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had to go home for some tires. If you can, I recommend driving outside the city for anything car-related. It’s disheartening to watch the town I grew up in continue to slowly decay as the years go on. It looks like a mini-Detroit with streets in better condition. It looks like that after-shot you see when a Walmart rolls into town, killing all the local mom n’ pop’s. Despite this, I thought it would be good for me to have some photos of the hometown I grew up in. (Even if it is 15 some years too late.)
I’m finally ready for Free Comic Book Day. Geesh, this took forever.
Doesn’t look like I’ll get a chance to scan this before FCBD, but if you come out Saturday, this drawing will be up for auction. Sort of a convention sketch on crack. I’d probably charge $75 or more given how long and detailed this has become. See y’all at Packrat Saturday.
Saturday I got to spend some time helping out at the Cartoon Library. (About a month or so ago, they put out a call for volunteer help.) First things first, I’m envious of the warehouse their stuff sits in. The air is clean and filtered. (my office at the day job resides in a warehouse that’s probably chock full of God knows what I breathe in daily).
It was tiring work but it felt good helping out a part of what makes up the Columbus comics scene. The day was spent cracking open boxes from United Features (?), removing the contents, placing them in archival storage and bonding over a mutual hatred of Marmaduke. I’m not really up on my comic strip history but the stuff seemed to cut off around the 90’s. (around the onset of digital layout/printing ) The boxes were full of ‘positives’, some negatives, the occasional original piece of art, forgotten strips of yore, popular strips like Get Fuzzy, Nancy, etc.
Half or a third of the boxes we opened looked like a couple of secretaries cleaned out everyone’s desk and dumped it in a box. There was a giant creepy black box with ‘Nancy’ spraypainted on it. Either it has a sculpture of Nancy in it or a mummified corpse of a girl that once went by the name Nancy. Who knows? We also came across a stash of the worst pin-up shots I’ve seen yet. Women reclining holding a donut (?)… well a variety of props in 50’s era lingerie. Weird. Amazing this was sitting in a building I could see from my old college apartment.
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a reminder that I will be appearing at Packrat Comics this coming Saturday for Free Comic Book Day. The shop always throws a crazy mini-convention inside an old strip mall of which it resides.They’ve recently expanded with a room chock full of RPG games. Stuff’s going on all day and into the night. The guy who played Dante from Clerks will be there as well. After today, I feel I can relate to the guy who ‘isn’t even supposed to be here’.
If one is near my old hometown, Columbus local Lora Innes will be appearing at Lima’s Alter Ego Comics. A shop I have yet to check out.
(above is one of the more adorable moments of FCBD from a year or two ago.)
In just a couple of weeks, I’ll be at Packrat Comics once again for Free Comic Book Day.They don’t do an in-store event so much as a mini-con inside the shop. Along with some local creators, they’ll have the dude from Clerks who’s not Rosario Dawson. (I think I’d rather see Rosario) The guy that played Dante. You know… that guy. I refuse to google his name right now. There will be a couple of bands playing outside later in the day. Maybe if you’re good, they’ll pull out the bouncy castle. There’s a meet & greet with the Clerks dude for charity.
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* Been a bit under the weather this week. Just now starting to come out of a nasty bit of bronchitis. Sleeping here and there. It’s been hard trying to do any drawing of late. Going back to the day job all week really slowed the recovery.