Webcomic's Up!

Not to be redundant, but, Webcomic's up! Only four days late too! Woo! I'm getting better. Shafe says that on the current schedule, the next one is due on 9/13, so we'll see if I can meet that little deadline.

As for "Fish Story" itself, I really only thought this would be a short 4 issue story when I started, and yet here I am on installment 6 with at least 2 or 3 installments left. Hopefully, the story will wrap up by October, and I can get back to doing quick little strips. If anyone's got a character they wanna see in an upcoming "SDF: Nonreal" strip, drop a comment on the blog or e-mail me. Unlike the regular book, which I have definitive plans for, I'm pretty flexible on the webcomic, and will take any and all requests. (Might take me awhile to actually draw em up, though...)

Mousetrap

WARNING! The following may seen offensive to Animal Lovers and Animal Rights Activists. We apologize in advance.

So, every six to nine months my house gets infested with mice. Cute, brown field mice that crap all over everything and chew up stuff and make noise at night. I don't really hate the mice, but for reasons of hygene, they need to be disposed of. Traditionally, I use Poison, which always seems to work, and only has the downside that I step on a Mouse carcass every once in awhile (which is traditionally followed by a girlish scream by our manly hero). Recently, a couple of mice popped up the house, and I've been too lazy to score some poison. I do have mouse traps, but they're these nufangled ones that my mom bought me, which are clunky, plastic, reusable mouse traps. The mouse traps never seem to work, but I knew the running path of one of the mice. This one mouse lives behind the stove. He climbs up the stove and runs across the back end of my kitchen countertop, then runs back. So, I set up traps on each end, so that he has to run through the traps. This, of course, didn't work, and on one occassion I watched the damn mouse run right across a trap, and nothing happened.

So, last night, a loud CLICK wakes me up. I think nothing of it, until I hear another click. Then another later on. All night. Click. I was too tired to contemplate this new sound, and slept on. By this morning, I had forgetten all about it.

Anyway, I'm getting dressed for work, when I hear CLICK. Huh? It's coming from the kitchen, so I go check it out. There on the kitchen floor is a mouse, and one of my mouse traps. The mouse had, somehow, gotten one leg caught in the trap, and had managed to drag the trap off of the countertop, fallen to the floor, and was now desperately trying to figure out either A) get the trap off or B) manuever around with the trap on.

Here I am, staring at this snagged mouse. After pacing around for a bit, I decided that just hitting it with a hammer a few times was the best approach. So, I grabbed the hammer I always keep on top of the fridge, walked over, and looking directly into those cute, innocent eyes, gently hit the little rodent three times in the skull. Little thing didn't even blink. Just kept looking at me with that, "Please Mister, take this trap off me," look. Anyway, after I softened his head, the mouse's legs started jerking. That kinda creeped me out, so I hit its spine a few times till it stopped that too. Then I disposed of it in the trash.

Evansville, Out of Order

Casino Hopping is a bad idea for me. I only play the Nickel Slots, and I think I've got the Nickel Slots figured out, and I still ended up broke and stupid. So no more of that for me. Fared better than Boolah, though, he lost a fat wad of cash on Hold 'em.

I was reading the latest "Doonesbury" collected in Books-a-Zillion. It cracked me up seeing George W. depicting as a Floating Roman Conquerors Helmet, and Ahnold depicting as a giant, menacing Hand. When I was a kid, I loved the funnies, but hated Doonesbury. I knew that I was officially an adult on the day that most of the funnies bored me, but Doonesbury made perfect sense and was Hi-larious.

"The Brothers Grimm" is kickin'. It's not Gilliam's masterpiece by any means (again, see "Brazil"), but it is a fun, fast, clever flick. Awe-inspiring razzle dazzle and a funny script. A definite must see.

Didn't see any worthwhile previews ahead of the flick. The upcoming Fall Movie season still seems painfully weak.

Scored "Un Chien Andalu" (spell?) at Borders finally! I've been hunting this collaboration between Salvador Dali and Louis Buneul for YEARS! Anyway, it's everything you'd expect, which means it's completely screwed up from start to finish. Worth scoring if you're into surrealism.

