Birthdays are jungle days

My birthday was last week and a couple of dear friends helped me celebrate with these awesome sketches. The one on top is by Jess Hickman and the bottom one is by Uko Smith. Obviously, they know what I like.

31 Days of Dracula | The Cownt (2009)

You knew I was gonna have to include my own Dracula-inspired character, right?

For those who don't know, my wife's brother and I created our vampire-cow character during a slow session of tabletop role-playing many years ago. Artist Gavin Spence and I eventually worked the Cownt into a parody of Steve Niles' Cal McDonald and 30 Days of Night stories for the horror anthology Tales from the Inner Sanctum. Then in 2009, Gav and I teamed up with Jessica Hickman and Paul Taylor to make Cownt Tales, a one-shot anthology of three stories all written by me and each drawn by a different artist. It's full of udder gags, cow puns, and some fantastic, hilarious art. It makes me extremely happy to know that it exists in the world.

I have a few copies left if you'd like one. Just shoot me an email and we'll work out the details.

Happy Birthday to me

I know it's weird to wish myself a Happy Birthday, but I really just want to show off this awesome drawing my even more awesome friend Jessica Hickman made for me. Thank you, Jess!

Kill All Monsters and Other Updates

It probably isn't smart of me, but I try not to post about it every Friday when new Kill All Monsters! pages go up. For one thing, I know that a lot of folks read it in chunks instead of every Friday, but I also figure that this way it makes a bigger impact when I do say you should go over and catch up. And folks, you should go over and catch up. If the image above isn't enough to do it, I'll add that page 71 features my favorite panel yet for reasons you'll find very obvious when you see it.

Mondo Sasquatch

In other news, the Mondo Sasquatch anthology will be delayed from next month to later this summer in order to make sure that it's not rushed and that the finished product will look as cool as everyone wants it to.

Robot 6



Something else I haven't regularly been mentioning here is my Robot 6 posting. Part of that is because I figure that those of you who are interested in that are probably reading Robot 6 anyway. But also, I've been doing more daily posts over there lately and it would be annoying for me to say something here every time I did something over there.

Still, I would like to direct your attention to a couple of reviews I wrote for some really excellent books: Incredible Change-Bots 2 (although I actually review both volumes in the article) and Pepper Penwell and the Land Creature of Monster Lake. I feel like Change-Bots needs less promotion, because a lot of people already know about it, but Pepper Penwell is just as good and it would be a shame if people overlooked it. Especially people who like junior detective mysteries and laughter.

Jessica Hickman's new book



Cownt Tales artist Jessica Hickman has illustrated a children's book that's coming out this Halloween. Written by Tom Waltz, Little Jackie Lantern tells the story of a young boy who's too frightened to enjoy everyone's favorite spooky holiday. I haven't read it yet, but I can't imagine a project more suited for Jess' interest in things cute and scary.

SpringCon

The SpringCon guest list has been posted (for a while now, actually) and I'm on it. Looking forward to seeing all of you who live in the Twin Cities. Jason and I are working on a second printing of the Kill All Monsters, Chapter One ashcan, so hopefully that'll be ready in time.

A review I didn't write, but am nevertheless responsible for



I meant to say something at the beginning of the month, but my contribution to the White Elephant Blogathon was Cutthroat Island. For which I owe an apology to Non-Union Mexican Equivalent. I'm sorry you had to watch it, but glad you were able to nail so firmly why that movie didn't work.

Jessica Hickman and the Uniques

My pal and Cownt Tales cohort Jessica Hickman has illustrated a short story set in the world of the independent superhero comic The Uniques. It can be challenging for an artist to illustrate a scene of two people just talking and keep it interesting, but Jess did a really nice job communicating emotions with facial expressions and body language. It turned out to be a touching little tale.

Art Show: More Halloween Treats

A couple of Halloween images that I'm late in seeing::



This was Jessica Hickman's Halloween card that she sent out this year. I still have mine sitting with the other Halloween cards on the buffet.



