Fancy Graphics

Comic here there, everywhere!

2012-02-12T15:29:00.000-05:00

Hey y'all. So, turns out I don't think I'll have time to get to the New Masada story line in the next few months. Instead, I really want to focus on getting Culver out, which I am super pumped for. Matt sent me the first 20 pages of script this past week, and I can't wait to get it going! The story's really dynamic, and will be put into a number of trade paperback sized comics and then collected in a graphic novel. I just hope the quality of the drawings match that of the script :)

Also, Magic Bullet 4 will be out next week, so keep posted if you're in the DMV! If not, shoot me an email and I'll see if I can send you a copy of the paper. I have a page in it I'm feeling good about, and here's a preview:

I also now have two shows lined up for the spring: the Feminist Zinefest in Brooklyn NY on Feb. 24. Come check it out; it is bound to be a gay old time! I'll also be at the Scranton Zinefest in PA on June 9.

2011 in review

2012-01-10T16:13:00.000-05:00

Me at SPX

So 2011 was an awesome year in comics for me! I went to three new shows-- SPACE, Baltimore Comicon, and the DC Zinefest--and drew two new issues of Gay Kid and of Suggestion Box. I also spoke at the Radical Book Pavilion at the Baltimore Book Fest, which was a lot of fun. In the future I'm going to try and hit up more zinefests; the atmosphere is really laid back and friendly, there's a lot of alternative and queer stuff out there, and it's a different market than comic book people. I doubt I'll go to SPACE again, as it was a lot of travel for not a big show. I'm glad I went to the Bmore Comicon, but don't feel any huge need to go back; it wasn't a great place for a real small-press, indie cartoonist. I wanted to go to PIX again, but didn't have that weekend free. 2012, though, I want to go back!

Goodbye!

My weekly at TheNewGay, Office Bitch, stopped right before the site shut down. I was getting a little tired of the other work coming out of the site and they were in a death-spiral anyways, so I still feel like that was the right decision to make. Working on the 30 Characters in 30 Days challenge was a great inspiration to me, and I'm going to start a weekly comic based off of the New Masada/Rebel States characters. If it seems like I've been quiet on the blog front for a while, some of that is due to the brainstorming going into this comic. I don't want to just jump into it willy-nilly, and I've never done any fiction writing before, so it may be that I'm being especially cautious about it. Who knows. But stay tuned; that comic should be up and running come February!

Chloe, a character from the 30 days challenge, and the upcoming New Masada storyline

Also, in February, I'll have an entry in the next issue of Magic Bullet (wow, check out this super out of date site!), the free comic newspaper put out by the DC Conspiracy. I've never done anything with them before, and am looking forward to this opportunity to get my work out there!

So, that about does it. It was a super year, and I hope 2012 is even better! Does anyone have any advice for shows I should hit up?

30 Character Challenge: Day 28, 29 and 30

2011-11-30T22:22:00.000-05:00

Name: Antoine Omar
Age: 19
Height: 6'1
Weight: 165 lbs
Location: Paris
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown

Bio: Antoine's family moved to Paris from Algeria when he was four years old. He never quite fit in as a child, but when the underground house genre called Tecktonic hit the clubs, Antoine broke out of his shell and busted some serious moves. He is now a famous club promoter from Miami to Ibiza, but still calls Paris home and lives with his parents. Thankfully, he was able to buy an upgrade from their one-bedroom apartment on the outskirts of town and get a four-bedroom condo overlooking Notre Dame cathedral.

Name: Sasha Montegna
Title: Sargent in the NMPD (New Masada Police Department)
Age: 26
Height: 5'10
Weight: 160 lbs
Location: New Masada
Hair: Blond
Eyes: Blue

Bio: Sasha was recruited to the New Masada police force straight out of high school. She has always been a very patriotic person and is honored to serve her country in this capacity. After the Uprising of 2013, she was moved out of the Capitol, Canaan, to Bethsade, the town where the insurrection began. Her dedication to the Administration and ruthless enforcement of it's laws make her a prime target of the Rebel States.

Name: Tanya Grandstaff
Title: one of the leaders of the Uprising of 2013
Age: 49 at time of death
Height: 5'6
Weight: 145 lbs
Location: was in New Masada
Hair: Dark brown
Eyes: Blue

Bio: Tanya is the mother to Chloe, the Assassin, and Xavier, Garrison of New Masada. She was one of the leaders of the Uprising of 2013, leading the rebels in many battles with the Administration. One day when she came home, her husband was waiting for her. He was with two other Garrisons, who escorted her out of the house and into the awaiting police van. She was brought to the Defense Building, where she had a hasty show trial and was executed. Her battle, and that of the other rebels, lives on. They are banding back together and growing a grassroots movement called the Rebel States. Tanya would be very proud of her daughter Chloe, who has taken up the flag of the Rebel States and is working to make her mother's dream a reality.

* * *

Oh my God, can you believe it? We're at the end! The final curtain, the last hurrah! I've had a lot of fun working on these characters. I would love to work on a storyline for some of them, especially the ones from New Masada. This has been a great creative experience and a really worthwhile venture. Thanks for reading these posts!

30 Character Challenge: Day 26 and 27

2011-11-29T22:55:00.001-05:00

Name: Distractinator
Age: Created sometime in the past 15 years
Height: 6'8
Weight: 320 lbs
Location: Your house, your office, your cell phone, wherever
Hair: N/A
Eyes: Pink and Blue

Bio: The Distractination sneaks up on you when you least expect it, and also when you expect it. Trying to check your email? BOOM he's there, showing you videos of otters holding hands. Reading the news? BAM why not watch a cat on a roomba? Trying to do a mail merge? WOWZA try again after 15 minutes spent watching Rihanna music videos. The only machine that can vanquish the Distractinator is WorkEthicasaurus, or a power outage.

Name: Super Pig

Age: 12
Height: 6'1 standing upright
Weight: 520 lbs
Location: USA
Hair: Red to dusty pink
Eyes: Grey

Bio: Super Pig used to not be that super. An ordinary farm hog, Super Pig was treated with a chemically tainted growth hormone that contained traces of human DNA. He is now a barnyard superhero, fending off evil farmers with the stick they once used to herd him around.

Pigs are my favorite animal, so I had to give them some love in this challenge.

30 Character Challenge: Day 24 and 25

2011-11-28T20:55:00.000-05:00

Name: Luis Garcia
Title: Lt. Commander of Galileo
Age: 57
Height: 5'10
Weight: 180 lbs
Location: Galileo, floating city in the Colombo Gap in the rings of Saturn
Hair: Graying brown
Eyes: Brown

Bio: Luis is the right-hand man to Linda DeKamp, Commander of Galileo. He is a great asset to the Administration, making sure that all the i's are dotted and t's are crossed. He grew up in the Asteroid Belt, and always wanted to live on one of the gas giants (no one was there yet when he was a child). He lived in Galileo for 10 years before becoming the Lt. Commander, giving him a lot of great practical knowledge of the floating city.

Name: Alpero Lex
Title: Sgt. at Galileo, Operations Division
Age: 87
Height: 7'9
Weight: 280 lbs
Location: Galileo, floating city in the Colombo Gap in the rings of Saturn
Hair: N/A
Eyes: Black

Bio: Don't let the age fool you; Alpero grew up on Mars with Linda. Martians have a much longer infancy that humans, in which they physically mature completely, before maturing psychologically. When Linda applied for a position on Galileo, Alpero did so too, just to see what happened. They ended up getting a position as a Sargent in the Ops Division, which is just a fancy name for a handyman. Alpero loves their job, though, and is enjoying their time on Galileo (martians have always been big partiers).

30 Character Challenge: Day 22 and 23

2011-11-26T23:22:00.000-05:00

Name: Linda DeKamp
Title: Commander of the floating city Galileo around Saturn
Age: 35
Height: 6'2
Weight: 170 lbs
Location: Colombo Gap in the rings of Saturn
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Blue

Bio: Linda DeKamp has been groomed for this position since she was a child. Raised on the colony on Mars, she excelled in math, physics, astro-geology and leadership skills. When the floating city orbiting Saturn, named Galileo, started operation in 2115, Linda's resume and application were on the top of the pile. Her friends tried to damper her excitement; no woman had ever been Commander of a station in the Solar Union. She became the first, and is now running the most productive floating city in the Gas Giant region.

Name: Piers Gaveston
Position:
Age: 27
Height: 6'1
Weight: 200 lbs, 245 lbs with full armor
Location: England
Hair: Ginger
Eyes: Hazel

Bio: Piers is a fierce fighter in the English military in the early 1300s. He has seen his fair share of war, and has gained notoriety amongst his fellow infantrymen as a man without morals in the battlefield.

But mostly, I just wanted to draw someone in armor.

