Specifically, that I know of, Secret Headquarters (Los Angeles), The Beguiling (Toronto, Ont), Giant Robot (Los Angeles), and Meltdown Comics (Los Angeles) all ought to have some copies of Lemon Styles for sale now or in the near future. Or ask your favorite stores to order Sparkplug Comics so they can sell them to you and get really extravagantly wealthy.

Get a load of the excitment from your friend and my publisher by reading Sparkplug’s Comic-Con blog post. At the booth (#1630) there will be new Sparkplug comics (Chris Cilla’s The Heavy Hand and Lemon Styles, specifically), back issues, and bargain-priced books from your favorite authors that I want to get rid of. I also have some prints of the Jimmy Olsen cover I drew last year, let’s say they’re $20. I’ll have some copies of Crime World.

Here’s all the info regarding my new comic book, Lemon Styles that will make its worldwide debut at San Diego Comic-Con.

I’ll be at the Sparkplug Comic Books booth from 10am to 2pm probably every day of Comic-Con if you wish to give me money so I can become a famous millionaire, or I might be willing to autograph your body parts if they are round/large/veiny enough.

40pp, 10in x 10in, B&W with some spot color, $9.00 from Sparkplug Comics

We’ll have it for sale at San Diego Comic-Con Int’l and Sparkplug’s subsequent comic festival appearances this year.

I have a PDF for download for reviewers, request one through email.

Also as part of the multi-media marketing blitz I put together a TV commercial. Check it out on Flickr, it’s in HD:

Here’s the ad copy/sales pitch:

Do you like stories about feeling good? Stories about feeling lousy? How about drawings of train cars and fishing boats? These subjects and more are included in Lemon Styles by David King. There is backstabbing, infidelity, murder, fear, menacing insinuation, and other stuff that will make you laugh laugh laugh. Lots of people have said they like these comics!

Lemon Styles‘ collection of single page comic strips and one multi-page romantic odyssey aggregate to create 40 large pages of violence and illustrated pleasures that are lots more cranky and cynical than King’s previous (Ignatz Award nominated) collection, Danny Dutch (still for sale from SPARKPLUG COMIC BOOKS), and funnier, too. An improvement in every way over anything David King has ever done — so how can you lose??

Please feel free to share the video and info on all your favorite social media sites and help me become a famous millionaire.

1. Word Balloons Are Always Round
For awhile I’d make the balloons weird shapes to fit the words in just right, but I don’t think it looks as good as just keeping them nice and round and balloon-shaped.

fig. 1

2. Word Balloon Tail Origins
Balloon tails emanate from the center of the balloon in most cases. They look weird otherwise.

fig. 2

3. Word Balloons Do Not Exist In Our Dimension
Word balloons exist somewhere behind the character speaking them but in front of the background or other characters. But I really try to make sure there’s enough room allowed that a balloon doesn’t get stuck behind or in front of anything.

4. Words Need Never Be Broken With A Dash
I’ve done it before but I don’t like the way it looks. It might take a little time to work it out but I can almost always make the space work so that I don’t have to wrap longer words to the next line with a dash

fig. 4

5. I Really Shouldn’t Put More Than Three Or Four Lines Of Text In A Panel
Life’s just too short!

fig. 5

6. If A Word Balloon Is Only One Word Wide
Don’t stick it to the panel border. It looks bad.

fig. 6

7. Hand Lettering Looks Best
If you’re drawing your comics with the computer, by all means use the same tools to letter them. But If you draw the comic by hand it looks bad if the panel borders, word balloons and letters are all slick and vector-ey. If a person can draw then he can also letter, it just might take a little practice. And it’s easier than typing everything and screwing around with Illustrator anchor handles, for sure.

fig. 7

8. I Need To Learn How To Do Italics
Italics will be my next big thing. I need to look through some books to get an idea how to do it right. So far I am not ready (scared) to take a shot at it, but I know I can do it.

