I have some recent activity to share with you!

First, the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival is occurring on December 3 and not only will Sparkplug Comic Books be there hopefully selling some of the comic books of mine that they published, but also this new thing will be debuting: Study Group Magazine #1. I have five pages of comics in there standing shoulder to shoulder with many of my cartooning idols. It looks like it costs 12 bucks and is published by the underground comics anthology publishing stalwart Zack Soto.

Here’s the floor map for the festival, find Sparkplug upstairs and Study Group magazine downstairs at the Press Gang table #08. Find out more about the magazine on the Study Group Comic Books tumbler.

Second, I made a guest appearance on the Ink Panthers Show podcast a couple of weeks ago. We talked about biking and cats and conceptual art and everything in between! I didn’t listen to it yet, but you might like it.

logo by Samuel Henderson

Third and least important, I submitted a couple pictures of my desk to this new tumbler website operated by estimable small press whizkid, Jordan M. Shiveley, called either Where They Draw or Artist’s Spaces.

Oh yeah, there’s also a brand new Laugh Menu comic strip today in case you’re interested in products of that type on websites.

I will be at the Alternative Press Expo this weekend, October 1-2, 2011.

I’ll be working at the Sparkplug Comic Books table alongside Sparkplug’s venerated co-publisher Virginia Paine. One spot over is I Will Destroy You, operated by indie comics darling Tom Neely. I won’t have any new comic books or anything but I made prints of a couple of heretofore unseen Laugh Menu strips that I think you will like. What other surprises await you at APE tables 121-122? Don’t ask, just be there.

Here’s an idea of what the prints look like:

It was at the APE show last year that I started to learn that there’s a ton of creeps out there in the comics business and that Dylan was the one I would always stick with. He was completely behind all the artists he published and he was the most incredible friend.

I still have all of our emails and about 20 feet of Facebook chats saved on my computer. It’s all dirty jokes and talks about old good movies and comics that we both agreed were terrible. I’m going to try to read through as much as I can before the harddrive crashes and it’s all gone forever.

I looked at the email he sent me where he suggested he publish my comics. He made it sound like I’d be doing him some kind of favor if I’d let him print my comics. Unbelievable.

I was scared to call him when he was in the hospital because I didn’t want to end up just talking about how sick he was. I also didn’t want to bother him or be in the way, or a dozen other excuses. I finally tried to call him a week ago and didn’t get through. I just got to hear that same old voicemail greeting “this is Dylan’s cellphone!” probably for the last time. The message I left was dumb too, like “I’ll just shoot you an email or whatever!” instead of telling him that I loved him and missed him, that everybody did. I’ll try not to be such an idiot from now on.

This is what we usually talked about:

1. ELO
2. David Lean and other UK cinema
3. Have Gun, Will Travel
4. Cheyenne
5. Leave it to Beaver
6. Jack Webb
7. Being old
8. Comic Book Lettering
9. Will there be more Jeff LeVine comics?
10. Girls
11 through 1,000,000. Other stuff

This isn’t really enough to say about him, but I don’t know where to start. Dylan was the only audience I ever wanted to please with my comics. I hope I never forget him.

Here’s a hundred photos of him.

This week we started selling three of my mini-comics in PDF form through the Fork Frenzy Shop.

Superstar artist Levon Jihanian is helping me out by handling the sale of the PDF versions of Crime World #1, Crime World #2 and my 2006 mini-comic Reliable Comics #1, through his Fork Frenzy Shop. They’re reasonably priced, high-quality PDFs that look good on your iPads and similar devices.

If this works out all right I’ll try to get some of my other comics up there, too, eventually. Plans are in the works, as well, to have some books by indy comics darling Tom Neely and Levon J. himself.

Please give it a try! Feel free to post any questions or concerns in the comments section.

For the Inkstuds podcast I laid my soul bare, listen to it if you dare.

I’ll be creeping around the Sparkplug Comic Books table (#118-119) where I’ll have all my books from Sparkplug available –Lemon Styles, Danny Dutch, The Shortest Interval– plus Crime World #1 and the hot-off-the-press Crime World #2 and a new Laugh Menu button for your shirt. These new things will also be for sale from the Sparkplug shop soon.

If you’re there I hope I will see you there!

I’ll be at the San Francisco Zine Fest tomorrow, Saturday September 4, 2010. It’s a two-day event, but I think I’ll bail on Sunday, sorry. Visit us at the Sparkplug Comic Books table.

Also for purchase at the Zine Fest and available soon worldwide, is the jokebook Bound and Gagged edited and arranged by Tom Neely. I have a drawing in the book, along with many of the greats of today’s underground cartooning scene.

Also, internet pal Josh Latta gave a thumbs-up to Lemon Styles over on his blog. Read his perceptions here.

Have a safe weekend.

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.