30 Character Challenge: Day 19, 20 and 21

2011-11-24T00:15:00.000-05:00

Name: Chameleon
Real Name: Jason Crane
Title: Sgt. in the US Army
Age: 43
Height: 6'4
Weight: 270 lbs
Location: USA
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Blue

Bio: Sgt. Jason Crane was working for the Army on a new form of camouflage that would adapt to the surroundings of the soldier. He was trying to figure out how to make the clothes react to the environment, and totally failed. However, late one night in a fit of rage, wearing a uniform made in another failed material, it suddenly turned red. Crane realized that he had made a fabric that responded to his emotions and thoughts, changing color with only an abstract idea. He hasn't perfected the fabric (it only responds to him), but it has given him the opportunity to work for the US Army as the Chameleon on special covert assignments that no one else can fulfill.

Name: Star Boy
Real Name: David Storm
Age: 32
Height: 6'3
Weight: 250 lbs
Location: USA
Hair: Black
Eyes: Blue

Bio: Star Boy was the darling of the nation. Even Superman looked up to him as an idol and pillar of good in this crazy world. He stopped the Cold War single-handedly, eliminated the global mafia, and rescued his share of kittens stuck in trees. Recently, our hero burned out. Star Boy, aka David Storm, had a nervous break under the pressure of being Star Boy. He fell off of the face of the earth after his crack up on the Today Show, and has been staring at the bottom of a bottle ever since. The world is getting to be a more dangerous place since his disappearance. How much longer can earth survive without their celestial savior?

Name: the Red Ninja

Real Name: Xue Chang
Age: 25
Height: 5'6
Weight: 150 lbs
Location: USA
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown

Bio: Xue always excelled in the Martial Arts, but found her true calling once she found an old set of throwing stars at a run-down pawn shop in a strip mall outside her hometown. When she held them, she felt a surge of power running down her hands into her body, and instantly felt a bond with these deadly weapons. Her training became more serious, and she started stealing away in the night to fight crime with her stars and skills.

30 Character Challenge: Day 18

2011-11-20T22:46:00.000-05:00

Name: Damien Jackson
Title: New Masada
Age: 62
Height: 6'0
Weight: 170 lbs
Location: New Masada
Hair: Grey
Eyes: Black

Bio: Damien is kind of a fixture around Bethsade. He's a veteran who's living comfortably enough of a pension from his time in the army. Not one to like being by himself, he usually leaves his apartment early in the morning and wanders around town, chatting up anyone who will listen and helping neighbors out with different odd-jobs. He's a pretty handy guy, and since he never charges for his services, everyone appreciates the help. The only real problem he has is that he's still struggling with his PTSD and sometimes has flashbacks, bringing him back to the old wars New Masada fought when it was just starting to come to power.

He's aware of the Rebel States, but somewhat wary of what they'll bring about. The last thing he wants is to be in the middle of another war.

30 Character Challenge: Day 16 and 17

2011-11-19T22:47:00.001-05:00

Name: Solar Flare
Real Name: Chandra Rollins
Age: 26

Height: 5’4
Weight: 140 lbs
Location: USA
Hair: Brown

Eyes: Red

Bio: Solar Flare is an awesome super hero. She received the power to harness the sun's energy into rays that shoot from her hands. How did she get that power? Well kids, when your parents tell you to never look directly at the sun, EVEN IN A SOLAR ECLIPSE, just follow their directions. Little Chandra Rollins decided that it would be a great time to just look at it without any eye protection, and when she woke up, she was in the ICU, smoking and smelling like a ham. It took years for her to figure out how to focus and keep her heat from flaring up. Now, she has her own strength so well contained that she can bring all her heat to her hands, and shoot them out in crippling rays.

Name: Xavier Grandstaff
Title: Garrison of New Masada
Age: 51
Height: 6'0
Weight: 180 lbs
Location: New Masada
Hair: Ginger
Eyes: Hazel

Bio: Xavier is a Garrison for New Masada, and the father of Chloe, the Assassin. He frequently has to travel from their home in Bethsade to Canaan for business in the Capitol. Ever since the Uprising of 2013, things have been rocky at home with his daughter, so he really appreciates these trips out of town. He's working to move there and become a power player in the New Masada government.

30 Character Challenge: Day 15

2011-11-17T22:40:00.000-05:00

Name: Hipster Batman

When I was at SPX this past fall I got the idea of hipster superheroes in my head and sketched a few. Figure this is as good an opportunity as any to make a more official looking version of it! It was a lot of fun to draw in a more old-school comic book style. Playing with all the shadows and bulging muscle lines is a lot of fun, and definitely a great change of pace from how I usually draw. It took a long while (maybe 45 minutes) to draw this picture, but it was worth it.

30 Character Challenge: Day 14

2011-11-16T22:08:00.001-05:00

Name: Claire
Position: Messenger for the Rebel States
Age: 21

Height: 5’3
Weight: 120 lbs
Location: the Rebel States
Hair: Blond

Eyes:Blue

Bio: Claire and her old beat up Carrier bicycle play a vital role for the Rebel States. She is part-spy, part-messenger, part command center. She helps Pravda get out the GOB newspaper, and makes sure that everyone in the Rebel States is taken care of with her frequent house visits.

30 Character Challenge: Day 11, 12 and 13

2011-11-14T22:14:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I'm a little behind (a lot behind), so here are three new, totally unrelated characters. I'm having a lot of fun working on the New Masada and Rebel States characters, but I'm going to take a break from those and try to just create some totally new people as well.

Name: Golden Bow

Real Name: Grant Archer
Age: 28

Height: 5’8
Weight: 160 lbs
Location: the Woods
Hair: Brown

Eyes:Brown

Bio: the Golden Bow is a deadly force with his trusty bow and arrow. Also an expert at hand-to-hand combat, he fights crime in the poor no man's land known only as "the Woods." As a child, Grant was always a sort of a loner and the life of the Golden Bow suits him. He gets to keep a low profile, and no one expects that the quiet cooper could possibly be the same person who brought the Robbin' Hood gang to justice.

Side note: I was trying to play around with perspective on this one, and got it about half right. I feel really good about arms and head, but where the waist turns is a bit of a mess. Basically, I forgot about hips and gave him the smallest butt in the world. Oops.

Name: the Professor
Age: 68

Height: 5’7
Weight: 150 lbs
Location: North Hadley College
Hair: Grey

Eyes: Brown

Bio: Basically, I just wanted to draw 1) someone from the top down 2) a guy with long hair and a beard 3) a Cosby sweater. So, basically, a college professor. I think this sort of person is a good one to have in your wheelhouse. Most of my people tend to be around the same age, so it's a good excuse to try to draw an older person. The marker I used to color in his skin was running out, but I really like the texture it gives, it makes him look older!

Name: the Manarchist
Age: 22

Height: 5’11

Weight: 155 lbs
Location: Too close for comfort
Hair: Brown

Eyes: Blue

Bio: The Manarchist is that guy who needs to check his privilege at the door. He's so busy trying to be the most progressive and radical person he can be that he forgets that he is a white, straight, cisgendered dude who shops at Whole Foods and whose parents work for the government. He has all sorts of opinions, like that Nixon was the most radical president we've had (well, except for all the foreign policy stuff). He will talk you ear off, let me tell you.

Personally, I think the Occupy movement is awesome. It's just a good chance to have an anarchist complaining about themselves. I also know and enjoy the company of some anarchists, it's just that a lot of them need to check themselves before they wreck themselves. Drawing leather jackets is also fun, so it was either this or a punk.

30 Character Challenge: Day 9 and 10

2011-11-12T12:57:00.000-05:00

Name: The Man
Age: 52

Height: 5’8
Weight: 160 lbs
Location: Metropolis
Hair: Brown

Eyes: Grey

Bio: The Man is Mr. Establishment. He used to own a novelty and joke shop, but after the Recession, he started working as a suit. He traded in almost any sense of individuality, except for his clown flower. He's the arch-nemesis of Super Hipster, representing all things non-ironic.

Name: Jakob Longmont

Alias: Super Hipster

Age:23

Height: 5’9
Weight: 130 lbs
Location: Metropolis
Hair: Brown

Eyes: Grey

Bio: Watch out, or he'll get you with his Apathy Ray! Super Hipster is an amalgamation of comic characters: like Popeye, getting his energy from PBR and kale chips: "vitamin A and vitamin alcohol, yo." His bat-cave is the warehouse he's squatting in in Metropolis. Like the Green Lantern, his powers come from one physical source: American Spirits. Super Hipster would fight the Man, except that's too predictable. So instead, he works for him as a data analyst.

30 Character Challenge: Day 7 and 8

2011-11-09T19:11:00.000-05:00

Two New Characters in the Rebel States

Name: Pravda
Position: Printmaker for the Rebel States
Age: 42

Height: 5’5
Weight: 160 lbs
Location: the Rebel States
Hair: Brown

Eyes: Green

Bio: Pravda has been a printmaker all her life, but used to work for the New Masada National Paper to pay the bills. After the Uprising of 2013, she aligned herself with the Rebel States and found her niche: creating print material for the Rebel States. Since all electronic communication is closely monitored by New Masada, the Rebel States have turned back to newspapers and fliers to disseminate information. The formal paper of the Rebel States is called the GOB, standing for the "Grey, Orange and Black," the tricolor flag of the Rebel States.

