Every so often you get the proverbial offer-you-can’t-refuse. For me, sometimes that’s work with a creator or for a project that I love. Sometimes it’s when somebody you respect needs help. Sometimes it’s a fun artistic challenge, and sometimes it’s a really cool opportunity to make contact with a new audience.
And sometimes it’s all of those things, because maestro Scott Kurtz needs somebody to write and draw a guest story for his wonderful flagship strip PvP while he heals up a sore back and gets ready to launch a big new project. So! For the next little stretch here I’m happily dropping (almost) everything to do just that.
I’ve been sweet on Scott’s work, and on PvP in particular, for years now – and especially since the story moved to Seattle, my old hometown. That means that I also get to depict some of my favorite landmarks from around the city. Tough gig!
So I’m having an absolute ball taking Scott’s lovely, silly, brash, sincere characters out for a spin. If you’re already a fan of PvP, I think you’ll probably enjoy this little story; if you’re new to the strip, well, you have some very fun archive-diving ahead of you! Either way, head over to site, check out the first strip from my run, and (hopefully) enjoy.
I’m taking the week away from Family Man to compensate for producing a weekday strip; I hope to be back next week! It’s a small price to pay for having such a ball.
In the meantime, if you peruse my store, you might notice that I have soft-launched two new books! I’ll make a big deal about it later, but if you missed your chance to get in on my Kickstarter project from 2012, you can now purchase your very own copies of Outfoxed and Danse Macabre. I still have a lot of orders to fulfill from backers, so expect a slightly longer turnaround than usual, but…they’re HERE!
Detail from Page 277 of Family Man.
And we’re back! It feels very good to be drawing again after my extended holiday/book-shipping/physical-therapy break. It’s fun to come back to Family Man and get to resolve a mild situational cliff-hanger, too. This page is a bit late due to the predations of my first head-cold of 2013, but I’m so happy to be doing creative work again that I don’t mind at all.
In the next few weeks I’ll be adding new books and merchandise for sale to the public in my store, in addition to returning to regular updates here. I’m looking forward to a productive and busy 2013! I hope you are, too.
One of my favorite ongoing gigs for 2012 has been with the alt-weekly Portland Mercury. I grew up in Seattle, and my teenaged face was frequently glued to the subversive pages of the Merc’s parent paper, The Stranger. I still get a kick out of seeing that logo on the paycheck envelope. Arts editors Erik Henriksen and Alison Hallett are both smart, funny, sarcastic people – I absolutely love working with them.
The last piece I did for the paper this year was a collaboration with Alison, summing up some of the notable happenings in the Portland creative scene this year.
As a bonus, I got up-and-coming cartoonist Lucy Bellwood to wander over to my computer and draw her autobiographical comics self-portrait for item #7. I predict that you’ll be hearing a lot from Lucy in 2013!
Hop on over to the Mercury to see what each of these items references! (Personal triumph: I was directly involved with #5 and #7.)
Detail from page 276 of Family Man.
I’m gearing up for the arrival of 6,000 books sometime in the next week or so (I hope!). When they do turn up, I will turn into a Shipping Machine, calling upon my hordes of winged monkeys to fulfill the 800+ orders awaiting fulfillment. I’ll be taking it day by day, but hopefully getting enough out the door that I can make time to keep updating; if not, well, at least I’ll be stepping away during the holiday blitz. I’m so excited to get these books out into the world!
In the meantime: you have checked out To Be Or Not To Be, haven’t you? C’mon seriously, it’s a choose-your-path story book version of Hamlet. Written by Ryan North. With over a hundred different endings, illustrated by jerks like ME! You are powerless to resist!
Detail from Page 273 of Family Man.
That’s it for this scene in Family Man – I hope you all didn’t too much mind the brief detour. Next week we’ll see some protagonists again!
Happy Thanksgiving week to my fellow Americans; I recommend this unlikely vegetarian gravy recipe, which has beaten out meat gravies (even amongst committed carnivores) every year at the table since I started making it. It is terrible for you, and thank goodness for that.
Meanwhile, in book news! Last week I received some advance copies of the final books from the Kickstarter project. The rest are slowly steaming their way across the ocean, but here are some pictures in the meantime! The books will be on sale to the general public no later than the New Year.
