Planet Comics #4 on Kickstarter - and the San Diego Comic-Con!

 

Hello once again, internet. I'm here to tell you that the campaign for Planet Comics #4 is currently up and running on Kickstarter! Let's take a look at what this new issue has for us all.

There are two covers! Jake Smith drew the main cover.

And Mark Welser drew the Kickstarter exclusive cover. What is going on here? Is this a reference to a deep-cut Weird Al song? Who can say?

My four-part Bulwark story comes to an end! Co-creator Andrea Schivaone provides the lovely art for this one!

Jennie Wood and Erin Dodge have a new, eight-page story titled "Nightmare Girl" in this issue! I'm really looking forward to this one.

Duane Redhead and I have finished the second of a two-part Teddy and the Yeti story! What fate awaits our protagonists?

Diana Krueger pens a new essay on Golden Age comic creator Jackie Ormes!

Plus there are more stories from Jeff McComsey, Benito Cereno, Jorge Correa, Jr., Guillaume Deloizon and more! There are lots of rewards and add-ons for this issue. I hope you'll check it out! The campaign runs until the middle of August.

The 2023 San Diego Comic-Con starts tomorrow! I haven't packed yet! But I will be there! I'm sharing some space at booth 2200 with Ian Nichols and others. I'll have Planet Comics, The Illustrated Al, mini comics, pins and more! If you come and visit, I'll give you a trading card! I hope to see you there!

Planet Comics #3 now on Kickstarter!

 

Is it that time again? It is! It's once again time for a new issue of Planet Comics, your favorite oversized sci-fi anthology pulp comic tribute of the 21st century! It is all of those things.

The campaign for Planet Comics #3 is now live on Kickstarter, and I hope that you'll check it out if you haven't yet. There's a little over a week left in the campaign, and the book has reached its initial goal. Let's take a look at some of the art and stories that will be included in this new issue!

This issue starts off with a main cover by Nickolej Villiger! Nickolej is such a great talent and I'm sure you'll be seeing more of his work in the near future!

The Kickstarter-exclusive cover for this issue is by Hilary Barta, who has drawn so many weird and funny comics over the past few decades. I love his work on Radioactive Man from Bongo Comics!

The Bulwark is back with another new chapter int his issue. Andrea Schiavone once again provides the art. He brings so much to this story and the book! I'm lucky to have him drawing the lead story.

Jeff McComsey's "The Old Man and the Sea of Love" returns again as our other continuing story. More tales of big adventure on the high sea await!

There are a few new stories in this third issue, as well. The first has a weird western flavor provided by Joey Esposito and MoraMike. This story is called "Nixon: Small World."

I'm really excited about this short story from Grace Gilbert and Guillaume Deloizon, "Julián in Space." Grace is a former student in one of my comic book classes and she's a really great storyteller! Guillaume's art is so unique, especially in a book like this, and I think it adds such an interesting flair to the publication.

And get ready for this...Duane Redhead and I are creating a new Teddy and the Yeti story for this issue! This will be the first new T&Y story since 2014. I'm so excited to bring these characters back for the first time in a while.

I'm also printing a blank sketch cover edition for the first time in the series. My pal Ian Nichols is offering up his services to draw sketches on these covers as one of the limited rewards! So you can get some bona fide original art with this campaign. I'm really looking forward to seeing some of these covers with pencils and ink on 'em.

This issue will probably end up being a few pages longer than the previous one, which will mean that issue #3 will be the biggest one yet. I'm grateful for the support this book has gathered in the past and I hope for at least a few more issues to come. Please spread the word that Planet Comics #3 is now live! Pledge if you can! Write me weird comments below this post!

Rewriting the Superman/Kenny Rogers PSA crossover by Curt Swan

Curt Swan's 100th birthday was on February 17th, and as such, folks were sharing images and stories of Curt and his work online as a tribute to the greatest Superman artist of all time. Some even shared pictures of the original Swan artwork they own, which was a special treat for me. Swan is one of my favorite comic artists and I'd love to own a piece of his art one day.

Phil Hester, probably best known for his DC work as both a writer and artist (he also drew a cover to Teddy and they Yeti #1, wouldn't you know), shared a piece from his own collection, an anti-drug public service announcement from the Reagan years:

This was from a time when Superman was teaming up with the Nestle Quik Bunny and the Kool-Aid Man had his own special, but I was still surprised to see this one-page team up between the Man of Steel and country star Kenny Rogers. I was even more surprised to see Rogers swinging a mean left hook as he confronted some drug dealers. The signer appears in all eight panels of this story, compared to only three for Superman. Someone's hogging the spotlight!

Another notable thing about this page is that it's presented in black and white, which means that it was easy for me to erase the words in the speech balloons and fill them back in with some nonsense of my own, which I then proceeded to do, because I apparently had nothing else going on at the time.

I wanna say that...I like the results. Now Kenny Rogers is an out-of-control murderer who has somehow blackmailed Superman into doing his dirty work. This is a story we didn't know we needed.

If DC Comics would ever want to hire me to ruin some of their other stories, well, I'd be up for it. Sorry, Curt.

