I read Josh Bayer’s ROM last night, a #comic where he reinterprets Mantlo and Buscema’s ROM #29, but also bookends it with both hints of his own story as an artist, working on how he will approach it, and a story of a middle school aged outcast who finds solace in the idea of the superhero. I was totally that kid, a dork who fantasized about ways I could become a badass like the fictions older dorks than me had made up. It’s popular in the comics scene these days to belittle superheroes. They can be alienating to new fans of the medium, but Josh’s book (which also has all the energy those who know Bayer - and I do - he gave me my copy gratis ::full disclosure:: love about his work) also illustrates affectingly how those those stories don’t alienate were all too often the ones alienated by absolutely everything else.
05.30.13 /11:15/♥ 7
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Tonight at Local Stories, I told the story of how I met comics artist Dean Haspiel in Brooklyn. It is the story of successful stalking. So, here’s a drawing I made of his most famous character, Billy Dogma, in my own weird #style - like a decade ago.(at Three of Cups)
05.20.13 /22:04
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On my way to Toronto for TCAF. High hopes for submitting some long ignored fiction to some publishers on the way. First, some reading. I wish I had brought some Ambien. Not so I could sleep, but so I could slip it in a drink and give it to the little kid sitting behind me.
05.10.13 /09:09
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I have three lots of #comics for sale on Ebay right now. Conan, GreenArrow, TheQuestion, Daredevil, SuicideSquad and BlackCondor (ha, ha). Lots of DC Comics and Marvel.  Find them here. 
05.07.13 /15:59
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These bad boys hope to see you at the Toronto Comics Arts Festival.
05.07.13 /09:00
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The haunting and unhurried Joe Bell works his way through the last of the crowd in the final moments of last night’s Tight Six open-mic. This show felt really good. I hadn’t been in months, but I heard members of the hosting team talking excitedly about it, too. Here’s something that has been remarkable to see over the year or so that I have been doing stand-up comedy: a switch flips for many comics one day. Comedians that are good or okay or even pretty funny just kind of take a leap forward, all the sudden. They keep going up and keep writing and one day they get on the mic and you are just like, “who the eff is this guy?” Even though you have been watching him for months. It’s totes wicked dope. It feels like the switch is flipping for a lot of the comics I have been watching since I first went up at Philadelphia’s Laughs on Fairmount. I am really excited for these artists and I hope to see them flip a lot more switches. It gets a bit tiring to spend quite so much time at mics, but I would have missed out on witnessing all these transformations if I hadn’t. (at Fergie’s Pub)
04.22.13 /15:24
standupcomedyfairmountcomicslaughsphiladelphiacomedianswritingopenmictightsix
Last night I did my first open mic in Brooklyn. It took place at one of these sweet, well put together Brooklyn bars that I would like to spend more time in if I had more money to blow on booze. It’s called The Branded Saloon. Everything about this mic was different from doing open mics in Manhattan and Philadelphia. Mainly, it was way more laid back. Folks were going way over time and no one really cared. I guess it’s because there weren’t that many comics.  There were also a decent number of civilians there. Like, audience, which gave the room a whole different feel. A good one. Like, people were engaging with the jokes and actually laughing.  The host was the only comic there before me. I got there right at 7:30, because that’s when sign-up was advertised. I guess everyone else had signed up online, though, because I ended up going very near the end of the show. Which was okay, because most people stuck around. One person who didn’t stick around after she went up was the comic who sat down next to me about five minutes before the mic started. She had a lot of energy on stage and got a really good response from the room. I had seen her before, and you could tell she had promise. Here’s what I will not forget about her, though: all through the host’s introduction and the first comic’s set, she sat there in her chair, audibly clicking her nails. That sound isn’t loud, but it carries, and you can’t miss it. Clipping her nails.  She must be really busy writing jokes and performing if sitting in the audience during an open mic is the only time she can find to do fingernail maintenance.
04.16.13 /10:13
Open Micstand-up comedyBrooklynBarsComedyComicsPerformanceGaucheAghast
Here at the MOCCA NY comic show. It seems like a more social gathering of #creators than some #comics events I have been to. Yet the #awkwardness found in a room filled with hundreds of people still strikes me. I get awkward, too. OK. So here is my idea. Do a show where everyone has to drink a tall boy before they can go onto the show floor. Then the are handed a second tall boy for walking the floor with. Start it at 6pm. End it at 1am. Keep the bar open. The booze cheap. Those first two beers are included with the ticket. Obviously, make it an 18 and up show. No one has to drink (I guess), but it is encouraged. Strongly. I am not joking about this. Who is in?
04.06.13 /17:56/♥ 1
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hicandhoc:

Brady Dale’s Good for America.

Thanks, Matt.

comicsbrady dalepoliticaleconomyrich dudes1%
04.06.13 /10:47/♥ 8
Ghostly #selfie in the #subway. Bring it. Let’s just be honest. I had more fun tonight with my #comics peeps than my #storytelling peeps. But it isn’t fair. I have been hanging in the comics scene way longer.
04.06.13 /00:48
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Are you ever sitting around one day, working on some #story you are writing, which you thought would be pretty easy to do, but now that you are there in the details it isn’t coming out/makes no sense/all you have is a beginning/or an ending. You know, say, the first scene but how does that lead to the next scene and the next? Why the eff would anyone do any of the crazy stuff that it once seemed so natural they would do? So then one day you are brainstorming on plot and you think you find solutions. Events. Motivations. Twists. It all seems so easy. So you write all these notes down and shut your notebook and think: well, NOW the thing really will write itself. But when you sit down to it again, what seemed like a full road map is really just a few sign posts between Phoenix and Melbourne, Australia, and you still have to figure out how to get between them and, holy crap, there are a couple oceans in the way. Do you ever feel like that? Anyway, this is one rather jaded wannabe novelist’s way of saying that I had some real breakthroughs in plotting my little book about stand-up comics in Philadelphia this morning.
04.01.13 /12:09
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Pencil detail from a three page #comic I have been working on for a while called THE INTERGALACTIC HOLY BALANCE TEMPLE OF DES MOINES. 
03.20.13 /19:05
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I’m going to be in this show at Benna’s. So dig on it.
02.26.13 /15:44
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Canvas  by  andbamnan