New Comic: Fool’s Rice

This assignment was about using outside inspiration, and the plot points were dictated by random flips in a reference book. In my case, Zingerman’s Guide to Good Eating. It’s a little nothing of a comic, but I hope you enjoyed the whimsy. The physical size is a piece of copy paper folded “hotdog style” as my roommate Kevin would say. The second “page” of comics here is actually a two page spread, and I struggled with how to present it, so click to see it bigger. For your additional edification, dear readers, a photo of the pot rendered in such loving detail above:

Diary Comic: Up & Down

Here’s another quick diary comic. More style than substance I’m afraid; nothing really to report this week. I read a lot of Chris Ware last night, so that’s mostly where I’m coming from. New Root Hog soon, as well as an exciting design project after that.

Abstract Comics

As hinted to in the last post, here’s an abstract comic. I’m not sure how I feel about it, but it’s certainly different. I’m about halfway through a new Root Hog list. Thanks for voting in the poll below, if you did. Thanks also for your honesty, especially whoever voted for the first option. I’ve decided to hold off on a book club for now, but if you are interested, please contact me and you’ll be the first to know as soon as I start subscriptions.

Diary Comic: Lupine Inspiration

Here’s this week’s diary comic. I tried to pay special attention to spotting my blacks. “Steve” is Steve Bissette, legendary comics artist and awesome CCS faculty member. As I realized today, Steve is definitely a John Peel-style comics historian — a rarity indeed. Thanks for pointing me to Seton, Steve! Sorry I drew you so weirdly. Coming soon: a comic that will blow your mind, in the “abstract.”

Diary comic: Restaurant Interruption

This one is so brief and so silly I couldn’t resist posting it. However, it also marks my first use of two exciting new techniques. I painted (albeit poorly) the ink-wash background of this page on a separate piece of watercolor paper and scanned it in. Coloring it only took a second, Alison Bechdel style. Also, I inked the thickist lines on the page with my new favorite tool — a cut piece of bamboo I bought at an art store in Boston this weeekend. For art nerds, it has the uniform line of a marker except with live ink! It seemed to hold about as much as a Crow Quill nib does.

P.S.: Vote on the below post!

Poll: Want To Be In My Book Club?

So my friend Beth here at school started an awesome book club for friends and acquaintances. They pay a reasonable figure upfront and then get all the awesome mini comics she makes throughout the semester. Buoyed by a recent comics-selling triumph, I was wondering if any of my wonderful readers here would be interested in something similar.

If you send me money it’ll allow me to pay for printing cooler books. It’ll also push me to make each book a unique art object and something worth having. I’m really not in the position to sell individual books yet, so this would be the ONLY opportunity to get any of this stuff. Finally, everybody enjoys having something cool to look forward to in the mail, and you can be sure I will make this cool. So any takers? If I do start this I may alter my recently announced online preview policy (see last post), but we’ll see. It’s anonymous so don’t worry about hurting my feelings, but please vote!