Between promoting the Sponsorship Special, applying to SCAD, revising my site/portfolio, looking for work/grants/scholarships, dealing with the holidays and various other family responsibilities it’s been difficult to make much forward movement on my actual comics, but thanks to the prodding of Steve Peters I’ve popped out a few simple images of Sparky for some of his upcoming projects, so I though I’d share them.

Sparky Jam

This first one is the final panel to a jam comic with a variety of other artists; taken out of context it’s rather random, but once the whole comic is available you’ll get the idea.

Sparky Brown

This Charlie Brown version of Sparky I did for the cover of one of Steve’s upcoming books.

This last one is part of another jam comic, but with a very interesting twist—every artist does three panels, based off of only seeing the previous three panels produced by the last artist. Nobody (except Steve) gets to see the whole thing until it’s completed. I was fortunate enough to be in the second place slot after a perfect setup by Max Ink, so I’m hoping this will snowball into an intriguing comic.

I’ll be sure to let you all know when these various images see print.

Happy Thanksgiving Season!

I hope everyone was able to spend some quality time with friends and family this week and to truly take stock of all we have to be grateful for. Every day our world appears to be throwing larger and more ominous challenges at us, which is all the more reason to keep sight of our blessings and to do our best to lend a helping hand to those in need.

Myself, I’m grateful to have a loving, supportive family who’re willing to help me out as I work on establishing myself as a professional comic creator, and to meet so many fine individuals expressing their confidence and enthusiasm with my work.

Even drawn to be Mr. Optimistic—as I am—I find it difficult at times to sense what it is I’m being called to do…and I’m sure there’ve been moments when I’ve missed the guidance I was being given. Still, I use that awareness to listen that much harder and hopefully learn how to ‘hear’ that guidance better the next time it is given.

Case in point, last month I paid closer attention and was given the opportunity to help someone when they needed it. I met a homeless man who was down on his luck… who had made some bad choices…and who needed a meal. The bars were closing and it was about the time the weather was getting chill, and I thought about just giving the guy a few bucks and hoping he’d spend it responsibly…but I thought of all the times I’d seen an example of someone taking their precious time to buy someone in this situation a meal…and I knew that I was being called to do just that.

I spent several hours with this man who needed some food…needed some company…and needed a place to rest. I bought him a meal that meant so much more to him than those few dollars meant to me…and we shared a bit of ourselves with each other. About five am I drove him from the diner we stopped at to a place he knew he could lay his head, and passed him a few more dollars…emphasizing that I was doing it on the faith that he’d spend it on food.

I was glad to have met him, and I knew the feeling was mutual.

So often the difference between a situation like his being a situation like mine is little more than circumstance…and getting to know him—even for a few moments—is a reminder not only to appreciate the blessings I’ve been given, but to be there for those who need it…for there are going to be times when I need the help of others, and I can only hope that someone will be there to show me compassion and help me when I need it most.

Please, think of those you have the power to help during this most challenging time of the year (in this hemisphere), and be willing to lend what help you can afford…

…it will be sure to return to you when you need it.

The XCape Con was my first convention in over three years (since the release of the LC4 comic at the May Motor City Comic Con, 2005) and though it was a slow weekend for all the guests I felt like it was a success for me, personally.

In the past I was too hung up on how I did sales-wise, and that always led to a certain degree of anxiety, usually exacerbated by the multitude of challenges I was facing in the rest of my life. Now I’ve got a much stronger presentation and am focused on connecting with people and having a good time. I also am getting a better sense of how to approach the people who are strolling by and inviting them in; fortunately I have some new friends who excel at that— Jay Jacot and Ryan Claytor —who I was lucky to be set up next to, and pick up some of their practices.

Xcape Con Setup

Overall, I met a lot of great folks, made some valuable professional contacts and did better in sales than I’ve done at previous conventions—which I chalk up to having a better outlook as well as better product.

My thanks to everyone who stopped by and grabbed something—it was a pleasure meeting each of you…and thank you everyone who offered some form of advice or info—I appreciate every bit of it and will be doing my best to make use of it here in the weeks and months ahead.

I’m looking forward to the next con already!

I just took a moment to send a letter through the Humane Society’s website to encourage Obama to elect a Secretary of Agriculture who will make compassionate and humane treatment of animals in our food and other industries a priority, replacing the abusive practices that currently dominate.

Please take a moment to do the same, via the following link:
Take Action: Urge President-elect Obama to support animal protection.

