So, by not checking my LJ before I left for New York, I missed a chance to have my copy of the Hiketeia signed by both Greg Rucka and JG Jones. As it was, the exhibit floor with all the signings was so packed on Saturday that I didn't even bother to venture up there. Speaking of ventures, the reason I never got to the second floor was because I was buried in the basement screening rooms waiting for the Venture Bros. panel (which was insane.)

Anyway, I am embarrassed that I barely did anything comic book related last weekend. It was mainly sci-fi / cartoon things. I'm still trying to download and edit all the footage we shot -- I didn't realize there was so much of it. I filmed almost every panel we were at, including the Brave And The Bold panel, which included Phil Morris (who's voicing Jonah Hex in upcoming episodes.)

Stupid me forgot to bring Lanarama postcards with me to the con. I could have given Phil Morris one, because on the back is an "excerpt" of Lanarama and it just so happens to be the episode where Al tries to hook J'onn up with Lana. (I still have a ton of Lanarama postcards even though the comic is beyond over.) Phil Morris is even cuter in person and even though I admire his dorkitude, I am on the fence about his new show, "Emissary." I can't quite tell if it's supposed to be funny or what.

In conclusion, I am sorry I didn't get to make it back to Art Balthazar's table to buy a painting of his I really wanted. Plus he was right next to Zander Cannon, who had the only copy of Top Ten Season Two #2 I could find all weekend, and I stupidly didn't buy that when I had the chance, either. A weekend of missed opportunities. Though I did get to sit in at a round table with Bruce Timm, even when I had nothing intelligent to ask him.

I'm still alive. I keep forgetting I have a Livejournal.

Anyway, I love you all, but I don't give a flying fuck if you've just received a virtual gift. You could be Jesus Christ Resurrected and I'm not spending $1 to send you a virtual cupcake. (Sorry, Jesus. Thanks for the eternal life thing, though.) No amount of showing off the other virtual gifts you've received is going to convince me otherwise. Anyone know how to turn that particularly charming notification feature off?

Uh, in conclusion, Fringe sucks and The Sarah Connor Chronicles rules. Make sure to read my recaps at Geektress. And have a Merry Christmas.

I'm still selling off the rest of my Lanarama archives. If anyone's interested in acquiring them, drop me a message (bk [at] lanarama.com) and let me know. I'm trying to clear out a lot of the clutter in my house and I'd like to send the Lanarama stuff to a good home. You know... a farm with lots of space to run around.

So, I'm currently working on a new comic strip. It'll be a very short run and the goal is to put it together in a mini-comic that I publish myself. (I will put the occasional portion of it up at Brain Confetti to generate interest.)

Most of it is written and I have a few of the major pages mapped out already. Hopefully it will read like a collection of comic strips, but every so often there will be a full page comic. (I'm toying with the idea of printing it on newsprint, so it looks more like a newspaper comic section and less like a comic book.)

While looking in to how to best publish my own mini-comic, I discovered that making a cover is going to be hella expensive. I didn't have any creative ideas for how to make a cool stand-out book cover without spending $50 on cardstock. (I'm working with 11x17 sized paper so I can have a "tabloid" sized comic.) (This is where the idea of newsprint would come in handy - I could make the cover look like the front page of a newspaper.)

Anyway, anyone have any thoughts or tips about publishing mini-comics? I'll hopefully be using the Xerox machines here at work, saving me some money in the production process, thereby saving money for anyone who wants to purchase it. (I hope to keep the price around $4.)

I've been so insanely busy the past few weeks! First it was May Sweeps, then we did a bunch of format changes and stuff at work which threw everything in to chaos, and now it's just about working overtime CONSTANTLY. We podcasted for the first time in a month last night and I was just so exhausted I fell asleep in the middle of it! (It was my fault for laying down on the bed to listen to Rania and Laura talk about comics.) (It could also be that I haven't had any meat in about a week and I had just had a big dinner with Dane that tuckered me out.)

My brother came in to town and we went to "the track." I had never been to "the track" before, but everything (admission, parking, etc) was free, so we went and watched the ponies race. It was fun! I only made $1 bets when I saw a horse with a comic-book like name. (Jubilee! Believe in Magic! Keith Justice!)

Anyway, so like I said, I apparently am now a vegetarian. Not for reasons of conscience or health, but poverty. It's just cheaper to eat frozen vegetables and rice and grilled cheese sandwiches. Dane bought me a cheeseburger last night and I thought I was going to die of happiness. COWS ARE GOOD.

When I get a moment or three to myself, I'm going to start working on a comic strip / book I've had in my head for a while. Hopefully I can get it done before October 4th, which is the weekend of the Ohio Comic Con, which we Geektresses are hopefully going to have a table at. (Also, brisk comic sales will help me earn some much-needed extra money!)

