JoCo Cruise Crazy 3 Guest Comic By John Kovalic Of Dork Tower

JoCo Cruise Crazy 3 Guest Fortnight is dead in the water! No power, no food and plenty of sea-wage backed up into the staterooms, we’re now being towed back to port by a pod of friendly humpback whales. I’ve decided to cut the Guest Fortnight a bit short (you will still see the 2 additional guest comics when I head out to Seattle for Emerald City Comicon in a couple of weeks), since coming home from the JoCo Cruise has left me creatively charged and I am anxious to get back to work.

A weird thing happened when I put out the call for guest comics a few weeks back. Actually two weird things. First, nearly everyone I asked said yes. I usually ask for at least twice as many guest artists as I need expecting plenty of no’s. This time around the no’s were not to be found and the fantastic comics just kept hitting my inbox. The second weird thing is that three of the artists had THE EXACT SAME IDEA and turned in their comics at roughly the EXACT SAME TIME. It was obvious that a certain topic (one regarding folk covers of songs about butts and television networks drunk with power and copious legal council) was on a lot of peoples’ minds and ready to be made fun of in comic’d form. I’m going to post all three of these comics in a row so you can see how three fantastic comic artists interpret the same idea. They’re all great and come at the subject from a different angle.

The first offering this week is from John Kovalic of Dork Tower, Munchkin, Apples To Apples and SO MUCH MORE quality geekery. John and I spent most of the last couple of years just barely missing each other at cons and other geek gatherings. Finally, at last year’s SDCC and the ensuing W00tstock, we had a chance to sit down and talk (for maybe 5 minutes). Needless to say, we need to have more adventures in the very near future because he’s a hell of a nice guy and a fine cartoonist with a geek-cred-resume a hundred miles long.

COMMENTERS: Have you ever gone on a “bait and switch” trip, vacation, conference, convention, etc? My wife and I took an all inclusive resort trip to Puerta Vallarta back in 2006. This was before we drank and it turned out that drinking was essentially the only this this particular resort offered. I guess the idea was to keep everyone so drunk that they didn’t care that the food, amenities, entertainment, excursions and ALL OF THE REST OF PUERTA VALLARTA were terrible.

JoCo Cruise Crazy 3 Guest Comic By E.K. Weaver Of The Less Than Epic Adventures Of TJ And Amal

JoCo Cruise Crazy 3 Guest Comic Fortnight wraps up week one with this stunning depiction of, what I can only assume, are completely factual events by E.K. Weaver of The Less Than Epic Adventures Of TJ And Amal. The only part I find highly suspect is that Lar and I would be in the same life raft with Jonathan Coulton. When you’re headlining your own cruise, I’m pretty sure they reserve space for you on some sort of emergency evacuation mini-sub with the captain, first mate and probably a sentient, talking dolphin. Or at least a narwhale that knows sign language.

I made a bunch of shirts and put them on the internet for to you buy. Wil Wheaton helped.

I meat E.K. when we were on a panel together last december at Dragon’s Lair Webcomics Rampage. We didn’t get much of a chance to talk or hang out that weekend, but I was really floored by the quality of her work. Her comic is a stunningly drawn, gay positive long format story and I recommend it to those of you who are fans of quality.

Thursday, eh? So is this day five of the cruise? Is this even a day? Is there still a world on the other side of this vast expanse of ocean and boat-smashed whale carcasses? My brains are no doubt sunbaked and rum-basted beyond cognition by now. The inhabitants of our city-ship have abandoned human language in favor of communicating only in sea shanties. We barter for leftover buffet hard rolls and pancake batter with jewelry made from the bones of our dead. There are two factions on board. Those that wait for people to die before making their ankles into anklets, and my team. The winning team. Oddly enough, all of this was outlined in the brochure.

COMMENTERS: Have you ever been in an emergency evacuation situation? When I was a kid we were eating at a Red Lobster when flames started shooting out of the kitchen. We ran outside as the building burned. This dude next to us had taken the time to rescue his plate of crab fettuccine. I assume his priorities regarding survival began to shift as soon as he realized his meal was going to be free. I would not be surprised if he tried to order some Cheddar Bay Biscuits[TM] to go on his way out of the collapsing structure.

