BIG NEWS! Freewheel is back to being a webcomic again! Long story short, I’ll be serializing Freewheel on the web from now on and will no longer be making Freewheel minicomics. Instead, I will focus on putting out paperback collections of Freewheel every five chapters or so. Freewheel updates on Tuesdays and Thursdays so click that little RSS feed thingy on the top or bottom of the page and get updates twice a week!
So hey, Freewheel official re-debuted as a webcomic today, so to celebrate, dear readers, I have a challenge for you! Obviously I want to get Freewheel in front of as many eyes as possible, so I’ve decided to reward anyone and everyone who helps me out by either linking to Freewheel on their Facebook page, posting about Freewheel on their Twitter feed, and/or posting about Freewheel on their blog. Here’s how it works:
-The post must occur this week, so BEFORE November 14th (Saturday)
-The post must contain a link to http://www.freewheelcomics.com
-The post must comment positively on Freewheel in some way (meaning not that you should write anything false, but obviously I’m not rewarding slander or something that’s just a link with no commentary)
-If you make a blog post, it must contain the following banner image:
Once you make your post(s), email me at liz@lizbaillie.com with either a link to your blog post, or a screenshot of your Facebook or Twitter feed. If you wrote a blog post, be sure to include your postal mailing address as well.
Anyone who posts on their blog will get a small, handmade thank you note mailed to them by me! Anyone who posts on their Twitter or Facebook feeds will get a digital thank you note e-mailed to them! The more awesome the blog post, the more awesome the thank you note!
Don’t forget, the Freewheel linkage promotion is still going on! All you have to do is blog about Freewheel and get a handmade thank you note from me! The more awesome the blog post, the more awesome the thank you note! Or you can post to your Facebook or Twitter feed about Freewheel and get a digital thank you note!
Here’s how it works and what you have to do:
-The post must occur this week, so BEFORE November 14th (Saturday)
-The post must contain a link to http://www.freewheelcomics.com
-The post must comment positively on Freewheel in some way (meaning not that you should write anything false, but obviously I’m not rewarding slander or something that’s just a link with no commentary)
-If you make a blog post, it must contain the following banner image:
Once you make your post(s), email me at liz@lizbaillie.com with either a link to your blog post, or a screenshot of your Facebook or Twitter feed. If you wrote a blog post, be sure to include your postal mailing address as well.
I’m stoked to start drawing up some thank you notes!
BIG thanks to everyone who’s been helping me spread the word about Freewheel by posting links in their blogs, Twitter, and Facebook feeds! It’s really helped me get a lot more people to visit the site and read the comic and that’s what really matters.
I noticed that out of all the links I saw (and there were a lot!), very few people actually chose to take advantage of the thank you note promotion! A handful of people did, though, and if you’re reading this – thank you! I’m really excited to get started on the thank you notes this week and get everything mailed out by Friday at the latest. If you posted a link to Freewheel somewhere other than on a blog, you should have gotten your digital thank you note already, so please let me know if you didn’t!
And don’t forget – just because the thank you note promotion is over doesn’t mean I want you guys to stop pimping Freewheel! I’m trying to get as many people excited about the web launch as possible, so if you like it, feel free to pimp Freewheel however you see fit! I’m not gonna stop ya! Believe it or not, every link helps!
Hey everybody! Thanks for checking out Freewheel! I know a lot of you have come on the recommendation of the awesome Evan Dahm, and aren’t necessarily familiar with much of my earlier work. I used to draw a minicomic series called “My Brain Hurts,” which centered around the various dramas between a group of queer punk kids in NYC, kind of like a punk rock Degrassi, if you will. Anyway, I put volumes one and two up for sale in the store, which collects all ten issues of the series between them, and there should be links to some interior art for each as well. Plus, you get a free sketch inside each one you buy from me! So if you’re interested in seeing what I did before Freewheel, that’s be the ideal place to start!
Anyway, thanks for reading and I’ll see you on Tuesday with another new page!
Hey everybody! Welcome to Tuesday’s page! I don’t have much to say except that I updated both my website and the Freewheel site over the weekend, so feel free to let me know what works/doesn’t work. I’m pretty happy with lizbaillie.com but I think the Freewheel site could still use a little tweaking. I feel like it’s missing something but I can’t put my finger on it, so feel free to shout out anything that comes to mind. I tried unifying the two sites by giving them similar backgrounds but I’m not so sure the argyle works for Freewheel. On the other hand, I’m not really sure what would.
Anyway, I’ve been working on a special 6-page Freewheel prequel (tentatively titled Pre-wheel, har har har) which I’m planning to put online as a .pdf available automatically to anyone who donates any amount to me. It’ll probably be a week or two until it’s up, so stay tuned! It’s a cute, lighthearted short story about the brother/sister relationship between Jack and Jamie.
If you’re in the U.S., you’re probably getting ready for Thanksgiving, so if you don’t check in for the new page on Thursday, happy early Thanksgiving to you! I’ll be eating at least two kinds of pie at my mom’s house, but the new page should go up automatically even if my only internet access is her slow-as-molasses dialup!
Hey everybody! Happy Stuffing Your Face Day (aka “Thanksgiving”) if you’re in the U.S., or just happy Thursday if you live somewhere else!
You know what I’m thankful for on this Thanksiving Day? COMICS! So here, have one, why don’t you?
Hey everybody! Hope you had a happy Thanksgiving if you’re in the U.S. and ate a lot of food! I stuffed myself with at least three types of root vegetables and of course, at least three different types of pie (four if you count cheesecake).
This weekend is that Desert Island Comics thing in Brooklyn (the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival) and a lot of people have asked me if I’m going. I don’t have a table because I am kind of conned-out from this year already but I will probably be there as an attendee – my first time attending a convention as an attendee since I think 2005! Crazy.
It’s December now! Which is crazy because it means it’s the end of 2009 already! I am working on my New Year’s Eve plans, meaning I am working on figuring out which movies to get from Netflix and which sort of cookies should I eat while I sit on the couch. Salud!
So hey, the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival is this weekend! This Saturday, to be precise! I don’t have a table, but I’ll be there walking around and hanging out as an attendee – my first time at a convention as a pure attendee since MoCCA 2005! I’m excited to be mobile and not standing behind a table as I always get stuck behind my table most of the time at conventions.
If you see me, say hi! I will be the one dressed as suit-and-tie David Bowie with slicked-back pomade hair (maybe), perhaps even with makeup (unlikely but possible).
Ithaca! But what does it meeeean?
So I went to that Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival thing last weekend and it was pretty rad! Maybe I will try to get a table next year, if I am not too burnt out (as I was this year).
Speaking of burnt out! Did you know I am in the process of booking two more legs of the Punchbuggy Tour for spring 2010? Well I am! If you have not heard of the Punchbuggy Tour, it started as a two-week east coast/midwest/south excursion this past October wherein MK Reed, Gabby Schulz and myself traveled around in a van doing comics readings and performing songs live on ukulele and banjo in various stores, coffee shops, and colleges.
We are planning on doing two more legs of the tour in spring 2010 so you should check out our new and improved Punchbuggy site to see how you can help! We need all the help we can get and we are not shy about staying with strangers we met on the internet (so far it has worked out just fine).
Also! I just posted two songs we recorded over this past weekend on the Punchbuggy site so you can go hear some samples of the kind of thing you’d hear us perform at a reading in your town!
Big news!
I’m working on getting enough money to print up Freewheel: Volume One so I’ve decided to hold a virtual fundraising campout! Check out the Freewheel: Volume One Fundraising Campout Page for details and to see how you can help, and what you’ll get in return! You can get all kinds of stuff based on your level of funding, from a simple signed copy of the book to YOUR FACE on a background character to the opportunity to name a character and much more!
All funders will receive email updates every two weeks!
All funders will be personally thanked in the book!
All funders will receive a personalized certificate by mail indicating their name and level of funding!
Even if you don’t have the means to help out financially, you can also help by spreading the word! Let people know about the Freewheel Fundraising Campout! Every little bit helps!
Jamie’s finished packing and she’s gonna walk right out that door! Where is she gonna go? Maybe we’ll learn more next week!
Hey, so the Freewheel: Volume One Fundraising Campout is going great so far! I just started it on Tuesday and already I’ve raised $98 to go towards the $2500 it will cost for me to print Freewheel: Volume One! So far the campout has a Can of Beanz, two Can Openers, and two sets of Matches! Who’s bringing the Firewood? It could be you!
Check out the Freewheel: Volume One Fundraising Campout page for details on the seven levels of funding options and what you can get as a funder of Freewheel: Volume One! Everybody gets something, and the more you give the more you get! Each and every funder will be thanked personally in the book, will receive a personalized certificate indicating their name and level of funding, and will receive email updates every two weeks!
Most funders also get a signed copy of the book before it becomes available to the public, and some even get cool stuff like a signed print, 9×12 pencil-and-ink commission, or even the opportunity to see their face on a background character in the very book they’re helping to fund! Check it out!
Jamie’s out on her own and it’s getting dark! I have a feeling she doesn’t totally know where she is. And where’s that voice coming from? Things begin to unfold on Thursday! Think of it as my Christmas Eve gift to you! Unless you don’t celebrate Christmas, in which case you can consider it my Regular Thursday gift to you!
Don’t forget – the Freewheel: Volume One Fundraising Campout is still going strong! I have until the end of February to raise the $2500 required to print Freewheel: Volume One and so far, I’ve managed to raise $508! Just $1992 left to raise!
Check out the Freewheel: Volume One Fundraising Campout page and see all the different funding levels and what you can get for various amounts, anywhere from $8 to $500! There are a variety of funding gifts, ranging from signed copies of the book once it’s printed, to original pages from the book, to the ability to name a hobo or even see your own face on a background character! And EVERY funder, no matter how large or small, will be thanked by name in the book!
Two months left to go!
Happy Christmas Eve, if you’re into that kind of thing!
Who’s this weird old guy? He seems friendly enough though. Will Jamie follow him? What do you guys think?
The Freewheel: Volume One Fundraising Campout is still going strong! The last time I checked, we were up to $528, leaving only $1972 left to raise! My husband was born in 1972, so it’s a magic number! Check out the Campout page and see how you can help! It’s a great way to spend all that holiday cash burning a hole in your pocket! I just bought the ISBN #s and bar code for Freewheel: Volume One so the process is already underway! How exciting.
What the hell is this crazy weird guy talking about? Will Jamie follow him? Only a few pages left in Chapter One, so stay tuned!
Meanwhile, back at the Freewheel: Volume One Fundraising Campout, funding has stalled! We are stuck at $528 out of the necessary $2500! Check out the Campout page to see how you can help get Freewheel: Volume One printed AND get a bunch of cool stuff at the same time! We only have two months to raise the funds for the first printing! Check it out! Even if you can’t afford to help fund Freewheel: Volume One yourself, tell your friends! Every little bit helps!
Last page of 2009! Whoa! The very last page of Chapter One is coming up on Tuesday! Crazy!
I hope you all had a good holiday, mine was great! I spent the four days after Christmas rocking out in Asbury Park at the Bouncing Souls‘ annual Home for the Holidays shows! If you were not already aware, the Bouncing Souls are my favorite band and I am just a wee bit obsessed with them. I saw them 18 times in 2009, for example. I also drew a comic about them, and that comic is now distributed by their label. They are pretty great. Here’s a video from one of the shows to give you a taste of the wonder. These are two of my favorite songs, Argyle and Neurotic, back to back:
Also, I know you’re getting sick of me asking for money with this Freewheel: Volume One Fundraising Campout thing, but I will stop asking as soon as I have enough to pay for the printing! I promise. Cross my heart. So if you haven’t yet chosen a funding level, now would be a great time! I have until the end of February to collect the money to pay for the first printing of Freewheel: Volume One and as I type this we’re at $656 out of the necessary $2500! That means we have $1844 to go! I think we can make it happen! You and me, kid! We’re goin’ places!
Hey everybody! Guess what? Today’s page marks the END of Chapter One! Chapter Two begins on Thursday! Are you as stoked as I am? No? Well… that’s okay because I’ll be stoked for both of us!
You should also check out this quickie comic I did in about two hours last week called DJ Versus Unruly Mob.
The Freewheel: Volume One Fundraising Campout is still going strong and still needs your help! Check out the campout page to see how you can help and all the awesome things you can get by helping to fund the printing of Freewheel: Volume One!
So far, the book is about 30% funded as we are currently at $756 out of the necessary $2500.
Hey, welcome to the first page of Chapter Two! I am totally stoked for you guys to start reading this chapter as it’s where the story really starts to show itself and the fun world-building stuff begins!
I just moved into a new studio with my friends and colleagues MK Reed and Matt Wiegle, which is quite exciting! Our new space is better AND cheaper than the one I used to share with just MK, and I was so excited about it I decided to make some video tours of the place! In the first video, I show off most of the studio, and in the second video we play Guess Which Desk Is Mine?
And of course, I have to give you my obligatory bi-weekly update on/plea for the Freewheel: Volume One Fundraising Campout! We currently stand at about 30% funded, which means there’s $1724 left to raise before the end of February! That’s a long way to go in a short amount of time, so even if you can’t contribute (which is totally understandable as I’m obviously a broke-ass mofo myself), be sure and tell your friends about it! You might not believe it, but spreading the word as much as possible helps just as much as contributing a big fat wad of cash!
Ah, so THAT’S their security system! Kinda like Lord of the Rings a little bit, don’t you think? Like the warning beacons of Gondor? Maybe one of them read the books…
I always wondered about the one guy who lived on top of that snow covered mountain… is his ONLY job to light that fire? What if they never used the beacons? Would he just live up there forever? What does he eat? Does he live alone or with his family? These questions, they bother me!
Anyway, so since Freewheel: Volume One is not even halfway funded yet, I’m afraid I still have to bug you every week about the Freewheel: Volume One Fundraising Campout. As I type this, we’re at $882 out of $2500 (which is about 35%), so there’s still $1618 left to raise before the end of February! Check out the Campout page for details on how you can help, and even if you can’t contribute financially, spreading the word is sometimes even better!
Oh swizzlesticks… have I mentioned that I have a Twitter? And a Facebook fan page? And a LiveJournal? Well I do, so if you also do then you should totally do a thing with them so we can be on the internet… together!
Oh AND be sure and check out the sweet writeup Jen Vaughn of Mermaid Hostel did on the Freewheel Campout! She drew a really neat picture of me in an outfit I WISH I owned! You should go look at it!
This week on FREEWHEEL: we learn more about the nest’s security system and we get to meet Young Mike, the nest’s resident surly teen with a bad moustache. Next week we’ll get a more in-depth look at the workings of the nest! (Hint: most of it is rope-and-pulley related.)
Good news on the Freewheel: Volume One Fundraising Campout front! The Campout has just passed the $900 mark! It is SO CLOSE to breaking $1000 I can taste it! Who will get the Campout past the $1k mark? Will it be YOU? The Campout is not even halfway funded yet so if you’re thinking about participating, now’s the time! I only have till the end of February before I have to pay the printing bill so time is of the essence!
And seriously, if you don’t have the money, please consider spreading the word! It’s just as important as cash donations!
Also don’t forget – I have a Twitter! A Facebook fan page! A LiveJournal! Journey with me to the depths of the internet!
Boy that Young Mike is a surly one, eh? But Fingerfoot gives him what-for! Sort of.
In studio news, my studiomate Matt Wiegle left this adorable note under a U.S. map I put above our slop sink which points out the location of EVERY SINGLE CRACKER BARREL IN THE U.S.!
In life news, yesterday I did a MAJOR cleaning and unearthed a bunch of stuff, so keep your eyes on the store to see what goodies I put up for sale sometime in the next few days, and some regular stuff that will be discounted! Probably none of it will be up by the time you read this, but by this Thursday most likely it will be!
If you’ve been thinking about contributing to the Freewheel: Volume One Fundraising Campout, now is a great time to do so! I’ve been working on Chapter Four and I’m about to send out the next Funder Email Update this Wednesday, including some sample art from Chapter Four!
The Campout has still not yet topped $1000! Who will be the one to force the thermometer to pass that mighty threshold? It could be you!
Remember – those who choose Funder Level 2 and above will get a signed copy of the book roughly 5 months before I put it up for sale online! I won’t be selling the book online until all the first 5 chapters are online, so the only way you can read all that stuff early is to either choose a Funding Level 2 or above, or come see me at a convention!
The Campout ends when February does, so act now or forever hold your peace!
Here’s the funding thermometer as of the time I write this:
BIG BIG NEWS – there is a HUGE sale going on right now in the store to benefit the printing of Freewheel: Volume One. Basically I cleaned up my inventory shelves, discovered a bunch of stuff I thought I didn’t have, and actually counted how many of other items I have, so I put EVERYTHING on sale at a discount!
Anything purchased under the section marked LIMITED TIME FREEWHEEL FUNDRAISING SPECIALS will go towards the printing bill for Freewheel: Volume One and all funds collected from those sales will be added to the Freewheel: Volume One Fundraising Campout page calculator! Books, shirts, minicomics, you name it – ALL ON SALE! Check it out!
So apparently I screwed up on some of the PayPal buttons in the store when I set it up for the BIG SALE but I fixed them all so all the buttons should work properly now! Anyway, the BIG SALE!!! is still going on in the store, tons of discounts on not only stuff that was already there but stuff I found while cleaning! Proceeds from anything on sale will go towards the printing bill for Freewheel: Volume One!
Speaking of that, the Freewheel: Volume One Fundraising Campout is still going on! In fact, it just broke $1000! As I type this, we are currently at exactly $1072 out of the necessary $2500! We are just $178 from being halfway to the goal with just about a month to go!!!
Oh and I keep forgetting to remind you that I have a Facebook fan page, a Twitter feed, and a LiveJournal, all of which are there for your adding/friending/following needs! Let us prance together across all the internet!
Today in FREEWHEEL: Jamie learns how the nest stays hidden via a system of ropes and pulleys. ROPES AND PULLEYS! Science is exciting. Who doesn’t love ropes and pulleys?
I’ve got a preview up of a page from Chapter Four to hopefully entice you into contributing to the Freewheel: Volume One Fundraising Campout, so you can see what I’ve been up to. The text is blurred to avoid spoilers but I like the page, so check it out if you like:
(click to see bigger)
The BIG BIG SALE is still going on in the store and everything that’s marked down goes towards the printing bill for Freewheel: Volume One! It’s the perfect way to contribute and get stuff immediately AND at a discount! There were some problems with the PayPal buttons before but they should be fixed now (let me know if you have any problems at all with the PayPal buttons!).
Of course the Freewheel: Volume One Fundraising Campout is still going on and we are SUPER CLOSE to being halfway to goal! The Campout ends on March 1st so act now if you want to get a copy of Freewheel: Volume One as soon as it’s available in April (everyone else has to wait till the fall, unless they see me at a con!) in addition to all the rad additional stuff you can get for different fundraising levels. Anyway, check it out!
Here’s where we are right now:
Why DID Fingerfoot pluck Jamie off the dead end road and invite her into the nest, anyway? Hmm… what do you guys think? Maybe we’ll find out more on Thursday…
Say folks, do you like drawing fan art? Because I’m looking for a few good pieces of Freewheel fan art – I might put the best ones in the Freewheel: Volume One book, but anything I get I’ll post on here and on my other blogs, with links on Twitter, Facebook and the like.
I would prefer they be done within the next two weeks, but anytime before the end of February is fine. Just make sure they are at least 300dpi and can fit within the confines of a standard comic book page. They don’t have to BE those dimensions, but the art should fit comfortably in that sort of area (so, for example, no art that is wider than it is tall). I won’t put anything in the book without your permission, but by sending me the art you should consider that permission to post it online (with credit, of course).
Be sure to include your name and any website you’d like to have your name attached to, if applicable (website, blog, webcomic, whatever).
So I’m sure you’re wondering how the Freewheel: Volume One Fundraising Campout is going! Not so good right now, actually! Funding has stalled considerably and I only have four more weeks to raise the money to get Freewheel: Volume One printed! So please, even if you don’t have the cash yourself, consider spreading the word about the Campout!
