Jim Henson Exhibit in Jackson MS

A couple of friends and myself just went to the Jim Henson Fantastic World Exhibit in Jackson, MS at the Mississippi Musuem of Art this Saturday.  I am a huge Muppet fan.  I grew up watching Sesame Street and the Muppet Show.  I even remember when the Muppets used to do skits on Saturday Night Live.  When I was younger I wasnt sure if I wanted to grow up and become a cartoonist or a puppeteer.  Now that I’m older I realize that first, I never grew up.  Second, I became a cartoonist ( bubbaworldcomix.com ) and third, why cant I do both.  I’ve been collecting puppets since I was 2 when Santa brought me a Oscar the Grouch.

The exhibit was great.  We even attended a sing a long with Gorden from Sesame Street.  We had a guided tour given by somebody with the Henson Foundation that made it more special.  Before the tour was over he was joined by another and we had two tour guides.  At the end of the tour we retraced our steps and viewed every puppet and every sketch that they had.  They even had some videos up of the old commercials that helped start the Muppets.

If you are in driving distance of Jackson Mississippi between now and the middle of March I suggest you go and check it out.  In one display I was plesantly surprised that Jim considered being a cartoonist at one time.

SKETCH CARDS

BUBBAWORLD COMIX

Before April of this year (2009) I didn’t even realize what a sketch card was or how much people got into them. By July of this year I had drawn sixty of them. I took them to the Comic Convention held in Jackson in July and surprisingly to me sold a bunch of them. I really enjoyed drawing them too. The main ones are the size of a baseball card, 2 ½ x 3 ½ inches. I still do sketches on 8 x 10 and I will cut an 8 x 10 card stock sheet in half and do a half size sketch. The great thing about this is that I can fit them in a zip up folder. I get the plastic sheet covers and the plastic card holders that hold nine cards each or eighteen if you turn nine around and put two in each slot. This makes it easier to keep every thing handy and protected where people can just flip thru the book to see if they like something.

During the convention I got to see others drawing their sketch cards and sketches. I love comics and I love comic art. I cant believe I’ve waited this long to actually start to collecting it. Maybe it’s because I could always just draw what ever it was that I wanted. I really enjoy comparing everybody’s different styles. I decided to make a special zip up folder to keep my own personal collection in. Some art is given to me and some other is traded. I started trading sketch cards with other artists that I know and have been meeting. I’m like a lot of people by the fact that I’m limited on the room I have to hang stuff up on my walls. Just the art that I’ve gotten this year would put a bind on me to find room for it. But that’s not a problem with keeping it in a folder. When I fill this one up I can always start on another one. I can show it off to friends when they come over and visit or carry it with me and show them. I’m proud to say that I’ve got the first ever sketch card done by Steven Butler. I will never give that one up. It’s a very cool pic of the Hulk. When we were at a show together he heard us talking about the sketch card craze and just did one for me on a blank card I gave him. I told him it was artist’s choice so he did the hulk after listening to my recounts of how it was one of my favorite books….till they screwed everything up at the end of World War Hulk. I also got one from Kevin Hayman at that same show. We traded and I got one he did of his main character from his Errant Apprentice Web Comic. Kevin is also a Mississippi web cartoonist. Chuck Jett was at the show and I traded a Dr Who I did for one he did of the Serenity ship from the Firefly series. I read Mad Scott and sent him a cyberman for a yoda that he did. He’s in Wisconsin so that was an email/snail mail trade. I’ve got a photo of Lion-O signed by the voice actor, Larry Kenney, that did him on the Thundercats. I’ve also got a Thundercats original that I drew that Larry was kind enough to sign for me. I’ve had a pen and ink that I’ve done of Stan Lee that I actually got signed by “The Man” himself at Dragon Con back in 93 that I’m going to move to this book along with a signed picture of Darth Vader signed by the actor I met at the same con. Jimmy Johnson signed an Arlo & Janis program for me from a show of his I went to that I will be moving into this folder also. I recently acquired a Mitch Byrd original at a show that we were at together of a dinosaur he did. I love his dinosaurs. It barely fit but with some finagling I got it in there.

I cant wait to see how this collection grows over the years and I cant wait to see how much of a collection that I create that winds up spreading thru out the cosmos. Go out and get you a folder and some sheet protectors and start collecting some artwork…..cartoonists need the money.

Comic Strips

http://bubbaworldcomix.com is my daily updated site. Unlike most webcartoonists I write and draw six titles at one time. Instead of having six different websites I use the umbrella name of BubbaWorld Comix for all six titles. So now I have one site, BubbaWorldComix.com, that houses all of my stips. Each title has it’s own day of the week that it updates on every week.

Monday-QUICK APPLIANCE REPAIR- A strip about two idiot brothers working for their Dad in the Appliance Repair business.

Tuesday-MISSISSIPPI SWAMP DRAGONS- As the name suggests it’s a strip about a Psychotic Chicken and a Pessimistic Clown

Wednesday-DAWN OF TIME- Bubba the Caveman, he’s the warmspot in the gene pool, and his Chimp friend Milo. Milo is the smart one.

Thursday-CAPN’ GEEZER- of the Time/Space Patrol travels the Univers with his companions Bot, Zoe, & Red Shirt. Going against villains such as Major Evil in his Port O Pottie time machine.

Friday-SPACE REDNECKS- Houston Mississippi with it’s own Space Program. And dont forget the fued with the gray aliens.

Saturday-GOING BATTY- Doc the Mad Scientist, Merlin his pet bat, and his grotesque humpback lab assistant ….. Buttercup. And all the freaks around the castle including redneck neighbors….now that’s scary.

I started it out as a monthly four page comic paper that was free due to the ads a sold and distributed thru central MS. I moved it to the web in early to mid 2007. Each year, including the one before I officially went to the web , I do a Halloween special. TALES FROM THE APPLIANCE GRAVEYARD. This encompasses humor Halloween stories involving all six of my titles. Sometimes it’s one story crossing over all six titles. I’ve just released the first three years into a book this October while putting the new special up on the web at the same time. It is still there till the end of November. There is a link on the home page to it. I do the normal daily updates and put the Halloween special up all at once. I use to do it in weekly installments thru out October but it’s just easier to do it all at once. This year’s special will be in a book with a special story add for extra content next year. The extra story will not appear on the web first. You will only be able to get it in the book.

Speaking of books, I have released three self published books since June of 2009. The first was a flip book collection of QUICK APPLIANCE REPAIR & MISSISSIPPI SWAMP DRAGONS. Each titles has half the book and it’s own cover and they are upside down to each other. Q.A.R. in “Metal In The Microwave” and M.S.D. in “Who Are You Going To Believe, Me or 25 Hysterical Nuns?” I, of course, released teh TALES FROM THE APPLIANCE GRAVEYARD book and at the same time put out a Horror Graphic Novel called MISFITS & MAYHEM. I actually plan on putting out a collection book with two titles in each every four months with the one coming out in October actually being the separate TALES & MISFITS books. I’m currently working on a Sci Fi graphic novel five part saga. I wrote the manuscript as a 80,000 word novel. It should make five graphic novels. I will put these out just whenever I get them done. They will come out between scheduled collection releases. The next book will come out in February and will contain a collection of the SPACE REDNECKS and GOING BATTY strips. I actually have something very cool planned for April Fool’s day. Be sure to check it out …. if you believe me. No, really, it will be cool. It will be better if you read the strips regularly first though. If it works then I plan to do it every year. So if you haven’t yet, go check out http://bubbaworldcomix.com today….and every day….for the rest of your lives.

“SEE YA IN THE FUNNY (WEB) PAGES”

Fall Festival – Artist Alley and Pre-holiday Sale

HEROES & DREAMS is a comic book shop in Flowood, Mississippi.  It’s right on the outskirts of Jackson.  They will be having their FALL FESTIVAL – ARTIST ALLEY & PRE-HOLIDAY SALE this coming Saturday (Nov 7th) at their store.  I will definately be there, I’ll tell you what.  I’ve heard the Mitch Bryd will be there sketching and signing books.  Local Jackson artist/cartoonist Wade Acuff will be there.  It’ll be cool to be able to hang out with Wade again.  I’m going to enjoy hanging out with Mitch also.  There’s more but I’m not sure who all is confirmed so the best thing to do is if you are in the Jackson area, just show up to the event and see who’s there.  It’s all day Saturday.  They open at 10:30 am.  If you’re within driving distance and are really into comics then you should go support this.

These are the same people that put on the Jackson Comic Con this past July in the Jackson/Pearl area.  Their shop is at 5352 hwy 25 in Flowood.  The shopping center that they are in is right across from the Flowood Water Tower so you shouldn’t miss it.  They are in suite #1650.  They will be putting on another comic con next July also.  It’s already growing and expanding from what this last one was.  There are so few places in Mississippi that you can get comics at and even fewer that actually go out of their way to celebrate comics and the medium.  This is one of these places.  3 Alarm Comics on the coast is another one.  At my last count there were only 5 comic book shops in the whole state that I know of.  And only two of them actually have events thru the year like this.  If there is another comic book shop that I have missed either in counting or one that has events that I dont know of in MS please let me know cause as a cartoonist I want to let people know about it.  The 5 I know of consists of 3 around the Jackson area, 1 on the coast, and 1 in Hattiesburg.

