Comic: Pekar

I admit that it was a fantasy of mine to illustrate a story for Harvey Pekar... Obviously, that will never happen, but much worse than that- we will never have any more American Splendor or any new Pekar comics.

I didn't know the man (or "our man") personally, so I can't claim the sadness that his loved ones must feel, but like any other fan, I wish he could've stuck around a lot longer.. 70... That's too young, especially for someone who would've provided us with what he did best for decades to come. Selfish, I know...

Whatever he lacked in eloquence he made up for with honesty, and his lowest points as a writer are higher than what I could ever hope to accomplish. Harvey Pekar was strange, wonderful and imperfect, just like the best of 'em.

Click to enlarge-


For those interested, the artists I've attempted to imitate in panels 2-6 are: 70's R. Crumb, 70's Greg Budgett/Gary Dumm, Gerry Shamray, Josh Neufeld, Frank Stack, and the stick figures of the man himself. "Attempted" is the key word.

Redo: Is that good?

If all goes well, my zine will physically exist within a month, printed in glorious black and white and in the hands of whoever's interested... In addition to some brand new material, I've also been redoing some older comics, in cases where I still like the idea but the bears don't look right to me anymore. I used to make them much thicker, and though that's probably more bear-like, they don't really match the rest of the material, and plus I thought it would just be fun to redraw them. Here, in part to prove that I am in fact, like, doing stuff, is one of the redos, alongside the original. I'm not sure that it really looks all that much better, but I'm happier with the new look.

Click to enlarge the newly slim, lipo'd version-


..and here we have the old version from a couple years ago-


They kinda look more like mice now, or at least less like bears.. Maybe dog-bear-mice.

Roughs: zine sketch, sculpey

You would be seeing two new comics here very soon, but they're being saved for my long-awaited (by me) zine, which I'm trying to have ready to print by the end of next month.. In lieu of such zine-exclusive material, here's a glimpse into the near future...

Here's a rough version of a sketch inspired by someone else's dream (thanks, Rebecca). I'm going to redraw and fancify it a bit, with the intention of using the final version as the back cover of the zine-


Also, I've been messing around with sculpey, and though most of what I've made has been scrapped and balled back up, once I have a couple more pieces baked that I'm happy with, they should be appearing here soon as well. Here we have a crude, off-model bear head from a month or two ago, my first ever test attempt at using sculpey-



ps- blogger doesn't think "fancify" is a word, apparently. It is-
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fancify
pps- Mmm... fancified hamburger. Thanks, Webster.

Comic: What to do if you find a cockroach in your bathroom

Originally drawn as two separate pages, but I think it looks better as one big square..

Click to enlarge.. and you might need to magnify again if you're using a browser that resizes images (it's kind of big)-

Maybe I should have put "gigantic cockroach" in the title instead... Based on true events, and that thing was HUGE.