Good lord! Choke! An actual update!
I'm trying to clear my desk in the hopes that it will clear my head, and rather than simply throw all the papers and notes and post-its in the goddam garbage (because it wouldn't end there, I'd start trashing the joint and fill up garbage bags worth of stuff), I'm actually attempting to get on top of my e-mail, post this hoo-ha, and be officious-like. Unfortunately, Roadrunner's been fucking us like a corporate pension holder lately, so I've been having difficulty getting on-line with any reliability. Nothing like paying full price for limited service. Fucking Roadrunner. I always wanted the Coyote to snuff that smug fuck.

Anyway, here's a few items somebody might find interesting, or diverting, or interverting, or divestering:

I finished up a pin-up for Jamie Smart's next Bear collection from SLG. He asked very nicely. The British are so polite, even if they mutter and shout in Parliament and do strange things after soccer (oh, excuse me, football, both of those sports suck) games. I drew a Milk and Cheese/Bear thingie because I was starting to forget what my own characters looked like and I am short on ideas and cleverness these days. Normally I don't like putting my own characters in a pin-up unless it's specifically asked for, it's usually kind of cheesy to plug your own stuff in someone else's book. Some people do nothing but, hello, Madman in every pin-up. I don't know when the book is coming out. Someone does somewhere. Jamie Smart, if you are reading this, plug your bad self. If you're not reading this, remain silent.

According to a post I saw on the Comics Journal message board when Roadrunner was not handing me the high hard one, one of our gag panels will be printed in the next/new issue of Nickelodeon Magazine. Many other folks you should know and adore are in there as well, most with better-paying gigs and more space than us. Boo-hoo!

Right now six different companies are not getting back to us after contacting us to do work for them or actually offering us work or needing to pay us for something we did or are signed to do. This is really starting to cause some problems for us. Apparently all lawyers and people in charge of money and getting back to freelancers have gone on vacation or are on strike, or have been abducted by aliens wishing to analyze the behavior of slow-moving people. If these folks delay any longer, I'm going to have to get a day job just to be able to afford to wait for them to make up their minds about hiring or paying us. I think we accidentally slipped onto some don't call, don't pay list sometime in October. It's been fucking ouch.

Only two companies we're dealing with haven't made me chew my nails down to the knuckles as of late. One is Tokyopop. Sarah was offered several more books to re-write, and that's been going very smoothly. I'm not going to mention any titles because I don't think they've released that information publicly yet. And Mad paid me early for a new strip they didn't even ask me to draw until a few days ago. I think they want to use it in Mad Kids rather than Mad, which might mean I'm too juvenile in outlook for Mad. Which means I have more questions for my therapist when and if I start going again.

First I need my toilet fixed.

See, our toilet won't stop making obnoxious sounds. No, not when I'm on it, when no one's on it. I hate our toilet. Our garbage can got run over and damaged by a car when the wind blew it in the street. Last night the lid blew away, to run free with the wolves. I hate that lid. Maybe I'm simply jealous of its freedom. My roof is still leaking. My ceiling is still leaking. More water damage to the wall. Sink faucets leaking. Garage still broken. Canopy still not replaced over front door, so we have an inch of ice on our front steps from all the running water. Birdfeeder broke the other day. So now the birds are mad at me. I really am not handy to have around. I hate my not being handy to have around. Have I mentioned Roadrunner keeps fucking up? It doesn't really matter, because I still can't scan anything or set up an e-bay auction to sell all our collectibles and books and stuff we're getting rid, or update our outdated website or anything. Unhandy, yes, that's me. Even the birds know it.

I have close to 16 pages more or less finished for Dork #11. A few pages need a panel or teo finished up (I suck at caricatures, so why do I write gags that require them? Ask my therapist. I can't afford to). Don't know when it will be solicited, I'd like it to get into Previews sooner than later because seeing soemthing in the works would lift my spirits. Normally Dan would let me solicit when I get to the 2/3 mark, but I didn't garner any points after Biff Bam Pow had to be cancelled and pushed back to next year. But Dork #11 should be out at some point in 2006. For good or bad. I am still aiming for at least 200 purported gags. I'm at about 146 right now. Law of averages says some of it will be funny. Might be funny? Will be legible and drawn in ink. Cripes, I need to get a comic book out or I'll explode. At least I'm getting some pages done again after a deep freeze.

If this link works you can see a pair of custom Hulk trading cards I recently drew as a commission for a fella who has a website full of them: Hulk Cards
If the link doesn't work, I'll fix it, or you can imagine two little Hulk drawings, one in pencil, one in color, both in the internet somewhere.

