We came, we saw, we honored!

It's over!  Phoenix's 3rd annual celebration of Jack Kirby's birthday has passed, and this year we honored the King's 100th birthday with a multifaceted three day event I won't soon forget, because I recorded the whole thing!

Firstly, I'd like to thank Drawn to Comics for hosting the 24 Hour Kirby Comic Challenge. Drawn to Comics has come up a lot here lately, not just because I co-host a podcast with shop owner Ken Brown, but because he and his wife Susan are incredible supporters of local artists like myself.  Who else would let five weirdos lock themselves in a comic shop for 24 straight hours?  

One of those weirdos was me -- the rest were four of my favorite people in Phoenix (well, one of them is in Sedona, but that's Phoenix adjacent, so it counts).  Birdie Birdashaw, Derk Harron, the Janimal, and Zoe Sugg agreed to attempt the 24 Hour Comic Challenge to honor Kirby, while I documented the whole thing in an attempt to create a webseries of the day.  Here's a picture of them as the sun rose over Glendale, bushy-eyed but strong-willed -- as you'll see when that webseries drops on YouTube later this year!

That Monday, the 28th, the day of Kirby's actual birthday, 10 of the Valley's funniest people gathered to roast the King's first, and perhaps most important creation -- Captain America! My thanks to Monkey Pants Bar & Grill in Tempe for hosting our event.  If you're ever hankering wings and/or karaoke near ASU, Monkey Pants is the place.

I'll post the roast on Phoenix Tonight's YouTube page soon, but in the meantime, here's a shot of me with the Avengers in attendance.  I guess Stark had an expo, or something.

My appreciation to the comedians that made the night hilarious, and particularly to the Captain himself, who made both the 24 Hour Comic Challenge and this roast some of the most memorable events in this fanboy's life.  Follow him on Instagram @stevenrogersusa.

Keep your eyes glued to this blog for more posts this fall!  Karaoke adventures, zines, and more zany fandom to come!

To Honor A King!

It's here!  Jack Kirby -- the King of Comics -- would've turned 100 years old on Monday, August 28, and fans here in Phoenix are planning a multi-dimensional three-day extravaganza to honor him.

At his zenith, Kirby drew five to eight pages a day, at his board for 10 to 12 hours, so we're celebrating his productivity in a special way.  On Saturday, August 26, four local artists will attempt the 24 Hour Comic Challenge -- they'll try drawing a 24 page comic book in 24 consecutive hours.  If that isn't hard enough, they'll pull a Kirby-inspired topic from a hat first, to use as inspiration for their story.  If you're in or around Phoenix, join us at Drawn to Comics in downtown Glendale to see the cartoonists in action, and answer Kirby trivia questions for prizes, including sketches from the artists themselves!  The festivities will start at 1 p.m. -- and everything will be recorded for a webseries we'll drop later this year.

Then, on Monday, the 28th, ten comedians will roast Captain America -- Kirby's first, most famous creation -- at Monkey Pants Bar in Tempe, 8 p.m.  The dais will feature some of the funniest people in the Valley . . . and Captain America himself!  Kirby fancied his drawing prowess as "performance."  He was a fan of cinema and pulp magazines, so a comedy show in his honor is as eclectic as the man himself.  A raffle -- featuring some pretty cool prizes, if I do say so myself -- will benefit the Hero Initiative, so bring some dollar bills.

Jack Kirby inspired a lot of people.  He created a legion of timeless characters and demonstrated a work ethic that sets a high standard for anyone writing or drawing comics today.  Honoring him is as humbling as it is fun, and I hope you'll join us, if not in person, then in the future, as we post pictures and videos from these events.  Happy birthday, Jack!

These Dog Days Have Bite To Their Bark

August may be dubbed the "dog days of summer," but it was a surprisingly busy month for KaraokeFanboy Press and Amazing Arizona Comics.  Last month, I decided to post a new panel every day on Instagram, inspired by the news of that respective day, and I'm very happy with the result.  I missed a day here and there, but in the end I have a 31-panel story that explores "a month in the life" of my homespun superheroes.  If you haven't heard my interview about #Augustagram on our local NPR affiliate, it's archived here.  The tale will be colored and collected in issue #15 of Amazing Arizona Comics, due out later this month.

