For those of you who may have checked out my comic MANLY TALES OF COWARDICE online at www.staplegenius.com and been annoyed at its size and unreadbility(as I was), I finally figured out what the hell I’m doing and you can now actually read every page without having to click on anything.
Please give it another shot at:
www.staplegenius.com
Thanks! –Danno Klonowski
Cowtown Comix Fest | Saturday, June 27 | 10:00-5:00 | Tattered Cover Bookstore | 1628 16th Street at Wynkoop | Denver, CO
7000 BC will be in Denver to participate in the first Cowtown Comix Fest, held at the LoDo location of Tattered Cover Bookstore on Saturday, June 27 from 1:00-5:00 in the afternoon. We’ll be joining John, Stan, Noah, and a whole bunch of other talented independent comics creators for this small press event.
![[Chris Monroe Monkey with a Toolbelt and the Noisy Problem]](http://www.cropart.com/CartCon/MonkeyNoisy.jpg)
Chris Monroe, creator of the Minneapolis Star Tribune newspaper’s weekly comic, “Violet Days,” will be reading and signing her new book: “Monkey With A Tool Belt and The Noisy Problem.”
Saturday, June 20, 10:30 a.m.
The Red Balloon Bookshop
891 Grand Avenue, Saint Paul, MN 55105
Tel: 651-224-8320
Join the St. Paul Cartoonist Conspiracy Cell and create a jam comic! It’s easy and fun! Just bring some drawing utensils, an idea for the jam, and a few bucks to get a tasty beverage — the baristas really do appreciate that.
The jam will start promptly at 6:30 and run until…whenever.
The meetings are open to anyone who wants to draw with us, and the results are posted here sooner rather than later.
To join us come to:
Cosmic’s Coffee Shoppe
189 Snelling Ave N.
St. Paul, MN 55104
(Northwest corner of Snelling and Selby)
More not than often we head on over to grab a brew at:
O’Gara’s Bar and Grill
164 Snelling Ave N
St. Paul, MN 55104
(Southeast corner of Snelling and Selby)
Hope to see you there!
   The first issue of FALSE WITNESS: THE MICHELE BACHMANN STORY is now available to purchase online at www.biasedliberalmedia.comÂ
   FALSE WITNESS is the first issue in a limited series about MN Congressperson Michele Bachmann as told in her own words.
  FALSE WITNESS is written and pencilled by Bill Prendergast, with finishes by Lupi, Daniel J Olson, Danno Klonowski, and fabulous cover by Ken Avidor.
Yearbooks – A 2D Cloud Book Launch | Sunday, June 21 | 8 PM | ARISE! Books | Minneapolis, MN
What are you doing this coming Sunday? Spending time with dad? Well, after you’ve said your hellos and ate enough potato salad, stop on by Arise! Books @ 2441 Lyndale Ave. S. Minneapolis around 8 PM. 2D Cloud will be having book launch for Yearbooks — a full colour comic book, which also is a part of ARISE! books Summer Series. Best of all, it’s a free event! Afterwards, sometime around duskish I imagine, there will be a showing of Frank Henelotter’s film ‘Basket Case.’ Hope to see you there!
Yep, it’s a twofer this month. Can you stand it? I think you can stand it:
Irish Double Date Star Trek, or Lupi Gets Punched in the Face by a Republican
Click image for pdf — an insurmountable 3.9 mb!
AND…
Internet Sensations
Click image for pdf — a disreputable 2.5 mb!
We will be finishing up some of the Jams from the event at the Cartoon Art Museum as well as exploring some new ideas.
Description: The San Francisco cell of the International Cartoonist Conspiracy meets twice a month from on the second and last Thursday of the month from 6:30-10PM
location: Church St. Cafe. 260 Church Street San Francisco, CA 94114
Getting there: I have started a thread on the Google group that we can post ideas on getting to the Jam on MUNI, BART and driving/parking. There is not driving/parking info yet since I do not do that, so if you have some knowledge please go and add it.
http://groups.google.com/group/cartoonist-conspiracy-sf/browse_thread/thread/16b2865747c54b36?hl=en
—- Comic Jam ideas at the Google Group: We have started to add pages at the Google group on how to do different types of Comic Jams and there is also a thread to list different ones we have done in the past or might do in the future.
If you still need to join the group, please ask for membership here: http://groups.google.com/group/cartoonist-conspiracy-sf
—- Zine making. I have a couple of our Jam’s in Zine form just about ready to go. I will need some help to print out the master pages to copy if anyone has any resources that they want to donate. The pages would be all ready laid out and just need to be printed actual size and properly centered on the page.
As always we are only as strong as our members.
History: We first did it at the Cartoonist Conspiracy meet on Thursday May 28, 2009 with added printed template layouts on May 31, 2009 at the Cartoon Art Museum Jam.
