Tastes Like Chicken: Back To School

That's right kids, summer is over, back to the classrooms with ya!Read the related humor column here.

Thought you might get a kick out of this. My daughter (just turned 2 a couple sundays ago) has been obsessed/facinated/addicted of/by/to stickers. We have a few sheets of smiley face stickers, and for the last few days I have found one on her hand or arm. I live nearby to work and have the luxury of going home for lunch, the other day when I walked through the door I was greeted by her... and this:Apparently she has contracted some sort of "WalMart Virus".

I'm also very excited to say that you can look for an announcemnt concerning a Zeek And Dent collection very soon (finally! It's only been over a year since it ended). As of now it's gonna be 172+ pages with all 500 comics, each with a little comment/commentary, as well as bonus strips that were never published, alternate versions of strips, and more... stay tuned

Monday! Already?

First up, HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEREMIAH! My little brother turned another year older! See you this weekend buddy....

So did this weekend fly by for you guys like it did for me?

Hard to believe it's already monday, but alas it is. This summer has been a bit more busier that I thought it'd be, between family, work, things needed to be done around the house, etc. Time has been flying by! If you were in the Bangor area this weekend, hope you had a chance to visit the Folk Festival! Amy and I went for the first time (the past years have found us in Rhode Island while the Folk Festival took place up here). Got to see a great band from Zimbabwe and made sure I tried the "Fried Gator Nuggets" (yup... as in alligator... you just don't see that particular food 'round these parts). While I've heard alot of people say they think it Tastes Like Chicken... I thought it was pretty good, it had a certain taste to it that I can't describe, but I'm not sure if it was the gator meat or the oil they fried it in. Either way, throw on some tabasco sauce and them things had bite (ba-dum-dum.....ching).

Thought I'd toss a couple characters that I developed a few years ago, but I just came across them recently and thought to myself "Self, I'd love to do something with these....". Here they are, the silent-only-talks-with-pictures-in-his-speech-bubbles-agile-sticks-to-anything ARAKNID KID! And one of the villians, the crazy-bonkers-rubbery-as-in-bouncy-not-stretchy-acid-spitting-thief GORP!
Image removed while submission is reviewed by Zuda
I've got other commitements to complete (can anyone say "Parable"), but look for these characters in the near future...

Tastes Like Chicken: Whale Watching

This week's topic was chosen after hearing the experience of a coworker and her mom on a whale watching trip. She was mentioning how she thought it was funny that everyone on the boat was silent until someone saw a whale. It was also mentioned that her mom was looking in one direction while the crowd looked in the other, her mom saw a whale, let out a sorta "wow-lookit-that" sound, but when everyone turned to look in the other direction the whale was gone!

I thought to myself "How fun would that be to go on a whale watching trip and constantly go "OOOOH! OVER THERE!" and then when everyone looks yell "PSYCHE!". Then I thought about how funny that would be if SOMEONE else did that, and the crowd couldn't stand the "crying wolf" anymore and tossed that someone overboard.

That was my original idea when I tackled this topic, but after a few unsuccessful attempts at depicting something like that, I went with this:

If you haven't seen it already. go here.

Tastes Like Chicken: Pickle

I mentioned this a few weeks ago, but if you haven't checked out and/or subscribed to Chris Quimby's humor column... yer missing out! This week's topic "Pickle" came from Q himself, and his love for the delicate art of pickling (if you don't know what I'm talking about... READ HIS COLUMN). Without further ado (or plugs):
And if you're thinking what I think you're thinking, yes, "Vlasic" IS the name of a Croatian high jumper.

Moji Madness

I feel like I always start the first post of the week like this.... so why change now...

Hope everyone had a great weekend. My family came up for a visit (from RI) and we made it out to the Treworgy Orchards and tried the maze out. We had a blast! Even though I designed the maze, I still got disoriented a few times... so that was fun.

I've recently been introduced to a "contemporary character design" site called Mojizu. Needless to say, it's brought back memories from grade school, coming up with all sorts of crazy wacky characters. Here's my current collection at the site, a few are ones I did real quick while others were already created:My moniker there is "Evitaerc", so if you wanted to register there, look me up and vote for my characters... I won't complain. Honest.

In other news, my whirlwind past few weeks are coming to a steady pace, so this means (hopefully) more time to work on the Parable submission. I'll be working on page layouts! Woo-woo!