Don’t forget, there’s also still a big sale going on in the store and all proceeds go to help get Freewheel: Volume One printed! There’s all kinds of stuff available at deep discounts – t-shirts, books, minicomics, and more – so be sure and check it out, won’t you?
Here’s where funding is at right now for the Freewheel: Volume One Fundraising Campout - not even halfway there and we only have four weeks to go!
Fingerfoot! Jamie! Ithaca! THE CONTESSA! What does it all mean? Come back next week to find out more!
Say, would you guys like to see Freewheel switch to a Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule? It would give you one extra page a week and is totally doable for me. At two posts a week I have a huge buffer right now that will last me until October, so adding an extra day wouldn’t be too hard. Comment if you’d be interested in such a thing! I might start doing this in March if there is enough interest.
I’m still looking for a few good pieces of Freewheel fan art – I might put the best ones in the Freewheel: Volume One book, but anything I get I’ll post on here and on my other blogs, with links on Twitter, Facebook and the like.
I would prefer they be done within the next two weeks, but anytime before the end of February is fine. Just make sure they are at least 300dpi and can fit within the confines of a standard comic book page. They don’t have to BE those dimensions, but the art should fit comfortably in that sort of area (so, for example, no art that is wider than it is tall). I won’t put anything in the book without your permission, but by sending me the art you should consider that permission to post it online (with credit, of course).
Be sure to include your name and any website you’d like to have your name attached to, if applicable (website, blog, webcomic, whatever).
Don’t forget, there’s also still a big sale going on in the store and all proceeds go to help get Freewheel: Volume One printed! There’s all kinds of stuff available at deep discounts – t-shirts, books, minicomics, and more – so be sure and check it out, won’t you?
BIG NEWS about the Freewheel: Volume One Fundraising Campout! Guess what? WE HAVE A MAYOR OF HOBOTOWN!
His name is Mario Gonzalez, and his face will be drawn on a hobo in Chapter Five of the Freewheel: Volume One book! He’ll also get to name a hobo himself, among several other things! And of course, as there can be only one Mayor, the title has been retired and the highest level of funding is now Bootlegger ($300). Thanks Mario!
Here’s where funding is at right now for the Freewheel: Volume One Fundraising Campout - 64% funded, less than $1000 to goal and we only have three weeks left! And don’t forget – Level 2 and up will receive the book MONTHS before it goes up for sale online, and the only other way you can get it before September will be to come see me at a convention. So if you want to skip ahead and read the first five chapters waaaay before they’re published online, definitely consider contributing to the Freewheel Campout! Only three weeks left!
Today the real journey begins! Jamie sure has her work cut out for her. Luckily, Freewheel is now operating on a Mon/Wed/Fri schedule so it’ll be much easier for you to keep up with her adventure!
Check it out, I got my first piece of Freewheel fan art! It’s from Eric H. Thanks Eric!
I’m still looking for a few good pieces of Freewheel fan art – I might put the best ones in the Freewheel: Volume One book, but anything I get I’ll post on here and on my other blogs, with links on Twitter, Facebook and the like.
I would prefer they be done within the next week or so, but anytime before the end of February is fine. Just make sure they are at least 300dpi and can fit within the confines of a standard comic book page. They don’t have to BE those dimensions, but the art should fit comfortably in that sort of area (so, for example, no art that is wider than it is tall). I won’t put anything in the book without your permission, but by sending me the art you should consider that permission to post it online (with credit, of course).
Be sure to include your name and any website you’d like to have your name attached to, if applicable (website, blog, webcomic, whatever).
Only 3 weeks left to participate in the Freewheel: Volume One Fundraising Campout! We are SO CLOSE to meeting the goal, I can taste it! Only $888 left! Remember, all Level 2 and above funders will receive the Freewheel: Volume One book MONTHS before it goes on sale online AND, just to sweeten the deal, shipping is FREE on the Campout contributions.
Here’s where we are as I type this. SO CLOSE I CAN TASTE IT! Be sure and spread the word, even if you can’t contribute yourself! Every little bit helps!
Jamie’s had quite an adventure so far so it’s only natural she would eventually need some sleep! Those hammocks look pretty comfy.
Speaking of hammocks! My friend L. Nichols has a hammock in her apartment (I’ve heard) AND she did some awesome Freewheel fan art for me! Check it out, she did a really rad drawing of Jamie’s stuffed red panda, Logan, going off on an adventure of his own! Check out L’s comics and art and other assorted fun at http://www.dirtbetweenmytoes.com!
I’m still on the hunt for some cool Freewheel fan art, so if you want to make some, send it to liz@lizbaillie.com (300dpi). If I have some space to fill in the Freewheel: Volume One book when I lay it out in a few weeks I might put some of it in there!
DID YOU KNOW? Freewheel is on a Mon/Wed/Fri schedule now, so you get even more comics every week!
ALSO – I’m still trying to raise some money to help print Freewheel: Volume One, so if you want to read the first five chapters waaaay before they’re posted online, the best way to do that is contribute to the Freewheel: Volume One Fundraising Campout! I need to have all the money collected by the end of the month so you have less than three weeks left to be a part of it! We have only $888 left to meet the goal so if you’ve been thinking about contributing, now’s the time! Check it out!
The best part of waking up in a hammock is probably the fact that you slept in a hammock. Or so I’d imagine.
Fun fact: when I started drawing Freewheel in 2007 I stopped at the page right before this one. When I began drawing it again at the end of 2008 this page today was the first page I drew! I know, I am full of useless trivia.
BUT! You know what’s not useless? FAN ART! I got another great one to show you today from my buddy Darryl Ayo who draws a webcomic called Little Garden! It’s a very mellow comic that feels very meditative to me when I read it. I like it a lot and so should you!
I’m still looking for some fan art if you want to make some! All I ask is that it be 300dpi or higher and that you email it to me at liz@lizbaillie.com. I love getting fan art! When I’m not so busy as I am right now I want to make some for other people as well! Fan art is so fun! If I have space in the back of Freewheel: Volume One I might put some of this fan art in there! If not, then I might just save it for Volume Two!
Anyway, so the Freewheel: Volume One Fundraising Campout is still going on! We have just $868 left to raise in the next two weeks! If you’ve been thinking about contributing, now’s the time!
Oh and in case you were late to the party, Freewheel is now running three days a week on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays! More comics for everybody! Huzzah!
Holy crap, it’s the first appearance of Old George! He is guarding the heck out of Clooney’s Cavern. Things are about to get INTERESTING!
I always say Old George reminds me of my friend Gabby when he had really terrible hair and unfortunate moustache (even though Old George doesn’t have a moustache… he could if he wanted to). I still think when he gets old he could do a lot worse than to sit outside a creepy cave whittling stuff and being crotchety.
On second thought, maybe it’s just the hair, hat, and shirt. It’s more like he’s cosplaying Old George. Either way, you should check out Gabby’s book Monsters which he created under his more well-known nom de plume, Ken Dahl. Sadly (or actually, not so sadly for his girlfriend) he doesn’t look like Old George at the moment. But you should still check out his book.
Only TWO WEEKS left to get in on the Freewheel: Volume One Fundraising Campout! I am chipping away at the final pages of Chapter Five and the book will be done soon after I finish that chapter, which will be the end of February!
We are still only $868 away from meeting the goal! There is still a big sale going on in the store ’till the end of February to benefit the Freewheel: Volume One printing bill as well!
Today we get a closer look at Old George as he guards Clooney’s Cavern, which as we learned from Fingerfoot is where the sugarstick mushrooms grow, so Jamie’s gotta convince Old George to let her go down there. But Old George is, as Fingerfoot puts it, “quite curmudgeonly,” so we’ll have to see wait to see how this whole going-down-the-cavern situation goes.
Speaking of Fingerfoot (did you know he is my favorite of the hobos so far? Well he is.), I’ve been watching this show called the Guild, which I guess is kind of an internet show about a group of online gamers who have to meet in real life to solve various situational problems. I know it sounds WAY boring if you’re not into online gaming (which I’m not) but once I watched the first season I was totally hooked. It’s an incredibly well-written show, which usually means that no matter what it’s about it will be good, and the Guild definitely is. I think anyone who’s ever been involved in any type of gaming community (personally, I used to be relatively involved in CCGs in the early 00′s) will appreciate a lot of the more subtle gags, but really I think it’s so well-written and well-acted anyone can get into it.
ANYWAY. My point is not so much about how great this show is, but more that the actor who plays Vork is a DEAD RINGER for Fingerfoot. If there is ever a Freewheel movie, this guy would have to play him, because really – LOOK at him! Stick a pair of circular glasses and some patched up overalls on him and you’ve got yourself a Fingerfoot!
Well, anyway, enough about that. How about that ol’ Freewheel: Volume One Fundraising Campout, eh? Less than two weeks left and we’ve still got $868 left to raise! If you were thinking of contributing, now’s the time! I’ve only got 9 pages left to draw in Chapter Five before I start laying out the book, and all contributors Level 2 and above will get their copy of the book MONTHS before it goes up for sale online! Check it out!
Whooooah foreshadowing!!! I don’t really have much to say about this page that’s not already on it and I’m pretty exhausted right now so I’m not so sure how articulate I can be, anyway. I’m so tired right now that I almost wrote “foreshortening” instead of “foreshadowing” and the more I look at it, the less either of them seem like actual words.
So obviously words on not my strong suit at the moment. To make up for that loss, I give you… a very cute drawing of a raccoon from Freewheel: Chapter Five!
He’s really quite small on the actual page, but I liked him so much I just couldn’t keep myself from showing him off. He’s quizzical!
I’ve been hard at work on Chapter Five, the final chapter in Freewheel: Volume One, and it’ll be finished in just about five more days! So exciting!
Speaking of Chapter Five, if you want to read the first five chapters of Freewheel several months before they go up online, you should totally consider contributing to the Freewheel: Volume One Fundraising Campout! We are still just $868 away from goal and there’s only slightly over ONE WEEK LEFT to contribute!
Anyway, thanks for reading and I’ll see you on Monday! Hope you all have great weekends, wherever you are!
Looks like Old George is considering letting Jamie go into the cavern! Stay tuned for Wednesday to see what happens!
One week left to contribute to the Freewheel: Volume One Fundraising Campout and I have just $798 left to raise! There is a chance I might extend the Campout for a few days or so but don’t count on it! I’m waiting to hear back from a second printer to see if I can get a better deal, as it seems more than likely that I won’t be able to raise all the money through the Campout and I want to go into as little debt as possible. I’ve also heard good things about this second printer so I’m hoping maybe their customer service will be better than the place I got my first quote from.
Anyway, my point is that I might not have to pay up on March 1st, so I might extend the Campout by a few days or however long they give me to pay up. I’ll let you know what happens!
You knew he would let her go down into the cavern after all, didn’t you? Old George ain’t such a bad guy! He was just worried about her safety. But what will happen when she actually goes into the cave? Maybe we’ll find out on Friday!
Hey check it out, I got some more fan art! This time it’s from Jen Vaughn, the amazing cartoonist and creator of Mermaid Hostel, which is a great webcomic about – you guessed it – an underwater hostel staffed by mermaids (and mermen)! You should totally check it out, it updates every Friday! Thanks Jen!
Just a few days left to contribute to the Freewheel: Volume One Fundraising Campout and I have just $634 left to raise! There is a chance I might extend the Campout for a few days or so but don’t count on it! I’m waiting to hear back from a second printer to see if I can get a better deal, as it seems more than likely that I won’t be able to raise all the money through the Campout and I want to go into as little debt as possible. I’ve also heard good things about this second printer so I’m hoping maybe their customer service will be better than the place I got my first quote from.
Anyway, my point is that I might not have to pay up on March 1st, so I might extend the Campout by a few days or however long they give me to pay up. I’ll let you know what happens once I know exactly when I’m supposed to pay the printing bill!
Don’t forget – it helps to tell your friends!
Oh man, Jamie found the mushrooms! Kinda looks like something weird is happening though with her arm. I guess you’ll have to wait till Monday to see what happens with Jamie down in Clooney’s Cavern!
So guess what? As I type this, the Freewheel: Volume One Fundraising Campout is only $436 shy of meeting its goal and there’s just a few days left to contribute! If you’ve been thinking about contributing, now’s the time! All contributors Level 2 and above will receive the Freewheel: Volume One book months before it’s available online, among many other awesome things, like special prints, original art, and more! Check it out!
Looks like Old George wasn’t kidding when he said the cavern could be trouble for Jamie! It’s no wonder people don’t go down into that cavern anymore. Those mushrooms are trouble! But luckily, Jamie seems like she’s okay.
I have GREAT NEWS, everybody! On Friday afternoon I quickly raised the remainder of the money needed to print Freewheel: Volume One so the Freewheel: Volume One Fundraising Campout is officially OVER! There are still some special deals going on in the store until I have the time to rearrange it back to regular prices (which will probably not be until Wednesday, after the book goes to the printer) so feel free to take advantage of those deals while they last!
I’m still putting the finishing touches on laying the book out and getting the cover finished, but I thought you guys might be interested to see how I figured out what to put on the cover. Creating a book cover is no easy task because you have to think hard about what you’re going to put on it that will somehow encapsulate what the book is like without giving anything important away, while still putting just enough on it that it will pique people’s interests.
Anyway, I had already spent most of the day last Thursday trying to figure out what the heck to put on the cover. Luckily, my friend and studiomate MK Reed showed up at the studio that evening and helped me figure it out by writing out a list! I thought the list was somewhat amusing so I decided I’d scan it and share it with you.
Most of that handwriting is MK’s – she took notes while we rattled off ideas that might help spark a cover. In the end, we both came up with a similar idea – Jamie and Fingerfoot in a tree nest looking through a spyglass with the forest and mountains in the background, and maybe another outpost or two in the distance. Originally I thought I’d have it be night time but I ended up going for day. On Wednesday I’ll share the final cover with you!
Today’s the last page of Chapter Two! Check back in on Friday for the first page of Chapter Three!
So I’m finishing up the laying-out process for the Freewheel: Volume One book, which will probably go to the printer later this week, and I figured I would share some of the cover-making process with you. On Monday I showed you my brainstorm list, which was how I came up with what to put on the cover. Today, I’ll show you the line art! (You’ll get to see the full finished color cover on Friday)
Welcome to the first page of Chapter Three! Here we see Jamie returning to the camp and meeting Little Jackie so she can give her the mushrooms that she practically lost her arm over, so she can make a stew from them to give to the twins and all that. Jamie seems a little shaken from her experience in Clooney’s Cavern, so hopefully Little Jackie can provide some of her trademark motherly comfort.
There are still a bunch of things on sale for cheap in the store, because I haven’t had the time or energy to switch everything back to regular prices yet, but that might happen over the weekend so if you’re in the mood for bargains, you can still get them here!
So earlier in the week I showed you how I brainstormed with my friend MK to come up with ideas of what to put on the cover of the Freewheel: Volume One book. Then I showed you the line art of the drawing I made for the cover. Today, I present to you, the final full-color art for the cover of the book, which is going to the printers today!
I am really terrible when it comes to coloring black-and-white art, but luckily I got some tips and tricks from friends that were helpful! What do you think?
Man, those Gang Mills nest kids sure are nosy! They’re all up in Jamie’s grill!
So check it out, I got another piece of fan art from Rachel Dukes of Poseur Ink! It’s going to go in the Freewheel: Volume One book along with all the other fan art I’ve shown you so far. It just went off to the printers on Friday so it shouldn’t be long before I get the hard copies in my hands (which of course, I will immediately take pictures of and show you here).
Be sure and check out the Kickstarter project recently launched by Poseur Ink – Octobriana! As described on their Kickstarter page, Octobriana is “an action-filled fantasy piece that follows the heroine, Octobriana, on her quest to claim her title as the goddess of lust. Set in Soviet Russia, the story reflects Octobriana’s origin in an underground protest zine which stood up for sexual expression. With chapters full of sex, psychics, and Russian mythology, this new incarnation written by indie comics writer Steve Orlando (HOPE: New Orleans anthology, Outlaw Territory), and illustrated by Chaz Truog (Animal Man with Grant Morrison) looks to be a titillating thrill.”
Anyway, here’s the piece Rachel made for me, and I should mention that she made it for me at the last possible second when I was scrambling to fill one remaining blank page in the book. Thanks Rachel!
This is probably one of my favorite pages of Chapter Three, when all the Gang Mills kids describe what they believe the Contessa is like. My favorite one, and the one that always cracks me up, is the kid who says “She’s made of cats!”
So I got an email from my friend Alan Lastufka the other day. He told me that a song on his upcoming album, Erase This, features a song called “Boxcar Blood” which was “semi-inspired by the attitude of Freewheel” and even name-checks Freewheel in a couple of lines! How cool is that? Erase This should be out sometime mid-May-ish from DFTBA Records, a label which he co-owns.
You may or may not know this, but Alan was actually instrumental in the creation of the original incarnation of Freewheel, which first appeared online as a webcomic on the Fall of Autumn website. Fall of Autumn was (maybe still is? I can’t totally tell from the website) a zine distro that I used to send copies of My Brain Hurts to for distro consideration back when MBH was a minicomic. They started selling MBH, and at some point Alan paid me to draw their website banner (which you can still see on their site), which if I remember correctly was actually my first paid illustration job, back in 2006 or so I think.
Alan and I worked together on a few projects, some which panned out, others which didn’t. I did some scratchboard illustrations for a zine project of his which ended up becoming a short film called “Five Stories,” which was shown on IFC (I am credited as “House Conceptual Design” as my illustrations aren’t in the film itself but the house in the film was inspired by the house I drew).
ANYWAY. Eventually he came to me with the suggestion of my doing a webcomic for the Fall of Autumn site. It would be good exposure for me and my work, and I could try my hand at a new story idea I’d been kicking around – a young girl who runs away from home to find her missing brother, and has some kind of train-hopping hobo adventure – which is what became Freewheel.
I was doing Freewheel for Fall of Autumn I think twice a week for a little while, but I was still working on My Brain Hurts and juggling a full-time job at the time, so eventually I had to cut back my updates to once a week, then once every two weeks, until I eventually decided to put it on indefinite hiatus. Part of this decision came from my own inability to give the story the time and attention it deserved, and the other part came from Alan‘s growing interest in YouTube, which I perceived as taking his time and attention away from Fall of Autumn projects, including Freewheel. It was obviously time for me to take a break.
Well, cut to a few years later, and I am now running Freewheel on my own site, giving it all the time and attention it deserves now that I am no longer working on My Brain Hurts or slaving away at a full-time job 40+ hours a week. Alan is a successful YouTube personality, having literally written the book on the subject, and his label DFTBA Records is doing awesomely, having been voted 2009′s Best Online Music Label of the Year by Mashable.
So what I’m getting at is, you should be sure to check out Alan‘s debut album, Erase This, on DFTBA Records this spring, and keep an eye out for the song Boxcar Blood, which was semi-inspired by the attitude of Freewheel. There may even be a special little cross-promotional dealie going on when the album comes out, but you’ll just have to wait and see!
Don’t worry, I’ll remind you again once it’s out!
This one is another of my favorite pages with the kids of Gang Mills. My favorite part is the one of their version of the Contessa wearing a bear skin while running with blood trailing behind.
So my friend Jen Vaughn who creates the webcomic Mermaid Hostel (which conveniently updates on Fridays, hint hint) is headed to SXSW pretty soon and she’s trying to raise money for her trip by offering the prospect of a really cool-sounding minicomic detailing the events of the… event! Check out what she has to say about it in her press release:
Cartoonist Jen Vaughn is thrilled to announce her first SXSW InteractiviZINE! From March 12th to March 16th, she will attend the SXSW (South by Southwest) Interactive Festival in Austin, TX and will “cover” the event multimedia-style in her Interactivitizine! SXSW is chock full of panels, events, and of course parties, related to social media, convergence, video games, start-ups and anything Internet. Upon the conclusion of her visit, Jen will post her drawings, notes, photos and other ephemera from the festival on her website for everyone to share the wealth of information gleaned.
