I met Sina Grace back in 2006, when we were introduced through a mutual friend by the name of Nicholas Brandt. Sina was about to start self-publishing his book "Books With Pictures," and was looking for a colourist to handle the covers. He liked my stuff, and I ended up colouring all but one of the five issue miniseries. I loved his stuff and working on it.
I was on the first attempt to do this strip Weekly, so I asked if Sina would reciprocate and draw me a Li'l Depressed Boy strip for the site. The idea evolved into doing it on the site and reprinting his strips as a back-cover back-up for Books With Pictures. Unfortunately, I wasn't exactly up to my weekly schedule and fell behind. So, he only did that one strip that year.
Fast forward over 2 years, and I was ready to start the strip anew. Sina became one of the stable of regular artists that I rotated, like I had intended the first time around.
Another year passed, and I wanted to reinvent the strip. I decided I wanted to spend more time on longer-form stories and switch to full colour. Sina was my first choice for the new direction, and asked him if he could commit to a long form story. The original idea was by long-form, I meant 8 page episodes.
Sina then broached the subject of him taking over the art duties in full.
I was in no position to say no.
Sina took over the strip and has been doing a great job ever since. Even despite my inability to give him a script in time for any normal human to draw it, he always turns in something amazing.
Today is his 50th strip for me. Thank you, Sina. I'm truly blessed to get to work with you every week. It's been a lot of fun so far. I'm excited to see what your next 50 look like.
And so, that wraps up our Guest Fortnight. What have we learned about ourselves? Well, I've learned that I'm such a control freak that my "vacation" from the strip ended up being more work than a regular work week. Okay, less about control and more about wanting to not be left out with all the fun. So, I made sure I colored every strip and lettered most of them, too. And you know what? I made the right decision. These strips were a lot of fun, and turned out great. I'm glad I could be a part of it.
Thanks to Leo Burke, Zach Trover, Travis Fox, Chris Fenoglio, Raul Rodarte and Kat Cahill for helping out. And double thanks to Scott Arnold and Nick Brandt for starting the fortnight off, and now ending it. Aw crap, not Nick Brandt. Vaughn Mason. Why do I always confuse Nick Brandt and Vaughn Mason? All you guys did a great job, and it was fun to see all those other interpretations. Thanks so much.
Thanks also goes out to Daniel C. Ramos for writing a script that was just too long to fit into the time alloted; To Drew Blood, Seth Walker, and the Klute for volunteering, but the deadline was just too short for them to make. Thank you, guys. Sorry, I only gave you two days. We'll get you in there next time.
Next week, it's back to our regular scheduled programming with me writing the strips again on the regular schedule. So, come back next Wednesday for the continuing adventures of The Li'l Depressed Boy.
Raul Rodarte doesn't like to be called "Magic Man," anymore. He told me to not credit him as that on the strip. So I won't. But Magic Man was his stage name when I met him. We like to call him Abracrodarte now to tease him. He hates being called Abracrodarte. Call him it. He'll hulk out. If you tell him that you want him to come over and play Rock Band, he'll speed all the way to your house. He is a stand-up commedian, a magician and a poet. We went as part of the 2009 Slamarillo Team to the National Poetry Slam in West Palm Beach, FL this summer. Here he and I are performing a poem together:
I've been working with Zach since we were both in diapers. We weren't babies, we just both didn't want to get up. Yes, this is the way Zach and I think when we're together. It's dangerous. Zach is the creator of An Ordinary Day, which was supposed to start it's own weekly webcomic that we've totally forgotten about. We really need to get on that, Zach. Why are we slacking? Let's get on this before we forget again. It's not like we have to get up to the bathroom.
I'll be honest with you guys. I don't know Leo Burke well enough to make fun of him in this bio. If I knew him better, I'd say mean despicable things that would make you laugh. He might have had to make fun of me in return. However, I don't know him that well. He is cool, though. He got me into papercraft when he linked a site with cool templates on it. He wrote and drew todays strip. He likes things. He does stuff. He has a Deviant Art page, you can check it out here: http://hellojed.deviantart.com/
Travis Fox is psychic. I mean this. He knows the future. He wrote and drew today's strip 8 years, 4 months and 16 days ago. I opened my mailbox one morning to find the strip with a note that I'd be needing this in the future and to keep it. I laughed, and filed it away. Then came the Guest Fortnight, and suddenly I knew. Travis had seen this coming. Travis knows. He also knows that you will visit http://comicstripjoint.blogspot.com. He knows you will visit it. And he knows you will like it.
He scares me, to be honest.
