How Many Lights Do You See?

Here’s (I believe) THE FINAL redrawn/recolored FANEURYSM comic. You can see the original here, and read the blog post I wrote back in April 2014 below.

The Star Trek: TNG episode “Chain Of Command Pt. 2″ is such a wonderful hour of television. Patrick Stewart just DESTROYS your preconceived notions about cheesy acting in Star Trek or in science fiction in general. He Shakespeares THE SHIT out of that final torture scene. Picard is a man physically and mentally broken, but his will triumphs in the face of unbearable pain and almost total, partial nudity. Cardassians, man. Fucking Cardassians.

Here’s a T-Shirt I made about how much people care about fictional depictions of long past interstellar conflicts.

I Got The Moves Like Xander

Here’s a mostly true San Diego Comic-Con 2012 Story starring my good friend Stepto (who you may remember from a previous appearance). It seems that while I was decompressing from the w00stock 4.0 festivities in Balboa theater as all the performers signed things and shook hands, Stepto was across the street at the Geek & Sundry party getting his groove thing fully engaged with Joss Whedon. The very same Stepto who was in my company mere moments before at w00tstock. The VERY same Stepto who has my cell phone number and know good and well how texting works. Yes, THAT Stepto. The VERY SAME STEPTO WHO IS NOW DEAD TO ME! HE DANCED WITH GOD DAMNED JOSS WHEDON! THEIR HIPS MET IN A BUMPY FASHION! DEAD! DEAAAAAD TO MEEEEEE!

But, I digress. In addition to breaking my heart and betraying my trust, Stepto did do something very nice for a fan that night. It has become a w00tstock tradition that Stepto will find the fan with the worst possible seats, high up in the balcony, take their camera and fill it with backstage photos throughout the night. You can see the results of this year’s shenanigans here.

I have a guest comic up at Cyanide and Happiness!

Grammar Dalek Shirts should be going on presale soon. As early as Monday of next week! Stay tuned for ordering info.

People have been asking me what I thought of SDCC this year. I told one friend, “Being on the show floor of SDCC is like working in the gift shop of the amusement park.” I think that sums it up pretty well. Unlike EVERY OTHER larger show I do, comics are no where near the focus of the show. They are really an after thought and that vibe is starting to permeate my (and other artists’) SDCC experience more and more each year. You really get the impression that the attendees are going to make time for you, if and when they finish up with everything else they have planned. Namely, standing in a line for 8 hours to see a 50 minute panel, then standing in line for 4 hours to get an SDCC exclusive toy, then leaving the hall entirely to go to one of the MANY offsite activities.

The fans I met through out the week were great, but they were also few and far between. In fact, the only day that felt like a normal convention was Sunday. There was a steady stream of fans, and sales and I distinctly got the impression that most people were saving the actual COMIC portion of Comic-con for the final day. Luckily, I got the sense of this trend early in the week and basically visited the booth a bit each day then headed out into San Diego for various parties, fun times and hang outs with my friends. All things being equal I would much rather be at the booth, meeting readers and selling merch. But due to the extremely odd vibe of the show, the slow booth traffic and the VERY limited booth space we had this year, I wasn’t really hurting anyone by not being there. Sunday was basically the only full day I spent at the booth. It’s really hard to justify taking a week off of work, the travel expenses and fighting the crowds of SDCC to do what was essentially a one day show.

I want to back up and say that I am NOT complaining about having the best job in the world, but San Diego Comic-Con has changed drastically in the last couple of years and everyone I talked to seemed to be feeling the same thing. Don’t be shocked if some of your favorite artists take a year or two off. I almost feel like the comics and the movie/TV/video game stuff should be officially separated into two events. Maybe then we could get some panels with accessible comics creators instead of ABC’s newest fairy tale-based show. It feels like the entire show has finally tipped to where it is basically unfriendly to an independent comics creator and that creator’s time could be better spent almost anywhere. I don’t expect it to get any better unless they built more hall space, which would probably have to be on floating barges out in the marina. Still, it is ONE HELL of a party, and it’s the only time that nearly all of my friends are in the same city at the same time for the same reason. It is a Comic-Conundrum.

You Can’t Take This Guy From Me

If you are a Donation Subscriber, you are A) one of my favorite people, and B) going to get an email today with a link to download the first HijiNKS ENSUE iBook/eBook. It’s called iJinks Ensue: Drawing Hands Is Hard, and it contains all of the HE comics from 2007-2008 plus some neat extras at the end.

It will be in iBooks format for iPad and PDF format for everything else. My wife and I have worked CRAZY hard on it, so I really hope you guys enjoy it and understand how much I appreciate your donations. If you are not a donation subscriber and don’t plan to be ($2 a month? C’Mon!), you will be able to get my eBook offerings on a pay-what-you-want donation model starting later today.

Looks like you’re going to have to wait at least one more day to find out what repressed “rememberies” Eli was starting to uncover.

I doubt I will get to see the Firefly panel at SDCC since people are probably already in line for it, but thinking about their “huge announcements” has sent me down a certain train of thought. Has anyone else seen Tron: Uprising on Disney? Can’t you imagine a Firefly/Serenity animated series done exactly in that style? The visuals look serious enough that you can take the story seriously. Does that make sense? And it wouldn’t cost $20 million an hour like the movie did. If the crew can never be reassembled for TV or features again, and the occasional comic just isn’t cutting it, doesn’t animation seem like the most logical choice for carrying on the verse?

Speaking of SDCC: Due to booth problems beyond my control I will not actually have a spot to sit, but I will be hanging out at the Blind Ferret booth (1332) throughout the weekend. Check my Twitter for signing times and availability. More info HERE. Despite the lack of a table I will find a way to do sketches for you. I’ll probably bring a little collapsable stool or something. NEVER GIVE UP! I WILL SKETCH FOR YOU!

Speaking of sketches, money is EXTREMELY tight in HijiNKS land right now, so I am going to do a live sketch drive this week. Starting tomorrow you’ll be able to order custom sketch cards from this site and I will draw them (whatever you requested withing reason) live on Ustream with times to be announced on my Twitter. I’ll probably limit them to 100, but if it’s a success I’ll do it more often.

COMMENTERS: What do you hope they announce at the Firefly 10 year anniversary panel at San Diego Comic-Con? Realistically and in your wildest imagination? How about my animated series idea? How would you see that playing out?