Also picked up a new Mexican cook book. Can't have enough of those lying around the house.

Note: The preceding post detailed a recent trip to Evansville and was completely out of chronoligical order. The writer would like to apologize, after all, it is Sunday morning, and the brain no work so good.

A Few Movie Notes

Alright, "The Brothers Grimm" is out this weekend! Woo-Hoo! It's been awhile since Terry Gilliam's made a film. His last flick was the infamous "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" which was loathed and feared by critics, but beloved by a select cult audience. My Bro and I are big fans, and regularly use the quote, "if you're going to do something, you might as well do it right," among others. Anyway, I'm not expecting "Grimm" to be a masterpiece by any means (for Gilliam's undisputed masterpiece, check out "Brazil"), I'm just hoping for an enjoyable, mindblowing ride from one of the most visionary directors of all time.

In other movie news, watched "Old Boy" last night. I saw a preview for the flick on "Tetsuo the Iron Man", and then a fella who bought some books off me at Chicago had just scored a copy, and we spent some time talking about movies and whatnot. Anyway, Fitch was intrigued enough that he scored a copy while we were at the Con, and I recently borrowed it and viewed it. Long story short, great opening mystery, brutal fight scenes, and the nastiest TWO twists in film history. All in all, mixed feelings.

Gobble?

Having driven in Southern Illinois my entire life, I've seen all sorts of animals dart in front of my car. And, Lord knows, I've hit plenty of animals that have darted in front of my car (In fact, that's how I lost the Clown Car, a damn deer smashed it beyond what the insurance would repair). But, for the first time ever, I had a freaking Wild Turkey run in front of my car this morning. It was weird as hell. The surprisingly large bastard scurried onto the road, bobbing its head back and forth. When it had almost crossed, it suddenly freaked out and turned back. Then it panicked again and turned back the other way. Then it turned around again, and decided, "screw it", and did a little hop/fly manuever into the underbrush. Needless to say, I had to come to a near stop to avoid the stupid thing.

Wild Turkeys are not native to Southern Illinois. They were "planted" here by the local hunter populace. Apparently the endless hordes of deer, squirrel, rabbit, coyote, and whatnot just wasn't enough to satisfy the local hunters, so they imported the gobblers. Surprisingly, nature's dumbest animal has managed to survive out here in the boonies, and there's a family of the critters that regularly passes through my parent's yard.

Revenge of the Blog

What a rotten week this has been. I've been trying to be positive about, and I've been trying to cut down on bitching about stuff on the blog, but Damn, what a rotten week it has been.

Regardless, through the tireless efforts of my webmaster, the blog is back in working order, and maybe, just maybe, things are starting to look up.

While I try to get my crap together, I invite regular readers (all two of you) to check out my Rant on Sleep a couple of posts down. It's one of the best non-comics related things I've written in some time.

Solution

Ahhh, the password. This is Brian again. Unfortunate oversites have thwarted Joe's attempts to posts. You'll notice those posts below, and he shall again resume posting. This may well be the best news he's had all week.

Trouble in Paradise

This is not a sanctioned Joe Post! This is Brian, Joe's webslave.

Due to as yet unknown technical difficulty, Joe has been unable to post to his blog since last Thursday. For now, he continues to attempt a post daily. Hopefully, the situation will be rectified soon. In the meantime, we apologize for the inconvenience. Please continue to check back, as we have no idea how long until the crisis can be dissolved. Thank you.

Rassin' Frassin'

This post is quite literally a test to see if Blogger will publish anything I type. I had a really good post written up on Sunday, but Blogger refuses to put it up. So let's see if it can do this itty bitty one, first.

This has not been my week.