The end of August hailed Jack Kirby's birthday, and for years I've read of other cities celebrating the day with galleries, socials, and general to-dos.  While I know Phoenix comics shops have hosted events to honor Kirby in the past, I wanted to do something worthy of those nationally promoted celebrations, something to put Phoenix on the map.  The product was an evening that featured local artists and their Kirby-inspired work, an open mic of local poets and performers, and a drawing demonstration by none other than Steve Rude, whose tutelage and friendship with Jack Kirby gave our event the integrity and intimacy it deserved.  I was happy to discuss the evening on Good Morning, Arizona, following the hilarious in-studio of antics of comedian Tom Green, and you can still watch me draw Captain America live right here.  Highlights of the Jack Kirby Birthday Celebration included:

• The gallery of local artists, including Derk Harron (top left), Bryan Bg Graham (top right), Steve Failla (bottom left), and Eric Mengel (bottom right).
• Host Jesse James Criscione's recount of his day with Jack Kirby, which, without exaggeration, completely changed his life.
• Gary Bowers' Jack Kirby birthday card, which he hopes to submit to the Kirby Museum by 2017 for Jack's 100th birthday.
• Bob Leeper's discussion of Kirby's oft-overlooked influence over the romance comics genre.
• Ashley Naftule's discovery of Kirby's storied "cigar box," and the diary entries therein.
• JRC's kinesthetic recreation of the Kirby process, complete with virtual Kirby crackle and boom tubes.
• Ernesto Moncada's sharing of finding Kirby through poorly reprinted, and usually out of order, Mexican comic books.
• Tommy Cannon's charming greeting to Steve Rude, and his awesome Kirby-influenced poem.
• Kevin Patterson's recount of discovering, and fearing, the real Yancy Street from Fantastic Four lore.
• Eric Mengel's personal connection to the date of Kirby's birthday, and how the day celebrates his personal and artistic passions.

Final kudos go to Brick Cave Media, for their kind donation of a sound system, to my brother Kyle for setting up said sound system, and to Cynthia Black, proprietor of C-MOD, the venue that hosted us and sponsors many other great Phoenix events.  Needless to say, I'll always remember that night . . . until next year's event tops it!

The busyness continues into September, with a few more amazing events just under my belt and still on the horizon.  On Saturday, September 5, I was honored to join the pre-show carnival as the caricature artist at Okilly Dokilly's historic first concert.  You may have heard of Okilly Dokilly: they're the Phoenix-based metal band inspired by the words, and fashion-sense, of The Simpsons' Ned Flanders.  My favorite song on their setlist is "They Warned Me," a haunted refrain that turns a throwaway punchline into a haunting spiritual regret.  I Simpsonized many fans (some of whom are pictured above), sold many comics, and enjoyed the festivities immensely, as it was a true example of how diverse and fun Phoenix culture is.

Finally, I'm extremely excited to join Steve Benson next Saturday, September 12, at the opening of the Arizona Capital Museum's "Show Me Arizona: Illustrations of History" opening gala.  Benson is a Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoonist, whose work appears in The Arizona Republic.  I'm the creator of Amazing Arizona Comics, which hasn't won any awards.  Still, he and I are speaking on the topics of politics, cartooning, and Arizona, starting that morning at 11 a.m., and if you're in the area please come watch me hold back tears of joy at the opportunity.

While making Amazing Arizona Comics has given me an outlet to tell the stories buzzing about my head, it's also opened these doors of connectivity to my fellow creative types, from local artists and peers, to artistic heroes like Steve Rude and Steve Benson.  I would call this, more than any sales of my books, a tremendous success, and I can't wait to see what happens next.

Creature Features!

This week's post focuses on creatures big and small -- from the ankle-biters that plague suburban Phoenix streets to the dinosaurs of Route 66 and beyond!

Coming Soon: Amazing Arizona Comics Quarterly #1 & America's Super Secret Service #1

Amazing Arizona Comics Quarterly is still scheduled to drop this month, but in the meantime here's a detail from the first page of Amazing Arizona Comics #10/America's Super Secret Service #1.  How does a routine chihuahua attack in Phoenix lead to the biggest threat our country has ever faced?  Coming soon!

Amazing Arizona Research

Earlier this month, my wife and I toured the Arizona section of Route 66, and the last leg of our trip unearthed a lot of dinosaurs.  Stewart's Petrified Wood, a trading post just outside of Holbrook, is one of the most famous spots starring Arizona's prehistoric pests, specifically the homemade variety.  While I'm leaning toward not posting all of the pics I took on Route 66, because you really should see it all yourself, consider this comprehensive collage a gift so you won't have to experience the creepy shopkeepers of Stewart's.  Sometimes the beasts of a region are more evolved than the humans in their midst.

Cool Cosplay

I get to see a lot of cool cosplay at the cons I attend, and rather than post endless slideshows of fat Batmen, I like to feature one great costume at a time, ideally revealing the wearer's creativity, originality, and most importantly to me practicality.  Keeping with the creature theme, here's Sharknado, the Sci-Fi Network's most successful passing fad yet.  Thankfully, Sharknado will always live on in cosplay form.

