Archive for ‘comics’
91 items.
Comic Review: Rival Angels vol. 1
Writer / Artist: Alan Evans
Website: www.rivalangels.com
Plot: Sabrina “Ultragirl” Mancini is a professional female wrestler who gets bumped up from the developmental league to the professional division and is forced to live with three other female wrestlers, nick-named the “Upstarts.” Her roommates are “The Definition of Technician” Krysten Moline, Aussie babe Brooke Lennox, and Sun “Lil Dragon” Wong. Sabrina finds that playing in the major league is a new game for her, and that her opponent in the ring isn’t the only hurdle she has to overcome. Filled with nail-biting edge of your seat action, intense drama and some hilarious moments, this comic has everything you’d want from a story and more!
Even though it’s a webcomic, the first graphic novel collection is available here. Whatever he’s charging for it, it’s worth the price of admission.
Ignore the fact that Alan and I are now friends and are both attending Mid-Ohio Comic Con in October – I was a big fan of this comic long before I even knew who Alan was, and I don’t like wrestling. What I like is the kind of action and pacing that his stories provide, and the interesting and dynamic character relationships that he provides. It’s interesting to see these girls interaction outside the ring one way, but when they’re all thrown into a free-for-all ring match to see who will participate in a TV tournament, there’s no holding back.
Each of the girls has a very distinct personality. Sabrina is overconfident and a little bit of a showboat to the fans. Krystin is a powerhouse with a fan following due to her technical moves. Sun is a firecracker that is quick and likes to get the drop on her opponents (or as she likes to call it, “ninja’d!”). And Brooke is a little talent bombshell that has seduced her way to the top, and will stop at nothing to get what she wants…no matter who stands in her way!
It’s no secret to people who follow the comic on Drunk Duck that I’m a huge fan of Brooke’s, and in fact I have stated many times over that her and I will date her! Alan, being the cheerful sport that he is, was kind enough to give me a cameo appearance in the comic poking fun at my fictional online relationship with another web comic artist, BetaJess (see the 2008 and 2009 Drunk Duck Awards presentation for Best Romance Comic). He tells me that another cameo may be in the works down the road….
If you love action, strong women kicking ass, and some fun plot twists and turns, be sure to check out Rival Angels on the web and purchase the graphic novel for your bookshelf! And I’m not just saying that as a fellow creator, but as a huge fan!
”Comment
@$$hole!: Blind Date 15
September 9th, 2009 |Posted In: blind date, blind dating, comics, dating, drunk duck, online dating, photography, web comics, writing
At least we know that they have normal food….
###
Holy crap, my life has been rather busy lately (and not in a bad way). I’ll just give you a run-down of the last few weeks and a preview of the upcoming month, and then you’ll hopefully get the idea.
So I had a bunch of work projects to get out a few weeks back in anticipation of planning season starting. For those of you unfamiliar with the advertising world, planning season is for the clients that budget based on a fiscal year, and begin allocating next year’s budgets in fourth quarter (Q4). This means that my job goes into overtime and overdrive, trying to plan for several clients at the same time. Meetings, sending out requests for proposals (RFPs), putting together a strategy and a plan, presenting the recommendation to the client, revising the plan based on feedback, and then negotiating and executing the plan are all involved. It can take as little as a month per client – or as much time as several months. Then you spend the rest of the year updating and changing things in the plan, among other common media activities.
On top of this, I’ve been producing a book! The first self-published book for @$$hole! is coming out at the end of September, premiering at Reactor (September 18-20) in Rosemont, Il. It collects the 41 page black and white story of Laura’s 21st Birthday. The book is going to be 52 pages and has an original cover, some new artwork, guest strips, an afterword by the creator (that’s me), and a forward by Josh Elder (Josh from TokyoPOP).