Name: Christof

Position: Supporter of the Rebel States
Age:27

Height: 6'0

Weight: 180 lbs
Location: the Rebel States
Hair: Black

Eyes: Brown

Bio: Tired of living under the oppressive government of New Masada, Christof is a recent recruit to the Rebel States. He had friends who were tangentially related to the Uprising and thrown in jail, but Christof wasn't surprised; people from his side of the tracks were always being tossed in the slammer. Once the food started running low, however, he started taking notice to the institutional change of pace. He started listening more to what was going on in the underground, and caught wind of the Rebel States. Now, he a community organizer of sort, and an expert hatchet thrower when necessary.

30 Character Challenge: Day 6

2011-11-08T17:13:00.000-05:00

Adventures in Space/Paint!

Name: Charlotte Pancer

Position: S.P.A.C.E. Enforcer
Age: 24

Height: 5'6

Weight: N/A
Location: Intergalactic DMZ

Hair: Brown
Eyes: Black

Bio: Charlotte is a top level S.P.A.C.E. Enforcer, the section of the US Army dedicated to protecting planets of national interest. Heading up a team of six Enforcers, her current mission is to make sure that the USSR (Un-Sapien Sentient Republic) hasn't sent any missions into the Intergalactic DMZ.

30 Character Challenge: Day 4 and 5

2011-11-06T22:12:00.000-05:00

So, I'm a day late, but I have two new characters to make up for it!

Name: Jilian Tamaki

Position: Ski Patrol for COSH
Age: 27

Height: 5'6

Weight: 140 lbs
Location: Unknown

Hair: Black
Eyes: Black

Bio: Working for the super group known as COSH (Coalition of Super Humans), Jilian keeps watch over their secret bunker in Hokkaido, Japan. Although not imbued with any super powers of her own, Jilian grew up in these woods and knows them better than anyone. Her constant surveillance of the area makes sure that COSH's HQ is always protected.

Name: the Enigma

Age: 60-something

Height: 5'5

Weight: 150 lbs
Location: Secret Lair (duh, he's a bad guy!)

Hair: Brown, what's left of it
Eyes: Brown

Bio: The Enigma is your old-school villain. He got his start working for the Nazis, where he became a high-level cryptographer, creating the code used in the (in)famous Enigma machine. After the fall of Berlin, he hid away in the mountains of Austria. He is the perfect foil for all heroes: sinister laugh, Napoleon complex, and creator of diabolical puzzles.

30 Character Challenge: Day 3

2011-11-04T17:12:00.000-04:00

Real Name: Anthony Reyes

Currently goes by: HammerHead
Age:27

Height: 6'5

Weight: 250 lbs
Location:Hawaii

Hair: N/A
Eyes: Blue

Bio: An avid surfer and adrenaline junky, Anthony Reyes was always looking for the newest rush. After drinking too many mai tais at the Tiki Torch Lounge at his home on the big island, Anthony and his friends were brainstorming where their next big trip would be to. The old guy who always lurked in the back corners of the bar had a suggestion: Bikini Atoll. He had once been a surfer, he told them, and had found the ultimate thrill there: catching massive waves, all the while surrounded by sharks. "Not like, regular sharks," he slurred. "BIG ones. Bigger then I'd ever seen." Anthony knew he had to go.

Once there, they learned the real story about the sharks, about the nuclear tests, and about the risks they were or weren't willing to take. Anthony went out alone that day, the rest of his friends too scarred to embark into the warm, turquoise water...

30 Character Challenge: Day 2

2011-11-03T23:44:00.000-04:00

Name: Carter

Position: Counter Intelligence for New Masada
Age: 33

Height: 6'1

Weight: 180 lbs
Location:Canaan, the capitol of New Masada

Hair: Brown
Eyes: Hazel

Bio: An agent of the state, Carter's duty is to take out The Assassin. Only he doesn't know it yet. The power elite of Canaan are noticing a lack of good information coming through from their contacts in the Rebel States, and have sent Carter to investigate. Their spies seem to be just dropping like flies...

Glad to have an opportunity to leave his desk job behind, Carter is taking full advantage of his time outside Canaan. He's not afraid to get his hands dirty working his way into the hearts of the people and the alleyways of the Rebel States.

I wrote Carter, figuring every good Assassin needs a nemesis!

30 Character Challenge: Day 1

2011-11-02T12:12:00.000-04:00

So, clearly, I'm having some issues getting my mind together enough to work on any sort of long-term comics. Thankfully, I just found out about this sweet 30 Characters/30 Days challenge. I wasn't able to register for it on time, but decided I'm going to participate anyways. The gauntlet is just that: create 30 new characters in 30 days, one for each day in November. I'm going to post them all here, one a day.

I've been thinking of working on a super hero or otherwise more creative storyline, and I think this will really help me brainstorm for it. Yay, you get to watch me brainstorm!

Ok, first up!

Can you tell I just finished reading The Hunger Games?

Name: Chloe
Title: The Assassin
Age: 22
Height: 5’4
Weight: 140 lbs
Location: the Rebel States
Hair: Ginger
Eyes: Brown

Bio: The Rebel States is a nation within a nation. Since the Uprising of 2013, the government of New Masada imposed harsher sanctions on its citizens, 1984-style. Most of the leaders of the Uprising were executed, but those who escaped the government and the families of the dead banded together to form the Rebel States. Part black market, part social services, and part para-military, the shadow government of the Rebel States protect the citizens of New Masada.

Chloe's stake in this battle is her family. Her mother was a leader of the Uprising and was turned in by her father, a Garrison for New Masada, and executed. Like most young adults in this economically depressed country, Chloe lives at home with her father. "You know the saying: keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Like, in the bedroom next to you," she explains. Chloe is now in the employ of the Rebel States, taking out snitches, narcs, informants, and anyone else who threatens to end the people’s last hope. Living with a Garrison has its advantages; most of her targets are topics of conversation around the dinner table.

So convention season is over. Now what?

2011-10-24T13:54:00.000-04:00

Hello hello hello there. So, lot's of things going on here.

1. Baltimore Book Festival was all right. It was pouring rain the day of the Zine Pavilion and not really anyone stopped by. The talk, however, went really well. The Pavilion was empty when I started, and then filled up to about 25 or so people. Red Emma's said they'd invite me to their shop to give an in-store talk as well, which would be a lot of fun. It was really exciting to share my process (is there no way to sound more pompous than by saying "my process?") and the history of Gay Kid with so many people.

The rain mirrored my emotions.

2. I stopped writing Office Bitch for TheNewGay. I was feeling a bit burnt out with the story and was having some issues with the overall vibe/feeling of the site. I'm going to start a weekly comic here in the next few weeks. It took a while to realize it, but no one I know really reads TNG. It's not really my scene; think HRC vs the radical queer collective that throws potluck fundraisers and you'll know what I'm talking about.

The new strip has yet to be determined, but I'm excited to figure that out and get started!

3. There are two new comics that will be started in the next month or so: Gay Kid 4 and Culver. Culver is a book I'm going to be illustrating, and is written by Matt Smith.Gay Kid 4 will be the next installment in the series, following issues on Seventeen Magazine, Fashion, and Anxiety. I'm thinking it may be about friends and/or family.

In the meanwhile, here are some doodles I've done at work while talking on the phone.

I'm working on a short comic about getting my wisdom teeth out. This is me feeling anxious. DUH.

Molly, our old beagle, in a Santa costume looking doleful.

Ok, that looks better.

MY FACE HURTS

2011-10-03T15:28:00.000-04:00

I got my wisdom teeth out recently, which is why the interwebs have been quiet. I'll post about the Baltimore Book Fest and other things once I'm feeling up to doing more than watching nature documentaries, letting my girlfriend cook for me, and eating said food.

off of SPX, onto the Baltimore Book Fest!

2011-09-21T17:05:00.000-04:00

So, SPX was awesome. As it always is. I met so many awesome people, like Whit Taylor, and shared a table again with the super Matt Smith, Jeremy Massie, and Desiree and Jason Pittman. Desiree broke the bank drawing awesome pictures of people as zombies, and we were all jealous.

But thankfully there were tons of people there, some of whom wanted to buy my comics, and ESPECIALLY the new issue of Gay Kid

photo from SPX's facebook. This is about as empty as the floor ever looked.

I made back the cost of my table (a first for SPX) and the cost of most of my printing. It was really, really heartening to have come this far from my first SPX five years ago, where I think I sold a total of about $50 worth of books. This makes it 4 for 4 shows in 2011 at making back the table: SPACE, DC Zinefest, Baltimore Comic-Con, and SPX. SPX being the most expensive, I am the most excited by it. Here's a pic of me being excited!


photo from SPX' facebook. So chatty!

* * *

So now, onto the Baltimore Book Festival!

I'll be talking at the Radical Bookfair Pavilion at 2:30 on Friday, and will be tabling for the duration of Friday (noon - eight, but I may have to leave early).

Come see me talk about my comics, the role comics have played in my life, and how I feel about the word "zine." It should be fun!

