Alabama Phoenix Festival

I should have posted about this earlier, but I'm sure most of y'all know about it already.  Several Salty 'Ham Cartooneestas, including myself, will have tables at the Alabama Phoenix Festival -- which starts today and goes throughout this weekend.  Come visit!  And buy our comics, prints, doodles-on-demand, and caricatures.

Don Stewart's blog

Our fellow SHC Don Stewart has been keeping up his blog, lately.  Here's a recent post he wanted to share with everybody: So your kid wants to be an artist.

The Art of Riverside

By now you've hopefully seen this music video I animated: Riverside, by 13ghosts.

Well, here's a bunch of art, from the finished film, and from the making of!  Backgrounds painted by A. Vernon.

Shiny and New

Yet again, more to explore!  Two more new entries to the Salty 'Ham roles: indy publisher Red Crow Comics, from waaay up beyond Huntsville.

. . . and Red Crow writer Julian "Jay" Burton!  Check out both pages.

Daniel, Our Brother

The new recruits keep trickling in.  Say hello to the latest: Daniel Lawson!

Riverside by 13ghosts - music video

I just completed work on an animated music video, with lots of help from Andrew Vernon and Tim Rocks.  Please go and watch it here!

Third Friday at Naked Art: Homegrown Comics and Cartoon Art!

Hey, check out this event, and please attend!

http://www.facebook.com/events/425576740865609/

... and another'n

Here's ANOTHER new Salty 'Ham for the roles: Welcome Kevin Van Hyning!  (I call him Vin-Van.)

Knight No Longer Errant

Adding another new Salty 'Ham to the mix: Peyton Knight!

Mini Comics program in the Vestavia Hills Library Teen Department

Looks like I'm gonna be using the letter size fold em up mini comic idea for a Teen Art program at the library later this month. If you know kids grade 7-12 who would groove on it, point em towards the Vestavia Hills Library.

KoronisFest Contest

Every year, the UAB School of Public Health has this contest, and here it is again.

For more info, visit their website.  By the way, I'll be one of the judges this year, in the animation category.

Comics Distro Update

Derek Anderson just commented on the "Modest Proposal" post below (and posted a cool lizard drawing just below) so I thought I'd take the opportunity to update that idea.

It's been a while...

I haven't posted here in a while but thought I'd share some stuff I worked on recently. As fellow Salty Hammers may recall, old Cheese Wiz here does design work from time to time for the Library in the Forest in Vestavia Hills. For the last few years I've been depicting the kid's department mascot in various forms for their summer reading programs. This summer will be no exception as Herman the Bearded Dragon goes searching for buried treasure! Namely, knowledge gleaned through reading: the most valuable of all treasures. 

New Herman Logo for Library

Two New Recruits

The number of entries on SaltyHam.org just went up to 76, with the addition of two talented new Salty 'Hams.  Check 'em out!

Jedidiah Alford, of Birmingham

Stephanie Celeste Chateau, of Birmingham

But, believe it or not, there are still a huge number of Alabama cartoonists who HAVEN'T joined the Salty 'Ham Cartooneestas!  What's up with that?

More Caricatures

I've been doing more caricatures, at the Birmingham Feline Fanciers Cat Show and at Hospicelink.  I started drawing them on clear plastic cels, and using paint markers and colored-paper backgrounds.  Here are 12 of my favorites.

What do you think of this technique?

A Modest Proposal...

Let's make comics easily available to average Birminghamers

What do you guys/girls think of this... Let's establish a network of independent retailers locally who will let us put our stuff in their stores. Just because the big companies abandoned the newsstands for the comic shops doesn't mean we have to!  :-)

I'd like for people to see comics around in stores, rather than having to make a special trip to a "comic shop". Granted 99.9% of Birmingham would only care about a comic if it had Nick Saban on the cover, and then only for a split second - still there is that .0001% who might be interested! Kids especially are not yet as set in their ways about what is acceptable entertainment, and might buy a comic if it looked interesting - but they might never think to go to a comic shop in the first place if they don't come from a comic book family. We must not let such unfortunates miss the opportunity to have their minds warped forever!

It's also just a lot of fun to put your comics out in the regular world, outside the comics ghetto. I've become better acquainted with the clerks at my local grocery, City Supermarket here on the Southside, through putting my comics in their store. Jim Reed at Reed Books was nice enough to take some as well, though I'm way behind in supplying him with the newest release (also need to follow up with Homewood Toy & Hobby.)

