SpringCon Photos

SpringCon 2011, a set on Flickr.

Totally forgot to post these earlier. I also forgot to bring my camera on Sunday, so I didn't get as many pictures as I usually do.

SpringCon was excellent

• Old Friends: Seen.
• New Friends: Met
• Awesome conversations: Had
• Hilarious stories from legendary creators: Heard
• Swag: Got
• Inspiration for new projects: Inhaled
• Pictures: Coming

Come see me at SpringCon this weekend

I'll be at SpringCon all weekend with copies of the very limited edition Kill All Monsters! ashcan. The book collects all of Chapter One and looks pretty cool in its widescreen format. Come get one!

There's obviously a lot more to see than just me though. I haven't been keeping up with the Guest List very well before now, but I just looked at it and there are (as usual) all sorts of great makers of comics coming. I hate naming names for fear of leaving people out, but when folks like Howard Chaykin, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, and Trina Robbins are going to be there, you can't help getting excited about it. It should be a great time as always.

Kill All Monsters and Other Updates

It probably isn't smart of me, but I try not to post about it every Friday when new Kill All Monsters! pages go up. For one thing, I know that a lot of folks read it in chunks instead of every Friday, but I also figure that this way it makes a bigger impact when I do say you should go over and catch up. And folks, you should go over and catch up. If the image above isn't enough to do it, I'll add that page 71 features my favorite panel yet for reasons you'll find very obvious when you see it.

Mondo Sasquatch

In other news, the Mondo Sasquatch anthology will be delayed from next month to later this summer in order to make sure that it's not rushed and that the finished product will look as cool as everyone wants it to.

Robot 6



Something else I haven't regularly been mentioning here is my Robot 6 posting. Part of that is because I figure that those of you who are interested in that are probably reading Robot 6 anyway. But also, I've been doing more daily posts over there lately and it would be annoying for me to say something here every time I did something over there.

Still, I would like to direct your attention to a couple of reviews I wrote for some really excellent books: Incredible Change-Bots 2 (although I actually review both volumes in the article) and Pepper Penwell and the Land Creature of Monster Lake. I feel like Change-Bots needs less promotion, because a lot of people already know about it, but Pepper Penwell is just as good and it would be a shame if people overlooked it. Especially people who like junior detective mysteries and laughter.

Jessica Hickman's new book



Cownt Tales artist Jessica Hickman has illustrated a children's book that's coming out this Halloween. Written by Tom Waltz, Little Jackie Lantern tells the story of a young boy who's too frightened to enjoy everyone's favorite spooky holiday. I haven't read it yet, but I can't imagine a project more suited for Jess' interest in things cute and scary.

SpringCon

The SpringCon guest list has been posted (for a while now, actually) and I'm on it. Looking forward to seeing all of you who live in the Twin Cities. Jason and I are working on a second printing of the Kill All Monsters, Chapter One ashcan, so hopefully that'll be ready in time.

A review I didn't write, but am nevertheless responsible for



I meant to say something at the beginning of the month, but my contribution to the White Elephant Blogathon was Cutthroat Island. For which I owe an apology to Non-Union Mexican Equivalent. I'm sorry you had to watch it, but glad you were able to nail so firmly why that movie didn't work.

Con Tour 2011

I think I've got my convention schedule figured out for the rest of the year:



C2E2 is in a couple of weeks (March 18-20) and I'll be there to write about it for Robot 6. With any luck, I'll have some Kill All Monsters! ashcans with me too. Since I'm there as press, I won't have a table, but there are a few panels I know I'll be going to:

• Archaia Presents: How to Make a Great Indie Graphic Novel (Saturday, 2:30 - 3:30 pm)
• Webcomics Roundtable (Satuday, 4:30 - 5:30 pm)
• The Lost Genre: Getting Wild with Jungle Comics (Sunday, 2:30 - 3:30 pm)

Those won't be the only ones, certainly, but those are my Can't Misses. If I can make it to the Oni and Dynamite panels, I will, and there are a few writing ones that sound interesting, particularly the one on Horror comics from a writer's perspective.

Anyway, if you spot me, please stop me and say hello even if you don't want to buy a KAM! book. Running into people from online is one of the best parts of conventions.



I've sent in my RSVP and confirmed that I'll be attending SpringCon again this year as a Guest Creator on May 21-22. I should have KAM! ashcans there as well to sell. Mine probably won't have a Jason Copland original sketch inside, but you can still own a printed version of Chapter 1 for your very own.

I'm also planning to attend FallCon on October 15, but that's barely a gleam in anyone's eye yet. I don't expect to be able to confirm anything until probably around the end of summer.



Finally, I'm especially excited that I'm going to be one of the curators at the Minneapolis Indie Xpo on November 5-6. That was a great show last year and it's going to be awesome to be one of the people bringing in artists for it this year. I'll probably have more to say about this as I learn more. Right now, I'm just really, really thrilled.

C2E2 2011

I apologize for the house-keeping posts today. I've been trying to keep to one post a day for a number of reasons, but some odds and ends have stacked up and I don't want to take several days to get through them.

Like this announcement that I've been confirmed for a C2E2 press pass for next year and am planning to attend the show. This year's show was so much fun and 2011 promises to be even better. Let me know if you're planning to be there too. I won't have a table, but I'd love to meet up.

