Update on Things

If I haven't updated in a while it's because I've been extremely busy! For 1 thing, My daughter Olympia Laurel was born in the Christmas time. She came in at a mere 5 lbs. 12 ounces and 19 inches long. Her screams and cries, however, are immense.

Meanwhile, my other, slightly less attractive baby, Danger Country, is being serialized on the Studygroup Comics site. If you haven't read it yet, this is a good opportunity to catch it in full color. 

And while you're on that site, you can check out the blog entry I made there about coloring comics. If you ever wanted to know about my process, that is a good start. I'll be making some process blog posts on a new blog for my upcoming kickstarter subscribers. That's right, I'm working on a kickstarter. More details on that soon! 

And finally, if you've visited my site before you've obviously noticed that I redesigned it...At least most of it. I hope you enjoy this new design. I'd welcome your feedback.

Oh, one more thing. It looks like I'm currently out of the first printing of Danger Country. I want to thank Tim aka Teenage Dinosaur for having faith in me and publishing my first serialized comic. It's been a great experience to work with such a passionate and genuine person. However, due to purely logistical reasons, the rest of Danger Country will be published by I Will Destroy You, run by my friend Tom Neely (also very passionate and genuine). It's the first time he's publishing a single artist that's not himself, so I hope it goes well. We'll be starting with a re-printed chapter 1 and 2, combined in a single book we're calling Volume 1. We'll be publishing chapters 3 and 4 together as Volume 2 later this year, and when all the chapters are done, the entire series will be collected in full color! See you on the flip side.

Levon In San Francisco

Pictured above: Run DMC

This weekend I'm heading to San Francisco!

Saturday and Sunday I'll be at the Alternative Press Expo (APE). I will be helping out at Tom Neely's table on the main floor right next to Sparkplug Comic Books and Pigeon Press. I'll be selling mini comic editions of Danger Country. Tom will be debuting a brand new mini-comic called Doppelgänger. We will have some Henry & Glenn "Special Package" collector's items for sale. We will also have Bound & Gagged and many other books and prints available for sale. Maybe even some original art.

Also debuting at the show is the new anthology Studygroup 12 #4. I have 2 pages of art in this amazing book published by Zack Soto and Floating World Comics.

Please come out and say "HI" an see all the wonderful comics from all the participating artists and publishers.

Tom Devlin/Highwater Books

The fantastic and objective Peggy Burns posted an eloquent tribute to Tom Devlin in light of the Highwater tribute art show that just opened in Boston. I think this bears mentioning on this blog, because Highwater Books was a powerful force in my development as not only a cartoonist but also as an artist. In my senior year of college, I interned at the west coast branch of Highwater (also known as Jordan Crane's living room). Up until then, my education pushed a strong message of capitalism in every facet of art-making. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but having failed in that aspect, I might have long ago abandoned the notion of making my living from my art. Highwater showed me that money is the means, not the ends, of being creative, and lack of money should never hamper those efforts. My main contribution to the company was primarily production work. I scanned Marc Bell's seminal work, Shrimpy and Paul and Friends, Brian Ralph's Climbing Out, and James Kochalka's Fantastic Butterflies. Jordan Crane paid me in burritos from El Pollo Loco and showed me his mystical secrets of silkscreening. Tom Always made me feel like I was single handedly making all of those books possible, and he is still gracious and kind to me to this day, even though my beard is bigger than his. That internship still holds the record as the best job I've ever had.

Check out the art show if you're in Boston, and read the story on the Drawn and Quarterly blog.

Danger Country: Chapter 1 coming this summer.

Just wanted to announce the first chapter my first comic book in 4 years! It's called Danger Country, the same as those strips I was posting a few months ago. It will be published by Tim Goodyear at Teenage Dinosaur. While it's set in the same world as the strips, it is a completely different story with completely different characters. It's much more plot-driven and fleshed out than any other comic I've done. In fact it's the only long form story where I've actually figured out the beginning, middle, and end. I really love the story I've written and hopefully you'll love it, too! Above is the cover.

super*MARKET this weekend

I'll be sharing a space with Tom Neely at the super*MARKET event this Sunday, March 30th.

at

Meltdown Comics and Collectibles
7522 Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90046
11am-6pm

I'll have available copies of Fork Frenzy #1, Ordinary Fieldbook, H&G #1 and #2, and some t-shirts.

I'm a featured animator though I haven't released the GDF: The Animated Series yet. I'll have little flyers for that available. More news on that to come. It's currently in the works, and will probably be fancier than I had planned. hopefully people will like it, but it's been a great collaborative process for me which is rare!