Cropped Will Cardini artwork

December 12th, 2014

Austin Zine Fest 2014

Filed under: Events — Tags: , — William Cardini @ 10:47 am

Hi y’all! Glade (AKA the greeting-card designer Glademade, AKA Paper Party shop-owner, AKA my wonderful wife) and I will be tabling at the second Austin Zine Fest this Sunday!

Austin Zine Fest 2014

I’ll have the Vortex book, Cold Heat Special #10, and a selection of prints. Glade will have Paper Party merchandise and Glademade cards, including a bunch of new designs!

Glademade Friendship Card
One of the new Glademade card designs.

Austin Zine Fest 2014 is this Sunday, 12/14 from 12 to 4pm at the George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center, 1165 Angelina Street.

July 31st, 2012

Do I Self-Fund, Crowd-Fund, or Submit to a Publisher?

Filed under: Comics Process — Tags: , , , , , , , , — William Cardini @ 10:23 pm

This past Friday my particular corner of the comix internet blew up over this Comics Journal post where Dan Nadel heavily criticizes Kickstarter in general and the Secret Prison #7 Kickstarter in particular. I’ve been riveted to the ensuing shitstorm in comments threads, blog posts, and my Twitter feed. I feel compelled to post my thoughts here.

Click here to read the rest.

March 6th, 2012

Quick STAPLE! 2012 Recap

Filed under: Recaps — Tags: , , — William Cardini @ 11:48 pm

There were tons of fun moments at STAPLE! 2012.

Bear Quest costume
I’m chilling with the Cyclopean bear from Zach Taylor’s Bear Quest.

Thanks to everyone who came by our table.

Gold County Paper Mill and Glademade's table at Staple!
The Gold County Paper Mill and Glademade’s table.

I felt like Sunday traffic wasn’t quite as heavy as last year, but it was great to meet fans, hopefully make some new ones, and hang with more cartoonists than I usually see.

November 18th, 2011

Final E.A.S.T. 2011 Weekend at the Hensel Hypercastle

Filed under: Artwork — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — William Cardini @ 7:29 am

Hey y’all, this upcoming weekend is your last chance to come by the Hensel Hypercastle during E.A.S.T. 2011 to see Glade and I’s art. Just like last weekend, we’ll be open from 11am to 6pm, Saturday and Sunday. We’re Stop #121 on the tour, 1807 East 22nd Street.

Here are some shots from last weekend:

Hensel Hypercastle entrance
Here’s the front door. We’ve got Glade’s Welcome to the Hypercastle print on the door, a new artwork by her above the TV, our Christmas tree (out a bit early, we know), and a spinner rack of Glademade cards.

Hensel Hypercastle comic table
Our coffee table is chockful of comics. Most of them are for reading but a few are for sale. I’ve got comics I’ve drawn (such as my latest, VORTEX), comics by fellow GCPM members (such as Kid Space Heater by Josh Burggraf and Lords ov thee Black Sun by Mike Miles), two issues of the GCP’s poetry/comics anthology Catch Up, and various issues of anthologies that I’ve been in (Math Fiction, Candy or Medicine, Smoke Signal, Taffy Hips, and Secret Prison). Come by, chill out on our couch, and feel free to flip through everything.

Hensel Hypercastle prints
We’ve got almost all of the prints from our Hypercastle print show at Austin Books and Comics and every print we had for sale last year.

Mark P Hensel studio
I switched out the artwork on my walls in my studio.

L Glade Hensel studio
Glade has some birthday banners on the walls of her studio.

I hope to see some of y’all this weekend!

November 12th, 2011

E.A.S.T. 2011: VORTEX Debuts at the Hensel Hypercastle

Filed under: Print Comics — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — William Cardini @ 2:29 pm

I meant to get a blog post up yesterday but Glade and I were up until super late prepping our house for E.A.S.T. Here’s a sneak preview of part of our house:

Hensel Hypercastle during E.A.S.T. 2011
From left to right: painting of Anthony Romero by Anthony Garza, pillows by Glademade, sculpture casting ominous shadow by Alison Kuo, framed screenprint by Rand Renfrow, rocking chair embroidered by Haleh Pedram (with another Glademade pillow), and strange shamanistic wall sculpture from a Pedram garage sale.

“But Mark,” you may be thinking, “What’s in that box on the coffee table? Are those …” you squint “… comics?”

Let’s get a close up:

Hensel Hypercastle during E.A.S.T. 2011

Dear reader, your suspicions are correct! Every year at E.A.S.T. I like to showcase my major project from the past year. In 2010, that was the unsold artwork from my show Hypermorph at Domy Houston – and this year, it’s VORTEX, a graphic novel that I’ve been working on since the beginning of June. The first 32 pages form a nice semi self-contained narrative so I printed them up as a 7×10″ black-and-white xerox minicomic.