Jen is accepting donations of $5 and up towards her SXSW InteractiviZINE experience via her website (http://www.mermaidhostel.com/sxsw-interactivizine-fundraiser/). Anyone who donates will receive a LIMITED EDITION (PRINT) SXSW InteractiviZINE full of panel notes, comics and other special goodies made especially by Jen Vaughn.
Jen creates a weekly webcomic called Mermaid Hostel and her previous works include Menstruation Station: Menarche Aboard!, and Don’t Hate, Menstruate. She is also an enthusiastic member of the Rare Bits Comics Collective.
I’m a big fan of Jen’s menstruation-related minicomics (mentioned above) and I think she’s going to come up with some really cool stuff for the minicomic/zine thing she’s putting together from her experiences at SXSW.
Yup, another page of the Gang Mills kids talking about the Contessa! My favorite part of this page is the owl holding up the pact. He signed it with his claws!
Starting this Wednesday I’ll be on the road with the Punchbuggy Tour, which is a comics-reading/signing/semi-acoustic-music tour I helped organize with my fellow cartoonist friends, MK Reed and Gabby Schulz (better known as “Ken Dahl”). Dig these fancy stops! Hit up one of our dates if you’re in the neighborhood! We’ll be reading from our comics and performing a song or two on our many quaint acoustic instruments, as well as providing a live acoustic soundtrack to some of the readings! FUN!
PUNCHBUGGY SPRING TOUR DATES – SPRING FORWARD, PUNCH BACK!
Friday March 19 @ 7pm – White River Junction, VT @ the Center for Cartoon Studies
Tuesday, March 23 @7pm – Amherst, MA @ Hampshire College (West Lecture Hall)
Wednesday, March 24 @ 7pm – Providence, RI @ Ada Books
Thursday, March 25 @ 7pm – Somerville, MA @ Hub Comics
Friday, March 26 @ 7:30pm – Montreal, Quebec @ the Drawn & Quarterly Store
Monday, March 29 - Rochester, NY @ Monroe Community College (classroom presentation, students only)
Don’t worry, Freewheel will still be updating automatically while I’m gone! If you want to keep abreast of our tour adventures (we’ll be traveling from March 17 until the 29th) be sure and bookmark the Punchbuggy Tour site or add it to your RSS feed collection!
Last time we went on tour we met chickens in Detroit!
Ate some cookies on top of a mountain!
We made some wicked superjumps!
And we got some tattoos!
Keep track of our adventures on the Punchbuggy site!
Another day, another tall tale from the Gang Mills kids! This time, it’s the cautionary tale of Twitchy Pete (he ain’t never been the same)!
If you’re in the New York City area, I have several pages on display at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art as part of the NeoIntegrity: Comics Edition group show. Supposedly, my pages are right next to Craig Thompson’s and directly beneath Charles Schulz’s! So cool! The show will be up until May 30, 2010!
Starting today I’ll be on the road with the Punchbuggy Tour, which is a comics-reading/signing/semi-acoustic-music tour I helped organize with my fellow cartoonist friends, MK Reed and Gabby Schulz (better known as “Ken Dahl”). Dig these fancy stops! Hit up one of our dates if you’re in the neighborhood! We’ll be reading from our comics and performing a song or two on our many quaint acoustic instruments, as well as providing a live acoustic soundtrack to some of the readings! FUN!
Our first public performance is this Friday in White River Junction, VT! Come see us!
PUNCHBUGGY SPRING TOUR DATES – SPRING FORWARD, PUNCH BACK!
Friday March 19 @ 7pm – White River Junction, VT @ the Center for Cartoon Studies
Tuesday, March 23 @7pm – Amherst, MA @ Hampshire College (West Lecture Hall)
Wednesday, March 24 @ 7pm – Providence, RI @ Ada Books
Thursday, March 25 @ 7pm – Somerville, MA @ Hub Comics
Friday, March 26 @ 7:30pm – Montreal, Quebec @ the Drawn & Quarterly Store
Monday, March 29 - Rochester, NY @ Monroe Community College (classroom presentation, students only)
Don’t worry, Freewheel will still be updating automatically while I’m gone! If you want to keep abreast of our tour adventures (we’ll be traveling from March 17 until the 29th) be sure and bookmark the Punchbuggy Tour site or add it to your RSS feed collection!
It’s good that Little Jackie is around to help out all those kids. Where would Jamie be without her? Probably short one jacket sleeve, at the very least!
If you’re in the New York City area, I have several pages on display at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art as part of the NeoIntegrity: Comics Edition group show. Supposedly, my pages are right next to Craig Thompson’s and directly beneath Charles Schulz’s! So cool! The show will be up until May 30, 2010!
Tonight I’ll be doing a reading and performance as part of the Punchbuggy Tour with my tourmates/van family MK Reed and Gabby “Ken Dahl” Schulz at the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, VT! Check out the rest of our dates and come see us on tour!
PUNCHBUGGY SPRING TOUR DATES – SPRING FORWARD, PUNCH BACK!
Friday March 19 @ 7pm – White River Junction, VT @ the Center for Cartoon Studies
Tuesday, March 23 @7pm – Amherst, MA @ Hampshire College (West Lecture Hall)
Wednesday, March 24 @ 7pm – Providence, RI @ Ada Books
Thursday, March 25 @ 7pm – Somerville, MA @ Hub Comics
Friday, March 26 @ 7:30pm – Montreal, Quebec @ the Drawn & Quarterly Store
Monday, March 29 - Rochester, NY @ Monroe Community College (classroom presentation, students only)
Don’t worry, Freewheel will still be updating automatically while I’m gone! If you want to keep abreast of our tour adventures (we’ll be traveling from March 17 until the 29th) be sure and bookmark the Punchbuggy Tour site or add it to your RSS feed collection!
I really like this page. It was fun to draw, too! I was looking at a lot of Craig Thompson’s work when I was thumbnailing it. Speaking of which!
If you’re in the New York City area, I have several pages on display at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art as part of the NeoIntegrity: Comics Edition group show. Supposedly, my pages are right next to Craig Thompson’s and directly beneath Charles Schulz’s! So cool! The show will be up until May 30, 2010!
Tomorrow night I’ll be doing a reading and performance as part of the Punchbuggy Tour with my tourmates/van family MK Reed and Gabby “Ken Dahl” Schulz at Hampshire College in Amherst, MA! Check out the rest of our dates and come see us on tour!
PUNCHBUGGY SPRING TOUR DATES – SPRING FORWARD, PUNCH BACK!
Friday March 19 @ 7pm – White River Junction, VT @ the Center for Cartoon Studies
Tuesday, March 23 @7pm – Amherst, MA @ Hampshire College (West Lecture Hall)
Wednesday, March 24 @ 7pm – Providence, RI @ Ada Books
Thursday, March 25 @ 7pm – Somerville, MA @ Hub Comics
Friday, March 26 @ 7:30pm – Montreal, Quebec @ the Drawn & Quarterly Store
Monday, March 29 - Rochester, NY @ Monroe Community College (classroom presentation, students only)
Don’t worry, Freewheel will still be updating automatically while I’m gone! If you want to keep abreast of our tour adventures (we’ll be traveling from March 17 until the 29th) be sure and bookmark the Punchbuggy Tour site or add it to your RSS feed collection! I’ll be updating the Punchbuggy blog with photos and stories from the tour, so be sure and check it out!
Today we learn a little bit more about Jamie’s past, about her family, and some hints about what happened to her parents.
If you’re in the New York City area, I have several pages on display at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art as part of the NeoIntegrity: Comics Edition group show. Supposedly, my pages are right next to Craig Thompson’s and directly beneath Charles Schulz’s! So cool! The show will be up until May 30, 2010!
Tonight I’ll be doing a reading and performance as part of the Punchbuggy Tour with my tourmates/van family MK Reed and Gabby “Ken Dahl” Schulz at Ada Books in Providence, RI! Tomorrow night we’ll be performing at Hub Comics in Somerville, MA! Check out the rest of our dates and come see us on tour!
PUNCHBUGGY SPRING TOUR DATES – SPRING FORWARD, PUNCH BACK!
Friday March 19 @ 7pm – White River Junction, VT @ the Center for Cartoon Studies
Tuesday, March 23 @7pm – Amherst, MA @ Hampshire College (West Lecture Hall)
Wednesday, March 24 @ 7pm – Providence, RI @ Ada Books
Thursday, March 25 @ 7pm – Somerville, MA @ Hub Comics
Friday, March 26 @ 7:30pm – Montreal, Quebec @ the Drawn & Quarterly Store
Monday, March 29 - Rochester, NY @ Monroe Community College (classroom presentation, students only)
Don’t worry, Freewheel will still be updating automatically while I’m gone! If you want to keep abreast of our tour adventures (we’ll be traveling from March 17 until the 29th) be sure and bookmark the Punchbuggy Tour site or add it to your RSS feed collection!
Today we learn a little bit more about Jamie and her brother and their family and how everything came to be how it was at the beginning of Freewheel.
If you’re in the New York City area, I have several pages on display at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art as part of the NeoIntegrity: Comics Edition group show. Supposedly, my pages are right next to Craig Thompson’s and directly beneath Charles Schulz’s! So cool! The show will be up until May 30, 2010!
Tonight I’ll be doing a reading and performance as part of the Punchbuggy Tour with my tourmates/van family MK Reed and Gabby “Ken Dahl” Schulz at the Drawn & Quarterly Store in Montreal, Quebec! Check out the rest of our dates and come see us on tour!
PUNCHBUGGY SPRING TOUR DATES – SPRING FORWARD, PUNCH BACK!
Friday March 19 @ 7pm – White River Junction, VT @ the Center for Cartoon Studies
Tuesday, March 23 @7pm – Amherst, MA @ Hampshire College (West Lecture Hall)
Wednesday, March 24 @ 7pm – Providence, RI @ Ada Books
Thursday, March 25 @ 7pm – Somerville, MA @ Hub Comics
Friday, March 26 @ 7:30pm – Montreal, Quebec @ the Drawn & Quarterly Store
Monday, March 29 - Rochester, NY @ Monroe Community College (classroom presentation, students only)
Don’t worry, Freewheel will still be updating automatically while I’m gone! If you want to keep abreast of our tour adventures (we’ll be traveling from March 17 until the 29th) be sure and bookmark the Punchbuggy Tour site or add it to your RSS feed collection!
I guess Jamie’s a little braver than she thought she was! That cavern is freakin’ dangerous! Little Jackie knows all about it.
If you’re in the New York City area, I have several pages on display at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art as part of the NeoIntegrity: Comics Edition group show. Supposedly, my pages are right next to Craig Thompson’s and directly beneath Charles Schulz’s! So cool! The show will be up until May 30, 2010!
Today I’ll be doing a reading and performance as part of the Punchbuggy Tour with my tourmates/van family MK Reed and Gabby “Ken Dahl” Schulz at Monroe Community College in Rochester, NY! It’s part of a classroom presentation so I think it’s open only to students, though. It’s the last stop of the tour (for now)! Soon I’ll be back home in NYC, can’t wait!
PUNCHBUGGY SPRING TOUR DATES – SPRING FORWARD, PUNCH BACK!
Friday March 19 @ 7pm – White River Junction, VT @ the Center for Cartoon Studies
Tuesday, March 23 @7pm – Amherst, MA @ Hampshire College (West Lecture Hall)
Wednesday, March 24 @ 7pm – Providence, RI @ Ada Books
Thursday, March 25 @ 7pm – Somerville, MA @ Hub Comics
Friday, March 26 @ 7:30pm – Montreal, Quebec @ the Drawn & Quarterly Store
Monday, March 29 - Rochester, NY @ Monroe Community College (classroom presentation, students only)
Flowering bush, flowering bush, and then… A SUDDEN MYSTERIOUS VOICE! Today in Freewheel!
So if you haven’t been checking on your own, Freewheel has been updating while I’ve been away, even though I haven’t always been able to remind you. So if you haven’t checked in for a while, you can get caught up! We are coming towards the end of Chapter Three, which is very exciting! We’re about to meet the Tony’s Twins! How exciting.
I just got back from the Punchbuggy Tour last week and all in all, I’d say it went quite well. The cold and rain seemed to follow us everywhere we went, but we managed to have a good time and put on some decent shows anyway. Eventually I might get around to a better update on the tour than that, but for now that’s about all I can muster. Tour is exhausting, in a way that goes right down into your bones.
Anyway, this coming weekend is the MoCCA Art Festival in NYC and I’ll be there with the newly-arrived copies of Freewheel: Volume One! Anyone who preordered a copy via the Freewheel Campout should get their copy in the mail in a day or two (except outside the U.S., it will probably take longer) as I just mailed out every last one of them this morning! Unless you told me you’d pick yours up at MoCCA, in which case I’ll be bringing yours to the show.
Those among you who purchased a funder level that included a print will have to wait on that, those will be mailed separately as I’m having some difficulty getting decent prints made. Those of you who ordered commissions will either be able to pick them up at MoCCA with your book or will get them in the mail later this week or early next week. Just so you know!
OH! And also, I’m going to be on a panel at MoCCA! Here’s the deets:
Sunday April 11th
12:45 PM
New Genres, New Readers, New Technologies: The World of Comics To Come
Moderated by Calvin Reid (Publishers Weekly); Panelists: Leigh Walton (Top Shelf Comix), Liz Baillie (My Brain Hurts), Craig Yoe (Arf, Secret Identity), Charles Kochman (Abrams ComicArts), and David Steinberger (Comixology). Like the rest of publishing, the landscape of the comics medium is changing in dramatic and not so dramatic ways. Whether it’s the impact of Hollywood and new corporate structures at Marvel and DC; or self-published comics on the web, manga and a new generation of retailers, the medium has never seemed so strong; the variety of works so diverse nor the business and distribution possibilities so intriguing. This panel will highlight the state of the medium from the artful resilience of small press and indie comics publishing to the steady growth of graphic novels in the book industry and the proliferation of new genres and new readers for them.
Today we finally meet the Tony’s Twins! They are among some of my favorite characters to draw, because they are so silly and prance around so much doing ridiculous things. This page is no exception.
This weekend is the MoCCA Art Fest in NYC and I’ll be there at table E19 hawking my wares with my tablemate, Mike Dawson, who I believe will have some minicomics of his new webcomic, Troop 142, which I’ve been reading online and enjoying very much! I will be selling copies of the new Freewheel: Volume One book, along with some of my more dated fare such as My Brain Hurts volumes one and two, and My Brain Hurts t-shirts. I may be offering some kind of package deal if you buy one of everything on my side of the table, but I haven’t decided yet. I would really like to get rid of those MBH t-shirts if I can, so keep your eyes peeled for some kind of deal involving those at the show.
Here’s a handy map showing you exactly where I’ll be:
I’ll also be in a panel on Sunday at 12:45pm. Here’s the info:
New Genres, New Readers, New Technologies: The World of Comics To Come
Moderated by Calvin Reid (Publishers Weekly); Panelists: Leigh Walton (Top Shelf Comix), Liz Baillie (My Brain Hurts), Craig Yoe (Arf, Secret Identity), Charles Kochman (Abrams ComicArts), and David Steinberger (Comixology). Like the rest of publishing, the landscape of the comics medium is changing in dramatic and not so dramatic ways. Whether it’s the impact of Hollywood and new corporate structures at Marvel and DC; or self-published comics on the web, manga and a new generation of retailers, the medium has never seemed so strong; the variety of works so diverse nor the business and distribution possibilities so intriguing. This panel will highlight the state of the medium from the artful resilience of small press and indie comics publishing to the steady growth of graphic novels in the book industry and the proliferation of new genres and new readers for them.
You should also be sure to stop by my friend MK Reed‘s table (which is D-17, by the way) and tell her “April Fool’s!” to get a copy of her new graphic novel Cross Country for only $2! It’s like 124 pages and normally sells for $10 so you should totally do that. I think it’s for the first 15 people only so be sure and hop on that as soon as you get there! The details on this offer can be perused further here.
More wackiness with the Tony’s Twins! I love these guys, they seem like they’d be fun to hang out with for a little while, until they started to get annoying. Which I’m sure they would get after a while.
Hey, this week I was a guest on the Ink Panthers podcast! We talked about the Punchbuggy Tour, ukueles, bears, and whether I would fight a bear! Pretty humorous listening, you should check it out!
This weekend is the MoCCA Art Fest in NYC and I’ll be there at table E19 hawking my wares with my tablemate, Mike Dawson, who I believe will have some minicomics of his new webcomic, Troop 142, which I’ve been reading online and enjoying very much! I will be selling copies of the new Freewheel: Volume One book, along with some of my more dated fare such as My Brain Hurts volumes one and two, and My Brain Hurts t-shirts. I may be offering some kind of package deal if you buy one of everything on my side of the table, but I haven’t decided yet. I would really like to get rid of those MBH t-shirts if I can, so keep your eyes peeled for some kind of deal involving those at the show.
Keep your eyes out for neon green Freewheel fliers at the show! Each of them are numbered and if you bring one to my table it might just win you a free copy of Freewheel: Volume One! Even if it doesn’t, bringing one of those green fliers to my table will still get you $2 off the Freewheel: Volume One book (reg. $12, an even $10 with the flier)! They’ll most likely be scattered about whatever area free stuff is laid upon, or whatever place my husband decided is a “good spot” for them (which might just be the bathroom… I apologize in advance!).
Here’s a handy map showing you exactly where I’ll be (the previous map I had put up was incorrect):
I’ll also be in a panel on Sunday at 12:45pm. It should be pretty interesting! Here’s the info:
New Genres, New Readers, New Technologies: The World of Comics To Come
Moderated by Calvin Reid (Publishers Weekly); Panelists: Leigh Walton (Top Shelf Comix), Liz Baillie (My Brain Hurts), Craig Yoe (Arf, Secret Identity), Charles Kochman (Abrams ComicArts), and David Steinberger (Comixology). Like the rest of publishing, the landscape of the comics medium is changing in dramatic and not so dramatic ways. Whether it’s the impact of Hollywood and new corporate structures at Marvel and DC; or self-published comics on the web, manga and a new generation of retailers, the medium has never seemed so strong; the variety of works so diverse nor the business and distribution possibilities so intriguing. This panel will highlight the state of the medium from the artful resilience of small press and indie comics publishing to the steady growth of graphic novels in the book industry and the proliferation of new genres and new readers for them.
You should also be sure to stop by my friend MK Reed’s table (which is D-17, by the way) and tell her “April Fool’s!” to get a copy of her new graphic novel Cross Country for only $2! It’s like 124 pages and normally sells for $10 so you should totally do that. I think it’s for the first 15 people only so be sure and hop on that as soon as you get there! The details on this offer can be perused further here.
So this past weekend I went to the MoCCA Art Fest here in NYC and it was GREAT! I sold a TON of the Freewheel: Volume One book as well as a hefty pile of the My Brain Hurts books. This was the first time I’ve been to a convention where I met more than a few people who were nervous to talk to me, as if I was famous or something. It was quite the ego boost if a little confusing.
The Daily News made a slideshow/list of their favorite picks from MoCCA and Freewheel: Volume One made it on! Check out the list to see all the greatest comics you should be reading right now!
Photo by Nayland Blake
We left the con on Sunday night with our bag noticeably lighter, which is always a wonderful feeling. It’s so great to be able to hang out and meet the people who enjoy my work, as well as people who are just discovering my comics for the first time. If you’re one of those people, then hello!
I didn’t do much partying aside from the Drink & Draw Like a Lady event on Friday night, and that party was a great, friendly, very chill, relaxed affair, so it felt perfect. I got to meet one of my fellow frequenters of Webcomics.com, Mary, who does a comic called NPC which you should definitely check out. The place was PACKED so it was hard to move around, and I was glad to know so many friendly faces! A bunch of us ended up going out to a diner afterward and continuing our lively chatter for another hour or two. It was really fun!
Anyway, MoCCA was a great time, as always! I’ll be back again next year! The next convention I’ll be attending will be Indie Island at Heroes Con in June. See you then!
The Tony’s Twins invite you into their secret lair beyond the flowering bush! Do you accept? Y/N?