By Laboratorio Frigofingers. [Art Jumble]

Cownt/Space Quint Bookmarks

Hopefully it's okay for me to share this. Jessica Hickman's working on a Cownt/Space Quint bookmark for FallCon and this is the preliminary art for it. It'll have Cownt on one side holding the Space Quint doll he sleeps with in Cownt Tales. On the other side will be SQ and his partner Polly (who is a bit of a Cownt fan herself). Thees vill be awesome.

Art Show: I'd forgotten how cute Death is

The Suicide Squad



By Mike Maihack.

The Wolfman



By Daniel Danger.

I never did get a review written of The Wolfman. There are very few werewolf movies that I actually dig. The Lon Chaney Jr's Wolf Man and Jack Nicholson's Wolf are pretty much it. With that in mind, The Wolfman was a good werewolf movie. Not a good movie movie necessarily, but I liked the atmosphere enough that I'd put it in the few werewolf films I'd watch again.

It doesn't compare favorably to Chaney's version though. Del Toro is good at the tragedy of Larry Talbot, but captures none of the humor that made Chaney's tragedy so much more potent. The less said about what they did to Talbot Sr, the better. What an awful waste of Anthony Hopkins. [/Film]

More monsters, Death, and a couple of robots after the break.

Comics News: The Awesomeness of Science, Victorian Samurais and Vampires, and Zombie-Killing Cheerleaders

The Ethelbertosaurus



First Second Books lists the Top Three Reasons you should like Tiny Tyrant, Volume One.

Madam Samurai



Scar Comics sent along a press release for a cool-looking graphic novel called Madam Samurai. They describe it as being about "a female samurai warrior whose journey brings her to Victorian London on a mission of vengeance." It'll be out in June and you can find out more at Scar's website.

Bram Stoker's Death Ship



IDW's got a Dracula prequel coming out in May. Or, not so much a prequel as a fleshing out of the events that happened off-screen on board the Demeter in the novel. This could be really really good.

Zombies vs Cheerleaders



Cownt Tales' Jessica Hickman illustrates a story and a variant cover to Moonstone's Zombies vs Cheerleaders #1. It's based on a card set that I know nothing about, but the concept sounds great and Jess is perfect at drawing both monsters and cute girls.

Meet Captain Misery

Jess and I spent a lot of time at Mini Indy Con talking about Tula and the Pirate Witch, our pirate/jungle girl/mermaid/shark/everything else that's awesome comic. She even worked up this new sketch of the Pirate Witch herself. Her name is Simone Meseret, but sailors everywhere know her as Captain Misery of the dread ship Bloody Fetch.

(Special thanks to Jennifer Menken who was sitting next to us and suggested the word "fetch" for the ship name. Jennifer and her husband Gordon Smuder are awesome and I'll tell you more about their cool Transylvania Television show soon.)

Art Show: Fluffy, Surly, No Tail

I've gotten way behind on sharing cool art, so this week I'm catching up some with a series of smaller Art Shows.

Shark!



Don't worry, Diver-Man! That shark's just coming to help you with the octopus. Heh heh heh.

Artist unknown. [Admiral Calvin]

Mermaid



Artist unknown. [Never Sea Land]

Black Canary and Wonder Woman



By my pal Steve Bryant.

Los Agentes de Atlas lucha contra los Vengadores



By Humberto Ramos.

Space Quint



By Jessica Hickman.

Meet Michael May: Indy Comic Book Week at the Source

I think I've met most of the local readers of this blog, but in case I haven't (or even if I have, since I'd love to meet you again), there's another opportunity coming up on Wednesday, December 30th at Source Comics and Games.

