Originally published at Mikeintosh.net. You can comment here or there.

Jeremy draws Sleepers’ Mom somewhat differently than I did.  (Mine’s the one on the left.)

Michael explains that Sleepers is imagining his mom in the Black Whip’s costume, whereas in the new issue we get to see her as she actually appears.  Which would mean that Sleepers is crazy and has a reverse Oedipal complex.  Maybe he’ll snap and start Dextering the other characters!  I’d read that comic.

Originally published at Mikeintosh.net. You can comment here or there.

I drew this at the Manitoba con.  She is the one named Sailor Judoon!

Woh! Toh! Foh!

Originally published at Mikeintosh.net. You can comment here or there.

This weekend was our second trip to the Central Canada Comic Con. Well, first technically, as previously the convention was called the Manitoba Comic Con.

The thing that C4 has going for it, apart from being the only comics convention in an entire province, is that Artist Alley tables are free, to bring in outside talent and to offset travel costs. You can’t beat that.

We thought it was a bit weird to have a convention on Halloween. Wouldn’t people have plans? But the new Victoria con is on the same weekend. Perhaps people are in costume already and don’t have anything better to do before nightfall. Who knows?

Because it was Halloween, Michael wore his Jedi costume and I busted out my Sith costume. Which was awesome, and helped to bring folks to the table.

–At least the Jedi did. Seated, I just appeared to be wearing black, which is not especially unusual. Particularly not for me. But those riding boots, oh dear and unpeaceable God, those riding boots. By 3:00 on Saturday, when we participated in a Star Wars photo shoot, they had my calves in their rubbery nerve grip, and were well on their way to becoming a permanent part of my anatomy. I had to enlist Michael’s help in removing them, and it was quite the undertaking. I don’t know what the congoers made of the straining and the grunting. Kyle took pictures, of course.

Last year attendees weren’t too interested in prints, but were ravenous for business cards and Lisa sold quite a few commissions. Printed comic sales were lowish. So, based on that, we had Diaperman character giveaway cards (designed to ease people into the not-immediately-obvious-and-somewhat-offputting Diaperman world) and the remaining TDA Issue Zero, which had gone very well as free giveaways at the Gathering.

And I had the Spanker comic, which arrived in the mail on Tuesday. The wire, I was just under it. I had 25 copies and I didn’t even remotely expect to run out of it. For some reason people will not cough up $4 for an indie self-published comic–or even $2 for TDA0. However, the more printed comics you have on the table, the more professional you look.

The expected mover was my Doctor Who magnets. Small inexpensive magnets have always done well for Lisa, and last year Winnipeg was hungry for Doctor Who and Venture Brothers material.

I had wanted a magnetic display stand, because when they’re laying flat on the table they look like stickers. We found one, that looks like a little refrigerator for them to stick to. It even says FRIDGE. However, the eBay seller would only ship to the UK, and Michael’s contact in England was able to buy them but not to ship them to us in time, unfortunately.

Table-positioning-wise, they treated us like rock stars. They gave Michael and I an endcap, which meant that I could put my floor banner beside the table rather than behind it, and the corner Kyle shared with us made him the first thing anyone saw when they came in the main doors. Literally the first thing. I don’t know that it increased sales, but it certainly increased traffic.

Traffic was good. It wasn’t as elbow-to-elbow as the Calgary Expo is, but I think the room was spaced out more.

As for sales, I sold out of the Catfight print, which is odd because it’s not that new and, as I said, prints didn’t move that much before. Maybe the banner being in front of the table did that. Interestingly, kids were all OVER it–because they loved the tiny Spider-Man in the background. And the Batsignal. Black Cat and Catwoman they couldn’t give a flying eff about.

Lisa opted to stay home this year, as she hadn’t sold enough last year to justify the travel. However, she sent along her remaining Slave Leia prints, which I sold seven of. So she did quite well for a convention she didn’t even attend!

Magnets did okay. Not as much as Lisa had expected. A few of the Cyberman magnets sold to people who didn’t watch Doctor Who and had no idea what the tiny robot was. Huh.

