Tumblrerrrerr

Hi Friends,

ALERT:  I will be using tumblr for my main blog from now on: freddy comics.

In News:

Chuck opened up 3 month subscriptions again!  (To all subscribers who were hoping for a Lou last month, sorry!!!  I will have a new issue this next time, I PROMISE.  And it will be awesome.  Other deadlines have been creepin' on me.)

And good friend Steve Bissette (he's kind of like our comics Dad, or guardian angel, I think) just wrote this amazing thing.

love,
mm

Again

Doing the daily strips after a looong break.



sketchbook page



And here's a little peek at that new comic...



BABIES!

Momomomomomoooo

GUESS WHAT

Here's a new comic strip featuring Freddy and Momo, drawn by my close friend, Mo Oh, who is a mind-blowingly talented artist.  I love Momo (and Mo) so much.  This comic hits me deep in the heart. (Click on it to read).

More Things:

I am working on a mini-comic right now that Chuck will be printing, as part of Oily Comics.  Right now Oily Comics is just The End of the Fucking World, which you should read if you haven't already.  The new one just came out.  I did a little drawing for the front.  I love these one-dollar comics.

CONVENTIONS!
We are now definitely going to CAKE, MECAF, and TCAF.  I am also going to Mocca, where I will be seen hovering around the Secret Acres table (which will have Sean Ford's collected Only Skin!!!)  and eating Barry's snacks.
I'm super excited for convention season!  Friends!  Comics!

MUSIC
I am trying to spread the word about this dude, Thomas Patrick Maguire,  because this album is amazing.

WHAT ELSE
I can't think of anything right this second.
I am addicted to tumblr, been doing that a lot lately.  And slowly trying to wean myself off of the internet a little.

xo
mm

Haaaaay

I've been taking a break from doing the daily strips, in case you haven't noticed.  For right now.  But I started to put them all on a Tumblr, where they go up twice a day, if you feel like reading them again!  I'm in that weird place with my next project where it's all in my head, and I've written about it, but it's just sort of cooking in there.  So while it's in there I've been trying to do some other projects to occupy myself.

Like, redrawing more comic pages!  I think this is a really awesome thing to do while I'm thinking about how I want to draw my next project.  I want to be a better cartoonist, and I want to work hard and spend time on each panel.  So I decided to copy Pascal Girard, whose work is deceptively simple.  It was HARD.  But fun.  It's copied from page 21 of his book Bigfoot.  I decided to do inkwash, because I wanted to practice that (the original is digitally colored...)





Here are a couple other things...

A few months ago I submitted this as a rough draft to the New Yorker.  Maybe I'll try coloring it...



And I made this painting for my friend Ramona.   She's almost 3.  She wanted a painting of a Green Kitty with Clovers.  I love this kid!




It was a trade for this awesome portrait that her dad, Ryan Spahr, who is an amazing tattoo artist in Mechanicsburg, PA, did for us.

Mr. Duck Man

I subbed in my mom's pre-k classroom yesterday. It was so awesome. Too much cuteness. Nathaniel and I drew this comic together. I think it might be the most hilarious comic I've ever seen. I don't know why.

Big Food

Last night I had a dream about giant boxes of Ritz Crackers and Honeycomb in a huge store. SO I drew a huge box of cereal in today's comic.

Also, I'll be at the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival this weekend! With my buddies Chuck Forsman, Sean Ford, Joseph Lambert, and Jose-Luis Olivares. It's seriously the best show all year, in my opinion. It's the third year, and it's starting to get bigger so...

I'll be there with Freddy Stories, which incidentally received a lovely review from Rob Clough on the Comics Journal today. He always is so thoughtful and thorough, and I was really excited to get reviewed by him!

I'll also have a little mini of some of the daily strips (in full color!)

AND maybe some tiny Freddy figurines...

New Store, and a Print for Sale!

Dear Readers,

I have my very own store now! Chuck is still selling some of my stuff. But in my store, you will see a couple new things.

One, some original art, of the daily strips that I have been posting,

and Two, this print (shown below) ! It's 8.5 x 11, full color (watercolor original). 12 bucks. If you order this now, it will be a little while before it comes, as I get it printed. But don't worry! It'll come!

I know this is the same time last year that Chuck posted his first amazing print, the Indiana Jones one. Basically, it's been a year, we've been to Providence and back (it didn't work out so well), and we are here in Hancock because we want to be cartoonists. Because that's what we love, it's who we are, all of that. We have a whole studio here, we're renting my mom's house, and there's lots of nature around which ruuuules. Chuck is working on his book, and I've been trying to be my own personal saleslady and the beginnings of a second Freddy book are in my brain.

So, to try and make our dreams come true, we are being our own bosses out here. But there's still rent and all of that, and I'm mostly selling this print to pay off some bills for a recent hospital stay.

So yeah! Also, if you buy a Freddy Stories in the next 2 weeks (by October 21), I will throw in a free little original watercolor drawing!

lots of love

Melissa

Freddy Stories

Available for pre-order!!!

Aaaaand it's getting closerrrrr

I'll be doing a reading at Spxplosion 2011 at Atomic Books in Baltimore! (Holy moly, I can't believe I'm on the same poster as these amazing people...)

I sent the files to the printer. Now we wait. Today Chuck and I are going to work on a website for me, and a preview will be up soon of the book for your viewing pleasure....

comics comics comics

Kids!

Rob Clough just reviewed a bunch of CCS anthologies, including the Kids anthology that Jose-Luis Olivares and I edited together, and the new Werewolf anthology which I have a piece in. Rob is so thoughtful and awesome, I always love reading his reviews....

