Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Jet city comic show

Guess where you can find Abe and Angela this weekend? Tacoma at the Jet City Comic Show! Angela will of course be drawing the bubble people, so come and get one for just $1.

Angela will also be willing to do larger commissioned drawings (5*7) for $5 in the bubble people style.

Other than that, you will have to forgive our lack of posts. Angela started a certificate program in natural science illustration this fall and it is taking up all of her time! Comics have sadly fallen by the wayside for now. But by this summer she will be back on the horse after getting her certificate.

To keep you satisfied, here are some phone pics of what Angela has been doing.

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Bellingham ComiCon

Well, I forgot to announce it here, but we went to Bellingham ComiCon yesterday and had a blast. The folks there are always so great!
One of the highlights for Angela was finding the Corgi Zine by Ainsley Yeager. Go check it out!
And we traded with Shane Shaughnessy for his comic Spuds Malone. Quite a good looking book.
Bellingham ComiCon is always sucha treat. I hope we get to do it again next year.
Also, here's some of the drawings I did this year.

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Cartooning Studio comic preview

Well, there's still just over a week to preorder the Cartooning Studio 2013 comics. Remember $5 plus $1 shipping. So you can send $6 to schwarzgerat [at] gmail [dot] com. I originally said the books would go up to $6 in September, but now I am thinking maybe $7 because I am going to do a nicer bind job. I am really excited for it. We'll see what I think after binding them all. They will look cool anyways.

And for your viewing pleasure, here is a preview PDF of the comic. We were handing these out at the Portland Zine Symposium. Enjoy! Share the preview with your friends!

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Cartooning Studio comic pre-orders

You might remember that Angela went to Vermont for the Cartooning Studio workshop at the Center for Cartoon Studies a few weeks ago. Well, she was so inspired, she decided to make up a bunch of autobio comics (twenty-three of them) and combine those with the comics she made during the week. So we are going to have it available in the first week of September for $6 plus shipping.

But you can order it now for $5 plus $2 shipping. Just send $7 to schwarzgerat [at] gmail [dot] com on PayPal. If you would rather another method of payment, email angela [at] flyingdodopublications [dot] com and we can try to work something out.

This is a 56 page comic with the autobio comics, Skate Board ChampThe Short Furry Life of Reggie Bishop, the original text that the Reggie story was based on, and a single page comic based on the free-writing class at the workshop.

Here are some photos of Angela at the workshop. Izzy Rotman is responsible for this proof because Angela forgot to take any pictures.
Here is Alec Longstreth speaking in one of his lectures, just to give you an idea how intense the week was. Look at him go! Check out his comics. Phase 7 is amazing.

I'm using a micron pen there, so I am probably inking the letters. I used a brush pen (actually two since my first one ran out) to ink the art, as well as a regular brush dipped in ink for the dry brush. Hard to get good dry brush with a cartridge brush pen.

Luke Healy is helping me make my InDesign Doc.

Running through my pages while Jon Chad looks through the printed covers that we are getting ready to screen print.

All done! And two comics to show for it. Not bad

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Portland zine symposium

Abe and Angela will be plying their wares at the Portland zine symposium. It is in Ambridge Event Center from 10 to 6.
They will not be there tomorrow, so you better come today. They will even have a special preorder available for Angela's comic about her time at cartooning studio in Vermont at the Center for Cartoon Studies. You don't have to show up to get that, but they will have a free preview comic of it.
We will go into more detail about how to preorder tomorrow or Monday, right here!
Hope to see you in Portland!

Monday, August 5, 2013

Cartooning studio

Angela's back from cartooning studio, a 5 day workshop at the Center for Cartoon Studies in Vermont. She learned lots and had a blast.

She made two mini comics! "Skate Board Champ" was a goof on one of the teachers, Jon Chad. That was just to practice old school production with glue and paper on a photocopier.

The other was a sci-fi story written by Abe, "The Short Furry Life of Reggie Bishop." She spent most of the week on this story, practicing thumb nailing, penciling, inking, lettering, and production. Even screen printing for the cover!

She learned loads, meet awesome people, and had a great time. She plans to make up a comic compiling the two mini comics and an auto bio comic of her time, so keep an eye out for that here.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Real Change illustrations

Real Change is a newspaper in Seattle with the goal of giving a voice to the homeless. The mostly work with volunteers to create the newspaper. Angela has started volunteering as an illustrator for book reviews. Her first illustration is posted for a review of Harvest. If you are wandering around Seattle, chances are you will see someone selling Real Change. So grab a copy for $2 and you might get some art by Angela!

