More Guy With a Hammer dailies!

This week I spent a lot of time writing and editing for my big 40th anniversary project, and finished the first draft of a big part of it! I felt a little guilty going on such a deep dive at the expense of not even touching my other projects, but I think it paid off by keeping me present in the world of that story without other distractions. Now I can set it aside to rest before I revisit it with fresh eyes for a final edit next month…

Anyway, here’s another week’s worth of vintage 1993 Guy With a Hammer daily strips for your reading pleasure! 

[January 2023 UPDATE: this post originally appeared on my now-closed Patreon page.]

The Guy With a Hammer dailies!

I’ve been spending a lot of time this month digging into some of my earliest comic book work, researching for a big project coming later this year celebrating 40 years of creating my own comics! So in addition to sifting through past printed art, and notes for things that never took shape like I’d planned, I’ve also uncovered some complete– but never printed– work featuring my very first comic book character, Armen Hammer! In the early 90s I was indulging in a brief revival of the character, renamed “A. Hieronymous Hammer”, and decided to take the character on a spin thru the daily comic strip format. It wasn’t done with any intention of submitting it to a syndicate, but to make new content for my own digest comics. It was a good exercise to see what I could do with the daily strip format, both learning its limitations (for my writing style) and how to make comics every day while holding down a full-time job. I have about a month’s worth of these, many never before seen– and the rest only little seen– that I’ll share with you here. I hope you enjoy them; it was fun for me to rediscover theses strips, even if I’m not sure any of them will end up on the page in my big project…

[January 2023 UPDATE: this post originally appeared on my now-closed Patreon page.]

The bull(-headed) Moose

 

It took me a while to track down the artwork for this comic (which is at least as accurate as your average TV biopic), but “‘Murica”, the MSCA art show coming up next month, gave me the impetus to do so. That gallery show is in conjunction with the play The Complete History of America (abridged), but when I learned the venue was asking for “editorial politico cartoon style entries that are irreverent and fun but not so far from “center” that anyone would be made truly uncomfortable” I immediately thought of the uninspiring comic “Mallard Fillmore”, and became uninspired myself. Fortunately, while talking with another group member, I remembered this piece (& how it would fit the theme), which I sepia toned to use as a print to display there. Plus, cleaning up the artwork for this puts me one page closer to finishing my Larry’s Kitchen (where this comic first appeared) archival project…

[January 2023 UPDATE: this post originally appeared on my now-closed Patreon page.]

Holiday piece No. 2

Much like last year’s posted holiday piece (which I referenced in the new print piece I did for 2020), this year’s archival selection (an odd-shaped piece from 1986) is going to be incorporated into a new project. Not, however, in this year’s holiday piece … but in a project for next year, when I’m celebrating 40 (!) years as a published (and publishing) cartoonist! More on that to come in the new year…

Thank you for taking the time to check out my comics & artwork this year; it’s much appreciated! Wishing you all the best for this holiday season and for 2022!

Dreaming the pandemic away?

If 2021 had any sort of theme as it relates to my publishing output, it’s been wrapping up projects that had origins in previous years (or previous decades), and my newest collection of comics is no different: Fever Dreams began life as a collaborative project back during the pandemic summer of 2020.

Unfortunately, the pandemic affected everyone’s creativity & productivity in different ways. I know I struggled quite a bit, and still seem to be suffering from lack of focus. My partner in that project had a hard time coming up with a body of work– or even sharing works in progress– and eventually we let that idea of a collaboration go. For better or for worse, I’m not one to easily let go of a project once I’ve got work done for it, and I decided to produce a collection of my pandemic- inspired dream comics. I’m glad I did, and hopefully this will help me put the pandemic behind me (at least creatively; given the news of yet another variant spreading across the world, I don’t think it will be behind me in real life for quite some time) and help me move on to more positive work in the future… 

Fever Dreams features dream comics with all your pandemic and dystopian “favorites”: face masks, murder hornets, shambling zombies, visits with friends far away & friends long gone, plus the end of the world a time or two. I’m really excited with how it turned out, and I enjoyed producing its more elaborate finished form, including color stock, color accents on the interior art, and a full-color dust jacket cover!  Turning those fevered dreams into comics reminded me of how much I used to enjoy doing two-page comic “singles” back in the 90s, so I included a couple of those that matched the tone of Fever Dreams, turning one into an actual promotional single that I used as a bag-stuffer during last month’s Crafts and Drafts event. (That event, by the way, was really encouraging, giving me the chance to once again see my work connect with people in a way I haven’t been able to in far too long.) I was pleased with how that single turned out, too, even if I didn’t do a blatant enough promotion of Fever Dreams on it. Another thing to work on for next time…