Sleep Rant

I'm obsessed with Sleep and Dreaming. Okay, obsessed may be a bit much, but it is a topic I'm greatly interested in. If you hang out with me long enough, I tend to drag just about everybody into a conversation about sleep sooner or later. I'm just really curious about other people's patterns of sleep and dream. I've discovered that, for the most part, everybody (except for true insomniacs) gets at least 20 hours of sleep a week. Some of us get a LOT more, and some get a little less, but 20 seems to be about average. I've met people who only slept two or three hours a night all week, but then would be comatose for 13 hours on Sunday. I've met other people who never really slept, but subsisted on an extensive regimine of catnapping. In college, members of the "Party Crowd" (which was just about everyone but me...) would wake up around 11am or noon, go to classes till 5pm, sleep till 8 or 9pm, then party till 3am. The very thought of a sleep schedule that... obtuse would drive me nuts, personally.

I try to get about 8 hours of sleep a night. The problem is, I don't sleep well. It takes me at least 15 minutes to fall asleep every night no matter how tired I am. On a bad night, I can roll around for 3 or 4 hours without falling to sleep. I wake up at random intervals for no good reason, and sometimes it takes forever to fall back to sleep. And, no matter how late I stayed up the night before, it is physically impossible for me to sleep past 10 am (and even that's a stretch. For example, last night I was up till 1am and woke up at 9:30am, which I really didn't wanna do).

And then there's the dreams. Most of my dreams either don't make sense and are just meandering nothings, or they're anxiety dreams, typically involving my old classmates from school (I wasn't very popular, and although I've gotten over it, my subconscious still bears a grudge). I have trouble remembering my dreams, but occassionally I'll remember flashes of my dreams, which typically manifest themselves in moments of dejavu (NOTE: I am in no way claiming to be a psychic or anything, but I have legimately re-experienced moments that I know occured in my dreams. Now you see why the subject fascinates me). Ironically, despite my obsession with horror films, I've only had one real nightmare that's stuck with me. I experience physical stimuli when I dream. For example, when I was a kid, I fell off a cliff during a dream, landed with a thump that I felt, and then rolled, both in the dream and in real life. I ended up falling out of bed, which was really bad, cause I was sleeping in a bunk bed at the time (For those of you who know me, this is the infamous Castle Greyskull Incident).

The reason why I'm Ranting about Sleep today, is because my sleep habits have suddenly gotten weirder than they were, and I'm a little concerned. There are already documented cases of me talking in my sleep, and like I said, I can experience dream stimuli to a certain extent. Well, recently, I've developed a strange case of semi-somnabulism. It works like this, in my dream, I will be in my bed, in my room, sleeping, but something will have happened to my room. In the first experience, I became convinced that my room was booby trapped with mono-filiment wire. If I touched any of the thousands of wires crisscrossing my room, a vicious razorsharp device would rend me limb from limb. In the second experience, I became convinced that I had won of those renovation shows on TV, but the renovators had somehow come in the middle of the night and added...things to my room. In both cases the end result is the same, I get up, half asleep, stumbled across the room, hit the light switch, abruptly wake up, and stand around dazed and confused for about 2 minutes until reality reasserts itself. Frankly, I'm starting to become a little concerned.

Please, let this publish.

Slow Day

Ugh. I've just got that feeling in my bones that today's gonna be a slow one. I'm gonna get to work and age three years before four o'clock. Nothing seems to be happening today. Still, I've got remember that even if things are slow today, I've got a lot of work left to do. In fact, as soon as I get home from the sawmill, I need to put the finishing touches on "SDF: Very Odd Jobs". So, slow day or no, I've still gotta be on my game.

So, in other news, Warren Ellis has a new book out. Normally, that's a good thing, and I'd spend the rest of this column singing the praises of whatever new comics project Mr. Ellis was involved in. Unfortunately, I read "Jack Cross #1" last night, and couldn't make heads or tails of it. I mean, don't get me wrong, the art was clean and decipherable, and I think I understood what was going on in each individual panel, but all in all the whole project was... incoherent. The book has something to do with a counter-terrorism group and a guy they bring to handle nasty jobs (the titular character, of course). But what I couldn't tell was who was working for who, what every organization did, and what the point of virtually everything was. Maybe I just too tired last night. Anyway, I can't in good conscience recommend "Jack Cross" from DC.

