So Long, 2010!

Have a happy and safe New Year, everyone!

There, There

Wyatt Loves Fire

I'm Helping!

She loves it when I serenade her. For the full effect, click here for the audio*.

• In other news, there's a new page up for Awesome Hospital: Night of the Secret Santas.
  
• I also did a page for Kevin Church's The Loneliest Astronauts (really just providing grief counseling for the absence of the series' regular artist, Ming Doyle. Hurry back, Ming!)

*WARNING: Serious Earworm

Prepare to Deck the Halls with Awesome!

Awesome Hospital is back for a special Holiday story plotted by yours truly, updating with new pages Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Based on a True Story

Straight up stole this one from Kirsten. She's been stockpiling cartoons of her own.

Sorry She Asked

Why We Can't Have Nice Things

Halloweenie

Happy Birthdays!

Happy Birthday to two super ladies: My Superstar Kirsten and Tory, The Monkey Queen.

Most Annoying Human

The All-Seeing Wyatt

Yay!

The Black Mood

Homecoming

Las Vegas - 6:00pm

Las Vegas - 4:45pm

Las Vegas - 12:41pm

Las Vegas - 11:40am

Las Vegas - 9:21am

GUI

Rhyme Time!

Hurry...

...I miss you. Have a safe flight, love.

Quesadillas

Meanwhile...

Hey!

Kirsten's aunt makes a heck of a cake.

Insomnia

He's the One

Skypin'

Today's strip was suggested by the luminous Sam Simpson.

Boys

Monkey Moon Shines

Little Mysteries

Birthday Roundup

I meant to do this sooner, but I was having too much fun. FCBD kind of kicked off a birthday week here, from which I am starting to recover. First, I'm getting piles of comics, next thing you know, comics arrive in the mail from friends (Thanks Grant and Sherilyn, just what I always wanted: Kirby's Demon Omnibus) and then the parents come to town for a fun visit, mom having made a good supply of her son's favorite peanut butter cookies...

So, I've basically been laying on the couch, reading comics and stuffing myself with cookies for the last week. Best Birthday Ever.

The highlight in the middle of all of this was artwork showing up on my twitter doorstep on the big day, orchestrated (I found out later) by my best girl, Kirsten (whose own art piece graces the top of this update).

• The first to arrive was this piece by Chris Sims (writer for the Eisner-nominated Comics Alliance, co-writer of Awesome Hospital) showing a senses-shattering team-up. To top it off, Mr. Sims also gifted me with the gift that keeps giving: Batman, namely Morrison's Batman. It's pretty likely that I will draw anything he wants, forever, at this point.
  
• Next was fellow Action Age Comics artist Matthew Allen Smith (artist of Solomon Stone) who stole my heart with this Steranko homage.
• Rusty Shackles (TableTopFetus, Creator of Twitter Art Jam) made me feel like I had front row tickets to the most awesome and medically beneficial concert ever.
• Chad Bowers (Die Comics Die, co-writer of Awesome Hospital) forwarded me this medical paradox by Adrian Rodriguez and Amit Ghadge. Babies having babies, sure. But babies delivering babies...?

It was a blast wake up to all of these on my birthday, and really put the whole experience over the top. Thank you, everyone.

FCBD!

Saturday was the 9th annual Free Comic Book Day. As it always falls within a week of my birthday, I'm usually flush with some extra b-day cash to go on a day-long adventure. I usually try to hit my favorite stores, not so much for the free stuff, but to see how this day works in terms of outreach and community-building within the comics retail environment.

One of my favorite stores is Ralph's Comic Corner just north of Oxnard, run by Mike Sterling. I don't get up there as often as I'd like (it's about 55 miles from where I live, which in Southern California miles is more like 80 miles). It's a great store with a nice selection of everything, friendly employees and a relaxed atmosphere. This year, I wanted to gift Mr. Sterling with a small token of gratitude:

This horrible drawing combines two of Mr. Sterling's interests. I hope he likes it. I'm afraid my terminal shyness got the better of me, so I may have come off a little crazy stalker + process server...

Well, more than normal, I guess.

I just wanted to offer thanks and appreciation to guys like Mike at Ralph's Comic Book Corner, and the workers and owners at other comic book shops, who use Free Comic Book Day not as an opportunity to get a few extra bucks out of their already existing customers, but to develop a new fan-base for comics, so that dads and moms can bring in their kids and introduce this medium I love to a whole new generation of readers, writers, and artists.

Wrapped Up

As you know, I've been away from Sequential Life for a while, working on Awesome Hospital, and we just wrapped up the next four weeks of strips, concluding the first chapter. Hopefully, the whole shebang will be available in print form sometime in the next month or so. I'm very excited.

Incidentally, we had an impromptu contest last week, and commenter Jason demonstrated his M*A*S*H knowledge, and won this sketchcard.

I also participated in this month's Twitter Art Jam. This month's theme was tagged #boxofficepoison, and artists were tasked to design a movie poster for any movie featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000. I took on The Brain That Wouldn't Die in a blatant Saul Bass homage.

Lastly, I drew Validus, the bizarre Fatal Five villain from the Legion of Superheroes. It's a birthday present for Bill Doughty, writer of the fine comics blog Trusty Plinko Stick. Click on over and wish him a happy birthday.

Doings and Such

Item 1: Today I gifted Kirsten's office-mate, Cristina, with "Sequential Life Onesies" that I made special:

There's Blue,

Red,

Lil' Frijole,

...and new character, Yeller.

Enjoy your maternity leave, Cristina. Kirsten and I wish for happiness and health for you and the lil' one.

Item 2: On top of moonlighting at Awesome Hospital and doing guest strips for better web comics, I've also been participating in a group called Twitter Art Jam. The group is the brainchild of Rusty Shackles, and issues a monthly challenge to artists. In January, we recreated posters for our favorite movies. February saw us putting our own take on a favorite album cover. In March, we tackled video games.

All the participants are top notch guys, and the whole thing is a lot of fun. It's a good way to blow off some creative steam, plus, no one mocks me (openly) for my choices. There's talk that the whole venture may soon have its own website, so stay tuned.

Road Trip!

The more-professional-than-myself Max Huffman was in a bit of a pinch and put out a call for help from his web comics brothers. Master Huffman was kind enough to accept my guest strip on his excellent site Mocktopus.

Go on over and check out the site. Max has one of the funniest web comics out there, and I'm totally stoked to be able to have lent a hand.

Tough Days

Air Junk

Yes, even Kirsten's white blood cells have a little pink star on them.

1. Over the years, I've noticed that I get a lot of traffic to this strip from a few years ago. Lots of people out there looking for a cartoon of a white blood cell, I guess.
2. My reaction to sinus pain is only slightly exaggerated.
   
3. And, speaking of things medical and amazing, don't forget to check out Awesome Hospital every Tuesday and Thursday.

Dumb and Dang3rous

Dumb and Dangerous 2: Even Dumber

Speaking of secondary mutations, be sure to check out the new page up at Awesome Hospital today.

Dumb and Dangerous

Announcing: AWESOME HOSPITAL

It can finally be revealed - Awesome Hospital is a project I've been working on, written by Chris Sims and Chad Bowers with logo and lettering by Josh Krach. I'm very proud of it, and think you'll like it too.

We'll be updating every Tuesday and Thursday starting next week.

I liked that last panel so much...

...I made a t-shirt out of it. Head on over to the Cafe Press store if you'd like one of your own. Just like before, proceeds go towards Marla's recovery.

The Manscapist