Archive for November, 2009
15 items.
Continued from Friday’s strip. I was enjoying my Thanksgiving Holiday a little TOO much and didn’t get a chance to post Friday’s strip until late in the afternoon that day – so if you missed it, click that “PREVIOUS” link on top of the strip and read Friday’s strip. Otherwise, this one MIGHT not make much sense.
Also, I want to mention some inspiration for today’s strip as well.
Years ago, while I was still in college, there was a restaurant not too far from my mom and dad’s place. If you’re in Northern Virginia, it used to be across the street from Beacon Mall. It was called “The Mustache Cafe”. I only ate there once. It was a Thanksgiving Day meal with my best Friend Jeff and his family. That day, all the waiters in the place had mustaches and I vaguely recall someone telling me at the time that that was a requirement for working there – you had to grow a mustache.
Now, I don’t know if that was actually true or not but the fact that it had stayed with me all these years is testament to how great of a concept that was! So… I thought it would be funny of the waiter in Friday’s strip comes home and you see him taking everything off. INCLUDING his mustache.
Anyway, that’s where the inspiration for the last panel comes from.
Something from my high school days – kinda…
So I finally managed to participate in Tyler James’ “30 Characters in 30 Days” blog this weekend. I decided to re-draw a character I created back in High School that I called “David Nightshaw – of the Nightshaw Warriors”. Here’s the character:
If you want to read more about him, click here and go to the 30 Characters in 30 Days blog.
-Chris
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My apologies for the late post of this strip but I was enjoying my Thanksgiving day off way too much. In actuality, since starting my new job back in late August, I have been going non-stop with work, the strip and hitting the gym ALMOST six days a week so I was due for a little break and took advantage of it.
But I still wanted to post the strip for today.
My favorite parts of this strip? The cow and the title. The title of the strip was something that just came to me right as I was saving the strip.
The toughest part of a strip like this is trying to get as much detail as possible into a small panel. That’s still somewhat of a struggle for me. I know I could draw the panel large and than scale it down to fit the strip but that’s a lot of time consuming work and even then, the results aren’t always perfect.
In any case, I thought today’s strip came out pretty well. Here’s hoping everyone that celebrated Thanksgiving had an enjoyable and safe one!
-Chris
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Okay everyone, at long last, here is my post about the VA Comic Con that was last week (Nov. 21 & 22) in Richmond, VA. This post might be fairly long and it will be loaded with pictures. Click on all the pictures for a bigger version.
The Virginia Comic Con
Brett Carreras put on a fantastic show. I have been a vendor/artist/participant at previous VA Comic Con shows before but usually those shows are only for a single day several times throughout the year. However, this was the first TWO-DAY con Brett had ever put on before and I definitely wanted to be a part of it – especially since the show is only a 1.5 hour drive away from my house. And because of the close distance of the con, this show afforded a very unique opportunity for me and my wife, Judi.
Since I started Capes & Babes, Judi has only been able to share in my con experiences by listening to me talk about a particular show, looking at various photos or – as was the case with the Baltimore Comic Con 2008 show – meet several of my artists friends. She has not been able to actually GO to a con with me before. At least not until now.
This is my table set-up for the first day of the Con.
That’s my wife, Judi, behind the table.
Since Judi is loosely based on Joey, she wanted to go all out for this con so she went out and found a pait over coveralls AND a tool belt. She didn’t need to worry about the tools since HER TOOL COLLECTION WOULD MAKE BOB VILLA JEALOUS…
In various podcast where I have talked about my Con experiences, I have mentioned for every show, I try to incorporate something new on my table. The VA Comic Con was no different. For this show, I decided to see how buttons would work so I had 1.5″ buttons made up of Joey, Marc and Roy from Pure Buttons. I had 50 buttons of each character done. I thought they came out pretty nice:
Something that is missing from my table display is my t-shirt display. Usually, I also sell a t-shirt with a single design but as careful as I was packing my stuff up in my wife’s van, half way to Richmond, my wife asked me the fateful question: “Chris, where’s your t-shirts?”. Sadly, they were exactly where I left them… in the living room. I had my t-shirt bust which I use to display the shirt but not the actual box that had the t-shirts in them. After much consideration and debate in the car, I decided that I wouldn’t display the t-shirt bust if I didn’t have the shirts on hand.