A Few More Chicago Items

Alright, a couple of more items from Chi-town before we close that chapter...

So, I know I had heard of "Arsenic Lullaby" before. Never read it, but had definately heard of it. At SPACE, the "Arsenic Lullaby" table was within view of my table (they had this really big banner that kept trying to fall down. I can empathize, my little banner kept trying to fall off my tablefront...). I never got around to scoring anything though, cause I spent the whole day working my table. Anyway, at Chicago, on one or two occasions, we had someone mention possible parallels between "SDF" and "Arsenic Lullaby". Bro got curious and decided to score a couple of books off of 'em. Here's the rundown.

"Arsenic Lullaby" #16 and "The Thousand Deaths of Baron Von Donut"- AAA Milwaukee Publishing- Douglas Paszkiewicz- www.arseniclullabies.com . Arsenic Lullaby is a series of one to two page gag strips. The book refers to itself as the Cadillac of Dark Humor, and frankly, it's pretty hard to disagree. The writing is clever, the gags are funny and more than a little creepy, and the art is solid, supporting the gag strips effectively. There are a few longer stories, which primarily focus on a giant, top hat wearing donut named Baron Von Donut. Yeah. Good, clever stuff that's worth checking out.

I scored a handful of flyers and business cards this year. The only one I could find this morning though was for a site called www.talesfromuranus.net. I don't have any of their comics, but a quick perusal of the website seems to indicate thaat these folks produce books along the vein of the old EC comics, except 1000 times more hardcore. Blood, gore, sex, and assloads of foul language seem to be the order of the day. I think these guys mighta debated me on the "Craziest Comic at the Con" claim. Their book kinda looks like the big biker guy in the movies who's drunk and drugged up and been in a million knife fights crazy. My book is more of the lost all connection with subjective reality, seeing things that aren't there crazy. Apples and oranges I suppose.

Random Notes from Southern Illinois

Haven't done random notes in awhile. Let's roll.

Crap. It was www.picklepress.net. It's funny how a com and a net are two entirely different things. (Thanks Steve!)

The movie season is starting to wind down. Things will pick back up, probably from October till the end of the year which is Oscar season, of course. If you're a cinemaholic like I am, keep your eyes open for "The Brothers Grimm" and uh, some other movie by Terry Gilliam and "A History of Violence" by David Cronenberg. Also, if you're an animation nut like me, I think the Wallace and Gromit movie should be out soon as well, although I ain't seen preview one yet. On the other hand, I've seen several previews for Corpse Bride, which I think is out in October or November.

I think we've finally hit our rainy season out here. I figure we'll get a near flood, and then it'll just stop, then we'll get a super heatwave again, and then it'll be winter.

There are apparently laws (or soon to be laws) in Indiapolis, Orlando, and now Atlanta that forbid Panhandling near Tourists sites. Of course, the two halfs of my brain are divided on this issue. One half says, "Hell yeah, make them smelly bastards get a real job like the rest of us" While the other says, "That sucks. Why don't they make being down on your luck and homeless illegal next. Not all of us catch the same breaks in life. Under different circumstances that could be me." Moving on...

So, I gotta admit, I'm getting a little tired of getting blogbombed every now and then. I dunno what the technical term is, but a blogbomb is where someone randomly comments on your site about a something that has nothing to do with your site, and is usually an ad for something. Unfortunately, I believe in freedom of speech, and if some jerk wants to use my site to advertise t-shirts or cars or whatever, then I'm not gonna runaround censoring it. It is annoying though.

I wonder how much longer my workboots will last before they disentigrate?

Return of the Webcomic

Okay, not sure if anyone's out there in ComputerLand have been reading the webcomic, but I've finally got a new chapter of "Fish Story" up. Woo-Hoo! If there any fans of the webcomic out there, I'd just like to apologize for the extensive delay. I could do excuses from now till doomsday, but the simple truth is, I got lazy and behind and didn't bother to catch up. So, again, sorry.
I'm gonna try to get the webcomic back on a bi-monthly basis for the two or three people out there that might dig it. And I promise to finish "Fish Story" before the end of the year.

