Monkey’s Paw Book to Debut at Autoptic This Sunday

I will have a very limited number of copies of a new complete collection of Monkey’s Paw, my insane collaborative monster comic with Ben Zmith (along with almost 60 pages of bonus materials) available this Sunday (August 18th) at the Autoptic festival in Minneapolis. Really, this print-on-demand edition was printed to promote the comic to publishers who may be interested in publishing it… but I’ll be selling some of them. We’ve done a first printing of 20 copies, many of which are already gone. I will gladly draw something in the book for anyone purchasing one… the book will run you 12 bucks.

“An awesomely farcical horrorshow of monsters, freaks, and killers.” -Zander Cannon, author of HECK and The Replacement God

In the event I sell out of them, or if you just prefer reading comics digitally, you can read them all online at our website at webcomix.org/monkeyspaw… so I suppose you should really consider saving your money for the enormous quantity of other incredible comics that will be available at Autoptic this weekend, anyhow.

Regardless, please stop by my table for a free sample Monkey’s Paw mini-comic if you’re inclined… I’ll have a lot of other self-published stuff available as well, including my big collection of Soapy the Chicken (soapythechicken.com) webcomics (which I am looking for a publisher for as well).

Thanks for listening!

Lutefisk Sushi Volume E Opens this Friday! (November 2nd)

Above image by Lutefisk Sushi Volume E featured artist Zander Cannon.

Spread the word! The Lutefisk Sushi Volume E opening is this Friday!

Lutefisk Sushi Volume E is a limited-edition, hand-silkscreened bento box of mini-comics created by over 35 Minnesota cartoonists (the boxes will be sold for $25 each… which is well under a buck a comic). It is the fifth set in an ongoing series started in 2004. The opening reception for the release of LSE is this Friday, November 2nd, at Altered Esthetics gallery from 7PM to 10PM. More information can be found here.

I have a new mini included in the box, Freaky Tiki. Much of the original art from the mini is hanging at the gallery… any of which you can purchase for a twenty spot.

News of Stwallskull: Twin Cities Book Festival This Saturday, October 14th, The Dead Living in Double Barrel, Freaky Tiki, Monkey’s Paw News, and The Roe Family Singers

As you can probably see, my site is all messed up… it got hacked this week. I’m attempting to restore it from backups, but this is proving more challenging than I would have hoped for various reasons I won’t bore you with.

Below is a sketch I made of the wonderful Roe Family Singers setting the woods on fire at the 331 Club earlier tonight… boy, do they make some beautiful music. They play there every Monday to the most unbelievably enthusiastic Monday night crowd you are ever likely to see. Two of the members of the band, bandleader Quillan Roe and Adam Wirtzfeld on the saw, are also excellent local cartoonists. I can’t recommend checking their show out highly enough.

I also posted the image on Ken Avidor‘s fantastic group sketch blog, Urban Sketchers Twin Cities, which he was nice enough to invite me to participate in. There are lots of wonderful sketches of the region there to check out.

I have a table at the Twin Cities Book Festival this coming weekend. I will have pretty much everything I currently have in print there for perusal. I’m always delighted to draw something in copies of my Soapy the Chicken book with purchase, fyi… just ask if you’re interested.

I’ll be premiering two brand new mini-comics:

The first one is The Dead Living, a horror story I did that will also be in this month’s issue of Zander Cannon and Kevin Cannon’s incredible digital anthology Double Barrel, coming out this Wednesday from Top Shelf. If you haven’t checked out the other issues of Double Barrel, you really, really should… and I would do it before you pick up the one my comic is in, as the brothers Cannon are doing some extremely engaging serials that you will want to start at the beginning (a sequel to Kevin’s brilliant Far Arden called Crater XV, and Zander’s paranormal pulp opera, Heck among many other wonders). Double Barrel is the first digital comic I’ve purchased, and it is one hell of a deal… many of the issues have over 100 pages of some of the best comics around for a buck (the most recent two issues are $2, but back issues go down to $1. If you are like me, once you start, you won’t be able to wait for them to drop in price). Anyhow, getting back to The Dead Living… I’ve never done a horror comic before, so it seemed like an interesting challenge to attempt. Horror and humor seem like two of the hardest things to pull off well in comics. I went off of Steve Bissette’s advice/requirement to contributors to his wonderful horror anthology of the 80′s and 90′s, Taboo… I tried to draw something that I found genuinely frightening. So, if I succeeded, hopefully you will be in for an unpleasant read.

The other new mini-comic is called Freaky Tiki. It is a collection of drawings of strange and obscure minor island deities that perhaps exist. I made it for inclusion in the upcoming Lutefisk Sushi Volume E show that the Cartoonist Conspiracy is putting together with our friends at Altered Esthetics Gallery. It is our fifth Lutefisk Sushi hand-silkscreened, limited-edition box set of Minnesota mini-comics (the first was in 2004). So, if you plan to come to the opening for that on November 2nd and buy a box, you will not want to purchase this mini from me… you’ll get one included in the box.

Note that, of much greater interest than me at the Book Festival, noted genius Chris Ware will be there, and he will be giving a presentation on his incredible new box of books, Building Stories, at 12:30 in the Taxi Room.

