Minneapolis Indie Xpo! The Aftermath! (In a good way!) Exclamation marks!

Yours, truly. (the photo is the only one I had of me there, and was taken from a movie clip. Grr.)

A little disclaimer before I begin- despite having the camera in my pocket the whole time, I didn't take very many pictures at MIX. Pretty pathetic, since the event was really awesome!

In what could be the Midwest's answer to MoCCA or APE, about 100 exhibitors showed off their wares. Comics, books, prints, knick-knacks, donuts, and panel discussions, it was a glut of decisions, in the bestest of ways. The biggest exhibitor was Top Shelf Productions, which showed off some new works by Kevin Cannon and Will Dinski. It was pretty neat.

I shared space with Renny Kissling and Will Schar. They're cool dudes! Check out there websites after you go to MY website (updated just an hour ago with details of what I showed off)!

I did a demonstration with was more along the lines of my regular sales pitch at Wet Paint. This isn't the actual video, but it gets the idea across...


Now for some of the aforementioned could've-tried-harder-to-take-some-pics. Better ones can be seen here (thanks group-Flikr!).


The View from my table across the way. I was located in room three, which might not have had the best traffic, but was overall agreed upon was the least humid and hot!



We all got there super early to set up. Here's some of the preparation going on. In a few hours, this place is packed to the gills.


My tablemate and good friend Will Schar. He's a very good colourist, and had some neat prints for sale.


Someone paid with this five dollar bill. Very eerie...


This little comic ended up being a very good seller- but I think I gave away more than I had expected- it's a good ice breaker.


Despite it being on this blog, this series of minis was the most popular. Bar none.


Though this one came a very close second!


I didn't sell as many copies of Hush Fund than I had hoped. But the people who did were very enthusiastic! I'm hoping to sell some at The Source Comics and Games on Snelling and Larpentuer in Falcon Heights/Roseville, Minnesota. You can buy one if you email me, and we'll discuss shipping.


My workspace. Just thought I'd throw that out there...

Well, now that MIX is over, I need an new obsession. I think a really awesome Halloween costume is the next logical step.

TTYL!

Minneapolis Indie Xpo!

Minneapolis Indie Xpo is happening on August 21st at the Soap Factory in Minneapolis! Come and see me IRL, and see some neat comics!

So this upcoming Saturday is Minneapolis Indie Xpo (MIX). I've got table space, and I'll be selling some mini-comics, a board game, and possibly a music CD. And a slew of prints. It's going to be pretty awesome.

The following is a selection of what I'll be selling. I do plan on adding some prints to the collection, and if I'm lucky, a quick mini or two. So enjoy this preview:



Remember when I had a series of LEGO Mans on this blog? These three minis are collections of these, plus a special non-internet one. Has a full colour cover.


Childhood trauma and drama set against used video game retail.


The silly little comic about solving your problems.


The Burrowed: a story told in pieces of how a monster causes a war in a small rural town.



Back Pages: the journey of self-promotion in a cold and heartless world; collection of my comics I used to advertise my website though a local weekly newspaper.



A linoleum-block printed comic of the reviving effects of art after personal turmoil. Each cover features a unique paper as its cover.



Some old comics from my college days. Not the highest of caliber of my comic work, but hey, someone might be interested. Basically a back-up...



I'm selling an actual board game that I constructed and designed. It's called Hush Fund, and it's like playing Monopoly with nothing but Chance Cards. I've only got ten copies... I'll have a sign-up sheet if anyone's interested, and I've run out...


A shot of what I've got so far...

Whew! That's a lot! So come to MIX! It'll be a hoot!

TTYL!

Eat, Die, and Live!

Last week's City Pages comic- the last of the Doctor Abner comics... for now...

(for the astute, there was a little bit of animation in this post. Originally. But I've taken it down because I'm making a post that'll be more on point.)

TTYL!

Foot in the Door

Photos courtesy of Heather Buscho, 2010

My friends Heather, Jenny, and I met up for MIA's Foot In The Door opening night. It was crazy-crowded, but worth every second. We saw lots of beautiful and wonderful art from many many Minnesotans, and dug the scene.


Detail of my piece.

Aside from materials that could rot or attract vermin, the only rule of the show was that it had to fit in "The Curator" (see picture below), a foot cubed. There were a lot of flat pieces, and a lot of sculpture, and apparently, a lot of videos and film (I didn't see the filmed parts). In total? Probably about 4800 pieces. Maybe 5000. Not sure.


"The Curator," copyright image Minneapolis Institute of Art, 2010

On through June! Got to it, goddangit!

TTYL!

LEGO Kabuki, and Other Stuff

This figure from the Kabuki stage is a helpful commoner who assists the hero by hatcheting a mooring cable on a river ferry. I couldn't replicate his hair properly, so I did some guess work.

Only one more to go, and then I start on LEGO Zulu Wars!


The job hunt continues, with some helpful mentoring and guidance. I've been looking at companies in California as well as here in Minnesota, and the art of tailoring my personal-self pitch has been a fun and challenging enterprise.