“Why premiere your book at Reactor, and not something larger like Windy-City?” you ask. Well, through my many con appearances I’ve met several of the people who put Reactor together, and they have offered me the opportunity to speak at their convention. In fact, they’ve given me several panels to speak during throughout the weekend. Here’s my panel schedule, for all those interested:
FRIDAY:
8 pm – MAIL ORDER NINJA (A reading with Russell Lissau and Josh Elder)
SATURDAY:
1 pm – A special all-guest artist panel
4 pm – Writing for comics (Collaboration with Steve Horton)
5 pm – Sci-fi fantasy: the art of crafting your world
SUNDAY:
11:00 am – @$$hole! webcomic panel
On top of that and all the tasks associated with printing the book, I’ve also gotten a table at Mid-Ohio Comic Con (October 3-4 in Columbus, OH) with Rival Angels creator Alan Evans. We’ll be hanging out with The Dreamer creator Lora Innes, and several other comic creators. Not sure on any speaking schedule while there, but I’m working on it. More to follow.
In between those two conventions, my family typically takes a trip with other families to a state park in Angola, IN, called Pokagon. It’s like camping, but with showers and cable TV. We barbecue and sing goofy songs during a bon fire, take nature hikes and play cards (or Scrabble). It’s a fun and relaxing weekend. But of course, it means that I need to get a buffer up to make up for the fact that I won’t have three weekends in a row to work on comics.
Then there’s the 2010 con schedule that I’m starting to put together, to get speaking engagements and table space for the new merch that I need to produce. Depending on the reaction to the @$$hole! book, I plan to make some t-shirts and a poster for 2010, and start pre-production on the official @$$hole! collection.
So as you can imagine, I’ve been EXTREMELY busy lately. This should hopefully help explain why I haven’t been posting every week day, like I normally do (I have a lot of reviews in the pipeline, including a bunch of movies [Up, District 9], comics [Rival Angels, Mice Templar], and video games [Dead Space] and more!).
So thanks for your patience and understanding, and I’m very excited about these projects coming out – as well as a few others that it’s a little too early to mention just yet. Stay tuned for more news, reviews, and comics!
Hikari 43
September 8th, 2009 |Posted In: comics, drunk duck, samurai, sci-fi, temple, the temple of a thousand tears, web comics, writing
Holy crap, my life has been rather busy lately (and not in a bad way). I’ll just give you a run-down of the last few weeks and a preview of the upcoming month, and then you’ll hopefully get the idea.
So I had a bunch of work projects to get out a few weeks back in anticipation of planning season starting. For those of you unfamiliar with the advertising world, planning season is for the clients that budget based on a fiscal year, and begin allocating next year’s budgets in fourth quarter (Q4). This means that my job goes into overtime and overdrive, trying to plan for several clients at the same time. Meetings, sending out requests for proposals (RFPs), putting together a strategy and a plan, presenting the recommendation to the client, revising the plan based on feedback, and then negotiating and executing the plan are all involved. It can take as little as a month per client – or as much time as several months. Then you spend the rest of the year updating and changing things in the plan, among other common media activities.
On top of this, I’ve been producing a book! The first self-published book for @$$hole! is coming out at the end of September, premiering at Reactor (September 18-20) in Rosemont, Il. It collects the 41 page black and white story of Laura’s 21st Birthday. The book is going to be 52 pages and has an original cover, some new artwork, guest strips, an afterword by the creator (that’s me), and a forward by Josh Elder (Josh from TokyoPOP).
“Why premiere your book at Reactor, and not something larger like Windy-City?” you ask. Well, through my many con appearances I’ve met several of the people who put Reactor together, and they have offered me the opportunity to speak at their convention. In fact, they’ve given me several panels to speak during throughout the weekend. Here’s my panel schedule, for all those interested:
FRIDAY:
8 pm – MAIL ORDER NINJA (A reading with Russell Lissau and Josh Elder)
SATURDAY:
1 pm – A special all-guest artist panel
4 pm – Writing for comics (Collaboration with Steve Horton)
5 pm – Sci-fi fantasy: the art of crafting your world
SUNDAY:
11:00 am – @$$hole! webcomic panel
On top of that and all the tasks associated with printing the book, I’ve also gotten a table at Mid-Ohio Comic Con (October 3-4 in Columbus, OH) with Rival Angels creator Alan Evans. We’ll be hanging out with The Dreamer creator Lora Innes, and several other comic creators. Not sure on any speaking schedule while there, but I’m working on it. More to follow.
