I’m not Googling myself enough

I’m going over my vacation plans for next year (i.e. deciding which out-of-state comic book events I’ll be attending, that is) and as I’ll occasionally do (and who doesn’t?) I Googled my name (to see if any of the shows I’m attending have me listed as a guest). Of the shows that do have me listed, this one made me want to write a blog entry.

Back in March, I met Michael Marcus (of the Hamtramck Idea Men) and signed up for the Southern Michigan Arts and Creativity Conference in July, 2010.  One of my fellow listed guests is Jay Jacot, whom I also met back in March @ SPACE and got reacquainted in October @ MOC.  Jay is the artist of  The Tao of Snarky Compilation & contributor/publisher of Comics Obscura as well as an enthusiastic comics evangelist and a damn cool guy.  I was pleasantly surprised to see the cover of BLINK: Breathe in Beat on Jay’s most recent blog entry, which is a month old at this point.  (I know the feeling well.)  I was also surprised and pleased to see a link on Jay’s entry to Tony Isabella’s World Famous Comics “Tony’s Tips” site where he reviewed said book (along with Stuffed! by Glenn Eichler and Nick Bertozzi and Mr. Jacot’s The Tao of Snarky and his 24-Hour comic, The Chase: A Twist of Fate), all of a month ago.  The line that Tony wrote and knocked my socks off with was this one:

Ink’s work and his sure comics-drawing hand create moments that are gentle and quietly profound. These stories, and others he has done and will do, are all leading to a bigger story. I’m looking forward to that.

That’s damn sweet.

I wish I had more to write here, but I’m just going to get myself back to the drawing board so that the larger story of Blink can be created.

Let the commercialism begin

After a few nudges from friends and readers alike, I’m going to begin offering a few BLINK products for sale at Zazzle. The first Blink-related item I’ve created is this mug (or, if I understand the website correctly, any mug) decorated with the Blink logo and my homage to Bill Watterson’s masterpiece, Calvin & Hobbes.  It’s available for $13.95 (and up).  There are many many more products that I can plaster my art on, but I’m gonna start slow and see how things progress before I get all slap-happy and put my art on a $50 pair of kids shoes.

New! and improved! …coming soon!

With the help of my eldest daughter, Gigi, I will be giving this site a much-needed face-lift over the next few weeks (or maybe month or so… my schedule is so crammed as it is, posting an update like this takes time away from other tasks waiting to be done).  It will retain the same basic “blog” look, but the links will provide a bit more “snap” and “pizazz.”  As you can see, the change is in the works as I type this, with a new ONWARDStudio header.  (BTW, that is a single word, not two.)

Also, pick up a Short North Gazette and get your newsprint version of this month’s Blink comic strip.

Okay, that’s it for the moment.  I’ve got some pencil lines that need inking.

A Top 10

Top ten things that happened to me today at the Mid-Ohio-Con:

10   Getting my picture taken with Power Man
9     Giving out lots and lots and lots of Blink mini comics (Thanks to Canada & Kira for the help in getting the Blinks out!)
8     Selling a respectable number of the regular Blink books
7    Making plans for next year’s Free mini comic (Oh Boy!  It’s gonna be AWESOME!!)
6   Having about fifteen minutes of “free time” (because I was so busy otherwise, which is mighty awesome)
5    Meeting friends from the virtual world of Facebook in the flesh, face-to-face
4    Bentos! (Yay, Kira & Canada!!)
3    Hanging out with my friends from KY (Billy & Shannon & Julia & Carrie & Morgan & Jordan! I’m a very Happy Greek)
2    Having the opportunity to tell SO many people about the Sunday Comix Cartoonist Group
1    Somebody saying to me “YOU’RE BLINK!!” after seeing a copy of the Short North Gazette and realizing that I’m the person that creates the comic strip. I must say.. THAT was very rewarding.

Okay– that’s all.  Possibly more tomorrow,

Back to the Garden

For the past three days, I’ve been working on this one single drawing of Blink & Sam reading poetry books in the Topiary Garden behind the main library.  I thought it’d be nice if I upload all the various stages it’s gone through to get from idea to finished.  (Although, I still have to figure out what books they’re reading.  Any suggestions?)

When I thought about posting this stuff, my mind went right to the lyrics of the Jone Mitchel tune, Woodstock.  This is a mighty nice filmed version of the tune:

I’ve got one more drawing to illustrate before the new(ish) Blink book is complete.