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Monday, December 31, 2012

Comics and Art, Full-Time

I’ve decided that this will be my last year teaching at SCAD-Atlanta.  I’m going to be turning the entirety of my professional attention to comics and production art.

I didn’t come by the decision lightly.  I love being a teacher, and I love being a cartoonist, and in many ways each helps me be better at the other.  But I’ve come to find that I can do neither to the best of my ability without infringing on the time necessary to see the other done to the degree of quality I’d expect of myself.

With each new round of classes I find myself spending greater amounts of time in preparation for those classes, both in trying to expand my own knowledge base and in preparing lectures.  This prep time grows in relation with my awareness of how little I actually know.  Each new artistic principle that I learn only serves to spotlight the many of which I may have been previously unaware and don’t yet understand. 

I’m under no illusion that I’ll ever be satisfied with what I know.  Every new discovery will be a path to new obstacles.  That’s not a bad thing.  I’m grateful that there will always be more to learn.  But I’d like to be able to take my time a little more with those discoveries.  As it is, if I stumble across an unknown (to me) artistic principle or method or anything in that vein that I don’t fully understand, I am obligated to work at that principle until I understand it to the point that I can easily articulate and teach it as soon as humanly possible.  This is my responsibility as a teacher, and as it leads me into ever-wider fields of focus based on student career interest I find that I spend virtually all of my work time in self-education rather than in actually producing work.

Part of my job as a cartoonist is to produce work in a timely fashion.  In my expectations of myself, one graphic novel every two years is not a timely fashion.  Sure, I do for-hire work and short stories and the like during these stretches, but the graphic novels are the meat of my output, and they should come out with much greater rapidity. 

It has become impossible for me to exceed my current output (or even meet it) while trying to better myself to where I can fulfill what I believe to be the needs of my students.

And there’s the Catch-22.  My entire teaching philosophy is rooted in preparing students for the marketplace.  Part of my job as a teacher is to set an example for them.  If I’m unable to make a living at comics, and to produce comics at the rate that the market demands, I fail entirely in that job, and have no business standing in front of a classroom.  As it stands, I can’t meet my teacher obligations (as I consider them) and my cartoonist obligations (as I consider them) both, and if I am deficient in the latter (which I am if I’m only producing a hundred plus pages a year) I automatically fail at the former.  Therefore, if the choice between the two must be made (and it must), then that choice must be comics.

I will still strive to improve with each project, to better myself as an artist and as a storyteller.  But I’d like to be free of the moral obligation to make the immediacy of that growth my foremost priority.  Learning at my leisure, through execution of work, will allow me to create the work for which such studies have, I hope, prepared me.

Now that the decision has been made, I’m very excited.  I’m anxious to get back to work on Crogan’s Escape (which has been on hold, more or less, since the school year started), as well as preparatory work on future Crogan Adventures stuff, which will be where I plan to direct the majority of my attention.  I have a number of presentations prepared for school visits, and though my teaching schedule in the past has prevented me from doing more than three or four of these a year my new, more open schedule will permit me to visit many more schools over a much wider geographic area.  And I have other comics projects, too, that I’m looking forward to getting off the ground.  There are a number of books – mostly kid or YA titles – that have been simmering for some time and are ready to pitch to publishers. 

And I won’t just be working on comics.  I’ll be working with my good friends Chad Thomas (MegaMan) and Jason Horn (Ninjasaur) to start a studio in which we’ll be doing both comics and production design.  So much of what I do is done entirely on my own, and being able to work collaboratively (truly collaboratively, from inception to completion, rather than assembly-line style) offers us the opportunity to work things through until they’re as close as any of us can get to perfect.  I’ve often had the chance to work with students this way on their projects, but never as an active participant.  I couldn’t be more excited, and couldn’t imagine folks with whom I’d rather work.

I will miss teaching more than I'll ever be able to express.  No one could have wished for more enthusiastic and dedicated students, and no work that I create will ever give me the same pride that I feel having had a part, however small, in the development of these incredible storytellers.  I am grateful to have been part of a department whose foremost concern has always been to prepare students for a career in visual storytelling (be that comics, animation, or concept art) and to instill in them the principles necessary to do excellent work in those fields.  My bosses have been nothing but supportive in and outside of the classroom, and each of my colleagues have always been examples to me of excellence in both their academic and professional capacities.  It is, as I said, with great reluctance that I leave a program in the quality of which I so strongly believe.

