Staplegenius.com(ics)

The Case Against Autobio –exhibit H

staplegenius — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 11:00:02 +0000

The Case Against Autobio –exhibit G

staplegenius — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 11:00:51 +0000

The Case Against Autobio –exhibit F

staplegenius — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 11:00:31 +0000

Yep. More on that blasphemy next week…

The Case Against Autobio –exhibit E

staplegenius — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 11:00:08 +0000

Ok…here’ another ‘flashback’ to an autobio comic I did from days gone by…or 1998. Whatever.

The Case Against Autobio –exhibit D

staplegenius — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 11:00:00 +0000

THE CASE AGAINST AUTOBIO -exhibit C

staplegenius — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 11:00:58 +0000

As you may recall, ‘exhibit B’ ended with the promise of a terribly embarrassing autobio comic I did back in 1997. So here’s that. Good luck!

The Case Against Autobio -exhibit B

staplegenius — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 11:00:29 +0000

The Case Against Autobio -exhibit A

staplegenius — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 11:30:36 +0000

Hey. One of the factors in my decision to start doing the LUTEFISK SUSHI PODCAST was that thru 2011 I didn’t do a whole lot of comics and that has left this comic blog severly lacking in content. My thought was at least with the podcast I’d still have some kind of web presence while I slowly plugged away on…something…and wouldn’t have to worry about posting pages here until it was done (or not at all). But then a week or so ago I started drawing the following and threw all the above logic out the window. Anyway, I’ll try to post at least a page or two every week until its done. Hope you like it…

“SUPERMARKET VIGILANTE: WALKABOUT” by Nelson and Klonowski

staplegenius — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 13:13:02 +0000

This here is a crazy, fun, and unique story I did with ERIK NELSON back in 2010. When I recently put together the SUPERMARKET VIGILANTE book (which features four older SMV tales inter-woven in an all-new 50 page story) I could not for the life of me figure out how to work it in as well. Its just…its just so awesomely weird in context to the rest of the book . Anyway, it was written and drawn by Erik and inked by me (except the cover and the intro page that I drew and Erik inked. We needed the intro page so it was 8 pages and we could make a mini). This story is some of the most fun I’ve had inking someone elses work and I really hope once Erik’s life calms down (he recently became a proud papa!) we can do something again. Thanks, Erik!

ULTRAMAN!!!

staplegenius — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 15:35:36 +0000

My buddy ZANDER CANNON has a young son, JIN, and Jin is KA-RAAAAAAZY about ULTRAMAN. Zander recently asked me to do a drawing of ULTRAMAN that would be hung with pride on Jin’s wall. I am already at least 3 pin-ups deep in debt to Zander, so ‘No’ wasn’t an option (not that I’d have said no anyway). But to sweeten an already sweet and flattering pot Zander told me whatever I did would be hanging next to an ULTRAMAN by GEOF DARROW, and who could say no to THAT?! Also…the pressure was now on full-blast. This is what I came up with:

I knew I wanted to color whatever it was I was going to do for Ultraman, so I decided to go with watercolor. Why? I dunno. I don’t usually use watercolor. In fact, all I had to work with was an elementary schoolish set of generic kid watercolors to work with. It just sounded like a good challenge though, so I ran with it. Wish I had seen SARAH GLIDDEN’s watercoloring presentation from MIX before diving in, but I still think it turned out pretty good. “Hanging Next To Geof Darrow” good? I guess Jin will have to be the judge of that. Anyway, before I go here’s a step in the process, when I was about halfway done:

MINNEAPOLIS INSTITUTE OF ARTS JAM: A Retrospecticus

staplegenius — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 21:43:18 +0000

This past Thursday–Nov 17th, 2011–the MINNEAPOLIS INSTITUTE OF ARTS asked the CARTOONIST CONSPIRACY to take part in their monthly “Third Thursday” series. We led an open to the public comic jam as all sorts of other events were going on (including drinking and thumping music. RYAN DOW thought it sounded like a prom was happening, and he was pretty spot-on with that assessment).

