it's yaytime!

September 04, 2003
I"ll be at the Small Press Expo this weekend along with pretty much everyone else in comics.
John and I will be debuting Teen Boat #4 titled "Teen Boat in Love". We’ll be split up amongst 2-tables in the Versailles room and will have plenty of the new Jax Epoch tradepaperbacks as well as my Astronaut Elementary mini-comics redesigned with all new covers. One of the two tables will be in the shadow of Raina Telgemeier's TAKE OUT COMICS table. Her stuff is nominated for two of the Ignatz awards: "Promising New Artist" and "Outstanding Mini Comic" so hopefully she'll be the hit of the show. Raina is also one of the two cover artist on Sequential Tart this months and is featured prominantly in BUST magazine (which is on newstands EVERYWHERE right now!)...so her PR level is at an all time high!

Also nominated is my frequent Nickelodeon collaborator/travel buddy, Scott Roberts whose comic book PATTY CAKE is up for "Outstanding Series". Sadly I'm not sure if I'll be able to stay for the awards since they are Sunday Night and I have work the next day. But I hope to have as much fun as possible while I'm there! So stop on by!

1:53 PM

A cool person named Abby I met at the Big Apple Anime Fest last weekend sent me these links to super neat Harry Potter web comics.

Tickling the Sleeping Dragon

Harry Potter RELAY COMIC

As soon as I get around to coloring them, I'd love to post my Ron Weasley fan comics online somewhere. Maybe some sketches too.

12:31 PM

September 03, 2003
Checking the Laryngitis treatment page...

* Speak softly, but don't whisper. Use a notebook and pencil to communicate.
* Don't smoke.
* Avoid places where cigarettes are smoked.

I can feel myself healing already!

4:15 PM

GASP!

I was in the middle of having a conversation with my co-worker Andrew Brisman when I suddenly lost my voice!

It was like a pop in my throat and suddenly I could barely speak.

Now i sound like like a faint little kid gasping for breath :(

It's never happened to me before so I feel like I must be faking it. I thought maybe if I screamed my voice would come back through...but that didn't work.

I just hope it comes back before Small Press Expo!

3:03 PM

September 02, 2003
Spent most of the labor day weekend at the Big Apple Anime Fest here in NYC. In terms of costs/profit it was the most successful show I've ever attended. Raina was a guest speaker on two panels and was paid with a free artist alley table and she invited me along to share the table. Since it cost us nothing to get in and was located right in Time Square, blocks away from my office (so no travel expenses!) every single book we sold was pure profit. Even if we did badly (which considering we're not even "authentic" manga and would be selling to an Anime MOVIE based crowd, I was setting my expectations low) we'd still come out ahead. But much to my delight we ended up doing fantastic and moved a ton of books. By Saturday's end we had pretty much sold out of everything we brought with us. And what was especially cool was that the Jax trades, the QF individual issues, Go Tortois Boy Go, Astronaut Elementary and all of Raina's Take Out's all seemed to do equally well. The Ron Weasley fan-zines moving the quickest ( people love the Harry Potter Doujinshi). We had only planned to go the one day but by the time show ended on Saturday we couldn't wait to go home and get more books so we could return on Sunday. And I'm glad we did because we did just as well and a lot of people came back looking for more! I also ended up be asked to speak on a panel about Web comics. Even though I don't really have a web comic as of yet it was still pretty fun. I shared the mic with Richard Stevens creator of Deisel Sweeties ,
Phillip from Goats and Dorothy, creator of Cat and Girl .

Thanks to Paul S. for inviting me to participate.

And so yeah the convention was pretty packed. So packed that there was a two-hour wait just to get into the dealers room. And so many people flooded that floor that that they had to stop anymore people from even going on the 6th floor or risk trouble with the fire warden! So that meant a lot of frustrated people were looking for money to spend, which made the artist alley the place to be! Sharing the table next to us was our buddy Jacob Chabot creator of the hilarious comic strip The Mighty Skullboy Army which is always cool. And now I finally have all three issues! Aw man that turnip is awesome. Jacob did real well at the show too.
So basically EVERYONE at the show was really friendly and super supportive of what we were doing, so it just felt really good all around. The only downside was that I ended up spending my days off "working" and now I'm almost out of Astronaut Elementary comics and have to print up a bunch more before SPX this friday! Which wouldn't be so much of a problem if it wasn't for the fact that I have to finish shipping the Jimmy Neutron magazine at work this week too! Hooray for short and crazy weeks!

2:47 PM