OHMIGOD it's almost SPX

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

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.

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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!

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

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).

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DC Zinefest wrap-up

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!

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

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: