The Billage Art and Design

Bingo Baby is featured on CBR!!

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=44782

We’re nearly 3/4 of the way there! AND I’m nearly done with the part one inks for my new book.
TWO. MORE. PAGES.  My friend Mia just finished her opus “Rockall” and I’m totally lagging behind.
I watercolored some stuff this past week, so as soon as I can stitch it together on the scanner I’ll make a post.

Tom Spurgeon over at the Comics Reporter gave us a little nod. Exciting!
Lookee Here-

Also the indefatigable Jen Vaughn talks us up fancy over at The Beat.

Man, it is cool to see this stuff on the internet. COOL.

A mystery page, without any spoilers on it!

Bingo Baby, the comic I worked on right after graduating from CCS with Penny Lantern, has a kickstarter going right now! We’re making a really good show of it so far, and I couldn’t be happier. Donna Almendrala, Mia Onorato, Denis St. John, Joe Lambert and myself all worked under Jason Lutes’ eye to craft a fiasco-style story that I’m really proud of. The best part is that to make the script, we actually played a board game called FIASCO, and improved characters that became the characters in the book.

The recordings of the sessions are both intensely embarrassing and hilarious, and there is a part of me that wishes we had published some of them. Dennis and Joe in particular are wonderful improv actors and really had us cracking up. I struggled to keep up with their zany wit. Most parts of my are so glad the recordings are in a vault somewhere, next to the ark of the covenant and rootbeer flavored Jell-O.

I gotta say though, as unorthodox as it was to be improv-ing the main bones of a comic script, we came up with something that not only served, but that really explored what you could do with some crazy story contraints and some willing vicitms participants. I would definitely recommend playing a couple games of FIASCO to anyone trying to grasp what makes a good story. At the end of a 3-hour game, you have an almost palpable feeling for how a story, and more specifically a story with a disastrous end, unfolds.

After the script, my part in the book was to draw a couple interior backgrounds and to color. Joe Lambert and I chose a color pallet and then worked together to knock out the book. It’s always fun to me to sit down and do a lot of coloring, there was a lot to do.  I was really lucky that I was able to have Joe around to steal knowledge from. It was as awesome working with Joe  as you would assume it would be–and I feel like I took a ton away from the process. I’m really happy with how this came out, and especially happy that this book is my first publishing endeavor in the eye of the greater internet and comics community. If the comics eye of Sauron turns upon you, it’s nice to be able to wave back instead of the usual gibbering in fear.

The kickstarter has been a really interesting process for me too, since this is the first time I’ve ever done crowdfunding. It’s an amazing feeling to be supported by the larger community– it’s strangely connecting in a way. Of course, we’re going to deliver a product, and these donations are essentially fancy pre-orders for a book. However, there’s a “closer” feeling with this project than simply commerce over the internet. I think it has something to do with forcing us into communication with the larger world: often things just feel so isolating toiling away alone in a studio. This is a nice reminder of the rest of the universe at large, and how awesome it can be.

Thanks to everyone who has donated thus far!

Hello, world!

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about priorities and work, and how to structure my life after receiving my MFA.
I’m tupped if I don’t have good answers to even the most rudimentary of questions, but it seems clear to me that step one is to get this website up and running.

To that end: Voila!

This is the test post.