Mell knows the score!

http://www.girlamatic.com/comics/mell.php

And of course there's a new installment in The Chronicles of William Bazillion!

Also, I'm going to the MoCCA Art Festival next month. If you're in the NYC area, stop by and say hi. I'm doing a panel on "Comics and the Internet" for the New York Institute for the Humanities on Friday, June 6, and then I'll be at the Friends of Lulu table throughout the weekend.

Okay, okay, it's just a filler this week while Neil and I recover from the Stumptown Comics Fest. Enjoy a sampling of my thumbnail art.

http://www.girlamatic.com/comics/mell.php

And it wouldn't be Wednesday without a new installment in The Chronicles of William Bazillion!

Speaking of Stumptown, the brand-new Skin Horse minicomic won a Stumptown Trophy Award for Outstanding Small Press! How sweet is that?



I was at the party where the awards were announced, but everyone was rocking so hard that I didn't hear it announced. I only found out that I'd won something when I went into the convention hall the next morning and my trophy was waiting for me at the table. As you can see, I was gobsmacked.

The trophies themselves are the tackiest secondhand trophies the good people at Stumptown could find in the greater Portland area. And ours is the best one! Bask in the glory:



Here are Jeffrey's and my initials crudely scrawled into the trophy plate by Shannon Wheeler:



And the crowning glory:



BEST TROPHY EVER.

I can only hope Jeffrey is as proud as I am. Thank you, Stumptown! Oh, and if you'd like to purchase a copy of this award-winning minicomic for your own, we can make that happen.

I had a great time at Stumptown, by the way. Andrew's got a great writeup here, although he mostly talks about things he ate.

Ta-da!

http://www.girlamatic.com/comics/mell.php

One of the pleasures of having different artists draw Li'l Mell is seeing everyone's interpretations of the characters. Here, for example, is Neil's rendition of Ms. Divine, the principal. Also, if there's one thing we've learned over the five years this comic has been running, it's that Mrs. Hancock will never get back on her feet.

And of course there's a new installment of The Chronicles of William Bazillion!

One week left in the Match It for Pratchett strip sale. If you'd like to own an original Narbonic or <http://www.skin-horse.com>Skin Horse</a> strip for a mere $25, with all proceeds going to the Alzheimer's Research Trust, email narbonic at sbcglobal dot net.

This is also your last chance to vote in the Girlamatic Birthday Card Contest. Voting ends tomorrow, so if you haven't picked your favorites, do so now. And no, I don't know what the categories mean either.

Oh, and I'll be at the Stumptown Comics Fest in Portland this weekend! If you're there, stop by the Couscous Collective table and say hi!

Whew. Busy week.

You know, Mell's right. This was a stupid plan.

http://www.girlamatic.com/comics/mell.php

Girlamatic is inviting everyone to vote for their favorite GAM 5th anniversary card. Vote here. For convenience's sake, here are links to the individual cards:

Andre Richard (Jeepers)
Dale Ingram (Hold My Life)
Jean Ciolek (Faery Underground)
John Peters (Gypsy)
Karen Luk (Raconteur)
Laura Wilson (Five Star)
Layla Lawler (Kismet)
Leigh Dragoon (By the Wayside)
Marilyn Scott-Waters (The Return of Doctor Dragonwagon)
Ronnie Casson (Claviger)
Shaenon K. Garrity (Li'l Mell)
Stevie Wilson (Black Forest, Arcana Jayne)
Tara Tallan (Galaxion)
Traci Spencer (Compass)
Von Allan (The Road to God Knows)

Whew, that's a lot of birthday cards.

Meanwhile, there's a new installment in The Chronicles of William Bazillion! Yes indeed!

Grabby little thing, isn't she?

http://www.girlamatic.com/comics/mell.php

Also, I did some fan art for this week's installment in The Chronicles of William Bazillion, so check that sucker out.

The Match It for Pratchett strip sale continues awesomely. So far we've raised $1,745, and the sale continues all the way through April. If you're interested in purchasing an original Narbonic or Skin Horse strip for the absurdly low price of $25, all to benefit the Alzheimer's Research Trust, email me at narbonic at sbcglobal dot net.

Well, not quite. This week is the fifth anniversary of GirlAMatic, so we all did GAM birthday cards. Mine's up today!

http://www.girlamatic.com/comics/mell.php

There is also, shockingly, a new installment of The Chronicles of William Bazillion!