You can not get comics in the drug stores & grocery stores off of spinner racks anymore.  With the way the distrubution is the only way to get them is in specialty comic shops and big chain book stores.  The problem with the big chain book stores is that you dont tend to have that one on one contact like you do in the comic book shops.  The big chain stores also seem to let the manga section push out the traditional comics.  I’m not totally against manga, I just dont want our own comics replaced by it because it’s just easier to get your hands on.  If manga was the only thing I could find growing up that’s what I would have wound up reading.  Luckily I could find comics in 3 to 5 different stores in my home town which wasn’t that big of a town.  Now you have to be in a big town to find anything that isn’t manga with even the manga being sparse.  The big chains are not going to have the events like the comic shops have.  A bunch of cartoonists, some new some old , some known  some up and coming, gathered all together where you can get a glimpse of the magic behind the scenes.  This is why we need to support these shops and their events.  Especially if you are the slightist bit interested in comics.  And this coming from a guy who puts his comics online everyday at http://bubbaworldcomix.com and I sell my books online.  But I do utilize the local shops in my state to sell my books and do signings and go and support these events.  It helps me as much as it does them.  I enjoy the mess out of it too.  This Saturday (Nov 7th) go see a bunch of cartoonists in their natural habitat, a comic book shop.

OCTOBER CATCH UP

The month of October was a busy month, I’ll tell you what. It started with the Van’s Artist Alley in Ridgeland. Steven Butler & Roland Mann were able to make it and my artist friends Chuck Jett and Kevin Hayman were there. Shane Sullivan, who wrote half the stories in the MISFITS & MAYHEM graphic novel, was there with me. The crowd that day wasn’t that impressive but the comradely between all the artists made up for it. We had a great day hanging out with each other and talking comics and being silly. After the show we all went next door to get a sandwich and spent over two hours just hanging out talking and eating.

The following Saturday was spent at the Heroes & Dreams store in Flowood. It’s always a blast hanging out with the Heroes crew, this includes the workers and the regulars. We had a good showing and sold some books I had all three titles with me and Shane Sullivan joined me again. I even sold some artwork and all in all I did better that the last time I had a signing at H&D. And I do need to point out that Meridian really represented themselves with a their group that came to Flowood for the signing.

The following weekend was the Imagicopter autors meeting. There were plenty of authors but the crowd was low. I still wouldn’t have missed it just for the friends I made at it and the conversations all the authors had “comparing notes”. I really enjoyed meeting C. Liegh McInnis and talking with him.

I had nothing planned for the third weekend and enjoyed some time not having to be anywhere and gave us time to get ready for the signing at Starkville on Main Street at the Book Mart. I wond up postponing it due to the bad weather we had on the 30^th.

I will be back at Heroes & Dreams Nov 7^th. They’re having a special thing going on to celebrate 3 years of being in business. They have Mitch Byrd signing books and some other local artists. They invited me back so I’m definitely will be there. I will be there all day enjoying myself selling me books and artwork to anyone I can. It will be cool to hang out with Wade Acuff again, he’s one of the local artists that will be there too. It will really be cool to hang out with Mitch for the day.

I also had my new TALES FROM THE APPLIANCE GRAVEYARD Halloween special up at my BUBBAWORLD COMIX site. I’m leaving it up for the month of November.

I have other projects that I’m working on that I will talk about in future blogs.

Halloween Special Web Comics

Every year I do a special Halloween themed comic, TALES FROM THE APPLIANCE GRAVEYARD, at my website BUBBAWORLDCOMIX.COM that overlaps all six of my humor web comic titles.  This year, 2009, will be the fourth such special with “IT’S THE GREAT PUMPKIN MASSACRE DR BROWN”.

I have just released a book containing the first 3 of these TALES FROM THE APPLIANCE GRAVEYARD specials this month and it can be found at my BUBBAWORLDCOMIX.COM website.  Where I do humor Halloween themed stories with my daily web comic titles I have also released a Horror Graphic Novel, MISFITS & MAYHEM, that can also be purchased at my site.

The TALES special will be up all month during October and possibly November in it’s entirity.  The website itself will continue with it’s normal daily updates also.