I will, of course, continue to teach for the remainder of the school year.  The knowledge that this will be my last opportunity to do so for the immediate future has fired me up about making these classes the very best of which I’m capable.  So, to my current students, see you in a few days!

I hate to leave a post with no art, so here are a couple of redesigns for some of the Crogan endpaper/family tree characters and an attempt at refining the design of Mabel Cottonshot.





Thursday, December 13, 2012

Finally getting some CROGAN work done!

Well, it's taken me FAR too long, but I'm finally finished with a Crogan Adventure short story that I've been working on. It's called "The Black Brigade," and it'll be out next year as part of the GRAPHIC TEXTBOOK, a compendium of comics designed to be used as part of a standard core curriculum. I'll have some available for sale on the website when they come out, I think. In the meantime, here's your first taste of what Crogan's looks like in color!

I hope you feel the cold here.
 I find myself drawing the backsides of horses more and more these days.
An action scene.  'Cause there's gotta be at least a LITTLE action.

Monday, November 19, 2012

Temple design for CROGAN'S ESCAPE

Work on Crogan's Escape has been on hold since mid-summer as I've been swamped with other work (some of it Crogan-related) and school prep, but winter break is finally here and I'm finally back to business. A number of upcoming scenes take place in a village that has a temple in it, and both the village and the temple itself are pretty important parts of the plot so far as their layout is concerned.  I'd been fiddling with the designs for the temple for the last week or two, filling up half a sketchbook and slowly getting closer to a design that I could be happy with, which I've posted here. The building draws from a number of architectural inspirations (including some Taiwanese stuff, given the story's proximity to the China/Taiwan border), but it's not based much on any one place.  It had to conform physically to allow for a number of story elements, which is why it gave me such a headache. 



Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Class storyboarding demos

One of the courses that I'm teaching this quarter is an animation preproduction class (Character Design and Storyboarding), and the students are doing a storyboard assignment for their final.  I did these as a demo in class to show the level of detail expected, and the amount of time it should hopefully take you.  Simple and quick, but hopefully clear in what they’re meant to communicate. 


Monday, October 22, 2012

SIXTH GUN CREATORS Paper Figure Set

This week's paper figure set... Sixth Gun creators Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt!


Click HERE TO DOWNLOAD YOUR OWN SET AND THUS HAVE YOUR OWN TINY CULLEN AND BRIAN AROUND, WHICH IS KIND OF WEIRD


Now you may just be asking yourself "who are these guys?  Why didn't Chris put up characters from The Sea Hawk or Scrubs or something?"

To which I say, "how in the world have you read MY comics and not THEIRS?  That's like saying 'Oh, I really dig Alexander Kent" but you've never read Patrick O'Brian or C.S. Forrester.'"  Not that there's any real equation there, just that it'd be surprising if you knew the former but not the others, which is how surprised I'd be if you'd read Crogan and not Sixth Gun.  Read it.  Seriously.  I can't tell you how not disappointed you'll be.

I mean, come on.  The sixth gun has undead cowboy minions attacking a train with a mummy on board, AND it's drawn like this:


Look at those guys holding on as it takes that turn!  Man, I wish I could draw like Brian Hurtt.  And I'm doing my best to move in that direction.  He's been a HUGE influence lately, artistically, and I'm glad of the changes my own stuff has seen as a result of studying his.

And to be perfectly fair, colorist Bill Crabtree has brought a LOT to the book.  His colors are fantastic.  But I've never met him (at least in the context that I knew he colored 6th Gun) and as such don't really know what he looks like; thus no figure.  Sorry, Bill, and I love what you've been doing on the book!x

Monday, October 15, 2012

HARRY POTTER Paper Figure Set

This week's paper figure set is certainly the most grandiose: there are fifty-five figures total.  Presenting, the characters of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, for you to download, print out, and assemble yourself!  Absolutely free, of course.  Click here to download the file.  Depending on your browser, you may need to right click and choose "save link as."  It's big - 66mb, I think - so don't do it on your phone unless you've got a heck of a data plan. I put a new figure set up every Monday.  Feel free to check out the other ones

Except in the cases of the Defense Against the Dark Arts professors, each of whom is depicted roughly during their tenure as a teacher, everyone is more or less circa the sixth Harry Potter novel, The Half Blood Prince.  'Cause I wanted all the kids in their school clothes.  It's just more iconic to me.

