My Weekend at Alter Ego Comics

This past weekend, Marc Bowker invited me to his store, Alter Ego Comics, in Lima, Ohio. I've done a few events for Marc, and they are uniformly excellent. They're a lot of fun, Marc's staff is delightful and they all take care of me. If you're a creator and you get the chance to do something at Marc's store, jump at the chance! (Marc also has an unerring ability to find great places to eat, too.) Saturday's event included a screening of my Ultimate Spider-Man: Web Warriors episode, a Q and A afterwards, and lots of signing and sketching afterwards. Lots of people came by and I had a wonderful time meeting and chatting with everyone.

Photos are courtesy of the Underground Video Network, who also interviewed me. The interview is linked here, too.

Cartooning Summer Camp Wrap-Up

So, sometimes I teach. It’s not in a credentialed capacity. I teach an afterschool program at Hawken Lower School, and then for the last few years I teach a week of cartooning at summer camp.

I don’t think I could teach regularly. I sometimes come off as having a lot of patience, but some of that is just storing it up all year to use it for that one week.

This was the biggest class I’ve had yet. I started out with eleven and then gained another two that transferred from the cupcake class. Five girls, eight boys total. They were also the best class I’ve had yet.

On a side note, I love that the girls in my class all asked for superheroes when I drew their end-of-class sketchcards. And when they got to name their Pictionary team, they named it “Hydra”. I love any time I see that gender line in comics coming down

Some of the kids have taken my classes for years. One of them actually graduated from taking my classes to being my teaching assistant. That’s the kind of thing that makes you realize you’re not just teaching some cartooning stuff to kill some time, but you’re actually becoming part of the fabric of their lives. I don’t think I’m a great teacher in any way, but when they keep taking my class, I know there’s something that they’re responding to.

We played dodgeball at recess every day. Everyone played and it was great. And we drew a ton. Basic stuff, advanced stuff. And, like I said above, we even played Pictionary.

Here’s the thing: It’s an honor to be part of these young people’s lives. Some of them I’ve been with for two years or more. And when we wrapped up, and Jake headed off to move to California and Riley to Australia and Eliza asked if she could be my assistant next year… look, I’m an easy touch. I cry my Dean Winchester tears all the time. But I wasn’t expecting this to affect me as much as it did. And it did.

If you’ve got a skill, like drawing, you owe it to pass it on. You’re a link in the chain and it shouldn’t stop with you. Teaching forces you to articulate and clarify what you think you know. Some of their questions make you better, too. You get as much as they do.

I’m so glad I said “yes” the first time I was asked to teach there. It was outside my comfort zone, but I’m so happy I went there.

Small Business Saturday Sale

I'm running a Small Business Saturday sale, all the way through Cyber Monday. You can check it out here!

My Regular Con Carry

Following up on our discussion on the last episode of Comics Assembled (Wait, you're not listening to Brian Ward and me talk about the business of comics every week? Shame on you! Check it out here right now.) I thought I would post my regular Con Carry. All of this lives in my Brenthaven shoulder bag so that I don't have to worry about remembering it. It's always stocked with these things, which are duplicates or travel versions of things I have in my studio. Buying two things is sometimes much easier than remembering to bring one.

[image src="http://thomz.com/blogall/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/concarry_ab.jpg" align="center" border="image_border" link="#" alt="" title="" lightbox="false" ]

A. Pad of lined paper. Great for writing lists, keeping track of commissions and more. I'm partial to college ruled white paper, particularly the Tops Docket Gold pads.

B. Clipboard. Having a solid writing surface makes marking things down easier anywhere. During shows, I clip my tally sheet to it and I can mark everything down while standing.

