Just reminding everyone, my roommate and I will be at SPACE this weekend. That's the Small Press & Alternative Comics Expo at the Ramada Hotel 4900 Sinclair Road Columbus, Ohio 43229. We'll be at table # 72. We'll have copies of our first book which will be available on www.blackcatscomic.com for $5.00, but for now it will only be available from us in person for $4.00.

Been a while since I posted, I know. A lot of crap has happened lately, some of which I don't have time to go into, some of which I can't legally talk about yet due to ongoing investigation, but once everything is settled you'll get some lengthy bloggy-goodness.

Hey guys, sorry again about the delays in the con post. I've been fighting off the flu which, coincidentally, I think I picked up at the con.

It's not that bad, so I don't think it's anything like the outbreak of swine flu that made its way around the Penny Arcade Expo this year, but it's still making it damn hard to get anything done.

Anyways, maybe later today.

Ok guys, here come the costume pics!

The reviews of the exhibitors and such will follow soon, I promise...

Now, in no particular order are some of the cool costumes that I saw at the con. Unfortunately I couldn't get all of them. If you are included here and you would like a copy of your unaltered picture email me at Ford_Maverick@hotmail.com.

Hey guys, sorry, but once again I'm falling asleep in my chair as I'm exhausted from the con, but tomorrow there's no more con, so the pictures WILL be up sometime tomorrow.

It's taking a long time because I have some 70 pictures and accompanying writeups to do and I want to do everyone justice, so please bear with me and I'll bring you the awesome tomorrow.

Hey guys, I got an assload of cool costume pics from Comicon!

I wanted to post them tonight, but I'm so tired I'm falling asleep at the keyboard, so hopefully tomorrow night. I'd tough it out, but I'm sore as hell and I have to get up and do it again tomorrow!

Hope to see some of you guys there!

Ok guys, Mid Ohio Con is a mere 9 hours from now. Very shortly I'll be going to bed so as to get my ass up in time to hit it and hit it hard. I should be there both days from beginning to end. Well, I may have to take a short break each day to do something I promised I'd do for someone, but otherwise I'll be there pretty much constantly. I mean, how could I not be? It's like 10 minutes from my apartment.

Hope to see you guys there!

PS: If you see me and give me money I'll draw stuff.

So I've had a few days to recuperate and read the comics I got. The standouts are:



As stated in my previous post, Girls With Slingshots is written and drawn by Danielle Corsetto. She's a native and current resident of West Virginia, very smart, very funny and damn good looking. If you haven't already guessed I'll probably be stalking her in the very near future, and that was BEFORE I read her comic, which kicks ass.

When I met her I mentioned that I do comics too (I left out the part about my last update being over a YEAR AGO) and that mine was all about dick and fart jokes. She countered by saying that hers was all about booze and dildo jokes.

I can't tell you all how close I came to proposing on the spot.

Luckily I've been informed that girls don't find that kind of romanticism to be all that attractive these days. Now back in the dark ages when your average lifespan was about 18 years things were different. The first-meeting proposal was often a necessity as one or the other (or both) of you were probably already dying from something. This is but further proof that I was born in the wrong era. Hell, who am I kidding? I'm not even from this planet...

What was I talking about? Oh, the comic. I hate to go comparing it to things, but if you like Sex In The City it's in a similar vein only it's funnier and there's a lot less naked Kim Catrall.

The synopsis is two girls, Hazel the cynical writer and her friend Jamie get drunk and hilarity ensues. There really is more to it than that, but without getting into plotlines and things it's all you really need to know to get you started.

Oh, Hazel owns a talking Irish cactus named McPedro. He drinks a lot too. Now GO READ THE STRIP!



The other standout is:



I got to read all the issues of the Living Corpse and it's pretty fucking sweet. The setup for it is a bit more involved though.

Without giving away too much of the plot, an incident occurs wherein the dead return to life and start munching on the living. One of the reanimated is Mr John Romero (a nod to George Romero, author and director of Night of the Living Dead) but he's different. For some reason (which I'm not going into because I don't want to spoil anything) he regains his personality and memories and is charged with guarding the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead.

Also, it contains very little naked Kim Catrall.

Anyhow, I'll be following these two comics very closely from now on and if I haven't done it by the time you read this I'll be adding permanent links to them on the sidebar to your left.



Also, I'd like to announce that my own new strip should be ready soon. Character designs are almost done and the first few strips are already more-or-less written, so watch for the big announcement here any day now as well as the new locations for my other two strip archives AND very soon the first issue of the book Remy and I have been collaborating on.

And as if that weren't enough I can go ahead and tell you that Remy and I will be attending The Mid-Ohio Con on October 3rd and 4th and though we won't have a booth or anything we will have sketchbooks with us if you happen to find us.

Ok, I'm back from Pittsburgh Comicon and it was way cool, you should all go. It's a small convention, as they go, and we went on the first day while a lot of people were either in school or at work, so it was pretty slow, which allowed us to meet and talk to a lot of people.

I got to hang out with Brad Guigar of Evil INC and pick up my very own copy of How To Make Webcomics!



It's a great book if you, well, want to make webcomics. Not so much if you, say, want to make custom kitchen cabinets or or learn how to hotwire a Russian MIG-29, but great for making webcomics!

Anyways we had a lot of fun and you should all go buy a whole bunch of his stuff to make up for the fact that I could only buy one book from him, that book being the most self-serving thing I bought at the entire con.

Well, apart from the giant pretzel. That was pretty self-serving too.


I also met, and got to talk extensively with Brian Pulido, formerly of Chaos! Comics, and creator of Lady Death, Evil Ernie and Chastity the Vampire among others.




I was initially attracted to this next one because it has a kick-ass cover shot of Matt Wagner's Grendel, one of my all time favorites, but I bought it because the proceeds go to the Hero Initiative.



The Hero Initiative creates a financial safety net for comic creators who may need emergency medical aid, financial support for essentials of life, and an avenue back into paying work. Since inception, the Hero Initiative has been fortunate enough to benefit over 40 creators and their families with over $400,000 worth of much-needed aid, fueled by your contributions! It's a chance for all of us to give back something to the people who have given us so much enjoyment.






I've been following Jay Brant and his kinda quirky artwork on Deviant Art for some time now and was thrilled to see him at the con as well. He had lots of cool stuff for sale, stickers, tiles cards and buttons. I was only able to buy this Hellboy button, but believe me, I was tempted to walk away with a lot more. This piece is going on my Halloween Costume (which you'll be seeing pictures of shortly). Check out his work and if you see him, buy something!







Then I got to meet Ken Haeser who gave me a great deal on the first 9 issues of The Living Corpse which, as the cover proclaims, is soon to be a CGI motion picture from Shoreline entertainment.



Haven't got to read much of it yet, but the artwork is pretty fucking cool. Speaking of artwork, since I got the entire catalog I got a free sketch of whichever character I wanted. Not knowing much about the comic yet, I went with the sexy(?) Bride of Frankenstein character.



The sketch is amazing and well worth what the comics cost by itself. I think I benefited greatly by hitting him right at the end of the show, because he got to spend quite a bit of time on it. In short order it will be framed and hanging in my studio.

Oh, I met George Kosana who played Sheriff McClelland in the original 1968 version of Night Of The Living Dead. You might remember him as the guy at the end of the movie with the cigars in his hatband who says "Yeah, they're dead. They're all messed up."

Yes, he had the hat AND the cigars.

Also on hand from Dawn of the Dead was Leonard Lies, AKA the 'Machete Zombie' and Sharon Ceccatti Hill who played the 'Nurse Zombie' in Dawn and 'Blonde Nurse' in Hellraiser III.

We got to speak with the good people at Planet Saturday Comics, who were cool as hell, as well as Illustrator Kevin R. Leen (whom we'll be seeing again at the Columbus Comicon next month) and the guy from The Guns Of Shadow Valley which is another that I haven't read yet, but it looks really good.



And as if all that wasn't cool enough, I, and my sidekick Remdog, got to have dinner with Chris Flick from Capes & Babes and the very lovely Danielle Corsetto from Girls With Slingshots. Some of you may also remember her as the second artist on The New Adventures of Batboy which was featured in the Weekly World News.





This was mainly pulled off because Rem knew both of them beforehand (he was actually Danielle's RA in college if you can believe that). Dinner and drinks were had and despite Rem's steadfast refusal to tell Danielle all about how I'm the greatest guy in the world (it's not like I was asking him to LIE or anything...) I still think we got along famously.



So yeah, the con is on for two more days. Go if you can, it's well worth it. Stan 'the Man' Lee will be there tomorrow, but if you want to see him you'll have to buy a $40 ticket on top of the $18 that gets you in the door and last I heard there were only 6 or 8 spots left.

So, yeah, I've been awake for about 36 straight hours now, so I'm gonna go pass out for a couple days. More when I awaken from my unholy slumber to feast once again on the squishy brain-parts of the living.

And for god's sake, if you see any of these people BUY SOMETHING!

Or I suppose you could just throw money at them, they seem to like that too. Just remember, they're making a living off this stuff which is something I hope to accomplish myself one day, so PLEASE support the artists!