The jam was a total success. In addition to a high number of Conspiracy regulars showing up to draw, several cartoonists who rarely make it to jams and events showed, and (best of all) CIVILIANS showed up to do jam drawing too! Here’s a jam I did with a lil’ kid:

In addition to the drawing area, the MIA also set up a couple “Reading Lounges”:

How classy looking is that?! Also, the sign by this lounge area made myself and Altered Esthetics’ founder JAMIE SCHUMACHER silly with giddiness:

Speaking of silly with giddiness, there was an official MIA photographer documenting the evening. I just checked their FLICKR account and this the album cover for the evening:

Ok, so that looks staged as hell. But this one doesn’t:

I dunno. I just think that’s cool. I’ve never seen someone reading one of my comics in the wild before. (FYI: If you want to read it you can buy it online here.) Anyway… The night was super fun all around, so lets end this with some of the actual drawing I took part in. The first thing I drew was this:

Which eventually evolved into this:

One guy was just penciling panels and asking others to ink them, so here’s one I did:

MIKE TOFT started this jam that (following what I did) became a pretty fun daisy chain of violence:

Take it from someone who has done more jam comics than I can count, if you have a chance to work William S Burroughs in, DO IT!

I did several more drawings, but the following is maybe my favorite sequence I took part in. It all started when my friend and longest-time collaborator DAN MURPHY worked one Mr George Lucas into a strip:

So I couldn’t help myself but to follow it up with:

Confession Time: The Conspiracy is about to celebrate its 9th birthday. There have been something like 150+ jams done in that time (between the Minneapolis and St Paul meetings and other various events in-between), and frankly I’ve felt quite burnt-out on them the last year (going so far as to not even really participant in them for the last 6 months). The MIA event totally resparked my interest though! I don’t know. Maybe it was the fact I haven’t done jams in a while. Maybe it was the surroundings. Maybe it was the hushed, actually conspiratorial talk I was having with some people about…something. Maybe all that art concentrated in one area physically affects a person. Who knows?! All I know is I had a great time, and I thank the MIA for the opportunity and hope they ask us back some day.

Ok…one more photo before I go. The official MIA photographer was going around and noticed I’m a drunk…errr…that I had a beer. The beer was from one of the big sponsors of these Thursday events, so she REEEEEEALLY wanted to get a shot of me drawing with the beer in a prominent position in the photo so as to appease the sponsor. She took like 3 or 4 photos, moving the beer each time to different sides of me so it was in the best place possible. I was all good with this cause secretly I hoped it would result in a life-time supply of free hooch. So…imagine my surprise to see the following is the only published picture of this massive photographic undertaking:

Hi-larious!

Mexico: Sunrise to Sunset

staplegenius — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 11:00:50 +0000

So here’s the last of the Mexico drawings. This is what it looks like when you wake up before dawn to go draw the eastern side of the island, lounge on the beach during the day, and then end the day on the western side of the island.

MIX 2011: A retrospecticus

staplegenius — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 01:22:57 +0000

So MIX 2011 has come and gone, and I can say without hyperbole that it was the greatest comics-related weekend of my life. I/we/Minnesota/comics are forever in debt to SARAH MOREAN for making this fantastic show happen for two amazing years. THANK YOU, SARAH!!! Thanks to all her staff of volunteers as well. You are all wonderful, wonderful people and put smiles on the faces of all the exhibitors and attending public alike. THANK YOU ONE MORE TIME! And now…a blow-by-blow of my fabulous weekend…

FRIDAY:

MIX began, in my mind, hours before the opening parties when the local NPR station (MPR!) had an early afternoon hour on the present and future of comics featuring Scott McCloud. Best of all, that hour of programming opened with the announcement that is was going to be discussing comics because of–you guessed it—MIX! Public radio loves its comics!