OHMIGOD it's almost SPX

2011-09-06T23:59:00.000-04:00

It's like Christmas time for comics: great friends, great comic books to spend all of your money on, and great greatness. It's really so great I can't even talk straight.

Now that SPX has finally come, that means (drumroll, please!) it's time for the debut of Gay Kid 3. Pick up your hot-off-the-presses copy this weekend! And when I say "hot off the presses," I mean it. I just finished drawing this thing tonight.

The cover looks a bit more depressing than the book actually is, but I wanted to keep with the theme of magazine covers and did it in the style of an anxiety/depression one. Those tend to be kind of cheesy ("I used to enjoy looking out the windows at my children playing in the yard....now it just makes me feel like I'm in a silent movie), which is always a winning trait. They also look a little, well, you know, depressed. In terms of the actual drawing of the cover, it was fun to get to draw something in pencil shading. I don't think I've done that since a mandatory drawing class I took in college, and I forgot how good it feels to get out your 2B and 4B pencils and really go for it.

Baltimore Comic Con and Gay Kid 3 Updates

2011-08-27T12:02:00.001-04:00

Hey there! I just got back from the Baltimore Comic-Con! It went pretty well: I made back the cost of the table (always important and my current barometer of whether a show was good or not), picked up some old Ninja Turtles comics, and met a lot of cool people, including Baby Doll from Sucker Punch and Cammy from Streefighter, proving that really everyone does love the Tales From the Suggestion Box anthology!

My table was between Neil King, a great cartoonist I've seen at a few shows before and who did Elvis Must Die and Forgotten Planet, and two wonderful illustrators, Tressina Bowling and Jenny Stead. I would definitely recommend checking out their work; watching Tressina draw some commissions at the show was both inspiring and intimidating (I wish I could draw like that!).

I also met Frank Cho, whose strip Liberty Meadows I loved loved loved! when it was in print. I loved it so much that when I had to do an interview for a TV project in 8th grade, I interviewed Frank Cho. I asked him if he remembered and he said "yes! wait, you're viking girl?" which means he wasn't just saying it to be nice: at the interview he drew his characters, and then my parents insisted that I draw one of mine for him, which I did, and it was a viking character I was hooked on at the time. I gave/forced upon him some issues of Gay Kid, and he gave me one of his books. Yeah, no big deal, I just traded with Frank Cho.

* * *

In other news, work on Gay Kid 3 continues plugging along. The penciling is almost done, and I'm feeling pretty good about the progress made. Here's another sneak peak at the comic so far!

Baltimore Comic-Con's Fast Approaching!

2011-08-18T11:28:00.001-04:00

And so the east coast tour continues! And by "east coast" I mean mid-Atlantic. And by "mid-Atlantic" I mean things within an one hour radius of DC.

This Saturday and Sunday, I'll be tabling at the Baltimore Comic-Con, alongside Bill Volk. I'm super pumped for the show; I've never been to a show like this before! Stan Lee is the Guest of Honor, so the crowd will probably be a lot different than what I'm used to (shows where the only costume people are wearing are "radical vegan" or "nerd wearing Levis"). We'll see how Gay Kid goes over here. I'm making 100 copies of each issue, so hopefully people will pick it up like hotcakes. Otherwise, I'll just be super prepared for SPX.

In terms of Gay Kid #3, a premiere of SPX is still in the cards. I've penciled half of it so far, and just need to get the rest of that penciled and inked. Thankfully the outline I made is really thorough, down to the drawings and the page designs, so it shouldn't take too much longer. I'll get pictured online once I get my scanner set back up (I moved this week, so things are in boxes covering the floor)!

Backlog of Office Bitch

2011-08-15T13:09:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I've posted any Office Bitch strips to the blog, so here are some from the past few weeks (all of which deal with work-related things, which is a rare bout of consistency).

DC Zinefest wrap-up

2011-08-01T22:02:00.000-04:00

The first Zinefest in DC in the last ten years was a great hit! A huge crowd came out to support all the local zinesters/cartoonists, and there was a great vibe through the place. I sold tons of Gay Kid 1 and 2, which is always fun. Also got to talk to a lot of cool people in DC and the surrounding areas, including Carolyn Belefski of Curls Studio and Sari of the zine called Hoax. Thanks so much to everyone who came out!

Look at all these people! Photos courtesy of Matt Dembicki

It was interesting to see the cultural difference between a zine fest and a comic con: there were a few times when I would ask someone "how's the show going for you?" or "what other shows are you hitting up this fall?" and would be met with blank stares. For a lot of zinesters, "shows" refers to concerts, not to cons.

Me talking with some attendees/friends/other Gay Kids

Thanks again to everyone who came! Check out the "Follow me in Real Life!" sidebar to see what shows I'll be at next! And no, I don't mean concerts.

Come see me at the DC Zinefest!

2011-07-29T10:39:00.001-04:00

I'll be tabling at the DC Zinefest on Saturday! Please come by, say hi, and pick up some fresh homemade comics! Here are the deets:

July 30, 2011, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
St. Stephen's Church
1525 Newton Street NW
Washington, DC 20010

All in a day's work

2011-07-09T17:11:00.000-04:00

I planned on spending the whole day today working on getting the final draft of Gay Kid 3 started, but unfortunately realized after already running an errand in the direction of the art store, that I had only one page of Bristol board left (which is what a do all my comics on). DUMB. So instead I penciled the first page (I also lost my Precise V7 pen, which is my favorite for inking. Today's just not coming up Katie), and then ran off the issues of Suggestion Box #6 at Kinko's. Tomorrow I hope to start doing Gay Kid 3 in earnest, the goal being to have it done by August 1, or at the absolute latest, Sept 1 so that it can premiere at SPX.

Although I wasn't as productive today as I had hoped, getting those copies done and getting this blog post up are making me feel lot better about loosing all my art supplies, either to usage, or to idiocy. And here's some visual proof that I accomplished something:

Brand spankin' new things

2011-06-21T16:38:00.000-04:00

First off, a piece of utter minutia: I got two hits today from people Google-ing "proud to be a bitch." What is that even about?

I've added a section on the right-side of the blog that will list shows I'm exhibiting at. If you want to pick up one of my comics or just say "hi," please come! For now they're all in the DC area, but I'm planing on going to PIX in Pittsburgh again if they have it again this year (which I hope they will; it was an awesome show!). If you'd rather just buy some of my comics, though, you can always do so on my etsy site. And I sure wouldn't mind that at all. I also got rid of the fish on the header--as they didn't really have much to do with what I'm working on--and am trying to figure out what to put there now. Any suggestions?

My to-do list has gotten a lot of tick marks recently, which is very much appreciated. The list is of things to have done by SPX, or, the beginning of September:

~~Suggestion Box 7 drawn~~
~~Suggestion Box 8 script done~~
Gay Kid 3

Typical, the biggest/scariest project is saved for last.

Matthew sent over the finished pages for Suggestion Box 6 (this is one that I wrote and he drew), which looks great! I'm pretty excited for it and to see how the next anthology shapes out! Here's a sneak peak:

It's Pride!

2011-06-13T16:19:00.000-04:00

I know it can be kind of backwards and sellout-y, but I do love Gay Pride month, and all it entails. Everything's got so many damn rainbows on it, there's a lot of greased up boys trotting around town on roller skates (ok, maybe just during the parade) and it seems like every night is ladies night somewhere.

This weekend was pride in DC, and I had a super time. I went to a party, a brunch, and a parade and it was all FABULOUS. The only part that was a bit upsetting was that the blog I cartoon for didn't do anything special for it. I get it, I get it, you're "over the rainbow" or whatever, but Pride is so much fun! And if we need to have a more cynical reason, the parade is a great way to just get your name out there. There's a lot of gay-ass eyes looking at those floats. Also, I wanted to march in the parade, so there.

In case you missed it: Glee needs to be Gayer

2011-06-08T13:38:00.001-04:00

The Office Bitch comic from last week did really well; there was lots of gay love coming from Glee fans who still think the show has room to improve.

Now that I have a free moment, let's find something else to do that's not drawing!

2011-05-26T14:21:00.000-04:00

This spring was really busy for me, and now I have finally gotten a chance to sit down and do some serious drawing. JUST KIDDING! I've gotten a chance to sit down and slack off. The next con I'm going to is the DC Zinefest, which is July 30 (come see me!). Plenty of time, right?

Yes, unless you are a clinical procrastinator. Before July 30, I want to get a number of things done:

Suggestion Box 6: drawn
Suggestion Box 8: drawn
Gay Kid 3: written and drawn

Guess how much I have done?

Well, more than zero, so that's really impressive. I've started work on Suggestion Box 6 (again written by the ever super Matthew Smith), which is another great story on the perks and peril of working a retail job. Just to sate your comics-tooth, here are the first two pages.

I made a gif

2011-05-10T12:12:00.001-04:00

Oh my God this took me FOREVER to get this thing going. I've never done a gif before, and all of the Photoshop I know has been self-taught. Please don't judge too much.

UPDATE: It is possible that it's not going to work on the blog. If you click it, though, it should open up in a new window and work fine.

