News Blog: 2002 Archives

12/11/02

All over but the cryin'

Wow.

So Issue five is done. The series is done. All that's left to do is remaster the art and put out the trade paperback.

And now I've totally got empty nest syndrome.

Seriously -- I hardly know what to do with myself! What's that? Write more comics, you say?

Well, there'll almost certainly be more Vogelein stories, unless I suddenly get hit by a bus or something (knock wood) but probably not for a while. For right now I need about a six month break. I've been hard at work at this thing for five years. Five years. One issue a year. I joke and say that this was like my Master's Thesis, and in a lot of ways, it really was. I attended night school in Comics for five years.

Much like any graduating senior, I am feeling the need to par-tay a little. To take a real Christmas vacation and make cookies and decorate the house, rather than come home and sit directly at the drawing board for another six hours every day after work. To see friends I've been neglecting for months because I've been working on the comic. To finally get out to visit old college buddies in Syracuse. (Hi, Winklers!) And, most importantly, to finally get out my instruments and play some music for a while.

Y'see, this time of year is my absolute favorite time of year to play Irish music. I mean, Mike and Tahm's traditional Fourth of July Park Lake Pickin'Party is a thing of drunken wonder, but this is really what I like best.

I first learned Irish music at this time of year, back in 1998. I'd been a fan for years and years, and had poked at the edges of it, but I'd never actually learned session culture and etiquette. There's something about winter sessions, when the pub is dark and full of soft amber light and the smell of wet wool and malty beer, when the patrons come in and stamp off cakes of dirty snow and exclaim gladly over the music instead of cursing us for putting off the football game, when the pub itself is an oasis of warmth and calm in a frozen, dreary, stressed-out weary town.

And everyone gets cabin fever and gets out the fiddles and heads to the session. The dark, warm, heady pints fortify the tunes and give the players a kind of aggressive fire you just don't see in summer tunes, as though they're trying to drive out the winter demons.

And the craic is mighty.

And if you need me, that's where I'll be.

12/7/02

Web Site revamp

So the web site's undergoing an overhaul. Or maybe overgoing an underhaul, I dunno. The changes I've instituted so far have been entirely invisible, but they'll definitely allow me to make new changes much more quickly. Ah, the wonder of include files. The Fiery Studios side of things will be getting a complete overhaul (The design is done, and I hope to have it up over the holidays) along with big additions to the gallery over there.

12/5/02

Issue 5 is here!

Issue 5 is done and in the Online Store. It's out at stores today, as well.

And hey, drop me a line and let me know what you thought of the series!

12/1/02

Mid-Ohio Con!

I went to Mid Ohio Con and had a blast. I shared a table with Layla Lawlor, (bless her heart for sharing!) and -- despite my worst fears -- broke even on the whole weekend. We had this spiffy new idea where six artists -- Paul Sizer, Pam Bliss, Matt Feazell, Layla, Sean Bieri and I -- all contributed art to this "Small Press Passport". If you got all the artists to sign the Passport, you got a free sketch. The response was great, especially since Sean hand-pulled (!) all the covers with silver ink, and they really did look like passports!

And then we repaired back to Pam and Nick's room and laughed like a pack of howler monkeys at their Hearse brochures. Uh... you just had to be there.

11/15/02

Issue 5 News

So Issue 5 is done and out at the printers. Quebecor tells me that I'll get mine in time for Mid-Ohio Con. If you're gonna be there, make sure to stop by, because you won't be able to get it in stores until the following Wednesday (First Wednesday in December).

11/13/02

Passports!

There's gonna be a cool promo for this year's Mid-Ohio Con... I and four (five?) other artists are getting together to make a little minicomics Passport -- a guide to the best in Small Press comics! I'm not gonna divulge the list yet, but suffice it to say you won't be disappointed!

11/03/02

So where the heck has Jane been?

Whoosh. The last several weeks have been a total whirl. I'm trying to forcibly calm my life down, as I just can't take the pace much longer. The last time I posted was about four weeks ago. In a span of only fourteen days, the following happened: I did seven (!) library talks, helped plan my mom's birthday dinner, totalled my car, found a new car, wrestled with the insurance company over both cars, failed to get to a friend's wedding because of the car wreck and had to deal with that, started work on my church's website and had to attend two meetings for my CoHousing Association.

In the two weeks since then, I've attended Motor City, (which involved cleaning my filthy house for Layla's visit), started to plan for Mid-Ohio Con, attended four more CoHousing meetings, finished the dialogue wrangling on Issue Five, did a signing at Green Brain Comics and managed to get the rest of the car woes hammered out. Knock wood.