The Match It for Pratchett Strip Sale continues apace, and will keep on going all through the month of April. If you want to own Narbonic and/or Skin Horse strips for the amazingly low price of $25, and also help fight Alzheimer's, now is the time to act. You can email me at narbonic at sbcglobal dot net. Thanks!

When I started Li'l Mell, five flippin' years ago, this was one of the pages I most definitely wanted to do.

www.girlamatic.com/comics/mell.php

And look! A new installment of The Chronicles of William Bazillion! That's a heck of a lot of Nixon, is all I can say.

Thanks very much to everyone who's bought Narbonic and Skin Horse strips for the Match It for Pratchett fundraiser. We've already raised over a thousand dollars, and it's not even April yet! Plenty of strips are still available (seriously, I've got a drawer full), so please email narbonic at sbcglobal dot net if you're interested in purchasing any.

I really, really dig Neil's drawings of Mell on this page. They're some of my all-time favorite Li'l Mells.

www.girlamatic.com/comics/mell.php

And there's a new installment in The Chronicles of William Bazillion! Now with more Nixon than ever!

In other news, our minicomic The Max O'Millions Adventure Society In: The Idol of Svarbald, written by me and drawn by Andrew, got a very nice review on Midnight Fiction. Andrew's hard at work on a sequel, featuring a teenage Max O'Millions in the 1950s, hopefully to be ready in time for Stumptown next month.

Also, the nomination round for The Harvey Awards closes this Friday, March 21. If you're a comics industry professional (and, yes, that includes webcartoonists), you're eligible to nominate comics for the Harveys. Click here for a text version of the ballot. You can type your nominees right into the document and send them in by email this year, which makes it easy to vote.

If you're having a hard time completing your ballot, Andrew and I are not too shameless to humbly suggest that you remember the following comics that were released in 2007:

BEST ANTHOLOGY
Marvel Holiday Special 2007, Marvel Comics

BEST SINGLE ISSUE OR STORY
"Piece of Cake," by Andrew Farago, Shaenon K. Garrity & Lou Kang, Marvel Holiday Special 2007, Marvel Comics

BEST ONLINE COMICS WORK
(LIST TITLE AND WEBSITE URL)
Smithson by Shaenon K. Garrity and Brian Moore (http://www.smithsoncomic.com)

SPECIAL AWARD FOR HUMOR IN COMICS (LIST WRITER
OR ARTIST AND TITLE OF COMIC)
"Piece of Cake," by Andrew Farago, Shaenon K. Garrity & Lou Kang, Marvel Holiday Special 2007, Marvel Comics

***

Thanks for your consideration!

Now with violence!

www.girlamatic.com/comics/mell.php

And there's a new installment in The Chronicles of William Bazillion. See how many portraits you can identify!

This is going to get worse before it gets better.

www.girlamatic.com/comics/mell.php

And there's a new installment in the increasingly Nixon-oriented Chronicles of William Bazillion!

Also, I wrote a column for the first issue of Comic-Con magazine, which is now online. If you want to know what old comic strips I've been reading, now is totally your chance.

Yes! We're back!

www.girlamatic.com/comics/mell.php

And there's a new installment in The Chronicles of William Bazillion! Well, sort of. Okay, Andrew's really gone off the deep end now.

Smithson be here:

www.smithsoncomic.com

Of course I don't manage to get to the lesbian sexual tension until, like, a week before putting the comic on hiatus. That's so me.

There's a new Li'l Mell, too. You know who is not making good life decisions? Sergio.

Oh, and Andrew's got a new installment of The Chronicles of William Bazillion up! This is such an excellent plot development. Bonus points to anyone who can work out the common factor between all the clones.

I've also got a new "All the Comics in the World" column up at Comixology.com. It's about Marty Links. Not only that, but Jason Thompson's new Comixology column, "Manga Salad," just debuted. Go read it!

Tomorrow, this Saturday, I'll be doing my Artist in Residence at the Cartoon Art Museum from 1:00-3:00 PM. If you're in the area, stop in, watch me drawing Skin Horse strips, buy Narbonic books, and enjoy the museum and its currently perfect lineup of shows.

Okay, on to the Overlooked Manga Festival!

( Read more... )

And a new installment in The Chronicles of William Bazillion! This one is...I don't know what to say. Words fail me. I'm just so proud to be married to that man.

In this week's Li'l Mell, Old Sergio makes a very, very dumb move.

And in this week's Smithson, we finally get some damn romantic tension. Sorry about the black and white; color will follow shortly.