"Sister Powers" miniseries from Keenspot - and an Inktober mini-comic!

Hey everyone. Did you realize that I wrote a series that's out now from Keenspot? I will admit that it kind of caught me by surprise, too.

"Sister Powers" is a book that I wrote quite a number of years ago under the title "Faith and Charity" (after the two main characters) with artist Mario Wytch. Mario and I have known each other for a while, and we've worked together on a few stories that have been published - FUBAR and a short Teddy and the Yeti story among them. Faith and Charity was a story that I enjoyed, but had filed away for some time. I never really expected it to go anywhere. So I was surprised when, earlier this summer, I got a message from Mario letting me know that not only was he drawing it, but that it was going to be published as a three-issue limited series from Keenspot.

Mario was kind enough to let me go back through the script and make a few pre-publication edits. It had been about 13 years since I wrote the story and I was worried that not everything would've held up in the time that had passed. I was happy to see that I still liked most of it, and what I didn't like (mostly melodrama) could be fixed with a new line or two.

I met Mario in person - for the first time in my life - at Comic-Con in July. He had a booth with Keenspot, and a banner for the book under its new title. I do like the logo, which does, of course, take some inspiration from DC's "Super Powers" book from the '80s. Keenspot had a preview book to hand out with a short introduction to the characters in it that I was able to snag.

The first issue of the series came out in September, and it's (probably?) still available through Diamond. The next issue comes out in December, and the final issue of the miniseries follows in March (I think).

Mario and I worked on a new short story with the characters that we're releasing a panel at a time for Inktober. Should I use the hashtag for that? #Inktober? Sure.

We're posting the panels to various social media, and if you'd like to follow along, you can start here with this Twitter post:

For #Inktober this year, @MarioWytch and I are creating a six-page, 31-panel comic where we work on and release one panel per day for the entire month! Here’s the first installment of our story titled “We All Wear Masks”: pic.twitter.com/PRzpCSlJ38

— Jeff McClelland (@JeffMcClelland) October 2, 2019

Here's the Diamond Previews information for issue #2, out in December!

The new Yeti store on Etsy! And other blog updates!

I, uh, don't know why it took me years to do this, but I finally opened up an online store on Etsy! I suppose that I never felt that I had enough products to really merit managing one, but whatever the reason, I've got a new store that you can find at etsy.com/shop/teddyandtheyeti.

Naturally, what precipitated this was the "Weird Al" Yankovic Strings Attached tour. I worked on three official tour posters and, since they've been announced and released, people have been contacting me about buying them. Now they can buy them! And some people HAVE bought them! Look at that.

Along with the tour posters, I also have...well, some other Weird Al stuff that I've made over the past few years. I'm still considering what I should add with regards to comic books and the like, but for now, I at least have copies of the recently released Black Terror: Social Insecurity on hand as well as some enamel pins that went along with the campaign. The graphic novel is hefty enough to hopefully make it worth buying and paying for shipping (plus, perhaps you will like reading it). The shop is open! Hooray!

I've also updated this ol' blog slightly in recent days. Right under the header sits a few links - a few more than there used to be, as it turns out.

A while ago, I created a Tumblr account (just in time for people to stop using that platform), and I have posted some of my shorter comics there. I used to house some of them on one of the internal blog pages, but it just wasn't easy to read. So the Tumblr page has some of my comics stored and ready to view! Here's the direct link: teddyandtheyeti.tumblr.com

There's also a new link that takes you to one of the aforementioned internal pages, titled "publications and credits". I created this page not just so that I can remember what stuff I have worked on. Every year, the New York Comic Con professional badge application has a line that asks you what you've worked on before, as well as for a professional website. And I never feel like I'm putting my best foot forward in that (very) limited space. There's just not enough room to make a case for yourself if you're like me, someone who legitimately works in the comic industry, but doesn't have a lot of name recognition. So I made this page to list a lot of the things I've worked on to hopefully make a better case for myself in the future. I almost always end up getting a professional badge before the show, but it's not always an easy process.

So, hey, you can look at a semi-comprehensive publication list for myself if the mood ever strikes you late at night.

Oh, and there's also a Twitter link! You can click on that and see my Twitter page. I guess. If you want to. I talk about the Steelers a lot on there.

There's more for me to do to clean up this site a little more. The gigantic word cloud on the right of this page amuses me, so it can stay, even though it's a help to almost certainly no one. But a number of the other links and widgets are a bit outdated, and they need to be either updated or dumped. There are only a certain number of hours in the day, though (it's a mystery as to exactly how many, unfortunately), so those will take a little longer. Sometimes I think that I should just choose a new layout entirely for this site. But I fear change! So it stays for now.

Thanks for reading this, I guess! Back to Comic-Con pictures.

Someone got a tattoo of a Teddy and the Yeti character

I was talking to my friend Karin Rindevall a few days ago, and she passed on a link to something I never really expected to see - it appears that someone has decided to mark his body with some Teddy and the Yeti artwork for the rest of his life.