Then MIX reeeeeeeeally began at 6pm with the WOMEN OF MIX exhibit at MCAD. I arrived at about 6:45. After taking in SARAH GLIDDEN’s breath-taking pages from “HOW TO UNDERSTAND ISRAEL IN 60 DAYS OR LESS” I ran into old friends DANIEL J OLSON and KEVIN CANNON. After chatting with them for a few minutes I attempted to get back to the art but immediately ran into CHRIS MONROE. Chris and I had met last year at BOOK FEST, so we had that acquaintanceship (and Facebook) on our side. Little did I know by the end of the weekend Chris and I would end up becoming bestest of friends. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

Eventually people started clearing out of MCAD (the show closed at 8pm) and moving across town to the opening night DRINK AND DRAW/CLOUDY COLLECTIVE EXHIBIT at PINK HOBO (aka PUNY ENTERTAINMENT). Chris was unaware of the event, but I twisted her arm (FREE BOOZE!) and convinced her to go. Doing my part to save the planet, I carpooled over dirty socialist/future L RON HUBBARD/amazing cartoonist MAXEEM KONRARDY and his friend/fellow cartoonist/MCAD alum ANNA BRATTON (who it was nice to finally meet. Love her and BRITT SABO’s “Francis Sharp” comic). Speaking of dirty socialists, on route we drove by OCCUPY MN and I swear to god PHISH was playing. Anyway…

After arriving at PINK HOBO, Chris and I hooked back up and enjoyed a Grain Belt and the Cloudy Collective show. The show was spectacular, but the 2 stand-out pieces to me at had to be the ones by ED EMBERLEY and GRAHAM ANNABLE (its total bias, though). Chris and I then ventured into the back where the DRINK AND DRAW was going-on. And was it EVER going-on! There were several large tables set-up, each covered in white paper, and all the tables were packed to capacity. Eventually though 2 spots opened up, and as luck would have it they were at the same table as my friends NICK MUDGE and NICK STRAIGHT. Also at that table was SCOTT SEEKINS…

If you’re not from MN you probably don’t know Mr Seekins, and I’m not going to get into it here, but all you need to know is he’s a Minneapolis fixture and he only does art that involves himself incorporated into it. So Chris and I sat down by Scott Seekings and both began drawing Scott Seekins as Scott Seekins was drawing Scott Seekins. Very meta.

After some drawing and a couple beers I looked at the over-flowing mass of cartoonists and decided to do some mobile socializing. But first…I’d need another beer. As luck would have it, set-up next to the booze station was Conspirator/podcaster/online teacher/webcartoonist ROB STENZINGER, and the mobile chatting began. Rob had brought with him MARK RUDOLPH (of the gone but not forgotten ART & STORY podcast) and SARAH TURNER (frequent guest of the aforementioned podcast), and it was great to finally meet them as people and not just the voices in my head. Mark quizzed me on hotdish (whattya mean its not called hotdish everywhere?! MADNESS!), and a weekend-long running gag was born.

Speaking of podcasters, I also finally met MIKE DAWSON shortly thereafter and we discussed the challenges of doing interview-heavy shows. Nice guy, that Mike Dawson.

From there I just made the rounds talking to old friends and the MNtoonists I usually only get to see at conventions and openings. But the night was getting late and we had already exceeded the 11pm closing time (the crowd had thinned out, but it was still VERY crowded). Knowing I had to be up early the next day I headed out. A great opening ceremony. Take THAT, Hong Kong Olympics!

SATURDAY:

While the con didn’t open to the public until 10am, I had volunteered for early/morning last minute set-up. Sarah cracked the whip and we said “How High” to get everything running smooth. After a few errands I ended up being a greeter/usher helping the checking-in creators find their spot. It was fast-paced and very fun and I’m glad I did it. It was a nice, quick way to meet many fellow cartoonists and put faces to names. It was also great watching the place fill-up–over 200 creators filled three big rooms. Amazing!

At 9:45 I turned in my gun and badge (still don’t know why we were issued those) and settled into my table which I was sharing with my friends and collaborators BUD BURGY and DAN MURPHY. Dan was tabling on his own for the first time. All he had were three minis in his ever-growing ELLE CIRKA saga, but they were easily some of the best things anyone could have purchased at the show.