Lady Gaga.

2011-05-05T23:47:00.002-04:00

I hate how reactionary my cartoons can be sometimes ("whoa, this thing happened, and it really pissed me off! LET ME DRAW ABOUT IT."), a knee-jerk reaction to a looming deadline and a lack of inspiration. It's easiest to think back to what has recently made you mad and work from that, but you don't always want to sound like such a Debbie Downer (who wants to hear about cat AIDS, anyways?).

This cartoon came out of a recent series of posts on The New Gay, where gay dudes were bitching about how Lady Gaga is a problem. It seems like the cool thing to do is to think her advocating is passe and a farce, instead of her being an actual supporter (she's been to marches and uses her publicity to talk about our issues). Whatever, I don't need to get on my soapbox here, but it seemed pretty dumb to me. Why would you shoot someone like that--with so much fame and power and is a huge ally--in the back?

So I let the cartoon do the talking, and was happy to have it posted on TNG along side all the Gaga negativity. There wasn't much conversation about it, which I was kind of bummed out by, but at least I got to say my piece.

As much as I love her, that line makes NO sense.

Review in the Washington City Paper

2011-05-02T15:54:00.000-04:00

Mike Rhode from the Washington City Paper's interview with me is up! Click here to check it out. It's mostly chatty, but he does a bit of editorializing:

"[her] Office Bitch webcomic reminds me favorably of the early days of Dykes to Watch Out For."

New Project

2011-04-18T16:52:00.000-04:00

So, in case I didn't have ENOUGH already on my plate (between Suggestion Box, Gay Kid, Office Bitch, and oh, you know, work and friends), I've decided to go on another venture with Matthew Smith. He's got a script in the works for a new project named "Culver." I'll let him break the news on what it's about, but I'll post some of the rough character sketches I've done for the illustrations. I'm really excited to work on this project and test out my style. I want this to be darker than what I'm used to. And I don't mean like "blood and depression" darker, but instead graphically darker. I have such trouble darkening up the page--cross-hatching is usually the darkest-dark--and I really want to try and get some solid blacks in these panels and not be so afraid of it.

Interview at Comics Related!

2011-04-12T10:33:00.000-04:00

Whoohoo! My short but sweet interview with John Wilson from Comics Related just got posted! The podcast is a series of interviews with cartoonists from SPACE (19 in total!), and mine is at 40:19. Check it out here.

That is all.

Recent "Office Bitch"

2011-04-09T20:58:00.002-04:00

random drawing

2011-03-29T20:30:00.000-04:00

I did this at SPACE, about the different customers who pick up and buy "Gay Kid."

SPACE recap

2011-03-21T21:21:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone!

So SPACE went pretty well, albeit a bit slow. I made back the cost of my table, and met some awesome people! I picked up a few really cool comics:

Siamese Grandson by Daniel McCloskey, a collection of shorts, ranging from funny to disturbing and have really interesting lines in them
Yonder by Jeremy Massie, which has great short stories based in his native Appalachia (I met Jeremy through Matthew Smith, who does the Adventurers of Liberty City and works with me on Suggestion Box)
Herk by O'Ryan, who I can't find a site for! All I know is that he lives in Pittsburgh and has a great smile.
The Book on Me written by Todd Goodman and illustrated by Briana Higgins. Todd was a great next door neighbor at the con (much more conversational than the pillar on my other side :)) and wrote this fast-paced story line
Mean Goat Comics by Kris Lachowski, which are hilarious!
two cartoons and a t-shirt about coelacanths by Pam Bliss, which are always appreciated!

Gay Kid #2 got a REALLY great reception; it was the top seller of the show! I'm glad that people seemed to like it so much, since this project is so personal and has taken a lot of work. The storyline for this one was easier for me to write--it is an overview of my childhood life through dress--and the drawings turned out pretty well. I'm especially pleased with the cover, especially since covers and I have a difficult relationship. I have a hard time navigating them: how do I make it interesting? eye catching? flashy? not busy?. This one really does what I wanted it to: it tells you what it is, who did it, and gives your eye plenty of interesting space to rest in.

Ok, enough talking! Here is the cover, plus an interior page that gives you the jist of the book:

PS: the illustration on the cover is from a picture of myself and my sister Liz on a first day of school. I am feeling pretty good about by green suede vest/dragon necklace/moccasins. And I would have been a child hipster, except none of this is worn with irony:

Gearing up for SPACE!

2011-03-04T23:58:00.000-05:00

The past few weeks have been crazy: we have a huge conference happening at work next week (800 attendees, we host). The week after that, is SPACE! I have been able to check off most of my "new comics to-do list" for it:

~~Mini for candy or medicine vol. 12~~ (here)
~~Entry for the SPACE anthology~~ (downloadable on their homepage as a sweet pdf)
Gay Kid #2

Unsurprisingly, the longest and hardest one is that which I saved for last. I don't want to get ahead of myself and start uploading pages from it here, so I will just leave you with a link to my Office Bitch page, which has been seeing a lot of traffic recently, and with the SPACE anthology piece:

An Office Bitch I'm particularly proud of

2011-02-16T12:45:00.000-05:00

Hey all,

This is from two weeks ago, but I LOVE it! This was one of those strips that just kind of came out of nowhere and really hit a chord with me (and my housemates, who it's almost entirely based off of). The original The New Gay post is here, or see below:

It's in color, too, which is a rarity. I almost never work in color, but I decided that the strip may be a bit too boring and hard to read if it was just black and white. For example, the taco seasoning bag would be hard to understand if it didn't have the yellow taco shells right on the bag, standing out against the red background.

Review of Gay Kid

2011-02-10T21:44:00.001-05:00

Rob McMonigal, the comic aficionado behind Panel Patter recently reviewed Gay Kid. I think it's a really accurate review (except I would rather call my style "loose" or "casual" instead of "basic!"), and I'm glad to hear that Gay Kid is making an impression as a comic describing the times before you come out. One of the reasons that I wrote it is because that was the time that felt the most lonely. I mean, once I had a name for what was going on (Gay Kid #1) and had processed it (upcoming Gay Kids), I at least was not freaking out about what I was thinking.

A lot of gay comics (especially about being a gay youth) are focused on what happened after one comes out. But what happens before it is just as interesting. It's all about how kids make sense of the world. Like in the City Kids strip in Candy or Medicine Vol. 10, kids have crazy way of explaining things. Being gay is just one more thing you don't understand, that you try to understand by creating a story for it. I had a friend in college who thought that you fell asleep when ants came out of your ears and dropped bits of sand onto your eyelids until they became heavy (some funky interpretation of the "sandman"). Gay Kid will hopefully give some insight into this thought process.

more Suggestion Box

2011-02-06T09:19:00.000-05:00

Here are two more pages from the new Suggestion Box. Enjoy!

OMG I am like famous!

2011-01-20T22:41:00.000-05:00

Ok, full disclosure: I was googling myself and found this link at boy culture about by letter to the NPG regarding the Hide/Seek controversy! whoo hoo!

This week in the New Gay

2011-01-15T18:29:00.001-05:00

So, after all the soul searching after the series in The New Gay I talked about from last week, I tried to go in a totally different direction and do something a lot more timely and a little political, but not so much so that it's really that edgy. Here's the comic (and here's the original post):

The single comment I got on last week's OB was that it's not funny and hard to read. Well, I can't do much about it not being funny, but I can try to make it easier to read. This week I worked more on getting the letters bigger and clearer. Also, the current reference seemed to get pretty good feedback; so far I've gotten one comment and it's been good. I also like how this one looks with the coloring: I did the greys with an orange marker and just scanned it as b&w, and then edited it with the spray paint feature on paint (you know, no big deal, but sometimes I use paint) to get the colors more solid in the first panel on the bottom row, and also to make the hatch marks on the target clearer.

Recent story line in Office Bitch: yea or nay?

2011-01-12T22:30:00.001-05:00

So I recently did a three-part story line in by weekly strip Office Bitch. I'm not exactly sure how it turned out. I think that trying to make a weekly strip have a consistent storyline is HELLA hard. Trying to figure out the right amount of recap to give (I didn't give any cause thinking of how to fit it in one or two panels, or one chunk of text, was too overwhelming), if there needs to be something funny at the end (which I actually never really have at the end) and how fast to move the story along are a lot of extra balls to keep up in the air, on top of the regular layout/what the fuck are the people gonna say/what sort of shot should each panel be/UH WHAT'S THE STORYLINE ANYWAYS. Here are the links to the original postings. Oh hell, I'll just put 'em down here too:

I was feeling a little stagnant with Sarah just always bitching about her job, which may be in part due to the fact that I am pretty much over the shitty job I am still recovering from. But I'm also wondering whether I should try and shit away from the sort of dumb jokes about how much working 9 to 5 blows--not that it doesn't, boy it does--and into a more gay-oriented theme. The strip that got the most hits was my open letter to the director of the NPG after the unpleasantness there, which was not even a comic strip and way super political. In a total bit of self-promotion, check it out! I was on the news! Who knows, maybe that IS a direction that the audience at The New Gay is looking for.