Fever Dreams is a 16-page black & yellow comic w/ color accents and full-color cover dustjacket; trim size 5.5 x 8.5″. You can get a copy by mail via my Square store for $8.00 postpaid in the US. You can also get a copy by becoming one of my Patreon patrons during the rest of 2021 at the Correspondent or Art Lover level (plus, joining (at any level) gives you immediate access to other online bonus comics, including a full-color Human Spring adventure)!

[January 2023 UPDATE: I’ve closed my Patreon page.]

Release The Dragon!

It’s past time to share the news about the release of my latest comic, one my collaborator and I have been working on for quite a while: The Dragon Templar!

 It is the depths of the Middle Ages, the era of the Crusades… A time of expansion for both populations and empires, the Universal Church is committed to laying claim to the Holy Land… The legendary Knights Templar are Rome’s agents on the ground protecting traveling pilgrims and battling the Saracens, all the while harboring in their midst a power they can’t fully understand…

Writer Brad Starnes and I talk a bit about the genesis of this medieval adventure tale in the book itself, but I want to share here how excited I am to be working on this project in tandem with another creator. Even if it can draw the process out a bit, having someone else involved in this project’s creation has helped push us both, and the creative give-and-take adds a level of excitement that I don’t get when writing and drawing stories on my own. We plot out the story ideas together, then I draw it, giving storytelling notes in the margins that Brad then works into his script (what comic nerds call “the Marvel Method”). I’m really happy with how well this worked in our first issue, and Brad did a great job, raising the bar above what I could accomplish on my own! While I’d hoped we would have a second story ready to go before we released the first issue, we’d waited long enough and decided to release the first story into the wild to see what response it garners! Since I wanted to play up the Monster Market release of Monster Melee in October, I’m finally able to shift my focus to this project, one I’m thrilled to finally get into print and into the hands of readers! In the future, I guess I need to do a better job of scheduling my releases so they each get their moment to shine. Always something to improve upon, I guess…

The Dragon Templar #1 is a 12-page black & white standard sized comic on ivory stock w/ full-color cover; ask for it at your comic shop of choice (our list of retail partners is kept up-to-date on the Dragon Templar website), or get a copy by mail via my Square store for $5.00 postpaid in the US. You can also get a copy by becoming one of my Patreon patrons during the rest of 2021 at the Correspondent or Art Lover level (plus, joining (at any level) gives you immediate access to other online bonus comics, including a full-color Human Spring adventure)!

My plan, by the way, is to release a print alongside each issue of The Dragon Templar. Until I get my act together and figure out how I want to ship oversize prints, tho, you’ll need to get them from me at one of my in-person events. Like Crafts and Drafts, coming this November 13th to Crosstown Concourse…

[February 2022 UPDATE: Brad and I were featured guests on Lin Workman’s “Drawing Funny” podcast. It was a really good interview & you can listen to it here.]
[May 2022 UPDATE: a digital version of this issue is available from my Gumroad store!]
[November 2022 UPDATE: Print and digital version of this issue are available from IndyPlanet.com; please note that the IndyPlanet edition is printed on white paper.]
[January 2023 UPDATE: I’ve closed my Patreon page.]

Hot off the press: a one-sheet war!

“This is the story … of seven monsters … picked to be in a comic together … find out what happens … when monsters stop being polite … and start killing each other: Monster Melee!”

After a soft debut at September’s Memphis Zine Fest 6 (my first IRL event in nearly two years, where I demo’d the folding/trimming on this book to its socially-distanced attendees), Monster Melee is getting its wide release as part of October’s Monster Market, which I think will be a good fit for it. Or at least as good as can be in a virtual shop where people can’t pick it up and play with it…

See, this minicomic is a little different than my usual Smeary Soapbox Press-ents minicomics: while this is also made from a single sheet of paper, it’s a sheet that’s not bound, but rather folded to achieve its book-ness. This summer I took an online RISO workshop from the fine folks at Outlet PDX where I was reminded of this folding format and decided to give it a try. I’ve never used it before because it’s generally done with a letter size piece of paper, yielding what to me feels like a too-small finished book, but their example started with an 11×17” sheet (as mine does), which folds down to the familiar minicomic size, and I was off and running…

Interested in your own copy? You can get Monster Melee (8 two-color pages on blue stock; trim size 5.5 x 4.25″; unfolds into 11 x 17 poster) by mail via my Square store for $3.00 postpaid in the US. You can also get a copy by becoming one of my Patreon patrons during October 2021 at the Correspondent or Art Lover level (plus, joining (at any level) gives you immediate access to other online bonus comics, including a full-color Human Spring adventure)!

