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:

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

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.

SPACE recap

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:

more Suggestion Box

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

Suggestion Box #5, new pages

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

New Year, New You, New Comics!

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!

Cover IN COLOR

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

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.

SBox3 Debut and the VA Comicon

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!

Suggestion Box 3: A Titanic Failure

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!

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!