Studygroup Magazine no. 2

I have 2 pages in the new Study Group Magazine entitled, "Whistle While You Work ...Or Think of Death."  This is a great art/comics publication edited by Zack Soto and includes several other talented artists.  Check out the online preview and order here.  Below is a sample page of mine.

 

COMIC ART BATTLE - This Sunday!

I will be a participating comics warrior this Sunday (4/8) for the Comic Art Battle at The Hideout.  It's a fundraiser for CAKE (Chicago Alternative Comics Expo) happening June 16th & 17th.  Come on out if you can.  (Poster by Ezra Clayton Daniels.)  Here's the lowdown:

COMICS ART BATTLE at the Hideout Easter Sunday 2012
Benefit for the first Chicago Alternative Comics Expo (CAKE)
Door at 7
$5 Donation

Refereed by Ezra Claytan Daniels

In the Ring:
Aaron Renier
Jo Dery
Brooks Golden
Susan Sarandon
David Alvarado
Krystal DiFronzo
Joe Tallarico
Onsmith
Jeremy Pettis

Followed by a musical DJ set from Fatty Jubbo

"Poxus Necropus"

These are the first 3 panels for my contribution to Paul Nudd's "Corpus Corpus 4: Pox, Poxus Necropus."  It's an 8 panel comic strip in B&W.  Look for it very soon.

Puck Comic Party.

Cover to Puck Comic Party.

One of my panels with lettering I did in Italian.

Puck Comic Party is a comics jam anthology from Italy including over 170 cartoonists from all over the world.  I am honored to follow Rick Altergott and in turn be followed by Chris Cilla.  It's quite an ambitious project including some of comics' heavy-hitters such as Marc Bell, Tony Millionaire, Al Jaffee, Jay Lynch, Bill Griffith, and SO MANY more.

"Framed: The World of Comics"

This is the awesome poster Andy Burkholder did for the comics exhibit at Columbia College called, "Framed: The World of Comics."  The exhibit ran from November 2009 till Februrary 2010.  It featured his work along with numerous other hidden talents at Columbia.  I exhibited the originals I did for Hotwire Comics #3 (Published by Fantagraphics Books).

I was also interviewed by the Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism along with Ivan Brunetti who co-curated the exhibit.  Go and check out the video interview/news story on it here.  There's also an video interview on the Columbia site with the main curator, Justin Witte.  Check it out here.

"Onholder"

This is a comic that my friend and fellow cartoonist, Andy Burkholder drew after I doodled a character in the first panel.  You should really go check out his stuff.

New One Panel Gag.

Coming Very Soon - Claptrap No. 2...

I've finally got around to publishing the second issue of Claptrap (5 years after the first one). This issue will contain 26 printed pages of:
Drawings & doodles from 2006-2008
Some selected unpublished gags
Collaborative drawings with fellow Chicago artist, Paul Nudd
Center full-color spread
The cover is a wrap-around 2-color screenprint with rubber stamps printed on the inside. The first 20-30 copies will include 3"x5" doodles from the first issue of Claptrap. The book measures at 7"x8.5". I'll be selling these at Quimby's, Chicago Comics, and maybe a couple of other online ordering sites and it should be out by early February. Oh, and the print run is 125.

I'm in Trubble...

The "Trubble Club" that is... I've been meeting with some of the talented Chicago cartoonists folks doing comics jams together. Many of them turn out strange, humorous, or just plain silly but overall I'm pleased to be with many of them. We've compiled some of them in a mini that's being sold at Quimby's here in Chicago and we're working on a second volume.
Other Trubble Club members include: Al Burian, Lilli Carré, Ezra Claytan Daniels, Anya Davidson, Lucy Knisley, Corinne Mucha, Rachel Niffennegger, Bernie McGovern, Laura Park, Aaron Renier, Grant Reynolds, Becca Taylor, Jeremy Tinder, and Marco Torres... Go check out the blog.

Anthology of Graphic Fiction Vol. 2 - Video Preview

Ivan Brunetti on An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Vol. 2 from Yale University Press on Vimeo.

This is a preview video for Ivan Brunetti's "An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons & True Stories Vol. 2" published by Yale University Press. I'm fortunate enough to have drawn the title page (which is animated in the beginning of this video - my drawing, "Cartoon Suprematism") as well as having a page of unpublished comics in it. The book is amazing and I highly recommend it even if you are on the "up and up" with today's art-comics.

New Comic for Chicago Artists' News.

Finally, a new comic. This is the second half of a collaborative comic I did with John Hankiewicz for Chicago Artists' News, a paper published by the Chicago Artists' Coalition. John wrote the strip, drew his half, and I did the second half. There's more info on the strip on John's blog. The first half of the story is there too so you may want to visit his blog and read his half first. It was great to collaborate with John on this because I got to learn more about his ideas with constructing stories for his comics.

"Off-Kilter Comics" Exhibit & Signing - Minneapolis, MN

I am curating a show at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design called, "Off-Kilter Comics." The exhibit features over 70 works including original comics pages, prints, and original drawings by:

Ivan Brunetti
Lilli Carré
John Hankiewicz
Onsmith
Zak Sally
Dan Zettwoch
Above is the front of the postcard for the show and here's the back with additional info:
I'll also be signing books with Ivan Brunetti, Zak Sally, and John Hankiewicz at Big Brain Comics on April 5th from 3 to 5pm. Here's the flyer for the event:

Hotwire Comics #2 - Out in February 2008.

