The Penguin

Forgive the exuberance. Made about $60.00 at the 2009 Motor City Comic Con, so I'm pumped. Sold 4 issues of Comics Obscura , one button, and 10 sketches. Didn't get very many pictures of the Con - I'm not much of a picture-taker, unfortunately. Did get my ugly mug immortalized with a pair of very lovely (and very accomodating) ladies in costume. Fig. 1-1: The author, with bemused beauties. My tablemates Josh and Matt also got in on the action: Fig. 1-2: Josh is happy. Fig. 1-3: Matt is also happy. He is also crouching down - the man is at least six-foot-six. (Note: the character on the left is the girl from The Fifth Element , one of my favorite movies of all time. If you don't know the character on the right, it's time to crawl out from under that rock of yours). Carrie Fisher was apparently at the Con, but I didn't go over to see her - from all accounts, she did not want to be there (where's a friendly Mark Hamill when you need him?). Much more friendly w...

At some point, way back in the misty dawn of time [of this blog], I said this was a comics blog. It hasn't really turned out that way, aside from a few sketchbook pictures here and there. I thought it was high time I put in a couple of comic book reviews, just to spice things up. The following is a series of very short reviews of comics I've read. Most of these come from the library where I work - we have a moderate collection. Because I'm lazy, the reviews will probably be quite short, depending on what I want to say about it. Also, if you've never heard of any of these comics or creators, all's the better - I've become a bit of a connoisseur, I've found, of comics nobody's ever heard of (although this review will include some more commonly-known titles and artists). (By the way, starting from this point, I might be using the word "comickers" a lot - it simply means, "comic book artists". It's just a bit easier than saying "...

I'm sitting here on a beautiful, rainy day at the end of a Michigan April, contemplating the emerald green of the new growth. The grass is impossibly soft; new buds stand out like millions of tiny jewels against the black of wet tree trunks. The crabapples and plum trees are sporting their May blossoms early, pinks and whites and magentas. The gray sky, so oppressive two months ago, now looks soft and warm as velvet. There are garter snakes on the move, even in the middle of the city; fat woodchucks snuffle around on the embankment of the railroad tracks. After the long winter, everything is beautifully, impossibly new. Fig. 1-1: Maple Street, in the rain. Fig. 1-2: The plum tree. View of Aberdeen Way, out front. For anyone who's lived in Michigan for any length of time (at least in the Lower Peninsula), you've most likely heard of that jewel of the northern forests, the elusive morel mushroom. The mere sight of one will cause even the most reserved of us to clap our hands ...

Whew...! Just sent off the second installment of the Fight or Flight webcomic. That'll make it a grand total of...two installments. Lord have mercy. In a more upbeat vein, the final installment of TEQ has one page left . I'm going to have to sit myself down and just plug away until I finish it. After that, I just have three painted title pages to complete (for installments 4, 5, and 6), and then, voila! - - TEQ is done. After that, I have to swoop in and finish Squidgods . Twenty pages, or thereabouts. Then all my outstanding (and outstanding!) projects will be finished, and I'll have a couple minutes to breathe. Finals coming up at LCC. I just have that one paper to do; everything else is projects. Then I have ComiCon on the 15th of May, and then National Camp School on the 22nd (in Knob Lick, Missouri - Knob Lick, folks). And then on June 14th, I'm off for camp staff. Hurray for summer, and all that. Rick Out.

A quick image - four heads for ComiCon buttons: Fig. 1.1: Four heads. Longshots characters featured, clockwise from top left: Beth Kasty, Ishmael Kuffing, Captain Andrew Logan, Eric Mudrow. I think I ordered about fifty of these buttons. So far it's about the only preparation I've done for the Con - I guess I'd better get my butt moving on that. Get some posters printed, at least. I'm thinking of doing a banner with my name on it, or something along those lines. I'll see what goes on. And while we're posting images, here's four concept images for a Flash animation I'm doing. Hopefully, I'll be able to post the full animation for you sometime later. Fig. 1.2: The aged hippie. The Animation is for a Web Design project - Project 7, or some-such: "Design a Flash splash-page for a corporate website". Being the happy camper that I am, I decided any Flash splash-page for a corporate website would (and indeed, should have) aging counterculture f...

These past couple of weeks have been...interesting. Comics Obscura is undergoing a bit of a shakeup; the founding members of the group are at odds with our editor-in-chief, the inimitable Jay Jacot. I can't give any specific details, but suffice to say they're at loggerheads right now, and are going to use next Sunday's meeting as a chance to try and resolve the differences. Hopefully everything will work out to peacefully, and we can get back to drawing comics and having a good time. Not much to report on my end. I just finished the roughs for Redtooth #2, and am moving on to Redtooth #3. Oh, and did you hear about this? I'm also working on a webcomic. When it will come out, I haven't the foggiest. I'm just doing the art and trying to mind my own business. The webcomic is called (tentatively, and probably finally) Fight or Flight, and we started very early last year . I'm working with a writer, David "Skippy" Crampton, and his co-conspirator, Aa...

For all you ten million fans of this blog, who wait upon my every life-giving word with bated breath, as if in anticipation of a coming religious experience, these past weeks (or so) must have been a torment to your shriveled souls. Well, be tormented no longer: I am about to post more of my holy, infallible writ. Nothing much has really been going on this week - at least, artistically. For those of you who know, I have been working on a webcomic as well - called Fight or Flight - and the writers have recently contacted me out of this ephemeral ether we call the "interwebs". So, I'm working on that. It's very slow going. You know how it is: the usual complaints about, "Oh, my classes take a lot out of me", and, "Oh, I just want to come home and relax...and eat a quart of ice cream." (Maybe not the ice cream. There is none in the house at the moment). Fig. 1: His Holiness, the Author, reclining upon his favorite sofa. What's really getting to me...