New Years Monster

Welcome to the last post of 2007. The new years demon of transformation wishes you new things in the new year.

Chapter 1 pages 3 & 4

the story continues. The mystery deepens.
in other news, I'm heading to California early tomorrow morning/late tonight, and I have a pretty bad cold.

Chapter 1 pages 1&2

Here are the first two pages of my new ongoing story that doesn't have a name yet.

enjoy

one week left until the end of the semester

the poster for my senior thesis project, done for a class explaining my process to the freshmen. click on for the larger image.

Beards of Bethesda (BoB)

Here's a video made by Joe Lambert and Alexis Fredric-Frost chronicaling one of the most interesting aspects of last weekends SPX.

Halloween season

A flyer for Monsters & Girls that will be seen all around SPX.
This is my favorite month.

The image is a little big, but I'd rather have some of the words cut off than the image too small to see.

SPX

SPX is this weekend. I'll be there with copies of Monsters and Girls and with the Dead Man's Hand Western Comics Anthology.

Dr Calamari/Baron Mardi interview

I'll post more soon, but in the mean time.

Dark Carnival and California

Last saturday I attended the last day of the Dark Carnival Film Fest. I saw some great shorts and two interesting full length movies, including the goriest movie I've ever seen, and that's saying a lot.

Some of my best friends were there.



Afterwards was a monster mash of a dance party. The band leader was the first Jason. Carrie was declared queen of the dance. But somehow stuff went wrong.
You can check out more pictures on my flicker account, including the firedepartment being called, and some other exciting stuff.http://www.flickr.com/photos/deniscomix

Here's a copy of the student newspaper review of the festival that I'm quoted in

Indiana Daily Student - Aug. 27, 2007

Dark Carnival brings out frights, delights

by Nick Mills

Although the sun was shining, Bloomington got a little darker this weekend with the arrival of the Dark Carnival Film Festival. More than just a film festival, the horror fest was full of terrifying spectacles. From celebrity guests to costumed creepsters, the dark underworld of independent horror films shined its light at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater.

The events included sideshows and a celebrity meet-and-greet session with special guests Ari Lehman (the original Jason from “Friday the 13th”) and Raine Brown (from the film “100 Tears”). Before stepping inside the Buskirk, theatergoers congregated by the front door to watch a local man dressed as Michael Myers from the “Halloween” movies wander through the crowd. The entertaining duo of Baron Mardi and Dr. Calamari, two of Bloomington’s own local make-up artists, donned costumes to host the festival.

To get the festivities off to a proper start, the Starlite Drive-In hosted a screening of the film “Dead and Breakfast” on Thursday night. Special guest Brenna Lee Roth was out and about, conversing with attendees – although most of the attention fell on her father, David Lee Roth, of Van Halen fame, who was slated to show up but never made an appearance.

“If he comes, he’ll steal my thunder,” Brenna said in good nature after someone interjected and asked if “DLR” was coming. “Even if he doesn’t, he’ll steal my thunder.”

Film screenings for the festival began Friday. Various horror flicks were on display, and in between shows the filmmakers held discussions. Films were sent in from all over the nation and included everything from stop-motion to animation, as well as short and feature-length films. After reviewing the films over several days, workers and volunteers at Cinephile chose the best to be shown.

The audience enjoyed the film selection, commenting on the variety and giving other compliments as varied as the films themselves.

“I just like the violence,” Bloomington resident Katrina Perry said. “I like to satisfy my violent urges through film.”

Festival performers included the Blue Monkey Sideshow, with their presentation of gut-wrenching stunts, humor and entertainment. More extreme acts included walking on glass and lying on a bed of nails, the latter of which induced cringing from the audience.

While few members, like Perry, enjoyed the Dark Carnival for the violence, others merely were pleased that a supportive art community can come together in Bloomington to express themselves through horror.

“This [festival] is just a celebration of the fun of the horror genre,” said Denis St. John, a student at the Center of Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vt.

David Pruett, the organizer of the event, claims it was originally going to be a “festival of the weird” or a “display of curiosity,” but as the plans unfolded, it turned into a festival based around film. The event took only five months to plan – quite a feat for something of this size, according to Pruett.

“I really like that it’s the first year that they did (the festival) from the ground up, and it went really well,” said Brown, whose film “100 Tears” was the last film shown on Saturday. “It will only get bigger.”

Others echoed Brown’s optimism for a repeat film festival. Pruett said the filmmakers enjoyed the event and the people involved in planning it are pushing to have one next year.

“I was happy the filmmakers enjoyed it. They were really happy with the audience turnout and their energy,” Pruett said. “It’s pretty likely (it’s) going to happen again.”
END

that was sent to me by my friend KosmosFlot.

I also have some pics from my trip to California up on flicker.

I'm off to California on tuesday, I'll be spending my time with family in the Napa Valley and San Francisco.

When I get back I'm going to Bloomington to see friends and to go to the last day of the Dark Carnival Film Fest. Put on by good friends and hosted by Dr. Calimari and Baron Mardi. It's gonna be awesome, check out the website www.darkcarnivalfilmfest.com for details.


After that I'm heading to Vermont for school, and here's a zombie girl drawing, for no reason.

I probably won't update for a little while, so bye for now.
Denis
-edit, I added a strip of clothing to the zombie girl, now it's work safe.