By the way, if you enjoy any of these comics, and you write or draw a webcomic (as who doesn't?), please consider nominating them in the Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards. The nomination round is going on now. Go! Nominate webcomics!

With all that said, I regret to announce that, once the current chapter ends, Smithson will be going on hiatus for a while. Brian is expecting a kid and needs to focus on paying work, something I can certainly appreciate, and Smithson doesn't make a silver dime. I haven't decided yet what to do with Smithson, but I do have a lot more of the story to tell. I mean, a LOT. It's kind of ridiculous.

Also, in a few weeks I'm planning to put the Overlooked Manga Festival on hold too. I think I'm finally nearing the end of the list of obscure manga I really like and can get copies of (which is why I haven't done Daigo of Fire Company M, incidentally--believe it or not, the Viz offices are missing a whole bunch of volumes). But I know there are still plenty of overlooked manga out there. That's why I've decided to turn to you, the reader, for the final OMF. If you have a favorite obscure and little-loved manga that I haven't talked about yet, write up a brief recommendation and send it to me at narbonic at sbcglobal.net. I'll run all the Reader OMFs on the last week.

After that, I dunno, maybe I'll get drunk and watch more "Star Trek."

Okay, Overlooked Manga Festival time!

( Read more... )

Li'l Mell's up, a day late but still rad. Neil draws some great rage.

www.girlamatic.com/comics/mell.php

Aaaand there's a new Smithson! With caring and sharing.

www.smithsoncomic.com

Also, I hope you didn't miss this week's Chronicles of William Bazillion, featuring the continually unfolding horrors of the Doomsday Seed Project in Svarbald.

Man, that's a lot of webcomics. Would you like even more webcomics? I've joined a new little cartoonist collective, The Couscous Collective. It's, um, me and my friends. But with links to all our stuff!

I don't know if you've been following my All the Comics in the World column on Comixology.com, but, like so many people deluded into thinking their opinions are interesting, I've been doing a 2007 wrapup. Part Two is up today. You can read Part One here.

Okay, it's a new year, the holidays are over except in Japan (where New Year's means a week of partying), and I'd better get back to the Overlooked Manga Festival. And what better way than with an Overlooked Manga Festival Special Event?

( Read more... )

Yeah, there's a new Li'l Mell this week:

www.girlamatic.com/comics/mell.php

Aaaand a new Smithson. I know, I know, it's not the most original favorite song choice:

www.smithsoncomic.com

And I hope you haven't missed this week's Chronicles of William Bazillion!

That's all from me for now. I'm still out of town, and all I have to offer are webcomics.

Christmas comes early this year!

Smithson isn't in color yet, but I hope you can feel the passion nonetheless.

And over on Li'l Mell, the generous application of more time travel absolutely fails to solve anything.

There's a new William Bazillion this week, too. This installment involves the Doomsday Seed Bank in Svarbald, so you know it's chock-full of excitement.

What with the holidays and whatnot, I'm putting the Overlooked Manga Festival on hold until 2008. Sorry, but even I have to take the occasional manga break.

Is there any problem that can't be solved with MORE TIME TRAVEL?

www.girlamatic.com/comics/mell.php


Also, Andrew's got another installment of The Chronicles of William Bazillion!

Yes! There's a new Li'l Mell up today, drawn by the redoubtable Neil Babra!

And a new chapter in the Chronicles of William Bazillion, continuing the Max O'Millions side story written by me and drawn by Andrew Farago!

Hooray! Comics!

Bonus actual conversation from last night:

Jason: I'm not a foot fetishist! Have I ever put your feet anywhere strange?
Leia: What about that time I found a condom in the bottom of my boot?
Mari: Ew, Jason! Why would you use a condom?
Jason: I didn't want a lot of little boots running around.

That's right: even though Li'l Mell is currently on hiatus, I am participating in next week's Girlamatic crossover event. I got to swap with a couple of my favorite artists, but I think I'm most looking forward to seeing Jason Thompson and Leia Weathington switch comics. Comedy gold, I tells ya.

After a few weeks of guest pinups from Girlamatic cartoonists (thanks, Pancha, Lisa, and Michelle!), Neil Babra and I are back with a new page:

http://www.girlamatic.com/comics/mell.php

Oh, adult Sergio. Will you ever learn?

Also, Andrew's The Chronicles of William Bazillion updated today with more on Andrew's very special War on Christmas.