Sales n' Things

I know you're all being inundated with CRAZY FRIDAY POST-THANKSGIVING FOOD COMA SPEND MONEY NOW offers, so allow me to quietly, respectfully, slip this into your discount pile ...

It expires at midnight on Tuesday, December 2nd to, y'know give you an extra day to relax a bit.

And hey, if you're a Patreon person, you get even more off! Check out the activity feed for deets.

(if you're not a Patreon person, it's super easy to join in the behind-the-scenes comic talks we're having!)

ComfyCon!!

Hey guys, I'll be hosting a panel for this year's ComfyCon TOMORROW!

(if you don't know what ComfyCon is, it's a fabulous webcomics creators convention run by comics peeps from the comfort of their own beds/pajama pants, created by Randy Milholland and Danielle Corsetto!)

The con is going on all weekend, so make sure to follow @ComfyCon on twitter to get the youtube links as they go up - also, here's the full schedule.

I'll be hosting the Making Comics Around a DayJob panel tomorrow at 2:00pm with Jeff Zugale and Gordon McAlpin! If you'd like to know how we juggle comics n' jobs, or what the interior of one room in our house looks like, or want to witness Google Hangouts in their purest awkwardness, join us!

***EDIT: In case you missed it, you can check out the panel here!

On Anxiety and Cake

I borrowed a copy of Allie Brosh's Hyperbole and a Half book a while back from a friend of mine, who recently reminded me that I still hadn't returned it. I figured it would be just another in a long line of books I borrowed from people - intending to read it, and then realizing I am really bad at reading/finishing books that aren't audiobooks.

And this isn't because I don't LOVE Hyperbole and a Half - I not only do, but also think Allie Brosh is uncannily brilliant at drawing facial expressions not seen on any human but likewise deeply understood in the human brain. (In my whole life, I will never create anything as perfect as The God of Cake)

Unfortunately, I have this thing where if I think something will affect me in a specific negative way, I avoid doing/reading/watching that thing entirely. Like my emotions are controlled by a series of buttons and once the wrong one is pushed it's impossible to pop it back out again and return to neutral. I mainly do this just in case they reiterate feelings of anxiety. I have gotten a LOT better about managing my anxiety in general (getting older helped a lot, as did volleyball, weirdly) but sometimes I forget all the work I've done managing my anxiety and worry that one little teeny tiny thing will push it back all up in my face. Because that's what anxiety does - it stays hidden in the corner with its ears pricked up, waiting to see if you'll fall for any of its filthy tricks again. Anxiety is those ghosts in Mario that follow you around and only stop when you look directly at them.

So when I read Brosh's strips on depression, outlining her experience drudging through it, and then heard Terry Gross bully her into talking about her suicidal thoughts on Fresh Air, I worried reading the whole Hyperbole and a Half book would make me too upset. (I'm not even linking to that crap interview)

Dumb, right? Yeah, reading about other people's struggles and hardships might upset you, yeh toolbag.

But then yesterday, while cleaning out my old podcasts on my phone, I discovered Marc Maron had recently interviewed Brosh and gave it a listen. The two of them had such a wonderful, caring, complete conversation not just about her depression, but about her life and experiences and intelligence and brilliance in general, that it was the perfect palette cleanser after the crap Terry Gross put her through. Yes, Maron can be a bit of a blowhard who loves to hear himself talk, and even though they still touched on a lot of really, REALLY, difficult stuff, I felt like this time it was more at Brosh's own speed, with someone who made an effort to understand an inkling of what she was talking about.

Which made me finally buck up and read the book, which is AMAZING and HILARIOUS and thought-provoking and I'm so glad I did.

So I think my takeaway from this experience (and the reason I've decided to bring it up here) that I've learned is that hey - talking about this stuff, whether anxiety, depression, mental illness, weird cravings, whatev - may actually make it a wee bit better! Maybe I shouldn't be so scared that just by saying the word ANXIETY three times I'll invoke the creature out of its corner.

Now -- my fear of invoking Bloody Mary just by THINKING about her name three times whilst in the bathroom -- that one I'm pretty sure is conquered by drinking Bloody Mary's every chance you get.

Maybe now I can move on to listening to the "How Panic Attacks Work" podcast from How Stuff Works that I intentionally skipped over ...

Boring Post-Wedding Blog Post #2: Table Decor for Days

In Part 2 of my boring post-wedding recap, we get to the part I was most excited about … the DECOR! Well, excited when I wasn't paralyzed with overwhelming fear at how to put it all together. First I casually browsed some Pinterest ideas - specifically, looking at things like this and this, but THIS one is where I got my main inspiration from:

So rather than having table numbers, I decided to do drawings for each table, each one an interest of mine, or my fiancé's, or both - which lead to these:

Next I needed to figure out what ELSE to put on the table. Since we knew it'd be outside in Fall, I was happy to do minimal runners as tablecloths (plus, hello - just renting table linens, I found out, was hella expensive). For a while I considered these tablecloths from Susty Party because they were simple, cute and cheap:

But we ended up throwing out that idea as being too unpredictable in a possibly windy outdoors. We were all set doing only burlap runners until the caterer and my fiancé convinced me that the tables needed full coverage, not just for aesthetics but because the uneven, splintery wood bits might snag the guests' clothing. So now we had white tablecloths with burlap runners as our base. Good deal.

We rented stemless glasses and linen napkins from the caterer too, but instead of using their dishes we found some super cute compostable dishes from Verterra that we wanted to incorporate:

Unfortunately, they were all sold out of their cute cutlery by the time we got to them, but luckily we found this place that had a similar alternative.

Next I had to figure out how else to fill up the tables. I'd seen on Young House Love a long while back that they'd used recycled wine bottles as water/lemonade/tea servers at their wedding, and figured maybe there was some way we could use our *ahem*MASSIVE*ahem* collection of empties at ours. I didn't want to use them to serve drinks, but thought it'd be fun to have them serve as vases. I spent a LOT of time trying to use this method to soak the labels off of the bottles, while my fiancé rubbed them with olive oil and then scraped the label off. Neither method was perfect, but both eventually worked. I threw some wheat stalks in them that I found at Michael's (and kept hidden in a closet until the wedding so my cat wouldn't continue to be mesmerized by them) so voila - more table stuff.

Next I convinced my parents to pick up a zillion flameless candles they found at Costco, which ended up being not only perfect for table decor, but also for port-a-potty decor, bar decor, and now for all-over-my-house-decor. They even have remote controls and timers, so you can have a BAM ROMANTIC atmosphere greet you whenever you get home from work! (which may or may not feel appropriate EVERY day)

These things and these cinnamon-scented pine cones I also picked up at Michael's really saved the port-a-potty experience, too. You feel less like an ass asking people to use a port-a-potty on a cold November day when at least it smells like cinnamon and has some candlelight ambience.

The only thing left to throw on the tables were some mason jars, because hello - rustic wedding, of COURSE there had to be mason jars! Which turned out to be a good thing, since the metal rods I'd gotten to hold the table cards immediately fell over, and needed to be braced within a mason jar in order to stand at all. They still tended to lean off-kilter, but maybe people would assume that was on purpose. Wouldn't want the drawing of the Muppets to be perfectly straight and upright, where's the fun in that??

It was pretty funny, the caterer had some design helpers who took it upon themselves to decorate the tables for us, using gourds and tree stump things and pumpkins from the venue. But we blew in, all "HOLD YOUR HORSES, WE'VE GOT EMPTY WINE BOTTLES AND DRAWINGS OF CATS WE NEED TO USE - I HAVE A PLAN". They stared at us and our wood cutlery and fake candles, but somehow throwing everything together worked out.

Here's what the final table setup looked like:

Click here to read Boring Post-Wedding Blog Post #1!

New Print - Leaf Stomping!

I added a new print to my Etsy & Storenvy & Society6 shops today - LEAF STOMP!

And if you want to see the sketch from which it started, check out my Patreon activity feed!

Boring Post-Wedding Blog Post #1: The Where's

And thus - let the blogging about my wedding last weekend begin!

When we first decided to get married, we had zero idea of where we wanted to do it. Our favorite bar? Too small. Our local supercute restaurant? Also too small. An old mansion? The zoo? The list was endless, though the prices/capacity SUPER varied.

Plus I was having trouble with the triple threat that hits you in the face immediately upon planning a wedding - which comes first: The date, the venue, or the guest list? You can't have a date if you don't know if a venue will be free on a particular date. You can't choose a venue until you know how many people you're inviting ... and how the hell can you invite anyone when you don't know when you're going to have it??

I was stuck at this, the very initial phase of planning, until my photographer friend Amanda mentioned this super cute outdoor venue we could consider:

. . . RIGHT?? Cute, oozingly RUSTIC (which in this case wasn't a keyword for "crap" like Emily Gilmore thinks), and most importantly available in the fall AND customizable to however many people you wanted. SOLD. Plus we could have it all weekend, and since we'd chosen Saturday, November 1st as our wedding date - that only meant one thing - HALLOWEEN PRE-PARTY BOO YAH.

Hemlock Farm is the name of this amazing place, which comes complete with a faux barn-hotel-B&B-thingie attached that you can rent out just for some fun, beautiful vacay's close to downtown Annapolis. It's gorgeous, and the owner Jen not only designed it but has a KA-BILLION ideas on how to change/alter/design it some more for whatever you want. When we rolled in Friday afternoon with our cars weighed down with empty wine bottles, wheat, and drawings (more on the decor in a post to come!) she already had a fun set of lanterns, tree stumps, and gourds for us to play with if we wished. Available gourds!

Which you can make the most of, by posing awkwardly in front of everything!

(all photos credit: Matt Hollis)

And no, we hadn't yet considered what a wedding outdoors in November in Maryland (Maryland Weather is a crafty creature who combines humidity + frost + CRAZY WIND TUNNELS to keep us all looking wind-blown and moist and unprepared for anything) would be like, nor how many other things (tables, tents, bathrooms, food, etc) we'd have to find with an outdoor venue. More on that in a later post on this, when the Boring Post-Wedding Blog Post RECAP series continues!

Up next ... DECOR!

Wedding Pause!

Sorry for the delay in this week's second Bonnie, y'all - it's a Wedding Weekend!!

... For me. Did I not make that clear? It's forecasted to be cold, windy, rainy - AWESOME, AMIRIGHT?

Catch you guys on the other side. ;) Eeeeee!

Part-Time Princesses Party Preview Party YAY

AHOY-HOY!!

I'm using Mr. Burns's phone answering technique to excitedly share with you guys that my NEW book Part-Time Princesses (penned/drawn/stressed over by me, published by the amazing Oni Press) is now in Previews for pre-ordering!

(Yes, when this comes out it WILL have a title and my name on it)

I've illustrated a comic for Oni before (Glitter Kiss by amaze-tastic Adrianne Ambrose) but THIS one will be completely my fault! My wonderful, princessy fault, all powdery because it's stuffed full of funnel cake (spoiler - it takes place in an amusement park).

If you're a comic shop, please go forth and pre-order and support! If you're not, looky - the thing I've been mysteriously alluding to (who are we kidding, complaining about the work of) is finally going to be released!

MARCH 2015. Mark it, dude!

[otw_is sidebar=otw-sidebar-7]

Adventures in Hand Lettering

I loooooove hand lettering. I'm obsessed with how messy and flawed and carefully crafted it looks.

I think I've been obsessed with hand lettering since before I realized it, back when I used to inhale as many Baby-Sitters Club books as I could. And what did they have every time there was a super special combined book that featured every BSC member getting their own chapter? A sample of their hand-writing!

Although I was a preteen and therefore kind of stuck in Stacey hand writing mode for a while - upright curvy letters and circles dotting the i's - I slowly gravitated toward Dawn's more tilted, casual script. Eventually it evolved into the messy, unattractive handwriting I still hold onto today, crafted by years of taking notes in college and work meetings. Speed became way more important than how it looked. I've never been a fan of my own handwriting, but lately I've gotten sick of how much it's devolved and have been consciously trying to spruce it up.

And what better excuse for testing out some handwriting skills? Wedding invitations, of course!

When we first started planning the wedding, I knew invitation design was one of the few things I'd really get into (not terrified by, such as catering and venue holding and money spending). The invitations themselves were cobbled together in a collection of handwriting-like fonts (I'll post those post-wedding -- actually there's a BUNCH of stuff about the wedding I will be posting once it's all over and I can get back to breezy, casual reality!) because I was too chicken to try my pen at them, but I decided to just go for the gusto with the envelopes.

That's right, no pencilling beforehand, straight up ink! I wanted some way of combining the big and the swoopy with the thin and straight - so I decided on swoopy for the people, and organized for the address. However, it wasn't long before I abandoned doing the address part and outsourced that to my fiancee - he was much more concerned with being neat than I was, and it was way more fun to make it a team event.

I was quite pleased with the messy result, and it was so much fun I decided to extend it to the table decor as well. I knew I wanted each table to hold a drawing of one of our interests. At first I envisioned (as I usually do when starting a project) that the drawings would be very neat, precise, and I would draw with very thin, detailed, simple lines using only a tiny Micron pen. Of course that didn't happen, because like most things I do I end up working larger and messier than I plan and things take on a loud, weird life of their own.

So I abandoned tiny neatness and went for mimicking the swoops of the envelope handwriting. This time I used a brush pen for the swoopy, which defeated the purpose of the thin spidery lines I like, but was fun nonetheless.

Here are how some of my favorite ones turned out:

Now, I anticipate EVERYONE will want to sit at the Muppets table and I'll be the sole nerd at the Greek Mythology table . . .

Inktober Week 1

INKTOBER!

Inktober is that magical time of year when fabulous artists all over participate in doing an inked drawing each day for the entire month of October. You can pencil and then ink, as long as the final output is in ink, but I decided to make it a personal challenge and JUST ink my drawings. I'm a very heavy penciller, so this has been a pretty big challenge for me. Also, I decided to mark the days in my moleskine ahead of time so I couldn't cheat and give up on a drawing I'd started and screwed up.

I know it's already the 13th (EEEEEEK!) but here's a recap of my first 6 days of Inktober realness! (and if you want to see them in real-ish time as I post them, be sure to follow my twitters/instagrams/tumblrs!) Follow a bunch of amazing artists out there by following the #inktober!

What I learned this week: I'm not confident of where I start to put my brush down, and I have a hard time re-evaluating onced I start drawing. But all in all, not bad as I expected!

It's also been a fun snapshot of what I've been up to day-to-day so far this month. Watching a LOT of Gilmore Girls (obvs), seeing Gone Girl, starting to watch Penny Dreadful, having a Haunted Bachelorette Party .... my life is very full .... of TV, apparently. And I've been highly advised to start watching Twin Peaks too, so LOOK OUT rest of Inktober! :) More to come as I post 'em!

Patreon Video is up!

My Patreon video is up! RELEASE THE KITTY CAT!

Fall Wardrobe Prints!

Fall is heeeeeeere! I thought I'd celebrate by drawing some pieces of fall clothing.

All of these are 8 x 10 giclee prints, stored in a li'l plastic sleeve and signed by me!

You can find all of these in my Etsy and Storenvy shops, as well as cute 5 x 7 mini's I made of some of my other prints, like the three adventuring Furies friends!

In the Slowness

Watching The Shining last night (on the big screen for once, ow owww!) made me realize how much I love the sloowwwww build up to impending doom in stories. I've been criticized a bunch of times for how slow things progress in a lot of my comics *ahem*especially Gods & Undergrads apparently*ahem* and I kind of knew I liked that style, but I didn't realize how often that pops up in some of my faves.

Seeing The Shining in the theater obviously took advantage of all of Kubrick's big, empty rooms and loooong shots cycling behind Danny in the Big Wheel, but it also gave the audience a LOT of time to take in all the little things that were slowly happening. My friend and I used to laugh at the subtitle screens shouting TUESDAY at us, after a particularly long shot of Jack doing nothing but staring out a window and drooling.

We thought it was there just to provide absurd drama for no reason. Really it was breaking up the hypnotic shots of calm eerieness that we'd been sucked into - and didn't even realize we were being sucked into -- until TUESDAY or SATURDAY rolled around on the screen and we snapped out of it. It's a perfect way of showing both just how quickly the meltdown starts to occur in the hotel (only a month, and what - a week into their 5 month stay?) while also making you feel like - as it says at the end - that Jack has always been there.

