Remember when I said I’d add my latest comic into my shoppe? I also promised to post the original art for the cover, didn’t I? Yes, I think I did. Well, here it is! You may also recall that I promised to wax romantic about yellow ink. I’m not so sure I can go quite that far. Lately my roving eye has been ogling magenta. In fact, I can’t remember why I decided to use yellow in the first place. Ah, but aren’t I getting ahead of oneself. You probably want to know what the hell I’m doing putting yellow ink all over an otherwise perfectly fine drawing.

It all started with Farmy Acres, and it’s notorious black+one color scheme. Basically I wanted my still-cogent inker self to indicate to my future late night computer colorist self where to put the color. In the old days, comic book artists would draw thin outlines as “color holds” to indicate where the colorist (who was of course a different person) should drop a shadow, for instance. I’m one person and I have Photoshop, so I figured I could do better than that.

On Dan Clowes’ art for Ghost World, the secondary blue color is indicated by cyan ink right on the original drawing. I use cyan “no-photo blue” pencils to sketch things out, so I can’t use blue to also indicate a color separation. The pencils would get all mixed in and it’d all go to hell! It occurred to me that instead I could probably just draw with one of the other two process colors. I got ahead of myself again. Process colors. They’re the four colors with which most things in color are printed. But you knew that. The reason I figured I should stick with them is you can look at your Photoshop art broken down into its component color channels. This makes it really easy to find and select something that is 100% made up of just one of those colors.

Well, I know I’ve said how much I love using colored ink. A whole spectrum of ink bottles is arrayed by my drawing table every day. So, I just started dipping my pen, and eventually my brush, into the little glass bottle full of yellow. For some reason I didn’t use magenta. I really can’t remember why.

Anyhow, I’ve been doing it for a few months now, and did so for this cover design, as you can tell. I wanted the cover pages to look like title cards from an old cartoon. I pulled together elements from Looney Tunes, Disney (“A Walt Disney Donald Duck. Technicolor.”), and Tom & Jerry. Using a lightbox, I put my Bristol paper over a 1/10″ grid to make the letterforms consistant.

See the crayon stuff above the front cover? I used that for a spotlight behind the lettering. You know, like old title cards.

Did you make it all the way down here?? Gee, you must really need to kill some time! Wull…thanks.

Hi friends living the comics dream, and others who accomodate it. Hello spambots and spamesses. Good evening, internet. I have a new plan for life. I won’t go into detail lest I jinx it. Yes, thanks for asking, it does involve cardio-dance-Pilates videos streaming from Netflix.

Starting next Tuesday: A Promise Kept! Look out for a Red Flower in your underpants or a Sticky Substance in your sheets, because this website is hitting it’s awkward phase. I’ll serialize my Petrified Girlfriend comic with the frequency of pimples and pubic hairs, a page a week.

Yes, Petrified may not have been written with the intent of being dragged out that way, but at any rate it’ll give me a chance to find the story another path out into the ether. I want to finish this thing. I hope you’ll enjoy it, and I’m sorry if you’ve already read the second chapter (in O&L #3) because that’s where I’m starting. If you want to refresh yourself on the first chapter, now’s the time to do it. You may notice that between chapters 1 & 2, the style changes. A lot. You’ll have to live with it for now. If you want a consistent look, well, get the damn graphic novel! In, like, 2027 or so.

There’s been a whole lot else going on since the days when I was last a steady blogger. For instance, at SPX back in September, I debuted a new Oak & Linden mini featuring the Grown-Up Babies. It’s called Dental Damned!!, and if you follow this blog, you’ve read it…

…in BLACK & WHITE!! You poor sucker! It’s a full-color comic! And yesterday I posted it on my website. (I also posted a recent illustration, with layout and colors by Michelle Ollie, and featuring a cousin of Wilma Whistlepig.) Some day soon, when I get my grubby fingers on some capital, I’ll print some more Damned minis and provide them for sale at my shoppe. But why wait until then, when you can read it now for free? Am I a great businessman or what?? I’ll also eventually show you the original art for the covers, and I’ll blather on for a bit about why I’ve grown to love yellow ink.

[Props to Jen May, who loved to say that and then pump the Jock Jams, once upon an undergrad.]

Here it is, folks. The culmination of a year’s work at the Center for Cartoon Studies. This thesis book wouldn’t be nearly as neat-o without the hard work of my best half, Caitlin. She diligently cross-stitched eight individual covers; three for the thesis committee,* one each for the library, archive and gallery,** one for CCS Director James Sturm and one for my masterful thesis advisor, Brett Warnock. Caitlin zipped through British Period Drama after British Period Drama while she embroidered, and would come home from work, cook, eat, and get right to business. She is a wonder and they look lovely.

The stitching on the front was based mostly some sample alphabets I found online. Thanks to flickr-er “superminx” for posting the inspiration for the shadowed title lettering. The single-thread  “comics by…” part I invented from whole-cloth, after seeing some examples of script and sans-serif lettering styles designed for gridded fabrics using a single thread, as opposed to a series of Xes.