I'm trying to get Vintage Lanarama sales going again, just as soon as I have time to sit down and inventory my art supplies. And for the one person who keeps asking me when new NotS will be happening -- I dunno! We're a laid-back comic. :)

I cannot stop eating these things.



They're like little rubbery buttons that taste like awesome. And somehow have a minty after-effect.

Also everything sucks!

Geektress just returned from the New York Comic Con, or as I shall remember it: The Weekend When Technology Decided It Hated Me. Nothing recorded correctly, except for maybe the two podcasts we did at one am when we were all dead-ass tired. I haven't listened to them yet, but I hear tales that in my exhausted delirium I did several impressions of various cartoon characters, including some stuff I made up about David Lee Roth as Gandolf the Gray. (That I do remember, because a David Lee Gandolf version of Lord of the Rings must be made. Immediately. How we arrived at this revelation is not important.)

Even that we couldn't get to cooperate, though, so those podcasts will be later in the week, I guess. The Venture Brothers panel recorded as static. The live feeds we were going to broadcast never seemed to work out -- either the webcam wouldn't load, there was a firewall preventing streaming audio, or, more commonly, we got shitty seats at various panels and all you saw was the back of some guy's head.

Overall it was pretty laid-back on Friday, and even Saturday to an extent. The tides turned for the Venture Brothers panel, though. Several people, including the three of us, had been waiting in the correct room for many hours. A separate crowd of people began lining up around 3pm in the hallway. Then the "Hey, we're going to switch rooms because we're dumbasses and thought Eli Stone would reel 'em in" announcement was made, and you could feel geek frenzy hit its peak. They had to shut down the escalators and try and corral the throngs of people that were trying to get in to the Venture Brothers panel and the one that followed, Marvel's Cup of Joe. If dorks knew how to throw punches we would've all been in trouble.

The real pinnacle was later on in the Reboot panel, though. How a cartoon that aired 15 years ago on ABC Saturday mornings could gain such a fanatical, devoted crowd, I will never know. I only wanted to go because I remember liking the show a lot when I was younger, and was excited to hear that they were bringing it back. Mostly I was hoping for a preview of the new season.

Dan Didio and Gavin Blair talked for forty minutes about how their writing process was: Get hammered drunk, then go to Vancouver strip clubs. The collective groan when it was revealed a main character was based on their favorite stripper caused Laura to whisper "Many childhoods have just been crushed." But oh, how they did NOT like the guy speaking for the company bringing back the cartoon. Apparently the reboot of Reboot hasn't even been written yet, let alone developed enough to have produced preview clips. I don't know what that guy was expecting to hear when he tried asking the crowd for ideas about the revival show, but he got a lot of animosity from hardcore early-cgi-animation fans. I was horrified and entertained at the same time.

I should have probably written this up on the main site, since it's "Write up your Comic Con news" day. Meh.

As you guys know this was the last week of Lanarama and I'm taking commissions of older archive stuff, drawn out on fancy paper with purdy colorin'. Amidst that, Derek (from Starkville's House of El) requested I draw something HUUUUGE for his new podcast offices. I have a sketchpad my grandmother gave me a while ago that's 12x18 (which doesn't sound big out loud, but is pretty large) so I created some gigantic comic strips for him to hang on his walls. This is one of them and I think I love it because of the second panel.

Well, this is the last week of the strip. It's been a fun ride. I honestly don't know how I would carry on the strip without Al & Miles, since it's about Al & Miles. I don't expect they'll be as high-profile as screenwriters as they were running a weekly network show.

As I posted on the site, I'll be selling off the last week of the strip to whomever wants it. I'd like to sell off my archives as-is, but they're spread out over so many different types of journals and sketchpads that it wouldn't be entirely feasible. However, if there are people willing to pay for such things, I will redo any "classic" comic on 6x12 heavyweight paper, for $15 plus $1.25 shipping and handling.

For anyone interested, here's a button:

...make sure you remember to provide a URL to the comic you want re-drawn!

So. I've known for a few months that I wanted to end Lanarama by the end of this season. I don't watch the show anymore, and I feel weird about creating a comic mocking the show when I don't even want to watch it. For a while it's felt like a punishment: In order to do your comic you have to endure the actual show.

Anyway, the only problem I really have now is, I have a few comics that have been inked but I never got around to scanning in and coloring. But now it seems pointless to post them. I want to do a farewell, but I haven't decided how yet. I thought I was going to have some time to do a really creative ending to the strip. I thought it deserved at least that. Now I don't know if I want to bother.