The script for the Dark Horse Book of Monsters has turned into a monster on my back. Im having problems with the structure and it's confoudning me. I also over-researched it, too many useless notes cluttering the cranium and adding work days without garnering much real worth. It's not like I'm researching the Battle of Trafalgar or the Sufferage movement, it's monster stuff. I just went fishing for ideas and came back pretty much where I started, There's only so much background you can put into an 18-page story. Still, I want it to be rock solid, I'm more or less happy with the work I did on the first three stories and I want to have something nice to end with as this is the last of the DHC books in this series. There may be more stories down the line, but I can only count on this one. I'm hoping to wrap the script up within a week or so.

I'm drawing a sticker for a friend for his DJ gigs.

Sarah and I have sent away for our table space at MOCCA. We sent Monopoly money in with the application, so I hope we still get the table. That was going to be our one and only convention appearance for 2006, but SLG is setting up at the large sprawl-con set for the Javitz Center in NYC in February. I don't know what to expect from this show, Dan signed up almost immediately after the book show in NYC when the con was announced, and they've never included SLG in any of their promotional releases. They're pushing the Wizard-type stuff, so I'm nervous that this is going to be a big vacuous suck of a show, but who knows. SOmetimes I've done well at the schmuckier shows, and it's in the neighborhood. I won't have any new books out for either show, so fuck me. Maybe I'll sell bags and boards or deoderant to try to make the table money back.

Oh, here's some actual news -- Dan told me I could mention that we're working on a set of Milk and Cheese vinyl figures, hopefully for a late 2006 release from SLG. We actually took a shot at this project a few years ago, coinciding with the M&C beer mug debacle, but it fell apart for a number of reasons, some beyond our control (much like the mug set). I reworked the first set of designs and tightened them up for this go-around. We're very close to having the final sculpts, it's very exciting, but also very nerve-wracking and strange to see them fully in 3-D. They were never designed for three dimensions, I could barely draw them in two-dimensions in the first few years of strips. I think I drew them in profile twice, and badly. Anyway, the current, tentative, hopeful, maybe, could be, we'll believe it when we see it plans are for the two figures to be about 6" high, packaged together for a pirce that sounds very reasonable to me considering what vinyl toys tend to go for these days. We're working on them having hands that can hold several weapon accessories (I was told that all successful alternative comics character vinyl toys come packaged with weapons, Drinky Crow, Buddy Bradley, Smoking Cat, Jimmy Corrigan, Pupshaw, Enid, etc, were all sold with knives, light arms and incendiery devices). Anyway, I am really hoping this comes together, as envisioned, looks good, is good, sells good. I honestly don't expect to make money on this, I could use some, sure, but all I'm looking foir are two swell-looking vinyl figures on my shelf, and for SLG to not take a bath on this. I'm worried because the timing for this is iffy, there being no new issue of M&C in ages, and recent appearances being in relatively obscure publications and books. Maybe I'll get sparked and get #8 done sooner than later, maybe the figures will spark some nostalgia for the little guys, or bring old fans out of the woodwork and into the comic shop. More info when and if, hopefully with pictures. Cross my heart and hope to cry.

Otherwise...

I haven't picked up too many comics or comicky books as of late, everything I like it too expensive, even with our discount, even with selling some old 70's back issues in for trade. Since posting slowed down there have been a few affordable finds and some absolute must-haves: John Porcellino's "Diary of a Mosquito Abatement Man" from La Mano, the beautiful Mark Newgarden gag strip collection "We All Die Alone" from FBI, the Black Hole collection from Pantheon, the latest Kindaichi Files volume from Tokyopop and "Six Hundred and Seventy-Six Apparitions of Killofer" from Typocrat. haven't read much of the haul, keep stariung at the Killofer book out of fascination, pick through the Newgarden book here and there when time allows (I forgot how many of these strips I'd clipped back in the day from the New York Press). I haven't cracked open the Black Hole (ewww, that sounds...ewww), I'd stopped reading the series with issue 3 or 4 and have been waiting for this for ages. Enjoyed the Porcellino, Kindaichi was Kindaichi, contrived, formula, but fun.

Santa can bring me the Little Nemo Sundays plank and the Complete Calvin and Hobbes concrete brick, some Masterworks, and advance copies of the EC Picto-Fiction set, the Don Flowers and Bill Elder art books, and a Jim Woodring original while he's at it. Too bad I don't believe in Santa, worse, he doesn't believe in me.

Okay, boppers. There's an old-school yammering stammering hammering HOF post for you kids. Thanks again for the comments re: the Eltingville repeats, and for your patience in-between the blog updates.

Type to you later.