We sold three of the $30 Diaperman Graphic Novel. The LAST three Lulu prints, actually–the two Michael had and my own copy which I had brought along for show. So, sold out of those now; we can sell a $30 book but not a $3 issue. The art in the book is older and worse so I cannot wrap my head around it.

Next year: Diaperman 14 and Twilight Detective Agency 1. Not because they’ll sell but because it looks good to have a spin rack. Magnets again. An ashcan of TDA0 that’s printed ourselves, because the remaining giveaway comics were gone by Saturday closing. And we’re out of Diaperman website postcards, too. And a blue print book–it may be time to cross that line.

Maybe I’ll Costco-print pieces at larger sizes? It’s more expensive than laser-printing them, but not prohibitively so.

And I did one commission, from a fella who originally wanted Sailor Moon but decided on Marvel girls instead. He was shy and nervous and I think he wanted something a bit more next-level but wasn’t ready to ask. But I gave him my e-mail address. He’ll ask. And I’m sure, whatever it is, it won’t shock me. —Though I probably wouldn’t mind if it did, frankly. I’m always thrilled when the Internet shows me something I hadn’t previously thought of.

As always, so fun! I love conventions.

Originally published at Mikeintosh.net. You can comment here or there.

I finished the cover for Diaperman #14.  I’m up to page ten in colouring, and Jeremy’s up to page 14.  We’ve set a due date for January 24, so things are ticking right along!

I’m almost all set for the Central Canada Comic-Con over Halloween weekend!  Everything’s packed, and 25 issues of the Spanker comic are on their way!  U.S. Postal Service, so hopefully things will work out with that.  Hoo!  Stressful.

Originally published at Mikeintosh.net. You can comment here or there.

All done!

Some of them I worked a little more closely to reference material than I would if they weren’t for free and I’d actually agreed to do them in the first place.  But what the hell, hey?  Now to (arbitrarily) number them, and spray them with fixative since whatever card stock they used doesn’t hold ink at all.

Originally published at Mikeintosh.net. You can comment here or there.

Here’s the next six C4 sketchcards!  Only eight to go.

Originally published at Mikeintosh.net. You can comment here or there.

Now available on Indyplanet! Or in person this Halloween at the Central Canada Comic-Con.

After being caught inadvertently being heroic, the Spanker is approached by Family Force, a political action group that seems to know everything about him. Can he break free of their terrifying agenda?

The Spanker, a supervillain who is consistently thwarted by do-gooder hero Diaperman, breaks out into his own adventures in his quest to bend the world–over his knee!

Originally published at Mikeintosh.net. You can comment here or there.

I was thinking recently about socialism, fascism, and other shiny theories of goverment that collapse as soon as you apply them to imperfect people, and I had a thought. I don’t know how original it is, but it came to me so here goes.

What if, on our income tax forms, we all had a page with a series of checkboxes, allowing us to declare where we want our tax money to go? I’m envisioning general categories like “roads,” “public schooling,” etc. And, depending on how many categories there are, we would each be able to pick, I don’t know, say, three.

I know the technology is available to us now, since Safeway is able to track what brand of tomato paste we all like. But is the theory sound? Could we govern by Facebook poll?

Imagine, in this twitterocracy, not enough people in a region checked off “roads” one year. We can assume the roads would fall into disrepair, and more people would check off “roads” the following year. Areas with lots of parents would have well-funded schools. Medicine Hat would have an awesome hospital. The system should self-balance–I think.

What about the money the government needs to run itself? I doubt many people would be interested in checking off “administrative overhead.” I sure wouldn’t. I like to think that if you take away the decisions about where money should go, you could probably get away with a much smaller government, but that isn’t very practical. Better to let the administration have the tax money of those who choose not to fill their boxes in. Judging from the level of voter apathy today, that should be plenty for them.

Of course, I’d be more interested in government if I had a direct, quantifiable say in it. Would you?

Originally published at Mikeintosh.net. You can comment here or there.