In other news, apparently, the link I put to Pickle Press's site is not good. Don't know if I miss typed it or what. Anyway, apologies on that as well, and if I can figure out what their real web address is, I'll put it up.

Woo. Big apology day. Makes me wish I had said something offencive online so I'd have something really interesting to apologize for.

Chicago Comix Reviews

Alright, same rules as SPACE, I'm including information on Creators, Publishers, and Website Addresses. I'm not including information on Mailing or e-mail addresses. If you happen to have a book listed here and you want people to have more access to your work, you can put more info up on the comments section. If you're reading this and you think you might dig one of these books, drop me an e-mail and I'll try to hook you up. That said, on with the reviews:

-The Disgruntled Avenger- New Year's Special & #8- Exspastic Comics- Shannon Gretzon- The plot appears to be about the adventures of a guy who's not quite in his right mind, puts a paper bag over his head, and fights crime. Except, that nothing actually happens in either of the two issues I read. Instead there's this sort of rambling stream of consciousness thing going on that's rather entertaining in its own right. What's really worthwhile about this book is the artwork, which, for lack of a better description looks like a combination of Ted McKeever and Charles Crumb. A very gorgeous, strange book.

-Dwarfdom #1 & 2- Silent Icon- Jason Slater & Agnes Danielak- dwarfdom.com. A group of five dwarves of varying sexual and ethnic backgrounds, who live in a shoe, get put down too much by us tall folk, and end up going on a rampage. That's right, massive dwarf violence. The story's fairly clever, and the art ranges from not bad to pretty freakin good. The action sequences are extremely well choreographed. Interesting.

-Otaku Blues- Panda Rage Press- Darrick Chen- www.pandarage.com. This is a reprint of Mr. Chen's webcomic. It's nice and funny, using fairly simple art and telling quick, clever little stories. I haven't had time to check any websites yet, but presumably you can find Otaku Blues on the above website. Check it.

-Onward Bound- Panda Rage Press- Darrick Chen, Alysia Robinette, Dustin Baker- www.onwardbound.net. Another book from our lovely neighbors, Onward Bound contains the adventures of Serada Blue, a gunslinging cowgirl in a Fantasy Western setting. Dwarves with Shotguns! Ka-blah! (sorry, injoke) The art on the two stories in this volume is solid, with a serious, heavy grey toned style on the first story, and a more liney, loose style for the second. The best aspect of this book is the setting, which is developed quite nicely in a short amount of time. If these guys keep at it and continue to evolve their world, this book could be something of a cult hit.

-Amazing Adventures of Bob & Hal #10- Mike Ritzenhouse and Tom. An interesting little mini-comic that's a clever character assasination on Redneck life. The main character, Hal, is a trailer trash jerk whose only interest is beer. He wins a beer contest and gets a trip to Japan, bringing along his retarded buddy Bob. Hijinks ensue. Clever, sorta edgy stuff. The art's primitive, but works well with the story.

-Jinxremoving #10- Arpad Crisis- forp.net/jinxremoving. A series of stream of consciousness rambles featuring a cat character that's really just a stand-in for the writer. There's some slice of life stuff, and a ton of movie and comic references throughout. I dug it, but I gotta admit, there were a couple of panels that were hard to read.

-Rocket Girl #1- Pickle Press (Word Up!)- Nik Havert and Jesus Antonio Hernandez- www.picklepress.com. A recent(?) release from our boys over at Pickle Press. The story is set in a superhero world where the lead character falls in love with a superhero, and as a way of getting his attention, has herself transformed into a superheroin named Rocket Girl. Clever writing throughout, but the main thing I've got to throw praise at is the art, which is phenomanal. Very clean, very detailed, very pro. Admittedly, the art is very mainstream, but it's mainstream done right. Great stuff.

