Archive for April, 2009
15 items.
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BIG UPDATE ANNOUNCEMENT!
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Saturday, May 2nd is Free Comic Book Day. As such, I will be appearing at Little Fish Comics in Fredericksburg, Virginia. My Godson has his confirmation earlier that morning so I’m shooting to be in the store at around 2:00pm until they kick me out of the store. I will be doing commissions, trading cards and anything else you might want me to draw. I will also be selling the first four mini-comics of Capes & Babes. Here is the address to Little Fish Comics:
9961 Jefferson Davis Hwy, Fredericksburg, VA 22407
Phone: 540 710-6170
See, this is exactly why I was always jealous of people who could sing… at least people who could sing and lived back in the 1950’s or so. Back then, you could kidnap a girl in the middle of the night, take her up to your mountain cabin while a snow avalanche prevents her rescue and then sing to her for six months and, come spring, she’ll want to marry you.
And then everyone will comment about what a wholesome, family musical/play it is.
Personally, I have to agree with Roy on “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers”. It’s always heralded as a nice, wholesome musical – heck, it’s even been the musical of choice for some high school drama departments. Yet, it always felt a bit odd to me that the play, essentially, celebrates not only kidnapping for love but is a prime example of the Helsinki Syndrome to boot.
Odd what we considered “wholesome” back in the day, isn’t it?
Definitely NOT listening to the soundtrack to “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers”…
-Chris
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Whew! This one ALMOST didn’t get done. It was a long, long weekend, to say the least. First up was the Roanoke Comic Con on Saturday. For all the people who talked to me, learned about Capes & Babes and bought something from me, I say thanks so much to all of you. It was a pleasure meeting all of you and I hope to be back that way again in the fall. For everyone that bought my mini comics, I hope you are enjoying them tremendously.
After the con, it was a three hour drive to Woodstock, Virginia where I had dinner with my Aunt, Uncle and my many cousins. I hadn’t seen them in a while so it was great to be able to grab a good meal with them before heading back home.
I didn’t get home until close to midnight and then at 10:00am, I was off to my men’s senior baseball league team’s practice for two hours. Then I had to rush back home so I could get ready for my son’s first Little League Challenger baseball. That was a lot of fun. My folks came by to watch him and we had a quick late lunch afterwards. When I got home, I konked out for two hours before realizing I had to get this strip done for today.
So you see, it was a pretty hectic weekend for me.
Hectic. But fun also.
-Chris
This one deserves a little bit of back story…
This was originally an “Art Jam” piece I did for a the web site, Thirdrail Design back in 2005. The subject was The Baroness from G.I. Joe – but of course, I couldn’t JUST leave it at that. I couldn’t help but throw in a little bit of The Micronauts as well.
Anyway, hope you enjoy my little Sunday surprises.
-Chris
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Am I the only one still watching Heroes? Please say no. Even so, I still couldn’t help but make a little fun of the show. The third “hero” is a joke between me and my wife as she thinks my “useless super power” is the ability to always get a prime parking space whenever we go out to dinner, the movies, shopping, etc. so this strip was for her.
This strip is also being posted just a tad bit late (12:47am Thursday night) due to the fact that I had to get ready for my trip down to Roanoke, Virginia to attend the Roanoke Comic Con on Saturday. I will be leaving directly from work tomorrow (Friday). So, if you’re in the southern Virginia area, drop on by the Salem Civic Center on Saturday between 10am – 4pm and look for the Capes & Babes banner.
I will also be appearing in Fredericksburg, Virginia for Free Comic Book day May 2. More information on that when I get back from Roanoke.
And now for some YouTube fun:
And one more…
-Chris
I’ve had this idea in my head for a while now. I definitely need to – and plan on – exploring more of not only Joey’s character more but also explore more of her store as well since she DOES own one of the stores located in the same strip mall as the Capes & Babes comic book shop.
And now on to our commercial interruption…
Stupor Hero of the month
(April – May 2009)
For all of you who have followed me on Twitter and have enjoyed receiving the Kang illustration I sent you, well, now you can get this month’s Stupor Hero of the Month – Bushmaster!
Just make a donation of ANY AMOUNT and I will send you a high resolution PDF of Bushmaster (PG-13). Click the Paypal donation below to get your Bushmaster today!
I did a “Citizen’s Commentary” sometime last year. It was when Roy was talking about Sonic Burger commercials appearing in his area (it’s in the archives).
But now I’d like to talk to you a little bit about a fellow Webcomic Planet Collective member, Eldon Cowgur and his webcomic, Astray3.
Way before the Webcomic Planet Collective was formed, I came across Eldon’s work thanks to an interview he gave on one of the many podcasts I listened to during my morning and evening commute. So, as soon as I got home that night, I immediately went to his web site to check out his strip.
Now, I’ve mentioned this many times in the past but I’m an “art guy” when it comes to comic books and webcomics. If the art doesn’t hold my attention or grab me, then neither will the strip or comic book. Well, that wasn’t the case at all with Eldon’s strip.
What immediately grabbed me was his particular inking and lettering style. I am insanely jealous of people who can make their characters jump off the page – especially with the inking quality as that’s still something I aspire to do. My line quality is still to hard and graffiti-ish… which, for the most part, I don’t mind – until I come across an art style like Eldon’s.