And I was just realizing that - as much as I adore Jack's wacky insanity from the get-go in the movie, his over-the-top goofiness combined with those endless open spaces make the climax all the more terrifying. After running around with a bat through endless corridors swatting at imaginary threats, Wendy is finally cornered into a cramped bathroom and the impossibility of fitting through an even cramped, tinier window as her only escape. There in that tiny space she has to confront all of the suddenly lethal (and only mildly funny) rage of Jack and his axe. All of the terror and buildup of the movie is suddenly all up in her face, and it's terrifying to see her complete meltdown.

But then she still manages to hack at him with her knife, get out, rescue her son and leave him to freeze to death.

Comparing Local Cons

Now that my last two comic conventions of the year are over and done with (*sniff sniff*) I wanted to take a moment to compare and contrast these two mutually awesome but SUPER different shows. Since I'm a Baltimorean, both Baltimore Comic Con and SPX are local and driveable to me (although next year I think I'm going to finally throw in the towel and get a hotel room! Boo hour drive each way!) which makes it even more interesting how much they vary from one another.

BALTIMORE COMIC CON

A fairly typical, big convention you'd expect from a city -- hosted in a convention center and chock full of retailers with back issues, Dr. Who stuff, cosplay, and a section devoted towards "kid's comics". But still boasts the most diverse audience I ever see at a show, which is HUGE.

PROS: No big push for the "CELEBRITY GUEST" and "POP CULTURE" nonsense you tend to see at most big comics shows these days. They have a pretty sizeable Artist Alley as well as an Exhibitor pool full of a lot of comics people too. Lots of comics retailers and just COMICS everywhere in general.

CONS: Long wait lines, high fees to get in, LOTS of ground to cover to get to see things. (one of the reasons I started up Bmore Into Comics was to make it easier for people to happen upon comics, rather than slog through all the line waiting/exorbitant door fee nonsense) Also, this year Artist Alley was wedged in the back, so there was a lot of retailer/merch stuff you had to wade through before even encountering the comics creators. Also - and this is a common complaint at a lot of shows - no navigation to tell where you actually were in the convention center. I would love to see conventions as a whole adopt little fun arrow signs directing you at every intersection (see: SPX's GENIUS solution for this below)

AUDIENCE: I'm beginning to realize just the term "comic con" in your name now implies a certain thing to the masses. More people who've never been to a comics show or picked up a comic will come out for "comic cons" because the assumption is that these places represent comics as a whole. As depressing as that could be, I think it provides an opportunity for smaller indie comics creators like myself to reach that larger market. Over the years I've seen more women, families, and teens show up at comic cons like visitors to a strange planet - they've heard tales about the grown men who exist here in superhero costumes and places where nothing is too nerdy - but they didn't quite BELIEVE it until this moment. I love these first-time con goers because no matter how foreign the experience seems to them, they're always expecting a POSITIVE one - and that's huge. Somehow the message has gotten out to a lot of people not picking up comics that they should expect a GOOD TIME at comic cons - and I love that.

Ultimately, I love Baltimore Comic Con for a bunch of different reasons, but this year I really felt like its main treasure is that it gets comics out in front of a lot of people who don't know (yet!) that they'll love reading them, not just basking in all their character cosplay glory.

SPX

SPX was RIDICULOUS this year. I've been going since 2002, and each year the show just gets more and more well planned, executed, attended, and well - ADORED by its attendees and exhibitors alike.

Like many others, I don't have any pictures of the actual show (but the SPX tumblr is a GREAT resource for all the post-con lovefest recaps right now) because I was mobbed with customers. I'm not someone who ever gets mobbed with customers, so this wasn't only a super successful show for me, but validated me as a comics creator in a number of ways.

See, it's a common thing for a lot of us creators to zig-zag back and forth between being incredibly encouraged by and then horribly negative about comics, and a lot of times it just whittles down to a show-by-show experience. Do REALLY BAD at one show and throw away all your pens, then go to another one and plan on quitting your day job on Monday. Constant wiggle-waggle of emotions that a lot of us (even though we even it out by encouraging eachother and remembering that we LOVE DOING comics anyway) have learned to deal with over the years, but they can still get to us. Especially as we get older and our friends/families keep staring at us with a "you do what with your free time?" glance. I mean, I'm sure they think we're cool. They think we're cool, right?