On Friday Chapter 3 begins and we get to see the inside of the Tony’s Twins’ lair! It’s pretty rad, I gotta say. It’s exactly what you would think a house run by two 14-year-old boys would look like. Meaning, totally awesome!
So if you weren’t able to get in on the Freewheel Fundraising Campout and you didn’t make it out to the MoCCA Art Fest this past weekend, but still want to get a copy of Freewheel: Volume One, I’ve got some good news for you!
Freewheel: Volume One is now up for pre-order on Amazon.com!
I don’t want to steal any thunder from comics retailers, but it’s going to take some time before Freewheel: Volume One reaches them, so if you just can’t wait to get your Freewheel fix, I highly recommend pre-ordering the book on Amazon.com. The amount of copies pre-ordered affects the number of copies they buy from me, and as soon as they get them, they’ll ship ‘em out to you! Easy peasy!
If you would rather buy the book from your local comics shop, let me know who they are and I’ll send them a mailer! Be sure to ask for Freewheel: Volume One in the store as well so they know you want it!
Welcome to Chapter Four, and to the lair of the Tony’s Twins! They have a lot of neat stuff in their house. And also they eat a lot of junk food. Many people come to the Tony’s Twins in search of the Contessa, and they figure that bringing the twins some junk food or toys will help win them an audience with the Contessa. It doesn’t usually work. Lucky for Jamie, their one weak spot is that mushroom stew!
So I won’t be at FLUKE in Athens, GA this weekend, but there will be some copies of Freewheel: Volume One being sold by my friends Sally Bloodbath and Matt Wiegle! Please stop by the show if you’re in the area because Sally and Matt make some great comics too and you should really be reading them!
I am really close to breaking 300 fans on Facebook! If you haven’t already, you should consider becoming a fan. It’s easy, just click here and click “become a fan!”
I also have a Twitter account, on which I post nonsense that is probably pretty boring. It’s what Twitter was designed for!
I ALSO also have a LiveJournal. Do people even use those anymore?
In case you didn’t read Wednesday’s update, I hope you don’t mind that I also remind you about Freewheel: Volume One being available for pre-order on Amazon! If you didn’t get it at MoCCA and don’t want to wait for you local comic shop to order it (which might take a while), Amazon is a safe bet.
If you would rather patronize your favorite local comic shop to purchase Freewheel: Volume One, just let me know where you shop and I’ll send them a mailer! Be sure to ask your store to order a few copies as well!
The twins continue to be amazed and surprised by how easy it was for Jamie to get those mushrooms! Soon we will begin my favorite huge flashback sequence thing where we find out more about Old George… back when he was Young George… and we’ll get a little more info on exactly what happened with him and that cavern!
I have big news coming soon! I am in the midst of plotting a way to have comics online 7 days a week, 2 comics other than Freewheel! I’m super stoked, but I have to finish uploading comics and designing the other sites before I announce them officially.
Freewheel: Volume One is still available for preorder through Amazon here – it comes out officially on May 1st! I’m still collecting names and addresses of comic book stores to send mailers to as well – if you’d like to buy your copy from your local shop, let me know where you shop and I’ll send them a mailer! Be sure and ask for Freewheel in the shop as well! I won’t be selling Freewheel: Volume One through my own shop until late June!
Have you become a fan on Facebook yet? I’m so close to 300 fans I can taste it! Help me get past that 300 mark by going here and clicking “like!”
I also have a Twitter account where I post all manner of inane babble. And a LiveJournal, where I do the same, but with over 140 characters!
Today we begin the ultra mega flashback of Old George, back when he was Young George! That Young George sure was a climber, he was!
I’ve mailed out a huge pile of Freewheel: Volume One books to the people who preordered them through the Freewheel Fundraising Campout, so I assume you must have all gotten them by now. There are also a big bunch of people who bought copies at the MoCCA Art Fest not too long ago. Perhaps a few of you were able to procure a copy at FLUKE? Well, I have a proposition for you…
I want your photos! Take a picture of yourself with the Freewheel book (the more creative/weird/interesting, the better) and email it to me at liz(at)lizbaillie(dot)com so I can put them up in these boring old blog updates! Let me know if there’s a particular website or other thing you want me to link to when I post your photo, and I will be more than happy to do so! There’s no deadline, I’d like for this to be an ongoing thing if I can!
And don’t forget about…
Today we continue our flashback to the story of Old George and the cavern. A few people from the nest give their (unsolicited) opinions about whether or not Old George (who was Young George at the time) should be attempting this stunt. Is that a young Fingerfoot talking to him? Why yes it is!
In other news, Freewheel: Volume One got two, count ‘em TWO great reviews from Read About Comics and The Comics Journal! Check ‘em out, won’t you?
Guess what else? Freewheel: Volume One is now officially for sale in the store! Get your copy for $12 or get an Artist Edition for $20! The official release date is May 1st, so you can expect to receive your copy on or after that date if you order this week! I’ve been slipping a new discount code on Twitter every day this week so be sure and check it out to get that day’s discount code! I will be continuing to do this for the rest of the week and each day’s code will be 1% less than the last’s. Yesterday’s was 17% so today’s is 16%, etc. Get the code here and then buy the book here!
ALSO! Courtesy of Ayun Halliday, creator of the zine the East Village Inky, I have received a photo of her daughter (and star of the zine) Inky reading a copy of Freewheel: Volume One on the bus (alongside Ayun’s son Milo, the other star of the zine)! How great is it to see actual kids reading actual comics? I can’t explain it but it always makes me happy!
I want more pictures like this! Send me a photo of you or someone else reading a copy of Freewheel: Volume One and I’ll post it here! Email photos to liz(at)lizbaillie(dot)com! The more creative the photo, the better (but please keep it PG)!
Also, I have just mailed out a number of mailers to various retailers asking them to carry Freewheel: Volume One in their stores. If you would like to purchase a copy of Freewheel: Volume One from any of the following shops, please be sure to ask them to order a copy or two! I included ordering info in the mailer. Here’s a complete list of the stores:
Desert Island (Brooklyn, NY)
Rocketship (Brooklyn, NY)
Isotope (San Francisco, CA)
Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find (Charlotte, NC)
Firestorm Books (Asheville, NC)
Wooden Shoe Books (Philadelphia, PA)
Pulp Nouveau Comix (Canandaigua, NY)
Floating World Comics (Portland, OR)
Guapo Comics & Coffee (Portland, OR)
Meltdown (Los Angeles, CA)
Comix Revolution (Mount Prospect, IL)
Atomic Books (Baltimore, MD)
Big Planet Comics (Bethesda, MD)
Comicopia (Boston, MA)
Million Year Picnic (Cambridge, MA)
Green Brain Comics (Dearborn, MI)
Comic Explosion (Nutley, NJ)
The Laughing Ogre (Columbus, OH)
The Copacetic Comics Company (Pittsburgh, PA)
St. Mark’s Books (New York, NY)
Austin Books and Comics (Austin, TX)
Zanadu Comics (Seattle, WA)
The Beguiling (Toronto, Ontario, Canada)
Brave New Worlds (Philadelphia, PA)
Midtown Comics (New York, NY)
The Joker’s Child (Fair Lawn, NJ)
Downtown Comics (Indianapolis, IN)
Phoenix Comics & Collectibles (Hicksville, NY)
Kilgore Books (Denver, CO)
Vault of Midnight (Ann Arbor, MI)
Fun 4 All Comics & Games (Ypsilanti, MI)
The Great Escape (Louisville, KY)
Arcane Comics (Seattle, WA)
Night Flight Comics (Salt Lake City, UT)
Black Cat Comics (Milpitas, CA)
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And don’t forget about…
Young George is going down into the cavern!! What will happen? Will anything happen? I guess you’ll have to wait until Friday to find out! On a related note, Large Anders is one of my favorite hobo names thus far, almost as good as Fingerfoot!
Guess what else? Freewheel: Volume One is now officially for sale in the store! Get your copy for $12 or get an Artist Edition for $20! The official release date is May 1st, so you can expect to receive your copy on or after that date if you order this week! I’ve been slipping a new discount code on Twitter every day this week so be sure and check it out to get that day’s discount code! I will be continuing to do this for the rest of the week and each day’s code will be 1% less than the last’s. Yesterday’s was 15% so today’s is 14%, etc. Get the code here and then buy the book here!
This week I’ve been having a bit of fun with fanart. It’s nice to unwind and experiment with other people’s characters from time to time. I think I may do a new fanart once a week for the next few weeks. It’s so fun!
This week’s is Evan Dahm’s Rice Boy. I’ve just been getting into it over the last few months so it was on my mind. The scene near the beginning where Rosemary is walking around eating those floating orange flower things wouldn’t leave my brain, so I picked up my watercolor pencils and got to drawing!
(click to make big)
Read Rice-Boy and Evan’s other comics here.
ALSO! If you have a copy of Freewheel: Volume One I’m still looking for fun/interesting photos of people with their copy of the book! I’ll post any that I get along with whatever thing you want me to link to (your blog/comic/store/etc). Email your photos to liz(at)lizbaillie(dot)com. Keep it PG!
And don’t forget about…
Holy crap, the rope snapped! And there’s something suspicious looking on the end of it! WHAT OF YOUNG GEORGE??? The suspense is killing me!
Freewheel: Volume One is now officially for sale in the store! Get your copy for $12 or get an Artist Edition for $20! The official release date is May 1st, so you can expect to receive your copy on or after that date if you order this week! I’ve been slipping a new discount code on Twitter every day this week so be sure and check it out to get that day’s discount code! I will be continuing to do this for the rest of the week and each day’s code will be 1% less than the last’s. Yesterday’s was 13% so today’s is 12%, etc. Get the code here and then buy the book here!
Also! You might remember that a while back my friend Alan Lastufka wrote a song on his upcoming album Erase This called Boxcar Blood, which was inspired by Freewheel? Well, the album is now available for preorder and GUESS WHAT? The first 250 copies will come with a special hand-numbered Freewheel minicomic! It’s not new content, it’s the first 12 pages of the comic, but if you’re a completist collector or something you might be interested in it. Also if you want to check out some rad music, of course! Alan talks about it (along with how we know each other and his connection to the original incarnation of Freewheel) in this video:
ALSO! If you have a copy of Freewheel: Volume One I’m still looking for fun/interesting photos of people with their copy of the book! I’ll post any that I get along with whatever thing you want me to link to (your blog/comic/store/etc). Email your photos to liz(at)lizbaillie(dot)com. Keep it PG!
And don’t forget about…
Holy cow, what is that stuff?!? It’s the Darkness! And it’s eating the very earth itself! WHAT NOW, LARGE ANDERS? Oh I know, set everything on fire using my new favorite onomatopoeia: FOOMF!
I read this great article about how the Karate Kid ruined the modern world. I love the Karate Kid (the original – it’s Ralph Macchio or NOTHING!), even though I agree with the article (possible the most intelligent thing I’ve ever read on the Cracked website!), because I mean who doesn’t love a good training montage. Come on! I could watch this one from Wet Hot American Summer a million times and never get tired of it! In fact, I think I just watched it three times before I even made this post! What’s your favorite training montage?
I am very excited about the new Dan Clowes book, Wilson, but I have not yet read it. Have any of you? What did you think of it? I’m afraid I’ll be let down by my colossal expectations since the last time he put out a book was several years ago. Back in the stone age when the internet was just a baby (1999) I was so obsessed with Clowes’ work that I made a pilgrimage to meet him at San Diego Comic-Con and he actually remembered my name from an excessive fan letter I had written him. I’m curious if he will still remember me when he makes an appearance at the Strand here in NYC this week!
Notice anything different about the site? I am now offering original art for sale! Just click the button under whichever page you want (if you are reading this via RSS you have to go to the site to see it) and fill out the required info to purchase the original art for that page! Easy peasy!
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Freewheel: Volume One is now available in both standard (unsigned) and Artist Edition (signed with a sketch)! Get it now at the Trading Post!
Poor Fingerfoot… he and Young George were totally BFFs. But Large Anders is correct, Young George can do anything… right?
Hey now! Freewheel: Volume One made it to Quimby’s Top Ten list this week! If you live in the Chicago area, you would be remiss in your duties as a resident if you don’t stop by Quimby’s and check out their amazing selection! They are quite the fine comics retail establishment, if I do say so myself!
So a few days ago I was able to listen to the new Against Me! album, White Crosses, which is due out officially in early June. I was a HUGE fan of Against Me! roundabouts 2002-2005ish (my math ain’t so good so give or take a year). Being a big record collector as well, they were a pretty fun band to collect if you had the money (I didn’t, still don’t) to keep up with their multiple colored pressings and variant versions of all their 7″s and albums. I mean jeezum crow look at this photo! They only have a handful of albums yet there are all these variant vinyl editions of everything:
ANYWAY. The thing about Against Me! is that in their early work, they made a big deal about their politics, and being anarchists, and all that sort of thing. They made a movie called We’re Never Going Home that was all about how all these major labels were courting them with million dollar deals and how they would just let the reps take ‘em out to a free dinner, get them drunk and say no to their deals anyway.
A few years later… they ended up signing with Sire and it was a big stupid deal among a lot of fans (myself included) and a lot of their old fans sort of jumped ship on them (again… myself included… I’m not proud!). I mean, I was in my mid-20s when this happened so I was still young enough to care somewhat about which band is signed to which label and how they are or are not hypocritical with respect to their politics, blah blah blah… Mainly, I remember my boss at my then-office job stopping me one day when I was wearing an AM! shirt and telling me his 13-year-old daughter’s favorite band was Against Me! I admit, that was hard to take.
Anyway, they came out with a few more albums and I would download a couple of tracks to see if I was interested but I still had some sour feelings and couldn’t get as much into them as I had been in the past. I still liked the songs but they felt too “clean” to me and I didn’t feel as much of a connection. That changed when I heard the most recent album, White Crosses. I suddenly realized, crap this is good… I’m 30 years old, who cares what label the band is on?
They still talk about the same subjects: politics, the state of the world, personal struggles, etc. They’ve become a much tighter band, for sure, and musically they’ve definitely grown a lot. I wouldn’t classify them as a punk band by any means (I think when you listen to them objectively outside of how they look/where they came from they defy genre) but they are certainly an awesome rock band. Here’s a live video (the best one I could find) of one of my favorite songs on the new record, Suffocation:
To give you an idea of the sound I first fell in love with, here is Reinventing Axl Rose from their Acoustic EP. Super raw, acoustic, just Tom and a guitar. The Acoustic EP was the first thing by them I ever bought and listened to. This particular song is practically an outline of how I try to live my life, and I think a lot of people felt that way, so it should give you a pretty good impression of why so many people were upset when they signed to Sire and got huge:
Anyway do yourself a favor and pick up White Crosses when it comes out in June. While you’re at it, pick up the Acoustic EP and Reinventing Axl Rose, which are still my two personal favorites. I could talk about Against Me! for quite a while, so I’ll shut up now and let you get back to reading comics!
Notice anything different about the site? I am now offering original art for sale! Just click the button under whichever page you want (if you are reading this via RSS you have to go to the site to see it) and fill out the required info to purchase the original art for that page! Easy peasy!
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Freewheel: Volume One is now available in both standard (unsigned) and Artist Edition (signed with a sketch)! Get it now at the Trading Post!
Aw man, what’s gonna happen to George? And Fingerfoot? And Large Anders?!? Well, I won’t tell you that, but I will tell you the story continues on Monday!
So I won’t be at TCAF in Toronto this weekend, but my friend MK Reed (who WILL be there) will have a few copies of Freewheel: Volume One at her table if you are in Toronto and want to pick up a copy. TCAF is free to the public, and is really rad anyway, so you have no excuse!
I don’t have much to talk about today (though I could go on about Against Me! again but I’m sure you’d rather I not). You may be surprised that I don’t get to read too many books or comics as I spend a lot of my time drawing them, and though I can sometimes get books on audio, comics are something you really aren’t meant to listen to. The only comic I’m actively looking forward to reading right now is Dan Clowes’ Wilson (did any of you in the NYC area get to see his talk at the Strand? I watched it online, it was pretty rad! I could listen to Dan Clowes talk all day!).
So I guess what I’m getting at is… read any good books lately? I keep listening to the same old handful of audiobooks over and over (mostly David Sedaris, Augusten Burroughs, Madeleine L’Engle, and whoever wrote the Golden Compass), it gets kind of dull.
Notice anything different about the site? I am now offering original art for sale! Just click the button under whichever page you want (if you are reading this via RSS you have to go to the site to see it) and fill out the required info to purchase the original art for that page! I just realized the form I had up before wasn’t working right, but there’s a new one up now so feel free to try again if you were having trouble before!
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Freewheel: Volume One is now available in both standard (unsigned) and Artist Edition (signed with a sketch)! Get it now at the Trading Post!
Aw, poor Fingerfoot… him and Young George were totally BFFs before George disappeared down the cavern.
I hope you all had a happy Mother’s Day and were nice to your mothers and grandmothers, and for those of you who don’t have a mother for one reason or another, I hope the day didn’t go too badly for you. It seems every year I know more and more people who’ve lost their mothers, and I realize more and more every year how much Mother’s Day has got to suck for them. You have my sympathies.
I had a lovely Mother’s Day with some of my husband’s family. We went to his grandmother’s house to visit her and his great aunt, as well as his mother and sister who also came over for the day. It was small and quiet, which is unusual when it comes to get-togethers with my husband’s huge Italian family. To give you some perspective, on holidays like Thanksgiving, Easter and Christmas you can expect between ten and sixteen people at the dinner table, so just five for Mother’s Day was very quiet and peaceful. How was your Mother’s Day? Did you do anything interesting? We pretty much just hung out and ate food. (I’m not complaining!)
Notice anything different about the site? I am now offering original art for sale! Just click the button under whichever page you want (if you are reading this via RSS you have to go to the site to see it) and fill out the required info to purchase the original art for that page!
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Freewheel: Volume One is now available in both standard (unsigned) and Artist Edition (signed with a sketch)! Get it now at the Trading Post!
I love Fingerfoot and his old-timey phrases. HOLD THE PHONE! But yeah, do you see what he sees? There’s someone lurking at the edge of the forest. Could it be…?
Fun Fact: “Clutch McBee” is a sly reference to my friend, the cartoonist and publisher Greg Means, whose pen name is Clutch McBastard, but I thought calling a character by that name in an all-ages comic might be a mistake, hence… Clutch McBee!
Have you seen this video of this boy who’s in 6th grade and playing this amazing rendition of Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi” on the piano for some kind of school talent show? It’s freaking amazing! Whether or not you are a Lady Gaga fan (and I will come out of the closet right now to firmly place myself in the category of mild-to-moderate fan) this kid is like a 13-year-old male Tori Amos, which makes not one lick of sense until you listen to this:
By far the best part of the video is watching the expressions of the girls in the background go from totally uninterested and bored to either totally in love with the kid (see the blonde girl under South America) or just plain WTF looks on their faces. The kid’s got a lot of guts to perform something like that in middle school. I remember when I was that age, if you showed any kind of sincere interest in anything, especially any type of performance, you were thereafter branded a weirdo not to be trusted.
I’ve heard this video is making the rounds on the internet so forgive me if you’ve seen it already, I just think the kid is amazing.
Anyway!
I am now offering original art for sale! Just click the button under whichever page you want (if you are reading this via RSS you have to go to the site to see it) and fill out the required info to purchase the original art for that page!
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Freewheel: Volume One is now available in both standard (unsigned) and Artist Edition (signed with a sketch)! Get it now at the Trading Post!
Large Anders begins his search for George! Will he find him? Or… something else entirely?
So the Lady Gaga kid that I am now obsessed with (along with half the Western world) was on the Ellen show yesterday. His video went viral one day, and the next he was on Ellen! So crazy! He talks about how quickly it all happened and does his version of Paparazzi again, probably even better than the original version on YouTube. He gets so into it at one point he looks like he’s gonna swallow the mic!
Anyway! I’m sure if you’ve laid eyes on the internet at all in the last few days you’ve heard enough about this kid already. But you know, just in case you didn’t! I’m here to help!
I am now offering original art for sale! Just click the button under whichever page you want and fill out the required info to purchase the original art for that page!