The look of the front cover sorta dictated the design of the pages within. I chose Gotham Condensed Thin as my body type, since it feels like a cousin to that tall, skinny, humanist thread lettering that I made up.

Hicough & Belch in color, as they appear on Top Shelf 2.0.

Here’s a sneak peek at Petrified Girlfriend chapter 3: Invasive Species, which will come out in some form or another some time, I think.

And can’t for-get about the Farrrrm-yy Acres.

– – – –

*President Michelle Ollie, and cartoonist-instructors Alec Longstreth and Jason Lutes. Thanks to Alec for letting me keep his copy, and for looking forward to getting the individual books of the separate projects as they come out. Which, I assure you, he will, or my name isn’t…!

Aaaaahhh…whatever it is.

**Images from the CCS gallery show, featuring both original and finished art by each of the graduates, are up (thanks be to Josh Kramer) at the Summer Showcase blog. Lotssa talent and lotssa interesting work up there, my lovelies. (See if you can’t spot your red-faced Irish host, too. Oh, and his work.)

‘Bout time I posted something you hafta look away from, isn’t it?

In conversation with Joe Lambert, I realized I may have been unconsciously inspired by his Too Far story [bottom-left page in the preview]. It’s in his new(ish) I Will Bite You! book, and also in a digest-sized anthology he put together with One Percent Press.

We’re just barreling through the summer, aren’t we? I can’t remember the last summer I’ve been so busy. I’m passing up $75-an-hour work for comes-out-to-minimum-wage work because I love it. I’m thinking big thoughts about the future, and saying goodbye to close friends on an almost weekly basis. Still, Caitlin and I are wallowing in rivers, pounding cold ones by the grill, going to movies, and just plain having a gay old time. It could be much worse, friends.

From Steve Zimmer's Passive-Agressive Avenger. I'd show more, but I don't wanna spoil a future video.

Drawn-Out Storytelling was a great time. Thanks are due especially to Nisse Greenberg, Paul Swartz, Lena Chandhok & Mike O’Malley [who provided music and doesn't seem to have a webby] for making it happen. The efforts of all the storytellers, musicians and fellow cartoonists involved, as well as the support of The Brick Theater and Kickstarter donors, made for some rollicking and entertaining shows.  And it wouldn’t have been nearly so enjoyable without the enthusiastic crowds night after night. Thank you too much for coming out!

For me, it was a thrill to be able to invite friends and family to an event at which they would actually have fun. I feel like I’m always inviting folks to come out and pay 15 bucks just to get into the door of some strange and out-of-the-way building so they can look at some Xeroxed comics they don’t care about, and maybe some graphic novels they could just get at the store. But not this time! This time I could boldly extend my welcome to all comers, feeling secure that they had an actual, engaging and satisfying diversion! Oh, theater, such is your allure. Thanks to all you scads of friends and family for helping the house sell out, and for being such a generous audience.

Here’s one I’ve been sitting on for a while. For, like a year. This was when my ex-roommate, my ex-ex!-EX!-rooommate Todd was updating a blog every once in a while. Which was before Dan McCool and I (he hatching ideas from his six heads like Scylla, and I sucking wayfaring cartoonists into a depthless cavity of deadlines and despair as Charybdis) pulled him into the spiraling vortex of Farmy Acres. Now Todd McArthur’s after-work creative time is mine! ALL MINE!*

As I was saying, Todd drew that on the subway in his Moleskine. I said I’d love to see it in color, he said, “So why don’tcha color it?? Neener-nyaaa-nya!!” So I did. I limited myself to the colors (if not the style) of classic comics. This is something I keep doing to myself.

The image is apropos, readers, it’s apropos. And yes, I’ve been looking for an excuse to write “apropos.” Isn’t it so weird that it ends with an “s”? It’s apropos because this is the summer of collaboration. Right now I’m in the process of assisting the acclaimed Joe Lambert as a colorist on an up-coming book. I’m also on a top secret mission with the Nymphonomena crew, as well as some…other stuff…which we’ll get to. Because, I’m trying to get my blog posts back down to a reasonable length. I figure they will as I get back into the habit of writing em.

Speaking of which, the Party Time I alluded to when last we spoke, well, it ended pretty quick. I’ve been running back and forth between Vermont and New York, working long days, fretting, taking meetings, all of it. Real life started again. Just like that! Again I’m starting to see what things I can live without. I want to simplify. I wanna get rid of some stuff. I’m having my lump looked at before I turn 26 and rejoin the legions of uninsured Americans.

Look forward to more regular updates this summer, precious reader. There is much to talk about, and I’ve scanned a buncha sketchbook pages, too.

*As it was once before, in a dream…
–Punctilious Pat

Remember when I promised that I’d be posting a side-by-side-by-side comparison of three different cover printing techniques? Well, here it is. And I’m gonna talk about it. At length. I know you’re very excited for it. But first I want to note that Oak & Linden issue #3 is now available at the PB dot C shop. It features the second chapter of Petrified Girlfriend, and those little imps Hicough & Belch. I’ve also posted chapter one in it’s entirety to keep you up-to-date. I plan to continue posting the previous chapter as each new one comes out, so chapter two will be online in the fall, when I print chapter three. Make sense? Exciting? Legions of fans??

