Karin Rindevall's Teddy and the Yeti, The Din and more!

If you've followed this blog at all since it started up in 2008, the name Karin Rindevall won't be an unfamiliar one - the Swedish artist has been a contributor to Teddy and the Yeti, Andromeda Jones and other various projects since the beginning.  It's hard to even remember the exact circumstances under which we met...I'm sure it was a generic Digital Webbing ad in some context or another, but in any case, Karin has been a major help with a number of my comics and she does a heck of a job on her own work as well.

Karin has been hard at work on a number of projects recently, not the least of which, from my perspective, has been a new, four-page Teddy and the Yeti story that will run in issue #6.  The first page from this story is above, both drawn and colored by Karin.  Her distinctly European, animation-influenced style is on display and in great form with this page, and I couldn't be happier with the results.  I'm not even sure how to letter this story yet - if I should try it myself or opt for a hand letterer, one who might mesh better with the artwork at hand.

Karin, who works in animation and game development, also puts together the webcomic "the Din", a story about a civilization in which all technology has been abandoned hundreds of years in the past.  In the Din, society is slowly reinventing itself as it reintroduces new machines and other technology into its midsts.  It's a fascinating read and, while some chapters are under construction and the story is far from finished, it's well worth the time it takes to check out.  The webcomic is housed at http://www.dincomic.com!

Karin's also got a blog that she updates regularly where you can find smilin' Steve Rogers as well as other gems.  Take a look and enjoy at http://www.karrey.com!

Four and Baldy

I haven't done enough work on comics lately.  It's true.  But I'm getting back into the swing of things, I promise.  Above is one of the things I've started recently - lettering for a potential webcomic titled "Four and Baldy", a spoof of Thor (and his warrior brother, Balder) by writer/artist Grant Perkins.  Grant is, I believe, having some pages colored, and if everything works out, this may end up as an ongoing webcomic.

I know Grant from his Digital Webbing days, and it's cool to be involved in something with him, even at such a tentative stage.  If you haven't seen his work before, check out his website at http://www.thegrantperkins.com - he's got a lot of great art on the site, including some incredible paintings.  If Four and Baldy makes any progress, I'll post it here.  Or you could just Google the term every single hour until you see something.  Either works.

Teddy and the Yeti cameo in "War of the Independents"!

Yesterday at Pittsburgh Comics, I picked up the first issue of Dave Ryan's War of the Independents, an ambitious crossover event with independent comic characters galore from dozens of different publishers.  Dave first previewed the book at the 2010 New York Comic Con, and the first part of this miniseries is now out in comic shops everywhere.

As I made my way to the back of the issue, I came to the following spread:

There are a lot of recognizable characters to be seen - Bone, Hack/Slash, the Tick, Ms. Monster, Todd Nauck's Wildguard, Digital Webbing's Fist of Justice...oh, and if you look near the top left corner, you'll see the Yeti!

I knew that Teddy and the Yeti would be making an appearance in this book at some point, but I didn't know it'd be so soon.  The image is taken from Jorge Correa's cover to T&Y issue #3 - it seems that there was a lot of cutting and pasting when it came to characters in this shot.

This won't be the last appearance of either Ted or the Yeti in this series - I'm told that they'll both have a part in issue #3 and, if I'm remembering correctly, we'll see them in issue #6 as well.  So check for this at your local comic shop...if you can't find it, I'll try to get some ordering info to pass along.  Issue #2 arrives this December!

"One of the Good Ones"

It's nice to do something different every once in a while, and I found that in lettering the above as part of a story submission, titled "One of the Good Ones".  I met writer Sean Fahey on the Digital Webbing message boards and have been lettering his nine-page story for the past few days.  I tend to letter a bit slowly, but I suppose that's the story of my life.  I think it's turning out well, in any case.

The story, written by Fahey, has art by Ben Passmore.  I'm not sure when we'll hear back about this anthology submission, but I will put an update on here if it does get accepted.  Fingers crossed!  Either way, it's nice to have a change of pace and it's even nicer to meet some new creators.  Best of luck to Sean and Ben with this story!

"Eye of the Beholder" webcomic with Ruben Cordero, page 1

The first comic work I ever had published came in early 2004.  I had no idea what I was doing (that's not to imply that I do now, either), but I lucked into a great situation.  Dark Horse Comics was sponsoring an online comic contest - creators would submit their stories and an editor would choose the ones he thought were the best to showcase online.  Readers would then vote for their favorite comics of the month and each month's winner would be published in a collection titled Strip Search.  The contest ran, I believe, for an entire year.

This contest absolutely spoiled me with how perfectly everything came together.  I happened to read about the contest one day at a computer in my college's computer lab, and I said to myself, "heck, I'll give it a shot."  I had written a short story for a creative writing class and decided to use that as my subject.  The story was a fairly straightforward inversion of the classic Hansel and Gretal fairy tale, where it was told from the evil stepmother's perspective and took place in modern times.  I went right to a comic book message board (Digital Webbing, I think?), posted a quick message, and met up almost immediately with the extremely talented Ruben Cordero.