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Freewheel: Volume One is now available in both standard (unsigned) and Artist Edition (signed with a sketch)! Get it now at the Trading Post!
Today, Large Anders sets off on his quest to find George. What’s that he sees? Could it be him? Or… something else?!?
How was your weekend? I went to visit my mom and stepdad, who were taking part in a gigantic neighborhood-wide yard sale out where they live. All my stepsisters were there with their kids, it was fun! It seems like anyone who enjoys yard sales and flea markets (like myself) has some kind of particular item they are always on the lookout for.
Personally, I’m always on the lookout for old records; it’s been my flea market/yard sale Achilles’ heel since about age fourteen when I bought the Clash’s first album for two dollars (!!!). I picked up two Roy Orbison records, Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” (which was for a friend, who it turns out already has it. D’oh!) and a handful of old 45s from the likes of Sam Cooke, the Animals, Twisted Sister and Tommy James & the Shondells. The 12″ records were a whopping 75c each an the 7″s were an astounding 50c each. I spend a grand total of $4.25, which is probably the least amount of money I’ve spent on records in a good 10-15 years!
My stepsisters got sacks full of baby and little kid clothes, and we also picked up two board games (LIFE and Clue) for a buck each! Pretty rad.
Have you ever found something particularly awesome at a flea market or yard sale? My mom picked up just about the coolest framed embroidery of some weird trees with a cat in front of them. For a buck! She won the pick of the weekend prize for sure. I wish I had a picture of it to show you!
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Freewheel: Volume One is now available in both standard (unsigned) and Artist Edition (signed with a sketch)! Get it now at the Trading Post!
It’s George! He’s alive! But he does look a bit… different from before, don’t you think? That Large Anders is a good dude (and has one of my favorite character names aside from Fingerfoot). Today’s update is actually the last page of Chapter Four, can you believe it? On Friday we’ll be getting back to Jamie and the Tony’s Twins and the Contessa and all that in Chapter Five.
Soooo… I have some bad news. Well, it’s more bad news for me than for you, but bad nonetheless. On Monday afternoon as I was working in my studio I had a very unfortunate accident involving my laptop smashing to the ground and then being covered in black ink water that I use to clean my pens. The screen was smashed irreparably but luckily the hard drive was okay, so after I finished freaking out I ran to the 24-hour Apple store in midtown and picked up a brand new iMac. Being that so much of my work is computer and internet-based, I couldn’t afford to wait until I could afford a new computer, so I had to put the thing on credit.
What I’m getting at is, I need to pay off this computer purchase as fast as possible, so I’ll be running some big sales and offering some new stuff in the coming weeks in the hopes that I can pay off at least a chunk of this credit card bill. The first thing I’ll be offering is half off all original art. That’s right! Original art, which is normally $200 a page, is now only $100 a page for the next few weeks! Just find the page you want, click the button under the page that says “buy this page’s original art” and follow the instructions! If you’d like to get a page from My Brain Hurts or any of my other non-Freewheel work, those pages run about $50. Email me for details at liz (at) lizbaillie (dot) com if you’re interested in any non-Freewheel work.
If you’d like to help me not get into crippling debt but don’t have $100 to throw at some original art, you can also help by purchasing anything from the store. Just enter the code COMPUTERDISASTER at checkout to receive 15% off everything in the store, from t-shirts to books to whatever!
Once I get a little money I’ll make one of those thermometer things so you can track my progress in paying off this unfortunately necessary purchase (I’m hoping to cover the cost of the computer plus tax, which was around $1300 total). I’m hoping to begin offering some prints and cheap commissions soon as well, but that will probably have to wait until next week!
I also plan to begin offering donation incentives soon, but haven’t been able to yet as the last two days have been taken over by the monumental task of transferring all the data from my smashed computer onto the new computer. However, if you are feeling generous, feel free to donate anyway! Every little bit helps!
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Freewheel: Volume One is now available in both standard (unsigned) and Artist Edition (signed with a sketch)! Get it now at the Trading Post!
Welcome to Chapter Five! Aaaaand we’re back to the lair of the Tony’s Twins, where Jamie is about to FINALLY meet the Contessa… if she can make it through the gate of FIRE!
I’ll be at Heroes Con in just two weeks, and I’ve got a bunch of cool stuff planned for my table! First off, there’s this print that will hopefully arrive in time (click to make big!):
I’ll also have a selection of small ink sketches of various superheroes and villains farting for a mere ten bucks apiece! This one’s my favorite so far:
At last year’s Heroes Con, when I wasn’t busy impersonating Alec Longstreth for unimaginably long stretches of time (2 hours by some accounts), I was doing sketches of farting MODOKs in people’s sketchbooks. My rule last year was that anyone who doesn’t have a themed sketchbook and doesn’t tell me what to draw is getting a farting MODOK. People seemed to like it! I will be more than happy to draw more farting MODOKs this year.
Heroes Con will be taking place in Charlotte, NC from June 4-6th!
Don’t forget – you can still get 15% off everything in the store with the code COMPUTERDISASTER at checkout! I’m also selling Freewheel original pages for half-off at $100 each (normally $200) and all other work (such as My Brain Hurts) for $50 a page. It was crazy expensive to replace my smashed computer so I can use all the help I can get! Donation incentives and other fun stuff coming soon!
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Freewheel: Volume One is now available in both standard (unsigned) and Artist Edition (signed with a sketch)! Get it now at the Trading Post!
Finally! We’ve reached the Contessa’s shack! How will it compare to what the kids back at the Gang Mills nest had to say?
Fun fact: When I was trying to figure out how the Contessa’s shack would really look (as opposed to the children’s description of it) I decided to base it on Thoreau’s house at Walden. Something you might never figure out on your own just by looking at it, since it just looks like a regular tiny little house, but still. Fun fact nonetheless:
I thought it was quite fitting given the similarities between Thoreau’s reasons for wanting to move to the little house and the reasons why the nests in the woods operate the way they do. As Thoreau is famously quoted, from Walden:
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
Anyway, there’s a little behind-the-scenes jazz for ya.
So as I mentioned last week, I am coming up close on Heroes Con, which takes place in Charlotte, NC from June 4-6! I’ll be there with all my books and stuff, and I’ll have a special Freewheel print available there (if it arrives on time), but best of all, I’ll have a series of $10 sketches of various superheroes and villains farting! Last week I showed you my MODOK sketch, this week I’ll share some of my other favorites, such as Aquaman:
(click the image to see the entire Flickr set of all my farting heroes and villains for Heroes Con!)
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Freewheel: Volume One is now available in both standard (unsigned) and Artist Edition (signed with a sketch)! Get it now at the Trading Post! DON’T FORGET, USE THE COUPON CODE COMPUTERDISASTER TO GET 15% OFF EVERYTHING IN THE STORE! I recently had a very expensive accident in which my laptop was smashed and I had to purchase a new computer. Help me not go into further crushing debt by purchasing something from the store!
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Donate any amount and receive a free desktop wallpaper!
Welcome to the Contessa’s Lair! There certainly are a lot of… cats… aren’t there?
Hey guess what? I’m finally offering donation incentives! Not one, but TWO donation incentives! Here’s the deal – if you donate any amount at all via the little “donate” button in the right sidebar you’ll automatically be redirected to a page where you can download various resolutions of the following desktop background:
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!
For every $100 raised, I’ll post a new page of a 13-page Freewheel short story on the topic of the Raids of ’65 (offhandedly mentioned here) starring none other than Young George and Fingerfoot! The computer I had to buy to replace my smashed laptop cost $1300 after taxes and everything, so I’m hoping this will help me pay off the debt incurred by this expensive but necessary purchase.
Current amount raised: $25
Amount to raise before first page is revealed: $75
Chart the progress on the brand new Fables of Freewheel page!
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Freewheel: Volume One is now available in both standard (unsigned) and Artist Edition (signed with a sketch)! Get it now at the Trading Post! DON’T FORGET, USE THE COUPON CODE COMPUTERDISASTER TO GET 15% OFF EVERYTHING IN THE STORE! I recently had a very expensive accident in which my laptop was smashed and I had to purchase a new computer. Help me not go into further crushing debt by purchasing something from the store!
Holy crap, what is happening? It’s the Contessa! IT’S THE CONTESSA!!!
So as you probably know from all the farting superheroes I’ve been drawing, I’ll be at Heroes Con next weekend! Usually a lot of people are looking to get sketches at shows like Heroes, so I wanted to extend the offer for pre-ordered sketches to those interested parties. My prices are pretty reasonable, and I can pretty much guarantee that anything I do ahead of time will be like 500% better than anything I’ll draw on the spot at the convention, so if you are even vaguely considering getting a sketch at the con, I highly recommend pre-ordering.
The prices start at $10 for a small (5.5×7″) single figure B&W ink sketch and $15 for a large (11×14″) single figure B&W sketch. Prices go up based on complexity and number of figures. It’s $5 per additional figure, more if you want some kind of complex background. Just email me at liz (at) lizbaillie (dot) com with the subject heading “Heroes Con Sketch Pre-order” and tell me what you want me to do! You can even pay at the con! How convenient!
Once again, I am still accepting donations to help cover the cost of the new computer I had to buy to replace the one that was smashed irreparably. All donations receive a free desktop wallpaper AND for every $100 I raise, I’ll post a page of a new 13-page Freewheel side story I’ve been working on. It’s called The Raids of ’65 and covers all kinds of stuff hinted at in the main Freewheel storyline. Check on the progress of the donations at the Fables of Freewheel page. Currently we have only $75 left to raise before the first page is posted! All donation levels are very much appreciated – give what you wish!
I’m planning on doing a series of these short stories and eventually either making minicomics out of them or collecting them into a book of their own, so even if you don’t donate, they will eventually see the light of day, but not for a very, very long time.
Chart the progress on the brand new Fables of Freewheel page!
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Freewheel: Volume One is now available in both standard (unsigned) and Artist Edition (signed with a sketch)! Get it now at the Trading Post! DON’T FORGET, USE THE COUPON CODE COMPUTERDISASTER TO GET 15% OFF EVERYTHING IN THE STORE! I recently had a very expensive accident in which my laptop was smashed and I had to purchase a new computer. Help me not go into further crushing debt by purchasing something from the store!
Holy crap, it’s the Contessa! Like, really for real, the Contessa! She sure does have a lot of cats, eh?
So as you probably know from all the farting superheroes I’ve been drawing, I’ll be at Heroes Con this weekend! Usually a lot of people are looking to get sketches at shows like Heroes, so I wanted to extend the offer for pre-ordered sketches to those interested parties. My prices are pretty reasonable, and I can pretty much guarantee that anything I do ahead of time will be like 500% better than anything I’ll draw on the spot at the convention, so if you are even vaguely considering getting a sketch at the con, I highly recommend pre-ordering.
The prices start at $10 for a small (5.5×7″) single figure B&W ink sketch and $15 for a large (11×14″) single figure B&W sketch. Prices go up based on complexity and number of figures. It’s $5 per additional figure, more if you want some kind of complex background. Just email me at liz (at) lizbaillie (dot) com with the subject heading “Heroes Con Sketch Pre-order” and tell me what you want me to do! You can even pay at the con! How convenient!
Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll have the Freewheel prints in time for Heroes… they said when I ordered them that they’d SHIP by May 29th, but they only just BILLED me on May 29th, so with the holiday weekend and all there’s no chance they’ll arrive by Tuesday, and I’m leaving Wednesday. Oh well… they’ll be available to pick up online after I get home I guess!
HOWEVER… I *will* have a limited number of button packs for the new Freewheel Hobo Symbol buttons I just got! Right now I only have four packs but I may be able to make a few more. Not that many though, so if you want one, be sure and pick one up at Heroes! I’ll have them for sale online eventually, but it might be a while.
(From left to right, the buttons mean okay/alright, keep quiet, you can camp here, and good road to follow)
ALSO AT HEROES CON – me, Ken Dahl and MK Reed will be performing our LAST PUNCHBUGGY TOUR PERFORMANCE EVER (probably)! We’ll be going on at 12:30pm on Saturday, not sure of the room yet but I’m sure it’ll be posted in the program! Be sure and check out our unique brand of multimedia comics entertainment! It’s comics, it’s music, it’s ridiculous! Check it out if you’re at Heroes!
I’ll also be doing FREE random hobo name generation at my table (most likely by making you roll a d20 and comparing it to a secret list) and making up name tags for them so you can walk around the con with a ridiculous name tag that says “Frankie Beans” on it.
I am still accepting donations to help cover the cost of the new computer I had to buy to replace the one that was smashed irreparably. All donations receive a free desktop wallpaper AND for every $100 I raise, I’ll post a page of a new 13-page Freewheel side story I’ve been working on. It’s called The Raids of ‘65 and covers all kinds of stuff hinted at in the main Freewheel storyline. Check on the progress of the donations at the Fables of Freewheel page. Currently we have only $55 left to raise before the first page is posted! All donations are very much appreciated – give what you wish!
I’m planning on doing a series of these short stories and eventually either making minicomics out of them or collecting them into a book of their own, so even if you don’t donate, they will eventually see the light of day, but not for a very, very long time.
Chart the progress on the brand new Fables of Freewheel page!
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Freewheel: Volume One is now available in both standard (unsigned) and Artist Edition (signed with a sketch)! Get it now at the Trading Post! DON’T FORGET, USE THE COUPON CODE COMPUTERDISASTER TO GET 15% OFF EVERYTHING IN THE STORE! I recently had a very expensive accident in which my laptop was smashed and I had to purchase a new computer. Help me not go into further crushing debt by purchasing something from the store!
The Contessa speaks only in cursive. If you want to find out how that sounds, well… I can’t help you. Just imagine the most soothing, calming voice you’ve ever heard in your life, times ten. Like ice cream if it was somehow EVEN BETTER.
So today I’m on the road en route to Heroes Con! I’ll be in the Indie Island section at table AA-427 in the back next to my fellow Punchbuggy Players (the actual map is HUGE as it is a huge convention, so this is just the Indie Island section):
Here’s a short list of some stuff that I’ll have on hand:
-FREE Hobo Name Generator! Roll a d20 twice and I’ll give you your hobo name! Comes on a neat “Hello My Name Is…” badge and everything!
-Copies of Freewheel: Volume One, as well as My Brain Hurts volumes 1 & 2!
-Hobo Symbol Button Packs for $5 each!
-Pre-drawn farting superhero sketches for $10 each! (click the link to see all the sketches I’ll have for sale)
-I’ll also be doing sketches on demand! $10 for a small (5.5×7″) or $15 for a large (11×14″) black and white ink and pencil sketch.
-ALSO – be sure and catch the very last ever Punchbuggy Tour performance at 12:30pm on Saturday! Music + comics + Powerpoint = entertainment!
You will also very easily find me at this particular Dairy Queen out by the airport as many nights as I can convince my friends to go with me. I just love the retro 50′s design of the place, combined with the ridiculous phallic ice cream display:
Though this is more what I’ll look like once I get there:
Anyway, Heroes Con is this weekend in Charlotte, NC! You should totally come!
I am still accepting donations to help cover the cost of the new computer I had to buy to replace the one that was smashed irreparably. All donations receive a free desktop wallpaper AND for every $100 I raise, I’ll post a page of a new 13-page Freewheel side story I’ve been working on. It’s called The Raids of ‘65 and covers all kinds of stuff hinted at in the main Freewheel storyline. Check on the progress of the donations at the Fables of Freewheel page. Currently we have only $55 left to raise before the first page is posted! All donations are very much appreciated – give what you wish!
I’m planning on doing a series of these short stories and eventually either making minicomics out of them or collecting them into a book of their own, so even if you don’t donate, they will eventually see the light of day, but not for a very, very long time.
Chart the progress on the brand new Fables of Freewheel page!
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Freewheel: Volume One is now available in both standard (unsigned) and Artist Edition (signed with a sketch)! Get it now at the Trading Post! DON’T FORGET, USE THE COUPON CODE COMPUTERDISASTER TO GET 15% OFF EVERYTHING IN THE STORE! I recently had a very expensive accident in which my laptop was smashed and I had to purchase a new computer. Help me not go into further crushing debt by purchasing something from the store!
Ah, the Contessa is so comforting… if only everyone could have a Contessa in their life! Too bad she can never stay too long, but then again, she’s always there when you need her the most!
So today I am here in Charlotte, NC at Heroes Con! I’m at table AA-427 so come say hi if you’re in the neighborhood! Here’s a map of where I and some of my friends from the Punchbuggy Tour will be located:
I’ll have all kinds of cool stuff on hand, like a FREE Hobo Name Generator, Freewheel and My Brain Hurts books, Hobo Symbol Button Packs, and farting superhero sketches! I’ll also be doing a reading/performance with my friends from the Punchbuggy Tour at 12:30pm on Saturday (tomorrow!). It will be the LAST EVER PUNCHBUGGY SHOW so you should come check it out! It’s music, it’s comics, it’s entertainment, but most of all it’s free!
Me and some of my friends have been camping out for this convention, both for fun and a change of pace as well as to save a ton of money (camping is mad cheap, yo!). I’ve never been camping before except in a cabin, so this is all totally new to me! Hopefully I’ll have some photos to show you guys when I get back home. Four cartoonists in the woods!
I’m kind of obsessed with woods and mountains and nature and whatnot (as you maybe can tell from Freewheel, duh) but I’m really a city girl at heart; after all, it’s where I was born and raised and it’s probably where I’ll grow old and die. As much as I’d like to think of myself as a hearty outdoorswoman, this is more like the reality:
Fun story: when I was 11 my family took a vacation to Cape Cod and we rented this cool old house. Thing of it was, the house was full of bugs. There were bugs everywhere! I mean it was kind of in the woods so, duh, but I wasn’t used to it. My older brother decided one day to convince me all the little bits and bobs on the ceiling and floors (which were most likely dirt of chipped paint) were BUGS and I flipped out so hard I locked myself in the car and threatened to drive myself home.
But hell, I’m 30 years old now! I can handle a few bugs! Maybe…
I am still accepting donations to help cover the cost of the new computer I had to buy to replace the one that was smashed irreparably. All donations receive a free desktop wallpaper AND for every $100 I raise, I’ll post a page of a new 13-page Freewheel side story I’ve been working on. It’s called The Raids of ‘65 and covers all kinds of stuff hinted at in the main Freewheel storyline. Check on the progress of the donations at the Fables of Freewheel page. Currently we have only $55 left to raise before the first page is posted! All donations are very much appreciated – give what you wish!
I’m planning on doing a series of these short stories and eventually either making minicomics out of them or collecting them into a book of their own, so even if you don’t donate, they will eventually see the light of day, but not for a very, very long time.
Chart the progress on the brand new Fables of Freewheel page!
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Freewheel: Volume One is now available in both standard (unsigned) and Artist Edition (signed with a sketch)! Get it now at the Trading Post! DON’T FORGET, USE THE COUPON CODE COMPUTERDISASTER TO GET 15% OFF EVERYTHING IN THE STORE! I recently had a very expensive accident in which my laptop was smashed and I had to purchase a new computer. Help me not go into further crushing debt by purchasing something from the store!
Hey does that hillscape look familiar to you guys at all?
Welp, today I’m on the road home after another great year at Charlotte, NC’s own Heroes Con! I’ll tell you all about it once I get back, but for now, just enjoy today’s comic! I’ll have all the new stuff up for sale in the store shortly and I’ll regale you with all my tales from the con on Wednesday, after I’ve had a chance to, oh I don’t know, sleep for a few straight days!
I am still accepting donations to help cover the cost of the new computer I had to buy to replace the one that was smashed irreparably. All donations receive a free desktop wallpaper AND for every $100 I raise, I’ll post a page of a new 13-page Freewheel side story I’ve been working on. It’s called The Raids of ‘65 and covers all kinds of stuff hinted at in the main Freewheel storyline. Check on the progress of the donations at the Fables of Freewheel page. Currently we have only $55 left to raise before the first page is posted! All donations are very much appreciated – give what you wish!
I’m planning on doing a series of these short stories and eventually either making minicomics out of them or collecting them into a book of their own, so even if you don’t donate, they will eventually see the light of day, but not for a very, very long time.
