Mike Dawson Comics

Things have been real busy with me since returning from the Small Press Expo earlier this month, as I set off on a whirlwind tour of my ancestral homeland (Scotland) with my family, which had me “off the grid” for quite some time. The pic above was taken on the Isle of Skye. See how healthy and not-chained-to-the-internet my daughter and I look. You can practically smell the crisp air and savory outdoors-ness. It was seriously great.

I didn’t do any drawing or writing or anything while I was gone, but that was OK, as I think I needed to just recharge my batteries a bit anyhow. I am not sure if they’re totally back at full power yet – I still haven’t had a chance to sit down at the drawing table since my return – so we’ll see. I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do next (I think) and I’m starting to feel amped once again.

But enough chit-chat, on with the announcements: This weekend I will be at the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco. I’ll be representing Secret Acres, and will have all their fine books on hand, as well as copies of Troop 142 and old Heroclix figurines, of course. Here’s what the floor plan looks like:

On Saturday I’ll be appearing on this panel:

2:00 The Comix Claptrap . . . LIVE! – Co-hosts Rina Ayuyang and Thien Pham record an episode of their enlightening, riotous, and controversial podcast, The Comix Claptrap LIVE at APE! For four seasons, Rina and Thien have interviewed comics artists in the indie comics scene about their work, creative processes, and experiences in the industry. Each show has included New Comics Wednesday beat reportage from fellow cartoonist Josh Frankel, and new favorite segment, The Comix Cranktrap, where they crank-call a well-known cartoonist listed in their Rolodex. Also featured on the panel: Mike Dawson, Scott Campbell, Levon Jihanian, and Esther Pearl Watson. This panel promises to be total mayhem!

I’m looking forward to this. As everyone knows, I am a generally nice fellow, considered quite genial by many. However, for some reason this upstart podcast called The Comix Claptrap has historically been (what some might consider) unfriendly towards me and my own podcasts. In their most recent episode they call the incredibly talented Laura Park to task for the offense of appearing on The Ink Panthers instead of their show, as if TIPS wasn’t up-to-snuff enough for her to come on. Not nice guys, not nice at all…

So, perhaps some of that will come up, but hopefully we’ll talk about Troop 142 as well.

Anyway, hope to see some of you there!

Mike returns from his tour of Scotland to fill Alex in on all the news. First up: what is the ruling on regaling friends on all of the pleasant things that happened on a perfectly nice vacation? Yea or Nay? Also: Mike saw the movie CARS, and is outraged. Speaking of outrage, Alex is feeling it himself at New York 1′s lousy coverage of the Occupy Wall Street protests, and seriously considers heading downtown himself to throw some support to those kids in their Phish t-shirts with their hacky-sacks and Idealism.

One note: anyone in the San Francisco area this weekend should come see Mike at the Alternative Press Expo and get themselves a signed copy of Troop 142. Mike will also be appearing on a live recording of rival comics podcast, The Comix Claptrap. Come say hello, won’t you?

Comments welcome!

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

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A brand new TCJ Talkies episode! Well, not entirely brand new… not to anyone who came to see it happen live at the Small Press Expo this past weekend, but new to the rest of us! I sit down and TCJ Talk with my Ink Panthers co-host Alex Robinson, all about the creation of his very popular series and later collection, Box Office Poison. I think it’s interesting to discuss the different approaches to writing long-form comics – moving from the serialized floppy to the all-in-one-go Graphic Novel, and how that affects you creatively, as well as practically.

Also, a few thoughts on Dylan Williams, the cartoonist and publisher who passed away unexpectedly over the weekend. Frankly, I am shocked at how sad it has made me, as we weren’t personally close. But, Dylan was someone I liked and admired, and I feel terrible for his friends and family and their loss.

Wow. I am absolutely terrible at taking photos. Terrible! I spoke to a lot of people at SPX and saw many cool things, and yet I come home with only nine usable photographs for the blog. I really have to step up my game for APE, MIX, and BCGF this Fall.

Anyway, here’s what I got:

The Secret Acres gang, from left to right: Leon Avelino, Gabby Schulz, and Barry Matthews.

The Fantagraphics table across the way.

Oustanding Artist Ignatz Winner Joe Lambert.

A Spiderman Heroclix sitting on top of my books.

I sat next to Craig Thompson and Chester Brown at The Ignatzes. Craig was telling Chester he really should listen to The Ink Panthers Show podcast. I hope he doesn’t listen to the one where we talked about Paying For It.

Darryl Ayo accepts his Promise Brick*, as this year’s Promising New Talent Ignatz recipient.

Leon accepts the Best Graphic Novel Ignatz on behalf of Edie Fake. A great moment.

Dinner on Sunday night with Ethan Rilly and Lamar Abrams (Chris Pitzer was there too, just off-camera).

And, no joke, I didn’t pack enough clothes with me, so on Monday morning I had to don my Ink Panthers maxi-print t-shirt that the Secret Acres guys had gotten me. I wish the eyes were slighly lower, so they’d look like orange glowing fiery nipples.

*This joke copyright 2011 John Martz, who made it in his presentation speech. I hope it catches on.

