Hermit Hill | #97 | 04/29/09

Today's The Day.

Walter may look a tad different today. I'm trying out some new designs to maybe make my comic strip look a little more "comic strip-ish". I'm trying to go for fewer lines to define my characters. I'm still thinking about the classic comic art I saw in Ohio and I'm inspired to experiment a little.

Hermit Hill | #96 | 04/27/09

Krazy Kat and Walter Mouse.

Today's comic strip is an homage to one of the greatest comic strips of all time, Krazy Kat. I am still riding high after last weekend when I was in Ohio and I visited the Cartoon Library & Museum. I was very inspired by a lot of what I saw there, so I wanted to do something from cartooning history.

If you're not familiar with Krazy Kat it was a newspaper strip that launched in U.S. papers back in the 1910's and ran into the 1940's. It was created by George Herriman and featured a simple setup, but subversive and sometimes surreal execution. A lot of comics that came later were directly inspired by Krazy Kat.

In my strip today you can see Walter take the role of Ignatz mouse tossing a brick at the head of Francis, who takes the role of Krazy Kat. I even put in the varying background elements like Herriman often did. I don't know that I do the master justice, but this was a fun strip to draw!

Hermit Hill | #95 | 04/24/09

Let Me Take You on a Journey.

Walter's therapist really has a knack for clueing into his subtleties there. I was playing around with the silhouette concept there in the second panel. I like to give everyone a reminder of the overall space we're talking about once in a while. Here you can see the top of Walter's hill as it peaks up out of the landscape. At least, that's the idea.

My S.P.A.C.E. 2009 Recap

This past weekend I was in Columbus, Ohio to attend S.P.A.C.E., the Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo. I've been to a few small press shows to sell my books, but this was my first time attending SPACE, this being it's 10th year. I went with a couple of friends of mine from Dallas, fellow cartoonist Grant Sutherland, who was also selling his books at the show, and our buddy Scott.

The first thing we did when we arrived in Columbus was to head over to Ohio State University. They house the Cartoon Library & Museum which archives original comic strip and cartoon artwork. We got to see the gallery displaying original Calvin and Hobbes and Bone artwork. We then got a tour of the archives where I saw original Prince Valiant pages, an original page from Little Nemo Adventures in Slumberland and an original Mutt and Jeff comic strip. I was mesmerized. The Prince Valiant pages were massive, like the size of a painting canvas. It was interesting to see the combination of older yellowed paper and the white acrylic paint used to make corrections on almost every piece we saw. When the paint was originally applied you probably could hardly see it, but now they stick out from across the room. Just outside the entrance is a bench on which a wooden carved Garfield is sitting. On the wall behind the bench is a photo of Jim Davis sitting on that very bench. It was an amazing experience and the visit to the museum was worth the whole trip right there.

The actual SPACE show took place Saturday and Sunday. I sat next to a really nice cartoonist, Alex, who does a fantasy webcomic called Garanos. She was a great convention neighbor and I enjoyed watching her draw characatures of the guys sitting across from us.

I met some great cartoonists while there like John Kovaleski, who does the comic strip Bo Nanas, Brian Maze, who does the comic Monkey Goat Boy and who also did an amazing paper mache bust of his main character, and Jason Young of Buyer Beware Comics, who did one of the greatest free giveaways I've ever seen. It was this guide to surviving SPACE that parodied the exhibitor experience at these small press shows perfectly.

So, I had my books laid out along with some sketch cards, pins and some original comic strip artwork on display. I was meeting other cartoonists and enjoying the experience, but where were the attendees? Two hours into the first day and I had seen maybe 20 people who had paid to attend the event. Overall for the whole show traffic was very light. The large convention hall was packed with exhibitors and cartoonists, but I think the exhibitors outnumbered the attendees. I don't know if the show was just poorly promoted or what, but it was a little disappointing. When I exhibited at both the Small Press Expo (SPX) and STAPLE there was a line of people waiting to get in before those shows even opened their doors.

I did OK, sales-wise, even though I would say half my sales came from other exhibitors. I was hoping for more foot traffic, but the folks who did come were fans of indie works and came looking to buy. All in all it was great to meet the other cartoonists and the visit to the Cartoon Library & Museum was just fantastic.

Hermit Hill | #94 | 04/22/09

Guts Are Spilled.

It's hard enough to have to spill your guts out to a complete stranger, but to have to do it via webcam with all it's disassociated impersonalization just seems uncomfortable and funny to me. Walter's trying so hard here too. Oh well.