Jane. Is. Exhausted.

So that, dear reader, is why there have been no darn updates recently. When I finally get my center back, there will be more.

I'm also starting a massive site overhaul on both the Vogelein side and the Fiery Studios side. I think that dribs and drabs will be up as they're finished, rather than wait for everything to be completed at once. One thing I will be doing shortly is putting up the original illustrations I did for Call of the Wild and Alice in Wonderland. Then I'll be putting a whole new face on Fiery Studios -- it's about time; the front end hasn't changed a lick since 1998. So keep your eyes out... things will be changing.

11/02/02

Motor City Wrap-Up, Part two

I gots fans! hee hee hee So Shane and Sara Goodfellow, whose fan letters were printed in Issue #3, done a really super nice thing for me. They live clear up in Sarnia (2-3 hours away, depending on bridge traffic) and drove out to the con on Sunday. Sara, sadly, couldn't make it -- so she sent me a big bag full of Canada! The care package was full of all the yummy Canadian snacky treats that I love to fill up on when I go to visit friends in Kitchener-Waterloo: Smarties, President's Choice Soda and Key Lime cookies (the bag didn't last three days...) and Digestive Biscuits! Thanks again, guys! I'll spend an extra couple of days at the gym, but it's worth every minute.

11/1/02

Motor City Wrap-Up, Part one

Motor City comicon was a real blast. Attendance was light, but there were a whole lot of fabulous creators there, and hanging out with the gang made it all worthwhile. Layla Lawlor drove up from Illinois and camped out at my place for the weekend. It was a lot more fun having another artist to drive up with, and Layla finally got to see Michigan -- at least the inside of one of our convention halls. Wendi and Sean Strang-Frost have a new couple of minis out and are branching off into illustrated prose, with quite exciting results; Pam Bliss brought along her newest Hopelessly Lost But Making Good Time, the definitive gide to making minicomics; Matt Feazell had his usual brand of fabulous minis and cool Cynicalman paintings, Sean Bieri brought me the most beauutiful new art prints made on his Print Gocco (a little Japanese tiny silkscreen machine) in (gasp) 6 colors! Each one of those colors needed its own screen... amazing. Suzanne Baumann was spotted among us, helping devour basketsful of bread at La Shish, Jen Hachigan brought not one but two new issues of her minicomic, Lore; and Paul Sizer was there to show off two (!) softcover TPBs of Little White Mouse, along with the initial issue of the third series, Open Space. At La Shish, we passed around many sketchbooks, doing the Jam Sketch thing, and even did a jam comic on a piece of pita bread. Fun!

10/15/02

Rassa-frassin flingin'-flangin herna-nerna-nernin' PAYPAL!

The ^%$#^% Geniuses down at Paypal decided to dink with their store system again, effectively rendering my Online Store useless again. It's fixed now, but only AFTER I was only alerted to this fact when two people (international customers, no less) alerted me that it was down. Thanks to David from Oz and Corey from Canada. Bonus stickers in your orders, guys.

10/12/02

I did some long overdue changes to the site today. The Guestbook is FINALLY updated, there's a new "Front Door" image on the Vogelein site, (I hated the old one), and you can now buy many of the prints on the Fiery Studios side by using Paypal. More updates... eventually.

9/30/02

Issue 4 will be in stores on Wednesday. I feel the need to apologise that it shipped a week late -- many factors contributed to its delay; most of them screwups on my part. Sorry, gang.

You can order it now in the Online Store.

9/21/02

Okay. So I'm sure that most of you who come to read this page have absolutely no desire to read about my rants against the state of the world today. So, I've removed my most recent politically-driven post and placed it on the Janerblog, where if you're interested, you can read it, and get some Peace Activist links, too.

9/20/02

With luck, #4 will be in stores this Wednesday.

9/10/02

More Issue Five News

It's done.

Tonight I finished Issue #5. I find it somehow fitting in a strange sort of way -- It's kind of a complete circle. #5 got off to its real start the week of September 11th last year... I'd taken a full week off of work, starting the 14th, to go to SPX in Bethesda. As everyone knows, the show was cancelled, but I still had the week off. I wasn't feeling like working anyway, so I took the week off and basically spent the entire time brain-jacked into CNN. The constant stream of news was oddly numbing, and I got a ton of work done on the comic. I didn't want to cope with real human beings, and the quiet womb of creativity afforded me what little solace could be found in those days.

