Time for Austin!

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It's been a WHOLE TWO YEARS since I was last in Austin, which makes me very sad. But I'm remedying that by exhibiting at the great Staple! this weekend!

It'll all be happening at the Marchesa Hall & Theatre this Saturday and Sunday. I'll have comics and prints and will be doing sketches and things AND on Saturday I'll be on the PM
 Making and Marketing Webcomics Panel from 1:30 - 2:30!

Come on out and say hello to all the wonderful comickers! I have to go figure out what I'm supposed to wear mid-winter for 80 degree weather ... all y'all Texans are crazy.

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There Comes A Time in the Life of Every Lipstick

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I am a STAUNCH supporter of Nars's Cruella velvet matte lip pencil. It's creamy, it's matte, it doesn't get stuck to my hair and then spread strands of red all over my face like I was caught in a paper cut windstorm. It's my best friend, and we've been together for a long time.

But. FROWNY FACE.

I know that Cruella's time will come, and like all products I've loved and loyally supported, it will become discontinued. I'm still crying for Revlon's Candied Apple, circa 1998. And now every third time I try to order Cruella I get an "out of stock". Or, even more horrifying, I'll see a missing swatch of color where all the other Velvet Matte Lip Pencils reside - where Cruella had happily bridged the gap between blazingly red Dragon Girl and oh lord another shade of pink Never Say Never.

The hunt for a good red lipstick is tough, people, and it only gets tougher when colors like Coral come screaming on to the shelves, wiping out all the decent reds and promising you they won't look like fluorescent tangerine bubblegum on your face. Oh, but they will. They will.

So, this holiday season, armed with a generous Sephora gift card, I dipped my toe in another pool of reds - and found a new standby. I bring you Smashbox's BE LEGENDARY (which makes me say that, aloud, every time I use is a la Barney Stinson) lipstick in Infrared:

I'll admit it is a touch ligther than Cruella, and of course since it's a lipSTICK, you run into some of the usual stick problems. But because it's a matte, it has some staying power and doesn't want to bleed outside of my lips or leak onto my teeth.

It's not Cruella, but it'll do. And that's saying a lot!

Anyone else found any worthy reds out there?

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Wedding Planning Step 2: STD's

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Google Docs has always kind of been my best friend, but I've definitely taken that to the next level by throwing nearly everything I own into a spreadsheet. Links, recipes, ideas, ... I have no idea why, but everything looks better to me when separated by little gray boxes, in columns, in a spreadsheet. So you know any wedding planning I do is going to be TABS GALORE.

Several people have been asking me recently how the wedding planning is coming, a question which instantly stabs me with fear. Why, what should I be doing? Am I doing something wrong? I have a place and a person, isn't that all I need?? Okay okay, I know there will need to be chairs and food and someplace to go to the bathroom and all, since I am inviting and hoping friends and family will come. I guess the thought that I should be thinking of other things right now (rather than sitting around drinking coffee, saying "November is AGES away!" to myself) isn't really on my radar.

BUT! I did get the blasted Save The Date's out, so that's something! We decided to go with Paperless Post, a site that lets you send fancy emails that look like they're jumping out of envelopes and on to your screen. Part of me can't wait to design the wedding invites themselves, because it's a design project and I'm a nerdy designer, but I figured the STD's should be simple and via email. And hey - FREE! So we chose a super simple template and customized it so it would carry our faces instead of the default hipsters.

We're not photo people, so it fell on me to try to capture our essence in a drawing. First, I came up with this one:

MD_SaveTheDate_350

Which, in my opinion, screams YAY FUN WEDDING MUPPETS PEOPLE! But for some reason my fiancee wasn't too thrilled with that one (something about his arm looking weird, yadda yadda), so we ended up sending Version 2, the Dignified Adults Excited About Getting Married Drawing:

MD_SaveTheDate_BW

And since my fiancee is also my Perspective / Anatomy Quality Control Checker on most of my drawings, it became a nice collaborative effort. Since my tendency is to get a bit carried away with appendages and portray everyone in man hands all the time.

So there you have it, STD's are done! It was so fun and easy, maybe the invites themselves should be email too ... hmm ....

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Wedding Planning Step 1: Freak Out

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Remember when I said I might start posting/complaining about getting ready for a wedding?

HERE WE GO, GUYS

Since wedding planning is not something I really ever wanted to do, I'm beginning to feel overwhelmed right from the get-go. At first, I was excited, and possibilities seemed endless. Now ... the crushing weight of PLANNING so many things and anticipating things is starting to weigh on me.

And the wedding is still 10 months out.

I did start a Pinterest Board for all of my thoughts - because I'm a dweeb.

One of the main suggestions I've read about when doing something like this is: FIGURE OUT WHAT YOU WANT AND STICK TO IT.

Here are some things we know we want:

  • We want it to be chill
  • We want the peeps we love there
  • We want it to be silly and fun, because when it comes down to it, we're muppets

Here are some of the things that make us show our teeth in fear:

  • Walking down an aisle
  • Me being "given away"
  • Being the center of attention
  • A wedding registry

Here are some of the pricey things we could give a flying flip about:

  • Expensive outfits
  • Flowers
  • Engagement Photos
  • Fancy cakes
  • DJ

Here are some of the pricey things we have to figure out how to work in in a cool way (and afford):

  • Food
  • Drinks
  • Photographer
  • Fun times for all

One thing I'm super thankful for is that we have several friends who recently went through this process, AND YET are totally willing to talk about it and share their experiences. I dunno, I figured it would take them a while to recover and give nostalgia some time to work before they started viewing the planning phase as "pleasant".