Chart the progress on the brand new Fables of Freewheel page!
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Freewheel: Volume One is now available in both standard (unsigned) and Artist Edition (signed with a sketch)! Get it now at the Trading Post! DON’T FORGET, USE THE COUPON CODE COMPUTERDISASTER TO GET 15% OFF EVERYTHING IN THE STORE! I recently had a very expensive accident in which my laptop was smashed and I had to purchase a new computer. Help me not go into further crushing debt by purchasing something from the store!
Jamie, meet Fleapie! Fleapie, meet Jamie! Fun fact: the character of Fleapie is actually Mario Gonzalez of Wyliman! He purchased the Mayor of Hobotown denomination when I was doing the fundraiser to print the Freewheel: Volume One books and as a result, he got his face in the comic AND he got to name himself! He picked the name Fleapie, which you see in today’s update!
Okay, so over the last weekend I was in Charlotte, NC at Heroes Con so I suppose I should give you the full con report, eh? Well okay then!
It took us two days to get down there from Brooklyn, and I was traveling with my buddies Sally Bloodbath, Matt Wiegle and Gabby “Ken Dahl” Schulz. We started last Wednesday and made a pit stop to stay overnight at Matt’s parents’ house in Virginia, which was exactly halfway to Charlotte. Otherwise, It would’ve been like a 12 hour trip, which would have been hard!
The next day we got in the car and kept moving on to Charlotte, where we picked up a bunch of food to grill and checked in at our campsite at the McDowell Nature Preserve, as we all decided to go camping there instead of staying in an expensive hotel. We set up the tent, munched our munchables, and went to bed.
On Friday began HEROES CON! Most of the weekend seemed kind of slow, but in the end I managed to surpass my financial benchmark of “okay show” to “good show!” so that was pretty awesome. There were a lot of awesome people in costumes, and lots of really cute kids in costumes! Everyone was super nice and I generally had a great time!
Heroes Con was my first convention using my new Hobo Name Generator, which is basically a d20 that I ask people to roll twice and compare their numbers to a secret list I have at the table (I’ll have it at most conventions in the future if you’re dying to test it out!) and then I write the name down on a name badge (which is pre-printed with my url at the bottom) and handed it to them!
I managed to take a lot of photos of people with the hobo name badges, though I didn’t get any pictures during really busy periods and I also didn’t take any pictures of kids with the badges (because you never know where photos on the internet will end up and I didn’t want to take any risks.)
Here are some of my favorites from the Heroes Con 2010 Hobo Name Flickr Set:
For more Hobo Names check out the full Flickr set!
The whole Hobo Name Generator thing turned out to be so popular, I ran out of name tags before Saturday was even over! I couldn’t find more nametags before the con opened on Sunday but I still let people roll and told them their name even though I couldn’t give them a cool badge. Next time I am bringing twice as many badges! Thanks to everybody who came by the table and got a badge, especially if I took your picture!
Heroes Con weekend also marked the final, last-ever Punchbuggy Tour show, which we did during the day at the convention on Saturday. It’s only been a few days and already I miss playing my ukulele while reading comics aloud!
On Friday and Saturday night we all went out to eat dinner and even got to go to my favorite Dairy Queen (though sadly I didn’t take any pictures of that). On Sunday night we all went to the official afterparty at the Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find comic shop (which puts together the convention). Here is a cute picture of MK Reed and Sally Bloodbath avoiding the torrential downpour in an adorable fashion:
Even though it was raining we decided to take out the weekend by roasting marshmallows at the campsite, which we went to do as soon as it stopped raining. Here’s Gabby and Sally roasting ‘mallows as Matt supervises:
After we had our fill of graham crackers, chocolate and marshmallows we all hit the hay and got up early the next day to make the long, long trip home, this time all in one shot. Before we left though, I made a little video of what the campsite looked like for those of you who may be considering this very same money-saving tactic at a convention in the future:
All in all, it was a great weekend! Thanks to Dustin Harbin for setting it up and inviting us down! I would actually TOTALLY go camping for Heroes Con next year if I get the chance. It was super fun and not all that uncomfortable – the showers at the campsite were really nice too, so even that wasn’t a problem!
I am still accepting donations to help cover the cost of the new computer I had to buy to replace the one that was smashed irreparably. All donations receive a free desktop wallpaper AND for every $100 I raise, I’ll post a page of a new 13-page Freewheel side story I’ve been working on. It’s called The Raids of ‘65 and covers all kinds of stuff hinted at in the main Freewheel storyline. Check on the progress of the donations at the Fables of Freewheel page. Currently we have only $55 left to raise before the first page is posted! All donations are very much appreciated – give what you wish!
I’m planning on doing a series of these short stories and eventually either making minicomics out of them or collecting them into a book of their own, so even if you don’t donate, they will eventually see the light of day, but not for a very, very long time.
Chart the progress on the brand new Fables of Freewheel page!
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- – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – -
Freewheel: Volume One is now available in both standard (unsigned) and Artist Edition (signed with a sketch)! Get it now at the Trading Post! DON’T FORGET, USE THE COUPON CODE COMPUTERDISASTER TO GET 15% OFF EVERYTHING IN THE STORE! I recently had a very expensive accident in which my laptop was smashed and I had to purchase a new computer. Help me not go into further crushing debt by purchasing something from the store!
Welcome to the Hub City! Well, technically anyway. You’ll get to see the whole big Hub City spread on Monday!
For those who missed it, I posted a big ol’ Heroes Con recap on Wednesday including all the pictures of people’s hobo names that I took. The hobo names photo collection can be seen in this Flickr set, among them such classics as Filthy Frank:
Speaking of hobos! Guess what’s on sale in the store now that debuted at Heroes Con? Well if you guessed it was the Hobo Symbol Button Packs, you are correct! The Hobo Symbol Button Packs are now available in the store! An excellent accessory for time traveling back to early 2oth century America! Now you’ll know what all those hobo symbols down by the tracks mean, because you’ll have them handily pinned to your person!
Also new to the store are all the leftover sketches of farting superheroes from Heroes Con! Some may have even sold out by the time I type this, so don’t be surprised if the one you wanted is gone by the time you click here!
I am totally stoked for two reasons this weekend! Today I am trekking upwards to Boston to go see the Vroom Vroom Vespa Tour, which I had to miss during its NYC-area stops because I was at Heroes Con! The Vroom Vroom Vespa Tour is a super rad acoustic tour including several various musicians but most notably Greg Attonito, the singer for my very most favorite band, the Bouncing Souls, as well as his wife Shanti Wintergate, who is a singer/songwriter whose music I also enjoy quite a bit. I’m just going up for a quickie and coming back to NYC late tonight, but still – I enjoy any and all sort of traveling-related adventure! It’s also the last show of the tour, so it should be a good one! Wish me luck on the Chinatown bus tonight!
Oh! By the way, I am still trying to raise money to replace my smashed computer by offering a special 13-page Freewheel side story through the new Fables of Freewheel project. I am only $55 away from posting the first page and let me tell you, the story is pretty rad. It covers the Raids of ’65, which were hinted at in Chapter Two, and answers all kinds of questions! Also, if you donate any amount, you get a free wallpaper!
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Hey, I’ve got a new store! Well, it’s got the same stuff in it, but I’m using a newer, better storefront provider that’s easier to navigate. Check it out!
We’re finally here! Welcome to Hub City! This is where nest members go to trade goods and services for other goods and services from members of nests all over the place! On this the internet version you can actually make out a bit more on the sides of the page than in the book, which had to be cropped a bit. My personal favorite is the lady in the SAUSAGES hat – I can only hope someone comes up to me at a con with a homemade SAUSAGES hat someday!
I probably already mentioned this, but I redid the store again! I am now using a different service which (as far as I know) does not require that you sign up for a special account with them to buy stuff, which my old service did. I still have but a mere TWO (of the original ten) farting superheroes sketches left! Last chance to get farting Ben Grimm for only ten bucks! Snatch it up before somebody else does!
I’ve also still got those handy dandy Hobo Symbol Button Packs in stock – only a few left! Perfect for the time travelers in your life!
Did you know I have one of those Formspring thingies? Feel free to go on there and ask me any ol’ anonymous question if you’re feeling bored! It’s kind of silly but I don’t know, sometimes it can be fun.
My friend Greg Means took a tiny lil bit of video from my last ever Punchbuggy Tour performance that I did at Heroes Con this year, specifically of me and Gabby rocking the heck out some Mountain Goats on our ukuleles! He didn’t get the whole song, but he got just enough for you to get the idea:
He also took this hilarious blurry picture of me rocking too hard to get a clear shot (with MK‘s bemused head in the background):
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Fables of Freewheel – only $5 away from the first page! Donate today!
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Hey, I’ve got a new store! Well, it’s got the same stuff in it, but I’m using a newer, better storefront provider that’s easier to navigate. Check it out!
More Fleapie action in today’s update as he shows Jamie around the Hub City a bit and explains the enigma that is Serenity… or tries to, anyway.
I’ve been reading this book called Free: How Today’s Smartest Businesses Profit by Giving Something For Nothing and it’s pretty interesting! It delves primarily into how people are profiting on the internet by giving away free stuff, and the different models people are using, and how they work. It also goes into a bit of the history of free samples, the origin of the phrase “there’s no such thing as a free lunch” and even how and when humans first began using the number zero (why count something if there’s nothing to count?).
I’m not done with the book yet but it’s pretty interesting from the standpoint of a webcartoonist whose business model is very much built around the concept of giving something away for free (comics!) in the hopes of getting enough of an audience that some of them will buy some stuff from you (books and other merchandise). It’s really an interesting concept, the idea of giving your main content away for free in order to run your business.
If this seems interesting to you, you can actually download an abridged version of the audiobook for free here. I mean, of course they had to have some free version of the book to illustrate the principles outlined in it, and clearly it worked since it’s a NY Times bestseller!
Anyway, I picked it up at the bus station bookstore as I was heading home from Boston this past weekend, as it seemed interesting and applicable to my life and whatnot. It’s pretty good so far, and I definitely recommend at least downloading the free audiobook to try it out! Usually I only listen to audiobooks, as it’s hard to draw and read at the same time, but on this rare occasion I actually bought and read the book because I had a very long (5 hour) bus ride ahead of me.
ALSO – I’m only five dollars away from posting the first pages of the Raids of ’65 side story! Check it out! Also I’ve got yet another storefront, it’s easier to navigate, doesn’t require a special account like the old one, and has a bunch of new awesome stuff in it!
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Fables of Freewheel – only $5 away from the first page! Donate today!
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Goodbye, Fleapie! Hello, Serenity! We’ve heard so much about her by now, let’s see what she’s all about!
Guess what? The first page of the Raids of ’65 side story has been funded so it is now up in the Fables of Freewheel section. If you’d like to see the second of the 13 total pages, donate any amount and once the total reaches $50, I’ll post the next page! I’m currently $47 away from posting the second page! Check it out! All donations get a free wallpaper as well!
For various reasons, I have to give up my studio space that I share with my friends MK Reed and Matt Wiegle. If you’re interested in renting my part of the studio, it’s in Windsor Terrace (in Brooklyn) by the 15th Street – Prospect Park stop on the F/G lines. It’s $200 a month and includes wi-fi, utilities, a mailbox, and other good stuff. I’m paying for July so if you move in before the end of July, you get that much of the month for free! Email me at liz (at) lizbaillie (dot) com if you’re interested in hearing more details or in seeing the space. It’s a really great space but it just doesn’t make sense for me to keep a studio outside of my house right now.
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That Serenity sure is a surly one, eh? But she seems helpful enough, so Jamie might as well listen to her, right? Right?!?
It’s getting hotter and hotter here in Brooklyn, summer’s here and we can’t avoid it for much longer. Fortunately so far it’s been relatively mild and we haven’t had to put in the air conditioners yet. Last year we went the whole summer without them, just fans, so I’m hoping we can do the same this year. I know it’s only gonna get worse in July and August (the grossest months of the year where everything smells like garbage and urine because it’s so oppressively, suffocatingly hot), so I just have to keep telling myself not to get too used to this!
So those great prints I was going to have ready for Heroes Con that did not arrive in time finally arrived and are now available at the Trading Post! Behold, the limited “Locomotive Dreams” print is now available, all are signed, dated and numbered out of 20 prints, for a mere $10 each!
Also, in case you missed it last week, the first page of the Raids of ’65 side story has been posted over at Fables of Freewheel, so check it out and feel free to donate any amount to help get us that much closer to posting the second page of this story! There are 13 pages total, with a ton of action and other neat stuff! Also, you get a free wallpaper for donating any amount!
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Oh crap, what just happened? Did Serenity just lock Jamie in a closet or something? Nah, she just sent her off into the tunnels. Alone. And on that note, this is the last page of Chapter Five! We start Chapter Six (and with it, Jamie’s descent into the tunnels) on Friday!
So I went to see the Vroom Vroom Vespa Tour at their last stop in Boston recently and they did all kinds of random songs other than songs originally performed by the members’ bands, and one of them was Devil Town, which is a Daniel Johnston song. I’ve known about the existence of Daniel Johnston since I was maybe 14, and a huge Nirvana fan, when Kurt Cobain famously wore a Daniel Johnston shirt in almost all his publicity photos.
For some reason, unlike Fugazi (another band I learned of through Nirvana) I never really searched out Daniel Johnston, though I’ve always known who he was. A few years ago, I rented the documentary the Devil and Daniel Johnston. Here’s the trailer:
Usually when I go out of my way to learn about a musician or band, I really really want to like them. I really wanted to like Daniel Johnston but after watching the documentary, I only found his music more annoying than before, and still could not understand his celebrity (however “cultlike” it may be). It actually was not until I saw the Vroom Vroom Vespa Tour performing Johnston’s song “Devil Town” that I understood, and now I can’t get the dang song out of my head! Here is Daniel Johnston’s version:
And here is the Vroom Vroom Vespa version. It is amazing and I can’t stop watching it and walking around the house humming it. Seriously, you need to listen to this. Maybe you will end up walking around the house humming it to yourself all day too:
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Welcome to Chapter Six, and with it comes the tunnels! This is the very first page that hasn’t been seen by anyone before, in the book or online, as the book only collects the first five chapters.
Welcome to the dog days of summer! I can say with absolute certainty that they are, in fact, here. Right now. In my room. Making me sweat and forcing me to don nothing but a tank top and some weird cheetah-patterned boxer shorts. Not exactly a fashion plate in these months, no sir. For these are not fashion plate months!
However, since it *is* the official “dog days” of summer, let’s check out my actual dogs! I have two.
First up is the first-born, Ginger, a pitbull/boxer mix weighing it at just under 100 lbs who is 8 years young and ready to get petted by your hands. She’s been spending most of her time lounging on the floor in the hallway lately, as it’s been so freakin’ hot and I think it’s the place in the house that gets the least amount of sunlight. My husband Zane and I got Ginger during our first summer as a couple, when Ginger was still just a wee year and a half old. Back then she was a little leaner, and a LOT more excitable. Now she is a pretty chill old girl, getting some joint problems in her middle ages. She still rules though.
Next up is Ollie, a more recent addition to our household as of roughly two Christmases ago. I’d been begging Zane to let us get a second dog for a while, and finally he gave in. I wanted a cute, small fluffy dog and Ollie is what I got! He’s about 30 lbs, a King Charles Cavalier/Brittany Spaniel mix and full of piss and vinegar (literally). We are known to call him “little f*ck*r” on occasion due to his way hyperactive nature, his never-leaving-you-alone-ness, but most especially his habit of pissing on the toilet in the middle of the night from time to time. He does this weird staring thing where he’ll just sit in front of you and STARE. He’s a weirdo. But who could resist this face?
We call him Ollie because he has this jumping thing whenever he gets excited, which is basically any time he sees you do so much as *touch* his leash. It’s really adorable and endearing most of the time. Here is a video I took a while ago (before he got shaved for the summer) of me getting him to jump, which also features a few seconds of Ginger:
We haven’t put in our air conditioners yet so we’ve been getting through these dog days much like our dogs have been – by lying around and not doing much!
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Whoah they sure do have some crazy security up in the tunnels! Who’s behind that door?
Even though I didn’t get to go to the Pride parade this year (we spent this weekend doing a major restructuring of our apartment), I decided to celebrate by offering you guys a 20% discount off EVERYTHING in my store! Just use the code THATSSOGAY at checkout and get 20% off everything! Books, shirts, pins, and more! The code will only be good for the rest of the day today and will be deleted on Tuesday so take advantage of it before it goes away!
My brother’s band is getting a documentary made about them! So cool. I was recently able to sneak a peek at the trailer as the film is being edited by my friend Robin. My brother is the guy who looks just like me but with more facial hair (and if you’ve never met me, well his name is Alec):
Pretty rad! I’ve been a fan of pretty much every band my brother’s been in since he was in high school. Well, except for the really early ones I never got to hear, because I was too young (we have a five year age difference). I still remember when he first learned to play bass and would not stop playing the hook from Walk On the Wild Side!
I am usually pretty cagey about even talking about my brother being in Leftover Crack, because in certain circles they are extremely, INSANELY popular and in the past it’s gotten me into situations I really didn’t want to be in with people treating me differently once they found out I was his sister. Or in at least one case, only became my friend because of that fact, and that sucks. I’ve gotten emails from people who wanted to talk to my brother or Sturgeon and thought I would make a nice messenger, which feels extremely shitty and I never even honor those kinds of emails with a response of any kind.
But it’s hard to not talk about or mention sometimes, because I am really proud of him. So today I’m being a little less cagey, because I wanted to show you the trailer, because I’m really stoked about this movie and can’t wait to see the finished product.
Here’s another YouTube video of Leftover Crack performing probably my favorite song of theirs, and you can even see me standing behind the monitor rocking out with my friend MK (I’m the one with the really short hair). I love this song:
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Who’s that behind the door yelling at poor defenseless little Jamie? She doesn’t know what’s happening, don’t be mad at her!
So as I’ve mentioned before, it’s freaking HOT right now. Because of it being summer and all. One of my favorite things about summer in New York is ice cream trucks, specifically Mister Softee.
The awesome thing about ice cream trucks is you may have some idea of when you’ll see them, but you never REALLY know when one will pop up before your eyes. Some days you can be sitting around wishing for a Mister Softee truck to appear and none materializes, but other days you couldn’t care less and yet you see ten different trucks parked along the sidewalk on the way to work alone! Or maybe that’s just me.
Part of the fun of Mister Softee is trying to find one when you want one, and the magical quality of happening upon one when you least expect it. My personal favorite type of cone to get from the truck is a vanilla/chocolate twist dipped in chocolate and rolled in “chocolate crunchies,” which are kind of like very finely ground Oreo cookies without the “creme” filling. SO GOOD.
Recently I learned of a newer, better, more advanced take on the typical Mister Softee truck called the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck. Unlike Mister Softee, which is virtually everywhere here, there is one and only ONE Big Gay Ice Cream Truck, so if you want to catch it, you have to really hunt for it! It looks pretty similar to a Mister Softee truck, and even serves typical soft serve ice cream, but with all kinds of awesome, unusual, totally delicious toppings like salted dulce de leche, peppermint syrup and cocoa nibs, crushed Nilla wafers or even curried toasted coconut! Once in a while they even have caramelized bacon which they use to make an ice cream sandwich they call the Choinkwich and that you must ask for by name! Bacon makes me ill so I’m not into that one myself, but I hear it’s quite popular!
My personal favorite from their unique menu so far is the Salty Pimp, which is salted dulce de leche on a vanilla cone, dipped in chocolate. YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW GOOD THIS IS. Seriously.
