Mike Dawson Comics

Some good news, to offset all of today’s website miseries: the French edition of Freddie & Me is scheduled to be published in the coming weeks by Rackham.

So far, Rackham is the first publisher to radically alter the cover of the book, to make it more palatable to French tastes. The cover I made is very photoshop-y, I’ll admit, and they wanted to flatten it out a little. I like how it came out:

I had some issues with my website, losing all of my content for a little while today. Thankfully, a friend helped me restore my database, and fixed the bug in the comments. Everything should be good now…

Listen to the first episode of The Ink Panthers Show, featuring myself and my good friend Alex Robinson.

In this episode we discuss pre-recording nerves, troublesome neighbors, and the legacy of Billy Joel.

Subscribe in iTunes

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

I missed a week or two worth of updates in there, but I’ve just finished posting all of the “Rock Soldiers” short story over at The Complete Gabagool! Check it out.

In response to my last post, where I suggested free admission for attendees of the MoCCA comic con in NYC later this summer, someone pointed out to me that the festival serves as a fundraiser for the museum, which is a good point. I am all for MoCCA raising funds, and it’s correct that charging admission helps them along that goal. It made me think, maybe the issue isn’t MoCCA’s door policies, maybe it’s just that it’s a shame that New York doesn’t host a comics arts festival that celebrates cartooning, and is free to the public, like TCAF.

It seems to me that the city is big enough to handle another art-comics festival… maybe in someplace like, Brooklyn, for instance. Like, possibly at the Brooklyn Library, right at the top of Prospect Park there, for example. A nice Spring-time international comics festival could do well there, I’d imagine! There’s plenty of space in there for exhibits and panels and all that stuff.

Come on, people-who-might-organize-such-a-thing! Make it happen!

My main “takeaways” from the TCAF show in Toronto that I attended this past weekend:

- Come on MoCCA! Let the public come into the show for free!! TCAF does it. Seriously, it’s so much better letting attendees just walk in off the street. I don’t think there were really any quiet points during the show in terms of crowds, and it seemed like it wasn’t all the same faces. And, for real now, it’s so much nicer. Can’t you make enough money off of the artists paying for the tables and the refreshments that you can sell to all the crowds? Think of all the extra refreshments you’d be able to sell, with all those extra crowds coming in, who – come to think of it – will have extra $$$ in their pockets anyway, since they got in for free, and are totally going to be more likely to buy a $3 bottle of water.

- “Curating” the show is kind of cool. In direct opposition to their approach to the general public (see bullet point above), TCAF doesn’t let just anyone get a table at the show. It didn’t feel like they were super-hardcore exclusive about it, but it seemed like they were trying to manage the guestlist to keep it strong. And it really was. It wasn’t the largest convention I’ve ever been to, but it was probably the densest in terms of quality artists/comics.

- I liked that there were only 3 categories at the Doug Wright awards. It made the three winners seem a little more special, when basically there’s just “Best Book”, “Emerging Talent”, and an award for Unusual/experimental books.

- As a followup to the above bullet-point though, I have to throw out a mild criticism to the fellow who read the “appreciation” of Kate Beaton, the cartoonist who won in the Emerging Talent category. Come on guy, it’s not cool to talk about how the winner was so far and away better than the other three schlubs who just lost the award.

- Speaking of Kate Beaton, from what I gathered, she totally deserved to win in this category, as all of TCAF loves her work. I met her on Friday night, and she seemed nice, and now I am going to familiarize myself with her work. Also, is it significant that she’s a webcartoonist, and she just won a pretty major award? That seems kind of significant to me.

- Here are the cartoonists/comics folks at the show who I am still too shy to go up and say “hello” to and just tell them that I like their work: Seth, Chester Brown, Maurice Vellekoop, Chris Oliveros, Yoshihiro Tatsumi… basically I am just totally intimidated by the Drawn and Quarterly set.

- Thanks to Cheese, Miss, Dave, Brian, and Kevin for being great company on the to-and-from flights. I am a notoriously bad flyer, but it made me feel better not being the worst one in the bunch.

The exciting conclusion to Chapter 2 has been posted here.

To read from the very beginning, click here.

JACK & MAX will be going on a short 2 week hiatus after this, as I’ve got some other comics obligations I need to get focused on.

Reminders: I will be at the big TCAF show in Toronto this coming weekend. I am really looking forward to finally going, as I’ve never been, and I’ve always heard great things. I’ll be sharing a table with MOME contributor Tom Kaczynski - so come by and say hello.

Also, my new book from AdHouse, ACE-FACE: THE MOD WITH THE METAL ARMS, will be arriving in finer comics stores across the nation tomorrow. It’s a collection of stories, mostly featuring the titular hero, but also included are two, count ‘em two, Jack & Max shorts: “Max!! Get out of my room!” and “Max!! Get off of my side!”. Please check it out.

Event starts at 6PM. I’ll be there for a few hours around that time, with wife and baby in tow. I encourage anyone in the area to come out - it should be awesome!