I tried to stay away from the movie's visuals as much as possible, but was unable to do so in the case of Voldemort.  The book's "red eyes" combined with the green of the Adava Kedavra curse made him look way too Christmasy, and the film design  was so, so good.  I gave him snake lips and longer fingers/toes, but otherwise it's pretty much the movie version.  Likewise, Sirius Black has a mustache rather than a bear, another nod to an excellent film design decision.  Otherwise, though, I think the choices are mostly my interpretations of Rowling's descriptions.

Oh!  There’s an exclusive figures that you can’t get here!  Moaning Myrtle is at School Library Journal’s GOOD COMICS FOR KIDS section.

EDIT: The file I posted on Monday, October 15th didn’t have Buckbeak… another site was going to run it (I thought), but didn’t, so it’s in the main file now.  If you DIDN’T get Buckbeak before, but downloaded the rest of it already, here’s that file.

• Also, I totally misspelled “Weasley” on the twins and Ginny (though got it right on Ron and the parents).  I’m terrible at spelling names, especially by  hand (no spell check), but luckily these two were on the same sheet.  It’s fixed in the main file, but if you’ve already printed these then here’s a single-sheet replacement.












Monday, October 8, 2012

SIMON FONTHILL Paper Figure Set


Click HERE to download you own paper figure set. This week's paper figure set comes from John Wilcox's FONTHILL novels, a historical adventure series set throughout the British Empire in the late 1870s and 1880s.  I read the first book, Horns of the Buffalo, to get a flavor for the Zulu Wars that would serve as the backdrop for the upcoming Crogan Adventures audio drama "The Kimberly Pit" (coming May 15, 2013) and kept reading because, well, I liked 'em a lot.

There's a Four Feathers-esque narrative arc in the first book in which the protagonist is afraid of being afraid, and the stiffness that this creates (while essential for the longer series development) makes it a little hard to invest oneself fully in his exploits, but the supporting character/sidekick Jenkins 352 is one of the most enjoyable characters to read that I've ever happened across, right up there with Rooster Cogburn and Captain Good, and he gives you reason enough to care about what happens from the get-go.  From the second book onwards, Fonthill himself does a fine job of carrying the narrative, so Jenkins is pure bonus. Anyway, if you've the slightest inclination towards meticulously researched colonial Africa yarns, like I do, I recommend them.  They're also available in audiobook form, so if you've got an audible account, give 'em a go.

As with the other paper figure sets (available to download here, and always free), you simply download the file (on some browsers, you may need to right click and choose "save link as"), print it out, and cut and assemble them to either display or play with.  The characters aren't mine (unless they're from the Crogan Adventures books); they're the intellectual property of their respective authors.  I just make 'em as a hobby, because I like the properties. Click HERE to download you own paper figure set.

Monday, October 1, 2012

Paper Figure Set: MASTER AND COMMANDER


(Click here to download the print file so that you can make these yourself for free)
If you're using Chrome or some other applications, right click and choose "save link location.

This week's set is an admittedly small one, with just two figures: lead-booted physician Stephen Maturin and obese sanguinite Lucky Jack Aubrey, complete with battle-lost ear.

If you haven't read the Aubrey/Maturin books, you should.  They're truly incredible, though in truth I've only read the first four.  Reading them was getting me excited about doing another nautical book, this one putting much more emphasis on getting the rigging right, but my editor told me that it was "too soon to return to the pirate trough" having done the pirate-themed Crogan's Vengeance only a couple of books ago, and so I must wait.  I'm holding off on reading the remainder of the Patrick O'Brian novels until that time.

Just a reminder that I post a new paper figure set each Monday, and that other paper figure sets can be found here.