JoCo Cruise Crazy 3 Guest Comic By Kris Wilson Of Cyanide And Happiness

JoCo Cruise Crazy 3 Guest Comic Fortnight makes a detour to drop off a nondescript duffle bag at an unmarked port with this comic from Kris Wilson of Cyanide And Happiness. Kris did a guest “Cy-Jinks” comic for the last JoCo cruise. In the blog post for that comic I mentioned that Kris and his CnH cohorts (one of whom, Rob, is on the boat with me right now, and pictured above in shape-figure form) were in talks with Comedy Central to produce an animated show on the actual TV. I the last 12 months THINGS HAVE CHANGED. They walked away from the deal in favor of producing an animated series (and much more) on their own. This is super exciting, not only because my friends are going to get to make a show on their own terms, and I’m going to be contributing in some capacity (more on that later) but also because of what it means for independent content creators and what is now possible in terms of dealing directly with your audience sans middleman. I won’t be able to update while I’m on the boat, but If you follow Kris on Twitter I bet he’ll give you a link to their Kickstarter this week, maybe early next week. Fun, exciting times are ahead!

I made a bunch of shirts and put them on the internet for to you buy. Wil Wheaton helped.

Kris was here in Dallas all last week and we had a good old fashioned sleep over. We giggled about girls, watched scary movies and ate too much junk food. Which is to say we wrote a bunch of comedy for internet-TV-type-shows and made some comics. Kris is that person for me that completely unclogs my creative tap. He’s a plumber for my stopped up mental drain. He’s the toilet snake for my haha comedy pipes. He’s the metaphor to my some other thing whatever. If even half of what we’ve been talking about sees the light of day in the coming year, you’re REALLY going to enjoy it.

So today would be day four of the cruise. I’m guessing the barnacle related death toll is somewhere near an even dozen. I’d also expect that we will have accidentally left somewhere around 1/4 to 1/3 of the passengers on various tropical islands totally by accident. Those of us who are left pretty much have free reign of the boat. It’s my turn to drive today! I should be a very good cruise ship driver because of that time I road the flume ride at Six Flags. Just raise your hands and scream, right! Don’t forget to flip off the camera when you pass it. Oh, man what a good joke. [SPOILERS: I crashed us into a whale. Half of the remaining passengers fell directly into the great beast’s sea-mouth and were swallowed whole. A group of individuals led by one of our Somali pirate line cooks has taken a life boat out to try and reach an armistice with the whale. DOUBLE SPOILERS: They sailed directly into its mouth as well. There are 60, maybe 70 people left on this boat and NONE of them know how to make room service. Things are getting dire and late-night club sandwiches are going UNMADE AND UNEATEN!]

COMMENTERS: What was I talking about? No idea. Ok, give me your best/worst vacation stories. Bonus points of there were shenanigans involved.

JoCo Cruise Crazy 3 Guest Comic By David Willis Of Dumbing Of Age

JoCo Cruise Crazy 3 Guest Fortnight saunters onward with this melancholy offering from David Willis, creator of Shortpacked!, Dumbing Of Age and a comic he made a decade or more ago and is somehow convincing people to read all over again just to get perspective on the backstories of his current comics. I know your game, Willis, and… it’s genius. Starting next month in addition to HijiNKS ENSUE, you’ll be able to read HijiNKS High School: The Flannel Years. Of course none of it will make sense unless you read my OTHER comic Little HijiNKS Babies. I’m sure you’ll enjoy the “content” as much as I enjoy “your page views” and the resulting “ad revenue.” GOD DAMN YOU WILLIS YOU MAD GENIUS!!!

I made a bunch of shirts and put them on the internet for to you buy. Wil Wheaton helped.