In between those two conventions, my family typically takes a trip with other families to a state park in Angola, IN, called Pokagon. It’s like camping, but with showers and cable TV. We barbecue and sing goofy songs during a bon fire, take nature hikes and play cards (or Scrabble). It’s a fun and relaxing weekend. But of course, it means that I need to get a buffer up to make up for the fact that I won’t have three weekends in a row to work on comics.
Then there’s the 2010 con schedule that I’m starting to put together, to get speaking engagements and table space for the new merch that I need to produce. Depending on the reaction to the @$$hole! book, I plan to make some t-shirts and a poster for 2010, and start pre-production on the official @$$hole! collection.
So as you can imagine, I’ve been EXTREMELY busy lately. This should hopefully help explain why I haven’t been posting every week day, like I normally do (I have a lot of reviews in the pipeline, including a bunch of movies [Up, District 9], comics [Rival Angels, Mice Templar], and video games [Dead Space] and more!).
So thanks for your patience and understanding, and I’m very excited about these projects coming out – as well as a few others that it’s a little too early to mention just yet. Stay tuned for more news, reviews, and comics!
@$$hole!: Blind Date 14
September 4th, 2009 |Posted In: blind date, blind dating, comics, dating, drunk duck, drunk duck awards, online dating, photography, web comics, writing
The DD Awards are coming out this week (started Tuesday, in fact), and this comic was graciously nominated for Best Photo Comic, and Best Socio-Political Comic. Looking forward to the results, as there’s some stiff competition.
Also, be on the lookout for my contribution to the awards presentations: an epic 3 pager (combined into a single page) that falls into the current storyline, and also teases about possible things to come! It’s for the Best Romance Comic category, and should be a hoot!
Also, if you live in the Chicago area, I’ll be attending Reactor Con the weekend of September 18. I have 5 panels at the convention, and I’ll be talking about various topics including writing comics, the artistic approach, crafting a fantasy world, and even a panel about this very comic here: @$$hole! I’ll be premiering the first book there, which collects the Laura’s 21st Birthday storyline – with new original artwork, an afterword by the creator, a brand-spanking new cover, and a forward by Josh from TokyoPOP, Josh Elder! 50+ pages for just $6.
Alan Evans and I will also be attending Mid-Ohio Comic Con in October, and will be hanging out with the very talented Lora Innes (The Dreamer), as well as several other awesome people both from DD and abroad!
More cool announcements next week, and as always there are reviews and comics on the main website.
@$$hole!: Blind Date 13
September 2nd, 2009 |Posted In: blind date, blind dating, comics, dating, drunk duck, drunk duck awards, online dating, photography, web comics, writing
The DD Awards are coming out this week (started yesterday, in fact), and this comic was graciously nominated for Best Photo Comic, and Best Socio-Political Comic. Unfortunately, the comic did not bring home the bacon, but just being nominated is reward enough. Especially for 2 years in a row for Best Photo Comic!
Also, be on the lookout for my contribution to the awards presentations: an epic 3 pager (combined into a single page) that falls into the current storyline, and also teases about possible things to come! It’s for the Best Romance Comic category, and should be a hoot!
Also, if you live in the Chicago area, I’ll be attending Reactor Con the weekend of September 18. I have 5 panels at the convention, and I’ll be talking about various topics including writing comics, the artistic approach, crafting a fantasy world, and even a panel about this very comic here: @$$hole! I’ll be premiering the first book there, which collects the Laura’s 21st Birthday storyline – with new original artwork, an afterword by the creator, a brand-spanking new cover, and a forward by Josh from TokyoPOP, Josh Elder! 50+ pages for just $6.
Alan Evans and I will also be attending Mid-Ohio Comic Con in October, and will be hanging out with the very talented Lora Innes (The Dreamer), as well as several other awesome people both from DD and abroad!