Since Diamond Distribution is taking the week off and not shipping any new comics, the Source (along with a bunch of other comics folks nationwide) is declaring it Indy Comic Book Week. They'll have a bunch of local indy writers and artists there to sign their stuff and Jessica Hickman and I will be amongst them. Jess and I won't be able to get there until around 4:00 pm, but if you're in the area we'd love to meet you. I hear rumors about food being served as well. Should be a lot of fun.

Elsewhere on the Internets...

Here's what else I've been up to online lately...

Five for Friday



I didn't participate in last weekend's Five for Friday, which was about Halloween costumes (a topic I suck at), but the weekend before that we were instructed to Name Five Comic Characters You'd Want As Your Friend. I thought that was particularly sweet.

Mine were:

1. Flash Gordon
2. Wonder Woman
3. Abe Sapien
4. Steve Rogers
5. Alfred Pennyworth

Amazon Princess



I had a couple of posts on the Wonder Woman blog. One shared the above drawing by Cownt artist Jessica Hickman; the other was about a Wonder Woman Jack O'Lantern.

Plump Sister



I finally updated the Christmas Carol blog again after unintentionally taking Halloween (all two months of it) off. This post is about the opening of Albert Finney in Scrooge. I should be able to stay on track with it now that Christmas is already in the air.

David's Dinosaur Blog



My seven-year-old son has decided to start a blog and I couldn't be more proud. It's a dinosaur blog and it's awesome. I've added it to my sidebar under Online Writing, but my involvement ends at suggesting topics and taking David's dictation of his thoughts about those topics. I'm giving him first shot on dinosaur (and dinosaur-related) material from here out, but he has final say on all content for his blog. Anything he doesn't want to talk about will get re-routed back here. I hope you'll check it out.

Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs



As I say at the beginning of my review of Hunter's Fortune #1, "It's comics like that this that are the exact reason I started this column."

Seriously, this is a fantastic start to what promises to be an unbelievably cool new series. The only reason you should not read it is if you absolutely, positively cannot stand awesome comics.

Cownt Tales Preview: Page 16

I apologize, but this is all the art I've got time to post tonight. Gotta pack for the convention. I'll catch up with a bona fide Art Show next week.

Cownt Tales Preview: Page 15

And finally, Jess' story...

Friday Night Art Show: Into the Wicked Beak of the Monster

The Courage of Sir Francis Drake



By Frank Godwin. [Golden Age Comic Book Stories]

Sunken Cities



By Frank R. Paul. [Poulpe Pulps]

Jules Verne



By Scott Campbell [Hey, Oscar Wilde! It's Clobberin Time!]

Avoidance Situation



By Mel Hunter [Golden Age Comic Book Stories]

Not What I Expected



By Jeremy Vanhoozer.

Octopus Attack



I'm not sure who the artist is, but it's from the September 1940 issue of Weird Tales. Sleestak was kind enough to email it to me. Thanks, Sleestak!

Anime Aquaman



By Cliff Chiang. Based on this earlier idea of his.

Marrina



By J Bone. Marrina's one of my Top Three favorite members of Alpha Flight. I like Puck a lot too, so I kind of wish she'd leave him alone, but this isn't nearly as bad as what she did to him in the comic.

I Heart Sharks



By Jess Hickman. I'm totally using this character in the pirate-fantasy comic Jess and I are going to do.

Ancient Jungle Cool



By Frederick Catherwood. [Admiral Calvin of the Tentacle Wars, operating from his Canadian Cave of Cool. And there's way more in the link. Go! Look!]

Concert of the Apes



Artist unknown. [There's a whole Rulah cover gallery at The Comic Book Catacombs.]

Stream of Consciousness



By Robert Conrad [Collectors Showcase]

Penny vs the Cownt



By Jess Hickman from the upcoming Cownt Tales comic. The Bride of Frankenstein kitty is one of three hosts who narrate the comic Tales from the Crypt- or The Witching Hour-style.

Oz Monkey



By Jim Pearson.

Zatanna



By Cliff Chiang...



...and Charles Holbert. [Meagan Van Burkleo]