(Click here to download the Master and Commander print file so that you can make these yourself for free)

Monday, September 24, 2012

PORCO ROSSO Paper Figures


When it comes to Miyazaki movies, everyone has a different favorite.  Mine is Porco Rosso, the story of a former WWI flying ace who takes up bounty hunting amidst seaplane pirates in the Adriatic Sea in the 1920s.  Oh, and he's been turned into a pig, because it's a Miyazaki movie.  I mean, really, what else could you want?
I'm always surprised at the number of folks who haven't seen this one, even though they may love other Ghibli films.  Well, consider this an invitation to get to it, friends!
So, print these out and assemble 'em yourselves.  Play with them.  Put them on your desk at work.  Give them to a child whose love of animation, anthropomorphism, or aviation you want to foster.  The print file download is, of course, free.
Also, feel free to check out the OTHER PAPER FIGURE SETS I'VE MADE.  I'll be putting a new one up every Monday for the rest of 2012. And to keep in the giveaway spirit of last week's post, any tumblr reblogs will be entered to win a prize: TWO professionally printed copies of the Porco Rosso figure set (one for you and one to give to a friend).  Reblogs only... "likes" don't count towards the giveaway, though they are appreciated.  The winner will be announced October 8th.  You don't have to follow me to win, but be sure to check back if you're not following to see if there are prize updates.



Saturday, September 22, 2012

What's the point of a Comic Book Shop?

I took my daughter to one of my local comic shops today. We have a few, but it’s my favorite for a few of reasons: • They have a really good selection of comics in general, but they have a big strip reprint section, which is usually a good indicator of the variety a store will have • They have a pretty impressive kids’ comic section, and it’s right in the front of the store. I consider this hugely important in a comic shop. There’s another shop in my area with a great selection, but the very first thing you pass walking in is a dvd rental area with lots of superhero and anime porn. Hardly a setup that invites any but the most dedicated readers, and a real turn-off to parents. I know I wouldn’t bring MY daughter into that one, though I’ll shop there myself. • The staff has always been AMAZING. Well-informed, extremely polite and friendly, and eager to recommend new titles based on what you like. Whenever I take my daughter to this shop, it’s a big event for us. I get her excited about it in the morning, and we talk about it all day. We go over the behavior that’s expected of her (not picking anything up without permission or help from an adult, being quiet, that sort of thing) and the things that we can expect to see. She’s not yet three years old, and going to the comic shop is one of her favorite things that we do together. Generally, we go about once a month. I was behind on my purchases, so I had (for me) a pretty big stack of floppies – The Creep #0 and #1, the most recent five issues of Lobster Johnson, and Rocketeer #2. I told Penny that she could pick out a toy and a book. She chose a plush of Smiley Bone (she already has a Fone Bone, and really liked Smiley’s vest) and the first volume of the new Fantagraphics Carl Barks collection, which I’d been meaning to pick up myself. One of the store’s staff helped me find a couple of the floppies, and was as helpful and friendly as he always is. We weren’t yet finished shopping, but Penny asked if we could look at her Donald Duck book. We squatted down in the kids’ section and she rested on my knee, and I started reading her the first few pages of Bombie the Zombie. She was captivated. She loves being read to, and this was another part of the comic shop experience with her that I always love. That the store itself and reading are so intertwined. That she'll remember the first time she was introduced to a character or a story, and associate it with a shop. What could foster a love of comic shops more than that? We were interrupted by an employee whom I’d not ever met before. “Excuse me,” she said. “Are you planning on buying that? Because we don’t want people reading the stories if they’re not going