Sammy comic and more DCFF

I did this comic as part of my 24 hour comic book day activity. I went out on the streets of Montpelier for an hour or so and came back with some cool comics, some Berni Wrightson comics an Alien Worlds comic and an I Vampire comic.
I drew out the panels with no idea what would go in them and then picked random panels from the comics I had just bought and drew them into random panels on the page, then concocted a Sammy story around it.

Here I am with Betsey, Penina, the D20 girls, and the AAC monsters. in other words monsters and girls!

my table, missing one important element...

Betsey and Penina at the Team Werewolf table!

Happy Halloween!!

Oh October, you are my month
I was in Bloomington all week for Dark Carnival Filmfest
had a great time with friends, sold some comics, did other stuff.
I missed my flight back to Vermont due to weather and so missed the Spooktacular showing of Frankenstein Meets the Wolf-Man.

I did this as a raffle prize for Spooktacular!
While I was in Bloomington I saw my brother, Liam, and we did these hillarious jam drawings,



did I mention that Dark Carnvial did an indoor fire show?

Dark Carnival Film Fest

This year I'll be tabling at the Dark Carnival FilmFest in Bloomington, IN.
Im many ways it will be a homecoming for me. It'll be great to see my Atomic Age Cinema pals again. I'm also going to b staying with Penina and Betsey, who will be tabling also, as Team Werewolf!

Amelia Part 4(the penultimate book!!!) will be debuting there! Here's the new back cover,

Thanks to Jess Abston and Rene Gerrior for helping and posing!
I'll be posting more samples this month!

I haven't been to Bloomington or Dark Carnival since I think 2007, here's some photos from last time,





Dark Carnival is October 21st to the 23rd, see you there!!!

Chapter 11 samples

some more panels from Chapter 11.
Hypno-dancing



just decided to color a panel for the heck of it. I used much the same colors on Amelia that Colleen Frakes chose for her Amelia drawing. I had never picked the colors for her outfit, I like what Colleen picked. I'm definitely not an awesome colorist.

book four will debut at the Dark Carnival Film Fest!

Chapter 11, October and horror

SO,
I'm going to Bloomington for the Dark Carnival Filmfest. I'll be tabling with Werewolf.
It's going to be a lot of fun, I'll give you more details about it as the time comes.
But, I wanted to talk about Amelia 4. Which will be debuting there.
Here's some samples from Chapter 11(You'll remember chapter 10 samples here and here). Relatively spoiler freeish.

Amelia scared of someone, in the print version I'll remember to fill in the black on the knife!

A disgusted Sammy with arms full of snacks.

Amelia being spooky

And finally a mysterious new character.

So that's it for now, I'm well into drawing book 5, and want to have that finished soon also.

But, for 4 and 5 I'm looking for friends and fellow artists to help me out with some pin-ups for the back of the book. This is an open call, anyone who gets there art into the book will get a thanks in it and a free copy.
Thanks for reading!

Atomic Age Send Off!!

The atomic age logo, and underneath the atomic age wall

So since I left Bloomington, the home of Atomic Age Cinema I haven't done the best job of keeping in contact with the featured creatures.
But I still hear occasionally what's going on, mostly thanks to Captain Kosmos. The Cinemat, which is the weekly venue space for AAC has been closing down for awhile now. the captain informed me that the matinee show yesterday was their second to last.
For those of you who might not know, before coming to Vermont to study cartooning I was involved in AAC, a weekly live horror hosted movie show. There was a midnight show, playing mostly horror movies, with free prizes and strange events, then there was the kid show,



Now I'm going to violate one of the big rules of hosting shows like this, I'm going to break the illusion, and just admit outright that I was The Kick, the original Kick that is,
yep, that's me, you could never tell under the mask

Now the kids show was never the success that the midnight show, as you can guess their wasn't a lot of audience overlap (Kids at 3, live surgery and boobies at midnight!). But, we had a small and very loyal audience. If it wasn't for those few kids the show wouldn't have kept going, but there are three kids in particular who made every saturday worthwhile.
At the kids show we mostly played old movie serials like Flash Gordon and Captain Marvel, and old cartoons like Betty Boop and Flip the Frog.

When I left Bloomington the kids show was taken over, first by a new Kick, my protege so to speak, ignore the small audience
Then by Captain Kosmos, both of whom I want to thank, especially CK for keeping me involved.

At the midnight show I'd host often as The Kick, and occasionally play different creatures. One thing I want people to really understand is how much work went into this every week, this is just one free gift from one week, a new gift was made every single week,


Now I don't know what the future of the midnight show or the kids show will be, but I know it's hard to keep AAC down. In a way they've already moved on to bigger and better things, like The Dark Carnival Film Fest

But I hope they find a new live venue soon, even after I left it was good to know it was there, doing it's part to keep Indiana weird.
So in conclusion, I want to say good luck to David Pruett, Arthur Cullipher, Kirk Hasting, David Underwood, and every one else who has come and gone from Atomic Age,

This is the Kick saying, be seeing you!

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.