PROS: SPX brings in tons of people by getting the word out like a CHAMP. And these people know comics and read them and love them and appreciate them. My three top selling items were COMICS, which also never happens. SPX also somehow cultivates a really cozy atmosphere that just feels comfortable and inclusive and snuggly. It could be all the gold decor and spaceship lights, I don't know. No matter how jammed that exhibitor floor gets, I never get my NYCC people panic. Also - THEY HAD AISLE LETTER BALLOONS THIS YEAR. Nailed it.

CONS: I know the lottery vs. the legacy table assignments this year was a source of panic for a lot of creators, but I just think that means - we need MORE SHOWS. More ways for indie creators to showcase their work. More Bmore Into Comics-style shows, but EVERYWHAR! The more we can create shows like SPX (or casual, tinier ones) the more people might expect to see comics and keep an eye out for them on the regular.

AUDIENCE: SPX still doesn't really reel in those people who don't know anything about comics as much as generic BIGGO COMIC CONS do, but I do think that's been changing over the years. There's always a tendency with indie comics shows to get REAL inclusive and kind of precious art-y, but SPX has managed to still be welcoming and all-inclusive, which is amazing to see.

All in all - I had a blast, I LOVE conventions in general, and I love being delightfully spoiled in particular by these local ones. BIG CLAPS TO CON SEASON 2014 Y'ALL!!

Filthy Cartoon-itations

Last week I embarked on my most terrifying illustration gig TO DATE: Illustrating Baltimore Craigslist "Missed Connection" ads. They're absurd, vague, and strange - and I was told right off the bat: "Don't be afraid to go dirtier".

Now, I'm the comics equivalent of a Never Nude:

. . . Not really used to drawing nakeds, sexies, or any vulgar absurdities in-between. So I'm viewing this as a fun challenge - not only am I drawing six quick-turnaround sketches based on ridiculous, grammatically curious ramblings, but now I'm pushing the boundaries of what I can actually draw. And if that happens to be dirty. It'll probably just be cute - so far it's cute. Oops!

Here are some of my favorites (although it is kind of necessary to check them out with the actual Craigslist ads):

Patreon Time!

So I've created a Patreon page! If you're unfamiliar with Patreon, it's basically a super cool way to directly support an artist whose stuff you dig (here's the page with all the info!). You can contribute monthly amounts that help me keep this comic party going, as well as gives you guys a peek into my process, videos, the latest prints and books I’ve got, original art – all sorts of fun stuff! And I know I’ve said that I plan on wrapping up G&U soon – I’ve got at least fourteen more pages to go in this storyline before I put it on hold, but you never know – I’m opening up Patreon to see what happens, and what you guys might be interested in seeing! So please do let me know in the comments on any of these pages!

I've actually been meaning to do this for a while, but kept holding off on the video part. I've got it storyboarded and ready to go, but I thought it might be fun to get a little community involvement from you guys from the get-go - because that's the main reason I wanted to do Patreon. To create more interaction betwixt you and me! (and, of course, MORE COMICS)

So since I have SPX this coming weekend, it'll be at least a week before I start taping this video thang (do people still use the term "taping"?), which gives you guys time to fill out the survey below!

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Thanks everyone! STAY TUNED, this is gonna be awesome!

New Books!

Hey howdy, my latest books have arrived just in time for SPX this weekend!

First up, it's 4 States 2 Months!

The travel/journal comic I wrote about deciding to get married while traveling to four states in two months. Previously online, now in print for the first time! 56 pages of luxurious, black-and-white sketchy-sketches. I'll post it up in my store once this weekend of SPX fun is over with!

And second, it's the next issue of Bonnie N. Collide, Nine to Five! I know a lot of peeps read the webcomic, but if they happen to also enjoy reading the print version, here's issue #8! Also to be released online after the show.

And speaking of SPX ... here's where I'll be:

One Con Down, One to Go!

Woo! Still riding high on the fun that was Baltimore Comic Con this past weekend. This show is still one of my faves, not just because I live in dear ol' Bmore, but because it's the most diverse con I've still ever seen. People of all ages, backgrounds, costumed families, roving packs of preteens - it's pretty special. I get such warm squishes from seeing all the costumed folks bond with one another - "Hey aren't we in the Avengers together? FIST BUMPS!"

