For Pete's Sake!!

Friends! Followers! Fans! Thanks for checking back. Sadly this blog has come to take a back burner as I still struggle to balance my work, drawing, life, travel and fine weather! When last we heard I was on my way to Stumptown in Portland, OR.

Stumptown Recap: Stumptown was a great show! I got to hang out with and table with a bunch of my buddies from CCS (some of whom I hadn't seen in a year!) and we did it up right.  Such a fun couple of days.





I also got to see my sister who now lives in Seattle (seems like more and more of the people I know are migrating there)



After all that fun of Stumptown I left with long time friend/mentor/former faculty of SAIC Surabhi Ghosh to stay with her and her husband Rob (and their kitty RAFI!) but also to guest teach at Surabhi's new school, University of Oregon.  It was a really great experience to not only see a "real college" (compared to the Art Schools I've attended and visited) but also to teach some comics and binding techniques to a bunch of new students.  We also went out for pizza for a little get to know Beth.

Once all the pizza had been consumed I got a tip off from Mr. Alec Longstreth about a barcade not too far into Eugene that had LOTS of pinball. Of course I convinced Surabhi to let me play.

But before I get too carried away in this update (for time is little!) I need to tell you, dear readers, that I will be at a convention THIS WEEKEND. I don't know if I have any Beth Hetland fans way out in VANCOUVER but that's where I'll be! I'm making a pit stop in Seattle briefly to connect with my contingency there, and then myself, Nomi Kane and Colleen Frakes are driving up to the great north-NORTH-west. Here's where you can find us if you're in/near/around Vancouver on Saturday May 25th or Sunday May 26th.


Until next time! Take care!

Stumptown!

This weekend is STUMPTOWN!!! I'm so very excited to not only be tabling at an awesome show but to have the chance to catch up, face to face with some of my west coast friends!

Here's where I'll be (and if you can read the scribbling writing, some of my buddies too):

I'll be tabling with Pat Barrett, Ben Horak, and Kevin Uehlein. We'll look something like this...
Stop by if you're in Portland!

But ALSO, if you happen to be in Eugene, OR and go to the University of Oregon, I'll be giving a little Visiting Artist lecture as well as teaching a bit of comics, book binding and self-publishing philosophies.

Screen Printing is Magic

Hey all! It's Alex again. In preparation for Zine Fest a few weeks ago, Beth took me to the shooting range to give me the 411 on how to handle myself should the convention be over-run by a hoard of flesh eating zombies.

AIM FOR THE BRAIN, INTERN. AIM FOR THE BRAIN. 

Just kidding. Beth actually taught me how to screen print! Here's Beth washing out one of her screens. I finally learned the secret of how a giant light hardens emulsion on exposed areas on the screen, allowing the areas covered by your image to be washed away and printed through. (Turns out screens are not made through fairy magic, which is unfortunate as I have been bottling those tiny sparkling bastards for years in preparation for my screen printing career....)

I even got try my hand at printing some of Beth's covers for her daily comics. Yes, I do always stick my tongue out when I work. All the better to taste the comic with. I'm basically Michael Jordan.

Google "Michael Jordan Tongue"

Tah dah! The finished covers. (And I only accidentally screen printed the table once.) Tune in next week to see some of the cool comics I've been pulling from Beth's zine collection!

Pencil your heart out!

Good morning, internet. I hope you all have been enjoying Alex's blog posts! Pretty much the best thing about this blog I'd say. This past week I've spend really buckling down to blast through my freelance work and get that out of the way so I could sink my teeth into the book Kyle and I are working on and HOPEFULLY debuting at Stumptown Comic Arts Festival at the end of April.

As the title suggests, I've been penciling my heart out!

This is what's done.


Part Bionic Owl and Ivy enjoying a moment


Some of the school buildings on campus.


The start of a party scene at the President's house


Some party people...


The start of one of the first dream sequences VERY exciting...


What's left to go!! I'm on page 25 out of 41 pages... Feeling good, strong, and ready!

Here's a little peaky at the newest of the Nomad books I'm illustrating, it's about mapping and navigation!


And of course, it can't all be fun and games at Hetland HQ.  Sometimes I need to go to work and see some friends doing their job...

Joe DeGeorge performs as In Glove with Bach. :)
That's all for now friends, see you next time!

We were just trying to summon Alan Moore.....

 Hey all! It's Alex the intern again. This week I took on the arduous task of alphabetizing and cataloging all of Beth's comic books (and some book-books too). In case you were wondering, yes, it is exceedingly difficult to shelve comics when you can't stop reading them long enough to put them in order. I blame Beth for having such an excellent collection. 

As I'm sure you all know, the first step to organizing your comics collection is laying them all on the floor in standard Spiral Jetty formation. This allows the books to breathe, get acquainted with their new book neighbors, and contemplate the meaning of cartooning in this temporal spiral of life. 

There was still some organizing left to do, so I arranged the books in a circle and held a séance to summon comics wizard, Alan Moore, to aid me in my task. 

After a few hours of chanting with no response from Moore, I began to doubt his legitimacy as a warlock. Some online sleuthing on credible source, Yahoo Answers, revealed I wasn't the only one with doubts. 

It seems he's up to more than just wizardry. 

Moore's status as magical being aside, I was able to successfully arrange all the books back onto the shelf from which they came. Take your time admiring my handiwork, forever immortalized in this cell phone pic. 

So baby, hold up!

Happy Wednesday, my dear readers. Just some quick updates about projects.

In case you didn't see, I highly recommend reading Alex's recap of ZineFest which was a blast for both of us.  I had a great time ushering Alex into her first convention, as well as spending some time catching up with my comics buddies who I rarely see because... well... we're always drawing comics! It was profitable and a good time. Remember, you can order ANY of my comics over at the STORE!

While we're talking about conventions, here is where I'll be and with whom for this convention season.  It's still a little sparse so, keep your eyes peeled for updates as to when you can get yourself a little Beth time:

Stumptown Comic Arts Festival
Portland, OR on April 27th and 28th
Tabling with Kevin Uehlein, Ben Horak, and Pat Barrett

CAKE (Chicago Alternative Komics Expo)
Chicago, IL on June 15th and 16th
Tabling solo!

Autoptic
Minneapolis, MN on August 18th
Tabling with Andy Christensen

Grand Rapids Zine Fest
Grand Rapids, MI on August 24th
Tablemates TBA

I'm still waiting to hear back from SPX, but hopefully that show or maybe a trip out to Boston for MICE? We shall see!

Still working through my new Nomad Press book about Mapping and Navigation (VERY FUN) but also was able to spend some time really sinking my teeth into my story for IRENE #2 (debut at Stumptown).  Here are my pages all penciled

Some pretty gross stuff going on in this comic. Much different than my "normal" work. I really love doing anthologies for this reason. It frees me up to try and explore anything I may be tinkering with in my brain. In this case, body horror and anxieties!

You also may have seen me in some of the news about Chicago recently. I spent my Friday afternoon in the freezing rain showing my support for the students of the Chicago Public School system who were upset about the order of having Persepolis pulled from their classrooms, school and (originally) library.







There are other images out there of what is going on, and I think all of you should do a quick google search and read all about it. In the meantime, Here's my sign


(Check out that tangent by the 'S' and her nose... yikes! Good thing I know what I'm doing...:/)

Sadly, I haven't had much time to throw down on the project Kyle and I are working on, but I'm determined to have the first issue completed and ready to go by Stumptown. Hold me to that, internet! Ask me about it! Tell me to get back to work! Time for a fun-fast, y'all. See you next week!

Zine Fest! (by Alex)

We are all making the same face. 

This weekend was my first Zine Fest! Well, first time tabling, at least. I feel like I’m still recovering from all the craziness! But it was so much fun! I met a ton of great people and read some fantastic comics! Note for next year: comfier shoes.    

A perfect fit!

I finished packing up all my comics at about 5am the morning of Zine Fest. I was really worried that I would be taking a full box back home with me, but thankfully that wasn’t the case. I was lucky enough to sell a few comics and trade with some very talented artists! So, lets show off some of what I got!

Ben was the first person to trade two of his comics with me! His drawings are awesome and you should definitely check out his website. Apart from being a great comics artist, he's also a pretty rad person to share a table with at conventions.

Grace is one of my friends at SAIC! It was difficult, but we finally managed to trade each other comics that we didn't already own. Sharing three classes together, we have a significant collection of one another's work. But, I managed to snag a copy of Yellow Comics vol. 2 which if full of cats and beards. You should take a look!

After deciding that anything I purchased at Zine Fest could be considered "research and study material," I proceeded to spend all my money on comics. Including this awesome comic called Why is My Easy Easy Life So Hard? by Dina Kelberman. I love the page layouts and scribbled panel structure.  You can find this book here and look at some higher quality images than my cell phone pics. 

If my Zine Fest shopping experience was an episode of Pee-Wee's Playhouse, the secret word would have been "Risograph." Because every time I found a comic that was Risograph printed I screamed real loud and bought it. Including this lovely book, I bought five comics printed using a Risograph printer.

  

Identifying Friends by Laura Berger was an adorable read and also included a special "treat" at the back of the book. You can see more of her work here.

One of the coolest things I got at Zine Fest, was Gather by Todd Freeman. It's a collection of intricately illustrated nets. The drawings are beautiful, and the book itself is a very interesting collection of objects as well as a recording of a methodical inking process. Really inspiring! Here's his website.

As for me, here were my best and worst sellers of Zine Fest:

STUPID was my most popular comic at Zine Fest, it's printed on layers of paper and vellum with hand-written dialogue on each comic. I made this last semester in Beth's class!

.....And the worst seller. I literally watched as person after person picked up this comic and put it right back down with a disgusted look on their face. Dude, I'm right here. I can see you. I guess some people just really don't like seeing naked people doing stupid things. 

If you do enjoy watching people (in various stages of undress) doing stupid things, you can see some more of my comics at the totally awesome website I just created. Hopefully more to come soon!

Yes, and...

Greetings! Last weekend was ZineFest which was completely awesome. Thank you everyone who organized, stopped by and tabled. Look forward to a blog post from Alex about her reactions from her very first tabling experience.  Lots of my students were tabling and lots of friends stopped by.  It was a really good day, sore feet included!

For today, I'm going to give you a look and a taste of some of the many projects cluttering my desk right now. You see, dear reader, I have a problem of believing in the improv training that was ingrained into me.  "Yes, and..." is a one of these methods for being a strong improv performer. How this applies to my life is when someone asks me about a project, a drawing, or really anything comics related, instead of my knee jerk rejection of social invites, I hear myself saying "Yes, and..." Usually what happens after the "and" is a deadline, timeline, pricing or schedule suggestion. BUT STILL, the important word has already been uttered.

That being said, I am EXTREMELY grateful for all the opportunities and new challenges I have right now, I just wish some of those opportunities involved being paid to sleep. Now, for your viewing pleasure I give you some sneak peeks. **note: many of these projects are in progress or are top secret so they may only be hinted at in small increments, but I promise to tell you about them when they reach fruition**

A small corner of the post for my Fall Comics Course


A ghostly image of something fun to come


A wise man, paving the way for mapping


Ivy getting frustrated that I haven't been able to spend much time on her


The cutie-patootie signs I made for my table at ZineFest


A design with a BANG


Tiny Robot Duck Comics that I will be coloring for the Spring Art Sale



There are some other projects that have yet to be capture by such a high quality as my iPhone, but soon you will be seeing somethings like IRENE sneak peeks, and my convention schedule. Stay tuned!