To commemorate the anniversary, tomorrow I'll be participating a peace march headed up by the Ann Arbor Ad Hoc Committee for Peace and many of the local Islamic organizations. We'll hold candles and walk single file through the streets, bearing signs that say "Our Grief is not a Call For War".

9/05/02

Printer Woes

Oy.

There's a very big, very important 2-page spread at the end of Issue #4. It being a 2-page spread, it's fairly clear that the first page of the spread should be on the left. I, however, seem completely incapable of counting, so the spread wound up on opposite sides of the same page. Siiiiigh.

9/02/02

What I did on my Labor Day Vacation

I labored.

No, seriously, folks.  I got this close to finishing the artwork on V#5.  I pencilled the last page, but I'm not entirely satisfied with what I saw, so I'm letting it sit for a while, and am going back and making fixes in the rest of the artwork.

You see, one of the benefits of taking a year or so to complete a single issue is that you get to really be anal retentive about the art.  I am enjoying this luxury immensely.  Why?  Because ever since people have started telling me that they really like this little faerie tale, I've been totally sweating the ending.  I've got a wallop to deliver to the reader, and I've got to make sure that all the facial expressions come through correctly, or I'm not going to stick the landing, and this crazy, twisting gymnastic vault of a story is going to be pretty, but all for naught.

So last night I've got the pages to #5 all in a stack, and I'm going back and checking the faces.  I was heard to mutter several times throughout the night: "What was I thinking?!"   "Was I asleep when I drew this?"  "When did I completely lose my sense of facial structure?!"  "Who is this grey freak and what has she done with my heroine?"  So suffice it to say, I spent a number of hours patching faces, eyes and lips to make them look passable.  Not better, passable.  I am so glad I'm ahead of schedule, 'cause I'm not close to done, yet.  I did make Messana cry with the second to last page yesterday.  No dialogue yet, and he already started to cry.  This is a good sign.

Another thing that I found out is how very very much I like my new style. I've mentioned here before how bloody long it takes me to finish a page.  We're talking an average of 16 to 24 hours per page, not counting pencilling, scanning, lettering and pasteup on the computer.  They're fully painted, and take forever to finish.  For the epilogue of the book, I decided to try a new style of painting, one that was way more watercolor-dependent, instead of the thick, wet-on-wet style I've used throughout the first four issues.  I also chopped the pages down to 9 x 12" instead of 11 x 17" and started working at just about half the previous size.  The result?  I love it.  Pages are cracking along at 8 hours apiece, including pencilling.  That's a savings of about 20 hours a page.  The people I've shown it to actually like it better than the original style, and once it's reduced to black and white from the payne's grey and that I use, you'll hardly be able to tell.  It's a little more black-line dependent, but not by much.

As I was going back and fixing the faces, I had to work in my original style again, and found myself cursing myself.  "Why did I torture myself like this for five years?  I'd be twenty issues in by now, if I'd only gone with this other style, first!"  Still, my muse she is inscrutable.  Live and learn.  I have, indeed, learned.  When I was back to the old style it felt like I was painting with Q-tips instead of brushes.  I'd lost that much control.  So suffice it to say that any and all new V issues will be in this new style.

Something else that I did was count all the pages in #5.  It's currently at 31.  This means that there will be no black separation page between the end of the main story and the epilogue.  Sorry.  It's either skip that, or sacrifice a page of story, and I'm simply not willing to do the latter.   There'll be an additional page and poem in the collected TPB.  There will also only be room for one single page of notes, printed inside the back cover in tee-tiny text.  I'll put the notes that the story can't live without in the issue itself, and then offer more complete notes on the website, or free by mail to anyone that doesn't have access to the web.  The expanded notes will also be included in the TPB.

So that's about it for what's going on with #5.  Look for it in stores worldwide  in November.

And dude, Jerry Lewis has gained some serious weight. He looked like a big, squidgy charicature of himself at this year's Muscular Dystrophy Telethon.

8/25/02

Issue 4 news

Four is done and proofed and sitting in the hopper ready to go out to the printers. It'll probably go out in a week or so, after I get my check for #3 from Diamond. I'm tight enough on cash right now that I'll need the extra boost to get it printed.

Sadly, it doesn't look like I'll be making it out to The Small Press Expo like I'd hoped. I couldn't get anyone to drive with me to split the costs, and I couldn't get a table because the 2001 show never happened, and everyone with 2000 tables got one automatically this year. So.... I'm falling back and regrouping for Mid-Ohio and Motor City, both this fall.