to buy them.” I was taken aback. “Yes, I’m planning on buying it,” I said. She turned and walked off. I took a moment to reflect on what had just happened. I was clearly upset by the experience, and it must have shown on my face or in my body language, because my daughter hugged me and said “it’s okay, Daddy, don’t be sad.” We walked around the store and put back our (thus far) seventy-something dollars worth of merchandise, and before leaving I told the employee that I would henceforth be taking my business elsewhere, as I strongly disagreed with the policy, as I considered it antithetic to the whole experience of going to a comic shop. “I’m sorry you feel that way,” she said, “but we’ve had people read whole issues before and not buy them.” OF COURSE YOU HAVE. YOU’RE A COMIC BOOK SHOP. It’s far cheaper to buy trades and graphic novels on Amazon, and to get floppies through companies like DCBS. So why even go to a comic shop, if doing so is not the cheapest option? One of the reasons that people go to bookstores of any stripe – and I include comic shops in this equation – is that they have the opportunity to peruse the books that they might buy before doing so. I often read the first chapter of a book or GN before picking it up, especially if I’m unfamiliar with it. And, in the past (especially when I was in college) I would read entire books at Borders and not buy them. But you know what? Despite those occurrences, Borders ended up with hundreds of my dollars each year. The kids that would sit and read manga in the aisles? They also BOUGHT manga. Part of the joy of going to a store that sells reading material is the freedom to consume the goods, provided that you are careful to keep the book/comic in the same shape as when you pulled it from the shelf. Take that away, and you take away the ONLY tangible benefit that a shop offers over mail-order service (one COULD argue the social considerations, but the shop counter’s monopoly on comic book discussions is one that, like its former monopoly on the products that it sells, died with the internet). This shop doesn’t offer me a discount (I’ve never asked), as do others in town. A truly wonderful store in another city gives me a discount of fifty percent (or cost, if cost is more, as is the case with IDW) and mails things my way. I can get books on Amazon for much cheaper than I can find at this store. And yet I still come to this shop. I get floppies there. I get books there. I get toys for my daughter, and I even pick up the odd big-ticket item (an IDW artist edition, for example). Why? Because I like to support my local shop, and this one is the closest one to my house, and therefore the most “local.” I love comic shops, and I want them to succeed, and so whenever possible I make sure that they’re the ones who get my business. But being made to feel guilty over reading books in the store? That drives away readers. A kid dropped off by his mom while she’s running errands is probably much more likely to catch ire than an adult customer with a stack of books waiting at the counter, so if I get that sort of individual attention then I can be SURE that the kid does. If that kid is made to feel unwelcome, then he or she will be far less likely to grow into a habitual customer. That kid may leave off comics entirely. It’s poor business and extremely poor stewardship of the industry, and so I'm going to be making my purchases at other shops. Luckily, I'm in a city, and have that option. But unluckily for any comic shop proprietors, EVERYONE has that option now. The internet, the discount comic services, they've killed the monopoly. Make your customers feel unwelcome, and they'll leave. I’d like to think that this was just the (I assume) new employee acting on her own inclinations, but in truth I’d actually heard of it happening there before: another dad who’d decided to take his business elsewhere for the exact same reason (though in his case, they’d confronted the kid directly). Every employee I'd ever dealt with there had been a dream, so wrote it off as a fluke, or a mistake, but I guess it’s store policy. That’s a shame, because otherwise it’s the best comic shop our city has got. But I guess it doesn’t offer anything that I can’t get from Amazon.