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Olympia comics festival

As always, we had a great time at Olympia Comics Festival. Looking around from our booth, there was obviously some great stuff. But I have no control with comics, so I did not leave the booth. Abe got a T-shirt of Super Hamster, which was a mini comic I got at Danger Room a few months prior.

We went back down the next weekend so now you can get our new comics there:
- Delicate Souffle
- Great Beard
- Spaz Hands, Vol. 1

And I accidentally bought a bunch of comics. Gabrielle Bell's "San Diego Diary" was great. I also got "Fanny & Romeo" because the art is by Pascal Girard and I will basically buy anything he does.

Thursday, June 6, 2013

Delicate Souffle

We have a new comic nice and ready. And there are two more coming!

First up we have Delicate Souffle. A woman with a delicate heart makes delicate chocolate souffles. Will she remain so delicate when her heart is broken?
You can buy it on our Etsy shop or at Comic Stop in the U District in Seattle.
We will also have it at Olympia Comic Festival this Saturday, June 8! And if you want to read it first, you can of course read the whole thing here.
Anyways, here are some gratuitous phone shots of the printing process.

Finished book!
Home from the printers, still in the plastic wrap.
2-up print job waiting to be cut.
Proofs on plain paper.

Monday, May 27, 2013

Caricature

On Saturday, Angela took a class on caricature from John McColloch at Egress Studio in Bellingham. Here are some of her caricatures and a drawing she did on John's Cintiq.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Puppy

So here's the comic we have been handing out in our Flying Dodo Publications sampler. Angela handed them out at ECCC and Stumptown. Perhaps I will post about that awesome Stumptown tomorrow.



This story might continue. We'll see.

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Caricature Workshop with John McColloch

Announcement! Because this is awesome and I will be there and our wonderful partner in crime (really in publishing and other art endeavours), Egress Studio, is hosting this.

Date: Saturday, May 25, 2013
Time: 1:00 – 4:00
Where: Egress Studio, Bellingham, WA
To register, please send $50 to "Egress Studio," 5581 Noon Road, Bellingham WA 98226.

Learn from John McColloch how to create caricatures and be the life of any party! Caricatures are a grand old tradition of satirical portrait that simplify and exaggerate the subject’s features. Caricatures can be an insult or a compliment to serve a political purpose or solely for entertainment. John will demonstratem how to draw interesting caricatures outside the bounds of the modern street-style of big head/little body. 

In the workshop, John will teach you how to draw caricatures. You will learn what types of tools to use. Caricatures are often done out and about so you will often need tools that travel well. He will also show you how to engage the person you are drawing and get them involved. Engaging the person will help you to draw a more personal caricature. One very important lesson is how to draw someone without getting punched in the face afterwards. Finally, it is always important to know what to do when something inevitably goes wrong. 

John is an illustrator with over 30 years experience in both traditional and digital media. He staffed a caricaturist booth for several years with a comic-book group in Denver, Co. They created what they referred to as "comic-a-tures”: caricatures in the form of a comic strip. John is a published cartoonist and comic book artist. Over the years, he has been a production artist for a major metro newspaper, The Rock Mountain News; a graphics Illustrator for the U.S. Air Force; an interactive media developer for online education; a multimedia artist at Talking Dog Media, where it was encouraged to bring your dog to work; and an artist for a gaming company that specialized in localizing games for foreign and local markets. He currently runs his own business, Johnny Mac Studios, where his clients include Starbucks, Microsoft, Getty Images, and Precor. 

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

A little update.

Hi everyone. I posted the first The Jerks comic on it's new home here on blogger. You can read it at http://thejerkscomic.blogspot.com/ for now. In the near future we're going to make it so the domain the-jerks.com points to the blogger site.

We'll be working on beautifying the new blogger hosted sites here for a little while so please be tolerant of any odd things you bump into here. It just means we are trying something out!

--Abe

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Website troubles

So we are having troubles with our WordPress Sites. Because of that, we are switching to blogger. Let's so how it goes. I will add all the old blogs when we find them...