More cool announcements as the week progresses, and as always there are reviews and comics on the main website.
Hikari 42
August 31st, 2009 |Posted In: comics, drunk duck, samurai, sci-fi, temple, the temple of a thousand tears, web comics, writing
It may have been difficult to see in the artwork, but the script said to show that the car was full of explosives. Hence the boom.
Sophia’s assault has begun, and she’s managed to effectively make it inside the courtyard of the Holy Order Temple. Armed to the teeth, it looks like her plan is a one-woman suicide mission to get in and kill Cardinal Milikin.
This sequence went through the most revisions of any in this story, mostly because I wanted to introduce a few new elements into the story – but I figure it would raise too many questions about how the swordsman and company got into the Order Temple in the original story (which also underwent a lot of revisions, and was eventually omitted completely). Perhaps a flashback will occur in the Holy Order sequel….
Olivia and I have started talking about the next story, which takes place during and directly after this story. So it should help in the chronology a bit. After that will be the remaining Sophia stories all rolled into one (including the Bushido prequel that I had been talking about a while ago, which has now been baked into the Sophia story), and then we’ll finish this bad boy off with the sequel.
Don’t fret, though. At the rate we’re going currently, this comic is going to be around for at least another year or so…. 
@$$hole!: Blind Date 12
August 28th, 2009 |Posted In: blind date, blind dating, comics, dating, drunk duck, drunk duck awards, online dating, photography, web comics, writing
My Site and Drunk Duck
And here’s where the waiter’s true colors start to shine. He’s hinted twice now to find out if Trevor and the Cat Lady are married, and Trevor says that they’re not even together (this is a first blind date, which is hardly a date even in the real world). Instantly, the waiter is back over to the cat lady – and with his arm around her, to boot!
I was going to try to have more of a seduction conversation in here, where the waiter was saying sweet nothings in Trevor’s ear…but writing from the hip as I’ve been doing with this story, I just couldn’t come up with anything in the limited space and time.
Anyway, I’m off for the weekend. Need to get stuff done that I’ve been neglecting (like laundry…and drinking). Have a good one!
@$$hole!: Blind Date 11
August 26th, 2009 |Posted In: blind date, blind dating, comics, dating, drunk duck, online dating, photography, web comics, writing
My Site and Drunk Duck
Oh yes…I went there.
Writing this comic without the benefit of a script, outline, or beat sheet has been fun…but I fear that I may drag it on too long. Originally, I just wanted to get 12 pages out of this story. But I’m already on page 11, and they haven’t even ordered food yet! This story may become my big summer blockbuster story arc, and then I’ll save the nude beach and / or the next birthday story for later. I would like to get back into the illustrated stories, since I have some good ones to tell there.
Do you think a back and forth between illustrated and photo would be confusing / frustrating, or would you enjoy something like that? Or, if you had to chose between one format over the other, which would you chose?
Hikari 41
August 24th, 2009 |Posted In: comics, drunk duck, drunk duck awards, samurai, sci-fi, temple, the temple of a thousand tears, web comics, writing
I was working on the text and effects for this page all weekend (on top of several other projects), and just have not received enough sleep because of it. However, Sophia is certainly starting her assault on the Temple. Soon we’ll find out if her plan works or not. We’re coming up on the end of this story, so it’s an exciting time.
No new news to report today. Check back tomorrow for some reviews and stuff. I need to crash.
@$$hole!: Blind Date 10
August 21st, 2009 |Posted In: blind date, blind dating, comics, dating, drunk duck, drunk duck awards, online dating, photography, web comics, writing
Oh man, what a week. I’m so exhausted at the moment, and I have so much left to do yet. Granted the book’s done, and I’ll hopefully have that back in early to mid September, but I’ve replaced it with other projects and scripts in the pipeline. Exciting stuff that I’m looking forward to promoting more later, as they become more tangible.
So here we find out what the waiter has been doing all this time…and it’s not “excellent service.”
Have a good weekend, everyone!