Monday, September 17, 2012

SHERLOCK Paper Figures

So I’ve been making these paper figures for myself for a while (they’re lining the walls of my studio), and I thought I’d make them available to everyone else. For free. Every Monday. Print the figures out yourself on your own printer, or you can take them to your local print shop (that’s what I do) for the best quality.

I figured I’d start with a set of figures from the BBC show SHERLOCK. If you're one of the few folks who haven't seen it yet, do yourself a favor and fix that!

I don’t usually do backgrounds, but this set comes with a Baker Street diorama, because come on, Baker Street.

Anyway, click here to download the print file. It's a little shy of 27MB, which isn't HUGE, but it probably better suited to a laptop or a desktop than a phone. If you want to get OTHER paper figure sets, just go to the paper figure page at CroganAdventures.com and pick out the set(s) you want.

Also, keep in mind that I'm doing a big










on tumblr. You can read the details here, but know that one of the prizes is a free paper figure commission. I know, I know... you may not be ON tumblr. I'm sorry, if that's the case! You can always sign up - it's free - if you want to enter this contest. Anyway, enjoy the figures, and check back each Monday! As always, collectors can find the original art for this and other things on my original art page.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Dragon*Con Commissions!

Well, Dragon*Con is in just a few days, and I realized that I haven't filled my commission list yet!  I don't have time for many between now and when it starts, so I'll only be taking twenty.  Here's the deal: You get an original 5x7 piece of art (ink and watercolor) featuring one character for twenty-five dollars.  I'll do it ahead of time and you can pick it up from me at the show.  I'll be taking commissions at the show, too, but in a limited number given the time and working condition restraints, so if you want a commission, this is the best way to go about it. Special: get five pieces for a hundred bucks.  That's a $25 dollar savings!  And great if you want, say, all four ninja turtles and April O'Neil, too. Here are a few recent 5x7s, to give you an idea as to what yours might look like: 

Game of Throne's Tyrion Lannister

The eponymous Doctor Who
Doctor Who's Amelia Pond 

One of Doctor Who's Weeping Angels

 My own Crogan-Junichi character
Bruce Wayne  Batman
The Rocketeer
Empire Strikes Back's Boba Fett So!  If you're getting one, just hit the paypal button below and write a message (or shoot me an e-mail) telling me what character you'd like.  See you at Dragon*Con!

Hit the paypal button below, send me the cost, and then send me an e-mail at chris@curiousoldlibrary.com telling me the character that you want.

Friday, August 17, 2012

Crogan's Escape Pencils (page 7 and 8)

I've been working on a lot of stuff, I'm just not ready to show most of it yet. But I don't want to be a COMPLETE internet hermit, so here are some pencils from the new book! 


Friday, July 6, 2012

Accepting Commissions for SDCC - watercolored!

I stayed with the inestimably talented artists Brian Hurtt and Matt Kindt when we traveled to HeroesCon earlier this month, and was blown away by the watercolor commissions that they had done/were doing as a team. Well, if you're gonna steal, steal from the best, I say, so I'm going to try my hand at the same thing. The drawings are nowhere NEAR as pretty as Brian's, and the color nowhere NEAR as artfully handled as Matt, but maybe you like my drawings, and plan to be at the San Diego Comic Con in a few days time, and maybe YOU'LL want to get a commission from me. AFTER you get one from Matt and Brian, of course (if they're offering).

Here's an example of the type of pic you'd get: Han Solo! Only if you ASK for Han Solo, of course. If you asked for Krang from the Ninja Turtles and got a Han Solo instead, you'd probably be pretty miffed. I would. (sorry for the weird lines on the pic; my phone was doing something odd) $25 bucks for a 5x7 hand drawn and watercolored character, your choice. You pick it up at the table during one of my signing times. Hit the paypal button below, send me the cost, and then send me an e-mail at chris@curiousoldlibrary.com telling me the character that you want.
I'll be taking commissions ONLY until Monday night. If you want one, order before midnight Eastern time on Monday night (the 9th).

Though I'll be doing whole-body images, here are a few more watercolors just to show how I'll handle the colors.

Monday, June 18, 2012

Tryon, NC on Thursday

In a few days I'll be doing a signing in TRYON, North Carolina, a lovely mountain town situated on the South Carolina border. I'm very excited about it. Why, you may ask? Well, for a few reasons. 1. I genuinely LOVE Tryon. It's the most amazing little town. 2. Tryon was essential to the completion of Crogan's Loyalty. I walked around a lot there, sketching trees and rocks and the like, in order to get the best sense of mountain foliage. I also spent a lot of time sketching at nearby Pearson's Falls in order to get a sense of the environment for the book's climax:

3. I'm doing the signing with my dad. My parents moved to Tryon a couple of years ago, and it's through them that I became familiar with the place. My dad is mystery novelist Mark Schweizer, the author of the Liturgical Mysteries, a series of funny and engaging stories in which the police chief protagonist is also the part-time church organist and choral director. Most of the murders are church politics-related. They've won mystery awards and are staples at most mystery and Episopal bookstores. Seeing as we operate in two fairly different literary spheres, I never really thought a joint signing would happen. But it IS happening! Both of our new books came out this week (Loyalty for me, The Treble wore Trouble for my dad), and the town's local bookstore (The Book Shelf) decided to have us both together. I hope that, should you live somewhere in the area, you'll consider coming by. I do a big, pretty drawing in each book sold, so I'll make it worth your while...

