Old Magazine Cartoons Today

kids book illustration

A friend of mine had an idea for a kid's book he wanted to write and asked me to come up with a couple pieces based on his directions. As it happens he prefers the pencil roughs to the inked drawings, but I was happy with the way this one came out (with a few reservations as always...)

a boy and his golem

Special Inferior Edition of Pete Moss Now Avail.

If you want to save a few bucks off the IndyPlanet price, you can order a cheap xeroxed copy of "Pete Moss - Summer 2011" directly from me.

Cost: $3.00 (includes S&H)
Mail check or Money Order to:

Tim Rocks
Peak Fun Comics
1147 14th Ave. S. #5
Birmingham, AL 35205

I will also accept Paypal (send payment to rocksgraphic@hotmail.com)

green journalism

Pick up the current edition of The Birmingham Free Press (available for free at various street-corners and businesses around town) to see my "Marxist Hulk" strip in print, as well as all the other fine content. There's a whole article about the Cartooneestas (regional cartooning group), as well as comic strips by Nolen Otts and BFP publisher Stephen Smith. Plus: an article about local history guru John Morse and his bhamwiki.

Thanks to Stephen Smith for running the Hulk comic (which can be seen here if you're among the unfortunate who don't have access to hard copies of the BFP.)

Blog gadget ignominy

Could not manage to get this image placed above the blog title, so here it is as a blog post..

"Pete Moss" comic now available from IndyPlanet.com

Here is the direct link:

http://indyplanet.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=5730

Here's the color version of the cover, and the first three pages (as can be seen at the Indyplanet page as well):



CLICK TO ENLARGE


REMEMBER, CLICKEE THEE IMAGE TO ENLARGEN


DOST THOU EMBOLDEN THINE IMAGE THRU THINE CLICKEN?

News & Notes

Everyone in the world should read this thread. Basically, the thread-starter launches a plan to start a superhero universe, but done the *right* way (i.e. not like how Marvel and DC do their superhero universes.) And to fund it using one of these new money-getting Kickstarter-type websites (only not Kickstarter, because he resents their 4% take, plus Amazon's 2%.) But what makes it all such a rollicking good time (for me) is how it quickly becomes this big soap opera of various personalities chiming in with their take on it, and the schisms, and then everybody weighing in on the schisms. It's pretty great. The first few pages might be kind of slow, I don't remember, but currently there's been some pretty spectacular back-and-forth over a logo design, and somebody wrote a very formal outline of the steps involved in creating and launching a superhero universe, as a suggested guide for the OP to follow, which was bloody great. I wish I could have recommended it when it began, since it's much more fun to follow threads day by day, but that's just life in the forums kid.

Also, Sergio Aragones has a new funnybook out! In fact it's called "Sergio Aragones - funnies" (with "funnies" in large display letters.) I saw it at Books-a-Million today. In his cartooned introduction where he draws himself talking he explains that this comic will be written in his own voice (in the past he's often worked with Mark Evanier to smooth over his English troubles) and that it will feature stories and anecdotes from his own life. So pick one up wherever Bongo comics are sold! Hooray for Sergio, the coolest man in comics.

Finished that comic I've been working on. I'm trying to get it uploaded to Ka-blam/Indyplanet so it will be at least technically available, through their print-on-demand service. I wish though I could figure out some way to fund a print run on newsprint and get it distributed to small grocery and convenience stores (where comics rightly belong.)

It's maybe not such an ideal candidate for that though, since the story turned out slightly seedier than I realized it would, or intended it to. Not sure why that surprised me, since it was pretty much there in the concept.

Anyway here's the cover (the final version does have color, just posting this since I like b&w as well.) The "worksheet" is a filler page.

10 Cent Plague

A local comic shop has been trying to clear out stock by marking some books down to ten cents each. Even at that price, the boxes sit mostly neglected. Nevertheless, I like to paw through this dross in search of some unexpected find. Mostly it's comics from the last few years, which have an immediate hurtle to overcome with me as my distaste for modern precision printing, "nice" paper, and "nice" coloring, hardens more and more into a dogma. Occasionally I'll look past this if the creators involved are transcendent funnybook geniuses.

Mixed in with all the others will be a few issues of early-80s "Groo", or some mid-90s "Bacchus". It's almost as if the comic shop guys planned it that way. Like an Easter egg hunt or something. But of course that's just from my subjective POV - clearly early-80s "Groo" is not the grail for others that it is for me, or this would be a different world. A world with more cheese-dip, for one thing.

It's pleasant to be back within the circuit of the comics-buying public again (though employees have indicated, through nonverbal gestures, that my occasional offering of dimes does not place me among the front ranks of their clientele.)

It reminds me of another blip in my life as a comics consumer: the time a local Dollar Tree franchise acquired an odd lot of comics and sold them three to a bag. (This must have been after the late-90s speculator bubble burst and distributors were left with gobs of stock to get rid of. Dollar Tree probably bought it by the pound.)

The beauty of it was that, again, mixed in with all the lesser lights of Image, and the die-cut, foil-plated issue of the 366th "Incredible Hulk" comic (No waiting for number 400 - foil is selling!) would be an issue of Crumb's "Hup" that got caught up in the bubble as well. Or maybe just some work-for-hire Ditko from around that time.

So, there on the speckled store-carpet carpet of the Dollar Tree, in the flourescent glow mixed with the setting afternoon sun (setting on another day of high school) I would put together custom 3-packs, ditching the holographic garbage and "clone" artists. That's right - you'll only find True Artistic Visionaries in my Dollar Tree shopping list.

So, the moral is: don't waste your life like I have mine! Buy the comics you want, when you want! Pay full price! Get a "pull list"! I don't know what the heck Eddie Campbell's "Bacchus" is about anyway - the "Eyeball Kid"? What?

rough character

New comic under way.. Here are some rough sketches I made trying to work out character designs. Basically I just needed a little guy to hang the story on.

I'm about a third of the way into writing it, and I'm sort of laying it out as I go as well.

If you have a rich uncle who wants to sponsor a small print run, who also has contacts with distributors that can get it into small grocery stores, convenience stores, etc. (where comics rightly belong) let me know..

Hulk comics