My Freddy book is so soon! Aaaaaaaaah!!!! I'll post a lil' preview along with the cover soon...oh my god...it's going to be so crazy to get a pallet of 1000 books....I'M SO EXCITED

It'll be at SPX!!!

also....check this out! wowsers.

love

mm

Progress Report

Hi Strangers,

Working all day on the 'puter is sort of burning me out of the internet. Which is not a bad thing I guess.

I've been drawing Freddy pages:

I'm trying something new this time that I'm really excited about. I'm not penciling nuthin'.

Just drawing straight in ink, looking at thumbnails. I kind of feel like this is how I'm meant to draw. I've been thinking about Lynda Barry's Marlys strips a lot. I don't know what her specific process is with these, but there's a life in them that I love, that seems like she just drew it straight from her brain. Sometimes I feel like I only get Freddy's expression right the first time, and the more I draw it over and over, the more detached I feel from her.

So that's what's happening.

In other news;

I'm a total Gleek now, like seriously obsessed, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Ask Chuck. I talk about the characters on Glee like they are real people.

My favorite color is green

And our cat eats doritos.

Love

mm

'Bout to Barf

HOLY GUACAMOLE

I GOT A XERIC

Get ready for some new freddy stories in a REAL BOOK!

Thankyou, I love you all.

I have big ideas for this...

lots of new content, some different type stuff, I'll tell you more later.

right now I feel like

Pastime

Lumberjackets

Also, Emely's making comics! They're awesome!

Today at New Urban Arts we made lumberjack shirts out of paper, and a saw out of cardboard, to prepare for cutting down the giant paper mache tree in the middle of the studio. I can't believe how lucky I am to be a part of that place. It's insane.

Fall

I haven't done this yet this year...but I can remember that brown, smoky smell when you're covered in leaves.

Halloweener

So, after a super inspiring talk with my friend Emely on Saturday, and after a couple weeks of adapting to living in a new place and feeling a little weird, I have made a promise to myself to DRAW MORE AND ALL THE TIME. I think sometimes I wait until I feel totally comfortable and happy to draw, but also sometimes drawing makes me feel comfortable and happy, so when I'm not drawing at all, I become static and I think too much. So Emely and I made a pact to make more work. I gotta draw more Freddy stories! And I gotta make something new for BCGF!!

In other news, Halloween was awesome. We danced like crazy with awesome friends, and we dressed as Hall and Oates, which was extremely satisfying for some reason.

(vote for us on gawker!!)

Here's a drawing of Freddy on Halloween. Her costume is inspired by my friend Jori's.

Also yesterday I stabbed myself pretty bad with a knife while I was trying to carve a pumpkin, and I put a band-aid on it, and then we went to see The Social Network and I looked down at my hand and blood was dripping all over the place. Like a horror movie! So Halloween-y! A really nice security guard who reminded me of a milkman from the 1930s patched me up. It was great. Thank you, mister.

And in conclusion, here are some screenprints I made in a rubylith workshop with the incredible Jean Cozzens. It's from a photo in an old National Geographic of workers at Pringle's Mill in Iverness, Scotland. They are mixing dyed wool together.

Stuff to Read!

See on the right where it says "Read some comics"?

Click on it to read some choice stories from my two Freddy minis. The first book has been redrawn for the Xeric application.

It's not new really, but it's there.

You know what is new? My mom found a little snake in the basement and I picked it up to put it outside and it bit me. We're pretty sure it's a milksnake and not poisonous. But I still thought I was going to die.

Too bad it was a milksnake and not milksteak.

Milk Steak from dalboz on Vimeo.

Xeric

The application is in!!!

Now I wait. Here's the cover...

Also, I'm not going to MICE in Boston tomorrow anymore... I suddenly got overwhelmed that we're moving to Providence NEXT WEEKEND and I want to spend more time with Ma while I'm here.

BUT Chuck is still going, and Sam Gaskin, and Jose-Luis Olivares. And they are amazing amazing amazing. (My books will still be at their table.) Sorry MICE! Maybe next time.

Painting

A little one.  Miiiight be a preview for a Xeric cover...

The End and the Beginning

So

I've decided to stop printing the first Freddy mini-comic. For a good reason! I just finished redrawing it for my Xeric application. The book that I'll print next will have all the stories I've done so far, plus some new ones. If I get the Xeric it'll be all fancy, and if I don't it won't be as fancy, but it'll still be there.

And I'll be at SPX! September 11th and 12th! With my buddies! It's my first convention with the new Freddy comic! I love SPX. I'm so excited to party in the hotel all weekend longggg....

Also here's a sample from my story for Robyn Chapman's new Anthology "Make".

Sharing Time

This is a tiny sculpture from my thesis at Hampshire College, in 2006. It's Freddy.

Other things I'm doing:

-sweating

-drinking as many cold beverages as is humanly possible

-swimming as much as I can

-getting things ready to apply for a Xeric in September!

-doing a Comics Camp in Springfield, VT next week for 10-12 year olds. Exciting! We're going to have a mini comic convention at the end. I'm really loving Richard Thompson's Cul de Sac strips right now, because Petey is at Comics Camp...

-reading Jaws by Peter Benchley! (It's not as good as the movie, but whatever). I just reread Cruddy...boy, I could read that book again and again. It's incredible.

-thinking about the future. I'm not very good at this part. But we're leaving Vermont at the end of the summer, to begin the rest of our lives...and we're still not sure where it is we want to be.

-listening to Real Estate, and other summery music...