Archive for November, 2008
12 items.
This strip really could have been about any number of different comic books out there that have gotten off track of their publishing schedule. I just chose All-Star Batman because I was so looking forward to becoming a regular reader of that title but it just seems that the wait between one issue and the next is soooooo long, that I end up losing interest in the darn thing – even despite the fact that Jim Lee and Frank Miller are doing the book.
Anyway, I hope you all had a very enjoyable and festival Thanksgiving dinner. I know I had. Mainly because my wife is – and always has been – a very excellent cook (which also explains why I need to shed so many excess pounds). And the fact that a certain football team won very convincingly today. I know many people hate Romo or like to believe the Cowboys won’t win anything with him – and that may or may not prove to be true but after this last month, Romo has certainly proven one thing and that is: the Cowboys DEFINITELY won’t win anything without him.
There’s a long, tough stretch ahead in these next couple of games so there’s still a lot of season left to go so anything can happen – good or bad. So, we’ll see. If they can somehow beat Pittsburgh AND the Giants back-to-back, then I think the whole “Superbowl” talk will start up once again. But that’s two big huge IFs. We’ll just have to wait and see. I’m just glad I don’t have to try and make a living better on NFL football games! I think I’d either go broke real fast or have a heart attack. 
Currently listening to Leona Lewis’ “Bleeding Love” – the slow version. Fantastic tune!
-Chris
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Unless you’ve met me or seen a picture of me online somewhere, it might not be obvious given that “Chris” could either be a male or a female name so, for the record, I am a guy.
And I tried to draw “Samantha” as scantily clad as possible.
And I am a scum bag.
And should be shot.
With extreme prejudice.
-Chris
[Small update: I just discovered Twitterfeed today. Anyone have any experience using Twitterfeed? It looks pretty cool so I'm gonna see if this helps get the word out about Capes & Babes. If you have any experience with Twitterfeed, I'd love to hear from you. Thanx!]
My really good friend (I have one or two), Joe Combs, does a really fine strip called Business Casual that runs every Monday and Friday in glorious technicolor – or, since it’s on the net, would that be “glorious RGBcolor”?
Anyway, in honor of Capes & Babes turning one year old last week, Joe decided to surprise me with a guest strip this past weekend. And, since I just got back from the Virginia Comic Con in Richmond, Virginia late last night, I decided today would be a great day to run Joe’s guest strip.
I thought Joe pegged Roy absolutely perfect with the bargain bin and the Werewolf comic. I really should do more “Werewolf by night” gags!
And YOU really should check out Joe’s comic strip! Again, it runs every Monday and Friday so a new strip from Joe should be up by the time you read this post.
Joe, thanks again! This is very much appreciated and I love the strip – especially since you nailed Roy’s personality.
-Chris
The other night, while watching the old boob tube (the TV for all you youngin’s out there), I saw at least three eHarmony ads in one hour – at least I’m pretty sure it was three. It might have been four since they all kind of ran together – or might even have been the same ad on repeat.
I just thought… if I was still single and looking for a relationship, would having those ads run again and again and again in such a short time span motivate me to JOIN eHarmony? Or would they make me so mad or depressed that I would end up doing anything BUT join eHarmony?
So, I decided to create the worst named dating service possible. For all of you who get frustrated with eHarmony’s mocking your relationship life, I hope you appreciate today’s strip.
News and other stuff:
This Sunday, I will be in Richmond, Virginia attending the Virginia Comic Con. Click the link and check out their site. And, ff you’re in the area this Sunday, why not come by and see me?
For those reading the strip via RSS feed, I currently have a poll going on asking those that read the strip whether they are a Capes (m) or a Babes (f) but you can only participate in the poll from my web site. The poll is located at the top of my right hand side bar on my front page.
Commissions and caricatures
I am currently offering to do commissions and/or caricatures for this holiday season. If you’re looking for a totally unique, one-of-a-kind gift for someone this year, why not give them a caricature? If you’d like to see some of my previous caricature work, my caricature work can be found here on my portfolio web site. If interested, please send me an e-mail at capesnbabes (at) gmail.com with “Caricatures” or “Commissions” in the subject box.
Thanks!
-Chris
For those that like to read this strip via their RSS feeds, I am currently taking a poll on my site to see who among you might be a Capes (male) or a Babe (female). If you would like to participate in the poll, you must go to my home page at www.capesnbabes.com. You can find the poll at the top of my right side bar just above my Twitter Feed widget. Please join in today. I’m just curious to see how many male and/or female readers read this strip.
Also, I will be attending the Virginia Comic Con this Sunday, November 23rd from 10:00am – 4:00pm in Richmond, Virginia. If you’re in the neighborhood, attend the show and stop by my table and say “hi”. If you need more information, please click the comic con link above to go to their web site to read more information.
Hope to see you there!
-Chris
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[UPDATE: I got some good advice from a fellow web cartoonist that suggested I should mention that my current "Are you a Capes or a Babes?" poll is only on my web site. So if you're reading this from an RSS feed, you'll need to go to www.capesnbabes.com to participate in the poll. The poll can be found at the top of my right sidebar. Thanks Garrett!]
I got the inspiration for today’s strip by reading one of Scott Johnson’s Extra Life blog post about a replica of Gene Simmons’ battle ax bass guitar being offered for Rock Star and Guitar Hero at a nice little chuck of $80.