Right now we're working on Save-The-Dates (which I get a kick out of referring to as STD's, as in: "Gotta take care of this STD this weekend, guys"). You'd think 10 months out would be crazy early to send such things, but I've already gotten mixed messages on what's appropriate. Which I'm pretty sure is going to be the trend for every step of this wedding. I'll let you guys know how that goes!

Anyone else planning a wedding/freaking out/designing their STD?

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Collectors Corner Grand Opening!

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THIS Saturday, one of my favorite comic book shops is opening a 2nd location! Collectors Corner of Parkville is now going to be in Bel Air, too! This is a huge accomplishment for any small business, but a comic book shop especially. It just means we're one step closer to getting everyone in their mom into comics! JOIN USSSSSS.

Come on out tomorrow to help Randy and the gang open the new store in style! I plan on being there from 12 - 2:00. :) Check out the Facebook Event page for all the info!

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Gods Sighting

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One of the nerdiest things I love to do is scrutinize appearances of Greek Gods in pop culture (like this post about Disney's Hercules). Here we go on another one, yay!

LATEST POP-UP SIGHTING: Supernatural, Season 8, Episode 16!

So in this episode, Prometheus (aka the Titan who gave fire to mortals and royally pissed off Zeus) is embodied in a drifter Sam & Dean discover, who dies every day. The cause of his death is random, anywhere from cars hitting him to sudden heart attacks. This is an homage to the nature of Zeus's punishment for Prometheus in the myths, which was to strap Prometheus to a mountainside and let an eagle carve out his liver every day for a tasty snack. Every night, he would die. Every morning, he'd get resurrected just for the fun of it.

Apparently, Zeus had lost track of Prometheus and he'd fallen to earth, hence him dying by random means and not the daily eagle attack. So Zeus sent out his best assassin, a.k.a. daughter Artemis, goddess of the hunt, to go after him.

Things I liked about this portrayal of Artemis/Zeus:

  • Artemis was badass and impossible to beat in a fight
  • Sam & Dean acknowledged the fact that Artemis was THEIR goddess, since they're hunters and she's the mack daddy of ALL hunters
  • Artemis was a thinking goddess, not a one-track killing machine
  • Artemis was strong enough to take down Zeus
  • Zeus wore a classy suit and looked steely
  • Zeus respected his daughter's power

Things I didn't like:

  • The inexplicable black leather pantsuit Artemis was wearing
  • Zeus as mindless revenge seeker - I could see him going after Prometheus, but his son too? Just for the fun of it?

All in all I was happy to see them represented, as always. And props to making Artemis strong but also a thinking, feeling goddess (albeit still in a leather pantsuit). Yay!

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I Don't Know

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It's been a really dreadful, shit-show of a week and I am more than ready to put a cap on it and wait for more time to pass. In a few weeks, I might be more inclined to talk about it and delve into my feelings, but for a while at least I prefer to drift along, pack activities into my schedule, see as many friend faces as I can, and just push time along. I know time eventually helps, I know it can start to heal things.

Last week I lost an old friend, someone who was a huge influence on my life and came into it at a time when I needed a friend, mentor, and role model more than anything.

I was watching The Big Chill the other day, which is a movie that for whatever reason gives me comfort and hope in the aftermath of bad, depressing things. There was a line said at the funeral scene in the beginning that I keep repeating over and over again in my head. ". . . And I don't know what to do with my anger." When you lose a friend, what do you do with this anger?

Anyway, the purpose of this post is not to elicit sympathy or attention for this loss, but as a quasi-explanation if things seem a bit off around here for a while. I believe grief is a very private thing and I'm only willing to say so much about it, but I also think that when a part of your life is suddenly gone you owe it to them to at least take a moment. And those of you out there who read this blog have always been there for me and commiserated with my misadventures (when I've shared them) and so I wanted to share this too.

I will continue to plow ahead and keep my public face as professional as I can, but I also need this outlet a bit. Thanks so much for reading, and for being out there for me.

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2014 for Comics!

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One mistake I always make with goals/resolutions for the new year is putting down EVERYTHING I want to accomplish - like with my life, in general. It's really hard for me to just throw down a few things that I could reasonably do and give myself a supportive pat on the back. Nooo, instead I'd rather have a list of twenty things that would each take a lot of time, accomplish maybe one of them, and then beat myself up for the rest of the year for not doing the rest (as I secretly plan the next monster list of goals).

I'm not going to tell you I've learned my lessons and that didn't happen this year - I'm just going to only share part of it with you. Heh heh, clever, right?

SO I present to you my goals for COMICS in 2014!

4 States 2 Months

My travel/journal comic about my road trip adventures this summer (wrapped around deciding to get married) will resume next week and finish up by March!

Bonnie N. Collide, Nine to Five

Bonnie will continue to update twice a week, AND I'm going to print/release a new collected book every two months! The books are still floppies, about 18 pages each (check out the previous books here).

Gods & Undergrads

Will return after 4 States 2 Months wraps up, aboooout early spring-ish. I'm exciiiited!

Secret Oni Book

Yes, it's the reasoning behind all the cryptic sketches I post on my Instagram and Tumblr - and it's finally time to finish this sucker up! Come July 1st, my plan is to have my 2nd book with Oni (which I'm writing and drawing this time!) totally in the can. Wish me luck!

I'd also like to do some more blogging here when I have time, anything in particular you guys would like to see more of? Books I'm reading, ongoing house plans, dreaded wedding planning, comics process posts?

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