In other news, the reason why I'm so broke right now is because I bought an imaginary condo. It's not built yet, so it's imaginary. I'm telling people that I'm going to have to come up with an imaginary friend to imaginary housesit my imaginary condo.

It's a CoHousing development, if anyone's wondering. You can read more about CoHousing here, if you're interested. CoHousing is the radical idea of a planned community where people share things in common so that their individual houses don't have to be so big. They cluster their buildings close together to minimize the impact on the environment, and have tons of amenities in the common house that individuals couldn't afford to have separately: A gym, a game room, spare bedrooms for guests, a big kitchen and common area, home-schooling and play areas for kids, a big-screen TV. It's a really super idea and I can't wait to move in. In the meantime, I get to help plan what the community will look like, pick the name, and help choose the amenities our community will have. It'll be a interesting experience, to say the least.

8/13/02

Are you a Happy Cog?

Working for the man? Check out this new web store, The Happy Cog. An ex-coworker and I came up with the idea, and it only seemed fitting.

8/12/02

#4 is on the way, #5 almost done.

Issue #4 is out being proofed by Jeff Berndt right now... it will go to press within the next 2-3 weeks, and will ship in September. #5 is in the final stages of being painted and is on track to ship in November.

8/12/02

Busted Store.

My Online Store was broken, for who knows how long. Apologies to anyone who tried to order and couldn't; it should be fixed now.

It seems that Paypal made some sort of code switch in how they run their free shopping carts; it was awful nice of them to let me know when their product stopped working.

Thanks to Diligent Vögelein fan Vicki for the heads-up that it was broken.

8/3/02

Word From Neil Gaiman

This quote is taken from Neil Gaiman's Weblog. If you haven't given the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund a couple of bucks by this point, do yourself and them a favor and jet over to their site. At least buy a bumpersticker or something. These guys are fighting for your civil rights, too.

"Well, I'm not going to write the essay, not at this time of night after five hours of conference call. But I'll quote from the District Attorney in Texas, in his summing up to the jury who recently sentenced a comic store clerk to prison for six months for selling an undercover cop a rude manga title. (The DA's explaining why the jury should ignore the expert witnesses who came in to explain that the comic in question was adult comics, and art, and deserving of first amendment protection): "And, again, why are we here? This medium, the medium that this obscenity is placed in is done so in an appealing manner to children. Comic books, and I don't care what type of evidence or what type of testimony is out there, use your rationality, use your common sense. Comic books, traditionally what we think of, are for kids. This is in a store directly across from an elementary school and it is put in a medium, in a forum, to directly appeal to kids." Remember that one. Comics are only for kids. Doesn't matter if the manga title in question was sealed, marked for over 18s, and in the off-limits to kids section of the store in question. Comics are for kids. The DA says so, and the jury believed him. And yes, we're appealing it. And we've spent at least $40,000 on the case so far (and managed to win the other case they brought at the same time). So tell your friends who read comics, and who don't. Tell your friends who only read manga. Repost this where people will see it. Link to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund site at http://www.cbldf.org/index.shtml or straight to their commercial site at http://www.cbldf.com (which is the place you can buy cool stuff)."

8/3/02

One of those days, part two.

So it's become my custom to bike out to my PO box whenever the weather's good (lately it's been oppressively hot. Like "Under the thumb of the man" hot.) So this moning, I got out of the house by noon, the weather was grand, and I was so very proud of myself for biking the five miles there and five miles back. I picked up my fan mail (Thanks, guys!) and went home. When I got back, I discovered that I'd left my keys at the Post Office. I couldn't get in the house to get a drink, I couldn't drive the five miles to get them... because it was all my keys.

So I biked twenty miles today. Hooray for me.

7/30/02

Water breaks stuff.

Y'ever have one of those days? Jane learned today about how water breaks stuff. I got to work today to find that I'd overwatered my plant and had left a huge, stained ring on the oak windowsill, even though I had a little plastic drainer for the pot to sit on. Then I got home and found the repair guy - apparrently my air conditioner was tipped wrong and had not only wrecked some of the paint under my window, but had also dripped down through to the ceiling of the guy below me. Siiigh. These are good things to know before I buy my own house.

7/22/02

Review-o-Rama!

WHEEE! I went out ego-surfing and found three new reviews of Vögelein. Then, Randy and Don over at The Fourth Rail emailed to say that they've just completed a Two-In-One review. It's really wonderful and you should check it out.

