We’ll be at MicroCon 2007 this Sunday. MicroCon is the little sister convention of the wonderful FallCon, both run by Midwest Comic Book Association. They are gracious and generous hosts to cartoonists, and offer free tables to all cartoonists who request them in time at both their conventions. Please stop by and see us and check out the fun. Our table will be run by Danno, Bud Burgy (selling copies of his cool new anthology Muscles and Fights) and myself. Please check out the MNCBA site for the latest info.

MCBA MICROCON COMIC BOOK CONVENTION
Sunday April 29, 2007 10AM to 4PM
Minnesota State Fairgrounds
Progress Center
1621 Randall Ave
Saint Paul, Minnesota 55108
(Enter through the main gate on Snelling Ave, go 2 blocks and go right)

Chapter seven of Kevin Cannon’s epic 288 hour comic, Far Arden, is online, and continues to get better and better… Kevin is blowing me away with this stuff every month. You would think, producing this stuff under such time constraints (all chapters drawn in 24 hours) that something would suffer… art, storytelling, plot, composition, layouts, design… hell, lettering! Kevin continues to make it all flow perfectly and beautifully, and make it look deceptively easy.

Click here to start reading at chapter seven.

Click here to start at the beginning.

Click here to read more about Kevin Cannon’s mad, mad project.

Click here to cheer Kevin on in his comments.

I wrote the other week about my love of the Fountain Pentel, and how I was about to acquire a replacement for it from Wet Paint.

I have now purchased it and tried it out, and it is a wonderful thing!

The new Fountain Pentel actually isn’t called a Fountain Pentel… it is called a Tradio. The flexible tip is the same as the one on the Fountain Pentel (although it is black instead of white)… it gives you great versatility in the thickness of the line you are drawing depending on how much pressure you apply. This is what really sets it apart from other pens.

Other than that the Tradio is quite different… and quite an improvement over the previous model.

Unlike the Fountain Pentel, the Tradio is a refillable pen. Although I was hoping this might mean I could fill it with whatever ink I wanted to, this is not the case. The refillable cartridge is quite large and enclosed… and it includes a new nib. Essentially, the refills are the whole pen, minus the case. You could, if you were inclined, just buy the refills and use them as pens… not that I recommend it, as it wouldn’t be very comfortable to hold.

The refills aren’t terribly cheap, but they are very comparable to the price of a Fountain Pentel when they were still manufactured.

One of the major problems with the old Fountain Pentel was that it was essentially a felt tip, and the tips would often dry out and kill the pen. So far, that problem seems to have been eliminated with the Tradio… the ink, which is free-flowing liquid rather than ink soaked into a felt tip mass (as was the case with the Fountain Pentel), flows smoothly and easily.

The ink is also seems to be blacker than the ink in the Fountain Pentel… hopefully this means I won’t experience the fading issues I had with the ink in the Fountain Pentel, although I won’t know the answer to this for years.

All in all, the Tradio is a wonderful and relatively inexpensive pen… I can’t recommend it highly enough. You can order one from Wet Paint here (which I believe is currently the only North American distributor for these wonderful pens).

APE | Saturday, April 21-Sunday, April 22 | 11:00 am-7:00 pm/11:00 am-6:00 pm | The Concourse | San Francisco, CA

7000 BC is returning to APE in San Francisco. There will be new comics, some seeing the light of day for the first time — stop on by table 109 to check out offerings from the group.

The Alternative Press Expo is this coming weekend (April 21st and 22nd) in San Francisco.

As usual, the SF Cartoonist Conspiracy will be vending, but this year we will have two tables. Booths #254 and #255 will be conspirator run, check the floor plan here.

In preparation, some bay area cartoonists will be doing a 12 hour comic jam at Mission Creek Cafe on 21st and Valencia in San Francisco. Some of us will be starting at 9am, but anyone is welcome to join us for as long a period as they like. We’ll probably all be at the tables in the back of the cafe.

I’m aiming to pencil, ink, and letter at least 6 pages for my book. Here’s to hoping.

Sunday, April 15 | Noon | North Fourth Art Center | Albuquerque, NM

We’re back in Albuquerque at North Fourth at 4904 Fourth Street NW (map here) for April. It’s going to start up around noon and there will be another jam going on over the course of the day. Business around 4:00 to allow time for dinner at Garcia’s across the street.

Questions? Send an email.

Come join us for the April meeting of the North Carolina WebComics Coffee Clatch. This month’s meeting will be held at the Morning Times in Raleigh, NC on April 22nd from 2 – 4 PM. That’s on a Sunday, so parking shouldn’t be too bad. I think there is also a parking deck either next door or at least near by. Here’s a Google MAP

We will also discuss plans for a “coffee-related first anniversary book of the NCWCCC“. The Clatch’s first anniversary will be in August.

As part of his Making Comics 50 State Tour, Scott McCloud will have a discussion and signing at Dreamhaven in Minneapolis this Wednesday, April 11th at 7:30.

Regardless of whether you can make it to that, I highly recommend Making Comics… it is the best book I’ve read on the subject, and has a lot to offer the experienced as well as the novice cartoonist.

On Thursday April 12, 2007 San Francisco Cartoonist Conspiracy Cell will be having our next gathering at a new location, Muddy Waters Café. This will be the last JAM before APE so it’s a good time to get feedback on your in-progress books and mini-comics before you put them into production.

The new location can easily be reached from BART/MUNI. The café is funky and high-energy and they stay open past 9pm (till 11).

The new location is:

For more information, comments, questions …. e-mail Doc Popular.

Linda Medley, the artist and creator of the comic book Castle Waiting has posted an interesting review of the Ackerman Pens’ Pump Pen (One Fussy and Messy Little Pen! Is It Worth It?). Linda gives a detailed review that should be great reading for any artist interested in different drawing tools , especially those interested in classic dip/nib pens. She illustrates the review with examples she created with the pen for her current in progress comic book.

She also includes a section Make your on DIY Pump Pen.

You can read it HERE.