[image src="http://thomz.com/blogall/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/concarry_ce.jpg" align="center" border="image_border" link="#" alt="" title="" lightbox="false" ]

C. A folder. This one is a way-cool Rocket Raccoon Guardians of the Galaxy one. But hey, My Little Pony, New Kids on the Block, Transformers, whatever your deal is, it's all good. I keep my frequent convention needs in there: Travel documents, sales permits, letter and postcard stamps, a couple of blank checks (for signing up for next year's show) as well as…

D. French curve. I use this all the time drawing commissions. It's an art supply, but it fits better here. And…

E. Circle template. For the same reason.

[image src="http://thomz.com/blogall/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/concarry_fl.jpg" align="center" border="image_border" link="#" alt="" title="" lightbox="false" ]

F. Small notebook. Conventions are full of new action items. "Remember to send this editor a pitch." "Remember to mail this out." And I frequently get new ideas, too. This little book is perfect for idea capture at a show.

G. Passport. It's got to live somewhere, and if I'm traveling I have this bag. On top of that, if I lose my regular ID, I've got a spare to make sure that I can still get on a plane.

H. Business cards. I carry a lot of these a lot of places, including Moo Cards on my keychain, but having these here means I never don't have them.

I. Pens. You'd think I wouldn't forget them, but it's really easy for me to accidentally throw my pens into my lunchbox art bin. So I make sure I have a few that stay in here. I'm a big fan of the Sarasa gel pens and Huntington Bank gives out the best ball points.

J. Square Reader. Can't live without this. It lets me take credit card sales at shows. It has revolutionized con sales altogether. I actually keep a couple in my bag, just so I can have a spare in case one breaks, gets lost, or I need to lend one to a friend. If you do shows and you don't have one, get over to Squareup.com right now!

K. USB car charger. I've always got this bag when I'm traveling, so having a charger to plug my iPod into is great to have and not have to remember. You can get these just about anywhere, including Amazon.

L. Mophie. It's a battery case for my iPhone. I usually only need this when I'm on the road, so it lives in my bag. Get the right one for your phone. You won't regret it.

[image src="http://thomz.com/blogall/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/concarry_mv.jpg" align="center" border="image_border" link="#" alt="" title="" lightbox="false" ]

M. Cocoon Grid-It Organizer. I first heard about this from the estimable Andy Ihnatko. This is a board with stretchy straps on it, allowing you to store all sorts of things. The advantage of this system, rather than a plastic sandwich bag, is that you can see everything you have at a glance. No more bringing two cords because you couldn't tell if it was already in the bag.

N. Apple Charging Plug. This is an Apple product, and I have several from several Apple devices, but you can plug any USB charger into here.

O. iPad Charging Cable. I still have an older model iPad, pre-lightning connector, so I have a cable for that.

P. Micro-USB Charging Cable. I could have a regular charger cable that ends in a USB, but this one has a plug. I don't know where I picked it up, but it's great. It charges my Kindle and my Mophie.

Q. iPhone Charging Cable. Apple switched to the lightning connector, so I got this spare one so my phone always has juice. This is a six foot cable which means it's really easy to make sure it sits on my nightstand in a hotel no matter where the outlet is.

R. Male to male audio cable. Most rental cars have an aux jack, so with this I can easily plug my iPhone in and play music or podcasts.

S. Audio cable extender. Because Apple moved the earphone jack to the bottom of the phone, Mophie had to start including this so that the earphones could still connect through the longer opening.

T. Apple earbuds. I love my Apple earbuds and have a few pairs. It's great to be able to listen to stuff on the walk to the Javitz Center, play podcasts as I do the treadmill, and take calls easily in the airport. lThese have a microphone on the wires as well as a click button that let me use Siri, answer and play messages and more.

U. Audio splitter. This little dongle allows me to plug in a second headphone into my headphone jack. So when I'm traveling with a companion, I can split the audio so they can listen to whatever burned video I'm watching.

V. Lanyard. Cons don't always provide lanyards, or sometimes they're uncomfortable. So I make sure to have a backup one in my gear.