But anyways, back to the concern about a serial in a weekly. Does anyone have any advice? Any input? I've only tried it once before and gave up after two strips cause it wasn't fun enough to keep going, and I hadn't really thought out the plot yet. This time I at least had some events and an end-point in mind. And next week I can do something about how quitting was super or how Sarah now is looking for jobs all the time. But I think that the weekly strip as stand-alone may be the best way to keep going. I have a lot of practice with that, as well as with longer form stuff (if a 16 page mini comic is to be considered "longer form"). And between those two, is there really a reason to try and work out how to do a few-weeks-run serial?

Suggestion Box #5, new pages

2011-01-07T15:00:00.001-05:00

Work has been going really swimmingly on SBox#5. Here are two more finished pages of work:

New Year, New You, New Comics!

2011-01-02T15:44:00.000-05:00

This blog has been horibly underutlized by myself. My new year's resolution: try to post just three times a month. This shouldn't be such a hard thing for me to do; I don't know why it has been in the past. So, here goes!

The next big project on the docket is SPACE, and everything leading up to it. SPACE is the Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo happening in Columbus, OH on the weekend of March 19-20. I am working on another Suggestion Box (#5!) with Matthew Smith, as well as another issue of Gay Kid, and another short entry for Josh Blair's Candy or Medicine. Over the next few months I'll try to do a much better job than I have in the past of keeping everyone posted on what I am up to the progress I am making in these projects leading up to SPACE.

For any new readers, Suggestion Box is a mini that I've been working on with Matthew for the past year and a half (!!! my how time flies). We use it to bitch and moan about our common history with working retail jobs, ranging from a framing store in a strip mall to a music store in an actual mall (oh la la). If you want to get caught up, get our Suggestion Box Anthology, which collects the first four issues!

Here's the first two pages of Suggestion Box #5:

Sketches from PIX

2010-10-28T09:49:00.000-04:00

I had a super time at PIX two weekends ago! I (for the first time ever) sold back the cost of the table, and then actually MADE. MONEY. It may be in part due to the fact that the table cost only $25, but I'm still feeling pretty good about myself.

Since I was at the show by myself, I had a lot of time to work on my comics. So of course I didn't; I just doodled the whole time.

Come see me at PIX!

2010-10-14T21:02:00.000-04:00

Hello out there!

This weekend there is going to be a comic convention in Pittsburgh, PA called PIX (Pittsburgh Indy Comic Expo 2010). And I will be there! It's happening the same weekend as APE, so all you poor folks that don't have the money or time to go out to San Fransisco will have something that's destined to be equally awesome closer to home! Also, I will be there selling my comics.

Click here for a link to the PIX site.
Click here for an article about it in the Tribune Review.

And here is a copy of my It Gets Better strip I did last week for the new gay. I will be selling copies of this at PIX for $10, $8 of which will go to the Trevor Project. If you are not able to come but would like to get a copy, send me an email at katie.omberg at gmail.com.

It gets better

2010-10-08T10:03:00.000-04:00

I'm a huge fan of the campaign that Dan Savage started. No matter what flaws it has, and no matter how imperfectly better it gets, lets be honest: not being in high school is an improvement. Here's a link to my it gets better strip at the new gay.

Things I am up to related to comics

2010-10-05T19:41:00.001-04:00

Here is a recent iteration of Office Bitch, the weekly strip I do for The New Gay. I am really loving working for them and having a deadline that is enforced by someone other than me. Without it, I have a really hard time getting my act together and producing work (as you can tell by my really intense presence here on my blog).

I went to SPX a few weeks ago and LOVED. IT. It was so great to see so many people just zoned out on comics. I met a lot of awesome people, and don't know what a single one of them does for their day jobs. It's so awesome to make connections like that. People responded really well to "Gay Kid," which is now the formal name for the coming out comic. I actually sold out and had to make more copies half-way through the convention to keep it going!

Next on the docket, is PIX (Pittsburgh Indy Comics Expo) which is Oct 16 - 17. I'm not sure I'll have anything brand new for it, but I will have all my old minis, as well as the first issue of Gay Kid, which was finished in September. If any of you will be around then, please please please come check out my table! It's free to get into the show, which is rare in comic cons.

Cover IN COLOR

2010-08-05T20:00:00.000-04:00

Ok, I can't keep a lid on this one. I'm really really pumped about this cover; even more now that it's in full color!

FULL DISCLOSURE: I haven't worked in real, hand-inked color since probably high school. I used to do a large scale, full color comic book at the end of each year (full-full disclosure: only after 8th and 9th grade). It took FOREVER and I've never really liked working in color since it takes up more time than I want it to.

So, here it is in color. I shaded it in Faber-Castel brush pens, which are hands down my favorite markers in the world.

The one thing that I wish was true of working in marker is that it was a smoother line. I HATE seeing the grain of the marker, but there's really no way around it. Painting is much more frustrating for me, and I don't have access to Photoshop any more. Coloring it in paint sounds like pulling teeth.

And this is why working in color is so tricky; it always really ups the ante, but it requires a lot more work; is it worth it? Thankfully, since this is a cover, yes I definitely need color for it to have that extra pop. But other than covers, I'm not sure if i'd really work with color on my own volition.

Update on my projects

2010-08-01T11:27:00.000-04:00

Hello! I've been working on the Suggestion Box anthology Matthew and I are putting out in time for SPX 2010 (if any of you will be there, or in the DC area the weekend of Sept 11-12, come see me!). I just finished the b&w of the cover yesterday. I'm pretty excited cause I've always been interested in how people draw the old-school style of comics (lots of shading, using both a pen and a brush in a way that works--instead of having it look like a kindergartner using both a marker and a crayon on the same piece of paper, which is usually how it ends up looking for me. ANYways, here it is. I'm hoping that Matthew can do the coloring on it, mostly because I don't have access to photoshop the way I used to (I used to work at an arts college) and it's not that fun for me to do coloring.

WHOA.

2010-06-25T13:24:00.000-04:00

WHOA is right. I just visited The New Gay, the blog where "Office Bitch," the new weekly fancy graphics comic strip is at. And look at this BEAST screen shot:

And yes, I did then go ahead and edit it all in paint.

In other news, I just finished up a mini for the mini anthology Candy or Medicine, which is a quarterly publication. And printing is to begin this weekend for the fourth installment of Suggestion Box. So even though I have been a bit absent here, the comic life is still in semi-full swing!

Comic strip in The New Gay

2010-05-17T21:46:00.000-04:00

It looks like I'm sending everyone away from this blog once they get here, but here's a link that definitely needs to be included here. I have a new weekly in The New Gay, a blog that was started by my friend Zach who lives in DC. Though it started in the District, it now has pages for cities across the country and covers a spectrum of gay/queer/trans/etc issues. It leans towards hipster (or at least 20-something) gay, which--oddly enough--works for me.

The strip is called "Office bitch" and focuses on Sarah, a character who has been my old stand-by since college. Whenever I've needed a character to just throw into a situation, she's been the go-to. She's 20-something and works an entry-level job at an office. Since "the new gay" has the tag line "for everyone over the rainbow," I'm going to focus most of the strip on things outside of the typical gay experience, not just making it a comic strip where girls hook up (though some have said that this may be a good turn to take), but more about the shitty little things that happen in an admin assistant job.

Oh, what the heck. Here's the first strip:

Oh man it's been a while

2010-05-06T15:55:00.000-04:00

Wow. So....wow. It has been far too long since I have posted here. Let me start with the most recent drawing I've done and work my way back from there.

I got a new job!!! I finally have left the life of barely managing. I was cobbling together hours from two part-time jobs (one as a museum guard, one as a visitor service rep. at another museum), never going out to eat and pre-gaming before going to bars because I was so poor. I am now working for the League of American Bicyclists (check them out at here) in the Membership and Events department. One of my responsibilities is to work on a quarterly publication we distribute to member club leaders. The illustration above was for this publication; May is National Bike Month, and May 21 is Bike to Work Day, so we needed a pic of a city-smart bicyclist.

In other news, I moved houses (again) from a kind of old, stuffy neighborhood in DC to a more hip and young one. Also, the new house is $300 a month less, which is DEF an improvement, especially when coupled with a regular income, and is with one of my best friends.

Also, my dad got married two weekends ago. So things have been really busy here, and there hasn't been too much time to draw. It's really hard for me to get myself going when I have no routine, spend most of my days by myself, and therefore get lonely and depressed. Being mad is always a great inspiration to me to get drawing, but being sad is like the WORST writer's block ever.

So, long story short, there will be more drawing to come. I am working on contributing a weekly strip to a gay blog (big surprise), and will post a link here once that gets up and running.

More high school drams

2010-03-30T17:23:00.003-04:00

Pages 4 - 6 of the high school story.

Gurtie

2010-03-29T13:12:00.000-04:00

Sketch for a new mini I'm working on.

