Mike Dawson Comics

Another recent drawing I drew.

Also: I posted a new TCJ Talkies podcast over at The Comics Journal, featuring La Mano’s Zak Sally. I really enjoyed chatting with Zak – check it out.

I like drawing maps. Here’s one of central and northern New Jersey, which accompanies the comic I’ve been working on. Note: Pinewood Forest (setting for Troop 142) is technically over the border in New York state.

The Holidays are behind us, so Alex and Mike creep groggily back into The Lair to catch up and discuss the things that happened over Hannukah, Christmas and New Years. Warning: the first ten minutes or so are particularly rusty, as the Panthers shake off all the egg-nog and candy-canes and struggle to get their heads back into the game. Hear about Alex’s Ukelele, Mike’s Cello and Superior Singing Voice, and an account of a visit to the Metropolitan Opera. Also: a listener call is answered, and Alex poses an ethical conundrum for us to ponder. Happy 2012 everyone!

Comments welcome!

This week’s illustration of Inky the Domesticated Panther supplied by Aaron F. Gonzalez! Submit your own illustration of Inky to inkpanthers@gmail.com

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Troop 142 got a nice shout-out on an NPR Best of 2011 blog yesterday, which did actually translate into some book sales, I believe. I don’t know what amazon sales rankings really mean, but I know that I jumped into the top 100 for Graphic Novels for the first time ever. Again, I don’t know what these numbers really mean, but it was all very exciting nonetheless.

(I actually suspect a lot of sales came from friends who’d forgotten that I’d recently published a book until I posted about the NPR list on Facebook. A couple folks responded that “ah, yes, they really oughta finally buy that thing off of amazon…”)

In other news, I’m not sure that I’m going to be posting anything new on this blog for the remainder of 2011, as there’ll be no The Ink Panthers Show! episode next week, and then before you know it, it’ll be 2012 already.

Also, I am not sure yet when I’m going to resume posting actual comics up on this blog again. I have to admit, keeping the work offline for the past couple months has probably been creatively beneficial. I’m happy to report that I’m knee-deep in a new story and I’m feeling generally very positive about it. A couple days “staycation” this past week, where I just holed myself away and just drew and drew, really did wonders for my feelings of momentum and progress. I’m excited about the work, and am thinking maybe I’ll have something I feel good about showing sometime soon.

Here’s a video of me lettering a word-balloon, to tide everyone over.

Next year, I don’t have a ton planned. I’m going to be attending the big Angouleme Festival in France at the end of January, and will be doing some signings in Paris following that. My wife will come join me out there after all the comics business is done, and we’ll have a little mini-vacation to celebrate ten-years of being together.

In terms of other conventions, I am not sure what I’m attending or not. I imagine I’ll still make it down to SPX in the Fall, and am hoping that TCAF in Toronto is a possibility.

Nothing is changing with The Ink Panthers Show! I think this past year was really great for the show. We had some wonderful guests, and I think really had some strong episodes with just The Panthers (Tony “The Desert Panther” Consiglio is included in that. We should change his name to The Honorary Panther). TIPS is continually a work-in-progress, and Alex and I are always trying to figure out what is the best balance of solo-Panthers shows vs. Special Guest episodes. I think it’s probably best we keep aiming for that pleasant mix of both.

TCJ Talkies will return in January. It’s probable that those are going to be coming out at a slightly slower pace. The biweekly schedule really began to catch up to me at the end of this year, and listeners may have noticed a bit of a slowdown. My plan is to roll them out at a more relaxed rate, but we’ll see. I’ve found that I feel worn out before I record an episode, but once it’s done I get all excited and motivated again. I think I just really like talking about comics!

Happy New Year everyone!!

It’s the final Ink Panthers of the year, and iFanboy’s Josh Flanagan joins us in The Lair to give us the rundown on the best movie, tv show, book, comic, music, and Death of a Major Evil Foe of America, of the year! It’s quite a list, so have a pen ready – lots of recommendations coming your way. Plus: some followup on the recent discussion about The World’s Most Famous Little Person Actor, The Falkland Islands War, Stephen King’s On Writing, and lots and lots of Holiday Cheer.

Comments welcome!

This week’s illustration of Inky the Domesticated Panther supplied by Nathan Bulmer! Submit your own illustration of Inky to inkpanthers@gmail.com

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Back by popular demand, The Desert Panther, Tony Consiglio invades The Lair to tell us all about his recent studies of animal behavior. We talk about How to Escape a Pit-Bull Attack, What Kinds of Animals at the Zoo are the Best, Which Immense Creatures trigger our Lizard Brain Fight or Flight Mechanisms, and a lengthy discussion about Cattle Breeding, which also explores the differences between a Cow, a Bull, and a Steer. Also in this episode, Second Life, and Christmas Card round-robins that spark outrage.

Comments welcome!

This week’s illustration of Inky the Domesticated Panther supplied by Shawn Brook Williams! Submit your own illustration of Inky to inkpanthers@gmail.com

Subscribe in iTunes

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

An explosive episode! The Ticking and H Day creator, cartoonist Renee French creeps into the Lair for a very mature conversation about some important things. Such as, how everything would be better if instead of twitter, we had I Am Legend zombies swarming the planet. Yes, the zombies are unpleasant, but at least they aren’t barraging you with minutiae about mundane things all day and night. They are nice and quiet, and don’t feel the need to overshare. Then some grown-up discussion about bodily fluids, and then some even more grown-up discussion about man-nipples, and then probably some even more conversation about bodily fluids again. We can’t get enough of it!

Comments welcome!

This week’s illustration of Inky the Domesticated Panther supplied by Peter D’Retalia! Submit your own illustration of Inky to inkpanthers@gmail.com

Subscribe in iTunes

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Sarah Glidden joins me in the Talkie Hutt for a chat. Sarah is perhaps best known for her 2010 debut memoir, How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less, which was published by Vertigo. Since writing that book, Sarah has become more interested in comics journalism, and roughly a year ago successfully Kickstarted the funds to travel to Syria and northern Iraq tailing a group of journalists to write about the work they were doing.

Despite it currently being her most well known work, we don’t discuss How to Understand… too much in this interview. I really liked the book, and would have been happy to talk about it, but my sense is that it’s become one of those things where the author is starting to feel like The Israel Cartoonist (much in the same way I was once personally terrified about being known at The Queen Guy). I saw a particularly amusing interaction on a social network a while back where Sarah was soliciting ideas for superheroes she could paint pictures and sell prints of at conventions, and a ton of people suggested Sabra, as well as The Thing, and Shadowcat, and so on and so on. Y’know, because they’re Jewish.

Anyway, Sarah probably would have been happy to talk more about How to Understand…, but we just ended up getting onto other topics, which I found quite enlightening. Sarah’s process is incredibly different from what I do, and what I think a lot of other cartoonists do, so it was very interesting to hear her talk about how she’s making comics at the moment.

The Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival happened this past weekend, and with it, my little Troop 142 mini-tour also came to an end. Sad. Oh well, it was a good show to end on. A ton of great stuff there, and even better, it’s just a subway ride away.

Here’s a photo I took on the subway of someone reading RAW.

My assumption was that they were headed to the con, but in fact, they were not. They got off the train well before we made it to Williamsburg. It still feels strange to see people reading art comics in public. I see people on the subway reading X-Men all the time. It’s much more rare to see a comic like this.