Posted by JamesDougan on Tuesday, January 23 2007 at 2:31 am
Thanks to everyone who’s been reading and leaving feedback about the stories. Here’s an update on a bunch of stuff, since it’s been a while:
My collaboration with Hyeondo Park, COME THE DAWN, will appear in NEGATIVE BURN #8, shipping to comics stores next Wednesday, January 31. To ease your comic-store browsing, here’s the cover, by Karl Waller:
Mike Fiffe and I are truly grateful for the extremely positive responses we’ve been getting for REST STOP. Seriously, you people are sick. Anyway, we’ve just been informed that it’s been selected to appear in NEGATIVE BURN #9, which will be in stores at the end of February. Check out the cover by ALIAS artist Michael Gaydos:
While we’re on the NEGATIVE BURN tip, Greg McElhatton posted a qualified but generally favorable review of A LITTLE FRIENDLY ADVICE as part of his review of NB #7. (For the record, Greg, I think we’re the second-best in the book, too - that Michael Cho story is aces.)
If you liked REST STOP, you’re going to love THE GENTLEMAN, another EC-type thriller coming your way the first week in February, drawn by Umberto Torricelli, who has a LiveJournal here, and whose terrific comic, UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE, can be read as part of the DE-ACT-i-VATE collective.
In the meantime, you’ll be treated to a collaboration I did a few years back with the great, great Roger Langridge, of FRED THE CLOWN and ART D’ECCO fame. You can - nay, MUST - buy these books from his publisher Fantagraphics, here. Go ahead. I’ll wait.
So, lots of stuff, and more to come!
Category: Vulture Gulch and Other Stories, Other Stories
Posted by JamesDougan on Tuesday, January 23 2007 at 12:24 am
There will be a brand spaking new story in February! (See the “Odds ‘n Ends” post below.) In the meantime, please enjoy an “oldie but goodie”, drawn by the incomparable Roger Langridge:
OSCAR CHAVEZ, MACHISMO MONITOR:
Oscar says if you don’t come back next week for Page 2, you’re a wussy.
Category: Vulture Gulch and Other Stories, Other Stories
Posted by Vito Delsante on Monday, January 22 2007 at 12:03 pm
Unfortunately, there will be no STUCK today. Vito’s computer died and he’s unable to get scripts to Tom at this time. Hopefully, we’ll be able to come up with a solution (other than getting a new computer) that’ll have us back up and running next week. Until then, please check out the previous installments and vote on whether Wesley will live or die by sending your vote to vito@chemsetcomics.com.
Thanks and sorry…
-Vito
Category: Stuck
Posted by NeilKleid on Friday, January 19 2007 at 8:00 am
Kevin is still working away on a few other projects so we’re continuing to serialize NIGHT’S PLUTONIAN SHORE illustrated by Mr. Jamesmith. This is my first science fiction story, by the by, and I’m pretty proud of how it came out. Aren’t you?
Catch up here.
TODT HILL returns in February.
Category: Uncategorized, Late Night Block
Posted by ElizabethGenco on Thursday, January 18 2007 at 12:55 pm
Jim Rugg made quite the spash on the indy comics scene a few years ago with his collaboration with Brian Maruca, STREET ANGEL. Eager Rugg fans (yes, that would be me) patiently awaiting his next big work will soon have a doozy on their hands: The PLAIN Janes (with Cecil Castellucci), the first release from Minx, Vertigo’s brand new and sure-to-be-awsome young adult line.
You just finished a 150-page young adult graphic novel in record time. How do you feel?
I feel good about it. I always hate my drawing when I’m doing it, but DC just sent me a couple of galleys of the book, and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.
How long did it take, from start to finish?
About six months.
About a year and a half ago (if memory serves, which it may not), we were chatting or emailing and you mentioned that you were wary of the scope and magnitude of your chosen projects because you didn’t want comics to feel like a job. How do you feel about that now? Do you have any desire to be a full-time comics maker?
I just gave notice at my job. In a couple weeks, I will be making comics full-time. I’m looking forward to it. It’s a big change from my usual routine, but I’m eager to give it a shot. I think there are drawbacks to doing comics full-time or doing them part-time. I forget how to draw very quickly. If I go a couple of days without drawing, it takes time to readjust and get back into it. So drawing full-time offers me a chance to improve my drawing (hopefully).