David and his wife Maggie (the lady in the comic above) were on the last JoCo Cruise with us. It was one of the best weeks of my entire life, thanks in no small part to the company of those two. The fact that they aren’t coming this time around (DAVID, WHY ARE YOU TRICKING PEOPLE INTO READING THREE BULLSHIT COMICS IF YOU AREN’T GOING TO BUY YOURSELF LAVISH VACATIONS?!?!?!) is going to increase the number of rum punches I must ingest each day in order to have fun. When they were with us, I only needed 5 or 6 rums punched. I’m expecting that number to increase exponentially as I continue to realize they will not be miraculously showing up on the boat halfway through the week. In my mind there’s a low rumble, the ship starts to shake, we run to the bow to see what’s going on and there, on the helipad lands Astrotrain. David and Maggie hop out, deliver a well timed “PSYCHE!” accompanied with pistol fingers. We all laugh and take turns dunking each other in the rum punch filled hot tub. Well, at least David and I do. I have no idea what our wives are doing. Scissoring, one would suspect. Who cares? DAVID, I MISS YOU!!!

By the time you read this it will be Tuesday, day three of the cruise. I expect most of my blood will have been replaced with alcoholic sea water by this point (a VERY EXPENSIVE spa treatment you can only order off the secret menu). I think we’ll be on an island this day, which means I can make a sand David to cradle and love and have gritty, seaweedy makeouts with.

On a side note, the comic above is one of the funniest god damn things I have ever read. It almost makes me feel not too bad about recently learning that I am not, in fact, a real person who is NOT a block of splintery wood. There are SO MANY LEVELS. A lot of it is just for me, but there are at least 4 levels that you should be able to enjoy. The title alone is at least 2 kinds of double secret meta. Thank you for this deftly crafted (though I’m sure it took you maybe 30 minutes… CURSE YOUR STUPID FINGER SPEED!) love letter. I promise I will EAGLE you when I see you in Seattle in a few weeks.

EAGLE!!!

COMMENTERS: Do you have any stories about VACATION BROS? People you only see when you’re both out of your natural element? Do they enhance the experience or do you dread seeing them? This is sort of how it is with traveling to conventions all year. Since every time I see my cartoonist friends, we are typically not in our home city it’s sort of like a frequent, weekend long summer camp. I’m sharing a hotel with David in Seattle soon. I’m going to skip the “hand in the warm water” prank and just pee on his lap while he’s sleeping.

JoCo Cruise Crazy 3 Guest Comic By Angela Melick Of Wasted Talent

JoCo Cruise Crazy 3 Guest Fortnight is upon you!
That’s right, two weeks of guest comics by some of my best friends and favorite artists. Week one, being this week, being the week that I’m actually on a high seas mechanical roving self contained party island (or B.O.A.T) will consist of four comics that sort of by accident tell a story. Its weird how it all worked out. Week two will be a “theme week” consisting of three artists giving their perspective on the same… well, theme (a certain Fox TV shows certain misappropriation of a certain bearded troubadour’s certain cover of a certain song about butts). After that we’ll have TWO MORE GUEST COMICS not even about cruises at all just to ease you back into laughing at picture+word combinations that are not about boats, oceans, rum punch or constantly blasting reggae music. I’ve seen all of the comics and I highly endorse each and every one. This is not a “check out for two weeks, then come back when the J.J. Abrams comics return” situation. You are going to LOVE these comics.

I made a bunch of shirts and put them on the internet for to you buy. Wil Wheaton helped.

We start the Guest Fortnight with one of my favorite artists and convention cohorts, Angela Melick. Angela is an engineer and does a wonderfully hilarious auto-bio comic called Wasted Talent. Take a look at that comic up there and you can the engineer’s mind at work. SO MUCH DETAIL. There are gags upon gags. Plus WHERE CAN I GET THAT CATAPULT-CANNON FEZ?!?!? This is also the very first time in HEstory that my wife, Emily, has been portrayed in the comic.

Since I’ll be writing all of these posts in the past, I can only assume what I’m doing right now (now being Monday, and the past being the previous Saturday). Hmm… we will have been on the water for a whole day by the time this post appears. Let’s assume Somali pirates have commandeered the buffet, but (joke’s on us) they’re FANTASTIC cooks. I’m probably not brushing my teeth with rum punch yet, but the week is still early.

COMMENTERS: You can see above that we’re bringing ukuleles and custom fezzes on our trip. What are your non-standard essential travel items?