New book finished!

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!

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!