It will also give me more time to have a life. My wife has been incredibly patient the last few years as I worked 70-80 hours a week. I’ll have time to read books again. So there are trade-offs, like seeking dependable pay checks, but I look forward to the benefits too.
I hear you on the reading tip. I’m looking forward to that myself (note to readers: I also just bid adieu to my day job). What’s in your “to be read” pile?
Right now, I have bookmarks in the following titles:
Cold Black Preach (Robert DeCoy)
Ghetto Sketches (Odie Hawkins)
Blood Meridian (Cormac Mccarthy)
Popeye vol 1
Yes Yes Y’All: An Oral History of Hip-Hop’s First Decade (Ooo! I must pick this up…)
The Machine in Ward Eleven (Charles Willeford)
That Greg Irons book that Fantagraphics put out last year…
I just won some Herbie’s on Ebay (which I’ll probably have to read as soon as they arrive)…
Got any New Year’s resolutions?
Exercise now and then. Make better comics. Stop adopting cats.
Stop adopting cats? Sounds like there’s a story there….
Not really. I had a cat. Then I adopted another one to keep the first one company, and then I ended up with a third one. It was an accident. She wasn’t planned. We rescued it from an abandoned house, and we couldn’t find a shelter that would take her. And over the next few days, we fell in love with her. Now we have 3 cats, and that’s a lot. But they’re all real awesome, so it works out. But I don’t think we can have any more without becoming the crazy cat people whose house is smelly.
Have you ever skateboarded?
Very little, but enough to almost break my hip.
What’s next?
PLAIN Janes! Look for it in May. After that…I don’t know. I’m inking American Virgin from Vertigo. I’ll probably draw another PLAIN Janes book. And Brian Maruca (co-creator of Street Angel) and I have been working on an Afrodisiac series forever, so I’m optimistic that will finally see the light of day.
Category: From the Library
Posted by StevenGoldman on Thursday, January 18 2007 at 9:21 am
Most of the time, a Styx driver ends up sitting outside of brownstones and office buildings, and just waiting, waiting…
Once in a while, though, a fare leads to a break from the ordinary…
Here’s a little story Rami and I cooked up entitled “Rosa”…
See you in seven for the rest of “Rosa”!
Category: Styx Taxi
Posted by ChrisArrant on Wednesday, January 17 2007 at 8:00 am
Hi; Chris Arrant here, writer for 1 Way Ticket here at The Chemistry Set. By now you’re probably asking — where’s the new page? What happens next? Why am I reading comics in my underwear? I can answer that first question, but the rest you’re on your own.
The artist of 1WT, Dan Warner, had to step back into the real world to tackle some late-breaking deadlines of the paying sort so we’re going to have to hold off on any new pages until next week….
AUDIENCE: AWWWWW
…but in an effort to appease our fanbase and prevent riots in the streets of the Internets, I thought it’d be interesting to tell you how this all came to be. No, Dan and I aren’t joined at the hip. In fact, we’ve never met. Far from a Lady & The Tramp love story, this all started a couple years back with him as a comics creator and me as a nubile fan… (cue dream music)
I first came across Dan Warner’s work in his miniseries for Slave Labor Graphics, Cocopiazo. To this day it remains uncollected and underappreciated, but I remember coming back to the book again and again to soak up the artwork and the vibe the reverberated through it.
Later, when I was putting 1 Way Ticket together (under the name Guitarmageddon), I made a short list of artists who I’d love to do the series with. I must have eaten my wheaties that day, because I made a seperate list of artists I probably couldn’t get to do it but that I should ask anyway. Dan was on that list; here’s the cold-call email I sent him:
Daniel,
You probably don’t know me from Adam, but my name is Chris Arrant and I’m one of your LJ friends (chrisarrant). Vito Delsante and I are organizing a comics group similar to Act-i-vate, but with the theme of collaboration. Instead of a sole cartoonist, it’s a writer and an artist teaming up to hopefully create something more potent than what they would individually.
As you have probably surmised by now, I am a writer in search of an artist. I’ve always admired your work on LJ and in your SLG comic, and wanted to inquire if you’d be interested in talking further about possibly collaborating on something for this.
If not, no harm no foul… I just figured if I didn’t ask, I’d kick myself.
Thanks,
Chris Arrant
Wow. It’s like looking at embarassing baby pictures.
Anyway, I sent it off around 2am in the morning — you know that time, where you can’t sleep and you can’t tape together any coherent thought but you want to do something. That’s what I did. I emailed him and then made a note to take my expectations down a notch and post an ad on DigitalWebbing.com for an artist.