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

HeroesCon: Map of the BEST BLOCK

HeroesCon is a little over a week away! This is, without doubt, my favorite show, and I hope you'll get a chance to come out. Think you might have trouble finding me? Not with this lil' map:


(click for full-sized version) That's right. We don't even need table numbers. 'Cause we're the BEST BLOCK. Anybody else think their table block is better? Well, you'd better be ready for a dance off/knife fight. 'Cause that's how the early-mid-400s roll. In addition to getting new books, artwork, and goodies at the table, you can also see me at the following panels/workshops: Friday at 5pm: COMICS CANON We discuss what comics should and shouldn't be included in a comics canon. Be prepared to be shocked at what formerly esteemed comics I throw under the bus, and my reasons for doing so! Leave convinced! Sunday at 11am: INCREDIBLE ALL-AGES PANEL Jill Thompson, Roger Langdridge, Skottie Young, and Me (apparently, I'm hosting) talk about all-ages comics. Sunday at 2:30pm: PITCHING GRAPHIC NOVELS "Getting a publisher interested in your graphic novel is no easy task, but with the right information you'll be in a better position to do so. Chris Schweizer "The Crogan Adventures) will go over the principles of finding the right publisher, preparing a submission packet, and avoiding the problems that cause promising books to be overlooked." Also, Crogan stuff in the news this week: • REALLY long and in-depth interview with COMICS REPORTER. As Jeff Parker says in a very nice post, "Set aside an hour and read it." • Audio Interview on WAR ROCKET AJAX, the Comics Alliance podcast • EYE ON COMICS reviews Crogan's LoyaltyCOMIC BOOKED review Crogan's LoyaltyKLEEFELD ON COMICS reviews Crogan's LoyaltyBACK TO BOOKS reviews Crogan's LoyaltyHopkinsville New Era newspaper article: Former Hopkinsville resident returns for book signing, workshopTV feature on a workshop I did in Indiana (NBC 14) I also did a radio interview (WKMS), but I don't think it's been posted online. If I'm wrong, someone let me know, and I'll put up a link!

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

New Paper Figure Set Available for Download

Hey, everyone! Crogan's Loyalty is already available in comic shops and from Amazon (the distributor warehouse shipped it early!), so I figured that I'd go ahead and put the figures from that story up a few days ahead of schedule.

I'm currently working on the Crogan Adventure Society AGENTS page. There, Society agents will be able to access the older newsletters as well as download some AGENT EXCLUSIVE paper figures from the first three books! This is the last week of school. and I'm pretty swamped, but soon I'll be in full summer mode, working hard and getting things out, so keep an eye open for next week!

Around the web:
iFanboy has some nice things to say about Crogan's Loyalty
I talk to CREATIVE LOAFING, Atlanta's free alt-weekly newspaper
A review of Crogan's Loyalty on GEEK SHOW INK

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

NEW WEBSITE

Well! I've been absent for a little while because I've been working to set up THE CROGAN ADVENTURES website!

It's got a lot of features, including:

• The chance to read ALL of Crogan's March for FREE for the next month
• Paper Figure sets (14 characters available so far) that you can print out and assemble
• A teaching guide for the new book
• An UPDATED appearances page
• Links to interviews (both print and audio/video)

and more! Go and check it out. Bookmark it! I'll still be using the curiousoldlibrary blog to post non-Crogan-related art, but will be shifting a lot of my attention to the new site. Hope you like it!

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Decoder Ring Theatre's RED PANDA ADVENTURES figures!

I was up in Toronto last month for the recording of four of the six CROGAN ADVENTURES episodes (based on my graphic novel series) that Decoder Ring Theatre is putting together for their 2013 Summer Showcase, and while I was there Gregg (the show's director, producer, and, in all cases save the Summer Showcases, writer) mentioned how he'd like to collaborate on making some paper figures for the Red Panda Adventures (possibly my favorite franchise, and certainly the one in which I'm the most emotionally invested - think the Shadow as if it were seamlessly integrated into a Tracy/Hepburn zinger romance) done the same way as my Sherlock Holmes figure series.  I thought it was a great idea.

He sent me a list of the characters he wanted to see, along with short descriptions of each (descriptions that were both concise and funny; even with Gregg has an audience of one, he never fails to deliver).  Based on those, my own thoughts on the characters, and my limited knowledge of the voice actors' physical appearances (with the exception of Harry Kelly and Dr. Chronopolis, who I doubt look anything like their real-world counterparts), I worked up this batch.  Hope you like 'em!

I believe Gregg plans to make these available in the not-too-distant future.  Check the news page of Decoder Ring Theatre to keep up with any such developments, and be sure to give it a listen!  And don't forget to tune in next summer for THE CROGAN ADVENTURES Summer Showcase!