A Rejected Comic

 The following is a strip that I created for a publication. When I handed it in the strip was reject for not being violent enough. The person that requested the strip was familiar with my work and should have known that I do not do really violent stuff. I felt that I had up the level I was comfortable with already for this strip and was not going to go any further. I present to you, Handyman.

I had a part 2 planned with alien invaders and a part 3 planned with a Handyman impersonator who would date the 2 headed girl from the first strip and get a little too fresh with her. 

Sometimes I think about what this strip could have been and today was one of those days, so I thought I would finally share it.

                            Enjoy,

                                    -denny

Space Monstas: A New Beginning

Note: If you have not read the NEW Scace Monstas strip, there are visual spoilers ahead.

It has been a while. I have been working hard on making stuff, but things just have not felt right for a while. However I cannot just keep waiting for things to feel right, so it is time to move forward. Today I'm releasing a NEW Space Monstas strip over on Instagram at @spacemonstas. 

The origins of this strip start when I picked up a copy of Grass of Parnassus by Kathryn and Stuart Immonen (pick up a copy at your local comic shop or from Amazon). I read it, then re-read it and read it for a third time. I was obsessed with this book. Apparently this was a collection of strips that they had done on Instagram. Unfortunately at that point the strips had been removed from Instagram, so I could not see what they looked like in that environment, but I could imagine. And image is what I did, but I started to imagine using my Space Monstas characters, who had been hiatus at the time.

The paper below spent about a month sitting on my desk at work under my Wacom tablet, below my mouse and laptop computer. I would scribble on it a little each day and thing about what I was going to do and how to do it, YouTube is excellent for how to videos.

Shortly over a weekend I became possessed with the idea and drew the whole strip in about 8 hours.

Although some things were not to my liking, so I began to work on the next strip, while continuing to noodle the details of the strip. 

Up until the typing of this email I'm still making some minor changes,but I think the strip is ready for the world. I have 2 other strips done. The plan is to release a new strip on the 1st of each month over at the @spacemonstas Instagram account. I hope I can keep up with this schedule. I have already shelved a strip because it just wasn't working, which set me back quite a bit. However I think this way of working has done wonders for me creatively. 

Enjoy and thanx for reading,

-denny

 

All Good Things Must END

 On Friday April 15th, I published what I believe to be my last Cousin Harold webcomic strip. 

There are many reasons I brought Cousin Harold to an end, but the main one is that I have changed and want to work on other things. 

I originally thought doing a kids comic would be cool and fill a void, but after 10 years there are a couple of things that I realize. I have to build a new audience every 2 to 3 years, kids grow up. I have no way of competing with big name children's entertainment companies, pockets are not deep enough. I'm just a guy who writes, draws, folds, staples, trims and sells his own work.

I still have a few issues of Cousin Harold to publish and 2 trades to collect issues that have been published, so I will still be doing some Cousin Harold stuff for the next year. I have few NEW ideas left for the little guy. Not sure when/if I will ever get them done, but the ideas are sitting there for some short revivals.

Thanx to everyone who has support Cousin Harold since his creation. You made a dream of mine come true.

So what's next? Well I will be posting a little about it next week.

-denny

 

A NEW Project

 I always have various things in my head that I want to do and I'm usually not sure how they will fit together. Most of the time I am still in need of something before I begin a project. Well thanks to Kerf Loss over on Instagram, I might have found the final piece to start my PILLOW FIGHTERS project.

Since I was a teenager (maybe even younger) I have had an idea of creating something in conjunction with pillow fighting. I always thought of them as fighter similar to professional wrestlers, but with pillows that they would club each other upside the head with. I have started several comics with this theme, but really have not gotten anywhere with them. I have wanted to make pillow fighter figures also, but I wanted them to be different than what I was making for Space Monstas. 

Enter Kerf Loss, who is curres currently sharing videos on Instagram where he is sculpting his own action figure with wax. I'm sure it is not an easy thing to do, but he makes it look easy. So after a couple a messages back and forth I designed the following.

Then I placed an order for some wax and sculpting tools. The plan is to sculpt a couple of base bodies and bootleg heads onto these bodies. Each figure will also come with it's own cloth pillow. I have plans to create some unique packaging for these figures. Further plans would be in attempting to get some friends to create their own versions. But I'm really getting ahead of myself here. I first need to sculpt a body that I'm happy with.

So wish me Luck!

I will keep you updated.

-denny

Side Note - something that I did not notice until I posted these pictures is that both of these drawings move up as you scroll across the paper. I know in handwriting that is a sign of optimism. The girl figure does this way more than the boy figure. Hmm?

Rather NOT Buy from a Flipper

I thought I would take a second to talk about flippers. 

I recently got into buying Japanese Sofubi from creators like RealxHead, Goccodo, Skull Toys, Josh Wang Designs, Knave and Punk Drunkers. These sofubi figures are very limited release and usually you have to win a lottery to be able to purchase them.

Enter the current Punk Drunker's release of Samenchu (Sharkman) up for lottery the first week of May.

There is rarely something that I have seen that I have to have. Usually the clear vinyl is used to mimic classic Microman figures or to reveal the interior (guts) of a figure. This was the first time I seen a figure with another figure inside it. I felt that this toy represented PURE GENIUS and as I mentioned above I had to have it.

I had entered the lottery and waited to hear if I had been chosen. When the winners were announced, I did not receive a winning email. I was a little bummed but knew that the figure would be available on the secondary market from flipper. I assumed it would be later this year and I would have to wait a little while.

Over the second weekend of May, I began to see people posting pictures of their unboxings of this new figure. I thought, "That was quick!" I also always monitor online auctions in case a figure gets posted at a cheap 'Buy IT Now' price. I was shocked to see that one of these figures was already up with a 'Buy It Now' price just above triple it's original selling price. While this price was high, I mentioned that I had to have this figure, so I jumped at this chance and snagged it.

I was a little torn with this purchase. On on hand, I was getting the figure I wanted and paying a good secondary market price for it. On the other hand, I would much rather have give three times the price for the figure to the original creator over the flipper that I bought it from.

It the last couple of years I have sent many creators inquires about their figures, comics, etc. asking if they had one laying around (of whatever I was looking for), because I would rather give them the flipper price, than give the same price to the flipper. Sometimes this has been met with, "Sorry, I'm Sold Out" but to my surprise a few times it has been met with, "Yeah, let me look around" and the item I was looking for is available either at the original price or a couple dollars more.

This process over that last couple of years has lead me to wonder, Why the creators do not set aside a few maybe a handful of their creations to sell themselves online to the highest bidder? Would it be so wrong for these creators to make a couple extra dollars off of their hard work? Would their fans be upset about them essentially flipping their own products? I'm not sure what the answer is, but I do know that many creators are struggling right now and perhaps selling a few of their items to the highest bidder might help. 

Right now, me I'm happy that I got this figure, but I would rather have given the money to the original creator than some middle man.