[January 2023 UPDATE: I’ve closed my Patreon page.]

Oh, what could have been…

So, earlier this summer I took an online RISO zine-making class from OutletPDX in Portland. They were the same group that taught the RISO print-making class I took last summer, and I wanted to play around a little more with the technology & get published in one of their publications.

The theme was “Things we love about where we live”, and in June I was pretty optimistic about what my summer might look like. Alas, that window was only briefly open before Delta took hold here in the Mid-South, and I was back to mandated masking and pretty much sheltering in place before I got the chance to enjoy any of these things I love about Memphis…

An odd thing (well, odd to me) about Outlet’s Let’s Make a Zine! Volume 6 is that they didn’t want to make any extra copies available, either for contributors to purchase or even for them to sell in their own store! I’d hoped to have some copies of this multi-colored extravaganza to sell once I could get back to doing shows again, but I guess the vision of easily printed and distributed media they touted in the class wasn’t something they actually believe in practicing…

So, since I have no other way to share this cartoon (or the story behind it), here it is now (rather than my customary year after publication), in as close to its dayglo glory as is possible to scan!

It’s actually a shame I wasn’t able to have extra copies, because I did make my first tentative steps back towards doing shows at Memphis Zine Fest 6 over Labor Day weekend. It would have been an appealing item for that crowd. Instead, I took the opportunity to show off the books I’d finished over the nearly two years since I’ve last done a show. There wasn’t a crush of crowds (which was good, given where our numbers were earlier this month), and it felt okay. So okay that I’ve signed up to do another (larger) event in November…

One of the new books I showcased at Zine Fest was Monster Melee!, inspired by a format I saw in the Outlet virtual class. It was really a soft debut, as I was saving it for October’s Monster Market! I was happy with how it turned out, and was able to use some of what I learned in the RISO class to try out a new kind of coloring for me…

[January 2023 UPDATE: this post originally appeared on my now-closed Patreon page.]

The secret (finally) revealed!!

Revealed at long last– the secret origin of Watusi the Talking Dog!! Or maybe “originS” is more accurate, as told in this collection of comics by me, Matt Corrigan, Steve Peters & Daniel Heredia, Steve Skeates, Drew Boynton, Nate Corrigan, Larned Justin, Tom Cherry, Billy McKay, and J.B. Winter!

This “untold origin” project is one I’ve had on the back burner for a shamefully long time; it fell into the cracks when jam comic participation dried up before this invitational issue was filled up and other projects pushed to the fore. But it’s finally complete, and I’m really happy with how it turned out!

Watusi the Talking Dog #40 is a 16-page black & white digest w/ full-color cover; ask for it at your comic shop of choice, or get a copy by mail via my Square store for $3.00 postpaid in the US. You can also get a copy by becoming one of my Patreon patrons during the months of May/June 2021 at the Correspondent or Art Lover tier– plus, joining gives you immediate access to online bonus comics, including a full-color Human Spring adventure!

[January 2023 UPDATE: I’ve closed my Patreon page.]

A horrific year, reflected in drawings

As you might guess from its cover, the latest issue of my Smeary Soapbox Press-ents minicomic series is another “art” mini, collecting drawings from the pandemic year of 2020. It’s no big surprise that 2020 was a difficult year (I’m sure you know why), and that mood of impending doom was reflected in my drawings from that time. Lots of monstrous images, including ghosts, murder hornets, and silent era horror movies.

Interested in your own copy? You can get a copy of Smeary Soapbox Press-ents #21 (an 8-page minicomic) from me by mail, postpaid in the US for just $1.00 … or by becoming one of my Patreon patrons during April or May 2021 at the Correspondent or Art Lover level … plus, joining (at any level) gives you immediate access to other online bonus comics, including a full-color Human Spring adventure!

[January 2023 UPDATE: I’ve closed my Patreon page.]