FallCon Report

Sorry it's taken me so long to get a report up about FallCon. This week's been crazy and next will be even more insane as we get ready for Halloween. The show was a great success though.

I had David with me this year and we met Grant Gould for breakfast before the show. The conversation revolved heavily around Aliens and Predators, two of David's favorite topics right now, and David and I continued the discussion in the car on the way over to the fairgrounds. We were delighted then to find this fellow lurking around, hunting down some great deals on comics (ba-dum ching).



More costumes and the rest of the report after the break:

The crowd was insane in the morning. FallCon used to be a two-day show and the MCBA held a smaller, one-day show in the Spring called MicroCon. They changed that this year, expanding MicroCon to a two-day SpringCon and scaling FallCon back to one day. I went in expecting MicroCon level crowds, but that wasn't what we got. MicroCon was always on a Sunday and FallCon was on Saturday, so maybe that had something to do with it, but the place was packed all morning and I sold a lot more Cownt Tales comics than I expected to.

I also got to catch up with a couple of my favorite cosplayers and check out their new costumes. I don't know this girl's name, but she works for one of the dealers who always comes to MCBA shows and she's always got a cool new costume. She was Belle from Beauty and the Beast at last year's FallCon and this year she was Wednesday Addams.



I think this was the first time I've recognized Meagan Vanburkleo in costume before she said hello to me. I'm getting better.

She had two costumes for the show. Both were Black Canary, but she did this recent, Birds of Prey look...



...as well as this classic costume.



I don't know these two - or even if they're a couple - but if they were to have babies, the beauty of those children would bring World Peace.



The crowds thinned out in the afternoon, which made for a nice break and let David and I check out the rest of the show. We picked up a cool dinosaur poster from Zander Cannon in support of his new book Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth. We also spent some time talking to Martin Powell, a great writer and one of the most knowledgeable people around about all things Pulp. And - we learned - a former paleontologist. One of these days I have to take Martin to lunch and learn more about that part of his career history. In the meantime, we picked up three of Martin's books: The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor, his adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles, and Batman: The Fog of Fear.

I also got this cool Valkyrie drawing from Paul Taylor. My scanner's not big enough to get the whole thing, but you get the idea...



The MCBA has a lot more photos from the show in their Facebook album and there was also a write-up for Minnesota Daily.

The MCBA has also announced the dates for the next two shows. SpringCon 2011 will be May 21 and 22; FallCon will be October 15.

FallCon Reminder

Just a reminder that I'll be at FallCon all day tomorrow (Saturday, October 16th) signing Cownt Tales and telling people about my next project. It hasn't been formally announced yet and I don't want to say anything here until it has, but I'll have information at my table for those who want to stop by and learn all about it. If you're not in the Twin Cities or can't make it to the show, I expect to be able to talk about it online in the next week or so.

FallCon 2010

A reminder for everyone close to the Twin Cities: FallCon is October 16. That's a couple of weeks later than usual and it's only a one-day show this year since it gave its second day to the all-new SpringCon back in May. It should still be a lot of fun (MicroCon, the Twin Cities' previous One-Day Wonder, was always one of my favorites) and I'll be there with some books and - if I get my act together - some new bookmarks and a cool print that doubles as an announcement for an exciting new project I'm working on.

Hope to see you there!

Elsewhere... there was MIXing

I apologize for not getting anything posted yesterday. Diane's mom's funeral was last night and that took up most of the day.



I was able to get a couple of articles written this week though. One was this report on the newest addition to the Twin Cities' awesome convention schedule: the Minneapolis Indi Xpo.



The other was this week's Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs in which we look at all the cool comics coming out in October. Seriously, there's so much awesome stuff in there that I get a headache trying to pick favorites.

Conventions and some personal stuff...

This is too late to do anyone any good, but I still wanted to share the art from this MIX promo. The kick-off party was last night at Big Brain Comics and the Xpo itself was today. I went to both and took a lot of pictures (and bought a lot of comics), so I'll do a report for Robot 6 in the next few days.



As I've mentioned before, I struggle with how much personal information to share here (more specifically, how much you may be interested in), but the reason I didn't get this up sooner was that my wife's mom has been really sick for about a month. That's created a bunch of extra responsibilities for everyone of course. Responsibilities we've been happy to fulfill, but it's still been rough.

Anyway, Diane's mom passed on today. It's a blessing - she was ready to go - but still... She was a bright light in our lives and it's going to be very different from here on.

In better news, with MIX done, it's time to start thinking about FallCon. I'll be exhibiting there and if things go as planned, I hope to have some exciting news by then.

Twin Cities Adventure: MIX and Pirates (and BBQ)

Minneapolis Indie Xpo



The first ever Minneapolis Indie Xpo is coming up on August 21 at the Soap Factory, "celebrating independent comics and Midwest cartoonists." The programming schedule has been set and it looks like a fun day. Also, admission is FREE. Many many many thanks to Sarah Morean and Andy Krueger for organizing this.

High Seas Adventure!



October 1-3 is High Seas Adventure weekend at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival, promising pirate games and contests in addition to their usual shows and shenanigans. And BBQ. There's also a BBQ competition going on that weekend.