This Week's Intake

This week's intake didn't vary much from previous weeks' intake.  In fact, I read another issue of Kirby's Captain America, which introduced a new bad guy called the Baron (I think), whose core villainy seems centered on recruiting slaves for manual labor, confirming that overarching theme in the King's comics: that the greatest evil is making someone work.  I also picked up Dean Haspiel's The Fox #5, which concluded his excellent Freak Magnet miniseries with a team-up with the Shield.  The tone wasn't as scatterbrained as previous issues, thanks in large part to J.M DeMatteis' script, but I still loved it and am excited for more.

I think the most mind-consuming intake I'm still processing is Eric Stephenson's speech to comic book retailers at a recent industry convention about the importance of brick and mortar stores.  Comic Book Resources posted a transcript of the speech, and I'm still mulling over the subtexts about the importance of superheroes in today's culture.  As I prepare of SPX in September, I accept I might be in the minority of self-publishers still doling out superhero stuff.  I'm definitely comfortable with that -- it's just an interesting phenomenon to experience superheroes become less counter-culture as they become more mainstream . . . at least in perception.  I believe superheroes are still the epitome of counter-culture, despite their new place in pop culture as box office blockbusters.  I won't explore too much further, because I think the subject is worthy of a post all by itself, only to leave it with what would undoubtedly be that post's first sentence:

At its best, the superhero is an all-ages escape fantasy for reality's troubles, shameless in its ethical simplicity, yet daring in the complexity that presents a graphic narrative with such a blurred fourth wall.

The Mother Road

My wife and I treated ourselves to an amazing three day weekend along Route 66, starting in Kingman, ending in the Petrified Forest, and taking us down through Snowflake, Show Low, and Globe/Miami/Superior back to Phoenix.  I've often heard it explained that artists need to replenish their real world experiences to keep telling stories, and I've spent too much time at the drawing table recently, so doing something was inspirational.  Plenty more stories to come, from the open roads of the Grand Canyon State!

Coming Soon: Amazing Arizona Comics Quarterly #1

It's still coming . . . as is the next issue of Amazing Arizona Comics proper, the mini series that started it all.  In Amazing Arizona Comics #10/America's Super Secret Service #1 (working title), Speed Cameron's adventures outside of Arizona finally hit close to home.  Suddenly, everything makes sense! Preview art available next week!

Amazing Arizona Research

While living in Phoenix is research enough for my superhero-driven political satire Amazing Arizona Comics, I often take pictures or collect memorabilia in, about, or outside of the city to keep the inspiration coming.  Here's some signage from the Arizona Water Company building in Miami, Arizona.  Don't surprised if that droplet dude makes an appearance in a future issue!

Cool Cosplay

I get to see a lot of cool cosplay at the cons I attend, and rather than post endless slideshows of fat Batmen, I like to feature one great costume at a time, ideally revealing the wearer's creativity, originality, and most importantly to me practicality.  The Shadow is perhaps one of the most practical, as his outfit is basically just a classy suit and a cape.  Add a Raven-esque galpal, and you have a gruesome twosome in the best way possible.  I saw this dynamic duo at the Tucson Comic Con back in 2010.  Why I haven't posted the pic until now, only the Shadow knows . . .!  (C'mon, I had to say it.)

This Week's Intake

Much of this week's intake was experiential, thanks to our Route 66 road trip, and I'll be reaping the fruits of those inspirations for months to come, from the abandoned Americana that litters Arizona's northern highways, or the kooky karaoke characters my wife and I encountered in Williams.

As far as media goes, this week I caught an interesting episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, starring a young Robert Redford as a burglar that fights (and, spoiler, fails) to change his thieving ways, despite the toil it takes on his new wife.  It doesn't help that their friend Karl, played by Barry Morse, gives Redford fresh leads, secretly hoping Redford will get caught so Karl can have the hot young wife all to himself.

I know Morse best as Lt. Philip Gerard from TV's The Fugitive, which I watch every Sunday night on MeTV.  When you watch old television, primary from the '50s and early '60s, you realize that there weren't a lot of actors back then, and you see a lot of the same faces in multiple roles.  Interestingly, as Karl in this Hitchcock episode, Morse says a line about the law that comes right out of Gerard's rule book.  The connection was palpable.

I also read an issue of Kirby's Captain America run this week, in which a terrorist group deforms SHIELD agents into monsters to work a labor camp.  The theme of "forced labor" in Kirby's work suddenly struck me with that issue, from these SHIELD slaves to Darkseid's minions on Apokolips . . . The theme is clear.  The ultimate evil is making people work.  Thusly, conversely, Kirby tells us that to fight such evil, being a superhero, is simply to do what you love.

Sign me up!