Here's the cover for the upcoming (Feb. 2008) Hotwire Comics #2 that I have a four page comic in. The cover is by Tim Lane and the anthology is edited by Glenn Head, featuring new material from Mark Newgarden, Ivan Brunetti, Johnny Ryan, Stephane Blanquet, R. Sikoryak, Sam Henderson, and several others. There's also a new website for the series and you can see samples from this upcoming issue here. Below is a sequence from my strip for the issue, entitled "The Candy Rod."

Kevin Scalzo's "Sugar Booger" #2.

I did a "pin-up" drawing for Kevin Scalzo's new issue of "Sugar Booger" and it also features pin-ups by Eric Reynolds, Jacob Covey, Anna Klein, and Joshua Vrysen. To order your very own signed copy of Sugar Booger #2, go here.

New Comic - For Book of Children's Dreams.

The book is called "Elmonstruodecoloresnotieneboca" and it's the project of Roger Omar (Spain). What he's done is collect dreams from children in Mexico, Spain, and Brazil and is having artists render them from several different countries as well. The collection will include cartoonists Rene French, Matti Hagelberg, Anke Feuchtenberger, and Max as well as illustrators like Derek M. Ballard, Steak Mountain, and Flavio Morais (any many, many more). I illustrated the dream I chose as a comic strip simply because of the narrative nature of the dream itself. I'm not quite sure when the book will be out or where you can purchase it, but once I do, I'll be sure to post something about it. Oh, and here is the dream I illustrated:

Jesus Roberto (Mexico)
The Puncher Ghosts
"One day I dreamed that there were ghosts in my house... They punched me when I was left alone, and when my mother arrived, she found me all beaten up... From that moment she doesn't leave me alone anymore."

Print Gocco, Craft Magazine, and "In The Studio"...

Above is a page from the premier issue of Craft Magazine (from the same publisher of Make Magazine) that featured an article over Print Gocco and the campaign to Save Gocco. They featured a layout of some gocco prints including the cover of my mini-comic, "Claptrap", as well as prints by Cole Johnson and Minza Wada. You can purchase a copy (or subscribe) here. Here's the cover:

Also, the new book from Todd Hignite, "In The Studio" published by Yale University Press, features a section with Ivan Brunetti where he talks about The Gocco Set and says some nice things about Ryoko Oguchi's artwork. Other artists covered in the book are: Charles Burns, Chris Ware, Art Spiegelman, Jaime Hernandez, Gary Panter, Robert Crumb, Seth, and Daniel Clowes. Buy it here. Here's the page from the book (poorly scanned) where Ivan discusses The Gocco Set:
(Click for larger version) And here's the cover:

I'll Be Attending SPX.

I'll be attending the Small Press Expo (SPX) in Bethesda, Maryland and I'll be sharing a table with John Hankiewicz and David King. Outside of the mini comics of mine that have been around for a little while now, the only new stuff I'll be bringing is a 24" square screen-print of the illustrations I drew for Ivan Brunetti's "Anthology of Graphic Fiction" (previously mentioned). The print includes all of the drawings for the book as well as extra ones (a total of 99 drawings) in deep violet ink on a light beige paperstock. Here's some photos of it:

Oh, and there'll be a mini of drawings by me, Ivan Brunetti, John Hankiewicz, and David King that we'll have (it's new) called, "Bethesda is Latin for Stamina." Here's the cover image:

Ivan Brunetti's "An Anthology of Graphic Fiction"

(Click for Larger Version)

Now in some stores and soon to be in others - "An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, & True Stories", edited by Ivan Brunetti and published by Yale University Press. You can order it here. I won't go into it too much here, simply because I don't want to attempt to write a full review of it, but the design and production are incredible and it's surely something I see as an essential book on comics (old and new). I just so happened to be able to be a part of it (and am very honored I could be) - I drew the illustrated table of contents of numerous cartoon characters. Here's a sample of some of 'em:

While I'm updating here, I may as well post a couple of random drawings I did a while back:

Brief Profile in Chicago Magazine.

(Click for larger version)

The newest issue of Chicago Magazine ran a one page feature in conjunction with Ivan Brunetti's upcoming "An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, and True Stories", profiling four of the cartoonists included in his book: Archer Prewitt, Jeffrey Brown, John Hankiewicz, and me. The reason being, of course, that we're all from Chicago. Pretty nice of them to include me with these guys. Here's the cover:

New Strip - for Oxford American Magazine.

(Click for larger version)

Here's a new strip I did for Oxford American Magazine, their Southern Music Issue. The title is in reference to Alien Sex Fiend, not Johnny Cash by the way. Anyway, they also feature comics by Patrick Dean and Martin Cendreda - pretty cool. Oh, and you can find the issue (with an accompanying CD with tracks by Sun Ra, Richard Hell, The 6ths, Sam Cooke, and others) at Barnes & Noble, Borders, and Tower Records. Here's the cover: