SPX is almost here!!! I'm very excited! I love this show more than any else. I'll be at table B1-2 with Michele Chidester, David Yoder, Drew Weing, and hopefully others! We'll be right around the corner (and across the aisle) from Oni, and right next to some fellow SCAD students Falynn Koch and Pranus Navjokaitis!



I will have the same offerings that I had at MoCCA -- The Ride Home, Tales of Unusual Circumstance, and the Cavemen in Space mini-comic. Debuting at the show is....



The Elephano Anthology!!! You may have heard about this book last year when David Yoder (who partially conceived this project, and is the head dude over the thing) was dashing around like a madman inviting contributors and spreading the word... Well, the book is scheduled to be out and available at the show! From what I've seen this book is gonna be pretty awesome...I don't have a full list of cartoonists in the book, but I can throw a few out there: David Yoder, Joey Weiser (me!), Jason Rainey, Douglas Frey, JP Coovert!

So yeah, I have a new story in that, based off of my own personal experience working in a magic shop while I was in Savannah... Come by the table and say "hi!"

P.S. To all my livejournal friends and folks who follow my blog - The image at the top is from the pages I've been doing for the Cavemen in Space graphic novel.  I'll have some print outs at the show if you'd like to stop by and see how it's coming! =)

Some art I did for Steve Hamaker.

It was nice, relaxing, and fun, especially after a week of moving.  But Michele and I are now settling in pretty well to our new place (which is actually our old place that we lived in before moving a year ago...).  Today is her birthday, so we went out for sushi and walked around a bit.  It was nice!  We plan on finishing the evening with some ice cream, computer coloring, last week's Daily Shows, and/or some Project Runway: Australia.  Sounds pretty good to me!

Who's excited about the Garfield Minus Garfield book coming later this year?  I am!

And yet...even though I've always been curious to compare the original strips to the modified ones, I think that printing them side by side will ruin the effect a bit.  It won't be as desolate a book...but oh well.  At least this means Jim Davis isn't going to be cracking the legal whip on GMG any time soon! =)

The complete preview of Flight 5 is up! You can check out bits of each story, including half of mine. The image above is the actual title page, not the one shown in the preview. This is the page that had the most revisions, so things got a bit confusing, and I don't blame them for getting a little mixed up. In fact, the credit for the design in the preview should go to Neil Babra!

Flight Volume 5 is coming! It will be at the San Diego Comic-Con, and in stores soon. Newsarama has an interview with Kazu regarding the new volume, and it gives a good impression of what the book is like. There are also several previews on Newsarama, but not one for mine yet. Maybe there will be? I'm not sure. So, keep an eye out for the next couple of weeks, if you'd like, but I can't promise anything.



My story is titled "Timecat," and is a true life story about my cat's delusions of time travel. Interesting note: As Kazu mentions in his interview, this volume of Flight features its longest stories yet, with several over 30 pages long (some over 40, even)! However, "Timecat" is my shortest story to appear in Flight, at only 8 pages. Still, it is maybe my favorite contribution, as it marks my return to direct and fun gag humor. This one could have fit right in with the Tales of Unusual Circumstance material!

Well, the San Diego Comic-Con is approaching, and unfortunately, I won't be there. I do have a new story in Flight 5, which will be debuting at the show. So if you're attending, stop by the Flight table and pick up a copy! The Flight table is always tons of fun, with lots of artists, books, and sketching!

But! What this time of year also signifies is that it's been almost 1 year since The Ride Home debuted at SDCC '07! And just in time, a new review has surfaced from Shuffleboil!

Many of you who are reading this already own a copy, most likely, but for those who don't, now would be a great time to purchase one from the AdHouse Store, Amazon.com, or anywhere else that finer comic books are sold (but personally, I recommend the AdHouse Store)! And, hey, already own a copy for yourself? The Ride Home would make an excellent gift for a friend (or a friend's kids!)!

Now for the really good news: To celebrate The Ride Home's first birthday, I'm offering a gift to you! If you can send me some sort of proof that you've purchased a copy of The Ride Home between the dates of July 10th, 2008 and August 15th, 2008, I will send you an original TRH drawing, and charge you only enough to cover postage! That's $2 for regular shipping, $5 for priority, and $10 international. If you are familiar with TRH, you may request specifics in the drawing, or I can make it a surprise! You can send copies of dated reciepts, shipping notices, photos of you at comic shops purchasing TRH, etc. to joey [at] tragic-planet [dot] com ! You have until August 15th, but why wait??

I can't believe it!  I just found out today that Viz has published an English-language version of COWA!

COWA! is one of my very favorite books by one of my very favorite cartoonists, Akira Toriyama!  I am shocked, because while it's one of my favorite works of his, the art style is a pretty big departure from Dragon Ball, and while that is a huge hit in the States, I was kind of afraid that Viz's other Toriyama books (Dr. Slump and Sandland) didn't see such a success.  I was hoping to see more of his one-shots (and then maybe even the Toriyama Manga Theater volumes)  hit shelves after Sandland was released, but when nothing came, I assumed it meant Sandland didn't sell as well as Viz had hoped.  Also, I noticed a pretty big anti-DBZ backlash amongst anime/manga fans and pretty much assumed that Toriyama's popularity in the states was maybe less than enough to warrant the release of one of his lesser-known works.

But wait!  There is more good news!  I was positive that if Viz did decide to print more Toriyama one-shots, and had ever exhausted Toriyama's library to the point where they got to the more unique and oddball COWA!, they would definitely not print the color pages in color, as they were in the Japanese release.  Wrong again!  They are, in fact, in glorious color!  COWA! marked Toriyama's move from paint to Photoshop, and his colors perfectly compliment the simplified art style.  Believe me, it's a thing of beauty.

As if it weren't painfully obvious at this point, I whole-heartedly endorse COWA!  Everyone should go out now and get a copy for themselves to enjoy!  Help support Toriyama manga in the US!  I hope this signifies the beginning of more of his non-blockbuster series being brought over!

It gave me great satisfaction to find this on my MySpace yesterday:



By Tolling (Age 7)

I think seeing a 7-year-old draw one of my characters is pretty much one of my basic goals in life.