Mike Dawson Comics

Between 2002 and 2004 I self-published a humor comic called GABAGOOL! with a co-writer, humorist Chris Radtke. We put out six issues of the series, as well as a few short things that appeared in anthologies. Gabagool! concerned the adventures of Christopher Vigliotti and his friends, a group of twenty-somethings living in Bronx USA. There’s actually a very detailed Wikipedia page describing the main characters and the series.

Because this was a self-published effort, it has for the most part been out-of-print. The only way people can usually get hold of the comics is directly from me at small-press conventions, of which I am attending less and less these days. So, I’ve decided it’s time that all of these comics should be made available online.

I’ve posted the first issue of the series so far, and will be adding new pages every Monday and Wednesday. I imagine everything will be up in a month or two, including all the really filthy stuff where Christopher and his friends take a vacation to the notorious swingers resort “Hedonism” in issues 4, 5, and 6.

The story continues with three new pages posted here.

To read from the very beginning, click here.

Also, speaking of Jack & Max, there’s a 12 page full-color story featuring the battling brothers in the new POPGUN anthology from Image comics, shipping to stores this week. I got my comp copy in the mail yesterday, and it looks great. I urge everyone to check it out!

I’m back from last week’s break with three new Jack & Max pages. Check them out.

Or, to read from the very beginning, click here.

Jack & Max Escape From the End of Time: Chapter 2 begins today, with seven brand new pages posted online. Some burning questions are answered, such as: do Jack and Max get along OK with the neighborhood kids? Click the picture below to see the new pages!

Or, to read from the very beginning, click here.

Note: I’ll be out of town next week, and unable to post new pages. Hopefully this extra-long installment will hold everyone over until I return two weeks from today.

I read this review of a book called “Why We Make Mistakes” on my subway ride this morning.

Key quote:

In the first chapter, for example, Hallinan posits that people take information in on a purely need-to-know basis, without even thinking about it. He then mentions an experiment conducted at Cornell University, where participants were instructed to ask strangers for directions; the twist was that the conversation would be blocked, literally, by two men carrying a door. In that split second, a door-carrier switches with the stranger, and the directions-giving continues as if nothing went wrong. Hardly any of the experimentees noticed the change, and Hallinan follows with evidence that you, the reader, wouldn’t have either.

An interesting little anecdote. It made me think a little about character design in comics. I’ve sometimes worried about my own inconsistency in that area, especially because I tend to design the character “on the page”. By this I mean I draw them almost for the first time when I get to the page when they first show up, and develop/evolve their look as I progress. A particularly egregious example to my eye is in Freddie & Me, the character of my friend Rob in High School. He had appeared in quite a few scenes before I felt like I really got his design down, and the character started looking more consistent.

The quote above makes me wonder if readers even notice stuff like that though. They probably don’t. Nobody has ever asked me why the Rob character had a longer head when he first appeared, and a potato shaped head later on. I think as long as a reader can always tell who’s who, then the small changes in character design probably don’t register much at all.

Another sketchbook page. I think this one is interesting because of what I wrote on the right-hand side. This was back in 2004 or 2005, and I’d just started posting some pages from F&M online, after I’d been working on the book for a long, long, time. Heidi MacDonald linked to me from The Beat, and I was psyched that this sent a bunch of traffic my way, as well as leading to my first real publishing offer (which was from a French publisher who did a lot of US translations).

As you can see, I wrote “Have to remember that not every day is a positive day” underneath. This is a little embarrassing, but it’s was a good thing to remind myself. For me, writing could be tough, and there are definitely days when it seemed like a pointless thing to be doing. I think it’s important to never let those days overwhelm you, just as it’s important to not let the days when you feel like great things are happening go to your head either. Same thing with reviews. Don’t take the good or the bad ones too seriously (except for when I got a really positive review in the London Sunday Telegraph. That one counted!).

Finally, it’s kind of fun to see that I must have been gearing up for the scene in F&M where I imagine myself singing “Somebody to Love” in the cafeteria, judging by the doodles of me wearing Freddie Mercury clothes.

In an effort to actually draw in my sketchbook more often, I am going to start posting pages from it from time to time.

Two new Jack & Max pages posted to ACT-I-VATE today, bringing the first little story arc in this tale to a close. Click the image below to see the new stuff.

Or, to read from the very beginning, click here.

Brand new JACK & MAX pages posted to ACT-I-VATE today. Click the pic below to check them out.