If you’re in the NYC area and want to check out the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck, you can get the minute by minute update on their location by following their Twitter feed. Unless you want to go wandering around asking strangers where the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck is. (I don’t)
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Say hello to Frankie and Kenny, the keepers at the Hub City entrance to the tunnels. Fun fact: Frankie and Kenny are (sort of ) named after my neighbors’ dogs, Frankie and Mackenzie. Mackenzie is commonly called just “Kenzie” so I changed it to “Kenny.” Frankie has passed away, but when he was alive he was a big, dumb, sweetheart of a brown pitbull. He looked very much like my own dog Ginger, except Ginger is brindle in color (kind of like brown and red tiger stripes). Kenzie is a smaller, stocky kind of traditional pit bull who freaks out and barks at everything and is very excitable. I tried to make Frankie and Kenny similar to their namesakes in nature, which will unfold a bit more as this scene progresses.
I’ve recently gotten into Ustreaming my inking sessions live on the internet while I listen to records. I recently got a new webcam and since I’ve moved my drawing setup to my home studio, I can very easily live stream my inking sessions and you can come visit and ask me questions and judge my musical taste and whatnot, if you catch me while I’m live. If you want to keep abreast of when I’ll be Ustreaming in the future, follow my Twitter feed! That’s the main place I’ll be announcing them as they happen.
Here’s what the most recent one looked like:
If you’re lucky maybe you can even catch me singing along to something totally off key! It’s fun for the whole family!
I’ll be away from this Saturday until late Wednesday night, drawing comics at the beach where the internet fears to tread, so my updates next week will be sparse. The comics will still be up at their appointed times, but there won’t be too much in this here blog section.
This is what my next five days will look like:
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Jeez, I hope she doesn’t lose her fragment!
I just got back from my awesome beach vacation on Wednesday night, so let the return of the blog commence!
I am quite honored to be the guest artist at Partyka for the month of July, and you can check out my gallery,”Hidden Treasures and Secret Worlds,” right here. It features a selection of sketches and drawings from various projects I’ve been involved in, including some little-seen work inspired by one of my favorite books of all-time, Stone Butch Blues.
It also features some sketches from three days I spent on tour with my favorite band, the Bouncing Souls, last year. Check it out!
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Fables of Freewheel – $47 till the next page goes up!
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Uh-oh, looks like the walls are coming alive! Or something…
Have you seen this video of somebody’s version of Conan the Barbarian the Musical? It’s pretty funny. It actually gets stuck in my head! CROM!!!!!
I actually really enjoy listening to the *real* Conan the Barbarian soundtrack when I’m doing thumbnails or pencils or other work that requires my absolute focus, and it’s hard to do that with music that has words. So I usually opt for the Conan soundtrack! It makes everything seem much more heroic.
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Fables of Freewheel – $47 till the next page goes up!
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It looks like Jamie’s being followed by… something! Could it be the Darkness? Or is it something else entirely?
Speaking of the Darkness, which if you’ve been paying attention you’ll have noticed is the main “bad guy” of the comic so far. The Darkness was actually inspired in part by a song by my favorite band, the Bouncing Souls, called Gone. Many characteristics of the Darkness as it exists in the Freewheel universe are described in the song, but don’t worry – you won’t get any spoilers by listening! Here’s the video:
As some of you already know, I am just a wee bit obsessed with the Bouncing Souls, and even drew a minicomic (which is available in the store, hint hint!) all about it back in 2008 called Sing Along Forever.
Through the act of drawing this comic and sharing it with the band, I slowly grew to be friends with them and eventually even ended up traveling with them on tour last year for a few days! Pretty much a dream come true for a big fan like me, though I gotta say as time passes and I have more and more interactions with them, I get less nervous and more comfortable, which is an odd feeling.
At the peak of these experiences I’ve had with the Souls might be the reading of Sing Along Forever I did last summer at Bergen Street Comics here in Brooklyn. I read from the comic and afterward, the Souls played a short acoustic set in the store. During my reading, Greg (the singer) even did the voices for not only his parts, but also all the speaking parts for the rest of the band! It was pretty awesome.
Anyway, this past weekend I rode up to Hartford, CT to see the Souls at the Warped Tour up there with some friends and gave a copy of the Freewheel book to Bryan (the bass player), telling him that there was a “minor Bouncing Souls reference” in it. I wonder if he’ll figure out that it’s the Darkness?
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Fables of Freewheel – $47 till the next page goes up!
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Dang, what the heck is happening in that tunnel? Everything’s gone crazy!
So as I’m sure most of you have heard, Harvey Pekar passed away this week. He was an incredibly influential figure in comics and his death, despite his 70 years of age, was quite a shock for most of us. I think I really believed he would be around forever, being cranky and writing comics.
Inspired in part by Pekar, I drew this two-page story Record Collecting and the Cartoonist Tradition about my personal history of how I got started collecting records, and its connection to the history of underground/alternative comics. I posted it on Twitter first, but now I’m posting it here to show you as well. Click the images to see them bigger.
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Fables of Freewheel – $47 till the next page goes up!
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Oh man that is MESSED UP. That thing is just crazy! I’m glad I don’t have to go exploring those tunnels, because that thing is scary as all get-out!
I’ve got nothing of import to talk to you about today, so in lieu of any particular topic, I bring you Adorable Animal Videos:
Here is a tiny teacup pig playing a tiny toy piano (watch out for the part where he munches on a biscuit. So cute!):
A snoring pit bull with a baby bunny on his head:
And finally, because I’m really a dog person at heart, here are some pug puppies at play (keep an ear out for some really cute noises at the end):
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Fables of Freewheel – $47 till the next page goes up!
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Run, Jamie! RUN! How is she gonna get out of this?!?
Coming up soon on Sunday August 8th is the Philadelphia Alternative Comic Con and I’m gonna be there, with all my comics and prints and whatnot. How about you? You should totally RSVP via this Facebook invite! Click the poster to see it big:
I’m also very stoked because one of my favorite bands, Defiance, Ohio came out with a new album! You can download it for free from their site! I really like their new album, here is one of my favorite songs from it, called “Hair Pool.” Watching this video of them all playing it together is like watching what’s great about playing music with other people. It makes me want to go out in the street and start recruiting for a band! That guy playing the shakers is SO STOKED. It rules.
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Fables of Freewheel – $47 till the next page goes up!
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Fun fact: Wrigley, one of the keepers in this scene (identified by name on this page) is named after Alex Robinson‘s dog Wrigley. For some reason, after I named the last two keepers Frankie and Kenny after my neighbors’ dogs, I decided to keep up the trend and name all the keepers after people’s pets. My Wrigley is far and away less cute than Alex’s Wrigley though; I mean, could you really say no to this face?
Alex is also a co-host (along with the inimitable Mike Dawson, who does not have a dog for me to name a keeper after that I know of) of the Ink Panthers podcast, which I was a guest on not too long ago. It’s a pretty good podcast if you like having something funny to listen to while you draw or do other things. I recently voluntarily turned off NPR in favor of the Ink Panthers podcast. Since it sometimes seems like it’s illegal for cartoonists to NOT listen to NPR, I would think that is a high compliment for the Ink Panthers!
Apparently Alex has become known as the “pug guy” because of Wrigley, as when I sent him a link to this video of a pug singing the Batman theme song, he claimed he had already had several friends post it on his Facebook page! Damn! It’s a funny video though, if a little disconcerting:
ALSO – I recently received a handful of very, very kind donations from well-wishers after I shared on Twitter some recent sad news about my dog Ginger (short version: she’s very, very sick. Terminally ill, really.), and some very expensive emergency tests she had to have done this week. The total for the tests alone came out to over $1k, and some people wanted to know how they could help, so I pointed them towards the donation button! For every $50 I receive in donations, I’ll post an additional page of the Fables of Freewheel side story, the Raids of ’65, and currently there are 3 pages in the queue thanks to these kind donations! I’ll be posting a new page from that side story once a week for the next 3 weeks (or more if I receive more donations – the button is on the right hand side of the page there —->).
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Fables of Freewheel – (3 pages in the queue!) $47 to add another page to the queue!
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Welcome to the official 100th update of Freewheel! Let’s celebrate with more tunnel action with Jamie and these two keepers!
But more than that, let’s celebrate with a nice big SALE in the ol’ store! Use the code BIG100 to get a big 50% off everything in the store! The sale will continue throughout the week to celebrate 100 updates of Freewheel! Also, as a bonus incentive, every order will get something extra thrown in the envelope! It might be a screenprinted card, it might be a button pack, it might be a minicomic… order something and find out!
ALSO: a new page of the Raids of ’65 side story has gone up! Check it out here! I received some very generous donations recently due to my dog’s skyrocketing vet bills (short version: she’s very sick and they can’t quite figure out what’s wrong, one vet told us she definitely had terminal cancer while over the weekend another said it might be something else) and since for every $50 I get, I post another page of the story, there are two more pages left in the queue. Only $32 to add another page to the queue! I’ll post the new pages on Mondays! Donate here!
I’ll be at the Philadelphia Alternative Comic Con on August 11th! If you’re in the area I hope you’ll come say hi! I’ll be selling all my regular stuff, plus an assortment of $1 and $2 minicomics I’ve been trying to get rid of!
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Fables of Freewheel – (2 pages in the queue!) $32 to add another page to the queue!
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Today we learn more about the nature of fragments! Apparently they are supposed to be broken? Well, according to Wrigley, anyway…
The big 50% off sale is still going on in my store for the rest of the week to celebrate the 100th update of Freewheel this past Monday! Everything is 50% with the code BIG100 at checkout! I feel like Crazy Eddie, who you may remember if you grew up in the New York area in the 80′s, like I did. His prices are….IIIINSAAAAANE!
Apparently there was a big scandal that put the original Crazy Eddie’s out of business because of all kinds of fraudulent business practices and the real-life “Crazy” Eddie Antar fled the country using a fake passport! IIIIINSAAAAANE! According to the internet, somebody re-started it in some form in 2009, but it’s just not the same without those corny TV ads!
Do you know what I haven’t seen a commercial for in ages? Douches.
No, not THAT kind of douche! And not the French word for “shower,” either! This kind, where a mom and her daughter have a very vague talk whilst on a boat sailing nowhere in particular:
I guess it probably helps that it’s long since been proven that douching is bad for women, kind of like how you never see commercials on TV for cigarettes. Actually I don’t think I remember EVER seeing a commercial for cigarettes… but YouTube has naturally bestowed on me evidence to the contrary. For example, did you know that the Flintstones original sponsor was Winston cigarettes? Yup, and I offer this ad as proof. Crazy, insane, almost unbelievably ridiculous proof:
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Fables of Freewheel – (2 pages in the queue!) $32 to add another page to the queue!
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It’s the very last page of Chapter Six! On Monday we’ll begin Chapter Seven, and with it a TOTALLY INSANE DREAM SEQUENCE. Well okay it’s not “totally insane” but it is kind of funky. I hope that’s not a spoiler…
This weekend is the very first Pete’s Mini Zine Fest in Brooklyn, and I might go. I was thinking about it, and though I have a crap ton of work to get done… they DO have $2 pints of Yuengling, which is probably my most favorite beer, soooo I might go after all! I didn’t even realize until last fall when I was in the midwest that Yuengling is kind of a regional beer of the northeast area of the U.S. Someone asked me what kind of beer I wanted and when I said “Yuengling” they laughed at me and told me I wasn’t in Pennsylvania!
“Yuengling” is pronounced “ying-ling.” Just an FYI if you are thinking of trying to order it at your local bar or neighborhood pub this evening.
Yuengling was the first beer I ever tasted that made me realize beer could actually taste good and wasn’t necessarily just there to get me drunk, like the Midnight Dragon (RIP) and assorted flavored malt beverages I frequently imbibed as a youth.
The other favorite was St. Ides Special Brew, which was (I’m guessing) as close as the company could come to marketing to kids and teenagers without crossing over into the infamous flavored malt beverage ice pops territory. Yup, back when I was a teenager there existed frozen ice pops that had booze in them. Of course, we only heard tell of them – the neighborhood delis that sold alcohol to minors did not keep these things in stock (and smartly so – it seems the few stores that did stock them were swiftly reprimanded for selling to minors). But believe me, among my friends, these boozey pops were the stuff of legend. They were the holy grail of hootch.
ANYWAY. Yuengling is a very tasty beer, and now that I am too old to give a shit about getting wasted on candy flavored booze, I can appreciate the merit of such a thing. And only $2 a pint at Pete’s Mini Zine Fest this Saturday!
OH! I almost forgot - the big 50% off sale is still going on in the store! It’s going until Sunday! Just enter the code BIG100 at checkout to get 50% off your entire order! GO GO GO!
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Fables of Freewheel – (2 pages in the queue!) $32 to add another page to the queue!
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Welcome to Chapter Seven and welcome to the DREAM SEQUENCE. I probably shouldn’t even mention that it is a dream sequence because there is a chance that some people did not figure it out and feel like now I have spoiled it for them. Oh well. Sorry. I will leave it a mystery as to who is doing the talking, though. I’ll let you figure that one out on your own.
There’s a new Raids of ’65 page up today, by the way! Read it here! Another page is in the queue to be posted next Monday, and then after that I will need to get some more donations to post the following page. Currently I am $32 away from adding another page to the queue! Donate here!
I’ve probably already mentioned that this Sunday is the Philadelphia Alternative Comic Con and that I’ll be there, but it doesn’t hurt to mention it again! It will be held at the Rotunda (4014 Walnut st.) on August 8 from 12-6pm. The entry fee is a sliding scale from $3-10 depending on what you want to give or can afford.
I am also in the PACC anthology! I have a two page comic in it about record collecting (I posted it here before at some point recently). It will also have comics from the likes of Box Brown, Sally Bloodbath, Matt Wiegle and L. Nichols, among other. Here is what the cover looks like:
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Fables of Freewheel – (1 page in the queue!) $32 to add another page to the queue!
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More dream sequence! I don’t have much to comment on, I mean it’s a dream sequence! How much can I really say?
Just the other day I received a package in the mail from my buds at Microcosm Publishing, and inside was the brand spankin’ new gigantic SCAM Anthology they just put out! When I was a teenage punk kid in the 90s I used to hear about the SCAM zine all the time; it was the stuff of legend! I’m not sure when it stopped being produced but I know it was hard enough to find in the mid 90′s (at least for me, I never found it) that you would hear tell of it, like it was the Boo Radley of zines or something.
People would refer to the scams told of in SCAM, tell how they worked or didn’t work, and believe me, if it’s one thing punk kids like doing it’s finding new ways to scam free stuff. When I was younger (I don’t do this anymore) my favorite thing was to order a pizza from this local Domino’s downtown (notorious donators to some questionable organizations, so I never would have bought anything from them anyway) and get it with a ton of ridiculous toppings on it that no one would ever order. We would have it sent to an imaginary apartment across the street from a stoop where we could watch the attempted delivery, and at the end of the day after the shop closed, we would go in and ask if they had any extra pizzas. Lo and behold, the pizza with the crazy toppings would be sitting there for us to consume! The people who worked there were always really nice and gave it to us without any hassle. We would usually eat our fill and then share it with friends or random homeless people we found. Everybody wins!
(Actually, I drew a short two-page “My Brain Hurts” story for the Microcosm anthology 13 Years of Good Luck based around the pizza scam! You can get it for only a BUCK from Microcosm as well!)
Anyway, SCAM was a zine full of stories like that, and now I’m finally getting to read some of them in this great anthology! It’s HUGE and only $13 if you get it from Microcosm. I’ve only read through the first issue’s worth so far, but it’s totally worth it already.
Also awesome: I got this adorable note from my bud Sparky with the package, she works for Microcosm and undoubtedly packed the order (I helped fund their Kickstarter to publish the SCAM antho):
Don’t forget, Philly folks – I’ll be at the Philadelphia Alternative Comic Con this Sunday and I have a two page comic in the PACC anthology, which will be for sale at the con!
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Fables of Freewheel – (1 page in the queue!) $32 to add another page to the queue!
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Today I present to you the last of the dream sequence pages! On Monday our hero shall arise!
Don’t forget – this weekend I’ll be at the Philadelphia Alternative Comic Con at the Rotunda (4014 Walnut St) in Philly on Sunday from 12-6pm! Come and get some comics, prints, buttons, what have yous! I will try my best to have my Hobo Name Generator available as well but I’m not making any promises because I have a lot of other stuff to get done in between now and PACC!
I also may have mentioned that I have a two-page comic in the PACC anthology that will be for sale at the show!
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Fables of Freewheel – (1 page in the queue!) $32 to add another page to the queue!
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Aaaand we’re back to the waking world! They’re gonna let Jamie use the super secret gate! Awesome!
So I went to the Philadelphia Alternative Comic Con yesterday (also known as PACC) and it was pretty rad! It was easy to get down to Philly from NYC so I was able to just drive down with some friends and drive back right after. No hotel room costs or major expenditures! I gave away a ton of hobo names and sold a ton of books! Well, not a TON, but enough that I covered my expenses and turned enough of a profit that it was worth a day’s work for me. Which is great!
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Fables of Freewheel – (1 page in the queue!) $32 to add another page to the queue!
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The keepers are getting Jamie ready to travel through the gate! Does any of this seem familiar? It should; the Tony’s Twins from way back in Chapter Three took Jamie through a gate of sorts.
There’s a new page of the Raids of ’65 side story up right here! There’ll be another one up later today! Yee-haw! If you want to see more pages of the Raids of ’65, you can donate right there on the story page!
I’ve been working on a new book collection of a bunch of my older contributions to random anthologies and various unpublished work called Release the Bats! set to come out at SPX this year. For various reasons, I couldn’t post everything that I had, so I put some of it online. Like this old one-pager called Dear Crimpshrine, which you can click to read bigger. It originally appeared in (I think) My Brain Hurts #0.5, which came out in 2001 I think.
It’s pretty hard to read small, which is why I didn’t include it in the book. What can I say, I was just starting out and I didn’t really understand the concept of shrinking pages yet!
Hopefully Release the Bats! will be available at SPX but if not, it’ll be there for NYCC!
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Fables of Freewheel – (1 page in the queue!) $32 to add another page to the queue!
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We are THROUGH THE GATE! I thought this time I’d let you see a little more of what it’s like to pass through the gate instead of being lazy with all black panels. I think it helps convey the whole craziness of going through the gate pretty well.
Moderately big news! I’m hopefully sending the files for Release the Bats! to the printers today to HOPEFULLY get it in time for SPX in September and I finally have a cover image to show you!
AND! It’s available for preorder! Just click here and for ten bucks, it’ll be yours around mid-September! The advantages of preordering are, other than helping me pay to get it printed, your copy will be signed with a small sketch inside! I’m printing a very, VERY small print run of these using POD but it would still be a big help to get some preorders if you know you’re going to buy it anyway.
Release the Bats! is just over 100 pages of rare and unpublished work from the past ten years (mostly the last five) including work that was only seen in small minicomic print runs, or on the internet, or through the Minicomic of the Month Club, and the like. Preorder it today!
And ALSO! There were two new Raids of ’65 pages posted this week! Check em out here and if you want to see more, I’m only about $32 away from the next page!
My comic about record collecting was also just posted on If You Make It this week! If you didn’t see it the first time I posted it here, you can read it for free there!
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Fables of Freewheel – $32 till the next page is posted!
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Another day, another page of travels through the gate with our most recent keeper-pair, Wrigley and Chewbie!
So I know I already told you this on Friday, but it bears repeating that my upcoming book RELEASE THE BATS! is now available for preorder for only ten bucks! RELEASE THE BATS! is a collection of over 100 pages of comics you probably have not seen from the past ten years, mostly anthology pieces, random things I only put on the internet, and stories from the Minicomic of the Month Club. I sent the files to the printer on Friday so will probably get the bill soon, and hopefully have the books in time for SPX in September. Every preorder gets me that much closer to being able to pay the bill so if you plan to buy it anyway, why not consider preordering? Each preordered copy will come signed with a sketch inside!
In other news, my friends Paul and Joe have a musical combo/band/project thing called Zelda and the Unibrows and they just came out with this really hilarious short film starring themselves and set to their own music called Unreason. I highly recommend watching it! If you like it, you can also vote for it on Funny or Die! (I recommend voting “funny”) Knowing them even slightly in real life, it’s pretty funny to watch them act out these exaggerated versions of their own real-life personalities, especially Paul’s naturally misanthropic personality. Check it out!
Zelda and the Unibrows — Unreason from Zelda and the Unibrows on Vimeo.
