Zach Taylor has released The Meanderthal #1, the first part of an indie video game he’s creating with my help on the plot, writing, and design (The Meanderthal was codenamed Project Quinoa).
A GIF of the Meanderthal battling the moleworm, a mini-boss I designed.
You can download the game for free from Zach’s itch.io page for PC or Mac.
In this GIF, you can see some slimy snails and background elements I designed.
From a geopolitical perspective, 2017 was a horrible year and the chances that our civilization will survive the coming climate catastrophe still seem remote. Our woeful lack of preparation for extreme weather events was unfortunately evident when the homes of my friends and family in Houston were imperiled by the record-shattering inundation of Hurricane Harvey. My parents’ house was inches from being flooded. I feel so grateful that they escaped that nightmare and I feel so much sympathy for the people who are still rebuilding in Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico.
In response to the climate change denial, racist policies, and class warfare of the current Republican government, I was more politically active in 2017 than I have been in any year since 2003, when I participated in anti-war protests against our invasion of Iraq. It felt good to fight back and I feel like progressive forces in American won some victories.
Despite the national calamity, I continued to make comics. Madeleine Witt and Andrew White, the editors of Warmer: A collection of comics about climate change for the fearful & hopeful, included my submission in their anthology. I experimented with creating abstract comics from a template and Mike Getsiv posted some of the results of my tests on the Abstract Comics blog.
Abstract comics test. Each of the pages has the same circle shape, deformed or modified in different ways.
My biggest comics accomplishment was when Retrofit / Big Planet Comics published Tales from the Hyperverse, a collection of my short comics that I’ve been planning to put out for years. It’s difficult to match the feeling of excitement and anticipation that I got when I picked up the first box of comics from the post office. Tales from the Hyperverse will arrive at local comic shops that stock Retrofit / Big Planet Comics on Wednesday January 10th!
My friend and fellow cartoonist Colin Panetta drew this fan art of the Floating Crystal Witch, who features prominently in Tales from the Hyperverse.
Both Warmer and Hyperverse were funded by successful Kickstarter campaigns. Thanks to everyone who supported those campaigns with a pledge or a post!
I tabled at two comic fests this year, KC Zine Con for the second time and Cartoon Crossroads Columbus for the first time. I self-published a small print run of my minicomic Drumstick Pit for KC Zine Con. I’ll probably do one regional and one national show again next year.
It was fun to xerox and then fold and staple Drumstick Pit. It’s been too long since I last made my own mini-comics! An essential comics skill.
On this blog, which passed its tenth anniversary this year, I posted four book reviews:
I’ve got a few projects in the works that may see the light of day in 2018, including a collaboration with Zach Taylor on a videogame code named Project Quinoa. You can see updates from Zach, including videos of his great pixel art, on his development log.
Here’s a drawing I made this year that I might use for one of those aforementioned 2018 projects:
Dome city drawing.
And here’s a couple pages of a comic I’ve been tinkering with:
“So I Folded” Miizzzard grid comic page.
“And Piped Out” Miizzzard grid comic page.
There were tons of fun moments at STAPLE! 2012.
I’m chilling with the Cyclopean bear from Zach Taylor’s Bear Quest.
Thanks to everyone who came by our table.
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.
Hey y’all! STAPLE! is this weekend and I’m super stoked!
I’m going to have a bunch of great stuff at a table with fellow Gold County Paper Mill members Michael Miles, Chuch, David Fullen, and the proprietor of Glademade, my wife Glade.
A sick skull draw by Mike Miles.
I’m going to have stacks of VORTEX #1; my Rainbow Hypercastle, Hensel Hypercastle, 3D Hypercastle, and One-Color Hypercastle prints; Josh Burggraf’s Kid Space Heater; and the new issue of the GCPM-published poetry and comics magazine Catch Up. Michael Miles will have the zine he debuted last year, Lords ov thee Black Sun, and a new zine. And my wife Glade will be selling her Glademade greeting cards, leather bangles, and Poketo wallets. We’ll be at Table 34 in the Hall.
I’ve marked our table.
To our left is Ao Meng’s Cavalry Press (Meng is also editor of Novi Magazine). He’s gonna have a bunch of great stuff. On the other side of the room from us are cool area cartoonists M. Austin Bedell of Skweegie Island, Jason Poland of Robbie and Bobby, Chris Sweet of Effing Decaf, and Zach Taylor of Bear Quest. And on the back table at the back of the room are the big guns, Chris Staros of Top Shelf and Kevin Eastman, co-creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and publisher of Heavy Metal.
An 11×17″ pixel art poster by Zach Taylor, on sale at STAPLE!
In the other room, the Annex, are cartoonist power couple Aaron Whitaker and Melinda Tracy Boyce. Aaron will be debuting his first graphic novel, The City Troll, which successfully met its Kickstarter goal recently. Also in the Annex will be Tom Neely and Virginia Paine, representing Sparkplug Books. I think it’s really cool that they’ll be there. I’m really looking forward to checking out Neely’s book The Wolf.
An autobio comic by Melinda.
See this blog post on the STAPLE! blog for a full list of participating cartoonists and their locations. There’s also a preparty tonight at Austin Books and Comics starting at around 7pm.
This past weekend was 24-Hour Comics Day. I spent several hours at an Austin event organized by Zach Taylor.
A sample page from Zach’s current webcomic, Bear Quest. I love how he does pixel art versions of each page.
I wasn’t there to work on a 24-hour comic – I just worked on a book-length comic, VORTEX, that I’m now about 3/8ths of the way through.
I’m not going to show y’all any more of VORTEX until the whole thing is finished.
The 24-Hour Comics Day event was fun (and productive – I finished [almost] four pages in the [little over] four hours I was there). I got to meet Jason Poland, who makes the webcomic Robbie and Bobby, IRL after many online convos.
This is a few panels from a Robbie and Bobby comic called “Wings”. Jason does all sorts of awesomely weird stuff like this in his strip, which he puts out several times a week.
I also met Austin Bedell …
This is a comic from Austin’s side project Vidyagame Library, where he draws comic inspired by NES videogames.
… Chris Sweet …
This is a comic from Chris’s webcomic Effing Decaf. He also did a great mashup comic with Zach called “16-Bit Breakfast”.
… and many other awesome local comic folks. I’ll probably continue to work on my own projects during 24HCD2012 but it’s great to get to hang out with a bunch of local cartoonists.