We'd have to work out the details of making or finding some sort of small display rack for 3 or 4 "titles" (maybe it would be designed to hang from counters or walls.) I'm not sure how many of us are self-publishing anything right now? Off the top of my head, I think Chris Garrison and Chris Fason have print comics/GN's available (or something ready to print in small #'s if not?) Maybe this idea would encourage others to do a small print run as well.

Even if you don't have any comics ready to distribute, you can help with ideas about the display, or suggesting possible retailers (or talking to any retailer friends you might have, such as the independent coffee shop you go to, etc.) I know we don't usually get much discussion here, but feel free to comment, I'd like to know everyone's thoughts on this, pro or con, or questions etc. Would you be interested in distributing a comic this way? Do you have any ideas for the display, or retailers we might consider? 

Hero Happy Hour: On the Rocks

Our fellow SHC Chris Fason has finished a huge new 85-page volume of Hero Happy Hour comics!  Now available on ComiXology.  He says:

The All-New HERO HAPPY HOUR: ON THE ROCKS original graphic novel is now available on ComiXology! This is a brand new serving of HERO HAPPY HOUR which has not been previously published or featured on the webcomic. Cheers!

Cruse-mas

From our fellow SHC Howard Cruse:

Warm wishes to the whole Salty 'Ham crowd for a great holiday season this year, with a happy new year to follow.

Salty 'Ham Slam 12 - On Reflection

Our twelfth official council was severely pleasant.  We were at the J again, and we had a chipper group: Tim Rocks, Frank Cummings, Tim Spinosi, Ben Faucher, and Ed Abernathy.  And we welcomed first-timers Jennie Cole and Sean Finn.  And non-member guests Fred Jarmon and Brad Strickland.  And there was me, Chris Garrison.

Left to right: Tim Spinosi, Sean Finn, and Frank Cummings. 

Tim Rocks assists aspiring cartoonists by modeling his perfect, cartoony thumb joints ... 

while at the same time eating feta cheese on a rice cake.  Yecch!

Left to right: Fred Jarmon, Ben Faucher, and Brad Strickland.

Jennie Cole, hard at work.  She was dolled up, because she had a hot date after the slam!  True story.

The usually present but seldom photographed Ed Abernathy.

I forgot to take a picture of myself, so just trust me when I say I looked phenomenal.

Everybody discussed computer programming, the looming death of newspaper comics, the foibles of Cartoon Network execs, and all the other stuff cartoonists love to talk about.  Then we got down to some drawing.

Frank Cummings drew this ghoul from Irish folklore: The Snicker-Snee.

Then Frank Cummings drew this disturbing illustration, based on a brutal tale told by Ed Abernathy.

I drew a few quick and lazy caricatures:

Chris Garrison's attempt at Sean Finn.

Chris Garrison's attempt at Ed Abernathy.

 Chris Garrison's attempt at Tim Spinosi.

 Chris Garrison's attempt at Frank Cummings.

And we even tried a couple of comic jams:

Fortune Teller credits:  
panel 1 by Chris Garrison; panel 2 by Tim Spinosi; panel 3 by Tim Rocks; panel 4 by Brad Strickland; panel 5 by Ben Faucher.

Mystery Box credits:

panel 1 by Chris Garrison; panel 2 by Jennie Cole; panel 3 by Fred Jarmon; panel 4 by Sean Finn; panel 5 by Frank Cummings; panel 6 by Chris Garrison.  Why is it that boxes always turn out to have heads in them?

As usual, we snacked on Oreos, Nutter Butters, and Chips, Ahoy! cookies.  Then, Ben and Jennie got into an arm-wrestling match.  Unfortunately she broke both his arms and, inexplicably, one leg!  He was rushed to the nearest hospital.  Well, not rushed, exactly.  Let's just say transported.  For those of you who missed it, you really should have been there!

All tolled, everybody had fun at the slam, and there was much mingling.  So join us, won't you, for the NEXT Salty 'Ham Slam! (as yet unscheduled) (official members and invited guests only, please)

Oh, and you can look back at previous slams, here:

Slam 1

Slam 2

Slam 3

Slam 4

Slam 5

Slam 6

Slam 7

Slam 8

Slam 9

Slam 10
Slam 11