Congrats! & D is for...

Well today (until noon) was the last chance to enter the TLC B-Day Contest. And I'm happy to announce the winners have been chosen! After putting all the email addresses on individual slips of paper, they were then put into a hat and I picked one and Amy picked one. So CONGRATS to P.J. & Jorgen! Winners of an 8X10 TLC print! Winners have been sent an email and should recieve their prize soon. Thanks to everyone who entered!

Now for some art, here's this weeks sketch topic. "D" for "Dragon" as in "Savage Dragon" (created by Erik Larsen):
Thanks for stopping by!

Tastes Like Chicken: Repair

Here we are in this whirlwind week... it's THURSDAY!

This week's idea (like all good ideas) came to me in the shower. We've got a little dent/crack thingy in our tub that needs to be fixed, and as I thought about how it might be fixed and what a repair guy might do to it, I thought about fixing it myself... with...Behold... the power of duct tape.

El Pollo Loco & More Than Sparrows!

Ok, first up, as promised, an arial look at the maze I designed for Treworgy Orchards! EL POLLO LOCO (I know, I know... technically it should be called "El Gallo Loco", but most people know "Pollo" more than "Gallo")This maze features "3 Ways to Maze"!
Level One: Get in, Get Out. With a map- Extremely Easy. Without a Map- Pretty Easy (if the maze is too difficult, people get frustrated and walk through the corn, permanently damaging the maze. So we try to make level one relatively simple)

Level Two- Get in, find and punch your ticket at all 5 punch stations, Get out. The five stations are named as followed: 1.) Nuggets 2.) BBQ 3.)Wings 4.)Pie 5.)Fingers (yum!). Difficulty level on this one is Moderate. For added difficulty, try to do it in numerical order.

Level 3- Get in, find all 5 stations, located Station "X" in the "Unknown Comb Zone", get out. At each of the five stations there will be a little chicken factoid, try to remember them cause one (or more) will help you answer the question when you find Station "X". Difficulty is Hard. Not only is Station "X" located in an unmapped area, the location (and the question) changes frequently.

And there you have it! Not only can you go to Treworgy Orchards and pick apples (in the fall), they have a corn maze, petting zoo, and my favorite... a Dairy Bar! Every ticket to the maze includes a small soft serve ice cream cone.

More Than Sparrows

A week ago today, Jamie Cosley's graphic novel "More Than Sparrows" hit the shelves! I was the cover designer and colorist on this "unique love triangle wrougt with tragedy and consequence minus the Hollywood ending" book, as well as the one who prepared the book for print. I was a bit nervous how it would come out (my background and experience is in Newspaper publishing, this was my first time preparing something like this for another press), but I'm happy to say (and without any bias of course) the books came out great!
Get your copy today!

C is for Creeper

Phew! What a whirlwind o' activity! First up, the "C" sketch topic, the Creeper:This topic kicked my butt. I had no idea who this character was, a quick google search revealed he's a wacked-out bonkers vigilante, so I tried to attempt to capture some of that. Eh... next is D.

So, say you're in Maine (which you very well may be) and you're thinking "Hmmmm... what should I (or we) do this weekend?" Well, the 2006 corn maze is opening at Treworgy Orchards this weekend!!!! El Pollo Loco. Try not to go crazy. I'll post some arial photos of it tomorrow!

Very Important Playground Tips

Hope everyone had a great weekend! We did. My brother Jake and his girlfriend Jen came up for a visit. What happens when 2 brothers decided to randomly shoot some video and quickly edit it with iMovie? Well... something like this:

Hope you enjoy!

Don't forget to enter the TLC Contest! Big ole THANKS! to Aaron Uglum for this cool TLC Bday pic:Until next time!

Tastes Like Chicken: The Beach

Ah... a topic perfect for this current heat wave! Fun in the sun, wind in your hair, sand in your eyes.....Today's toon goes on my "personal favorites" list (yup, just like you there are some toons I like better than others), I can't really come up with a specific reason but it makes me chuckle (and I hope it does that for you too). I think it helps that I was able to reproduce the image that I had in my head (which for me is a rare occurance), maybe it's the carton of milk on the cooler... I dunno. Hope you enjoy it!

(Today's the offical start of the TLC contest, it was announced in today's paper, so to the entries I've already recieved, thanks! To those who haven't entered yet... WHADDYA WAITING FOR?