Friday, April 30, 2010

Inkhat Has a Surprise For You!



Here's the deal, Inkhatians. Because there is no way for me to get the first episode of Curious Adventures out to all of you I will be posting it here, one page a week. It will start this coming Tuesday and then every Tuesday after. Why Tuesday? Well, none of my favorite webcomics update on Tuesday. Now this one does! I will also post little extras and bonus comics that don't necessarily fit into the next book. That's right, I've already started on CAoI 2, tentatively titled The Worst Week Ever. Stay Tuned! Keep your hat on your head!

Monday, April 26, 2010

Inkhat Rants About Conventions!

Let me try to explain this. I have been to two conventions in three weeks and have been left with a strange assortment of emotions about them. They include, but are not limited to: frustration, joy, excitement, anger, contempt, cynicism, and inspiration. For AWP, I was expecting this.


But it didn’t happen. On the contrary, I had a wonderful time at AWP. I even had a friend pull me aside and explain exactly why I should be immovably depressed, but all I could feel was a general sort of enthusiastic curiosity and the gentle feeling of adrenaline that comes from riding the very edge of a wave, or watching a natural disaster from a safe distance.


At SPACE I felt increasingly frustrated with the state of things around the room. I saw the things my friend had warned me about at AWP. For every intelligent conversation I had 10 banal ones. Those who were producing the old slop, (short skirts, tight shirts, super heroes, zombies, cliché dialogue, and shallow themes), were doing great, while people with genuinely brilliant ideas testing the edge of the genre were ignored.


I had one experience where I was holding a book about three big-busted girls who fought crime from a convertible in LA. They were apparently cheerleaders. They held pistols. The writer was making a valiant attempt to sell me the idea and, I assume, my unbridled rage must have begun to show on my face because his artist chimed in, “But there’s also a love story for you!”


Oh Snap. Them's fightin words.


The two experiences were different for a very simple reason. At SPACE, I was involved. I am an amateur poet at best. I am wallowing in obscurity. No one cares about me or what I have done and I am certainly no where near ready to join their ranks. I could play the happy observer. I could make popcorn and sit back and take notes. Someday soon I will be desperately filtering through the crowds for publications and jobs, but not yet.


On the other hand, at SPACE, I had a stack of things to sell. People were walking away from my table with my work in their hands. I wanted it to be good. I wanted everyone to be good. I didn’t feel so powerless to change the ebb and flow of the genre. There! There was my input on that flow. It was bound with three staples and was 25 pages long. I was really gorram proud of it.


Let me try to explain this, mostly to my fellow comic artists. When you spread your tablecloths over the folding tables, when you set up your printed books, when people stop by and buy them, (Even ten people. Even five), when people stop by and say offhandedly that they rather liked your last work, when someone stops by and says they hate it, when you are compared to the person sitting next to you, when you joke about it, when you are recognized if even by the one person who bought your book last time you have reached what will be the zenith of my career as a poet.


No. Really. My friend was right. There is no job in this. You have to love it. You have to want to do something good with it. Not just good, but –if you can manage it at all- beautiful. That is the only thing to strive for.


It pisses me off when a lot of artist/writers screw around instead.


In the end I find myself with a sort of battered determination and four hours of sleep. I bought a lot of books. I met some truly fantastic people. There was a hot tub and muffins and truly talented artists and writers sharing their time with me. I came home excited to get started again, which is pretty much the best place to be.

(PS: I didn't punch the guy. It was close, though)

Monday, April 19, 2010

Inkhat Gives A Small Update!

Hello Inkhatians!

I just printed out an enormous pile of comics! Yai! Tonight I will be making covers and tomorrow I am bribing my office mates with a bottle of wine to help fold. It's looking like I might actually make the deadline for space. Now it's time to go turn in my essay and go to class. Very little sleeping this week, methinks. Stay tuned!

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Inkhat is Sans a Cat!

Cat has been found (thanks to a Craige's list ad of call things)!

I had a whole report typed up about AWP and how fascinating and mentally devastating it was, but I came home to discover my cat ran away in my absence. So, I am using the power of the internet. Please send this around. I've been through three states, four houses and two universities with this little girl, and I miss her already.

Those in Athens, Ohio: She is a gray short hair, declawed. Friendly. There is a $50 reward for her return. Contact me through the site.




Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Inkhat Explains How To Eat the Food You Have!

Sometimes we are stuck with the food we have, instead of the food we deserve. Especially as a student and a space cadet, I often find myself limited by income, time, and tiny tiny attention span. Often I find myself with a loaf of bread, spinach, and a paper that cannot be ignored any longer. Personally I think I deserve sushi more often, or at all really. I also deserve to be taken out and treated like a lady once in awhile!

But that is beside the point. The point is I have bagels and bacon bits left and half an hour to get to class.

Step 1) Lie in bed and forget that you didn’t go shopping yet.

This necessitates the sort of post REM sleep that creates a state of –if not complete confusion – at least happy disorientation. At this point your mind, perhaps in a desperate attempt to protect your fragile psyche from realizing the situation you, yourself, have placed your body in, will produce a wide range of things that might be eaten. It will include amazing things, pulled from every day of your life: the eggs your mom made, the fruit you bought at the market on your summer vacation, the toast you picked at on that first date that sadly (perhaps devastatingly) went nowhere.

You will, in your mind, walk around the kitchen and gather these things. You will imagine how warming and refreshing this breakfast will be; how it will prepare you for the hard day ahead. Indeed, nothing else could.

Step 2) Realize you have nothing in your fridge

But, of course, once you get out of bed you begin to wonder what you have been thinking. You haven’t been to the store. You have kidney beans and ramen noodles left. At this point it is traditional to stomp around your domicile cursing your life and situation. Profanity is acceptable here, as is knocking over difficult to break objects and glaring out windows into the street.

Although the goal of these steps is to help you come to terms with your food related grief, this is a perfectly acceptable response. The hope is that, by becoming aware of this step and learning to control the destructive tendencies it inspires, you will achieve a grace and serenity in your foodlessness and move on with your life.

Step 3) Collect what you do have

This step should be easy. There shouldn’t be much, and the combination will likely be odd. Get it all together. Try to make some logical combination.

Step 4) imagine eating it

This one is best done in another room, or while completing another chore. Maybe while showering or reviewing your work for the day. Imagine the things you like about those elements. Repeat commercials in your head. Remember that Cheerios are good for your heart! There isn’t anything wrong with your heart, but it certainly couldn’t hurt.

Remember that you always wanted to have cookies for breakfast as a kid. Isn’t it, really, sort of decadent to eat these things now, alone in your apartment? Isn’t it sort of wonderfully self indulgent? And romantic as well, in that starving artist, bohemian sense. Realize you have become a beautiful character from a movie or book, the kind with the amazing mind who dwells so much in and of themselves that they cannot be bothered with mortal concerns like food.

Step 5) Eat it

Just…just eat it already. You have shit to do today.

Step 6) Find this hilarious

I can’t believe you ate that.

Step 7) Tell someone about it

This is the fun part. Likely if you are living in this situation you know someone else who is as well. Swap breakfasts like trading cards. Mountain Dew and a chocolate bunny! That completely trumps Triscuits and rice! At this moment you can enjoy grossing out the upstanding members of your circle, those who have not scrounged. (It is highly likely that this group has, in fact, completed this same exercise, but will never, ever admit it). You may also encounter the older person who has ‘totally been there.’ This person can only enhance the shared experience game, though they will win every time.

Step 8) Reach totally and complete understanding

and go to the store.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Inkhat Makes A Guest Appearance!

I gave a little help over at Double Clicked Comics.

For a given value of "help."