I was spoiled by all the familiar faces who returned to catch up and chat with me, and by being across from Locust Moon and their GIANTASTIC LITTLE NEMO ANTHOLOGY. Holy god - have you guys seen that thing? On Friday I thought it was a prop, but on Saturday I dared peek inside. No book can be that big and gorgeous, folks - no book.

And I got a lot of sketches to do - MY FAVORITE. I noticed after the fact that I drew almost ALL my ladies with their arms crossed in front of their boobs. What's that about? Should that be my thing now??

So now that SPX is looming on the horizon for this coming weekend, let's talk table displays! I like to mix things up at each convention, but I also like to figure out what works and what doesn't. Here was my table display for Baltimore:

I'm thinking it might be a little ... cluttered. Am I bringing too many different things? I feel like I either need to reduce/streamline my books and prints and things, or at least group them into different sections. Usually I think less is more, but then I get paranoid I'll leave out the one thing people might want to look at.

As exhibitors/visitors to conventions, what do you guys prefer? If I come up with anything special before SPX, I'll post it here and see if it made a difference.

[otw_is sidebar=otw-sidebar-7]

Baltimore Comic Con!

THIS weekend I'll be at Baltimore Comic Con, come visit and check out the latest merch!

(click the map to enlargen it!)

That First Webcomic Love

Hey all you loyal, lovely Gods & Undergrads readers. I unfortunately have something really tough to tell you -- I've decided to put G&U on a sort of permanent hiatus for the time being. This is a really difficult thing for ME to do, but I'm sure for all of you out there who've managed to stick with it all this time, it's way more obnoxious! G&U has always been the book I've been MOST passionate about and the majority of people have been the LEAST interested in, and it was only recently after interventions from some friends and colleagues that I realized it was time to throw in this G&U towel for the moment. Not because I don't think it's worth it to put time and work into a story no one reads - hello, I'm in comics - but because the story itself is now REALLY suffering from my lack of attention. So I need to grow up and realize it and do something hard . . . like ending my first comic.

I started Gods & Undergrads wayyyy back in the year 2000 when first discovering an early love for (and awareness of) webcomics. While working at my college's art office and photo lab, I alternated between reading Scott McCloud's Zot, Derek Kirk Kim's Same Difference, and Jason Little's Bee Comix. I especially loved Dylan Meconis's Bite Me and Faith Erin Hicks's Demonology 101, too.

But what all of these people DID with their web sagas I failed to do -- they eventually finished them. They moved on to other things. While I, also, moved on to other things, other stories I wanted to tell . . . and yet I still dragged Gods & Undergrads along behind me, bumping it onto every pothole and street sign along the way. Leaving months, even years between updates sometimes. The audience I'd managed to build up until that point put up with a lot of unknowns, changes in style, even going from its initial full color format to all black and white, . . . but eventually most people have stopped reading. That's just one of the troubles with continuing a story after 14 years (and intermittent shoe-horning between other comics projects). It gets lost among the shuffle and doesn't get the attention and care it deserves.

HOWEVER, one of the reasons for me to tie it off now and put an (abrupt) ending on this 14-year-long saga is not just to stop me from dragging it through the mud, but also to give myself a chance further down the line of resurrecting it in a newer, more planned out storyline (rather than its current Frankenstein one). Oh, did I not mention that I would totally reboot this? I WOULD TOTALLY REBOOT IT.

So anyway - sorry for the lame news, everyone. I'm going to be posting the final, abruptly-cut-short 10 pages of Gods & Undergrads over the next few weeks. Sure, if I'd pulled the trigger earlier I could've ended it at the end of Book 3, with Lelaina gone and seemingly dead but WHO WANTS THAT ENDING??

I'll still have the books for sale (tons and tons of books) and will do sketches and things for anyone who wants them. And the archives will all remain online indefinitely. A BIG, HUGE, HEARTFELT THANK YOU to all of you who've kept up with the story all this time! Again, this definitely isn't the END end of Gods & Undergrads . . . just the end for now. *sniff*

And, of course, I'll still be doing Bonnie twice a week. And other comics. And I love you guys!

***UPDATE: I've decided this last chapter will be a FULL chapter, hooray! 48 pages of fun coming your way, so stay tuned! You'll have more G&U for a while yet. :)

[otw_is sidebar=otw-sidebar-7]