Spooky.

Even though it’s really hot here in Denver tonight, I’m still happy that summer is over and it’s now fall time. I’m looking forward to wearing cardigans and sweaters as to hide my strange body. Today I’m posting this spooky comic I did for Blammo #7 in the spirit of Halloween which is coming up.

 

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Dylan Williams.

This past weekend while waiting with hundreds of other cartoonists to go into the Ignatz awards at SPX in Bethesda, I was told that my friend Dylan Williams publisher of Sparkplug comics had died. He had been sick and the comics community had been coming together to support him and his company. I honestly could not imagine this happening. I expected he would pull through and continue publishing and discovering amazing talent for years to  come. I’m here now, sitting on my couch writing this heartbroken.

Dylan was probably the most sincere and selfless man I have ever met in my life. I couldn’t believe how much credit he deserved and didn’t seek out. It was so strange to myself, a young man who wants credit even when it isn’t due at all, that Dylan honestly didn’t care for awards or fame. Dylan was a teacher of comics to me and countless other young cartoonists. The last time I saw him, I was sleeping on his living room floor in Portland for the few days that John Porcellino and I were in town. I swear to god the entire time I was there he was pulling books and comics off of shelves for me to read or take home. I snuck into his office one afternoon and saw how loaded the room was with books, comics, and mini comics. It was really a sight. He discovered  great cartoonists. In fact, most of the incredible talent in comics has a Dylan Williams story. We’re all linked to him somehow. He distributed Blammo for me really early on, before anybody else had, and encouraged me constantly to keep going with my comics. He gave me excellent constructive criticism with every new issue I put out and I looked forward to his response to my new stories. Whenever I left town to go on tour or go to a convention Dylan was sure to already be there. Breathing and exhaling comics. Dylan was the man.

I’m not sure if this is okay to do- I mean posting this autobiographical comic by Dylan below, but it’s one of my favorites from him and want people to read it. For a man who was famously closed mouthed about himself, this comic exposes who he was and surprised me when I had first read it. It’s published in Windy Corner magazine by Austin English and you can buy it and other comics that Dylan published here: Sparkplugcomicbooks.com

 

Finally, here is an unfinished comic page from a tour comic I was working on that featured an encounter I had with Dylan in Minneapolis. At the time I was working on this, I thought about how funny it was going to be to put Dylan in my comic, knowing that he probably would rather not be in it at all. He wouldn’t care for the attention given to him personally. I abandoned this particular page. Maybe I’ll finish it sometime.

Rest in peace my friend. Everybody loves you.

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Video.

Updates from a friend.

 

Thank you to everyone who bought artwork from me! And sorry to the people who were too late. I’ll post some more drawings to sell up here soon. It’s hectic around these parts lately!

I finished a comic book “1999” for Retrofit comics  recently and made some photocopies of the pages to hang at a local art space during a show to allow some people to see it. People seemed to like it a lot. Not sure if it was the PBR talking. Or that dude’s hair. Actually, the guy with the overflowing hair didn’t care for comics.

Denver cartoonists! (me, Lonnie Allen, and Sara Century.)

Reminder: This weekend I will be at SPX selling my comics! If you are there, come say hi to me! I’d love to chat. And the night before in Baltimore I’ll be doing a reading at Atomic books for their annual Spxplosion.

 

 

Premiering at SPX is So Buttons #4 from Jonathan Baylis. Jonathan is sort of picking up where Pekar and Eichhorn left off and hiring different cartoonists to illustrate his life stories. Well, this new issue has a 4 pager from me that you will not find anywhere else, as well as artwork from Fred Hembeck (Marvel), Thomas Boatwright (Slave Labor Graphics), T.J. Kirsch (She Died in Terrebonne), and many others.

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I’m not sure If I’ve announced it on here yet but, I’m featured in this year’s Best American Comics! I’m really excited for that. I guess I’m doing okay stuff…

Also I have a comic strip in next month’s MAD magazine. Good times. Another pretty big thing for me is that my favorite publisher Fantagraphics has agreed to publish my first book The Hypo for me as soon as I finish it! I remember this time when John Porcellino and I were walking around Denver together and he told me that I seemed like a Fantagraphics type of artist. Well, I guess he was right.

I had sent Eric Reynolds a pdf of the pages I had done and then waited in agony for his final response. I was waiting to hear the “I think I’m gonna pass” that you’ll get countless times as a cartoonist or creative type from different publishers and publications. Surely I would not land my book at my first choice, right? Right??

Then on july 7th, my birthday, to my surprise I got a Happy Birthday from Gary Groth on Facebook and the best present of all which was that he liked my book and that he would publish it! So there you go. The Hypo will have an FB on the spine.

 

I’m getting pretty close to finishing it too. In fact, I’m getting that weird feeling now, like it’s unbelievable that I’ve drawn this thing. That it’s actually going to exist. I’m so used to doing short stories and now here’s this book that I’ve drawn. And I actually like it all. It’s a strange Abraham Lincoln book. Absolutely unlike any other. And I did it.

And there will be NO sepia tone in it at all.