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

ECCC 2013


Susie-PR-webIt’s a little late to post about, but Angela had a great time walking around Emerald City ComiCon. She says she wussed out only being able to last 6 instead of the whole 9 hours. She handed out a comic that we will post here soon.
Here are some highlights. This is our way of telling you all the cool things you should check out. But first, some warnings. This is what happens when not only are all the pictures taken by Angela on her phone, but then she cleans them up to post. Abe is usually in charge of that crap.
Also, this was the only cosplay Angela captured on camera because it was too weird not to.
CosPlay

















Anyways, on to the cool stuff. Tinplate studios has great jewelry with eyeballs! Even better,Travesty in a Tea Cup! Seriously, creepy stuff. Check it out. They all look great.
Wool Buddy has adorable felted creatures. And a huge felted T-Rex! Like 2.5 feet tall. Angela should have taken a picture.
TinyPainting







Angela got this adorable piece of art that reminds her once again to always grab a business card and keep it with the art. Come on artists! Always put your contact info on everything for us poor idiotic slobs who buy your lovely art and want more! But through a little research, I think it is Phil McAndrews.
JohnnyWander










Angela dorked out over Yuko and only just now realized she didn’t even get to see Emily Caroll. What an idiot! Angela loves Emily Caroll’s work. Anways, she blubbered over Yuko, showing her that the bag she brought to ECCC was the tote from their Kickstarter and drooling over the dream curry recipe. Yuko must have pitied her and gave her a sweet Johnny Wander metallic sticker.
BiteMeChicken









Angela also told Dylan Meconis how awesome her books from Kickstarter (like Bite Me!) were and Dylan sweetly gave her a chicken sticker. She gave them to all Kickstarter donators who stopped by.
Let me make this short. Angela told Mike Holmes how much she enjoyed his blog. She toldNoelle Stevenson how much she loves Nimona, which just won Best Web Comic of the Year. Noelle seemed super excited to hear that since she was at the KaBoom booth for working on their books. Angela told Jason Brubaker how beautiful reMIND is. She told Erika Moen all sorts of stuff about how awesome she is, like being in Strip Search, the Penny Arcade reality show for web cartoonists. And she told Jonathan Case how Dear Creature saved her from hating comics after reading DC’s 52 story arc.
Angela also got some great stuff.
Books











Books:
  • Burn by Camilla d’Errico
  • Elfworld volume 1, an anthology by Family Style
  • Wasted Talent, Vol. 1 by Angela Melick – She signed it for her and was totally awesome.
  • Mice Templar, Vol 2.1, which Bryan Glass (twitter), the writer, signed
  • Runner Runner, a free sample from Tug Boat Press (twitter)
  • City of Cards, Issue 1, by CJ Joughin
  • Tag Sampler by a bunch of guys, but the two selling it were awesome and signed and doodled in the book. Love it.
  • The Goon #40 by Eric Powell (twitter), a free copy from Dark Horse that Eric Powell signed for me.
  • The three Flaccid Badger minis by Cat Farris which are worth every penny at $1 each. So cute. Angela was hard pressed to pick a favorite, but she eventually picked Ninja Assassin.
Art!
KC_Robots









DapperArt







Other Goodies!
Highlight of the show:
Ernie and Nisa portrait by Katie Cook!
KC_DogPortrait









After the show, Angela waited for Abe to pick her up and drank hot chocolate. She left when she did because she couldn’t carry any more stuff and her dogs were barking.
HotChocolate

Monday, January 21, 2013

The Saddest Sasquatch online


Susie-PR-webI am very happy to announce that The Saddest Sasquatch is available to read for free on the web! It is one of our most popular comics so now you can enjoy it in all its glory from any location. It is a tiny little web site, but we hope to expand it with more tales of the saddest Sasquatch this year.
Remember you can buy it in two formats. A tiny little comic book, or a gigantic poster that would look just lovely on that wall behind you.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Gertrude published in inkt|art


Susie-PR-webBrief public announcement. Angela has five Gertrude comics in the premier issue of inkt|art. It’s brilliant. There are even two brand-spanking new comics.
It really is pretty awesome news.
Within a week, we should have prints of all the Gertrude comics available in our Etsy store.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Drawing with Ink


