The Bitch is Back!

While living in the real world I occasionally neglect this sad little virtual world. Interrupting my pleasant dreams of sharing vegan milkshakes with Calvin Broadus, Jr. (you probably know him as "Snoop Dogg", but we've been dream-bros for almost a decade now, so he insists I call him by his given name), a nagging snuffling series of zeroes and ones overtakes my subconscious and hounds me relentlessly until I passively aggressively type a new entry into this here blog.

So, what's been keeping me so busy that I can't even be bothered to write or call? I'm glad you asked!

Here, I'll present it as a series of bullet points for maximum efficiency:

• We moved! Yes, after only two years in Brooklyn, we've returned to Manhattan. We could no longer resist the siren call of my in-laws' offer of the bottom floor of their brownstone on the Upper West Side. My wife and I now both share a studio that is NOT part of our living room/kitchen, which is a first. The UWS is quite a different scene than our previous apartments in the Lower East Side or Brooklyn. You can't find a (vegan) meal for under $10 and the mean age is 65, but there are lots of parks and museums for our little one. The apartment wasn't finished being renovated for the first six weeks after we moved in, but now we're almost done unpacking and getting back to a semblance of normal life. 
• I finished a new ten page comic for Nicole Georges (Invincible Summer). It's for an anthology she's putting out about bad roommates. I've been blessed with mostly amazing roommates, but there have been a few stinkers. This comic explores four of the worst offenders. 
• Chainsaw Comics accepted my five page comic for an anthology with the theme of "fear". I originally drew this one for the Dapper Chap anthology (with a "horror" theme), but the founder volunteered at a primate sanctuary in South America (can't fault him that!) and I don't think it will ever come out.
• My publishing company, Birdcage Bottom Books, was working on a project with a couple of fairly high-profile comic artists, but it seems to have fallen through. Now that my tears have dried, I'm thinking of putting together a split anthology. Half would be comics by vegan artists and half would be by carnivores or whatever the more accurate term for non-vegetarians might be (since true carnivores eat meat almost exclusively)...omnivores? I'm not sure if I want to impose a stricter theme beyond that of diet. I'm still in the brainstorming stage. Anyone out there interested in submitting or have any bright ideas?
• I'm writing the final chapter of my Losers Weepers comic. I took a break after issue #3 to work on some shorter comics and in anticipation of moving to our new apartment.

Here's the first page of the bad roommate comic to pique your interest...

Interview on Comic Book Brain

Erik Weems interviewed me for the Comic Book Brain blog in reference to the "Losers Weepers" series. It's a really nicely designed blog entry with lots of image links providing extra commentary. If you have any interest in the impetus for the series or what the future may hold, take a gander! Plus you can enjoy my thoroughly creepy author photos (which I desperately need to update).

Review in Inkstuds

Thanks to Carrie Try Harder for her review of "Old Man Winter & OST" on the Inkstuds blog.

In between diaper changes, I'm keeping myself busy with the second chapter of "Losers Weepers" (just over half done with tight page sketches) and preparing "Snakepit 2009" for print.

On Monday, we went to the funeral service for David Levine, an old friend of Karen's family and an accomplished caricaturist and painter. You will undoubtedly recognize his work from regular publication in The New Yorker, Newsweek, Esquire, Playboy, The New York Review of Books, Rolling Stone, etc., etc. I never met him personally, but I've always admired his work. The service was in our neighborhood because he was born in Brooklyn and lived in Brooklyn Heights. From the many speeches given, I gather that he was a principled and loving man with a great affection for Brooklyn and the underappreciated blue collar worker. He will be missed!

New reviews

I have the after-comic-convention saddies that I've heard so much about. You spend months working your butt off, hang out with tons of like-minded folks surrounded my incredible talent, and then...it's over. Back to real life where nobody around you really gives a crap about comics.

Oh well, time to get started on the next issue of "Losers Weepers".

I did get a couple of reviews while I was gone. Chris Allen reviewed "Old Man Winter" on his blog Chris Allen Online (click to read it), and Brian Warmoth reviewed "Tales of Good Ol' Snoop Doggy Dogg" on Warmoth.org (click to read). I was especially tickled by the in-depth interpretation of the influence of Schulz's "Peanuts". That reference was more or less meant as a throw-away joke for the cover and doesn't really carry through to the actual content of the stories, but Brian just about had me convinced otherwise! I have to admit that I was obsessed with "Peanuts" as a kid, so it's not hard to imagine it creeping into my subconscious and affecting everything I do.