(Fair warning, his website tends to have swear words)
Today's strip is written by Kat Cahill. Kat wrote I Hate Gallant Girl for Image/Shadowline. Kat and I also met through messageboards, and later she was subjected to being my con-best friend. She came out alive, surprisingly. She is a musician and is in a band, unfortunatley as I'm typing this I have no clue what the band is called. This is where we learn that Struble is a bad friend who will never remember the name of your band. Seriously, what a jerk. Anyway, you should pick up the I Hate Gallant Girl trade paperback from Amazon. You can find it here.
On drawing chores... you know him... you love him... It's the Chris Fenoglio. In fact, I'm starting a petition that from now on his name has "the" in front of it. It makes him more awesome. I met Fenoglio not from a messageboard, but rather from an e-mail list! The Chris is pretty cool. He's also a musician, but doesn't have a band name for me to forget. He likes to kick. He watches UFC. I promise he doesn't wear anything from Tap Out. He has drawn the second highest number of LDB strips, just behind Sina. He has a blog where he posts all kinds of cool things. Check it out: http://chrisfenoglio.com/blog/
Thanks you two. You are awesome.
(and to connect things a bit: Kat's comic I Hate Gallant Girl was colored by our friend Kanila Tripp -- who has drawn one of our strips! And the mailing list that I met Fenoglio on was for fans of Sam Kieth -- who has also drawn a Li'l Depresed Boy strip! It's all one big happy family, folks)
I have no clue who Vaughn Mason is. He is an enigma, wrapped in a cypher, boxed in a conundrum and covered in secret sauce. He's apparently 6'3" and I know he doesn't do a good Texan accent. However, he wrote today's strip for me. Also, I suspect he may not even exist. Which is good, because he can't claim to have created Little LDB. Bwahahahaha.
Scott Arnold and I used to frequent the same messageboards in the past. To the best of my knowledge, we never connected back in those days. A while back, I happened upon his blog when he posted a really great drawing he did of LDB. Since then, I've been trying to find an excuse to use him on the strip. You can check out his blog over at: http://industri-studios.blogspot.com
Starting Monday the 18th, Sina and I will be taking a brief break to catch our bearings. In our place, the strip will be going to three times weekly. It will feature writing and art from our best friends and some random strangers!
So, please check in on Monday, Wednesday & Friday for the next two weeks to see other people's takes on the strip.
Also, I still have a couple slots to fill up. If you're interested, please hit me up on the twitter.
This will be the first time ever since anyone but me has written the strip. I'm biting my fingernails here. I can't wait to see what they do.
For those that have followed the Li'l Depressed Boy for awhile, it'll come as no surprise that I am a huge fan of Kepi Ghoulie. I've been sneaking background references to Kepi and his old band the Groovie Ghoulies for awhile now. Since the start, almost.
Kepi's new record Life Sentence just came out. It can be purchased directly from his label, Asian Man Records -- http://asianmanrecords.com. It is currently unavailable on iTunes/Amazon Mp3/Emusic, but should probably be up in those places by next month. I, wholeheartedly, recommend it -- as well as any other albums you can find by him or the Groovie Ghoulies.
Also, here's a video I shot the last time Kepi visited Amarillo. In the video, he assembles an impromptu band with members San Francisco's The Pleasure Kills, Amarillo's Tyson J. Hooligan, Dino The Girl & Atom from his own band, to play "Freaks On Parade."
Thanks, so much, to Kepi and Dino Girl for appearing in the strip!
I was just going over my schedule, and wow, it looks like I'm gonna have a pretty exciting summer.
First up, in a week and a half I'll be in San Diego, CA, for Comic-Con International. I'll be there with Shadowline in the Image section. I've got a signing set-up at six o'clock on Thursday the 23rd. If you're in town, stop by and say hi.
Shortly after that, I'll be flying out to West Palm Beach, FL, to compete in the National Poetry Slam. Poetry slam is a competition at which poets read or recite original work. These performances are then judged on a numeric scale by previously selected members of the audience. I've been selected to be one of Amarillo's four representatives at the competition.
To celebrate the summer -- and raise money for my trips -- I've added several packages to the store. Packages run from $10 (which has a copy of all the minicomics, some buttons and a sticker) to $50 (which inclues original artwork by a Li'l Depressed Boy artist). These packages have reduced shipping, so they are a great way to save a little money getting your LDB stuff. These packages will only stay up until the end of the month, so take advantage of them while you can.