COC: new installment

2010-03-17T16:25:00.000-04:00

So I've left the "Seventeen" story line alone this past week, and have jumped ahead to high school. I got kind of sick of all this holy-shit-I'm-stuck-in-my-head for now, and have temporarily moved onto more action. I've done about 9 pages of this section of the coming out storyline, all of which is done without any interior monologue or narration. Doing it completely from the third-person has been a lot different than how it was to actually live this experience, which involved a LOT of back-thinking (why am I acting this way? what am I thinking? what is going on? who do I think I am?) and a lot of worry (what if she hates me? what if I hate myself? what if I am completely clueless and awkward?).

Here are three of these nine pages. I'm sorry if it's a bit hard to read the text in the images, but if you click on it you should get an enlarged version that should be clearer.

Old article I found

2010-03-14T13:22:00.000-04:00

I was trawling the internets the other day, which means I was googling myself, "Katie Omberg," which is always a fun thing. I found this old review that Rob of Panel Patter did of my work from SPX last fall. Check it out here.

COC installment 5

2010-03-10T12:14:00.000-05:00

After much anticiption, here is the fifth section of the Coming Out Comic. And yes, we are still in Safeway. And yes, we are still reading Seventeen.

2010-03-10T11:40:00.002-05:00

So I work this dumb security job at an art museum in DC. The one benefit of it is that you are surrounded by interesting things to look at. The downside is that, after looking at them for 7 hours a day, they aren't that interesting anymore. Here's a drawing I did of a grandfather clock that's on the old side of the museum. I did it on the back of a receipt, which is why the image looks a bit bogus.

"Seventeen," why?!

2010-03-03T14:40:00.000-05:00

Oh man. So, for those of you who have been following the COC storyline, "seventeen" magazine is something which all 4th grader girls hold in the highest esteem. Well, at least they did 10 years ago.

Anyways, I found this really disheartening story on a transphobic article they published in Oct. 2009. Click here to read about the article.

Also, here is a link to the latest section of the COC, in which "Seventeen" plays a pivitol role in my life. IN. MY. LIFE. people.

Here is a link to Pam's House Blend, which has a PDF of the original article.

SBox3 Debut and the VA Comicon

2010-03-02T15:07:00.005-05:00

This past Sunday Matthew and I went to the VA Comicon in Richmond, VA. It was a pretty small thing with an even smaller turn out of indie-interested people. I still had a pretty great time; hanging out behind the table with Matthew and his son Christopher was a great. It was nice to see some quality dad/kid time, and it reminded me of going to conventions with my dad. Albeit, they were stamp and coin conventions and we were going to buy instead of sell, but still.

It was the debut of Suggestion Box 3: A Titanic Failure. There is nothing quite as rewarding as selling the first issue of a new project. Here's the completed cover, in super-classy green:

It's similar in design to the cover of Suggestion Box # 2, except this time with a ship's captain's sleeve. Too bad I thought about making the cuff have something to do with the content after SBox2, which has like a professor's tweed jacket showing up in a comic book about hip hop music fans.

I bought two old school comic books at the show, totaling $1.25. WOW. So expensive. Anyways, the first was a Teen Titan's book from "the first lady's drug awareness campaign." That first lady is Nancy Reagan. I was inspired to get it after Christopher came back from picking one up, and I was amazed at the quality.

JUST LEAVE ME ALONE, ok!?!?!?

I then bought an issue of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from Nov. 1987, which is like, the BEST. I was a huge TMNT fan as a kid (Leonardo was my favorite; duh, who else could be the best? Two swords? You cannot argue with a katana, much less two), and am always happy to find old books of theirs:

Turtle Power!

More good news!

2010-02-17T20:43:00.000-05:00

I put in my first bid for a job as an artist two weeks ago. It's doing the cover for a document being put out by a small non-profit here in DC. AND I GOT IT! I am so excited. This is really helping me understand--even more--how quitting the full-time job I had was the best thing I have ever done for myself. Period. I have never been so happy as I am right now: getting paid to do what I would be doing for free otherwise, working with Matthew Smith on some great minis, and finally getting my act together regarding this coming out comic. Outside of drawing, I am loving the city (yes, DC can be called "the city." If you think NYC is the only city, check out a map.), I have a great girlfriend, and wonderful friends. I am also getting better at cooking, which goes nicely with the fact that I have very little money to spend going out for dinner since I left the full-time gig.

Etsy Account

2010-02-16T12:18:00.002-05:00

Today has been a busy one in terms of getting my act together with my drawing. I have been working on creating an Etsy account for a while, but it took me a minute to get it looking good. Check it out!

COC installment 4

2010-02-16T11:06:00.009-05:00

Here is the forth section of the Coming out Comic. I apologize for the long lage between this section and the one before; with the CRAZY snow that DC got, I have been in hibernation mode. Mostly that includes making and eating cookies and sleeping til one. Clearly, no time to draw in there.

How is this even possible.

2010-02-10T15:44:00.000-05:00

So remember how I posted on how much I love the snow? Well, I think our love affair may be coming to an end. It is still snowing. There is about 30 in. on the ground. Now, if this were the midwest or something, this would not be this bad. Partly, because people have snow tires -- and cars to put them on -- and have mad snow plows to dig everyone out, and grocery stores that are not shocked by the snow. In a city that on average gets no more than 10 in of snow a winter, this really is something else. The metro has shut down service at all above-ground stations. The buses have stopped running. I have not seen milk at a grocery store since Friday.

Here are some pictures that my friend Cassie took of the snow.

You have the green light....TO SNOW FOR FUCKING EVER.

This is a tree in front of my house. With a cross country skier under it. Now you're probably thinking "ohmigod is there a car under that tree? Boy, I hope not. That would suck." Well, there is a car under that. And it is my roommate's car. What a horrible thing to have happen. The tree fell down five days ago. It is still across the road. It is still on top of her car.

So yeah, long story short, I am getting over this snow.

Suggestion Box 3: A Titanic Failure

2010-02-03T14:22:00.004-05:00

Hi hi!

So, no installment of the COC this week. I've been really busy working on the next Suggestion Box with Matthew Smith (if you haven't checked out his work yet, here is a link to his blog). So far I've finished inking five of the eight pages. This one is turning out a lot more detailed from the last, and I've seen even a huge progression within my own illustrations, even since working on "Mildly Irritateing." Holy crap, now that I just wrote this, I realize I haven't uploaded any images from MI! I will have to do this at a later date. I've gotten a lot more comfortable in filling in space with gray tones, something I used to shy away from. I finaly realized that the extra ten minutes per page is worth it, since it creates a much more balanced page and a much more interesting layout when you encoorperate a range of tones that spread across the page. Here is the first page of the new comic. I will let you all know when this is done, and I will add it to my etsy site and Matthew and I will be exhibiting it at the VA ComiCon on Februrary 28. Come check us out!

Snow day!

2010-02-02T12:34:00.003-05:00

Oh my God I. LOVE. THE SNOW. Like a crazy person. I went to college in Massachusetts, and one of the main reasons I headed all the way up to the snowy north (besides the ladies) for my schooling was because of just that: it is the SNOWY north.

Whenever it snows in DC, the city really just shuts down. Everyone goes home and stays put. I love the few hours during a snowfall when the sidewalks are clear of persons, but not of snow. I walked from Dupont Circle to Shaw (from work to dinner at a friend's house) on Saturday, through ab out five inches of snow. It was about a mile, and was like being in heaven. I love all snow. City snow is no better than any other type of snow, but it definitely has it's own perks: you get to see how snow looks on a variety of buildings, the sky turns that gray-orange from the street lights reflecting off the clouds, and everyone becomes more friendly in that "well, we're all in it together" sort of mentality.

Here's a picture I drew from an image that stuck in my head on my walk. I felt like a crazy person for stopping and standin for no reason in between spurts of walking as fast as possible so I could keep warm.

The text reads: "It snowed last night. I walked from work to a friend's house for dinner. It was still snowing. The sky was that orange it gets when it snows in a city at night. When the city is quiet and when you stop, you can hear the snow hit the ground."

COC sections 4-6 (ok, really just "installment 3")

2010-01-28T23:00:00.008-05:00

I'm going to shut up and just post this installment of the COC. See the post I uploaded right before this to hear more about my life.

Completely unrelated

2010-01-28T22:52:00.001-05:00

Hi!

So the other day I was alone. All alone. Being alone would definitely belong in the top five things that Katie is bad at (the others being: spelling, writing in a non stream-of-conscious way, getting up in the morning, and not being a grandma). By about one o'clock, I had already sent out two emails to my ladyfriend and to my friends being like "what are you doing tonight. hanging out with me? for the LOVE OF GOD say yes." Thankfully one of them, who had stayed home from work that day, suggested that we both head down to Tryst. Tryst is a great coffee shop in Adams Morgan and the hub of the unemployed/artist/angtsy-people-with-DC-flag-tattoos crowd. It was a really good idea; no longer was I overwhelmed by feeling completely alone, and I was able to bust out the below drawing and the 12-panel next installment of the COC. Here's a drawing that I did after sitting in the same place for three hours, having drunk the well of inspiration dry.

