudes Jessi Zabarsky and Eric Kubli.

I’ll have promo cards for Project Ballad, printed up by the fine people at Jak Prints, as well as my brand new collection of comics Birthday Surprise, more on that in a moment. Also, on Saturday, I’ve been asked to be on a panel about webcomics. This will be my first panel and I hope I am able to translate my many thoughts on webcomics into something that is useful to attendees. Also excited to hear the other panelists’ perspectives – the history of webcomics is one of a thousand faces, with so many different paths and entry points. Should be fun! I hope that in this day and age, having the talk recorded is a given, but we’ll see.
Here’s the info on the panel, which will be in the Panel Room:
4:00 PM WebcomicsJoin webcomics creators Doug Hufford & Todd Beistel(Yuri Gypsy Hunter), Justin Heins & Ryan Tackett (Double Clicked Comics), Frank Cvetkovic (Punch-Up), Eric Adams( Lackluster World), Kevin Czapiewski (Spoilers) and Sara Lindo (Carl Finds Love) as they share their experiences.

Birthday Surprise

After I finished Spoilers, having been recently visited by the Ghost of Comics Future, I made a pact with myself to change my ways and use every spare moment of my life working on comics. So throughout 2011 I just worked on a bunch of smaller stuff. Now I’ve collected all the bits and pieces and published them in a full color volume called Birthday Surprise! I debuted the book at the Chicago Zine Fest, and if you’re in the area, you can pick up a copy from Quimby’s. Includes some work never before published, including a new short I did called “Blonde Cake.”

I’m working on setting up a new online store so that you can buy a copy, but in the meantime, come see me at a show! You can see my schedule in the righthand sidebar. If you’re not able to make it to SPACE, I hope you’ll come stop by at TCAF, which is looking like it will be every bit the Comix Nirvana it was last year. Can’t wait!

Trigger

Since I’ve started to really focus on drawing Project: Ballad, the amount of time I have to do a bunch of minis and shorts has diminished. At the same time, I’ve started to become more involved with the DIY scene here in Cleveland, which is full of great fucking bands like Signals Midwest, Two Hand Fools, Worship This!, All Dinosaurs, Harvey Pekar, Vince Roy, The Fucking Cops, Northwestern, etc. etc. Even though I’m not a musician, I wanted to give something back, so my project for this year is to do a monthly micro-comic which I hand out at shows. I ended up calling this thing Trigger, and it’s been eye-opening in terms of expanding my mindset beyond the strictly-comics scene.

As convention season starts up, I’m going to be taking Trigger on the road with me, selling bundles of the back issues ($1 for 3 minis) and giving away the current one or two for free. Come grab one!

Ridgemont/Two Hand Fools

Speaking of the Cleveland scene, my buddies in Two Hand Fools (seriously, one of my favorite bands – their newest EP “Believeland” is so good, not to mention their full length House Parts) asked me to do the art for their upcoming split with Boston band Ridgemont. Here’s what I came up with. Seriously, this is like a dream come true. I basically got my start as a designer by making inserts for mix CDs. Couldn’t be more amped. (I also did a tour poster for them)

The record should be available soon from Mindless Records.

District Comics

In September, I’ll have 7 pages (written by Chad Lambert) in this book, District Comics, being published by Fulcrum. The anthology is sort of a comics history of Washington DC, my hometown (sort of), so I’m looking forward to this one.

Anything Else?

I was in a music video.

Aside from that, we’re working on the third PUPPYTEETH which should be debuting at SPX. There will be more news on that in the coming months.

So yeah, even though I haven’t been blogging so much, don’t think I’ve been sittin pretty. Check out Project: Ballad, tell us what you think in the forums, come see me at a show near you.

Miss you guys, take care of yourselves.

<3