Also added to the store is the third issue of the LDB minicomic. This issue features artwork by regular LDB artists Chris Fenoglio, Sina Grace, Zach Trover and Roman Muradov. Also included are guest appearances by Sam Kieth, Jim Mahfood and Jim Valentino. Numbering 20 pages, #3 covers the strips from November 14th, 2008 to April 29th, 2009. This is the biggest LDB minicomic, yet.
Due to being out of state to attend a wedding last week, I was unable to get a strip together for this week. Thankfully, regular LDB artist, Zach Trover, stepped up with this fill-in. You can find Zach online at Too-Hectic.com
Stay tuned there and at CartoonMilitia.com for the further adventures of Chip & Rudy -- A.K.A. An Ordinary Day.
Happy Christmas, everybody. And while I'm at it -- a happy Hanukkah, Kwanza, Solstice, Festivus, X-mas, Decemberween, and day-off-from-work. I wanted to take this moment to thank you for reading. I appreciate that you've taken time out of your day to read the strip each week. I've thoroughly enjoyed sharing with you all. Thank you.
As my gift to you, I've put up the second LDB video-comic. Based on the sequence from July, Soundsystem Gonna Bring Me Back Up -- it features art by Jim Mahfood and the poem performed by Ira Virus. Stop by our forums, and let me know what you think of the video. If there is enough demand, I would love to do more.
Starting next week, I'm moving the strip to Wednesdays. Fridays have been good to me, but it's time for a change. So, please look for the strip on New Year's Eve.
Also, I've added the second minicomic to the store. It's $2 and collects the strips from June 13th, 2008 to October 24th, 2008. Check it out.
Check back tommorow for a regular -- although still Christmas themed -- strip and then back to the main storyline next Wednesday. Thank you, again, so much for reading.
On
May 16th, 1998, I decided to put up my own webcomic. It depicted a poorly drawn
ragdoll e-mailing a confession of love only to have it returned by the mailer
daemon. His name was the Li'l Depressed Boy -- a childhood nickname of mine --
or LDB for short.
To be honest, it was a ploy to make a girl like me. There was this girl named
Alicia in my print-shop class -- and I was protarded for her. I thought that if
I sent her the comic, she'd read into the subtext and realize that the love note
within the message was for her. It was a really passive aggressive act that yielded
no results.
Anyway, I showed the strip to friends on IRC, and they seemed to like it. I put
it up on the webspace I was using at the time, and made up my mind to update it
daily like a newspaper strip. I wasn't reading any webcomics at this time, so
I thought my idea was revolutionary.
I
updated daily for 5 days; skipped a day; then posted what would be the last strip.
In the last strip, I depicted myself the day before, drawing the best strip EVER.
Only in the last panel, I lost it when my computer exploded. In reality, I didn't
even attempt to draw the previous day.
I had run out of ideas.
Years passed. We all survived the nuclear apocalypse of Y2K. I started an anthology
comic. In it, I got all my friends together to draw short comics of various genres.
Publishing under my Cartoon Militia label,
I named the book A United Front.
My personal contribution to the anthology was a 2 page story starring LDB in high
school pining after a girl, who he couldn't get the courage to talk to. Instead
of a straight narrative, I underscored the strip with a poem I had written, and
had Zach Trover draw it.
Four
more issues of United Front came out in the following years. Each one contained
an LDB strip. I rotated artists on the strip and ended up having strips drawn
by Jamie McKelvie, Jose
Garibaldi, Evan DiLeo & Lindsay Saterlee.
After United Front closed up shop, it was time to bring the strip back to the
web. I wasn't gonna kid myself and think that I could pull off a daily. The new
comic would be a weekly strip that appeared every Friday. Sticking with the "poetry
+ someone other than me drawing it = the awesome" formula, I set to work.
I faultered after just one week. The second and third weeks featured reruns of
strips I had people draw for United Front. After the sixth week, the strip descended
into pin-ups tagged with notes saying that "new strips [were] coming soon!" And
then, nothing.
I had run out of ideas. AGAIN.
On
May 16th, 2008 -- the 10 year anniversary of that failed attempt to woo Alicia
-- I will post the first strip of a new sequence of Li'l Depressed Boy. Working
with a plan for the first time, I have an outline for stories for the next couple
years. Of which, 11 weeks worth are currently being drawn by a series of fantastic
artists.
Sticking to the last format, I'll be posting new strips each Friday. Coming up
first, is a strip drawn by Zach Trover --
his first LDB strip since 2001. After Zach, I've got a bunch of great artists
coming up, including: Chris Fenoglio, Kris Struble, Lindsay Jane, Sina
Grace, Jim Mahfood and Kanilla
Tripp.
People always say that the third time is the charm, and well, let's test that
out. I'm very excited to share these new strips with you.