COC page 2

2010-01-20T21:34:00.011-05:00

Hello out there! Please enjoy this second installment of the COC (Coming Out Comic). As always, click for a legible version.

I spent all day today working on the draft for a Suggestion Box #3, which I am really looking forward too. I will upload more on that later! But for now....

If you really want to live this moment with me, click here.

Coming Out Comic: the beginnings

2010-01-13T13:06:00.006-05:00

Things are kind of a mess here. I have spent this whole morning applying for jobs. This means that I have spent this morning updating my resume and debating whether "arranged" or "scheduled" is better (I came down on the side of "scheduled") when talking about giving tours ("giving" does not even enter into it).

I also FINALLY bought myself some new pens earlier this week. Here is a picture of them, and how beautifully different each one is:

The brush one is a bit hard for me to work with, because I basically carve into any paper I work on and to make this one work well, you have to change the amount of pressure you put onto the pen. It will take me some more practice to make this a efficient tool, instead of just something that is really fun for doodling with. When it comes to actually drawing comics, I have a lot better luck using the straight-up pens, since I can anticipate exactly what the line will do and exactly what the end result will look like. If I want to make a thinner or thicker line, I can just use a different pen. I know what I will get if I use a .08 or a .01. The only problem is that sometimes the drawings can look like they were made in a doctor's office they're so sterile. The brush looks so freaking lively and quintessentially artistic. You could drawing a smiley face with it and it would look like some sort of fine art about the "human condition" or something similar.

Ok, this is definitely enough rambling for one day. Here is a first installment of some of the work I am doing on the coming out comic (hereafter to be referred to as the COC, which is pretty funny when said aloud about realizing one is a dyke.). Click on the image for a larger copy of it. Enjoy!

Already excited

2010-01-07T23:56:00.004-05:00

I got an email earlier this week from the SPX coordinator saying that tables are up for reservation for SPX 2010. For those of you who do not know what SPX is, it is basically the Promised Land of indie cartoonists and self-published cartoonists and zine-sters. Click here for more info. It's not going on until the weekend after Labor Day, but my joy is already set to an overwhelming level.

I have really done some soul-searching (cause I'm deep like that, shut up) about the next big project that I'll be working on for the fall show. I recently had a working date with a friend of mine and as I started just doodling before she came over, an old story that I have heard popping out of the back of my head for a while finally took hold. I've thought a lot about making a comic that has a really heavy personal meaning, and the 0ne that really takes the cake is the story of coming out and of knowing that I was a big gay basically from the start. I remembered that one of the reasons why I got so into comics in the first place when I was in high school was that was the closest place to where I felt someone "got" me. I didn't need to know them, and the story didn't even need to be real (in the case of Terry Moore's "Strangers in Paradise" series) or really that terribly decipherable to a 14 year old who has a hard time reading other people's handwriting and knows nothing about drugs (Ariel Schrag's high school comic books.)

All differences aside, these were the books that I could bury my nose in and feel the "holy-shit-I'm-different" anxiety come down from the break-neck speed at which it would attack.

There will definitely be more to come as I work on this. I just really needed to get this out of my system.

Basically what's going on right now.

2010-01-04T12:10:00.002-05:00

New book finished!

2009-12-29T15:26:00.008-05:00

Hello again!
I just finished the art on a great new mini written by my friend Matthew Smith, which can be found here: http://www.mdsmithcomics.blogspot.com/. We exhibited next to each other at SPX this past fall, and realized a wonderful truth: he likes to write comics, and I like to draw them. And voila, so began the project of "Suggestion Box #2, 3, 4...."! Here is the cover of the first one, called "Hip-Hop Hooray:

The story is all 100% true based on Matthew's experience working in a record store, which I do not envy him one bit. Here's a sample of one page of the book:

I'm really pleased with how it turned out! I tried to place this comic within the 1990's, when, while it may not have taken place then, is still a great place to put it: Nine Inch Nails and Michael Jordan shirts, Eminem haircuts, and the rest. If you have any interest in picking one up (numbers are super limited), please email me at katie.omberg@gmail.com for pricing and availability.

Til next time!

Comic books!

2009-12-20T14:07:00.006-05:00

Hello hello!

So I finally was able to borrow my roommate's camera so that I could take some photographs of my comic books. I left my job where I had access to a scanner and CS4, which is why it's been so long since I've updated. Hopefully, I will not loose access to this camera anytime soon!

About four years ago, I took a semester off of school and went to SPX, which is something super awesome that everyone should know about. Here's a link: http://www.spxpo.com/. It has yet to be updated for 2010, but it should be updated in February or so. SPX is an expo for independent and self-published cartoonists. It's a great opportunity for those who (like me) just love to draw, and want a forum to get their name and their ideas out there. There are a lot of people who run off their books at Kinkos, and are just there to share their comics. There are also a number of smaller publishers there, like Top Shelf and Drawn and Quarterly.

Here is the cover of the book that I sold there, called "Suggestion Box:"

I used to work in a frame store, which is where the story in this book came from. It was in the suburbs of DC, and was full of stay-at-home moms with too much time and too much money on their hands. There were a lot of cool people who came in, too, but also a lot of high-maintenance people. I tried to balance the book between the story of one customer who was pretty ridic, and the joys of working in a frame store. Here is the first page of the book:

This type of stream-line thought has shown up in more of my books since. The book I did for SPX this year was made mostly of this streamlined lay out, without boxes for seperate thoughts or ideas, but showing it more as they flow from one to the other. I also like how the full body portrait is of me in Cons. There are the only type of shoe I can draw in any recognizable form, even now. Everyone basically wears those, or just some type of dinner-roll shaped shoe.

When it came to the actual framing of pieces, here is a spread I did of how to back a picture. I didn't use any words; I figured it would take up too much space and take a lot of attention away from the rote action.

Ok, that's it for now. Some images of one of my later books to come!

Work in Progress: Editing a drawing to be published

2009-11-30T15:36:00.006-05:00

This post is to talk a little bit about how I work on a comic strip, and also how much Photoshop is your best friend when you're preparing a comic to be published, or even to self-publish a book.

Here is a sample of a strip I did in my senior year of college. Here it is finished:

When I start work on a project, I always draw out a pencil version first, where I can work out how the lay out is, the dimensions, the wording, etc. Since it's in pencil, I can always erase and rework an image (or, more often, a facial expression) until I like it. I don't have a picture of this strip when it was just in the pencil state, but here it is with the underlying pencil and the ink on top of it:
Usually I do the pencil with just a regular pencil, but I did this one with a blue pencil. I had heard that using a blue pencil for the under drawing is the easiest to erase and the hardest to come through on a Xerox. However, this wasn't really the case. It ended up being really hard to clean-up, since the regular change in contrast that I can do with a regular pencil on Photoshop didn't come through. I had to go in and minimize the cyan level in the CMYK settings, which got me this image:
You can see that the image is still pretty junky, even though all of the blue is gone. I then had to go into the levels and adjust the magenta, since there was some of this left over; it must have been that the pencil I used wasn't completly cyan but had some magenta in it. At this point, what I had to do was go through with the eraser tool on Photoshop and erase out all the extra sketch marks. Let me tell you it was super boring and a real pain in the ass. BUT, finally, it was finished and was really to be published in the paper. Woot! Here's how the finished product looked again:
So you can see that it came a long way from how it began. Photoshop really is a big help; it's so nice to be able to draw the ink directly on top of the pencil sketch. I recently got a light table form my old job and have been using it for my drawings. If you have access to a light table, I would highly recommend using it! This is even better and makes life a lot better if you don't have access to Photohsop or a similar program that can edit photographs and drawings. With a light box, you can draw out a pencil drawing as you usually do, and can then draw with ink on a new piece of paper over it.

2009-11-16T14:33:00.003-05:00

Here's a picture, for practice uploading images (yes, I am that clueless when it comes to the internets).

Yesterday was a beautiful day in the District, so my roommate and I went down into Rock Creek Park. He studied Arabic and I drew. It was awesome. Usually my drawings aren't this sketchy, but sometimes this sort of practice can be fun. Also, I will avoid drawing trees like the plague, but it was made more forgivable by creating a whole compoistion out of it, instead of just drawing boring boring trees the whole time.

I'm not sure what it is about trees that are so freaking boring for me. I think it's just that there aren't enough straight lines to make it interesting and their perspective is hard to get across. Two-point perspective is such a fun thing to work with -- it's so simple once you have done it once you can do it again time and time again -- but it is so hard to figure out how to make some branches going forward, some going sideways, and others going back into the distance.

Show time!

2009-11-16T13:49:00.003-05:00

Hello everyone!

I have been holding off on starting a blog for a longer time then I meant to. I am a self-published comic books artist based in Washington, DC. I am creating this blog to keep people up to date with my current projects, and will slowly (but surely!) creating an archive of older work of mine, which will include a number of works from my college strip, "Fancy!" which was published in the Mount Holyoke College newspaper, "The Mount Holyoke News." I was the cartoonist and graphics editor there for three years.

Stay tuned for some updated strips and images from my current project with Matthew, and I hope to hear from you soon!