Please note that if you have been waiting for updates to Monkey’s Paw, my ongoing webcomic collaboration with Ben Zmith… they will, unfortunately, be slowing down. They will continue, but we can no longer maintain the every Friday schedule. Ben and I were drawing them on our lunch breaks every day, and, alas, Ben got a new gig so now we can’t draw together as frequently. That said, we did every Friday for something like a year and a half… which is a pretty damn good uninterrupted run of free comics, I think. Anyhow, while you wait for updates, you can always check out the archive here. Soapy the Chicken remains in hibernation, but will be returning again one of these days.

Come Celebrate the Cartoonist Conspiracy’s 9th Birthday on December 1st, Draw and Win Cool Stuff

To celebrate the Cartoonist Conspiracy’s ninth birthday party and jam, Kevin Cannon and I are putting together a fun gameshow for tomorrow’s Nordeast Comics Summit event. You could win a gift card to Wet Paint, or a gift card for $150! to the Source (correction… you could win one of three $50 gift cards to the Source), among other cool prizes. Hope to see you there!

MIX Links

This morning I was sent a link to an huge quantity of interviews with exhibitors at last month’s delightful MIX convention (including one with me) by Fancy Pants Gangsters. You can check them out here.

That made me realize I don’t believe I have yet posted a link to Tom Spurgeon’s amazing and enormous MIX link roundup at the Comics Reporter. You can check that out here.

I should also highlight this wonderful round-up of the Twin Cities comics scene that Tom Kaczynski did for the Comics Journal.

Only 23 months until the next MIX!

MIX is this Weekend!!! (November 5-6)

Holy Cow! MIX, the Minneapolis Indy Expo, is this weekend (November 5-6)! There are going to be a zillion great cartoonists there, and the programming looks wonderful. I’ll be there with my friend and Monkey’s Paw collaborator Ben Zmith… we’ll have copies of our new Monkey’s Paw mini-comic available, among other things. Hard to believe an event like this could be free to the public, but it is, you lucky dog. Enormous kudos and gratitude to the brilliant and fashionable Sarah Morean on putting this amazing event together. In addition to MIX, there is a Nordeast Comics Summit and Conspiracy Jam tonight (Thursday), and MIX parties and gallery openings starting tomorrow night (Friday). If you miss MIX, I assure you that you will regret it until your dying day.

Stwalley Comics Updates, MIX, the Minneapolis Indy Expo, is in a Week, Why You’ll Want to Kickstart Altered Esthetics’ Calendar

Here are my recent comics…

Soapy the Chicken (updated every Monday at soapythechicken.com):

Monkey’s Paw (undated every Friday at webcomix.org/monkeyspaw):

Holy Cow! MIX, the Minneapolis Indy Expo, is the weekend after this one (November 5-6)!

There are going to be a zillion great cartoonists there, and the programming looks wonderful. I’ll be at table number 25, next to my good friend and Monkey’s Paw collaborator Ben Zmith! Hard to believe an event like this could be free to the public, but it is, you lucky dog. Enormous kudos and gratitude to the brilliant and fashionable Sarah Morean on putting this amazing event together. If you miss it, I assure you that you will regret it until your dying day. I hope to see you there!

Have you ordered your calendar yet?

Hey! Are you looking for a cool art calendar for your wall next year for less than the price of a pair of chattering teeth?

Please consider supporting Altered Esthetics’ Kickstarter campaign to print their 2012 calendar (disclaimer: the campaign ends in three days, none of which will be included on the calendar).

It will feature art by the brilliant Zander Cannon, among others. Zander will be the featured artist for Lutefisk Sushi Volume E, the fifth box set of Minnestota mini-comics put together by The International Cartoonist Conspiracy (in collaboration for the last two volumes with Altered Esthetics… who also collaborated with us on Just Add Ink, Big Funny, and Alley Cat among other things).

Unlike inferior digital calendars, this one can also serve to cover the unsightly holes you punched in your wall.

Altered Esthetics is not only unarguably the single greatest art gallery in the entire world that there has ever been, but it is also a non-profit, community-centered art gallery that does a tremendous amount to support not only artists, but cartoonists, in the Twin Cities area!

You’re only a Lincoln away from mastering time in 2012. If Lincoln had only had one of these, perhaps the ugly night in Ford’s Theater could have been avoided completely.

Monkey’s Paw #21: The Value in Mylar Alone is Staggering

Monkey’s Paw by Zmith and Stwalley is updated every Friday.

Click the above image to see it full size.

More info from Stwalley:

I’ll be at Fallcon tomorrow (Saturday October 15th)… Ben may show up for some of it as well. Our frequent collaborator Maxeem will be there also, as well as a host of other great cartoonists. With a little luck, I may have some sort of Monkey’s Paw mini-comic to debut there, although I can’t guarantee it. I’ll have the Soapy the Chicken book and some other goodies at my table, regardless. Hope to see you there!

If you’re enjoying Monkey’s Paw, you may dig my other comic strip, Soapy the Chicken. Updated every Monday!

Recent Soapy the Chicken and Monkey’s Paw Updates, Hope to See You at Fallcon This Weekend!

Haven’t got around to updating here in much too long… so here are a bunch of recent comics. Soapy the Chicken is updated every Monday, Monkey’s Paw (my collaborative comic with Ben Zmith) is updated every Friday.

Soapy updates:

Monkey’s Paw updates:

I’ll be at Fallcon this Saturday (October 15th) in Minneapolis. Hope to see you there!