7/18/02

Issue #3 is here!

Should be in stores worldwide on Wednesday. The Online Store has copies, so feel free to order away.

7/12/02

Long overdue....

Ok -- it's been nearly a month since I last posted. Life swarmed up and ate me. Read below for the details.

7/11/02

Stickers? Stickers? Beuller?

Any of y'all want some stickers? They're free, you know. Send me a SASE and get one for free, or 4 if you send me a dollar. They're not small. They're each bigger than a business card.

7/10/02

News on #3

After a long comedy of errors, it appears that Issue #3 has finally gone to press. It should ship on Monday and be in comic stores worldwide on Wednesday the 17th, on the 24th at absolute latest. The Online Store is now open for preorders, which will ship as soon as I receive the promos.

7/09/02

Library Party!

Jim Ottaviani of Two Fisted Science fame and I gave a library talk about comics today. It rocked. We had tons of fun. The librarians at the Ann Arbor District Library actually said "We've never had an audience laugh that hard at a Library presentation before!" I even got another gig out of it - this time for Teen Read Week in October. This year's theme is "Get Graphic at your Library!", so you can imagine how happy this makes us comics folks.

While Jim O won't be joining me for any other talks on the schedule (yet), I must encourage any librarians or teachers who are reading this and considering asking one or the other of us to talk at their library or school to have us both in for a simultaneous presenation. We're much more fun as a package deal. You can email me or Jim if you're interested.

7/07/02

Wizard World!

I made it home from Wizard World Chicago in one piece.

Normally, this wouldn't have been an issue, except for the fact that I did a 23-hour roadtrip to get there. It went like this: Get up at 5am. Shower. Pack last minute essentials. Fill self to brim with caffeinated beverages hot and cold. Pee. Get in car and drive 4 hours nonstop to Chicago, only obeying the speed limit in Indiana where the cops are nazis and I've been ticketed before. Arrive at Wizard World Chicago armed with 200 free copies of Vögelein #2, fliers, stickers and posters. Give away hundreds of copies of the comic. Talk to every retailer that carries Independent comics. Grovel before the feet of Terry Moore, Mark Crilley, Steve Leiber, Ted Nafieh, Jill Thompson, and Mark Smylie, Chris Staros and James Kochalka . Snag freebie comics from Paul Sizer. Try my damndest not to drool like a knockneed schoolgirl over Carla Speed McNeil's original art. Buy copy of, and last page of, Talisman TPB. Go out to dinner via the eL with Pam Bliss, Rachel Hartman,Speed and CatBoy,Layla Lawlor, and three other people whose names I promptly forgot after being introduced -- it was that kind of night . We were led through the wilds of Chicago by the intrepid Tim Broderick, who directed us to a faaabulous Thai restaurant. Get back in car at 11pm. Fill self to brim with caffeinated beverages hot and cold. Pee. Drive like hell, ignoring Indiana speed limits. Arrive in caffeinated stupor at 4am.

I had a great freaking time. Next year, however, a booth -- and a hotel room -- is positively in order.

I really had no idea what a real comicon was like. I had nothing to compare it to -- I'd only been to the Detroit Shows before. Motor City ComicCon is ... nice and all, but, well, it just can't compare to the kind of media orgy that WWC stages. Maybe I can even do SDCC next year. Wahoo.

6/16/02

Midsummer Night's Dream

Last night I went to a performance of Midsummer Night's Dream at Nichols Arboretum in Ann Arbor. It was absolutely breathtaking.

For those not in the know, Nichols Arboretum, locally known as "The Arb", is a hundred- acre park smack dab in the middle of Ann Arbor. It's cultivated, yes, and a bit organized, and there are fire hydrants here and there, but it's pretty fairly wild. It ranges from heavy woods to riverbank to a valley with amazing vistas - and the play took place in all those places. You see, when the scene changes, the scene changes. The audience gets up and hikes to the next location, and the players often run along in their midst, and sometimes act whole extra scenes as they go.

Entire scenes take place in gigantic old cypress trees. They've hired a troop of children, from those almost too small to walk to teenagers, and painted them up as faeries. They hide in the scenery, tittering throughout the performance, so you know that the woods have eyes. Occasionally, they pelt the onlookers with grass and sticks, or hoot with noisemakers and faerie wands. Puck was in triplicate - they had three young women in tatterdemalion to play him, and it came off perfectly. Robin Goodfellow was a writhing, trilling mass of mischief, and seemed to be everywhere at once.