I actually finished this weeks ago and delivered it weeks ago [sic redundancy], but haven't put it up on this blog before (I think). So this was a birthday gift commission, playing up the couple's shared interest in poodles, pottery throwing, and stand-up comedy. Pretty fun job! I do commissions like this, too, if you out there in IRL-Land need a snappy gift...



In a 180 degree turn, a few days ago, while I was on a walk, I saw the most amazing thing. But before I can tell you it, a little back-story is necessary:

There is a strip mall on Lexington Avenue and the corner of Larpentuer Avenue in Roseville, MN. It's got the usual handful of shops and restaurants, all of varying degrees of success. On this strip, there are probably 4 or 5 empty stores, but stores like the Dairy Queen (the first in Minnesota!), Key's Cafe, Embroidme, and Music-Go-Round make it easy to ignore the blank fronts.

One of these fronts was filled in with a Little Caesars pizzeria.
So what? A new pizza place? Who cares? Well, Little Caesars evidently does- what went on in the first week was jaw-dropping, starting from less-awesome to most-awesome:
1) Kids standing on the corner waving big orange foam hands with a deal printed on the palm.
2) Some schmuck in a Little Caesar mascot suit to wave at traffic.
3) A popular-hits radio station van with drawings and a spin wheel
4) Hot-air balloon on the roof (sort of like the kind at used car lots)
5) Night-time searchlights

This where I tell you the most amazing thing, that I saw on my walk, that Little Caesars did:
6) A biplane with banner circling the general area.

A BIPLANE! Who advertises with a planes these days? Who has that kind of money? Well, evidently Little Caesars does, and I've chosen to take that as a sign that things ARE getting better. Naive? Probably, but in times like this, when something amazing happens, you have to stand back and notice it.

TTYL!

City Pages

If you live in the Twin Cites and surrounding metro, you're probably aware of City Pages, a free weekly arts/news/ad newpaper, found virtually every where. I bought some ad space for a year, and minis, like the one above, are going to be printed on the back-page bulletin board. Keep in mind, this is advertising, and I'm not going to try to claim a published credit out of it. I'm hoping that if you see it, you've seen my website, and by extension, this blog.



Grover's Mom is coming soon- I need to compress the files to reasonable web-safe sizes, and do some advertising on the usual social network sites. But soon!

I've been dying to show off somethings I've been working on for Junkyard Empire. Pretty soon I can, or at least some of the creative process that's been leading toward the project.



This is an exciting project. Go here to whet your appetite.

TTYL!

Inaugural Post

Hello- I'm internet's Comic Artist Steve (aka Steve Robbins), a graphic designer, illustrator, and comic artist from Saint Paul, Minnesota. This blog is set up to be a regular (aiming for daily) blog to post sketches, professional updates, commentary of my job hunt, and perhaps some thing or two that's educational.
My website is: http://www.comicartiststeve.com/

I'm proud of my degree in comic art- it was hard work, and through out my time at Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD), I've strived for a great set of abilities, such as draftsmanship, typography, graphic design/composition, colour theory, illustration, CAD, information management, creative writing, narrative, conceptual ideation, figure drawing, story boarding, and some light serigraphy.


When I bought my paper trimmer (CARL brand), I also bought a ton of specialty blades (or rather, a ton of two types of specialty blades); scoring and perforating. I've started figuring out how I could use it with things like the above. Here is something that I can and have left on public bulletin boards, where people can tear off a business card, and maybe be directed to my website. It might work, it might not.
What I'm hoping with this is to attracted people with the bold, startling alien with the bold, graphically-pleasing curvy-balloons to come up to it and take a look; their curiosity driving them to understand what the threatening (yet cute!) alien is speaking. They read the text, and notice that there are business cards you can tear off the bottom (not rip!). Perhaps it amused them enough to want to see what else this guy has- it's seductively giving enough information, and yet not enough!
Then, when all the business cards are gone, the alien remains.
Relatively cheap, and viral enough to be posted anywhere. So far, I've put some up in coffee places and libraries in Roseville, so next I aim for Saint Paul and Minneapolis.


This is a spine jacket for my IRL portfolio (my phone number and address have been fuzzed out for privacy reasons, and a second version has the street and number taken off entirely). In addition to the contact information information and logo(s), the background is taken from a series of drawings I've done with others over the last 4 years. Here's an example:


The idea is simple: I draw a line, and then you add to it, then I add to it, the you add to it... etc. I've got a lot of these done with many people. I forget who I collaborated with for this one.


When I started making a downloadable PDF of samples, I used THIS as a background (though bigger, and not just that!). It was neutral enough to not be distracting, but interesting enough to complement the focus art.


Inverting the colour for the title cards (so to speak), helps pop the white lettering out at you.

The spine follows the aesthetic of the PDFs, and is part of my over-all personal branding.

And there we go- The first of many posts on this blog.

TTYL!