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Fables of Freewheel – $32 till the next page is posted!
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She’s through the gate! But… what’s that ladder lead to?
So me and Kate Beaton and probably some other people in NYC have decided to run this 5k thing for the Women for Women’s Congo Program. We are seeking donations for the program and you can donate any amount right here to our team – Team Comics! Women for Women is a great charity that is deserving of your money – you can learn more about what they do right here, but basically they help women and girls in war-torn regions who have lost everything to first recover from the trauma they’ve experienced, helping them to build themselves back up and into leadership positions in their villages and actively participate in the process of rebuilding their communities. It’s an awesome cause, and you can donate via the Team Comics fundraising page!
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Fables of Freewheel – $32 till the next page is posted!
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So it turns out that the ladder leads to a little hideout! And guess who’s in that little hideout? That’s right, it’s Serenity from back in Chapter Five! What the hell?
Don’t forget – Release the Bats is still available for preorder! Over 100 pages for only ten bucks, and all preorders come signed with a sketch inside!
Also don’t forget, Kate Beaton, me and some other people are running a 5k to raise money for Women for Women’s Congo program, which helps Congolese women recover from the trauma of war and take leadership positions in the rebuilding of their communities! You can donate to our team, Team Comics, right here! It’s a great cause!
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Fables of Freewheel – $32 till the next page is posted!
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Looks like Serenity may be re-evaluating her general distaste for Jamie! Or y’know… not.
Just this past Sunday I went to an extremely well-attended live recording of the Ink Panthers Podcast at Bergen Street Comics here in Brooklyn. I woke up at 10am and went online to find that it started at 11am, not 1pm as I had thought, so I rushed to get ready and ran out the door!
Even thought Bergen Street is a relatively quick trip on the subway, it’s just close enough (2 miles) that I can walk it in a decent amount of time, so I brought one of my two dogs, Ollie, with me. The show was advertised as “pet-friendly” and I know Alex Robinson brings his dog Wrigley just about everywhere, so I figured bringing Ollie would be a pretty safe bet. The little guy’s getting chunky anyway, so I knew the walk would do him good!
Once I got there, I realized the place was PACKED, and I had just finished walking Ollie through the rain and the mud for two miles, so I gave him some water and let him dry off a little before we went in. It was so full of people that there wasn’t anywhere to sit even only half an hour after the advertised start time! Usually things like this start about half an hour later than advertised, so I figured it probably hadn’t started yet, but boy was I wrong! I didn’t mind standing the entire time but poor fat Ollie had nowhere to lay down! Eventually he just sort of slumped onto the floor in the middle of the aisle and I had to move him every time someone passed by, which I felt a little bad about, but the poor guy was exhausted!
After the show ended, Ollie got plenty of attention from children and adults alike who wanted to pet the adorable fluffy dog, and since getting petted is his favorite thing (second only to snuggling with people on chairs and couches) I think it’s safe to say he had a pretty good time! Once we got home, the total 4-mile walk really tuckered him out, and he went right to sleep.
Team Comics is still collecting donations for our upcoming 5k run to raise money for Women for Women’s Congo program! As I type this we’re up to $825! Let’s get it up to $1000! Donate any amount here!
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Fables of Freewheel – $32 till the next page is posted!
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Is it just me, or does it sometimes seem like everybody loves Ren except for Jamie? In fact, Jamie seems to be the only one so far to have anything negative to say about her at all!
Okay, so remember how I’ve been telling you all about how I’m running with some of my comics friends like Kate Beaton and maybe Sally Bloodbath and some other people to raise money for Women for Women’s Congo Program? Well, in case you forgot, we are all running a 5K on September 25th to raise money for this great program that helps women in war-torn regions recover from the trauma of war and take leadership roles in the rebuilding of their communities. Our team is called Team Comics and as I type this, we’ve raised a jaw-droppingly great amount of $1325! Go team! You can still donate on our team page here if you like.
Anyway, I’m not here to bug you for more money for our race (though you can still give if you like)! I would actually like to call your attention to a different race called the Race for the Cure, which raises money for cancer research. I have some friends from my dojang (Korean word for “dojo,” where I train hapkido) who are running the Race for the Cure this year, so if you were thinking about giving to Team Comics but haven’t yet, feel free to direct your funds towards Warriors Mobilizing Against Cancer, the team name that members of my dojang are running under (cleverly also an acronym for our dojang, World Martial Arts Center). As I type this, they haven’t raised much (maybe $200) so they could surely use some more funds for their cause!
I actually can’t join my dojang to run in the Race for the Cure because it takes place during the weekend I’ll be in Maryland for SPX (Sept. 12). However, I can still try and drum up some funds for my dojang family, so I hope you’ll forgive my shameless internet panhandling! It’s all for a good cause!
Speaking of SPX, I’m not only MCing the Ignatz Awards for the second year (which you should definitely check out, I have some fun stuff in store), but I’ll also be on an awesome panel that my buddy Evan Dahm put together about world-building in comics! It should be pretty awesome! I’ll let you know as soon as I have a date/time for the panel, as well as who else will be on it (some stellar names so far!).
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Fables of Freewheel – $32 till the next page is posted!
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Ren’s got a point!
I think I forgot to mention in my last post that Release the Bats! is still available for preorder! For a cool ten bucks you get over 100 pages of short stories I’ve done over the past ten years from various anthologies, websites, and other randomness. I just approved the proof yesterday and now I have to pay the bill, so if you’re gonna preorder, now’s the time! All preordered copies will come signed with a sketch inside! Do it today! I will continue to accept preorders until the week before SPX, but the earlier you do it, the better!
How can you resist this handsome cover?
In other equally exciting news, I’ve got some cool SPX-related stuff to announce! Besides the obvious being-at-SPX-in-general stuff, I’m also MCing the Ignatz Awards for the second time this year! Be sure to come check it out, as I’ll have some fun surprises in store for everybody! And of course, afterward is the chocolate fountain, and who can resist that?
BUT THAT’S NOT ALL! I will also be on a panel that I’m sure will prove to be AMAZING! At 1pm on Saturday, Sept. 11th I’ll be on this super rad panel put together by the awesome Evan Dahm:
Comics and Worldbuilding
1:00 | Brookside Conference Room
This panel will consider the challenge of developing original settings for comics, individual artistic processes, and how the medium of comics is particularly well-suited to creating convincing invented worlds. Evan Dahm will lead a conversation with Liz Baillie, Aaron Diaz, Carla Speed McNeil and Spike Trotman.
How’s about that panel lineup, huh? I feel very honored to be on the same panel with comics worldbuilding luminaries such as those listed above! I have a lot to say about the world of Freewheel, so if you’re interesting in hearing about it (or any of the other artists on the panel of course) come check it out!
I’m still running with Team Comics to raise money for Women for Women’s Congo Program on September 25th! Go here to donate if you haven’t already! As I mentioned before, I also have some friends running to help find a cure for breast cancer with the Race for Cure (the same weekend as SPX, which is why I’m not running with them). You can also donate to their team, Warriors Mobilizing Against Cancer if you are so inclined, or if you feel more drawn to the cause.
See you at SPX! Only two weeks left! EEP.
Also it’s my big brother’s birthday today! Happy birthday Alec!
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Fables of Freewheel – $32 till the next page is posted!
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It’s a secret tunnel that leads to… somewhere? Maybe the yards? Probably the yards.
Release the Bats! is still up for preorder for a little while longer!
This weekend I watched an amazing movie called Long Gone. It’s a documentary that follows a few different tramps and hobos over the course of a five-year period and is possibly the best documentary about hobos that I’ve seen (and I’ve seen quite a few). It did a great job of portraying basically every type of modern-day hobo: the people who’ve been doing it forever because they came from broken homes, the flat-out alcoholics, the old men who had lost everything and decided to spend the rest of their days riding the rails, the crusty kids from happy, middle-class homes giving a middle finger to mom, the crusty kids that become junkies, the young woman who falls in love with an older tramp and ends up having his baby… I could go on!
I was most struck by the subjects Joshua Long Gone and his “Irish twin” brother, Horizontal John. Both men are in their late 40′s but look 20 years older and were born a year and a day apart. You hear them refer often to “our birthday” as if they were actually twins and from looking at them, you might even think they were! As the movie begins, both Joshua and the audience are immediately aware that something’s not right with John. He has a lot of trouble just moving around it seems, and later in the film it’s revealed that he’s sick in some way. He claims it’s just a cold or maybe walking pneumonia but for whatever reason delays his trip to the doctor.
The bond of love between these two brothers is simultaneously inspirational and heart-breaking. Inspirational because I think just about everyone longs for an unconditional bond like these two have; heartbreaking because, well… just see the movie, okay?
Also of interest in the romance between rugged Dog Man Tony and young, fresh-faced Erin. Despite their marked physical differences and an age difference of what must have been more than 20 years, the romance that we watch unfolding between these two just about makes your heart melt. Unlike another fresh-faced young girl in the film who I found to be quite irritating and unlikeable, Erin is all smiles and optimism and quite likable indeed. Before long, their romance yields a wedding and a child, and with the responsibility of that child comes the untimely split between Dog Man Tony and Erin.
There are several other great stories in this film as well, but I’ll let you hear them for yourself. Go rent Long Gone on iTunes for $3 or buy it outright for $10 by going to iTunes and doing a search for “Long Gone.”
Oh, and watch the trailer here. Did I mention this movie has several original songs by Tom Waits, some of which were composed for this film? What more could you possibly ask for? Nothing, that’s what! Go watch Long Gone already!
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Fables of Freewheel – $32 till the next page is posted!
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Looks like they made it to the yards! Damn, that train took a long-ass time to draw.
The whole train culture aspect of Freewheel is something I have a really hard time properly researching. I mean, I can find tons of information but something about the actual act of drawing trains relatively realistically is very difficult for me. I’m not an engineer (despite the fact that my grandfather spent most of my life telling me I should be one) so I don’t understand how all the parts of the train work together, let alone what sort of order the cars are supposed to be in, which car does what, which cars wouldn’t be on the same train as other cars, etc. I try my best to be as accurate as possible without making myself crazy over details that wouldn’t really matter to the average reader. As much as I would love the train culture aspect of Freewheel to be perfect in the eyes of railfans and other railroad enthusiasts, I’m just never going to have the time to delve in depth into the inner workings of the railroad. Not as much as I’d like to, anyway.
But that’s not to say I don’t do any research! On the contrary, I do TONS of research! Every chance I get to watch a documentary about railroads or tramps and hobos, I take it! I also spend a lot of time following links on the internet, anything that seems like it might be applicable to the Freewheel universe. Recently, in my link-hopping adventures, I came across this pretty neat invention of a railbike!
Now that I know what it is and I’ve had a chance to look up the term, I’ve found all sorts of cool stuff, but this is the thing I found initially that I thought was truly rad:
photo from the Black Butte Center for Railroad Culture's site
I saw this on the website of the Black Butte Center for Railroad Culture’s site. Theirs was one of the websites I randomly came across in one of my many searches for railroad-related information and reference photos. I’m hoping at some point that I can use a railbike in Freewheel!
I also found a video of someone on a DIFFERENT railbike, after searching on YouTube I realized railbikes are actually a “thing.” Pretty awesome! This one has a cool steampunk feel to it and can be motor-powered as well as pedal-powered:
Also in my searching, I found that not only is the railbike totally a “thing,” it’s even got a name: the draisine! They were used in much the same way handcars were used in the U.S., but were used mostly in Germany, Sweden, Norway and Poland. Fun facts!
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Fables of Freewheel – $32 till the next page is posted!
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They are on the train! It only took, what… seven chapters before anybody got on a train? Originally I had Jamie getting on a train at the end of Chapter Five, but then I changed a bunch of stuff.
In my line of work, which involves a lot of sitting at a desk drawing tiny lines over and over, it can help to watch movies to break the monotony of the less-exciting aspects of drawing comics all day, every day. They have to be a certain kind of movie though – absolutely no subtitles (you can’t read while drawing), preferably not too much visual plot-furthering that requires you watch a bunch of silent stuff happen for ten straight minutes in order to know what’s going on, and also it helps if you can understand what the people are saying so you don’t have to try to read their lips (once again, hard to do while drawing).
This week I’ve been on a Cillian Murphy kick because besides being a ridiculously good-looking dude, he is also an incredible actor (and the Irish accent, in the movies where he has it… automatic swoon for all American ladies, I think). So right now I’ll review three Cillian Murphy movies I watched this week based on their ability to be enjoyed while simultaneously drawing.
Disco Pigs (2001)
This movie is INSANE! Not only is it about two insane people (one of whom is naturally played by Cillian Murphy) but the plot itself is totally wacky. From what I’ve read, the movie script was adapted from the script of a play by the same name, with the same part of Pig played by Cillian Murphy for the stage as well as the screen.
The movie’s about two friends born hours apart in the same hospital who have a disturbingly codependent relationship since birth and who live next door to each other. As they enter their seventeenth year, the boy (Pig) realizes he is sexually attracted to the girl (Runt) and things start getting creepy, especially as Runt begins to realize there are people to meet and friendships to forge outside of the bond she shares with Pig.
As far as drawability, this movie sucks balls. Not only do Pig and Runt speak in a nearly unintelligible Cork accent, they also speak in a weird baby-talk dialect of their own creation. The combination of these two aspects of their speech make it sound most of the time like they (especially Pig) sound like drunk Rastafarian children. The following clip is not for children:
I don’t know what he just said but I know it was fucking filthy.
So not only is much of the language completely unintelligible, but a great chunk of the movie is told through visual elements that you really need to keep your eye on. All in all, if you’re going to watch one Cillian Murphy movie while drawing, DO NOT MAKE IT THIS ONE.
Breakfast on Pluto (2005)
In this one, Cillian Murphy plays the super hot 70′s era main character of indeterminate gender, Patrick “Kitten” Braden, who is also known as Patty or just Kitten depending on the circumstances. The movie’s mostly just the story of Patrick/Kitten from birth until present day, which I’m guessing is mid-20′s, where through a complicated and amusing turn of events, s/he is being accused of setting off an IRA bomb in a bar. We also learn of Patrick/Kitten’s origins as an orphaned baby left on the doorstep of a priest and raised by a foster mother who clearly hated him/her. There is much fabulousness throughout the film from Patrick/Kitten, despite whatever troubles s/he encounters in life and in love.
For some reason, it’s nearly impossible to find a good scene on YouTube, so this trailer which really doesn’t explain much will have to do (I can forgive it for its inclusion of a T-Rex song):
This is a pretty good movie, especially if you are like me and are attracted to movies about gender variant people, Irish accents that are understandable, 70′s glam rock, and anything to do with the Ireland/North Ireland/English conflict (which has interested me ever since someone told me that being part Irish and part English, which I am, is some kind of paradox or oxymoron).
Overall, I had a pretty easy time understanding what was going on without looking up too much, so I’d say if you are trying to draw while watching a Cillian Murphy movie, you could certainly do so while watching Breakfast on Pluto.
The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006)
This is one of the rarest kinds of Cillian Murphy movies in which he does not play someone who is in any way out of the ordinary, be it a psychotic murderer, zombie killer, or fabulous gender variant individual. In this one he’s a doctor in rural Ireland, circa 1920, whose brother is in the IRA. He is about to go be a doctor in England when he witnesses a few acts of horrific violence inflicted on his fellow Irishmen by the British army and decides he will instead stay home and fight for Irish independence from Britain.
This is a pretty typical period-piece type movie about a big important war, specifically taking the thing people always say about civil war being “brother against brother” completely literally by making a movie about two brothers working together, but eventually pitted against one another, during the Irish Civil War. It’s definitely a good movie if you like those kinds of movies (I do) and most especially if you have a specific interest in either the Irish War of Independence or the Irish Civil War (I do).
As far as drawability goes, this one is somewhere in between Breakfast on Pluto and Disco Pigs. If you have an interest in the subject matter, definitely try and watch it while drawing. Some of the accents are difficult to parse, but for the most part are pretty understandable. Some of the action requires extended watching-without-looking-down, which makes it hard to draw, but most of the movie you should be okay just drawing while only occasionally looking up.
So in order of drawability, with #1 being the best and #3 being the worst, here are your top Cillian Murphy Movies to Watch While Drawing:
1) Breakfast on Pluto
2) The Wind That Shakes the Barley
3) Disco Pigs
Of course, this is just of the three that I watched this week. I didn’t include any of the others I’ve seen, but I may do another review going over some other movies at some other point in the future.
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Fables of Freewheel – $32 till the next page is posted!
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Ren has some chalk, and it makes a thing on the wall that you can walk through! This is the last page of Chapter Seven, by the way. Chapter Eight begins on Wednesday, and I am pretty excited about it because there are many things about the Freewheel world that I haven’t been able to openly talk about without revealing all kinds of spoilers. But not so after a few pages of Chapter Eight go up!
This weekend is SPX in North Bethesda, MD (the DC area)! I will be reminding you of this for the rest of the week because I have a few things going on there that I want you to know about!
First of all, here’s where my table is! I’ll be at table H12, which is here:
Just follow the pink trail! I’m in the same spot that I’m in pretty much every year, so it’s pretty easy to find if you’ve seen me at SPX before.
I will also be on a panel at 1pm on Saturday! Here is the description (it sounds totally awesome):
Comics and Worldbuilding
1:00 | Brookside Conference Room
This panel will consider the challenge of developing original settings for comics, individual artistic processes, and how the medium of comics is particularly well-suited to creating convincing invented worlds. Evan Dahm will lead a conversation with Liz Baillie, Aaron Diaz, Carla Speed McNeil and Spike Trotman.
Last but not least, I will be hosting the Ignatz Awards on Saturday night at 9pm in the downstairs area of the Marriott. Even if you have not been nominated for an Ignatz Award, I have made it so anyone in the room can win an award that is literally made of candy. Come check out the awards ceremony to see what I mean!
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Fables of Freewheel – $32 till the next page is posted!
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Whaaaat? Where are they?!? Don’t fret, Ren explains it all (somewhat) on the very next page! Welcome to the exciting adventure that awaits in Chapter Eight! Woo!
This weekend is SPX in North Bethesda, MD (the DC area)! I will be reminding you of this for the rest of the week because I have a few things going on there that I want you to know about! I apologize for repeating myself every day this week but I don’t want anyone who’s coming to SPX to miss out on this info!
Also, if you preordered RELEASE THE BATS! they should be arriving here at my house before I leave for SPX, but if I can’t get them until right before I leave, I will mail out the preordered copies when I get back on Tuesday. Oh, and you can still preorder a copy for yourself until Friday right here!
First of all, here’s where my table is! I’ll be at table H12, which is here:
Just follow the pink trail! I’m in the same spot that I’m in pretty much every year, so it’s pretty easy to find if you’ve seen me at SPX before.
I will also be on a panel at 1pm on Saturday! Here is the description (it sounds totally awesome):
Comics and Worldbuilding
1:00 | Brookside Conference Room
This panel will consider the challenge of developing original settings for comics, individual artistic processes, and how the medium of comics is particularly well-suited to creating convincing invented worlds. Evan Dahm will lead a conversation with Liz Baillie, Aaron Diaz, Carla Speed McNeil and Spike Trotman.
Last but not least, I will be hosting the Ignatz Awards on Saturday night at 9pm in the downstairs area of the Marriott. Even if you have not been nominated for an Ignatz Award, I have made it so anyone in the room can win an award that is literally made of candy. Come check out the awards ceremony to see what I mean!
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Fables of Freewheel – $32 till the next page is posted!
- – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – -
I don’t know if you noticed, but Ren just revealed a pretty big detail… I’m glad it’s out in the open now, though, so I can refer to “this world,” “the middle,” and “the other side” without worrying too much about spoiling anything for anyone! Perhaps a lot of the weird stuff that’s happened in the last seven chapters makes a touch more sense now. Or not. Either way, there’s more weird stuff coming! If a world populated only by abandoned railroad parts isn’t weird enough…
So, one last time I’m gonna remind you and then I’ll shut up – this weekend is SPX!
First of all, here’s where my table is! I’ll be at table H12, which is here:
