Back from FLUKE

This weekend I had the opportunity to go to Fluke, a mini-comic convention in Athens, Georgia (about an hour and a half from where I currently live).

To prepare for this, I stayed up all Friday night making a mini comic. I’ve spent the past few months working almost exclusively on Giovanni Potatoe and Crogan’s Vengeance, and haven’t had much time to make extra shorter pieces (something I hope to remedy soon).

I had done one page (one big panel) of an idea I’ve been kicking around for a while a few weeks ago. I thought that it might serve well as a mini, so I redrew it in a horizontal format and drew another 27 single-panel pages and colored them up. It’s sort of an intro chapter to a humor/fantasy story about three little dogs who travel around. I was pleased with how it turned out, and had them printed up at the UPS store a block over from where I live. I underestimated the cost, and the books, which I had marked at two dollars, actually cost me closer to $2.50, but as they were all traded rather than sold it doesn’t make a lot of difference. I think that I’ll serialize it here and on webcomicsnation, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Ideally, that’ll give me a chance to make future installments and have them up on a regular basis. That's the title and page at the top of the post. If you didn't get the mini, make sure to check back regularly to see how it unfolds.

FLUKE had a lot of cartoonists whose work I was familiar with but who I’ve never had a chance to hang out with. Hunter, who’s in grad school with me, introduced me to Joey Weiser and David Yoder. Both are really nice guys, and while I’d read Joey’s Flight story I hadn’t seen much of his other stuff. He gave me his minis and they totally blew me away. He’s got a great hand at storytelling, and I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.

I had dinner with Dean Trippe, who does Butterfly and is part of the Lunchbox Funnies Collective, along with some of his cartoonist friends from Nashville. Dean is an incredibly nice guy, and was actually the person who told me about Scad’s graduate program on a message board a while back. Afterwards we went to Drew Weing and Eleanor Davis’s house for a prohibition party where we got to sample Drew’s homemade beer.

It was a really great night. I’d never been to an all-cartoonist party before, where everybody talks shop and draws pictures and compares sketchbooks – it was one of the most fun times I’ve had in a while. I spent most of the evening talking to that king of the crosshatch, Chris Wright. Chris was the third cartoonist at the party working on a pirate book (in addition to me and Drew). Apparently pirates are the new autobio.

Tonight I’m going to work on the website and my business cards (for a class), and hopefully the website revamp will be underway soon.

Also, I've got a phone conference later today, so I MAY have some big news.