Ch-ch-ch-changes…

So next month I hope to launch a website where I’ll post fiction under a creative commons license.  One story a month, installments twice a week, sometimes comics, sometimes prose.  I’m taking part of next week off of work to sit down and evaluate how I want to run it – should I just map the site to this blog, and post the fiction and comics here?  That rules out having the tasteful ads (via Project Wonderful) that I’d like to have to earn a little money.  How much CSS and other coding would I need to learn to run WordPress from my own hosted server?  I can’t figure it out with a cursory search, so that’s what I’ll be spending a few days figuring out.  If anyone has any advice, let me know.

In addition, if you are an editor looking for new voices in fiction, I’d be interested to know what you think of this approach to getting my words out there.  I have several short stories either finished or nearly there.

Blargh, also: comics I drew in 2007

Whew!  This past week every day has been work, come home a pass out, wake up and eat (while watching an ep of LOST season1), pass out again.  Too exhausted to finish unpacking, be social, do art, write, anything.  I have been doodling, but no real drawing.  Next week should be calmer at work, hopefully leaving me with enough energy to do the things I really care about.

Anyway, I uploaded some comics I made in 2007 to my Flickr –>>

Desert Island? More like a pirate oasis!

One of my favorite folks from art school has opened a wonderful store full of art books, prints, graphic novels, indie comics, zines, selected print books, magazines, and all other kinds of goodness.  It’s called Desert Island, and it’s off the Metropolitan G or Lorimer L stops here in Brooklyn.  You should go, now!  It’s the bees knees.  I expected to find places like this everywhere when I moved to NYC, and was sadly disappointed when there were none.  Well now there is!

He also has signings/parties with different authors and artists – the schedule, address, and other info is on the website at the link above.

I am in no way associated with the place (except that I will now visit and buy things there), and Gabe didn’t ask me to advertise, but I think the store is so rad that I wanted to say something.

I got a Harvey Kurtzman book I’ve been looking for, and Bill Daniel’s Mostly True, both of which I really look forward to scoping – it’s so satisfying to buy books like this in person, to peruse before you buy and talk about the artist with someone who knows.

I know I linked to places where you can buy those books online, but you should go buy them in person.  Talk to Gabe, too – he’s good people.  I truly believe we should support indie brick-and-mortar bookshops, as the chains are all going bankrupt and OMG HOW WILL YOU GET YOUR ART BOOKS WHEN SNAKE PLISKEN BLOWS THE POWER GRID AND THE INTERNET IS HISTORY!?!?!?!?!?

Peanuts by Bukowski, Pogo reprints

As Neil Gaiman said in his blog, I didn’t expect to like this Peanuts by Charles Bukowski over at ProgressiveBoink, but I do – good stuff in there. It’s like viewing Bukowski, and Peanuts, through a different lens, bringing specific qualities to the surface in both that may usually be a little more buried. Or something. Here’s Peanuts’ wikipedia entry, as the official site in 90% ads for merch and that rubs me the wrong way.

I’ve been carrying around an old, tattered copy of the first Pogo collection (1951) lately to read on the train, and if you haven’t read any Pogo I highly recommend it. Fantagraphics is planning a series of classy reprints of the strip, although a big heavy hardback of Pogo seems incongruous to me. I (and Eddie Campbell) love Ten Ever-Lovin’ Blue Eyed Years With Pogo, and in my love for books you can put in your pocket, I like the other old reprints too (well, they’re maybe too big for your pocket unless you’re wearing cargo pants, but they’ve got personality and are lighter than the Fantagraphics things).