We were also surrounded on both sides by friends like BOB LIPSKI, LUPI McGINTY, STEVE STWALLEY and AARON POLIWODA. JORDAN SHIVELEY and BRETT WARNOCK of TOP SHELFwere across the way. It was a great spot in the chilly ”Papa Bear” room (And yes, the other two rooms were “Mama Bear” and “Baby Bear”. Bet you can figure out why). The crowd trickled in immediately, and by 11:30 or so it was a full-blown frenzy. I was behind the table more or less all day. Sales were good enough for me to make a couple or rounds purchasing (aside from a last-minute spending binge on Sunday, all my profits went into others books. I only *lost* money on food and booze, but the food truck grub was AMAZING and booze is booze, so I wouldn’t actually call it losing).

I was honored to be asked to be a part of the SALON SALOON panel and was looking forward to it all day. When it finally started at 3:30 I was not disappointed.

ANDY STURDEVANT puts on a hell of show with SALON SALOON, and even in the truncated MIX form it was still a great time. Fellow guests CORINNE MUCHA, LENA CHANDHOK, and JOHN PORCELLINO were all really entertaining. As I’ve mentioned in the pre-MIX posts, John P was one of the main reasons I got into mini-comics to begin with, so to find myself onstage with him singing “OH, YOKO” at the end of SALON SALOON…well, it was just magically surreal, lets say that. Lena and Corinne were also super cool people (and great cartoonists) who I’m really glad I got to meet and get to know in such a fun setting. Luckily, Andy let me record the whole thing and it’ll be available as a part of the LUTEFISK SUSHI PODCAST this Thursday.

Salon Saloon ran a little long (fine by me!) so the con was more or less over by the time I got out. Luckily while I was paneling ATHENA CURRIER and her booth-beard JASON ROBEY were hatching dinner plans! Given the ‘ok’ to invite ‘whoever’ over to Jason’s for a home-cooked meal I wrangled Chris Monroe to forgo a nap in favor of a potentially awkward meal. But awkward it wasn’t, not in any way, no sir! The one to describe the whole scene was DELICIOUS (also: boozy)!!! Jason is a master fucking chef and the company was fantastic! So thanks Jason, Athena, Chris, Bud, Murphy, RYAN DOW, BRITT HAMMERBERG, DAN OLSON, and TED ANDERSON for a great time. (On a side note: Athena did the most heart-felt book signing of the weekend on her new ACTION ATHENA collection. It seriously melts my blackened, ice-cold heart. Thanks, Athena!!!)

The official Saturday after-party was at HONEY, a place where vampires and clubbers go for orgies. But on this night the nerds took over! The dinner crew (plus MIKE TOFT) stuck together for a while, but as the official MIX cocktail kicked-in, the socializing spread out. An old friend, and currently dormant cartoonist, MATT MUNN was there and it was cool to get to see him again (he finally got a new computer. Here’s hoping the return of his “ZED RECKONING” webcomic is not too far behind). Also CATHY JOHNSON was there! Cathy was part of the Conspiracy back when she was 17 or so. One day Cathy left to go off to college. I could have sworn this was like a year and a half ago, but NOPE! Cathy is a full-grown college graduate and all-around awesome adult now, and it was great to get to catch up (feeling like an old, old man however, not so great). The aforementioned Mark Rudolph and I also had some more fun. He’s seriously a great guy.

All good things must end, however, and with the 10pm end of the party came the vampires and models and shitty, shitty dance music with which they would soon cover HONEY with their jizzum and blood and VD. Smartly, Chris suggested we bolt for NYE’S POLONAISE ROOM, so that’s what we (along with BUD and STEVE STWALLEY) did. As Bud bought the first round I nabbed the biggest table in the Polka bar which was perfect since we were soon joined by KEVIN CANNON, SARAH MOREAN, BRITT HAMMERBERG, JORDAN SHIVELEY, BRETT WARNOCK, TIM SIEVERT, and several others.

