Moving to the Planet of the Abes (dotcom)

I’m moving the blog to a new home at www.PlanetOfTheAbes.com.

If you’ve bookmarked or subscribed to this site, I won’t be posting anything new, so howzabout updating to the new one here?

 

Kramers Ergot 7

photo by nowherefront on Flickr

And speaking of Ted May …The 7th volume of Sammy Harkham’s Kramers Ergot anthology came out in December and I’m pleased as punch to say I was involved. Ted did an amazing story for it about a guy in a space station who has to return to Earth to stop his disobedient Frankenstein monster from killing celebrity Kevins…and he asked me to color it.

If you don’t know Kramers, Sammy Harkham started it in 2000 as a mini-comic, and its grown into one of the most respected anthologies for indie cartoonists out there. The latest got a lot of attention when they decided to make it the same size as the GIANT Little Nemo Sundays book that came out in ‘05 (which printed the Sunday strips in their original size). Some big shot creators like Jaime Hernandez, Chris Ware, Dan Clowes, Ivan Brunetti, and Matt Groening got on board and it started gaining a lot of hype.

Then just before it’s release, it stirred up a bunch of ridiculous troll-controversy in forums because of its high price tag ($125). I just love this line of thinking – like the creators are trying to put one over on the public by making a comic that no one can afford. “Mwaa–Now they’ll all be MINE!” I doubt anyone involved is making bank off it. No one seemed to point out that the Nemo book sold for the exact same price. Turns out, its expensive to print an unusually large format, high-quality, full color book.

For my two cents its a great collection and well worth the price.

Here’s Ted’s page (with television’s Jorge Garcia standing in for scale)

Kramers 7 on Amazon

Inkstuds interviews Sammy Harkham about Kramers 7

 

Snookum’s Fan Art!

And by “fan” I mean co-workers.

Here’s Drew Crowley’s…

hehe…I love the guy pooping out eggs

and Ted May’s

And if you’re playing Skate 2, why not look totally wicked with a Snookum’s Creek Board? ehhh…

alright, that’s it from me about these little blue f*@%s…

for now!!!

 

Snookum’s Creek Recap

Catching up on last year, The Snookem’s Creek show was a big success. A ton of people showed up for the opening and we got a lot of great feedback and support throughout the six weeks it was up. Thanks to everyone for all the kind words. I didn’t take a single picture at the opening sadly, so if anyone else did, hook me up so I can prove to my mom that people actually came out.

I did manage to get some pictures later when no one was around…Flickr set

And it sounds like the show will live on! Someone contacted us about putting it up in their space, so we’re working that out now and hope to have it ready late Spring.

Top 5 Questions (with answers!)

1. Q: Who made what?

A: Mine are on the left. Hers are on the right.

2. Q: Oh, so you made that awesome Octopus?

A: Oh…No, that’s Stephanie’s. Let me say that again. Mine are the blue ones. Hers are the pink ones….er, anything that isn’t blue

3. Q: Who’re the good guys

A: Mine of course.

4. Q: Is this from a book or something?

A: No, it started when we bought a landscape painting of a country bridge from a thrift store and painted our characters into it, at war with eachother. Around the same time, the nice folks at Star Clipper offered to let us use their gallery. We’d been experimenting a little bit with toys/models so the concept just kind of developed from there.

5. Q: Do you have any more copies of that Obama comic?

A: I’m sorry, I don’t work here anymore.

 

Hello Again Internets

ahh. Sipping coffee, stroking the ol’ beard the morning after Lincoln’s bicentenial. A time for reflection. A time for blogging.

I haven’t posted anything in a while. I got a little distracted with the real world, but I’ve come to my senses and realized my priorities and I’m back in front of a 15 inch screen communicating like man was meant to. I’ve made a goal for this weekend to clean up my virtual space. Get all my tweets in a row, do my stupid 25 things, tinker with wordpress software, and… call tech support for my laptop’s wifi issues. I’ll try to barf out a few posts here about what’s been going on in my life and maybe some crap that isn’t about me.

This is all just to distract me from doing my taxes.

PS Thanks to everybody who sent me “Happy Lincoln’s Birthday” messages. It will only make me that much more depressed next month when no one remembers my birthday.

awww.

PPS Charles Schulz’s birthday was yesterday too.

 

Happy Holidays

Merry X-mas! Here’s a drawing I did for work. Xplane got just about everyone in the company to contribute to this fun-factoid-filled holiday video

Bonus Stocking Stuffer! Guy at Desk Ornament (sans pants)…

 

X-Books Update:19

There are currently 19 monthly X-men books and spin-offs on the shelves at Star Clipper. Looks like one or two were sold out, but I won’t count them. Seems like a lot to me but I don’t know. I’m going to check back in from time to time and use this to gauge the state of the comics industry. (Do I smell fever chart?) Watch it increase as they add 16 new Wolverine books as the movie approaches. New trailer went up today actually.

 

The Battle of Snookum’s Creek

 

Stephanie and I are having our own show at Star Clipper soon. About a year ago Ben and AJ told us we could use their gallery and we came up with this idea of each of us making an army of handmade toys and turning the gallery into a plush battleground. Aware that people might find the couple-fighting-with-toys concept to be a cutesy gimmick, we just decided to roll with it and called it The Battle of Snookum’s Creek.

I’ll post some more pics and backstory in the next couple weeks, but for now here’s a couple promotional images and some process pics on Flickr.

And come out on Dec 5th for the opening reception from 7-9. Drinks and snacks!

Stephanie’s drunken sailors…

 

My hamster chariot (check the header at the top of the page)…

 

20th Anniversary Show at Star Clipper – Last Week

My favoritest St. Louis comic shop has a show up celebrating their 20th Anniversary. They asked a bunch of friends/artists to look back at their years with the store and submit pieces for it. Having worked there into the wee hours of the morning, I’ve seen some shit. So I did Ghosts of Star Clipper, illustrating the forgotten tragedies of perished patrons.

Other contributors were Jenny Cimono, Kevin Huizenga, Brian Hurtt, Matt Kindt, Sharlene Kindt, Sacha Mardou, Ted May, Jason Robards, Stephanie Richardson, Anchovy Sciarrino, James Stark, Ronald Weaver, Dan Wilson, Peat Wollaeger, Brian Yap, and Dan Zetwoch.

These are some of St Louis’s best, so thanks to Ben and AJ for the chance to join in.

Pics from the show on Flickr. My pieces below. And If you get the chance, stop by the store before Friday when they take them down.

 

imPOSTERs!

You know when you overhear someone say something like “Gentle Canadians”* in casual conversation and you instantly think “Good band name”? The poster show opening tonight at Gallery Visio is like a tribute to these talented, yet existence-challenged bands and their gigs.

We’ve been so busy lately (oh yeah, we bought a house. more on that soon) that I almost didn’t do one. But Stephanie suggested I dust off an old collage I did back when I was on crack and turn it into a poster. I decided to draw it since I’d always wanted to anyway, and I thought it might make it look a little more consistent. It’s light boxed, so I don’t know if that really “counts” as drawing, but whatever. It was good exercise with a brush.

I stuck with the original file name as my band name. Simple, but it was hard for me to imagine anything else. Probably indie-electronic, like Simian or Cornelius.

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and here’s something new. How bout some wallpaperz.

800×600

1200×768

1600×1200

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*Stephanie’s….she came up with all the good ones.

[Update]

Flickr Set from the Opening