Astray3 is an excellent, slick looking strip. And I wish my jealousy of his line art would simply end there. But no, that would be too easy.
Not only does Eldon have an excellent mastery of the pen but his lettering style is yet one more thing to curse. As someone who has a tendency to write too much dialog in his own strip, I am amazed at the amount of information he is able to squeeze into each panel and still have each strip be easy on the eyes and incredibly easy to read. Curses, foiled again!
Astray3 is a long form, adventure tale so if you’re a long time comic book reader as I am, you might remember the old Bill Willingham Dungeons and Dragons cartoon strip that would appear at the end of several comics in the early 1980’s. That’s what Astray3 reminds me of. It’s cliffhanger-esque with lots of interesting and fantastical creatures and characters with a very strong female lead that young girls would appreciate reading about.
So, if you’re not yet reading Astray3, you should give it a try.
-Chris
This was originally a sketch that I did for a Huntress Art Jam session at the R3 Forums. One of these days, I’ll have to ink and color this sketch.
Hmmm… maybe you might see it in my commission portfolio this year during my convention tour.
-Chris
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Stupor Hero of the month
(April – May 2009)
I’m a little late in posting this but for all of you
who have followed me on Twitter and have
enjoyed receiving the Kang illustration I
sent you, well, now you can get this month’s
Stupor Hero of the Month – Bushmaster!
Just make a donation of ANY AMOUNT and
I will send you a high resolution PDF of
Bushmaster (PG-13). Click the Paypal donation
below to get your Bushmaster today!
Item number two
My good friends Stephanie Sullivan and Greg Rewis MIGHT just be mentioned
on today’s (4/17/09) episode of Oprah as she talks about Twitter today. As you
may have heard, Greg proposed to Stef via Twitter since they both do a ton of
traveling. I, of course, couldn’t resist the urge to make a little fun of them in my
weekly CMX Suite strip a couple of times:
Greg and Stef have told me they mentioned the strips to the Oprah producers
so it will be interesting to see if the cartoons will get mentioned at all (yeah, like
a billion to one odds on that happening, right? But one can always dream…).
Item number three…
I got asked to provide a guest blog entry at Right Here, Right Now Hollywood. you can check out my entry by click the link.
As for the strip for today…
Somewhere in the background, I hear Carol Burnett singing “I’m so glad we had this time together”… In fact, Irving Reginal Hungré would probably even pull on his ear as he sang that.
Only, he doesn’t have ears.
Hope you all enjoyed meeting another one of my zany characters. Come back tomorrow as I will have a bigger update to this blog.
Actually, The Bushmaster was going to be my big update until I heard about the Stef and Greg Twitter thing. So, there you go. You got TWO big updates for the price of one!
-Chris
Now, ordinarily, I try my best to stay away from politics because there’s AWAYS two sides to every story – it’s just a matter of whether or not you really want to hear what the other side has to say. Too many times, we simply don’t so all we do is continue to shout at each other.
But just so you know… right off the bat, I am pretty much a democrat through and through. But that doesn’t mean I can’t occasionally disagree with other democrats. And, even more so, there are, on occasion, some things that appeal to me on the republican side of things.
For example, by the time you read this, it will “officially” be “National Tea-bagging day”.
Now, if the republicans can ever make this a truly OFFICIAL day, then that is certainly one more republican idea I can stand up (or would that be lay down?) and support.
-Chris
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UPDATE:
2009 Beaky Awards. (<Clicky-clicky!)
Take a look at the last strip on the list!
Looks like the invitation to the party wasn’t a mistake after all. It must have just slipped under the welcome mat (just as I suspected). LOL!
Anyway, again, a nice round of applause for Fes and Tanya for considering Capes & Babes worthy enough to make their list. Thanks Webcomics Beacon!
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So how was everyone’s Easter? Mine was particularly good. My mother came by and ate dinner with my family. My father would have come as well but he was, unfortunately, working today. But as my mother left our house, a particular theme started to form in my head – not for any specific reason (although it might have been one of those reflective moments us artist-types sometimes catch ourselves in). It was one of “time” and how easily we humans seem to abuse it.
We delay projects because of a favorite tv show is on… or we convince ourselves we really need a break so we watch a DVD… and then suddenly, after the show or movie, we realize how much time we have wasted… what we could have been doing instead of watching the television or playing that video game. But we do the same thing sometimes with loved ones… how many times have we made stupid or silly excuses not to see an old friend simply because we were “too busy” or “there was too much going on in our lives” at that particular moment?
Lost moments.
Or how many times have our kids asked us to do something but we simply just felt too tired from the rigors of the previous week that we simply say “later” yet knowing full well “later” will never come?
An abuse of time.
When we’re young, we think we have all the time in the world to do everything we want to do, so we lay back and think “there’s plenty of time to do X, Y or Z”… but it’s only when we get older do we REALLY begin to realize how precious time is.
So what’s the point of this post? Not much, really, except to say don’t let those precious moments slip by. Every day you make an excuse not to see an old friend, or a relative, or make an excuse not to play with your son or daughter is another moment in time you can never get back.
The same thing goes with art as well. For every day you make an excuse to not work on your craft is another day lost. Of course, we all need breaks now and then. I certainly needed a break leading up to Easter but now that Easter is over, my excuses now need to end as well. Too much to do and too little time to do it.
Always the life of an artist.
-Chris
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