And that was pretty much it.  Really.  Ruben drew and lettered the story, we submitted it to Dark Horse, the story was selected and put up for a vote during the final month that entries would be accepted.  "Eye of the Beholder" was voted in and a few months later, Strip Search was published and I had something for sale all over the world (I had someone tell me he saw a copy on sale in Japan, which continues to blow my mind).

At this point I thought publishing comics would be easy, based on the only evidence I had at my disposal.  More aptly, I think I ran into the perfect storm - Dark Horse just happened to have the perfect contest, I just happened to find the perfect artist, and things fell in to place.

I'm generally happy with the result, although hopefully my writing has gotten a little less melodramatic over time.

Dark Horse retained the publishing rights to this story for five years, which means they have since reverted back to Ruben and me.  I thought it would be fun to revisit this story over the next few weeks in the format it was originally intended to be read - as a webcomic.  I'll post the first page today and continue at least twice a week until all eight pages are posted.  Just click on the tumbnail at the top of this entry to read the first page.  I hope you enjoy!

Ms. Monster ad

Ads have always been a part of comics (they fostered my love of sea monkeys), and as I've said before, one of my greatest thrills in putting Teddy and the Yeti together is selecting a few ads to put in each issue.  I don't want to overdo it, of course, as I'd rather reserve most of the space for...you know...comics...but there are always a few things I want to show off to the world that don't fit in otherwise.

One is, obviously, Franks and Beans (new episode up today, kids), but I'm not always so selfish or at least self referential.  Issue #1 had an ad for Digital Webbing's Fist of Justice as well as a big, back cover ad for the Hero Initiative -  which allowed me to say "hey!  Captain America is in my book!" and not be a liar about it.

Issue #3 gives me the opportunity to toss in the above ad for Ms. Monster and her website.  I first met Ms. Monster and the B-Minus crew at 2006's San Diego Comic Con International, where we had booths side by side.  The group  works together on a television show that airs in San Francisco (and if I'm not mistaken, they were on at one point in Salem, Massachusetts).

Ms. Monster is something of an Elvira-style throwback character, reminiscent of "Chilly Billy" late night horror movie hosts, and her enthusiasm for her craft (as well as, uh, guts and entrails) really shows through in everything she does.  Beyond all of this, she and the others are AWESOME, so that should be reason enough to check out her website and browse through the wares.  I've got volume one of the show's DVD set, and it looks like volume two is up and ready to order.

The picture below is from the '06 San Diego Con - if you can manage to look past the blue woman in the center, you'll see on the left someone, his mouth agape, holding up a copy of Mr. Massive #1 - that would be Ratha, the artist and co-creator of Mr. Massive.  As people were snapping pictures (including this one, which later showed up on Ms. Monster's website), Ratha said "hey, free advertising!" and shot his arm up just in time to get this ridiculous result.  I'm not sure if anyone other than me ever noticed this when looking at Ms. Monster's pictures, but perhaps that's why I find it so funny.

As an aside, I really like Ms. Monster's blue and orange color scheme.

Another ad

I mentioned a while ago that I worked out an ad swap with Digital Webbing.  Fist of Justice has an ad in Teddy and the Yeti #1 for its fifth issue, and T&Y has the reciprocal - an ad for issue #1 in their issue #5.  The book came out a few months ago, and Teddy and the Yeti had an ad on the back cover, which was great placement.

The image to the left here is the ad I threw together for the Fist of Justice book, and as you can see, I sure am getting my money's worth from issue one's Phil Hester cover...as you'll recall, the Diamond ad and the mailer each used parts of this particular cover as well.

I chose the phrase "against all odds!" not because it reflected any story element or theme, but because I thought it sounded cool.  And it does!  What can you do?  Also, I obviously didn't know where to stop when putting names of contributors on the ad.  I'm so proud of the book and all of the talent working on it, I just couldn't help it.  I honestly almost left my name off of the ad (since I'm guessing no one really knows who I am and thus it wouldn't convince anyone to buy the book), but I figured that, hell, I wrote the damn thing, I'm gonna self advertise.  It wouldn't be the first time!

In case there is some crazy person who wants to collect EVERYTHING Teddy and the Yeti have appeared on - stranger things have happened, I'm sure, but I doubt anyone other than me does this - Fist of Justice #5 can be ordered here.  You might also want to order the book...because it's a fun book.  The E-Man variant edition of issue five does not have the Teddy and the Yeti ad, in case you were curious.

Fist of Justice

The folks over at Digital Webbing were kind enough to do an ad swap with me - there's an ad in Teddy and the Yeti #1 for the newly released Fist of Justice #5 (as seen above), and T&Y gets the back cover to THAT book. That's some very generous placement as the back cover is a premium spot on any book, especially one with a built in audience.

Digital Webbing has been publishing comics in one form or another for the last seven years, which is an eternity for a small press company. In comparison, Wagon Wheel Comics has been publishing for ZERO years. What a difference! They've been responsible for giving a lot of creators their start - The Goon was first published in an issue of Digital Webbing Presents.

In any case, digitalwebbing.com is where I met Duane and, now that I think about it, just about everyone associated with the book. If you're looking to put a creative team together, then this is the place to do it. If you see a DW book at your comic shop, pick it up! You can also buy books at their online shop...so check it out. DO IT!