Your Guardians of the Galaxy

As part of my continuing sketch warm-up/Manga Studio expanding process, I decided to draw the Guardians of the Galaxy… the original Guardians. Well, the 70s versions that I remember. So Starhawk, Yondu, Vance Astro, Charlie-27, Martinex and Nikki. I also tried to expand my drawing techniques in Manga Studio. I tried a few more things with guides and rules, especially on the Charlie-27 rivets on his uniform. I also did a couple of things as separate layers, such as the brush-like highlights on Starhawk which I could just change the color of in Photoshop. I also had a lot of fun figuring out the fastest way to do Martinex's look.

I kept the characters close to their Bronze Age incarnations. I wasn't looking to re-invent them, though I did tweak some gloves and other accessories to help delineate each character.

And want some Bronze Age fun? Check out the first Guardians collection on Amazon or Comixology.

Kickstarter Bonus: Up and Muppets Pitches

I promised that if I made $5200, I'd post my pitch documents for Up and Muppets. I cleared that by $6.29, and I'm a man of my word. There are two Up pitches here, Up: Down Under and a second one, getting into the source of the talking dog collars. Up: Down Under was the clear winner, but Disney had some changes. I made those changes and it became Up: Special Delivery. Honestly, I think it's better than the original pitch (as much as I love the heck out of the original title).

There are also three Muppets pitches. Boom was doing the Muppet Show, as well as the Muppet adaptation series. These were for the first. I did pitch the latter, including an awesome (and rejected) pitch of The Muppets: Hamlet where Miss Piggy plays Ophelia and, upon finding out she dies in Act IV, goes about rewriting the play Duck Amuck style so that she becomes the hero. Yeah, I found a way to give Hamlet a happy ending.

The three Show pitches were to have them become the House act at a Donald Trump-esque casino, to have them become a reality show where someone got voted off every issue, and one where a big star (a la Tom Cruise circa the couch jumping era) becomes their guest host.

If the stars ever align, I'd love to do any or all of these. But for now, you can enjoy them in this PDF.

Memories of the Future

Wil Wheaton and I have a hate/hate relationship.

He and I have a lot in common. We’re about the same age. We both have brown hair and brown eyes. We’re both ruggedly handsome. And, in 1987, while Wil was the youngest member of the Starship Enterprise on Star Trek: The Next Generation, I was the youngest member of the Starship New Promise, a Star Trek fan club.

Oh, and we both seemed to wear a lot of sweaters.

So it’s no surprise that my friends in the Trek group teased me by calling me “Wesley” and I grew to really hate that character.

There’s a thing that happens with actors and their parts. You know the actor is only playing a character, but since that character is all you have to go on, you do blur the two of them. So, my disdain for Wesley was transferred to Wil.

Wil and I grew up. Wesley got a real promotion and eventually left the show. But I always associated some of that Wesley Ick with Wil.

Then, a few years back, I found Wil’s blog. It’s why I tell you about how I felt towards Wesley and the actor who played him. I had a fair amount of irrational predisposition to dislike the blog.

What I found there was an surprisingly honest accounting of being a creative person. He wrote about the difficulties of writing, what he had to do to bring a character to life. I’m stupid for behinds the scenes stuff, and he was delivering it gangbusters. It wasn’t long before, solely through the strength of his writing, that he won me over completely.

So now he’s written a book. Another book, as he’s written a few. This one is called Memories of the Future, and it’s his recapping of the first half of the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Hmmm, more behind the scenes stuff. Wonder if Im going to like it.

He’s described his book as “looking through a yearbook and saying ‘Oh my God, can you believe we thought that was cool?’” That’s a pretty accurate description of the book’s vibe. It’s irreverent fun.

I’m a big Star Trek fan. There are parts of that show that have actually defined my life. I once turned down a big job by quoting Kirk in Generations when he told Picard to not do anything that got him out of That Chair. As such, I’m sensitive about people hacking on the franchise too much. (Except for Voyager and the first three seasons of Enterprise, but that’s another story.)