Added to that, since my wife was only going to be able to attend the Con on Saturday, I would just bring them to the show on Sunday. I was a little worried because the t-shirts sold VERY WELL at the Pittsburgh Comic Con and I was really kicking my butt for for forgetting a potential money-making product. I decided then that I would try and make a pre-con checklist so that wouldn’t happen again. For this con, it wasn;t so devastating since the travel time was minimal – but if it was Heroes Con or some other show that requires a 7+ hour drive, that would have been a potential make-or-break disaster.
THE TABLE SET-UP
Ever since my first appearance at one of his shows, Brett’s always been very supportive of Capes & Babes. In fact, even when I asked him about the 2-day show, he didn’t have any space available in Artist Alley but asked if I would be interested in purchasing a spot in the dealer room. It was a little more expensive but again, I couldn’t pass up this opportunity. After I gave him my check, he told me where he would be placing me. It was a prime spot right next to the Comic Book Certification guys (CGC). I think that helped quite a bit as Artist Alley really was an Artist Room with artists jammed together like sardines. I never would have been able to have the same set-up as I usually do.
Dan Nokes & I did a Panel the first day…
On the first day, Dan Nokes and I did a panel about independent creators/publishing. It was just him and I going back and forth discussing the differences of publishing in print and “publishing” online. It was only for 30 minutes (every panel that day was 30 minutes) but I was told by many people who attened the panel that it was quite informative & they enjoyed it a lot.
Bowling Night
The only sad part about the show was not being able to participate in “Bowling Night”. The bowling alley across the street from the Con hotel had a bowling night for all the invited creators. But since I was driving my wife home that night, I wasn’t able to attend. I heard it was QUITE fun and I’m sure it was but given the two choices – spend a day with my wife behind my Capes & babes table or go bowling, bowling will lose every time. As much fun as I’m sure the creators had that night, I still think I had way more fun spending the day with my wife and letting her experience what I’ve been experiencing these last two years at various can. She had an absolute BLAST!
THE SECOND DAY…
Still with me? Good.
The first day, I took a bunch of photos. You can check them out here or here. And as I mentioned before, I brought my t-shirts this time. I also decided to re-arrange my table a little bit differently. I decided to turn my 5 foot tall foam core cut-out of Roy “backwards”. What this meant was, as you entered the dealer room (and there was only one way you could enter) you would immediately see Roy – as demonstrated below:
The only difference to the front of the table was that I had my T-shirt bust I mentioned earlier set up in the corner where Roy was the day before:
If you’re interested in seeing all the details of exactly how I organized my table,
click the link above to see detailed notes of how and where I placed everything.
No panels for the second day but I met a ton of great people throughout the weekend. Here are some random things/people I remembered from last weekend:
The girls in the red costumes with the black masks. My wife got such a huhe kick out of the fact that you two absolutely LOVED capes & Babes – especially Roy!
Cyclops was a blast to take to – especially as I watched him put his mask back on since he really couldn’t see my Roy sketch in his book all that well! 
The two girls in colored wigs. You were a blast to talk to as well.
Rob… had a great time talking to you about your anthology project. Hope I was able to “pay it forward” with what ever little advice I could give you. Now go scratch up Drew’s car as revenge! LOL!
The security guy that talked to my wife for quite a bit about his tattoos. Man, he sounded JUST LIKEÂ Seth Grogen Rogen (I must have been thinking about the old New England Patriot’s QB from the 80’s, STEVE GROGEN when I wrote that…)! but the guy absolutely sounded just like Seth Rogen!
Dan Nokes… I thought our panel went REALLY well. It was a lot of fun. Let’s do it again some time.
To the CGC guys for being gracious about switching places with me. I really do appreciate it guys.
John Gallagher (Buzzboy) – thanks for letting my wife put my two friend’s freebies on the corner of your table. Folks, John’s one of the nicest, gracious guys you can meet in Webcomics or comics – period. Go check out and support Buzzboy – tell him I sent ya! Thanks again, John!
And, of course, my wife. I am SOOOOO glad we were able to do this show together – even if was for just one day. It was a lot of fun having you there and getting to watch you have so much fun and talk with people who really seem to love Capes & Babes.
And lastly, to all of you who took the time to come up and talk to me (and my wife), who decided to take a chance and spend your money on the Capes & Babes book, or who liked my art well enough that you bought a commission from me. Thank you so much for all the kind words from people who previously bought my mini-comics or the book and told me how much they loved it.
As a long time convention goer myself, I know the risks (and rewards) you get when you decide to hand over a $20 bill to someone you may not have heard or recognized before. It is my sincere hope that you found that $20 purchase to be well worth your investment.
Thank you all so much and I look forward to seeing all of you again in 2010!
Sincerely,
Chris Flick
I know I said that I would post a detailed post about the Virginia Comic Con but that will have to wait at least one more day. There’s a lot of great stuff I want to say and it’s simply too late in the evening to say everything.
When I do post it though, I’ll leave it on the main page so it won’t get lost. For now, I will just say it was a great show and there were lots of great people I got to talk to over the weekend – but I want to go into more details about all of that stuff.
So look for it soon.
In the main time, you can also check out my weekly web comic strip, “CMX Suite” today as well. You can find it at http://www.communitymx.com.
Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!
PS: My wife thinks this is the funniest Capes & Babes I’ve done so far, What do you think?
It’s 11:45pm Sunday night. I got home from the VA Comic Con at 7:30pm. Relaxed a little bit, got a little bite to eat and then started on this strip about 9:45pm or so. I got it complete just a few minutes ago so I’m gonna hit the sack.
VA Comic Con was absolutely fantastic and I will try to have a bigger write up by sometime tomorrow evening along with some pictures too.
Good night everyone. Hope you enjoy the strip!
-Chris
I wish I could say this strip wasn’t based on a real life event.
But I can’t.
That being said, this weekend is the VA Comic Con. I will be there Saturday and Sunday and will be on a panel about independent and small press comics on Saturday from 3:30 – 4:00pm. I will be offering a special incentive on the “You Can’t Print Flick” book… if you buy the book, you’ll get three 1.5″ buttons of Joey, Marc and Roy FOR FREE!
The buttons will be making their convention debut.
If you’re going to the con, I will be located next to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund table so I look forwar to seeing you there.
-Chris
I figured, with a werewolf AND a vampire in my strip, I absolutely HAD to do SOMETHING with the new Twilight movie coming out. For everyone that gets a huge laugh out of this, you can thank my wife – she gave me the idea that eventually turned into this strip (once her idea got into my head, festered for a while and became THIS twisted thing).
You all can praise (or blame) her! LOL!
Another couple of things:
1) Thursday night, the Lightbox – Illuminating Webcomics podcast will be featuring my good friend, Joe Combs who does the comic strip “Business Casual“.
2) This weekend is the Virginia Comic Con in Richmond, Virginia. I will be there selling my book, “You Can’t print Flick” – the TPB of the first 200 Capes & Babes strips. Plus, if you buy the book, not only will you get an artist sketch of your favorite Capes & Babes character (you have one, don’t you?), you’ll also get 1.5″ buttons of Joey, Marc and Roy ABSOLUTELY FREE!!!
You can also get a free picture with Roy the Werewolf too! How ’bout that???!!!
I hope to see you all there this weekend!
Currently listening to “Paparazzi” by Lady Gaga…
-Chris
A couple of things for today…
Item Number One:
John Mayer is one of those types of people that drive caricature artists crazy because there’s not really any super distinguishable features about him. Really. So, I chose to go with an older version of John when he was styling his hair very long and wearing ridiculously long scarfs.
Item Number Two:
Don’t forget, I will be at the Virginia Comic Con this weekend (with my wife) November 21 & 22. Click on the link to find out more information, who will be there and all the great things that will be happening. On Saturday, I will be on a panel about small press/webcomics so I’m really excited about that (and the fact this will be the first con that my wife will be able to participate in as well).
Item Number Three:
Are you into Podcasts? Do you like to listen to creators talk about their craft? If so, you might want to check out a little Podcast I’m co-hosting called Lightbox – Illuminating webcomics.
Item Number Four:
Okay… I just finished watching the movie “Australia” with Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman and I’m really confused about something. Why didn;t this movie do better at the box office? Was it that the length of the movie was too intimidating for some people? Was it a matter of WHEN the movie came out? Personally, I enjoyed the movie and thought it had a really good “Dances with Wolves” kind of vibe to it – at least in the sense that it told a story about the natives of Australia in a very personal way. The story was expansive but moved at a pretty rapid pace… I mean, as much as I loved the Lord of the Ring movies, there were lots of places in those movies were scenes were pretty slow and methodical. I didn’t get the sense that was the case at all with “Australia”. And I could totally tell Hugh was in the process of getting ripped for Wolverine: Origins while filming that movie.
Anyway, I just really enjoyed it and was wondering what other people might have thought.
Okay… so there were a few more things than “just a couple”.
-Chris
I know in my previous blog post, I mentioned that Friday is going to be the OFFICIAL second anniversary of Capes & Babes but I decided to do something a little bit special and…
POST THE COMIC TWO HOURS AHEAD OF SCHEDULE!
Also, in my Wednesday post, I already mentioned how Capes & Babes came to be so I won’t repeat that story again but I would like to take a moment or two to thank everyone that sent a Tweet to my wife to wish her a happy birthday. If you are interested in sending a belated happy birthday wish to my wife via, you can do so by following her here: http://www.twitter.com/6thclover
She was quite surprised to see all the well wishes from people she didn’t even know!Â
I won’t get too sappy or ultra-reflective about my two year anniversary – again, I did that on Wednesday. I will just say that starting Capes & Babes has been one of the best decisions I have ever made and I enjoy working on it so much. Hopefully, that shows in the strips.
So, if you’re interested, here are my goals for the NEXT two years of Capes & Babes:
1) Redesign and update the site
2) Continue going to Conventions
3) Work on trying to make Capes a daily strip
4) Develop Joey and Marc’s relationship a lot more
5) Explore Roy and Roni’s “forbidden love” much more than I have
6) Start working on the SECOND Capes & Babes book
And that’s about it. Thanks so much for supporting Capes & Babes in one fashion or another. I really DO appreciate every last person who gets a kick out the zany wackiness that is inside my head!
Sincerely,
Chris Flick
Today is my wife’s birthday. The next day will be Capes & Babes’ “official” birthday (even though a strip won’t appear until Friday).
Last week, I mentioned this story on a couple of podcasts that I either co-host or were a guest of but in case you haven’t yet subscribed to Lightbox – Illuminating Webcomics (mine), TGT web comics or The Villain’s Corner, I will tell the story again.
For many years, I was a long time convention attendee to SPX and the Baltimore Comic Con. Every fall when both conventions neared, I would always get very excited about attending each con and possibly meeting or discovering new artists. Both conventions always seemed to spark a big creative boost in myself as well. And at the end of each con, my wife would comment how enthusuatic I seemed to be.
But around 2005 and 2006, something started to change. And my wife was the first to notice.
Instead of coming home excited and re-energized by meeting so many fantastic artists, I started coming home more upset with myself that I wasn’t doing what THEY were doing. At some point, I quit being a “fan” and realized what I really wanted to do was to be BEHIND a convention table instead of in front of one. Maybe it was the fact that my high school baseball coaching career had come to an end and I finally realized I had the time it took to dedicate to my art. I’m not sure, but the Baltimore Con of 2007 changed everything.
It was at that con that I finally got over my “star gazing” and started asking some really tough questions (at least for me) at people behind various tables in artist alley. Although I was a pretty accomplished artists already – and I even had a long running weekly web comic strip at Community MX, I knew something was missing and I needed to find out what that was. I didn’t want to come home from THIS con pissed off and angry at myself for letting more time lapse and wasting whatever “talent” I thought I had. In sports terms, it was time for me to get off the bench and see if I could really play in this game called webcomics.
Two people who were extremely instrumental during that con was Brad Guigar and an artist I had never really heard of before – which was amazing since I had been to every Baltimore Comic Con from the very beginning and yet, I never remembered seeing her. Or her large, green cactus.
I don’t know why I chose to approach Danielle Corsetto and ask her the questions I did but I just happened to catch her on a slow period the last day of the Con and she was EXTREMELY gracious at answering all of my questions of how she started, where she started and how could I do the same. She probably gets tired of hearing me re-tell this story but that day really meant a lot to me in ways I can’t fully communicate. There was a lot of “transitional” stuff going on with me professionally and artistically at that time and receiving her and Brad’s advice really encouraged me to FINALLY get off the bench and go play! So both of them have a very special place in my heart for really kicking me in the butt and telling me to get my ass in gear!
So, later that night, as I came home from the best Baltimore Con I had ever been to as a fan, I sat down and created Roy the werewolf. Soon after that, I suddenly had 12 Capes & Babes strips fully completed. A few weeks later, I was ready to launch the strip.
In honor of all of the super support my wife gave me, I wanted to launch Capes & Babes on her birthday. But I also knew I wanted to at least try a Monday, Wednesday & Friday schedule and her birthday fell on a Sunday. So, I launched the next day – making the “official” Capes & Babes birthday November 12th.
As much as I have said Brad and Danielle had a large supporting role in encouraging me to start Capes & Babes, no one had more influence, encouragement, patience (and you need a lot when it comes to dealing with me), advice and just plane flat out support than my wife did. She’s Joey for a reason, after all!
So, for your birthday, babe, thank you so much for Capes & Babes.
I love you so much.
Happy birthday.
-Chris
