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!!

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.

This is something fun. I was a guest on The Inkstuds Comic Book and Cartoon Power Hour this past week. Thanks to podcast rival Robin McConnell for inviting me on his show. I really enjoyed the conversation.

It actually was pretty great to talk to another comics-podcaster. I am hesitant to listen back to the audio, because I am pretty sure I am guilty of hijacking some of the interview and turning it around on Robin. I am not sure it’s something I can help at this point – I’m finding that hosting my own podcasts week in and week out is making me a compulsive interrogator.

But, in a way, I think that the fact that we’re putting each other in the hot-seat, probably makes for a pretty interesting discussion. We talk a lot about the reasons why we’re making podcasts, and how doing all the research and thinking about comics in terms of discussing them publicly is having an effect on our abilities to continue to enjoy reading them personally. This is something I wonder about a lot. At the moment I’ve really focused on guests for TCJ Talkies whose work I was already very familiar with and a fan of. I have not yet tried bringing someone on whose work I hadn’t already read. I am not sure how that would change my enjoyment of their work – if I needed to cram and read the material to prepare to talk to them. Robin on the other hand (who has interviewed a ton of people) is in a completely different boat – reading comics to get ready for shows. He even talks about reading Troop 142 the day before our conversation, while sitting on a bus going to work.

Also, if you want to hear the audio of my first appearance on Inkstuds, back in 2009, I’ve got the link here.

This Friday, November 18, 6:30-7:30 PM
Midtown Comics Downtown
64 Fulton St
New York, New York

More information here.

Hope to see you!

I’m back from the Minneapolis Indie Xpo, and in keeping with tradition here at Mike Dawson Comics, I have almost no pictures to show for it. I’m going to post what little I’ve got, and assume that some of the other cartoonists who were there this weekend will pick up some of the slack.

I’m thinking about one event in particular, where a group of us all went over to Zak Sally’s studio to see his printing press. That woulda’ been a good time to take out my iPhone. But, I never got it together. I saw other folks snapping photos though, so I’m sure the event will get covered elsewhere.

Here’s what I have!

This is a photo taken from my point of view at the airport gate in New York with a box of Troop 142′s sitting in my lap. See, another thing I never get on the ball about is shipping my books to the show ahead of time. So, my solution is to always stuff a large suitcase with as many books as possible, and just bring the bare minimum’s worth of other items, such as say, clothes and toothpaste and that sort of stuff.

With MIX and also APE, my suitcase weighed about 80lbs. Different airlines have different rules about baggage. I flew Virgin America out to APE, and the nice lady at the check-in desk gave me a break on my heavy bags, and just charged me a $25 additional bag fee. I flew Delta to MIX this past weekend, and their approach to luggage is to charge you 25 bucks just to bring anything at all. When I heaved my suitcase onto the scales at Delta, they basically said I could pay $100 in a heavy-baggage fine, or lighten up the suitcase. Thus, the photo of me sitting with a box of Troop 142 graphic novels on my lap, treating it as a carry-on item.

I guess truthfully, once I was on the plane it wasn’t so bad, because I just shoved it in the overhead, but it was definitely a pain as I waited in the loooooong security line…

The above three pictures were taken at the Friday night show pre-party. In picture one, that’s Jim Rugg and Dustin Harbin, in picture two we have AdHouse head-honcho Chris Pitzer and his lovely wife, and in picture three we see Grimalkin Press publisher, Jordan Shiveley, and rival comics podcaster and cartoonist, Rina Ayuyang. Well composed photos, one and all.

I never really sell full pages of original art, but this year I’ve been bringing a little Apple-Jacks binder filled with small images and scraps from comics. You can see, there are panels from my Ace-Face book there, as well as odds and ends from Troop 142. I think a couple of those visible there are panels that did not actually make it into the book.

Anyway, it’s nice to have a little something for people to pick through, and a way for me to make a few extra dollars, but my word of advice is to not use an Apple-Jacks binder to display such stuff, but rather to invest in an actual real-binder thing with plastic sleeves that can be turned and easily flipped through. It’s just tough for people to pick through the pile when it’s all stacked all higgedly-piggedly like I have it here. It might be a passive-aggressive I-don’t-really-want-to-sell-original-art thing on my part, because not selling much of it is surely the outcome!

Julia Wertz gave me an elephant cookie! That is some heavily applied frosting right there…

View from my Table 1: That’s Top Shelf’s own Brett Warnock talking with cartoonist and upstart publisher, Tom Kaczynski.

View from my Table 2: Tom is giving Kevin Huizenga the hard sell.

Tom K. is a Minneapolis native, and generously allowed me, Kevin, and fellow Secret Acres artist Eamon Espey (not pictured) to crash at his place. There were a number of other groups of cartooning friends also staying nearby, so the evenings were these great gatherings of funny, interesting people. I think one of my favorite things about MIX being a smaller show, was that it was easy to talk to all the people you wanted to talk to, and actually feel like you had a good amount of time together, as opposed to a show like SPX or MoCCA, where it feels like you barely spend four or five minutes in conversation with people you really enjoy talking to, and even then realize after the fact that there were a ton of people you didn’t even say “hello” to at all. MIX was a much better pace, socially. I mean, that’s from my point of view. Maybe all those other cartoonists are going to write con-reports that say stuff like “one downside to MIX being so small is that it was impossible to get away from notorious comics-chatterbox, Mike Dawson”. We’ll see.

I ate some of the cookie! Yes, that sure is some generously applied frosting, indeed.

This food truck outside had the most delicious vegetarian curry, which I ate for lunch both days. It was pretty much the perfect savory food to eat after consuming ten pounds of sugary elephant cookie frosting…

And finally, here’s a photo of the live TCJ Talkies podcast I recorded on Sunday morning. It was a spotlight on cartoonists Noah Van Sciver and MariNaomi. I think it went well. I listened back to the audio recording, and I think a combination of my nerves and the chilliness of the Soap Factory at 10AM (note the woolly Jets cap atop my head) made me a little manic, so we moved through an hour’s worth of questions at a clip which kept the panel under 45 minutes, but I think that was alright. There were a lot of laughs, and I think some interesting back and forth between Noah and Mari. I think it went well, and will of course eventually post the audio recording.

So, that’s really all I have. It was a great weekend. I sold a lot of comics, and came away from it amped up to get back to work, which is always the best outcome you can ask for. Here’s hoping MIX comes back in 2012!

I’ll be manning the Secret Acres table with Eamon (Wormdye) Espey, and we’ll have all those good books for sale. Come find us! Just like at APE, Secret Acres trusted me with their special custom convention flag, so we should be easy enough to spot.

Also: On Sunday morning, at 10:15AM, I’ll be hosting a TCJ Talkies LIVE panel, with guests MariNaomi and Noah Van Sciver. I’ll talk about their respective work, and also plan on asking questions about format – working on full length graphic novels versus serializing comics as floppies or minicomics. Mari has been posting comics online at The Rumpus recently, so I’ll ask what it’s like working for the web. Come listen to us yak, won’t you?

In addition to Troop 142, I’ll be bringing a handful of Freddie & Me’s & Gabagool!s, as well as my Apple Jacks binder filled with cheap original art.

See you there!

A couple of nice bits of press have come in recently. One is this funny interview up at the F*cked in Park Slope blog (or FIPS), which I am really excited about, since I assume it will mean that people will recognize me when I walk into the Pavillion movie theater or go to Union Market from now on. Also, I love that they used that adorable photo of me and Orli. It was taken in Scotland, not Park Slope, but it was just too lovely not to repurpose, I imagine.

This interview came about because of the short Park Slope Vampire Mom story I posted a little while back, which can be read online here.

Also, some nice reviews for Troop 142 that I believe I have not yet linked to:

There are a lot of interpretations to Troop 142, an original graphic novel concerning Boy Scouts and adult chaperones up at a summer camp. It’s a credit to the creator, Mike Dawson, that the book is so rich with genuine-feeling human interaction and characterization that it merits discussion as literature rather than pop entertainment. Under the Radar

Applying the same level of merciless scrutiny used by Anton Chekhov, Dawson rips away the naive Norman Rockwell facade of one of the few rites of passage left to young American males, and replaces it with something complex and uncomfortable. Foreword Reviews

It’s a special episode this week, as Mike finds himself on the PRO T.I.P.S. couch, talking to Alex about his new graphic novel, Troop 142. After Mike overcomes some initial un-comfortableness about answering questions, the Panthers settle into a rhythm, and have a pretty good chat about the origins of the book, Boy Scouts, drug use, autobiography, and male friendship. And remember, Troop 142 ships to finer comic stores everywhere on Wednesday, so keep an eye out for it, won’t you?

Comments welcome!

Subscribe in iTunes

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!

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!

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

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.

A brand new comic posted this morning: a short story about a working mother who has a secret. Read the full thing here.

And, a reminder: The Troop 142 book release party is going to be held this Friday, September 2nd at Bergen Street Comics in Park Slope, from 8-11PM. The event is open to the public, so please come on out. There’ll be drinks, good times, and advance copies of the book. Troop 142 officially debuts at the Small Press Expo in Bethseda, Maryland, on September 10th which I will be attending.

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Reminder: The Troop 142 book release party is going to be held on Friday, September 2nd at Bergen Street Comics in Park Slope, from 8-11PM. The event is open to the public, so please come on out. There’ll be drinks and good times.

Also, I should note, the book won’t be available in stores until sometime later in the month. It officially debuts at SPX on September 10th, so the release party is a good opportunity to get a copy early. I’ll also be signing and sketching in them. I’ve got this idea for special book-plate sketches, which I’ll post about later this week.

Expect some drum-beating around this for the next couple of weeks. The book officially debuts at SPX, but will be available a week early at Bergen Street Comics, on Friday September 2nd. Bergen Street is located in Park Slope Brooklyn, it’s a fantastic comic book store, which has hosted a couple of comics and Ink Panthers events with me in the past. Please, come on out!

Click to make bigger.

The book went out to the printers last week, and I’m hoping to be clutching an actual copy in my grubby little hands sometime in the next couple of months. I can’t wait!

The news that my book, Troop 142, is going to be published this Fall through Secret Acres, has finally been announced.

I’m so psyched about this. I met the Secret Acres publishers over the course of the past year, as they were distributing the Troop 142 minicomics on their site, and we really hit it off.

I love what they did with the cover, even though this image is technically still not the final image. I’m thrilled at the way they were able to capture the look and feel of an old Boy Scout handbook with the coloring and the fonts. It’s so great!

This version was put together for the purposes of starting to get the word out, and was created by using drawings from inside the book. I’ve yet to start working on the final illustration, but I’ve got some good ideas percolating. It’ll probably be one of the things I tackle next.

There’s still a lot of work to be done between now and September, including revising/editing/expanding the story from what’s been posted online. I don’t intend to change any of the pages on the website, they’ll stay as they are, so the print version will be different from the webcomic. Some scenes might get cut, and new ones will definitely be added. I am definitely going to be busy, busy, busy.

But for now, Hooray! I, for one, couldn’t be more excited for SPX 2011.

I’ve just posted the Troop 142 epilogue to the website, which of course means that we’ve reached the end of the story! Check it out, won’t you?

I saw that they were accepting submissions to the Eisner awards yesterday, so I thought it couldn’t hurt to send along the Troop 142 link in the digital comics category. While I was putting that together, I took a look back at my site to see exactly when I started posting pages from this book. The first time I link to the micro-site from here was in the beginning of December 2009, so that makes it a little over one solid-year of weekly updates to post this entire book online.

Of course, I think I’ve mentioned many times that this story really took me much longer than one year to write. I’d been working on it off and on for a long, long time, and had completed pages and pages of material that would eventually get scrapped. I remember in 2002, I was taking a silk-screen class at SVA, and working on making a cover for what was then called “Boy Scout Story”, and I’m positive I’ve got attempts going back even farther than that. Maybe I will dig those out at some point.

And also, in reality, I’m not really even done. My plan is to take some time away from the story (a month? I’m not sure), and then come back to it with fresh eyes, and start working on revising, editing, and expanding the story, to get it ready for it’s forthcoming print release. There is a concrete plan for getting this book published, and I am really, really excited about it. I ought to have news to announce about that in the coming weeks.

New pages have been posted to the TROOP 142 website, wrapping up the the Saturday morning awards. Wait, what’s that you say? Saturday concluded already? Is that the end of the book? No, don’t worry, there’s still an epilogue, which will begin next week.

Five new pages posted to the site. Who wins the (not-so) coveted Grunge Sponge award? How happy are they about receiving the honor? Check it out.

And, a reminder, I’ll be reading pages from Troop 142 at KGB Bar, this coming Sunday night, the 28th, at 7PM, along with Kate Beaton and Lisa Hanawalt. I hope everyone comes out, as I think it’s going to be a lot of fun.

In case you can’t recall what this particular award is all about, the explanation is here.

The final three pages of the FRIDAY chapter have been posted. Look for the final chapter, SATURDAY, to start next week.

Some brand new Troop 142 pages have been added to the site. Late last week I was harboring ideas that I might finish the chapter in time for this update, but Halloween weekend turned out to be pretty busy, and also I didn’t want to rush it. Expect the FRIDAY conclusion next Tuesday.

Speaking of letting my internet audience down, loyal Fanthers might have noticed that there was only one new Ink Panthers episode in all of October. We knew we’d miss some weeks because of Alex’s international travel obligations, but didn’t mean to miss quite as much as we did. The reason we fell short was because I moved the location of my computer in the apartment, thinking I could just connect to the web through a wireless USB stick. The stick works, but doesn’t seem to work well enough to record Skype. The cable guy is coming though, don’t worry, and we should be up and running, creeping back into the Lair in no-time. We’ve also got some ideas brewing about how to make up for all the missed podcasting. Stay tuned.

Three new Troop 142 pages posted to the site. I must admit, these pages don’t move the story forward too far, but they set the scene for the big farewell campfire where all of the Troops gather to sing songs, watch skits, and say goodbye to another great summer up at Boy Scout camp.

Here’s a quick clip at the beginning:

Drawing some of the Scouts in the foreground:

More progress:

Drawing more Scouts, with embarrassing Meatloaf soundtrack:

Once I finished inking, I scanned it:

Here is is after I finished things up in Photoshop:

And here are a few details:

Four new Troop 142 pages posted to the site. Mr. DeMaria sits down to have a chat with Jason about what happened in Lifesaving class.

I’m also not planning a Troop 142 update this week. I’ve been cross-posting the comic over at ACT-I-VATE, but there was a bit of a lag between the two. I’ve caught up at AIV now, so from now on I’m going to try to stick to a strict Tuesday update at both sites for the remainder of the story (maybe another 30 pages?[!]).

Three new Troop 142 pages posted. Some status checks – what’s happening with Danny’s can of Spam; what happened with the boy’s merit-badge classes?

One extra bonus Troop 142 page posted. This doesn’t look good…

Four new Troop 142 pages posted. Classes are over, and Tony, Matt, and Jason are making their way back to camp.

I am slowly ramping back up productivity-wise (feeling a lot of post-SPX sleepiness this week), but have managed to post three new pages to the Troop 142 website. All of the Scouts are down at their merit-badge classes, which is of course the time at which the adults go have showers and stuff like that.

I don’t might possibly have a table to myself some table space, but there are a few spots on the convention floor where you might find me. Look for me hanging around the AdHouse Books booth drawing pictures inside copies of my book Ace-Face, or see if you can spot me milling around nearby the table Julia Wertz, Karen Sneider, Tom Kaczynski, and Jon Lewis will be sharing. Or even, perhaps, you might see me lingering close to the Secret Acres setup.

Speaking of Secret Acres, they ought to have all five issues of my Troop 142 mini-comics for sale. I am bringing plenty of copies down, so they should definitely be stocked. Keep an eye out for issue #5, as it’s brand new, and if SPX still had the Outstanding Debut Ignatz category, I definitely would have entered it.

And speaking of the Ignatz awards, don’t forget I’ve been nominated in a few categories. If you are a fan of Troop 142, and will be at the show, please consider casting a vote for me.

Hope to see you there!!

New Troop 142 pages have been posted. The Scouts of Troop 142 are still doing their best to save that bowling ball from the bottom of the lake. Matt’s done it, Tony’s done it, and now it’s Jason’s turn. Jason, who failed to retrieve the ball last Summer.

Three new pages posted. It’s Tony’s turn to save the bowling ball from the bottom of the lake. How does it go for him?

Three new TROOP 142 pages have been posted to the site. It’s the last day of the week, and the final day of Merit Badge classes. What requirements are left to fulfill?

This year’s Ignatz Award nominations were announced this morning, and I was shocked and surprised to learn that TROOP 142 had received a nod in four different categories. The Ignatz Awards are a festival prize voted on by the exhibitors and attendees of the Small Press Expo, held every year in Bethesda, Maryland.

If anyone is going to the show, and is a fan of my work, please consider voting for me in any of these four categories:

Outstanding Artist
Outstanding Series
Outstanding Mini-Comic
Outstanding Online Comic

If you’ll excuse me getting all “emo” for a minute, this is actually a really big deal to me. I’ve been around comics for a while, but my work has never really been nominated for anything before.* Also, SPX is such an important show to me personally, and played a huge role in my development as a cartoonist. I first traveled down there in the late ‘90s at a time when I was only just learning about a wider-world of comics, outside of the Mainstream companies. With the exceptions of the cancelled 2001 show and 2009, I’ve never missed a year. SPX introduced me to so much work I’d never seen before (a more difficult feat to pull off in those dark-pre-internet days), as well as so many great cartoonists.

So yeah, this is super-exciting – and even if I don’t win anything, I really do feel great to have been nominated!**

Three new TROOP 142 pages have been posted, dealing with some of the fall-out from the previous night’s hair-spray incident.

Friday gets going over at the Troop 142 micro-site with three new pages.

A small two page Troop 142 update this week, bringing the fifth chapter, Thursday, to a close. Wow – it’s kind of unbelievable to me to be starting in on what’s really the last full chapter, as Saturday’s going to be more of an epilogue, kind of like how Sunday was the book’s prologue.

I feel like I’ve said elsewhere that while I’ve only been actively writing and drawing this version of my Boy Scout comic since last November or so, I’ve been working on variations of it off and on for over ten years now. I remember when I first met Aliza, in 2002, I was taking a silk-screening class at SVA where I was making covers for a different version of this story I was working on then. So, it’s definitely been a long time.

Speaking of that SVA class, I also used the equipment there to make the cover of another little “graphic novella” that I had out at the time called CABARET. It was a semi-comedic, sort of dramatic slice-of-life story about some recent college graduates. I haven’t read or looked at this comic in years now, but gave it a re-read the other day, and had to say that it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. I dunno what I’m going to do once I finish Troop 142, but was thinking maybe of revisiting some of that material. At the very least, I’ve become a better cartoonist in the past 8 years, so could make a much better book now. I guess we’ll see.

Four new Troop 142 pages posted. I love the word “wuss”. Is it regional to the New York area, or is it widely used? I used it around my Scottish Uncle once, and always thought it was amusing how he pronounced it (woose, like “Moose”) with his thick accent.

In other news, Troop 142 #4 got a mixed-to-good write-up over at The Comics Reporter. Obviously I wish the review had been 100% totally positive, as Tom Spurgeon is one of my favorite writers about comics, but I’m still psyched to get to read his response to the book. And, he’s not wrong about some of the criticisms he made, especially that scene where the Dad’s discuss Scouts and atheism. It felt clumsy when I wrote it, and I’m not sure I’ve ever felt totally confident about it.

Having wobbly scenes like this go out into the world is one of the big downsides to my approach to writing combined with how I’m releasing the pages (online and in print) as I finish them. I’m certainly look forward to the day I start editing/revising this thing as a whole.

Three new Troop 142 pages posted. Unfortunately for Tony and Danny, who are spending the night sleeping under a lean-to as part of a merit badge requirement, a violent storm has suddenly rolled in!

Two new Troop 142 pages have been posted. What had Tony discovered when he went inside his bag looking for his second hit? How does Danny feel about it? Let’s see!

OK, I lied, two more Troop 142 pages posted before I go on vacation. Now I’m done posting for a week, For Reals!

Three new Troop 142 pages added to the site. Tony and Danny are away for the night fulfilling a requirement for their Wilderness Survival merit badges.

I’m away next week, going to the shore with my wife and daughter, so there won’t be any new updates for a little bit. I hope everyone has a great 4th of July weekend!!

Two new Troop 142 pages posted. Alan makes a phone-call home, and then finds himself with a little alone time.

Speaking of Troop 142, I haven’t blogged about it too much, but I’ve been putting together minicomics made from each individual chapter. These have been great for sending out to friends, and also for selling at MoCCA this past May.

I’m very excited to announce though, that the first four minicomics are now available in the Secret Acres Emporium, an online store that sells quality comics by a lot of talented cartoonists. My books can be gotten here.

In addition to distributing minicomics, Secret Acres has also published some books, including Monsters by Ken Dahl, and PS Comics by Minty Lewis, both of which I thought were fantastic reads.

Three new Troop 142 pages posted. The scouts go before Big-Bear to learn their fate.

Three new Troop 142 pages posted. What does Jason know? Where’s Matt? What’s Big-Bear going to talk to them about?

Five new pages have been posted, kicking off Thursday, the fifth chapter in the book. I actually went back to a discarded sequence for this scene here, using the same location, and some of the same lines. I think it works to much better effect now.