Drunken mayhem was had by all–Sarah and I dueted a tune in the piano karaoke bar, Tim and I had a magical polka bonding moment, Chris and I had tons of laughs, and we all went horse shouting out our conversations. Despite the fact it was Daylight Savings night and we *technically* could have stayed out drinking until 3am (since the clocks turn back at 2am–the hour MN bars close), people started scattering around 12 or so. Only the drunkity-drunks (myself included) stayed until about 1:30–the last 45 minutes of which was spent nursing glasses of water and making deals with deities so we wouldn’t be *too* hungover the next day.

SUNDAY:

That extra hour of sleep was a saving grace. Sunday morning wasn’t nearly as horrific as I feared, in fact I barely had a headache at all (I also ate like nine aspirins before passing out). It was pointed out in the morning that Twitter was abuzz with talk of hangovers and mix2011 hash-tags. Totally not surprised.

Sunday was bitter-sweet, though. Knowing this whole magical weekend was coming to an end was sad, but being in the moment of it was heaven. I made several more sales, got a bunch more books, and got to meet the several more people who had eluded me previously like SARAH GLIDDEN (who says she might move to Mpls. I hope this weekend helped sway her decision!):

Also, JULIA WERTZ. Julia claims her signature in my FART PARTY collection is the “worst she’s ever done” so I won’t post it here, but its a pretty hilarious and I’m honored to be in possession of the ”worst” thing she’s ever done (“I saw your panel, I KNOW your name is Danno, so why did I sign it…Wait! Why am I drawing myself as a hunchback?!”). Thanks, Julia!

The day drew to a close. Goodbyes started to be said all around to both new friends and old. And before we knew it MIX 2011 was over. There was a closing party four hours after MIX ended, but once I went home I was DONE. I had gotten maybe eight hours of sleep total from Friday night until 5pm Sunday so i was not surprised to find myself dozing off around 8:30. As much as I would have liked to taken part in the grand finale, I don’t think I could have physically taken it. As I type this I’m still recovering. But it was ll totally worth it!

So, was MIX 2011 the best show ever? Yes. Deal with it, every other indie show. You might have age and experience and the what-not on your sides, but you don’t have SARAH MOREAN, and Sarah Morean knows how to throw a fucking party!

You’re the best, Sarah! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

(Photos by me, Sarah Morean, Amaya McBatman, Puny Entertainment, and Christian Erickson. All photos (c) their respective photographer.)

MIX is SATURDAY & SUNDAY @ the Soap Factory

staplegenius — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 22:18:28 +0000

Seating charts...everyone is doing it, maaaaaan!

MIX–The Minneapolis Indie Xpo–is this Saturday and Sunday–10am to 5pm both days!!! I hope if y0u’re in Minneapolis you plan on attending, cause its sure to be the social event of the season! I will be there selling the brand new MANLY TALES OF COWARDICE trade and SUPERMARKET VIGILANTE graphic novel. I’ll also have copies of FALSE WITNESS: THE MICHELE BACHMANN STORY and the new DUH! anthology. I’ll be at table 19, which I’m sharing with CONTINUITY GUY collaborator BUD BURGY, and we’ll have copies of both CG books on-hand as well (and Bud’s MEATFIST AND GRONK collection).

Seated next to us will be DAN MURPHY, my longest-time collaborator. Dan will have his AMAZING new mini–ELLE CIRKA–on-hand, and its a MUST-HAVE of MIX. There will also be one–ONE!–copy of the PHIL THE EVIL BEAN OF DOOM comic that Dan and I did in 1994/2009. First come, only serve!

Next to Dan will be BOB LIPSKI (who I have also worked with!) who will be liquidating his UPTOWN GIRL collections–get them all!!! Next to Bob is LUPI McGINTY who will be debuting her GERM WARFARE anthology, which–surprise!–I have a story in as well! It’s a veritable collaborator row!

And don’t forget–I’ll be on the SALON SALOON panel Saturday at 3:30. So stop on by sometime this weekend–tons going on during and after the show! Come! Enjoy! It’ll be great!!!