The night I saw the performance, it rained heavily (and I mean heavily) two hours before the first act. Almost magically, the clouds rolled back, and left The Arb in the lusty, golden mist that only comes after an evening thunderstorm. Everything was coated in a thin, soft gauzy haze of fog, and covered with dewdrops.

In addition to the help from Mother Nature, the actors were amazing, and completely willing to fling one another around the scenery. It was easy to hear and see everyone on stage, which was good, because facial expressions played a huge part in the acting.

There will be additional performances June 15 at 7pm, June 16th at 3pm. June 20, 21, 22 at 7pm and June 23 at 3pm. Tickets are $10 at the Washington Heights entrance to the Arb. Given the movies I've seen recently, your money will be far better spent here. Bottom line: If you're within driving distance of Ann Arbor, go. Go tonight, if you can. Bring everyone you know.

6/10/02

Word of Advice

Ladies, if you're buying a bike in the near future, blow the extra $30 and get yourself a girl-specific saddle. You won't regret the purchase.

6/01/02

Tart Preview!

Okay, so the wonderful folks over at Sequential Tart have done an awesome new preview of Vögelein #3 in the Tart Teaser section of their June issue. They wanted exclusive material, so I have removed the previews of #3 from the site, but never fear - you can hop on over to their Tart Teaser here. There are also two never before seen pages in their preview, so you can see them before you buy them!

5/29/02

Geeky girls.

So my buddy Jen and I went to see Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. I won't bore you with my review, as I generally didn't like the movie that well. Everyone who's seen the movie already knows what the film's one truly redeeming moment is, and everyone who hasn't seen it shouldn't have the surprise spoilt for them. But I will say this: Jen, me, and everyone else I've talked to agree that the big-guy fight scene in SW:ATC knocked the socks off the one between Gandalf and Saruman in Lord of the Rings.

Tolja I was a geek.

5/28/02

Purty Stickers!

They're swag! They're Free! Now you get free Vögelein stickers with each and every order from Vögelein.com. Send me a SASE and get one for free, or 4 if you send me a dollar. You can get a sticker of the promo poster, the covers to issues one and two, or pin-ups of the Duskie and Vögelein. I won't add them to the PayPal store because the images, kinds of sticker back and sizes are going to change at my whim.... they're freebies, after all.

5/28/02

Vögelein Supporter Saaaa-lute!*

One of the super nice guys who bought extra copies of Vögelein at Motor City this year emailed me so that he wouldn't have to languish in obscurity in the post below. Belated greetings and thankyous to Tim Hunt and his buddy Jeff, who went out of their way to make sure other people heard about my little windup faerie.

* Say it like you're on Hee Haw, y'all.

5/20/02

Motor City is oooover.

Motor City Comicon was a total blast. Got to meet and greet many wonderful folks, including Wendi and Sean Strang-Frost, Pam Bliss, Matt Feazell, Maureen Honoré, Sean Bieri, Suzanne Baumann, Jen Hachigan, Paul Sizer and of course, Jim Ottaviani. How grand it was to finally put faces with the names of folks I've been emailing with for months now!

For some reason, I got stuck far, far away from most of the crew, who were all arranged in an enviable line of small-press solidarity. Still and all, they were directly across from Porn Alley, so at least I didn't have to look at ...ahem... augmented boobies all weekend. Instead, I was waaaay over by all the TV talent, so I got to see all the costumes... most of which were actually quite good this time around.

I would be very out of place if I didn't take time to thank all the wonderful folks who stopped by: Loren and crew from the WEF, Stacy Durham (Bring your work next time!) from Garden City, Steven Bates from Bookery Fantasy, Shane Goodfellow, who came in all the way from Sarnia, Brian "B" Johnson, whom I haven't seen in literally five years; Gary Bratzel, Mike Bellinger, and Dave, Sabrina and Diana Harlan-Stein who all came by to visit; my "Warehousing Agent" Sol Foster who lugged along 2 extra boxes of Vögelein comics just in case I ran out; and the guys (whose names have been lost to me in the post-con mental blur! Sorry! Email me if you're them!!) who bought extra issues of the comic to take back to their LCS so they could help hype my book. All you guys make it totally worthwhile to keep working on the book. Thanks for the support!

Dinner on Friday (La Shish) and Saturday (KING OF SUSHI!) was grand. Conversation drifted from the odd to the downright wierd, but was always fun. Hanging at the sports bar with the crew on Saturday was grand as well - lots of sketching and bad jokes.

