Oct 16 2005

Nobody likes a quitter…but,

BUT, I’m officially giving up on two books I’ve been trying to get through pretty much the entire summer: Bone: The One Volume Edition by Jeff Smith and Eragon by Christopher Paolini. Both of these books are highly thought of, both are of the fantasy genre, and both are surprizingly boring.

I remember reading the first few Bone comic books when they first came out, then just sort of losing track of the story after a while, so when this enormous (~11oo pages) complete volume was released, I was thinking that this would be one of those comics series that would really come together as a complete work in a way that the episodic comics didn’t. Unfortunately my impressions this time around were pretty much the same as I remember from when I first read the comics: the initial few hundred pages that make up the section called “The Great Cow Race” are absolutely great—the tone of the story is wonderful (I mean that in the litteral sense, as in “filled with wonder”), the characters are interesting and the narative is suspenseful and fun. Immeditely after the cow race, the entire tone of the book changes into a stunningly predictable fantasy story that seems to go on and on and on and on….

Speaking of predictable fantasy stories, I also give up on Eragon. This fantasy novel (prose not comics) was a runaway best seller and I figured I’d check it out and see what all the hoopla was all about. After about 100 pages I was still waiting for something to happen that doesn’t happen in every single fantasy book and movie ever made…but no dice; it’s just pretty much standard stuff. Boy finds dragon, evil people kill boy’s family, quest for revenge/coming of age story, lots of goofy names for things with extraneous commas (like Za’chra-lar, and whatnot).

Maybe I’m just not a fantasy person. I’ve read The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings pretty much every few years since I’ve been able to read, but other than that, I haven’t found much to like.

books I quit

Oct 13 2005

Gamers: Loose Weigth with Lolita Manga – Kotaku

Gamers: Loose Weigth with Lolita Manga – Kotaku

I’m pretty sure this is one of the signs of the Apocalypse. If the woman in the top left corner of this drawing really wants to lose some weight fast, I suggest a breast reduction.

Manga lose weight
(Click for larger image)

Oct 12 2005

Huh?

I dunno what this is…but I drew it in my sketchbook at SPX.

henderson
(Click for larger image)

Oct 09 2005

The Three Cent Pup

I moved to my current residence in Winston-Salem, North Carolina from Savannah, Georgia, where I was studying cartooning at SCAD. Among the drastic differences between the two situations was the sudden lack of any kind of social group with an interest in comics. If I were, say, an accountant by trade, this wouldn’t really be a big deal, because accountants are normal folks, who have interests other than accounting, but, cartoonists are not “normal folks”—we rarely have any interests besides comics (unless you count movies based on comics, of course). So, since being here, I’ve often wished that there was some sort of active community here of people interested in making their own comics. Winston-Salem is the (self-proclaimed) “City of the Arts,” but—to the extent that it applies at all—it clearly hasn’t really extended into the art of comics.

At last year’s SPX in Bethesda I was hanging out with former Greensboro (the city next-door to Winston-Salem) resident, cartoonist Rob Ullman and he was talking about how nice it was to be in Richmond, VA, where he now lived, because there was a comics “scene” and I began ruminating again on the lack of such a scene in Winston. The problem is, I don’t want to move—especially to Richmond. I’ve had enough of college towns for the time being, all the VCU art students are heroin addicts, and the traffic is too goddamn heavy. At any rate, I decided I’d rather light the proverbial candle than curse the darkness, and I began stewing on how I could try to get some kind of a scene going here in Winston.

I set a goal for myself of getting ten interested people together and trying to put together a comics/sketch group kinda thing. Since then, I’ve been calling and emailing everyone I can think of in the area I can think of who might be even vaguely interested in making comics, and we’ve just got about the target ten people onboard—ages almost-16 through thrity-somethings and comprising skill levels from just starting out through to published artists like Chad Hunt (far more published than me) who’s inked for Marvel, Dark Horse and the like, and of course me.

I’ve christened the group The Camel City Cartoonists’ Guild and Social Club. To find out more about the operation, visit our recently established blog “The Three Cent Pup” at www.cartoonists.ws

Oct 03 2005

Boxing Bucket as Mailman:

boxing bucket
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