Not Free T-Shirt Day

From David Wating Paper:

Sergio Aragones has created this great T-shirt design to honor the day. You can order one for yourself by clicking the picture below. One dollar from every shirt purchased goes to Sergio's charity of choice, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

Getting What You pay For

If you live in the US, Free Comic Book Day is coming up this Saturday.  Although you can't actually go into any comic store and take whatever you want (hey, this isn't the IRS), participating dealers will have vast piles of comics you can help yourself to without charge.  I've got my eye on the John Stanley one. There's a full  list here.

Fishcycle

Here's the original sketch for the fish/bicycle cartoon.  My editors thought the fish-cycle contraption in the last panel was too confusing. I also corrected "bike" to "bicycle".  I think the term "bike" is more common in my native England (almost certainly not due to the classic and most awesome song by Blurt).  Incidentally the phrase originates from the Feminism movement during the late sixties and is attributed to Gloria Steinem.

Of Bikes and Men

I had two versions of today's strip.  I started up with the original version (above) when it was pointed out to me that a unicycle wasn't technically a bicycle  so I drew a second version (below).

I was all set to run the second version when in a rare moment of indecision (possibly due to the fact that this isn't my greatest joke ever) I polled some people to see which one I should ultimately go with.  The consensus was that my original instincts were correct.  The silly rabbit is confused as always.

Fore Play

This groan inducing pun of a strip features a guest appearance by Cosmo, the little bird from the golfing strip "In the Sticks" by Nathan Cooper.  Nathan just announced that the strip will be getting a "conservative perspective" although Cosmo will remain the voice of reason on the left.  There's an amusing interview here.

Aloha From Malawi

I had way too much fun drawing this strip.  The strange looking steampunk helmet is from one of my favorite movies "City of Lost Children".  The glasses along with the hat and shirt on the right were the clothes I was wearing when I inked the strip.  No grass skirt however and I hate flip flips with a passion.  I think I might have to sneak an Elvis reference into all my Sunday strips.  I got one in here as well.

8k and Chuffed

Over at GoComics I got my 8000th subscriber today!  Thanks so much everyone.  In the lonely life of a strip cartoonist it's nice to know people are out there reading my little creation. Only another 51908 subscribers and I'll have as many as Garfield.

El Conejo en Sombra

There are so many blogs now, nearly one million blogs a day are created which is about one every half a second. And that's just new blogs.  Spare a moment for the older, more established esoteric blogs that purr along, fueled with passion and with seemingly no financial motivation.  One such blog is the beautiful  Agence Eureka from France.  Armed with a scanner, a lot of patience and a seemingly endless pile of ephemera, Agence Eureka delivers a daily dose of aesthetic ink.  Always worth checking out.

Pigeons Against Pidgin

I'd like to think that this is the very first comic strip in history to refer to the people of Nauru.  Nauru is a tiny island in the pacific which was declared independent in 1968 and is currently acting as an immigration detention center that holds and processes illegal immigrants who had try to enter Australia.  According to my (admittedly) brief research for this strip it has the largest percentage of Pidgin speakers of any country in the world.

Rabbits Against Obama

Ken Fallin is the featured artist over at David Wasting Paper's Cartoonist Survey this week. I really like Ken's lines.  Very subtle and well crafted.  He says a lot with the white spaces he uses than most caricaturists.  It's no surprise to see he's heavily influenced by another great New York cartoonist Al Hirshfeld. Although Hirshfeld is mostly known for his theater illustrations with the work "Nina" hidden within them, I think his best work was done as an illustrator (and travel companion) for S. J. Perelman's book about an eight month jaunt around the world "Westward Ha" (1948). If anyone shows any remote interest I'll happily scan them and post them here.

Nectar of the Rabbit Gods

From a June 1955 article in True Magazine edited by the great Virgil "Vip" Partch.  Top hat tip to the Fabulous Fabuleous (sic) Fifties blog.

Swipe Away the Tears

Here's an illustration I just completed for a magazine cover.  It's for an article about cartoonists, illustrators, photographers and other creative types having their carefully crafted creations stolen by unscrupulous cowboys out there in the unregulated Internet wilderness.  I had pretty much free reign when it came to this one which always makes it more fun and (in my opinion) a better end product.  Now someone please use this without permission and prove the point.

A Load of Croc

The greatest minds think alike.  Sometimes, even mine as well.  The above Rabbits cartoon is form October 24th last year.  The Speed Bump cartoon from the alway LOL funny Ruben Award winner Dave Coverly ran yesterday.

Bright Lights Big City

Some more sketches from the final day at WonderCon.  This was the first year I used watercolors.  I had to keep excusing myself to wash my brushes.

More colorful even than my watercolor palette is RAM fan and all-round wonderful person Skinniwinni who designs slippers and promotes happiness.

Finally, here's me tending the NCS booth.  Also present at booth 811 was Paul Jon, the super talented guy behind the most excellent Fort Knox and Nature Calls comic strips.  I think he may have heard my George Ringo joke before.

Con Shots

I spent all day today at WonderCon  in San Francisco.  It was slamming and jamming right through to the closing bell and, in between sketching and signing, I met a lot of wonderful people including Comics Reporter Tom Spurgeon,  the great Ron Turner of Last Gasp, Justin Thompson of Mythtickle and Comics Coast to Coast fame and myriad others. The Soup Nazi from Seinfeld and Chewbacca were also there.  Thanks to everyone who dropped by.  I'll be there on Sunday as well for anyone who isn't celebrating some pagan re-birthing tradition in some form.

Thanks to Christine Cheng for taking the fine photos.

Rabbits Against Selling for a Profit

Anyone who finds and identifies me correctly at this weekend's WonderCon Convention in San Francisco (see below for booth info) gets a free bootleg Rabbits Against Magic comic!  A 10 cents value.  Supplies are limited so make sure you catch me early.

Kross-Dressing Kat

One of the many fascinating aspects of George Herriman's Krazy Kat is that the eponymous hero of the strip is a heroine. Although Herriman referred to the cat in both a male and female terms—presumably to allow for ambiguity in the eternal love triangle between Ignatz Mouse and Officer Pupp—successive adaptations have tended to play down the sexuality of the character.  However, this January 1964 Gold Key comic really went out on  a limb to depict Krazy with long eyelashes and what looks like the suggestion of lipstick.

Cover art scanned in by the fabulous Comics.org Website.

Underage Magician Tricks

Another charming magic re-post from Mostly Forbidden Zone.  Looks like this aspiring magician needs to have more oversight of his roving menagerie of animals.