Last week, the hosting for two of my other comics went toes-up, and I had to do a quick down-n-dirty WordPress site for both of them. (Don’t judge the sites too harshly if you go… it’s a work in progress!) And, as I was doing so, it occurred to me that new readers of Evil Inc may be completely unaware of some of the other things that I do (or that I’ve done) in comics. So, here’s a quick overview for anybody who is interested:
Patreon bonus comics
My Patreon supporters get to see bonus cartoons and other behind-the-scenes content that no one else has access to. Please consider signing up — even if it’s the $1 level. All of those dollar-pledges help me keep working on comics!
Phables
Phables ran from 2006-2008 in the Philadelphia Daily News. Each week, they’d give me a full tabloid-sized page in the paper to tell a story about everyday life in Philadelphia through a comic. Some of these were my stories, and some of them were stories that readers wrote in with.
I’m still tweaking the site, but go check out the comics. They’re bigger and crisper than I was ever able to display them back in 2006. It’s work that I’m tremendously proud of.
In 2006, it was named the best newspaper column in Philadelphia by the Society of Professional Journalists. That was kind of huge. It wasn’t awarded best cartoon or best infographic. It was acknowledged as a newspaper column — one of the posts with the highest prestige in the newsroom. In 2007, it was nominated for the Eisner Award. Here’s one of my favorites, introduced below…
All of the Phables cartoons are collected into a swell book that you can buy from me (or on Amazon.com).
Webcomics.com
Here’s another project I rarely talk about here. Webcomics.com is a site that I run that features daily posts offering advice, information, tutorials and support for cartoonists working on the Web. It’s a subscription site — $30 for 12 months of access or a special one-month Trial Membership for $5. I post four times a week with something new of relevance to cartoonists, and I do a dive into the archive on Fridays to bring up something valuable that members may have missed. This is an archive of information that I’ve been building day-by-day since 2009. It’s got answers to virtually any question you might have on topics that vary from the craft of cartooning to expanding your business.
Plus you get access to a private forum of serious professional cartoonists where you can talk frankly about issues — and get intelligent, valuable feedback.
The How To Make Webcomics book launched the site, and my writing there formed the basis of The Webcomics Handbook.
Courting Disaster
Courting Disaster was another Daily News project that found its own life on the Web. When the paper started a sex-advice column, I offered to do a weekly cartoon to accompany it. They would respond to two letters from readers every week, and I’d do a cartoon based on one of them. My goal was to a smart, sexy Playboy-style cartoon — while maintaining the content restrictions of a daily newspaper.
Courting Disaster was a blast! You can still find the books for sale on Lulu.com. And the eBook can be downloaded here, at DriveThru and at Amazon.
Greystone Inn
This one is badly in need of a new Web site. Those strips hold up remarkably well, and if they were displayed bigger on that old site, I think people would tear through that archive. Greystone Inn was my first comic strip — running from Feb. 2000 – June 2005 (when I launched Evil Inc). It was a comic strip about the fictional cast and crew of… a comic strip. But, like Roger Rabbit, the cartoons were living, breathing creatures. Many Evil Inc characters, like Lightning Lady, got their start in Greystone. Heck, that’s where the Evil Inc concept was born! (And if you want to read that storyline, it’s a special bonus in this month’s Evil Inc eComic!
You can get the entire four-and-a-half-year run of Greystone Inn in a beautiful hardcover book. And you can also get your copy as a downloadable PDF for your digital device.
Podcasts
Had enough? I didn’t think so. You can also catch me on the several different podcasts I host! (and a few I don’t!)
• Webcomics Weekly: We’re not doing this regularly anymore, but in its day, this was THE webcomics podcast. Featuring Scott Kurtz, Kris Straub, Dave Kellett and me, this show was the best when we just fired up the microphones and started talking.
• Surviving Creativity: Scott and I are joined by Scott’s business manager, Cory Casoni, as we talk about trying to make a living as a creative professional.
• Hey Comics — Kids!: Perhaps the podcast that is closest to my heart, my sons and I started recording our drives to school. We talk video games, TV, movies, superheroes and more. If you follow the podcast, you get frequent updates — plus supplemental mini-casts from each individual kid. You can even subscribe to the show on iTunes. And if you do, be sure to rate the show and leave a friendly comment!