My plan for the Petrified Girlfriend book, which I’ll someday make in the hopefully not-so-distant future, is to print in two Pantone colors on a nice, creamy paper. I thought I’d try to hone the two-color process by first giving it a whirl on the cover of O&L 3, since it features the second chapter of Petrified. I’ve colored this way a few times before, including on Lawrence the Projectorhead. I’m still trying to figure out a way to make it easier. So far, I’ve been working in the Channels in Photoshop, which means I have to fill each color in two parts, individually on the red Channel and on the green Channel. It’s laborious and it’s time intensive. Does anybody know a better way?

First I printed the cover with a silkscreen. I’ve done screenprints that involve halftone screens before, with good results, but I was really disappointed with how my screens turned out. Part of the problem had to do with burning them on a less-than-ideal light table. I kept bumping up the size of my dots to try to make it easier, and still kept shooting out a pretty rough and ragged image. Lots of people who also screenprint were into this cover, I think basically because they understood the work that went into it, but I gotta admit I hated it. I also didn’t think I did a good job mixing the colors I was looking for. It was tough to create the lightness of the green ink without adding too much white, and still allowing it to be transparent to create nice mixes with the red. I also was disappointed in the paper I bought, which was a little too thin and a bit too yellow. The worst part, though, was the feeling of the cover when I’d read the book. With that much coverage, the acrylic ink feels all chalky and gross on the fingernails.

If you read this far, then bless you. You are a true friend or mother. It’s almost over. So, I made some laser prints (or color copies for the layman). I don’t like the shininess or the plasticky feel that these things make. Plus the colors came out a little dull and dark after they got run through the four-color process. So I said to hell with it. I’ll get it done for real. I’m gonna print with Pantones. I’ll pay an offset printer and I’ll get it done. The thing about offset printing, though, is you gotta make 500 or so prints to make it cost effective. So now I have 500 covers. I honestly don’t expect to sell or trade more than 200 copies of the comic, ever. What I’m saying is, now I have 300 posters. Anybody want one? Also I owe my girlfriend a fairly large chunk of change for covering the printing.

I turned in my CCS thesis material this Monday, the morning after news of that video game-worthy event in Pakistan broke during a Mets/Phillies game that the Metropolitans won in the 14th. On this very same same Monday I paid off the rest of my tuition (that wasn’t covered by loans), which turned out to be less than I expected, sooooo this week started on a good groove. I’m afraid I don’t have any pictures of the thesis book yet, but I promise to post some later this month.

Now that I hit the major deadline, I’m coming back, bit by bit, to the little pleasures I didn’t allow myself in the past three or four months. One was Mario Galaxy 2, another was The Sopranos, I turned on my Google Chat again, checked out some old comics from the Schulz Library (and bought a new one, too), I look forward to reading The New Yorker again, and I keep coming across new time suckers I forgot I used to do all the time. And NOWwww, I’m blogging! I really do have fun writing these, and I hope I’m not the only one being entertained.

There have been a million developments since I went into seclusion. For one, Hicough & Belch the imps are on Top Shelf 2.0, in living color! For another, I found out that hiccough is spelled with two “c”s. What else? Thanks to Brett Warnock at Top Shelf, James Kochalka at American Elf and Tom Spurgeon at The Comics Reporter for linking to the Cartoonist Laureate post! Thanks, too, for new folks that I’ve met at MoCCA Fest and elsewhere for visiting here; I’m sorry if it has looked like a barren wasteblog. There was also some exciting news yesterday, when Rob Clough at The Comics Journal named Nymphonomena one of the Top 25 Mini Comics of 2010 (it’s at #14)! Lots of my Cartoon Studies cohorts are listed as well, and it’s a true honor to be named alongside folks like Kevin Huizenga, Jim Rugg and Damien Jay.

I know that may have been a lot of self-congratulating to swallow, so I thank you all for being such considerate lovers and readers. As I’ve mentioned previously, I’ve got a backlog of doodles, outta-left-field opinions, and new comics to show you, as well as some exciting summer projects coming, many of which are collaborative. This’ll be a pleasant contrast to the past few months of solitary activity and trying (and often failing) to not distract myself with social engagement. I’ll be happy if I/we can pull off only half of our fun activities.

Yes, it’s another Buchwald sketch. I did it a while ago, and I’m still pining to get going on a Big Buchwald Project that’s looking farther and farther off. This drawing also demonstrates some loose, free, quickness that I seem to have lost for now. Yeah, I know that back leg is a little weird, but I still prefer it to what I’ve been up to lately.

I just keep thinking how much I wanna simplify things when I get to that Next Big Project. Time to Speed Things Up and Get Things Done. None of us is making a career out of comics, so why kill ourselves over it? Oy. I should stop now. Jeeeeeeee-zooey, we haven’t had one o’ these posts in a while, have we??