Chicago Recap

The Location: It took us forever to find our table on Friday. After much searching, we finally found it on the back wall. At first I was worried, cause that's not exactly optimum positioning to say the least, but on the other hand, it was better than the poor bastards trapped out in the old Gaming Room (a location one group of guys referred to as Antartica). To our Left was Riley Myers, a freelancer who had brought his portfolio to the show, and to our Right were the fine and energetic crew of Panda Rage Press.

The Sales: Sales were good. Good enough that I can get the next book printed without dipping into my personal funds (ching!). Given the fact that I'm an unknown, and our questionable location, we had to sell very, very agressively. Some people don't agree with that sort of thing, but I make no apologies. If people didn't wanna stop at our table, they didn't stop, simple as that. Anyway, we moved all 100 Mini-comics, 12 Painted Hockey Masks, 5 Broken Tea Cup T-shirts, 7 Cactus Joe Shirts, 1 TORC Press Shirt, 10 Cafepress buttons, and a goodly amount of copies of the various issues. "SDF: Crumpled Planet" obvious sold the best, but we managed to move quite a few of the other issues too. Once again, we used our "Craziest Comic at the Con" tagline, and we were disputed on several occassions. We still managed to prove our point to everyone except for one guy. Personally, I think that guy was just in some sort of mood. Regardless, we did really well.

Trades: Man, I scored jack for trades this year. I traded with, like, three people this year. I know I did a ton more trades last year. Anyway, I'll review what I got tomorrow, and put up what info I can.

Purchases: I had very little money this year, so I could only afford one Love and Rockets trade (Poison River), two issues of Luba, and the 4th One Piece movie (on import, of course). Next year I resolve to be less broke going into the show.

Celebrity Sightings: I walked near Mick "Cactus Jack" Foley's autograph table while he was there, but I'm not an autograph hound, so I didn't pester him. Plus, there was a line, and I had only given myself a limited amount of time to shop on Sunday. Also, Jason Mewes passed by our table on Friday. We tried to sell to him, but he only wanted to hit on the Female Model whose booth was near ours. It's too bad, I think "Jay" woulda liked the book.

Costumes: Last, and certainly least, there were as usual, a ton of folks in costume (FunFact: It is virtually impossible to sell to people in costume. Unless they come to you, don't waste your time.). I saw 5 Ghostbusters, 3 Storm Troopers, 1 Bobba Fett, 1 Jango Fett, 1 Darth Vader, 2 Batmans, 3 Night Wings, 1 Marv (from Sin City), 2 Jokers, and a buttload of generic "Goth" folk. This one chick who was dressed up as Phoenix was a friend of the Panda crew, and actually hung out at their table and swapped stories with us on Sunday. Coolest costume of the Con: Somebody was dressed up in a 10 Foot Tall Grim Reaper costume. You could see the damn thing from halfway across the show! Only in Chicago...

We're Back (with a Vengence?)

Actually, I've been back from Wizard World for about a day, but apparently, the computer blew up during a freak lightning storm while I was gone, so I've only just now been able to update the blog. Regardless, we had a great time at the Con, and as is customary, it's time to throw out a few thank yous.

First and foremost, I'd like to thank everyone that stopped by the table and supported TORC Press. I don't really care about the money, but it's a harsh reality of our world that the only way a business can survive is by making money. So, thanks alot to everybody who stopped by and scored something. You folks rule.

Also, I'd like to thank me immediate neighbors, Riley Meyers and Panda Rage Press (Check out Panda Rage at www.pandarage.com or www.onwardbound.net). Much like last year, I got really lucky and ended up with two really cool neighbors. Riley, I hope you have a fun and successful career in the industry, whether it's as a freelancer or a self publisher. As for Panda Rage, keep on rockin' with the small press work, and good luck with your upcoming movie. Rock.

And last, but certainly not least, I'd like to thank the members of the Minnesota Vacation Sacrifice Team (Wendy and Shafe) and my boys in the Southern Illinois Street Team (Boolah, Fitch, and the Brotherman) for coming out and helping me work the Con. I'm a lousy salesman, so without you guys around helping out, it would have been a slow, dull weekend. Thanks.

