Mike Dawson Comics

It’s finally time for Tony, Matt, and Jason to drop their first hits of acid. What kind of a trip are they in for? The adventure starts HERE!

A very nice review of the first two TROOP 142 minis over at tcj.com

Mike Dawson has two chief virtues as a writer: writing dialogue with an almost painful level of verisimilitude, and an understanding of the dynamics of teenagers that manages to emphasize the Darwinian nature of their relationships along with the naivete’ of youth. The first two issues of his latest project, TROOP 142, put the viciousness of the interplay between teenage boys in the context of a Boy Scout outing. One thing that Dawson hammers home in these comics is the tension between the ideals of being a Boy Scout and the reality of being a teen.

I haven’t yet figured out how I’m going to make these minis available for sale outside of comic conventions. I’d like to try to get a distributor interested in helping me out, but if that doesn’t work out, I’ll probably setup some kind of Paypal system or something.

We were supposed to have a special guest on the show this week, but technical difficulties had us stymied. So instead, Alex and I chat about which superstar celebrity we might lure on the podcast for our big 50th episode, and we discuss launching a brand new feature on the show. Expect a blog post with more details on this to come. Comments Welcome!

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Five new Troop 142 pages have been posted. Check ‘em out!

Mike, Alex, and Tony gather in the lair to discuss a variety of topics, including Speedball: The Masked Marvel, ChatRoulette, and a brand-new sure-to-be-classic douche-chills story. See which Panther gets all flushed and red in the face with shame this week. Comments Welcome!

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Five new Troop 142 pages posted, kicking off the new TUESDAY chapter! Check ‘em out. Usual coarse-language and childish-behavior warnings apply.

I actually fretted much more than usual about the graphic image for the post-Angouleme episode of the Ink Panthers Show that I put up earlier today. We had a few good ideas of what to use, but it was hard for me to hit on the one that worked the best.

One of them was to somehow use a picture of Le Chat Noir (The Black Cat), the pub in the town where a great deal of the afterhours socializing took place. It seemed perfect – it’s a Black Cat, afterall – but we didn’t have any pics without the trees in the way, and I was also unsure if it would immediately read as to what it was – since presumably people who haven’t been to the festival might not know about the pub.

Here’s my second attempt – kind of aborted before I really finished it:

(semi) Live from France! The Ink Panthers Show Post-Angouleme Festival Special! Featuring a few familiar voices, and introducing to the show, our lovely wives, Aliza and Kristen. Comments Welcome!

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Just returned from my trip to Angouleme yesterday, and wanted to post the bulk of my pics while it’s all still fresh in my mind. I am kind of a crappy photojournalist, and almost never take any pictures worth posting. I got very few pics of the festival itself, or any of the great art that I saw, or many of the people I met and spent time with. But, here’s the best of what I did manage to capture:

Alex Robinson and I signing books at the Rackham table.

“Velo!” is French for Bicycle.

A drawing from the Blutch exhibition.

I bought this little figurine of Nikita Khrushchev waving his shoe from a store in Paris.

Two days after Angouleme I took a train trip with Alex Robinson and Kazimir Strzepek to a great comic book store in Lyon called Experience. The owners treated us extremely well, treating us to a wonderful lunch, a tour of the city, and freedom to desecrate the ceilings of their store with our doodles. They have a lot of cartoonists already on the ceiling, but the only other Americans I spotted were Jeffrey Brown, Craig Thompson, Dash Shaw, and Keith Giffen, so I felt like I was in great company.

Kaz works on his doodle. My drawing of Ace-Face is visible at the top. I wrote my daughter’s name, Orli, on Ace-Face’s arm, but to my great shame, I misspelled it, Orly, which I am blaming on the proximity to the airport in France.

Alex’s pic near the entrance.

Here we are at lunch!

And here’s that same scene from the other direction. The man at the back is actually at the table next to us. His face turned an alarming shade of red as he drank his wine and ate his meat on his lunch-break. We were told this was a common look in France.

Seated next to the red-face man, towards us, is Cecile Mac Lennan, who does publicity work for Rackham, and took care of us a great deal of the time while we were there. She’s a delightful person, and a lot of fun to talk to. I am fascinated by the fact that her favorite TV show is The Wire (which I also love), since it’s a show that’s challenging enough to follow when English is your first language, let alone your second.

Me and Kaz in Lyon.

Me, Kaz, Alex, and our guide, Stephane. Stephane and Alex got into a heated debate about the value of the Pixar movie “Cars”.

Aliza is thrilled to finally be somewhere where there are no comics.

Kaz, Peter Kuper, Rackham publisher Latino Imparto, and Serge from Editions çà et là. This was from a signing back up in the Paris area.

And finally, one morning in Angouleme, I bought a bag of dates to eat, and someone took a picture of me holding them. I realize now that it kind of looks like I’m holding up a pair of testicles.