It’s very much “nobody picks on my brother but me.” Wil’s part of Trek, so he can deconstruct some of the early season missteps and do it without malice. The books a lot of fun, and I’m not sure anyone else could have written it.

Wil’s writing style is breezy in the best possible way. Each chapter is candy coated with humor over a solid center of content, and you wind up wolfing it down. Yeah, it’s literary Twix. And eI recommend it.

Here’s the thing that really impressed me, and why I’ve decided to devote a chunk of blog real estate to the former Sweatered One and his book. Wesley was pretty reviled, and Wil could have taken the tack of I read the lame lines I was given as best as I could, dudes, so deal, and he’d be more than justified in doing it. But he takes it a step further and shows, from a writerly point of view, why the character was so unsuccessful.

That shows a pretty impressive intellectual honesty.

The first volume takes covers Encounter at Farpoint to Datalore. He breaks down each episode with a funny recap, some insider’s memories, and a criticism of the episode itself. If you like Star Trek: The Next Generation or behind-the-scenes process stuff, I recommend it completely.

Like I said, I have a hate/hate relationship with Wil Wheaton. When I was younger, I hated the character he played and the teasing I got from it. Now, he’s been on Big Bang Theory, hangs with Felicia Day, and has a family that liberally quotes Monty Python.

So now I just hate him because I’m jealous.

That's Why they Call It the Blues

Let's take a break for a little process stuff.

With this issue of Love and Capes, I've started using a Col-Erase pencil to do my layouts. These are colored pencils that are far less waxy and more erasable than the more prevalent Prismacolor pencil. Prismacolor's a fine product, but it's the right tool for the right job.

I'd heard a bunch of my artist friends talk about these pencils, but it wasn't until the inordinately kind Yves Ambrun gave me one to mess around with at New York Comic-Con that I fell in love with it. I found some at Pearl during my Los Angeles trip and have been using them this issue.

The advantage is this: Previously, I'd go through three pieces of tracing paper to make a page of Love and Capes. There would be some really rough pencils, a second more structured drawing, and then the third tight pencils, from which I'd ink the page. But now, I can combine steps one and two into one page. The colored pencils allow me to do a second pass with my standard lead mechanical pencil. I can use the blue as an underdrawing without having to have like colored lines compete.

I think it's keeping a lot more of the energy to my artwork, too. Roughs always have more pop than the tighter pencils, and trying to keep as much of that intact is one of the constant battles of the cartoonist.

Plus, I think the rough pencils look cool this way, too. Like a lot of animation drawings I've seen.

New Review for You, Crew!

Johanna Draper Carlson at Comics Worth Reading gave Love and Capes #9 another great review. Here's a smackerel of her review.

I am running out of ways to say how much I enjoy reading this superhero sitcom.

You can read the full review here.

Drobo Domo

I'm a huge fan of MacBreakWeekly. (Hey, there's a new episode recording tomorrow. Yay!) It's not just a good show for those of us Of The Mac, but it's also a good show because it's a good show with great commentators.

I've done little things before about them, too. Mark wears a TWiT sweatshirt in Love and Capes #2, and Charlotte drinks out of a MacBreakWeekly coffee mug in issue #4. I've even included Andy Ihnatko as a background character in the just-posted page one of the new issue. But I think I've hit a new level here.

Scott Bourne, photography and backup guy, has been raving about the Drobo. I think he's right to. As a backup nut myself, since my Big Crash of 2006, I really need to get one sometime this year since they make backing up so easy. Because of that, my brain just clicked a certain way and I started imagining a comic strip with Scott and his Drobo. I went ahead and did a couple of strips to get them out of my head and sent them to Scott, who liked them muchly. He's even called me out on Twitter for it, which I appreciate.

So, especially if you're a MBW fan, here's a sample strip, with links to the other two I did.

Strip 1
Strip 2
Strip 3