When the Central Canada Comic-Con announced that they would be handing out free sketchcards with weekend passes, I didn’t really take any notice.  They hadn’t asked me directly, and I’ve had more experience than I’d like to admit with concoms coming up with sudden, poorly-thought-out ideas.

To me, this smelled like “let’s give out free stuff! Hey, artists, give us free stuff to hand out!  For free!”  That sort of thing gets my back up, and it’s not C4’s fault–especially since they extremely reasonably don’t charge for Artist Alley tables for out-of-Manitoba guests.

Still, nobody else will value your art if you don’t, so I found it very easy to ignore the request that hadn’t been sent to me in the first place.

Kyle, on the other hand, believes that all exposure is good exposure, and he replied to them.  And they sent him his ten cards, and my ten cards, and ten cards for Michael onto which they apparently want him to write dialogue, and an extra ten for I do not know what.

I appreciate tenacity, and brute-force bulling forward.  And also, free artist tables.  So I’m drawing my twenty cards.

Thus far I’ve been drawing whatever’s in front of me at the time, so coming up is Freakazoid (Michael bought me the DVDs for my birthday) and probably more Gargoyles since I’ve been going through the series ever since getting back from the Gathering.

And I suppose I need to draw Destro practicing the clarinet as well.

—

This is the first post on my new Wordpress blog, which is much more powerful and secure than my previous platform (sphpblog) and also automatically poots out posts to Livejournal and Facebook, which is extremely nice for me because now I don’t have to, and not so nice for you because you have to read everything three times.  Sorry about that.

It was announced a while ago that this year's Gathering of the Gargoyles would be the last.  Which made me sad, because while Michael had gone to the 2004 one, I'd never really been willing to spend the money to go.  Which hadn't really change.  So, resigned, I donated prints and postcards to the eBay auctions to help the con staff get out of the red, as they'd been paying for the con out of their own pocket for some time now, evidently.

Two weeks ago we realized that Michael still had Marci listed as his Designated Travel Companion.  Which seemed foolish for a number of reasons: among them, yes, a short word that begins with a silent "w".  So, he changed his Travel Companion to me--and then changed it again to "Michael," instead of "Mike," since that's my actual governmental passportey name--and plans were under way!

I Costco-printed, matted, and framed some gargoyle art I hadn't done anything with for a while (plus naked blue glasses girl who is always popular) since Cindy let me know that I was miraculously not too late to enter the art show.  I gotta represent, you see, being the only male Gargoyles fan artist.  --That I can think of, at least.  I'm probably wrong.

I hate flying standby.  It's so unplannable, and out of my control, so I was white-knuckled and whiny right up until check-in.  There's only one WestJet flight between Calgary and L.A. per day, so if I'd been bumped I wouldn't get there until mid-Saturday.  Fortunately I needn't have worried, as the flight there was no problem.  We met up with Michael's friend Chris, who we were sharing our room with.

When I arrived I met girls who draw gargoyles, and husky, vaguely awkward bearded men.  I have found my chosen people, I thought.  I have finally come home.

I tracked down slai before the opening ceremonies, since I knew she'd be attending and I thought I should meet the woman who filled my upstairs hallway with My Little Ponies.  I found her by her Tokidoki purse, and introduced myself as Mr. Lisa Redfern.  She seemed happy to meet me, and thereafter I followed Michael and Sonia followed me and Chris followed Michael unless he was performing.  

Which was fairly often.  Michael was totally jazzed to be around people, and that I'd been able to go with him as he much prefers to travel with people than alone.  So he kept his energy cranked up to at least a seven most of the time.  Unless he was actually given an audience, or a microphone.

For photos, check out my Facebook photo album here.  

Michael dropped his pants at Thom Adcox.  Who, we are told, started it.

I sold two of my pieces at the art show, which was decent, and I gave a third to Chris.  Michael bought a one-of-a-kind print of the Gargoyles by Wendy Pini, and a lot of the action figures, which he had to make crazy eyes at people to get.

Most importantly, we handed out a lot of the remaining Twilight Detective Agency Issue #0 ashcans.  This was the place to do it, after all.  Belatedly we realized that the URL on the back of the comics redirected to diaperman.net, which had startled at least one person, so Saturday night Michael and I stayed up late making the web address not do that.  Whoops!

And then, sadly, it was time to go.  I'd have been more sad if it had ended and I'd missed it, of course.

If you liked Gargoyles (and everyone I explained the Gathering to did) buy the trade paperbacks, so that SLG will buy the license from Disney again.  Buy the DVDs, so that Disney will release the second half of season two.  I'll be bringing both to future convention tables to let interested people know.

Originally published at Mikeintosh.net. You can comment here or there.

I didn’t draw backgrounds at first, because I did this page around 2 am. But last weekend I drew some background elements, so it wouldn’t look so lazy.

Originally published at Mikeintosh.net. You can comment here or there.

Still plugging away!

That square pink diaper pin end respawns really quickly after Diaperman throws it. Or, it’s like a pad of post-its and he just peels them off when he needs to hurl one. I don’t know which.

Art by me on eBay!

I donated it to the Gathering of the Gargoyles, the Gargoyles convention to which I have never gone, but always wanted to go.  To ensure that there will still be one for me to go to, check out their other auctions!

Originally published at Mikeintosh.net. You can comment here or there.

In this case, page four. You can already see where I was starting to try to accelerate the drawing process. It gets even more rushed later on, as I got more tired. I’ll be redoing some of it, of course.

 Hoopy Towel Day!



Do you know a sixth, posthumous Hitchhiker's installment is being written?  I'm not sure how to feel about that.

On the one hand, I didn't much like Mostly Harmless and I'm happy to have a sixth book.

On the other, I think that creative projects that come from only one creator--like HItchhiker's, or the Asimov novels--should end when the creator dies.  Follow-up work by a different creator never seems to have the same voice, and I doubt it would have the same vision, unless the dead author left very good notes or happens to walk the living earth as a revenant.  I include comic strips in that category, even though I doubt Jim Davis has been solely responsible for Garfield for quite a long time now.

Things like Star Trek or Doctor Who, that have always had multiple creators, take on a life of their own.  But Hitchhiker's was always very much the voice of Douglas Adams.

Because my Philishave electric razor has become angered, and has recently been trying to remove my face, I finally relaxed the no-blades stance I've had since I got removable hair, and got a set of these:


It's not bad! I only have two issues: the goo-leaving moisture strip is not unlike wiping one's face with a snail; and it contains a battery. Being a stick with a knife on it, it doesn't functionally require a battery. I can only assume that the manufacturers felt that it needed one to attract the gamer market. Probably they just couldn't figure out a way to get a thumbstick on that bitch.


I bought one of these last week. I already own a 4 GB thumb drive, which was much cheaper than this one--and when I bought that one, I didn't already own one. Nevertheless, I couldn't build a little vroom vroom car out of that one, and that's an important feature.


Last weekend was the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo, and while I haven't heard about numbers yet, it looked spectacularly well attended from where we were sitting. I wish we could have seen more of it, but we were there to work.



Lexington, in particular, pimped out his little green tail-less ass.

Kyle sold out of his Tarot cards again, and Lisa did a brisk trade in little My Little Pony magnets, obviously spurred by the San Diego exclusive super ponies she had on her table. We refer to them as "mascots" to the people who want to buy them, but in actuality they are bait.

People didn't seem to get what buying prints was about, for any of us. It was certainly useful to have the binder of them so they could see what we could do, but they were more interested in 8x10 commissions than anything else. I drew a four-winged gargoyle, Robin giving the Trickster an epic wedgie, and Tank Girl; Lisa did four marker commissions. I wish I knew how to colour with something portable.

Nobody had any idea what the deal with sketchcards is, either, so I can probably ignore them in future.

I can't recommend the iPhone enough to people who sit behind tables drawing character commissions. The ability to nearly instantly call up reference images of obscure Flash villains with one's fingertips is essential. At one point I had to hijack Michael's iPhone because I needed a picture of Robin and Lisa was using mine; astoundingly Michael had only one picture of Robin on it. And then the four horsemen came and we were omg ded.

Reminder for the Manitoba con: get previous comics set up on ka-blam.com, since Lulu has decided to be prohibitively expensive for some reason. Also finish TDA #1 and whichever I decide my own comic should be. And make little magnets.

The best thing about the Comic Expo was the souvenir artbook.  In previous years, only the invited guests had been asked to submit art for it.  Attendees were then able to comb the dealers' room and collect signatures from the guests without having to buy things from them, which was fun for everyone!  Except possibly not the guests, come to think of it.

This year, exhibitors and attendees were also invited to submit art for the book.  Lisa, Kyle and I were all accepted, which was fantastic!  First it was harrowing, as Lisa's piece skipped ahead of the judging process, and Kyle and I were left to await results.  He was notified before I was, and I am not too proud to admit that I behaved like a big baby for a couple of days.

I bought three books ahead of the Expo date (one for us, one for Sonia, one for my parents).  They mail out vouchers for people who do that.

When we arrived at our tables on Saturday morning, we found weird little metal stands with "Return To Calgary Expo" tabs sitting on top of our table covers.  We had all our own comic stands, of course, and we had no idea why the Expo would want to lend us two of them, so we tossed them onto my hockey bag and ignored them.

I redeemed my vouchers.  They were still getting the books out of the boxes at the time, so I was given numbers 1, 2, and 3 out of 850.  Nice!

And then on the way back to the table, we saw that all the other contributing artists had been given the same weird little stands, with comp copies of the book in them.  Oh.  And, sure enough, our comp copies arrived at our table in short order.  That meant we ended up with five copies of the book, but it is for charity, after all.  And Michael took one, so as it worked out we only have one extra.

It was a whole lot of fun signing our pages for signature collectors.  The organizers had gone to the trouble of highlighting the contributors' locations on the floorplan, which made hunting easier and resulted in a lot of book-passing between us.  We got very good at finding our own pages.  Plus, several people who came to the table for signatures ended up buying things, and it certainly increased traffic around Artists' Alley.

I really hope the Expo opens the artbook up for submissions again next year.  I just can't blow enough sunshine up that idea's ass.  (Not that I don't blow enthusiastic sunshine up the Expo's ass generally.)

And the most astounding thing about this year's Expo was that my parents came to it to see us.

Flying standby was pretty alarming, but this time Michael was with us and that made forging the ways of WestJet a WHOLE lot easier.

Up to now I've always traveled with a fanny pack containing my Palm PDA, iPod, camera and cellphone--but as I packed last night I realized that my iPhone is now all of those things. To hell with my fanny pack! I need it not! (Of course, I've had to borrow Lisa's netbook to post this, as the iPhone is not capable of copying and pasting a picture link. Soon, soon.)

As usual, as a hot and dry Albertan, the humidity hits me pretty hard when I leave non-airconditioned areas. Michael and Lisa handle it fine, but I am just not used to there being water in the air.

The hotel Lisa has found for us is more like an apartment building--our suite has a kitchen and a living room and sectional couches and the whole deal. We bought groceries! I think that means we officially live here.

Four hours of jetlag is kind of a lot.

Tomorrow I think we're taking a drive to Hana! I am told there will be a sea turtle day but I don't know if tomorrow is it.

Yes, I grasp the irony involved in posting this. At least I didn't tweet it!

Which reminds me, I would like you to stop feeding your Twitters into Livejournal. If I wanted to read tweets I would be on Twitter. I can't be the only one who feels this way.

Every year the Calgary Comic Expo prints a seriously awesome artbook with art from each of the invited guests. This year they gave exhibitors and attendees an opportunity to be in the book in the form of a contest.

We just found out that Kyle, Lisa and I all made it in!

This was my entry:


This is Lisa's:


And this is Kyle's:


Come out to the con! Buy the book! Get us to sign it!

We're very excited.