Vincent Price

One of my favorite actors is on Turner Classic Movies all day today. Guess who's glued to the tv.

I'll probably update again later in the day.

more puppet progress and western doodles

Here's Lindsey's amazing progress on Snape.



Lindsey with the almost complete Snape. THis is my favorite picture.

Here's more doodles on the western.

Puppet Project

Here's me and my paper mache Voldemort and Hermione



And all the way in Indiana here's Lindsey with her paper mache Snape.

(imagine this picture is rotated)

puppets and hot sauce

Here's a potential back cover for Monsters & Girls #2. My sauciest drawing yet. I'm also making some Harry Potter puppets with a new friend :)

California

I'm going to California on the 14th to see family. See you there, family.
I hung out with good high school friend, Travis, yesterday. Here's a new computer drawing.

more doodles!?

Here's some new photoshop drawings I've been doing. Dishy Dora all ready for the opera, or a gun fight.
I've been looking at some PowerHouse Pepper by Basil Wolverton stuff as inspiration. As well as, obviously, Popeye.

The color palettes I mostly swapped from Fleisher Popeye posters. Those are pretty amazing.

I don't have names for the two cow guys yet.
The last picture is just a self portrait. I'm using a dip pen in the picture because in real life I was using a tablet and computer.

Cartoon College

I thought I'd post the teaser trailer for the documentary about the school made by Tara Wray. I think both James and Steve say some good stuff in it, the Munk college comment was pretty good, and the James says something about how we're all self taught, which to me makes sense.

OOPS!

well, I guess I never did my big Spain post. I still think I will eventually. Sorry about that, I figured I should start posting some other stuff anyway. Over the summer I don't have a scanner in easy access, so a lot of the stuff I'm drawing won't be put on the computer until september. in the meantime here's a doodle I did on photoshop while listening to the new Harry Potter on CD. Be warned, possible spoilers for the begining of the book.

Back from Spain

Hey all,
So I got back two days ago. It was a great trip, I'll post the pictures and story of my family vacation either later today or tomorrow, I just wanted to give a quick update and hello before that.
So I see that the Sundays Anthology sold out at MoCCA. That's awesome! And it's available now at www.iknowjoekimpel.com

that's one of my first assignments for The Center for Cartoon Studies. It was a style copy of Momma comics.

Brain Pellets!

(front)
A new product from Monsters & Girls! Monsters & Girls brand Brain Pellets. All the benefits of the comic book Monsters & Girls in a fruit flavored powdery brain effecting pellet! A must have for collectors of Monsters & Girls merchandize as well as anyone who likes or needs brain pellets! Just imagine, all the creatures and monsters you'll see, your brain will never be the same again!

(back)

In other news check out my profile on http://sundaysanthology.com/. Everyone going to MoCCA, have an awesome time, and everyone going to MoCCA not connected to the sundays anthology, buy it!

watch out for monsters

I'm going to Spain soon, there will be at least one more post before I do with some new work, and then after I get back some travel pictures. Hope everyone's having a good summer.

news

Over last weekend I went to Bloomington. I'm sure there are photos of the party somewhere, I'd like to get copies of so I can post them here. The Vintage Pheonix, the comic book store in Bloomington, is selling my comics. In other news, a movie I did some work for, animation and stuff, will have it's world premiere on July 20th, more news of that later.

My brother

My brother, Liam, has been on an organic farm for about a week. He's been farming, living in a tent, and not doing laundry. I wish him luck for the rest of his time on the farm.

character sketches

here are some early sketches for what went on to become my current characters in The Loup-Garou and Circus of the Weird.

new comic

here's my first ever web comic. detailing my own tiny interactions with the surprisingly attractive girl that works at the comic book store, whose name I don't know.
Mostly it was just me playing with drawing and coloring directly on a computer.
The store was having some art opening tonight that I was going to go to, but then completly forgot about it.
okay, once again blogger changed the colors all crazy. but if I upload it first on photobucket, and then post the code, then blogspot only shows a chunk of the comic, rather than all of it. does anyone know how to fix this problem?
Here's a link to the jpg of this comic with it's proper coloring.
http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/aa270/deniscomix/dailycolored.jpg

Atomic Age Cinema

here's a picture from the last time The Kick was at Atomic Age Cinema. I was working on a 3 panel comic for today, but I took a break from it and when I came back i realized how ugly it was.

Monster Flyer

the flyer soon to be all around Ann Arbor, Michigan.

THEY LIVE

Last night I went to see They Live at The State at midnight. It was real nice to see a midnight movie again. This was no Atomic Age Cinema, none of the stuff that makes Atomic Age Cinema unique, gifts, live hosting, humor, just plain enthusiam. Anyway, it was still fun. Before the movie began I overheard people talking about Rocky Horror and that it would be cool if this was something like it. Oh man, if only they knew about Atomic Age.
excellent lines from They Live, starring Rowdy Roddy Piper
"I came here to do two things, kick ass and chew bubble gum...and I'm all out of bubble gum"
"Life's a bitch, and she's back in heat"
"White line is in the middle of the road, that's the worst place to drive"
"You look like you fell into the cheese dip way back in '57"
I did these on photoshop. I don't know why, but when I uploaded the pictures to blogger the colors got reversed. Oh well.