Come by E.A.S.T. Stop #121, 1807 East 22nd St, today (Saturday November 12th), tomorrow (Sunday November 13th), or next weekend (November 19th and 20th) from 11am to 6pm to check VORTEX #1 out! Glade and I also have a ton of other great artwork, comics, prints, and cards for you to see. I’ll be posting more pictures next week.

If you’re not an Austinite and want to order a copy of VORTEX #1, they’re $5 plus $1 shipping. Just leave a comment on this post or see my connect page for other communication channels.

November 8th, 2011

East Austin Studio Tour 2011: The Hensel Hypercastle Postcard

Filed under: Events — Tags: , , , — William Cardini @ 7:43 am

Glade and I are doing the East Austin Studio Tour once again! This year we got some postcards printed up. We spent last night driving around Austin and dropping them off at various coffee shops and other places.

Here’s my side of the postcard:

Here’s Glade’s side:

We’ve decided to call our studios the Hensel Hypercastle.

I’m going to post more images and previews of what we’ll have on display over the next week and a half.

August 30th, 2011

Flower Hypercastle by Glade Hensel and Ads in Secret Prison #5

Filed under: Inspiration,Print Comics — Tags: , , , , , , , , — William Cardini @ 8:33 pm

Hey y’all, sorry I made a mistake with my blogging and released an incomplete post early on Monday instead of today. Here’s the post that I intended to publish this morning:

Here’s a print that Glade made for our show at Austin Books (Speaking of our show, if any of y’all want to see our prints at Austin Books and haven’t yet, this week is your last chance! Tomorrow is the last day.):

Flower Hypercastle by Glade Hensel

This print is called “Flower Hypercastle.” It’s a digital print of a gouache painting. This past Saturday Glade and I just hung out at home, painted, and watched Mad Men. I spend so much time working on comics on the computer that I forget how relaxing and visceral painting can be. I’m going to try to make painting more a part of my regular art routine.

Something I’m excited about but haven’t mentioned on here yet is that I’m the co-featured artist for Secret Prison #5. It’s especially exciting because I love the work of the featured artist, Tom Scioli. Gødland is one of my favorite comics. I’m bringing it up now because it’s debuting at SPX in a week and a half and they’re looking for people to buy ad space before this Sunday, Sept 3rd. Here’s an information sheet (with a small preview of Scioli’s dope cover):

Secret Prison Ad Sheet

If any of y’all want me to draw your ad for you just drop me a line at mark p hensel /at/ g mail /dot/ com.

August 23rd, 2011

Welcome to the Hypercastle by Glade Hensel

Filed under: Inspiration — Tags: , , , , , — William Cardini @ 7:09 am

Here’s a print that Glade made for our show at Austin Books:

Welcome to the Hypercastle by Glade Hensel

This print is called “Welcome to the Hypercastle.” It’s a digital print of a gouache painting. I love Glade’s text treatment. You can see a similar design that she did for a Happy Birthday card here.

August 16th, 2011

Hyperhut by Glade Hensel

Filed under: Inspiration — Tags: , , , , , — William Cardini @ 7:50 am

Here’s the first print that Glade made for our show at Austin Books:

Hyperhut by Glade Hensel

This print is called “Hyperhut.” It’s a digital print of a cut-paper design except for the roof of the hut, which is patterned tape made by the Japanese company MT that Glade found.

August 5th, 2011

Glade and Mark’s Hypercastles at Austin Books and Comics

Filed under: Artwork — Tags: , , , , , , — William Cardini @ 7:28 am

This past Wednesday Glade and I went to Austin Books and Comics to put up our print show.

Here’s a post-install pic:

Glade and Mark's Hypercastles at Austin Books and Comics

The prints will be up and for sale there the entire month of August.

From left to right, we have:

  • “One-Color Hypercastle Screenprint” by Mark, $20 – This is the print I was posting about on Tuesday. It’s available in dried and fresh blood red
  • “Hyperhut” by Glade, $15 – This is a digital print of a piece that Glade made out of cut paper.
  • “Glade and Mark’s Hensel Hypercastle” by Mark, $20 – This is a digital print.
  • “Welcome to the Hypercastle” by Glade, $20 – This is a digital print of a gouache original.
  • “Rainbow Hypercastle” by Mark, $20 – This is a digital print.
  • “Flower Hypercastle” by Glade, $15 – This is a digital print of a gouache original.
  • “3D Hypercastle” by Mark, $20 – This is a digital print that’s made in red/blue anaglyph 3D. There are a pair of glasses that you can use to try it out hanging beneath the print.

As you can tell from the names, the theme of our prints is hypercastles. I’ll be posting larger pictures of each print throughout this month. If you want one and you can’t make it to Austin Books, please let me know in a comment or by any of the means on my connect page.