No real episode this week, as the Panthers are just back from the Small Press Expo, and Mike is scrambling to get ready to leave again, this time for Sunny Scotland. But, because we didn’t want to post absolutely nothing, here’s a mini SPX recap, and a couple other things. T.I.P.S! will be back sometime during the week of September 27th, and don’t forget if you’re in The Bay Area, you can come see Mike at the Alternative Press Expo on October 1st and 2nd, and get him to sign your copy of Troop 142.

Talk to you soon!

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The release party is over, which means Troop 142 is essentially out now. I believe amazon orders will start shipping now, and hopefully the book will start making it’s way into finer comic stores within the next few weeks. Be on the lookout!

A couple of reviews of the book have started trickling out onto the internet. Here’s one by Greg McElhatton, and here’s one posted at Paste Magazine.

This weekend, September 10th and 11th, I will be appearing at the Small Press Expo in Bethesda (Rockville?), Maryland. I’ll be curled up at the Secret Acres booth pretty much the whole time, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find me. There’ll be plenty of books.

I am also participating in two panels over the weekend:

On Saturday, at 4:30PM, in the Brookside Conference room, I’ll be moderating Alex Robinson: Ten Years of Box Office Poison

Over the last several years, Alex Robinson has produced Tricked, A Kidnapped Santa Claus, and Too Cool to Be Forgotten, among other books, but his first major work was the 600 page graphic novel Box Office Poison, originally serialized in comic book format and collected in 2001. To celebrate the tenth anniversary of his debut book, Robinson will discuss his career with his Ink Panthers podcast co-host, cartoonist Mike Dawson.

On Sunday, at 1:30PM, in the same room, I’ll be appearing as one of the panelists in this discussion: Navigating the Contemporary Publishing Landscape

In the early 2000s, corporate publishers nearly raced to acquire graphic novels. Now, as the mainstream publishing industry faces severe contractions and as online media assumes many traditional functions of publishing, cartoonists face a rapidly changing publishing landscape, one that includes a resurgent small press. Johanna Draper Carlson will speak with Domitille Collardey, Mike Dawson, Meredith Gran, Roger Langridge and Julia Wertz about publishing options today.

I plan on bringing my little shiny pink MP3 recorder to both panels, so if you miss them, they may appear online at some point down the line. But don’t miss them! Come on out. I am sure they’ll both be better live and in person.

Speaking of me speaking about myself, please take a half-hour to read through this in-depth interview with me over at The Comics Journal. Thanks to Rob Clough for doing it with me. I don’t think I’ve ever publicly discussed a lot of things in there, especially about the early part of my career. It was really great to be able to talk about all of that, and just incredible to be interviewed by TCJ at all. I think if you read the interview, you’ll understand just how long I’ve been a comics fan, and what a big deal it is for me to get the spotlight treatment here.

I think that’s all. I hope to see you all this weekend!

A drawing of @DRUNKHULK, a very funny and popular twitter feed created by my friend Christian Dumais.

Christian is someone who I mainly know through the internet, though we’ve met in real life once or twice. I also frequented the SlushFactory message boards mentioned in the UGO interview, for many years.

I really kinda miss message boards. I love twitter and the like, but one thing that felt nice to me about message boards was the relative anonymity we had. I didn’t need to always post under my real name, because most of the board regulars knew who each other was even with handles. That was kind of a nice thing. It felt more comfortable getting into heated comic-book, political, and social-issues type debates. Nothing ever got resolved, but there sure were some epic flame wars. There was a little bit more freedom to say whatever dumb thing came into your head, without worrying how it would read to the outside world, or if it would stick with you on your Permanent Internet Record. I tried starting up new message boards, most recently on The Ink Panthers site, but there’s just no momentum for them anymore. Ah well.

Sincere thanks to everyone who showed up at the Troop 142 book release party last Friday night. The event was a greater success than I’d dared hope it would be. I was very concerned that the Holiday weekend would mean nobody was in town, and a lot of my friends were unable to make it to the party. So, I was shocked by the turnout. We sold all of the books that we had, gave away a bunch of Troop 142 patches, and drank beer and had a nice time. It was a great evening.

Here are the pics that were taken with my phone camera:

Lots of great stuff in this episode: Alex returns from a trip to Las Vegas with a veritable ton of topics, thanks to all the oxygen they pump into the casinos and non-stop five-hour energy drinks. He’s on fire! A Beach Boy concert, vomit-bags on airplanes, celebrity-sightings, this trip had it all, and we discuss it at length.

And, a reminder: Alex and Mike will both be at the Small Press Expo in Maryland this coming weekend. Mike will be debuting his new book, and Alex will be headlining a spotlight panel. Come say hello, won’t you?

Comments welcome!

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

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download

I created this trailer for Troop 142. The song I found cracked me up to no end.

Final reminder: The book release party is tomorrow night, from 8-11PM at Bergen Street Comics in Park Slope. I’m getting excited for it. There’ll be copies of the book, bubbly refreshments, and (I have decided) me, but not in my Boy Scout uniform. Let’s have some self-respect people! This is a serious book, about serious things.

Here’s that party flyer again, showing Tony holding a carved wooden dildo.