Pamela-AD-web
Angela recently took a class on inking from Nils Osmar (actually, it was in November) and I thought now would be a good time to gather our collected knowledge. So here goes.
Inks
Angela has used a few different black inks. Sumi is a great color of black and you can buy great big bottles. It is water soluable, so you can make any gray you need. It is not waterproof though, so if you are using it with watercolors, you must do the watercolor and ink it after it dries.
There is also India ink, which is waterproof. Angela’s preference is for Speedball. The Higgens and the Pen & Ink are too gray and tend to spider easily. Of course. There are many more inks and these are just Angela’s experiences.
Graphic Pen
This is a lot like a fat technical pen with the capability for my dynamics. I haven’t used it much, but it actually gives a look I like a lot. Especially when used to feather or lightly hatch. They seem to come in different sizes. The one Angela has is a 1, that is 1.0mm.

Lady-Graphic
Lady drawn in a graphic pen












Technical Pen
Angela uses Rapidograph pens an awful lot. They are great because you can refill them so they are a little “greener” than other technical pens, like the Copic Multiliner and the Pigma pens. However, sometimes the Rapidographs leak. Angela doesn’t mind as she seems to like having ink on her fingers. The Rapidograph is filled with a particular ink that comes in a little squirt bottle.
The sizes of the nibs range from fine to thick but the line it draws is not really variable. To change the line thickness, you must change pens. Angela uses the Rapidographs fro hatching. On The Jerks and most others, she uses a size 1 for borders, text, and the outline of main characters; 0 for faces and clothes and foreground items; 00 for background outlines and detail; and 000 for hatching.
Lady-Rapidograph
Rapidograph drawing of a lady










Brush Pen
Supposedly, the brush pen is not as dynamic as an actual brush. But the brush pen is very travelable. I like the brush pens a lot. You can fill a water brush pen with sumi ink for a fairly dynamic line. Even better, you can mix the sumi ink with water to get a gray ink.
The Pentel Pocket Brush is quite nice and seems to be a popular one among cartoonists. You can refill the cartridges too. The ink you use to refill the Rapidograph pens works to refill the Pentel Pocket Brush cartridges. Or you can buy more cartridges. I like the ink that comes in the cartridges.
Brush
The brush is quite lovely to use but requires refilling quite often. From what I hear, to get really good at it, you need lots of practice. Angela will start practicing on Spaz Hands in a while, when her current notebook for Spaz Hands is full. The paper in the current sketch book is too rough.
From her class with Nils, Angela finally learned how to fill a brush with ink. Poor a small amount of ink into something shallow. Like a watercolor tray or a medicine bottle lid. Then dip the tip into the ink and let it soak the ink up. As opposed to just dunking the brush in the ink bottle.
Lady-Brush
Lady drawn with a brush











Crow quill
These are the pen and nibs that Angela originally started working with. They are similar to a technical pen but more dynamic, depending on the nib. You have to dip them, similar to using a brush. Angela switched to the Rapidographs because she got sick of dipping.
The other problem is that a sharp nib can get stuck in the paper and splash ink everywhere.
When you first buy a nib, you have to prepare it. From the factory, it comes with an oil on it that you will want to remove before using ink. There are a couple methods we have heard of. You can soak it in vinegar for 5 minutes. But if you leave it in too long (like 30 minutes), you can ruin the nib. The vinegar will eat right at the metal. Or you can hold it in the flame of a match for a few seconds. Just a few. And don’t burn your fingers.
Fountain pen
Angela has an awesome Noodlers Inc fountain pen. Talking to the sales lady at the UW Art Store, she said the pen Angela got is one of the only fountain pens that comes with a flexible nib, which makes it great for art. The ink comes out a little sporadically  but she is probably still learning. It is super easy to refill. Two pumps of the piston with the nib dipped in Noodlers ink. And you can replace the nibs.
NewYearDodos
Happy New Year’s dodo birds drawn with a fountain pen


Hatching
Hatching is a way to make “gray” when using just black and white. Like the shadows on The Jerks. I suppose, technically, The Jerks is an example of cross-hatching because the lines go in two directions across each other.
You can do a graphic style where all the lines go in the same direction like you can see in The Jerks. Of you can do a more illustrative style where the hatching goes in all directions. The original illustrations of Alice in Wonderland are a good example of illustrative. The illustrative style is more difficult than I expected.
Feathering
Feathering is actually a simple idea. You create the brush strokes always in the direction of the light.
Boxes
Three ways of shading a box