Up From Genre City

CMYK

This week's Genre City: Plan B is both over one year and less than 24 hours old.

I love it, as I love all things I've been doing recently.  Nothing is awesomer than watching my piddling drawing skills finally start to catch up to my writing chops which, come on, are sizeable.  Ongoing readers will notice the jarring change in "format" in this installment.  By that I mean, this is the first Genre City: Plan B strip in which I gave up trying to draw panel borders and word baloons.  To other long-time readers this is nothing new, as all my most recent comics (Kevin Analog, Kings Of Pop, and cetera) have all panels and word baloons appearing courtesy of Adobe Illustrator.  Which was a welcome evolution, for sure.  This is because this page of Genre City was drawn, I'm thinking, almost a year ago, but first appeared in black and white.  Now, we all know that Genre City: Plan B is a FULL COLOR COMIC in every possible fashion.  And I think you'll agree, even if you've never seen this installment before, it's the color that really kicks a page like this into gear.

Now, the dangerous part.  I finished coloring last night.  Which means the wall behind which no new comics reside is fast approaching.  And that is scary.  I will be working my ass off, as of today, pretty much for the rest of my life.  Boy am I stupid.

Gorilla Sparks

The latest installment of Lonely Information continues the flat out, genre mashup fun with its description of a cowboy slowly galloping through a cluster of mad scientists' labs while gorillas paw through their trash.

How is every single person on Earth not reading this. I honestly don't know what else I can offer you.

A Sad Indie Rock Song Sung By Freaks

I decided, all promotionally, to offer up the entire first Near, Mississippi short story when !Pass launched as the first installment of When Sundays Strike! I'm pretty happy that the story is now accessible to anyone who's interested, especially since maybe only twelve people on Earth have ever read it.

I'm still to this day really impressed with the story, at least as far as what I was trying to do with it. I don't know how much of it came across, but if it does connect, well, I think there's a lot there. I don't want to point every little nuance out, because that's no fun, but, for good or ill, the main gist of the story relies on something in the last page that might be a bit tough to catch on first read. So, go back, read it again, and pay more attention. I wouldn't ask you to if it wasn't worth it.

Paul Thomas Anderson's The Odd Couple

That's how kick ass my fans are, folks. One of my Engine converts took the time to drop me a line about what they thought about all the kick ass stuff I'm offering on !Pass, and, after only one three panel installment she described The Kings Of Pop as having "a definite sort of 'Paul
Thomas Anderson's THE ODD COUPLE' feeling to it at the moment." How much do you just love that?

I'll also say this about the first installment, that first image of Barry Czerniak is one of my favorite things I've ever drawn, ever. Next week? The best thing I've ever drawn after that.

Cultural Gags Now

Yes, I'm rebooting the Kid Insomnia chapter with the latest Genre City: Plan B installment. My longtime readers (hi, you two!) are most likely miffed, and I'm sorry. But, hey, I'm trying to run a daily comics site here. Cut me some mothereffing slack.

Anyway, this gag is one of my proudest moments.

The Cowboy Party

The first two proper pages of Lonely Information seem to me to be, like, such a good hook for the novel and basically Genre City in general. It's got so much oddness crammed into two pages, plenty of funked up juxtaposition, and one of my favorite hooks ever: The Day Before Retirement Is The Most Dangerous Day For Anyone Living In Genre City.

What else is there it say?

Galleys

I suppose you could call this first installment of Lonely Information preliminary footage? Either way, this was one of my favorite !Pass-related tasks thus far. Anyone familiar with my work should already know how much I love doing shit like this. I think it came out looking pretty much perfect, but my favorite touch? That the Lonely Information logo on the interior cover pages has a completely different logo than the dust jacket. Check out any hardcover closest to you and nine times out of ten, you'll notice the glaring chasm between how they decide to visualize the book on the outside and how the decide to visualize it on the inside. No one's noticed it yet, now I'm spilling the beans. Now everyone will know how deep my obsessions run. It's all for your benefit, folks.