VAN’S ARTIST ALLEY UPDATE

We are getting closer, and closer to the Van’s artist alley in Ridgeland, MS on Hwy 51 at Van’s Comics & Cards.  There will be seven tables of Cartoonists and Writers there selling there art and books.

I ,bubbaworldcomix.com , will  be there with 3 new books myself.  BUBBAWORLD COMIX VOL ONE which contains a collection of strips from my two titles, QUICK APPLIANCE REPAIR and MISSISSIPPIS SWAMP DRAGONS.   The second book is a Halloween special , TALES FROM THE APPLIANCE GRAVEYARD.  This one uses all six of my humor titles in Halloween themed stories.  They are specials that I have put up in the past three years on my website that I have collected in a book.  The third book is an actual Horror Graphic Novel, MISFITS & MAYHEM.  It even has it’s own Horror Host, Creepy Clyde.  It has six short horror stories, three written by me and three written by Shane Sullivan (who will be with me at Van’s Artist Alley).  All six stories were illistrated by me.

Be sure to tell everyone you know that would be interested in this to come out and support us.

GRAPHIC NOVELS UPDATE

I have ordered the MISFITS & MAYHEM horror graphic novel and should have them in shortly.  I have also ordered, at the same time, the TALES FROM THE APPLIANCE GRAVEYARD Halloween special for BubbaWorld Comix .

MISFITS & MAYHEM is a graphic novel containing six horror stories.  Three are written by me, Andy B. Childress.  Three are written by my friend, Shane Sullivan.  All six stories are drawn, inked, and lettered by me, Andy B. Childress.  I did this book in a totally different style from the way I do my humor strips.  TALES FROM THE APPLIANCE GRAVEYARD is a collection of Halloween themed stories involving all six of my humor strip titles that appear on the BubbaWorldComix.com website.  Some of the stories even cross over some or all of the titles.  Come October there will be a new TALES special on the website.  The book collects all the past specials that are not avaliable online any longer.  The new special will only be up for the month of October and will come down the month of November.  It will come out in book form next year with a special story that will appear only in the book.  The new story will contain never before seen characters that I have been working on.

I love Halloween web comic specials but have trouble finding any online any more.  So I do one every year.

I will be promoting the two new books all thru October.  I have signings lined up for four of the five weekends of October.  The first three Saturdays will be in Jackson, MS.  Oct 3 will be at Van’s Artist Alley in Ridgeland, MS held in Van’s Comics & Cards.  Oct 10 will be in Flowood, Ms at the Heroes & Dreams Comic Shop.  Oct 17 will be in the Eudora Weltly Library in Jackson, Ms with the Imagicopter group.  Oct 3o will be at the Book Mart on Main Street in Starkville, Ms.

I will be releasing a BubbaWorld Comix collection book every four months and also other graphic novels from time to time.  I have already written a manuscript for a sci fi time travel graphic novel 5 or 6 part saga.  I’m currently working on thumbnail layouts for the pages of the first book in the saga.  All this while keeping a six day a week update schedule on my comics website.

CHUCK JET bio for VAN’S ARTIST ALLEY

This is the bio for Chuck Jet, another artist that will be appearing at Van’s Artist Alley in Ridgeland MS , Oct 3rd, 10am till 6pm.

Baptized in motor oil and raised in the shadows of the Catholic Church comes the “no holds barred” artwork of Chuck Jett. Chuck is currently turning his attention from the more traditional fine art background he suffered to the world of horror and sci-fi fantasy art, finding the challenges to be more fun and rewarding. When asked about being an artist and his techniques, Chuck replied, “I’d rather be a professional wrestler.”

Misfits & Mayhem Graphic Novel Update

The Horror graphic novel that I have been working on for the last while is finally all penciled in.  Now I just have to ink in the MISFITS & MAYHEM and do a cover and put it together in me computer.  It will go quicker than it seems.  For one thing, 2 1/2 of the 6 stories are already inked in.  Inking goes quicker than the drawing of it.  By the middle of the last week of August I should be through with it…. the weekend at the lastest.  Then I just have to scan them in and set up the book and email it off.  Which means it will be with me at the Van’s Artist Alley in Ridgeland, MS on October 3rd.  Be sure to come by and get your copy along with the TALES FROM THE APPLIANCE GRAVEYARD BubbaWorld Comix Halloween Special that will come out on the same day.  There will also be six other tables of artists and writers there too.

Check out BUBBAWORLD COMIX for updates and comics.