I got tons of minis from authors I'd never read before, and have fallen head-over-heels for Sean Bieri's Cool Jerk and Homo Gal. Other good picks were Jen Hachigian's Lore, the new Johnny Public(Where's the trade? huh? huh?! GET CRACKING!) Pam Bliss' B-36 and Hopelessly Lost Steve Leiber's Me and Edith Head and this totally amazing new book I just found called "Infinite Kung-Fu" -Kung Fu fightin' ZOMBIES. I mean, come on - Kung fu, Zombies, how much more do you need out of life?

All round- a grand show.

5/8/02

#2 in stores!

It's here! # 2 is in stores now. The nice guys down at Ninth Art even put me on their Pick list.

5/4/02

Spiderman Birthday Mojo.

Some friends took me to the Spiderman movie for my birthday. Thought I was gonna Hate it. Loved it. Loved it loved it loved it.

5/3/02

Big brown truck ... little brown shorts.

So the UPS guy has been trying to deliver my comp copies of Issue #2 for the last 3 days. That means yours will land in stores next week.

5/2/02

I'm just Desert Peachy, thanks....

Donna... Barr... Signed... My... Guestbook. Buh.

5/1/02

Guestbook updates

So I finally updated the guestbook. You may be wondering why it doesn't update automatically. It's because a while back I go a bunch of fairly nasty entries, and I made a setup that puts new additions in a kind of "staging area" so I can review them before I put them up. And I've forgotten to check the bin lately... so... it's not been updated recently.

And now it is.

New Job! New Job!

So I've got a new day-job. (You didn't think I was lucky enough to be making comics full-time, did you?)

It's great, and has all sorts of perks, like a steady paycheck. What does this mean to you, my gentle readers? It means that, at least for the forseeable future, I don't have to pinch pennies any more, and can wholeheartedly take Vögelein back to her original purpose of a labor of love and not of commerce. Expect more freebies, more prints, and more appearances at local conventions. Hooray!

4/28/02

Issue #2 on the way out!

Issue #2 went to press this week (it may or may not be out of the queue yet....) but will be shipping to stores within the next 3 weeks or so. Alternately, you can order them directly from me at the Online Store --- but remember, I won't have my copies for another 2 weeks or so, either.

4/10/02

I Heart Ann Arbor.

I walked (walked!) to my auto mechanic today, and got into a lengthy discussion with him about Macintosh computers and how to use Virtual PC most effectively in OSX. Then, his cellphone rang. His ringtones were from the final movement of Dvorak's New World Symphony.

Have I mentioned how much I love this town?

4/9/02

New Vögelein picture

I recently did an oil painting of Vögelein as a gift for a friend, and now it's also available as a print. It's 5 x 7 and available, matted in black, for only $15 + $2 shipping. Please visit the Online Store if you're interesting in purchasing one, or just click on the image at right to see a bigger version.

4/8/02

More Library Visits!

Added a bunch more of my summer/fall appearances in the column on the left. I'll be all over SE Lower Michigan, drumming up teen interest in comics. Big thanks go to YA Librarian Extraordinaire, Jennifer Schupska, for getting my name out there.

4/7/02

O Canada...

Just got back from the Elmira Maple Syrup Festival in Elmira, Ontario, Canada. Every year we drive 200 miles to eat our way through a small Canadian town. Imagine a five-block strip of town, blocked off and filled with shoulder-to-shoulder food tents on both sides of the street. We ate everything from Latkes to squeaky cheese curd to Elkburgers. Mmmm. 80,000 annual visitors can't be wrong!

3/30/02

New Sketch!

Zowie. Take a look at this Brilliant Deadly Savage Class* sketch of V by Ypsi Local Matt Cash!

*The term "Brilliant Deadly Savage Class" used to mean "really freakin' cool" is © 2001 Kevin Crawford of Lunasa.

3/28/02

Sweden!

Another country heard from! Sweeeet.

3/27/02

iComics Interview!

Greg McElhatton just did the sweetest review of Vögelein.

3/23/02

More Issue Two News

Issue 2 is at the printers as I type this. We're on track to ship on the first week of May. I'm getting excited all over again. hee hee hee.

3/16/02

St. Pat's Day is almost over.

Rejoice with me, my fellow Irish musicians. The green horror is nearly at an end for another year. While we're waiting for it to pass like a kidney stone, you can check out this picture on the Lunasa web site (Date: 10/3/2002)of a bunch of us hanging with Sean Smyth, Cillian Vallely and Ivan Gough (of Whirligig) after the Ark Show. We hijacked them back to a friend's house with the promise of beer, food and tunes. As this picture was taken, it was 4:30 am and the tunes were just getting started. That's me in the background, leaning on my bodhran.