Back in 2010-ish, I made a set of (very popular) Teddy and the Yeti trading cards. The original set contained 18 cards, though I've added a few to it in the intervening years. One of the last cards was of a character from the cover of Teddy and the Yeti #3, which I named "The Space God". It was an obvious homage to a Jack Kirby Celestial-like creation, and it was originally designed by Tom Scioli in his Kirby style when he drew the cover. Anyway, I naturally liked the design, and even though I've never published an actual sequential story with the Space God (there's a script), the character got a card, and Karin drew it. The art is above.

And here are some further shots of the tattoo. The new artist made some changes, flipping the image around and giving the character a can of spray paint, but the overall image is, well, pretty clearly based on the original card art. It's part of a larger space scene that goes down the person's arm, including other more recognizable characters like Earthworm Jim and Bender from Futurama.

The picture was on a Facebook page for a tattoo parlor in Australia, of all places, apparently run by an artist named Steve Yoda. This was the info Facebook had for me. I suppose I could send the shop a message to try and get more info if I'm ever up late at night pondering the meaning of the universe.

This is not to say that I'm upset about having the image used without my knowledge - I'm honestly just curious to learn how the person found the image in the first place. The Space God is a pretty obscure character by any definition, and I'm a little surprised that Teddy and the Yeti, even with the marvels of the Internet(s), has ever filtered into Australia at all. It's a pretty cool image and I hope that everyone involved is happy with it - the guy has to live with it forever now. That's pretty crazy!

"Weird Al" Yankovic Strings Attached Gilford, NH poster - and an update on the Pittsburgh tour date

In June, I posted some images of the first poster I worked on for "Weird Al" Yankovic's Strings Attached tour, July 7th's Pittsburgh stop. I actually worked on three different posters, the second of which was the July 18th show in Gilford, New Hampshire. For this one, I worked with my pal and frequent collaborator Duane Redhead, artist on The Tick and Teddy and the Yeti. You can see the final image above; let's take some time and look at how it was put together.

"Nature Trail to Hell" is a Weird Al deep cut, but it's also one of my favorites (though I suppose you could say that a lot of Al's songs are my favorites). When I was contacted about doing these posters, I specifically suggested Nature Trail, so I'm pretty thrilled that I was actually able to do it. The song itself is a throwback to both old scary songs and scary movies, so I knew that I wanted the tour poster to reflect that. One really fun aspect of making the poster was just getting to go through images from old 1950s-era sci-fi and horror movie posters. I took some inspiration from a lot of different images, but the above and below images provided some obvious impressions.

The triptych image at the bottom of this one was something I had to try and duplicate, if nothing else than so I could cram more art into an already crowded poster.

I also loved the title cards at the bottom of this one, and I was happy that I could duplicate the "See" font pretty easily in the new poster - and it reflected lyrics from the song, too!

After I had a basic idea down, I contacted Duane about doing some of the heavy lifting, and thankfully, he was up for it.

Duane produced some of the most detailed art of his career, I think, for this poster. He drew a number of the elements on separate pieces of paper, scanned them, and then put them all together digitally.

The three images at the bottom of the poster could easily have been afterthoughts, but Duane put a lot of work into these, based on some pretty obscure references that he and I thought would add something to the poster.

There's a backwards message in the song that says "Satan eats Cheez Whiz", which I think is one of the greatest sentences in human history, so I knew that I wanted to see that somewhere in the poster.

This reference isn't from the song itself, but since it includes both Al and monsters, I thought it'd be appropriate to reference. It's Al as the Cabbage Man from the TV show "Amazing Stories". Duane later added glasses to complete the look.

Jason (later with a tennis racket) was Duane's idea, as he thought the juxtaposition would be funny.

Here's a look at some of the pencils...

...and some early color work.

The jar of Cheez Whiz that Satan is pouring from is taken from a 1950's era glass jar.

This poster was probably the most detailed of any that I worked on, just because it had so many elements coming together in a pretty busy image - but one that I hope evokes the impression of an old drive-in scary movie poster. It also involved the most work on my end, with the title fonts and the credits and just trying to fit everything in in an appropriate manner. I got some good feedback from both Al's team and regular folks who saw it when Al posted the image on Instagram. I hope you all like it, too!

While we're here, let's look at some pictures from the July 7th Pittsburgh show, which I attended!

As mentioned, this is the poster I worked on with Jeff McComsey for that show.

I also took the label I created and made some actual soup cans. I gave these to Al, some band members, and a few fans and tour workers. I also left one outside and posted a picture of it online as an impromptu scavenger hunt...

...and someone actually went and found it!!

One of the more surreal moments of the night was when I actually got to meet Donald Warhola, who is Andy Warhol's nephew and one of the curators of the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. Life is strange sometimes.

The show itself was, of course, wonderful. I'll never get tired of seeing Al in concert.

Al played "You Don't Love Me Anymore", after which he smashed his guitar on stage. What happens to those broken guitars after every show??

Sometimes I end up with them, I guess. Also, there's my cat.

I'm sure this comes as no surprise, but I really like Al and his shows. So it was a pretty big deal for me to get to play a small part in these three tour dates. I've got one last poster to show off, which I'll do soon. It was already announced so maybe you've seen it! I'll write again about that one soon.