You may know that durring the election last week there was a huge win for animal rights in California that will hopefully have wider impact on the rest of the country–Californians voted to increase living space for factory farmed animals and to improve their living/treatment conditions as a whole.

Hopefully this will result in some true change for the better treatment of animals everywhere.

The book signings from the last couple weeks went pretty well. I’m still getting the hang of how best to promote and setup at these things, so doing three of them back to back taught me a lot.

October 29^th was spent at Clem’s Collectibles in Lansing. The day was rather fun because most of the guys who I participated in 24 hour comics day with were there—we were all working on a sort of comic jam, creating thank-you cards for the various local shops that sponsored the event.

Decker's Coffee Thank You

Here’s a preview of one we did.
You can check out all five of them via the Comic’s Obscura site.

Setting Up

Next up was Vault of Midnight in Ann Arbor, which I did three days later on Saturday, November 1st.

Jess & I

My friend Jessica helped me set up and stuck around long enought to grab me some coffee for the day.

I actually ran into some old friends from LCC while at the Vault, which was an unexpected surprise…unfortunately they had to leave before we could really get a chance to talk.

Most people were confused by me being behind the counter like I was—they thought I was an employee…so I don’t think that helped to sell the book. I’ve learned some tricks since then, though, that should help if I’m ever in a similar situation.

New & Improved setup

The last signing was at 21st Century and Games in Lansing last Wednesday, Nov. 5th. Of the three, this signing went the best—my setup was right in the main traffic flow, fully exposed, and the owner, Andrew Morrow, offered up some friendly advice which really helped get more people’s attentions.

Ah, the signing

Thank you so much, everyone who stopped and picked up a book, and I want to throw out a special thanks to Andrew and Jen at 21st Century, Curtis and the gang at Vault of Midnight and Tom and his crew at Clem’s—you guys all did a great job making me feel welcome and in helping promote my work. I can’t wait to come back!

Overall it was a great learning experience, and I’m already looking forward to future setups. In fact, on Nov. 22nd & 23rd I’ll be attending the XCape Con in Flint, so come on down and check it out, if you can!

You may have noticed the site is going through some revisions. This is an ongoing process, so it’s far from where I want it to be, but as I’m revising my portfolio it seemed pertinent to start making some much needed improvements around here.

A.I. Business Card

Besides aiming for a stronger overall branding effect, the site is primarily running off of Wordpress, now—a standard blogging CMS (content management system) built into my hosting service, for those out of the loop. While it’s been a little bit of work getting familiar with all this, the long-term benefits should more than make up for it.

The site is streamlined and far more dynamic, now, thanks to the CMS, enabling me to manage my content with greater ease and flexibility. The site also boasts an RSS feed, making it a lot easier for the savvy web-runner on the go to keep up with my cartooning antics.

Right now the ‘Portfolio’ link simply points back toward the old site—until I can intelligently migrate that content on over—but in the next couple months you can expect to see a fully revised and jazzed up presentation of my work.

Anyway, I’m really happy with the way it’s all shaping up.

If you have a sec, let me know what you think!

E!

P.S. — If you’re one of those using Internet Explorer as your web browser, you might have been unable to see some of the content I posted over the last couple months—there was a coding error that I overlooked until the other day, but I’ve since fixed it and everything seems to be running smoothly now. I appologize for any confusion this may have caused.

I’ll be attending the XCape Con in Flint, MI on Saturday Nov. 22nd & Sunday 23rd. All the details are available at the link above. Hope to see you there!

Sorry if the site looks a little wonky–i’m making some revisions…please bear with me.

Greetings, fellow peoples.

Wanted to let you all know that I’ll be on the air tonight on Q106.1 fm (WJXQ, Lansing)—they’ve been kind enough to let me come in and spread some buzz about the Sponsorship Special and the book signings I’m having tomorrow and throughout the rest of the week. I’ll be on the air most likely between 7-8pm, so if you’re within listening range, please tune in!

Book Signing Schedule

24 Hour Comics Day Recap

This was a most humbling experience.

It was a lot of fun, but I got off on the wrong foot by choosing some subject matter that was too near and dear to me that I didn’t want to short change by rushing through it–unfortunately I didn’t’ realize this was going to be such a big problem until a third of the way through and discovered how much difficulty I was having in getting it all to work.

I definitely will be doing this again, only starting with an idea that I’m less attached to, to begin with, and that has the freedom to roam wherever my imagination takes me from moment to moment.

My scanner is out of commission at the moment, but once it’s back up and running I’ll at least post the pages I completed.

We made the front page of the Sate News on Tuesday:

• PDF of front page
• complete web article