Idea:This Jam was following up from the Index Card Comic Jam in which we had groups of two or three people join forces to create a story in a non-linear way by drawing each panel on a separate Sticky Notes and then deciding what order to put them in and sticking them to the template that is available on our download section. These type of jams’ strength lie in having less people and more control of the order of the panels helps make a more solid finished story. This might be a good way to develop a story you will re-draw with more elaborate panel boarders or just just what you make.
How does it work: Two or Three people get together and decide on a basic idea for a story. The original time we used the theme “Starting a Band”. Since the creators have no idea going in what will happen they might want to start by drawing a close up of a character or a establishing shot of the setting in pencil. The group works together to shape a story with sometimes having each artist focused on drawing one specific character (like in animated films). After the story is done or close to it another artist (or one of the creators) can go over with pen to solidify the drawings into consistent style.
Materials:
– Light colored Sticky Note
– (optional) Printed comic templates to ‘paste’ down your panels to give them boarders. You can just stick the Sticky Note panels on a sheet of paper and draw the boarders on top.
-Â Regular or Blue pencil. Note the blue pencil on the yellow Sticky Notes with out inking made it very impossible to get a good scan.
– Inking tools.
– Two artist at least.
– A clean table to work on or someplace to stick the notes while your rearrange them.
– (optional) Way to get a random idea. We had printed slips of ideas generated from the website http://seventhsanctum.com/
Sample
– The artist sit down with there idea/theme.
– Decided if each artist will handle only a single character on each time it appears or that all the artist draws everything. It’s your choice.
– The group starts. We recommend having artist start with a close up or establishing shot to show the characters and setting.
– Have a sheet of paper or a clean surface to set down each Sticky Note Panel and you can rearrange them as you go to make a story.
– You might want to wait on adding dialog till after you have an order to place the Sticky Note Panels.
– Once you know what order you can stick the panels to the custom template of sheet of boarders or on a blank sheet of paper. If you work on blank paper, decided if you want to draw the boarders down too.
– Scan and/or copy the art to your website, zine, etc.
Sample Images:
Speed Comic Jam
History: First done at the Cartoon Art Museum Comic Jam on May 31, 2009
Idea: The idea of this jam is to work fast. Some of us artist have a habit of getting stuck on our comics projects and spending too much time. The jam produced interesting results and has some different variations. I could see this being a way to develop an idea with out getting stuck. You sort of just try to draw in ‘real time’.
How does it work: The idea of the jam is that each artist only takes a minuet or two to draw each panel We recommend that artist draw with pen since it forces us to not get too careful and work faster. We worked in a format based on Darwin Cookes’ “New Frontier” which features 3 CinemaScope panels per page. The wider panels requite some more details and storytelling sometimes, but also make the project go faster. We made copies of the template and then tapped them up on an easel.
We did the first jam in pencil with four artist, but that seemed to make it harder to follow, but it might be worth a try. See the variations below.
Materials:
– Printed comic templates. You can use any format you like or none at all, but we are not experience with it that way.
– Art materials, we recommended pens. Sharpies work well.
– Two artist at least
– Someone or Something to keep time. Watch, iPhone, Clock Watcher, etc.
– Easel or wall to put up the pages on. I think it’s better to stand and get lots of energy flowing.
– Way to get a random idea. We had printed slips of ideas generated from the website http://seventhsanctum.com/
Sample:
– Tape up 2, 4 or more of printed templates on the easel or the wall. Make sure you won’t damage the wall with your pens of choice.
– Pick one to a couple of random ideas, or just pick them from the audience or non-participating artist.
– Pick who goes first.
– The first artist draws for two minutes (one minutes is harder) the first panel.
– The second artist continues in the second panel.
– The first artist draws the third panel etc.
– Continue to the last panel on the last page. Can you have the story end on the last page?
Here is a sample of some of our jams by way of Flickr.
• This is my Mike Hales and Roberto who alternated panel by panel…
photo by Rick Lucy
• Variation: (below) Each artist drew their panels at the same time, but only on two pages per person. The theme was “Glam Rock Beach Party”…by Brian Kolm and Mike Hales.
photo by Rick Lucy
• Variation: Lots of people.
More then two people draw. One person per panel.
• Variation: Faster or slower. Use less time per panel or more time.
• Variation (not tried yet): Layered.
One person draws on the panel with a light pencil for one/two minutes. Then another artist goes over with ink for one/two minute. Then another artist adds the word balloons. Another adds the background. It really can be any variation mixed with the ideas above.
and You can have it so one artist starts with the first step and goes panel by panel at one/two minutes of time each and then the second person does not start till the first person moves to the next page.
— by Brian Kolm
P.S. please let us know if try this type of Jam and how your experience was.