Alright, enough sucking up to people, tommorrow, we give the full convention run-down, including how we did, what we saw, what we ate, and what kinda costumes everyone was wearing. Funfunfun.

One Day To Go

This will be my last post before Wizard World Chicago. I'll pick things back up on Monday. Hopefully, we'll do okay at the Con, and if we don't, then so be it.

Hm. Short post.

Sketch, Sketch, Sketch

I am a human sketch machine. I'm pretty sure I went without blinking for, like, five hours last night. The sad part is, I've still got more sketching to do. In the timeless words of Courage the Cowardly Dog, "The things I do for Love."

Anyway, with only a few more days until the Big Dance, here's a rundown on Chicago.

Wizard World Chicago is August 5-7 at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, IL. The Hours are 10am to 6pm Friday and Saturday, and 10am to 2pm Sunday. The TORC Press table is located in Artist's Alley, Table #31A. (Look for the black banner with the grinning Clown, or look for the guy with the shaved head and bad posture (no wait, that describes a lotta the guys at the Con...)) Outside of the occassional trip to the bathroom, I plan on working the table all day Friday and Saturday, so if I'm not at my table, hang out a bit, and I'll be back. Sunday will be a little more laid back. I plan on spending a good hour walking around and buying stuff. Plus, I'm not sure how late we're staying. If business is slow, we may end up leaving early. So, if you're saving a trip to the TORC Press table till Sunday, at least try to catch us early.

What We've Got (All Items are as Supplies Last): SDF: Crumpled Planet-$5 Comic, SDF: Strange Patterns- $5 Comic, SDF: Perfect/Ugly- $5 Comic, SDF: Rambler- $0.50 Mini-comic/Free with Purchase, TORC Press Logo T-Shirts- $6, Cactus Joe T-Shirt- $6, Broken Tea Cup T-Shirt- $6, Cactus Joe Painted Hockey Masks- Inquire at booth for pricing.

Freebies (While Supplies Last): TORC Press Stickers/Business Cards, Sketches (with any purchase), Buttons from the CafePress site (with the purchase of two or more comics), and a 6 Page Preview of "SDF: Very Odd Jobs" (Free with purhase).

All Over the Place

Friday the crew and I got together and headed for the Rathole Theatre in Flora to watch "Bad News Bears" on the cheap. It was better than I thought it would be, and the first two acts are surprisingly funny. Sure, it's cheap humor, but it's cheap humor done well. After that we headed back to Fitch's and watched an Australian zombie movie called "Undead". It was a quirky little flick, with surprisingly good Special Effects, and a clever, unconventional story. The best praise I can give it is that it reminded me of one of Peter Jackson's early films. After that, we watched damn near every episode of "Wunder Showzen". I'm a bit conflicted on WS. Admittedly, it's the most daring work of commercialized counterculture I've seen since... hell, South Park first started, and it can be quite funny and shocking at times. But there's also a certain degree of tedium to the show, and it's possible I'm psychically chafing due to the fact that it's a blatant parody/assault on Sesame Street (I'm something of a Muppet fan).

Saturday, Boolah and I rolled on down to Evansville, IN. First stop, Kinko's where we printed up the mini-comic, flyers, and a six page preview of "Very Odd Jobs" (the preview packet will be free with all purchases). After an hour of manic printing, stacking, and trimming, we finished up and moved on to a costume shop called the Nick Nackery. There we bought a dozen glow in the dark hockey masks (more on those in a later post). Moved on to Hobby Lobby, loaded up on Art supplies, then went to Staples and got more convention survival supplies. After that we went to "March of the Penguins". Great frickin' movie. I thought I had it tough, but my life is easy compared to the Emperor Penguin. After that we scored some comics and ate a disappointing meal at Garfields (I drew a naked lady on the paper tablecloth with the complimentary crayons...), then rolled home.

Spent all day Sunday cleaning my house (yes, it was that cluttered). Occassionally took a time out to staple up my Mini-comic and my promotional packets. I finished up around eight o'clock, and spent the remainder of the night penciling sketches for the Con.