Now, I’m a huge KISS fan. I’ve been one ever since I bought my very first album. That album was The Destroyer album. Actually, to be technically correct, it was a tape that I listened to over and over and over again. Bought it with a $10 Montgomery Ward’s gift certificate my grandmother (bless her soul) gave to me for my 12th birthday. So yeah, I’m a KISS Army soldier but c’mon… even I can admit that there is just WAY too much KISS merchandise out in the world today.
So, that’s where today’s strip comes from.
Currently NOT listening to any KISS tunes at the moment…
-Chris
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Today, I am at my daughter’s school for “Career Day”. Although I could be talking about graphic or web design, my daughter has asked that I talk about my cartooning and freelance illustration work.
For the younger kids, I plan to have a little bit of an interactive class as we learn how to draw a funny alien together. This is what I typically do for my library cartooning workshops.
For the older kids, I’m gonna experiment and see if we can’t create a comic strip out of random words based on persons, places or things. I plan on taking pictures (if I can). If I can, I’ll post them as soon as I am able.
Also, please take a look at my right side bar. I just created an online poll to see how many of you are Capes (males) and how many of you are Babes (females). Please take the survey if you have time. I’d like to do some new story line ideas but I’m curious where the demographics of the Capes & babes readership lies.
And, I’d like to thank everyone who has sent their congratulations to Capes & Babes turning one year old on Wednesday – whether it was via e-mail or Twitter feed, I very much appreciate all the great words you guys gave me. Thank you.
-Chris
Or… the art of self-congratulations.
Yes, today marks the official one year anniversary of the online debut of Capes & Babes. The genesis of Capes & Babes started quite a few years ago and was never actually meant to be an online comic strip. Capes & Babes was always going to be my little foray into the world of self-published, semi-autobiographical graphic novels. But even though I had the idea and most of the characters, I never could complete more then just a few pages. I was always in a constant battle with my inner cartoonist and my wanting to be the next George Perez. And so the project kept stalling.
Eventually though, my “inner cartoonists” finally convinced me to give up the ways of George Perez and other “realistic” comic book artists I grew up admiring. And once I accepted the fact that I am a cartoonist through and through, the idea of Capes & Babes in another form started to fester and grow.
Finally, after attending last year’s Baltimore Comic Con for the umpteenth time as a fan, I finally decided it was time to be on the other side of a convention table for a change. So, at the end of the Con, I went home, took a look at all my previous ideas for Capes and, essentially, threw them all out. Only Joey, Marc and the idea of a comic book store remained. And that night, the first sketches of Roy the werewolf began to form.
Capes & Babes was always going to be the name of my comic book store if I ever ended up owning one. And I loved the name. So those elements stayed. But I wanted to draw something other then a cartoon human – I did that enough with my other strip, “CMX Suite” forCommunity MX. I knew I wanted a creature of some sort but not just a “talking animal”. There are enough strips with talking animals. A few years earlier, I had done a t-shirt design that I called “Internet Werewolf” so I started playing around with simplifying that design and, along the way, Roy suddenly began to form. And, being a huge fan of the original “Die Hard” movie, I decided to call the werewolf by John McClain’s alter ego in the movie… Roy.
In one week, I had already produced 20 complete strips and I could have gone online a month earlier but I wanted to also honor my wife somehow since she has been a huge inspiration and has always loved the idea of Capes & Babes. So, my original thought was to debut the strip on her birthday. The only problem with that was her birthday, November 11th, fell on a Sunday and that wouldn’t do very well for a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule. So I compromised and made the strip debut one day later.
And that’s a very Cliff Notes version of how and why today ended up being my one year anniversary for Capes & Babes. For those that have been around since the beginning, I hope you have enjoyed my humor (and keep enjoying it). For those that have just recently discovered me, I hope you stay with me a while and let me know what you think of the strip.
I have quite a few ideas and story ideas I want to explore in the next year so I hope you are as excited to read those stories as I am to start drawing and writing them.
Thanks for reading all of this. Now you know… the rest of the story.
Currently listening to Timberland’s “Apologize”…
-Chris
Prelude? Prelude to WHAT? you may be asking yourself. Well, for the answer, you’ll have to come back here on Wednesday for find out the answer. What? Don’t tell me you’re the kind that likes to open their Christmas presents on Christmas Eve as opposed to Christmas DAY, now are you?
And if any of you are wondering what might be going on with last Friday’s strip… don’t worry. The second part will be coming. There’s a method to this artist’s madness.
Trust me.
Currently listening to Bertie Higgins’ “Just another day in Key Largo”…
-Chris
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This is the first part of a two-parter. I’m still deciding whether or not to make a special Saturday strip to conclude this second part. I have a couple of things I want to do with Monday and Wednesday’s strips – so it’s either make a special Saturday strip or run the second part NEXT Friday.
What would you guys prefer? If you feel adamant one way or another, drop me an e-mail at capesnbabes [at] gmail [dot] com.
Doesn’t it suck that we have to write e-mail addresses like that in order to try and thwart spam bots???
Anyway, hope you enjoy today’s strip. I’m going to bed (as it’s really VERY late Thursday night for me right now).
Also, thanks to my Twitter feed, I came across this awesome video today:
-Chris
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