3/16/02

Issue Two News

Sometime next week I'll be sending the info for Issue Two off to the printers. I should receive the order from Diamond during the first week of April, and then it'll go to press and ship to stores either just before or during the first week of May. Keep on the lookout!

3/15/02

Mars Import!

Mars Import now carries single issues of Vögelein. You can buy it from them if you don't want to buy it from me.

3/14/02

Little White Mouse

Since Paul Sizer did this really cute sketch of Vögelein (see it here), I returned the favor and did him a pin up of the gang from Little White Mouse. He's going to use it as filler in the back of the new LWM RETRO MIX issue. Check it out!

3/10/02

Worldwide!

I got fan mail from Puerto Rico. That is soooo cool.

3/4/02

Hell-ooo, Chel-sea! (Dr. Plank Voice)

I'll be making an appearance at the Chelsea Little Professor Book Center and Nature's Expressions
on April 2nd. Stop by if you live in the area. And like comic books.

3/1/02

Cover Shot.

Can you believe it? The Tarts put me on the cover! Head over to Sequential Tart ... mine is one of two rotating images on the intro page. If you don't see mine, hit refresh. This is sooo cool.

And Barb Lein-Cooper wrote a stupefyingly nice intro to my interview. Barb, you rule, baby!

2/28/02

Speed, baby!

Carla Speed McNeil just sent me a character sketch. It's really, really beautiful.

2/27/02

More Interviews!

Tim O'Shea has done a very sweet interview for Vögelein on his website, OrcaFresh. Dunno exactly why it's called OrcaFresh, but anytime I get me an Orca, I want it to be fresh -- so I guess I'm gettin' my Orcas from Tim from now on... check it out.

2/26/02

Tarteriffic.

The nice folks down at Sequential Tart are doing an interview with me in their March Issue. They've been doing a tremendous lot to boost my ego and my sales, so go check 'em out. Their website is really, really cool and funny -- their column, "Bizarre Breasts" is not to be missed, and is quite worth digging through their archives to read past isses.

2/25/02

Taxes.

I took an entire day today and prepped my taxes. I am so proud of myself. And staggered that it takes a whole day to just get all my receipts in order to give to the folks at my accounting firm. Imagine if I actually had to file the taxes. Yeesh. I get any more personal and this'll turn into a blog. While you're at it, go visit my favorite blog ever, Mighty Girl. She's so much cooler than me.

2/24/02

Store Update.

I was really industrious today and set up direct purchasing links on the Vögelein Online Store today. Now it's easier than ever to purchase Vögelein on line, direct from me!

2/24/02

Library Appearances!

Hooray! The article a few weeks ago in the Ann Arbor News has done much for my public appearance schedule. I'll be speaking at various libraries across SE Michigan through the spring and summer, and will post them as soon as I have dates and times finalized. (I'll be speaking at some schools, as well, but those aren't really public appearances...) If you'd like me to come speak at your school or Library, please shoot me an email.

2/23/02

I'm in New York! Dude. My buddy Steve just got back from NYC and says he spotted Vögelein. at a comic shop while he was there. Guess this means I've finally hit the big city!

2/16/02

Yargh.

Work is kicking my butt, and none of it has to do with Vögelein. That's why there haven't been updates in over a month. As such, there's lots to be said!

1. The Diamond and ColdCut orders have both shipped. Vögelein will be available nationwide beginning in early March. Ask for it by name!

2. I'm currently working as a freelance illustrator. (See "Yargh. ", above.) There will be some books published (eventually) that have my little drawrings in them. More on this later.

3. The cool new Vögelein project outlined below has been indefinitely postponed. It's a real bummer, but something to get back to when I'm unemployed again. It's a ton of work, to be sure, so I don't want to shortchange the final product by rushing. More details as they become available.

4. I'm going to the Motor City Comic Con in May. See you there!

5. Vögelein got some long-awaited press coverage in the Ann Arbor News last week, along with stellar comic guy Jim Ottaviani. However, because I was so completely snowed under with other work, I didn't get to do the marketing barrage I wanted to do. Forgive me and read the content of the story here.

1/07/02

Thank Goodness 2001 is over.

Onward and upward. Keep watching the news section -- there's some exciting stuff in the pipes. Can't tell you yet, but it'll be mighty cool when it gets here. And it'll move.