S.P.A.C.E. Sketch Page

S.P.A.C.E. Sketch Page.

I spent the weekend in Columbus, Ohio exhibiting and selling books at S.P.A.C.E. After traveling all day and getting to see my family again I've lost motivation to get today's comic finished. So, instead I'll post this page from my sketch book. I doodled these while sitting at my table in order to draw interest from the crowd (pun intended!). I'll get back to work tomorrow with more Walter and the gang hilarity.

UPDATE: I moved the page to my Flickr account. You can see it here.

Hermit Hill | #93 | 04/17/09

Enter The Therapist.

What's more perfect for a shut-in agoraphobic with an internet connection then therapy sessions via webcam? I don't know if this is real or not, but if it doesn't exist yet I'm sure it will someday soon. It's too good an idea not to happen. Of course, any therapist likely to undergo such an endeavor might just have some issues him/her self.

Hermit Hill | #92 | 04/15/09

Critters in the Attic.

I've been involved with an epic battle with "something" scurrying around in my attic recently. I've placed traps and searched the rafters and even the roof to no avail just yet. If my latest set of traps don't take care of the situation soon I'll have to call in a professional. Anyway, as soon as I head into the attic they go quiet, waiting for me to leave. This is the conversation I imagine them having each time it happens.

Hermit Hill | #91 | 04/13/09

Ear I Am.

I can see the nose the hair, so I'm cool with using the electric trimmer. The ear hair thing is a different story. Just blindly sticking a spinning blade into my ear ain't gonna happen. I have to pluck it out with tweezers. Ok, that's enough of that talk. This is the last of the obscure body hair related story lines.

Hermit Hill | #90 | 04/10/09

All My Sisters.

I pushed the envelope a tad here for humor's sake. My nose hair has never gotten that out of control. Although, if I were ever to stop trimming who knows. Ew. Why are all the nose hairs singing that song? I got no real explanation for it, it's just the first one that popped into my head when I thought they should be singing.

Hermit Hill | #89 | 04/08/09

Out of Batteries.

Unfortunately, the idea for this story line emerged from recent personal experience. Coming to terms with the fact that I've reached a point in my life in which I need to start trimming my nose hair was one thing, but to have reached a point where I have used that trimmer so much that I ran down the batteries is an entirely new smack in the face of reality. Yes, middle age, I can see you over on the other side of the room waving furiously. You can sit down and shut up now. Grrr.

Hermit Hill | #88 | 04/06/2009

Unwelcome Return.

Having a nose hair that big dangling out of your nostril is one thing, but to have it greet you might be a little too disconcerting. Of course, Walter doesn't bat an eyelash at such oddities. I've had stranger things than that start yapping at him.

Hermit Hill | #87 | 4/3/09

The Ghost Twitterer.

It's sad, but, according to a NY Times article, it's true. Celebrities have begun to employ ghost Twitterers. Can you imagine having this job? Following a celebrity around with a cell phone, endlessly typing in all the things going on with them throughout the day? Bizarre. The thing that pops into my head is that scene in Monty Python's Holy Grail where the bard is following "Brave Sir Robin" and constantly writing and singing a song about everything he's doing.

Hmm, yesterday an iPhone and today a Blackberry. I'll need to un-tech the strip a bit next week. I'm geeking out a little too much here.

Latest strip being inked

Here's a shot of tomorrow's strip in the middle of the inking process. As you can see here I pencil the strip first using non-photo blue mechanical pencil, then go over it in a solid ink line, then do the solid blacks and finally all the shading hatch work.

Hermit Hill | #86 | 4/1/09

Konnichiwa!

Pardon me while I geek out for a minute here, but today's comic reflects my own personal experience. Followers of my Twitter feed know that I recently picked up an iPhone and have been playing with it for a couple weeks now. The amazing thing about the iPhone is not necessarily the device itself, it's the app store. The development kit is free from Apple so there are thousands of apps for this thing already and folks are getting very creative in their software.

My favorite one so far is Stitcher. It pulls the latest episodes from podcast RSS feeds and creates dynamic virtual radio stations out of them and it streams over 3G. I've been listening to it every day on my commute to and from the office. One of the preset "stations" has all shows from Japan and the day I discovered that I listened to it for a full hour. I don't speak a word of Japanese, but there's just something about it that's mesmerizing.