Then, the next day — Dan responded. He was interested. And he sent me his portfolio. I mentioned Dan’s name to another Dan, Dan Goldman (Shooting War, Kelly), and he said “Yeah! Dan Warner’s great. I always meant to get up with him to do a book together, but I haven’t had a chance yet!” So now, in my mind, I’m competing with Goldman, a published cartoonist and rockstar artist in his own right. FUCK.
So I sent Dan Warner a pitch on a hope and a prayer. I’ll show you what I sent him, with some parts XXed out as to not ruin the story.
ONE WAY TICKET
While on a visit to a dusty pawn shop, a young boy named Sully runs head-long into fate and discovers the guitar of his dreams… or is it his nightmares? With this mystical guitar in hand, he XXXXX.
That’s the high gloss movie pitch. The story itself will be serious but also raucous, brash and hedonistic. The feel is like the movie BUCKAROO BANZAI, or the comic NEXTWAVE or SHARKNIFE. It will be serious moments played for laughs and drama. What you’d be drawing is bands playing, magical guitars exerting telekinesis over objects, lightning bolts, demons, over-the-top zany moments like a manga, and some quiet moments between Sully and his family. It’d call for a kinetic and upbeat style.
How unprofessional of me. But Warner responded:
Hi Chris,
As you know, the subject matter of One Way TIcket isn’t really the direction I am pushing my work.
Oh shit. Just like high school romance let-downs.
BUT I let the idea incubate for a day, and the more I thought about what a Rock and Roll comic book could be the more pumped up I got.
Wha-?!
I put on some music and tried to visualize it. Bear with me for a moment as I try to verbalize… I can see it as bold, highly energetic drawings that incorporate classic comic book visual elements like thought bubbles and dot screens. Poppy and fresh but not campy. My influences tend to come more from manga than classic comic books and right now I’m thinking along the lines of Raymond Pettibon, FLCL, pushead, tattoos, CD Covers, Warhol, Atsushi Keneko’s ‘Bambi,’ Van Gogh and this playlist:
1. Boxcar - Jawbreaker
2. The Longest Line - NOFX
3. I am a Rock - Me First and The Gimme Gimmees
4. Cheap Wine and Cigarettes - Darkbuster
5. She is Beautiful - Andrew W K
6. Hash Pipe - Weezer
7. Close to Me - Get Up Kids
8. True Dreams of Wichita (live) - Mike Doughty
9. Why Can’t This Be Love - Van Halen
10. Every Rose Has It’s Thorn - Poison
11. Jump - Simple Plan
12. The Rock Show - Blink 182
ME: …. he likes it?
After that it was a flurry of emails with playlists, artwork, photos, lyrics and it ended up into the 1 Way Ticket you’ve read each Wednesday. Check back here in 7 days for page 21 — meanwhile, take a chance to go back and re-read the story so far; look to the right sidebar for links to the archives.
Category: 1 Way Ticket
Posted by JamesDougan on Tuesday, January 16 2007 at 8:42 am
Catch up HERE, and it’s on to Page Eight - our conclusion!
Mike and I say thanks for reading. Next Tuesday, January 22, I’ll have something new for you…stay tuned!
Category: Vulture Gulch and Other Stories, Other Stories
Posted by Vito Delsante on Monday, January 15 2007 at 2:53 pm
Previously in STUCK
Chapter 1; Chapter 2; Chapter 3******
*****
Sorry we’re so late today…cant say it won’t happen again, but we’ll try our best.
And in case you forgot, we are accepting votes for our contest! Will Wesley live or will he die? Only YOU can decide his fate! Send your vote to vito@chemsetcomics.com! Only one vote per e-mail address. And Tom and I will be choosing someone at random for a STUCK Prize Package! So send them votes in! (Voting ends on February 5th and results and winner will be announced on February 26th! Good luck!)Thanks for coming by and Happy New Year!
Tom & Vito
Category: Stuck, Chapter 3
Posted by NeilKleid on Friday, January 12 2007 at 8:00 am
Kevin is still on leave in the South Pacific or perhaps Hoboken so we’re continuing to serialize NIGHT’S PLUTONIAN SHORE illustrated by Mr. Jamesmith.
Catch up here.
Behold - the beginning of the creepy.
TODT HILL returns in February.
Category: Late Night Block