9. Dropping Punctuation Can Be Great
Sometimes I’ll put a period at the end of a sentence, sometimes I won’t. Usually I puposefully decide whether to punctuate or not, but sometimes I just forget to do it. I also like semi-colons, but more and more I think there’s no place for them in word balloons; the long dash works better. These may be writing concerns more than lettering concerns, who knows.

10. Studying Is Good For Me
I really like to look through lettering and typeface books. If I see one in a used book store I will buy it if it’s economical. They’re a wealth of information that tend to end up in library discard piles because nobody needs to know that stuff since there’s Illustrator and MS Word. Don’t you believe it! Reading just one page of the Speedball book was like taking a college course in hand lettering. I still have a long way to go, but looking at my older pages I feel like I’ve gone from being a kid making a birdhouse out of popsicle sticks to a master carpenter building a submarine.

Check out this beautiful stuff:

My Lettering & Type Sets on Flickr

Bob Lappan

Rick Geary

F.G. Cooper

Don Herold

I guess it’s like a community fair type of deal with music and art and comic books. A few local and local-ish (like me) cartoonists will be there signing things, selling memories, and a few of us will participate in a comics reading event in which we read comics, projected on a screen, to an audience and compete for their goodwill. Scheduled to speak are myself, Robert Goodin, Jesse Moynihan, Tom Neely, Ted Stearn, and Malachi Ward . It will occur at the El Cid Show Restaurant/Club/Gathering Place (10:30AM-12PM Saturday May 22) where all the best corporate Powerpoint slide presentations are presented. Should I wear the gray suit or the brown one??

Signing will be:

• Robert Goodin
• Tim Hensley
• Joe Matt
• Jesse Moynihan
• Tom Neely
• Olga Volozova
• Ted Stearn
• Malachi Ward

Please come out for this exciting thing.

MORE INFO

First, you should check out this interview with my boss, Sparkplug Comic Books publisher Dylan Williams at The Beat. Williams also has an exciting new blog where he keeps talking about his crazy mind.

I just put in my vote for the 2010 Maisie Kukoc Award. I’ve been on the nominating panel for the last couple of years (it amounts to sending some emails back and forth with Jesse Reklaw, but it’s a very important job) and I’m behind it all the way for many reasons, but mostly because it’s the only comics award that offers cash money for a prize and not, for example, debris from a construction site for a prize. The award is awarded at the Stumptown Comics Fest, coming up soon. Anyhow, the email with my ballot has this to say:

Ballots must be submitted by Thursday, April 22 midnight Pacific time.

If you know other people who read hand-made, self-published comics, and haven’t been sent a ballot, please have them request one by sending an email to reklaw@slowwave.com.

So you can do that if you want, I guess.

Finally, in the past couple of weeks I saw a couple of worthy Kickstarter projects: one for Dustin Harbin and one for Diamond Comics #5. Also, I heeded the call for donations put out by the Portland Zine Symposium.

That’s all I can think of for now. DON’T EAT TOO MUCH.

Here’s the rest of my xtranormal cartoons. They are sitcoms starring Susan and Jeff.

That Ringing Telephone
Jeff would like to get away from it all. Susan suggests a trip to the gym. Then they share a secret exchange.

I Finally Did It
Jeff comes clean!

A Valuable Tool
Susan and Jeff consider the nature of their friendship and the secrets they keep from one another.

I Applied for a Grant
Jeff divulges his plans to drop out and complete his novel. Susan expresses concern over his subject matter, his perceived audience and his own motivation.

Why Do You Treat Me Like a Crap?
Jeff does not appreciate his treatment at Susan’s hands. He questions her and receives a startling explanation.

Last summer I made some cartoons with this goofy website xtranormal.com.

I made seven of them. The first two are here, and then I have five more that star a couple sitcom characters, Susan and Jeff. I’ll put those in another post.

You Always Get Wasted
These two are having some real heavy trouble!

I am the Police
A police officer requests a treat

I redrew H.G. Peter’s cover of Sensation Comics #47 and it’s on Rob Goodin’s Covered Blog today.

I also did a version of Jimmy Olsen #77 as mentioned in this blog post from two weeks ago!