Here are a couple of the many Roll-a-Sketches I did in Toronto last week! Thanks to everyone who came by the table, it was a great reminder of why I do that show every year. Everybody’s so nice and it’s such a neat environment for art and friends!

ICE CREAM + KNIGHT: (click pics for bigger)

OSTRICH + AIRPLANE + CAVEMAN + HELICOPTER:

RHINO + ICE CREAM + CAVEMAN + COWBOY:

CACTUS + TOASTER:

Would you like a Roll-a-Sketch of your very own?? THIS WEEKEND I will be returning to the Bay Area Maker Faire in San Mateo! The show is Saturday and Sunday, May 18-19.

I’ll have a booth in the Bazaar Bizarre section, right next to my old pal Chris Yates (handmade puzzle crafter extraordinaire).

BONUS VIDEOS: The last time I was at Maker Faire, two years ago, I recorded a video journal of the drive up and back! Full of HIGH DRAMA and BURRITOS and THE TERRIFYING SPECTER OF FATIGUE. If you’ve ever wanted to see a lot of me in sunglasses, YOU’RE IN LUCK.

I re-watched these videos tonight and the whole thing seems like just yesterday. But it was TWO YEARS AGO. I don’t even KNOW.

Here are a few of the Roll-a-Sketch drawings I did in Calgary over the weekend! First up, PIRANHA + CAVEMAN:

KNIGHT + CACTUS:

INSECT + TURTLE + DOCTOR + GIRAFFE:

And of course, PLATYPUS + SHARK:

If you’re in the Toronto area, I’ll be there for TCAF in two weeks! Come get a unique drawing of your very own, I DARE YA

Here is a small sample of the Roll-a-Sketch drawings I did for kind folks at the Emerald City Comicon last week!

I have evolved the system now to the point where I use four different color-coded dice. It’s a ton of fun — it saves me from having to think of something new to draw for each person, because the system of dice rolling determines it for me, and it also saves me from the rut of falling into a few predictable repeated sketches, which is boring. With this method, whenever I get tired of one type of sketch, I simply erase that element from the master list and replace it with something else.

For the uninitiated: Roll-a-Sketch is a thing I do at conventions, where I have a sign with lists of nouns on them: things like kitten, cactus, mermaid, cowboy, and so on. Patrons roll dice to select either two or four elements from the lists, and I draw a sketch hilariously combining the chosen elements!

SOMETHING LIKE THIS (click any picture for bigger):

Other examples include this ELEPHANT + TANK:

DINOSAUR + SHEEP:

ROBOT + ROBOCOP (they were both on the list and I should have figured that the combination would eventually come up):

And of course the traditional ELEPHANT + CACTUS + GIRAFFE + DOCTOR:

Thanks to the patrons who commissioned (and rolled to determine) these sketches! I hope they are gracing your homes in places of honor. And come see me at any show this year for a Roll-a-Sketch of your very own!

Here are some more Artist Edition book drawings I did earlier this week! This Sunday, the 30th, is the last day to pick up one of your own. (They won’t be available again before the holidays, so, you know. Think ahead.) UPDATE: They’re done! Thanks, everyone!

Here’s a ROCKET + BEAR:

COWBOY + ELEPHANT + BOXING:

SHARK + CACTUS + TANK:

Hee hee, VICTORIAN + ROBOT + BATMAN:

For this final week I’ve changed up the Roll-a-Sketch options, and Marksman George C. has updated his randomizer script accordingly! Thanks, George!

Also, a note about the strange sweepstakes: I’ve gotten a few reports that the submission form is occasionally buggy. I haven’t been able to reproduce the error myself, but if you encounter any problems, just email me the same info from the form (dave at wondermark dot com). The deadline for all submissions is Sunday, September 30. UPDATE: Also done!

This is also a good time to mention that TopatoCo has just put some of my shirts on clearance for only $12:

Steam Powered Heart

Trailer Shirts – All Audiences and Restricted Audiences

International Fraternal Corps of Bears In Ill-Fitting Hats

PLUS the three-shirt-discount (five bucks off when you get any three shirts on the entire site) still applies, PLUS TopatoCo has a new program where you can submit a photo and get a $10 gift certificate!

It’s like…I dunno, guys. It just might be an amazing time to be alive.

Here are a couple of the sketches I did today in copies of Emperor of the Food Chain, using prompts supplied by each book’s future owner:

“Turtle Robot CEO”:

“Victorian Helicopter Squid”:

“Victorian Rocket Kitten”:

Here’s where you can order your own!

Also, Marksman George C. wrote me today, saying: “Just ordered the 5-pack. Since I wasn’t near a 40-sided die, this happened.” It’s a Roll-a-Sketch Randomizer! Thanks so much, George!

Speaking of drawings…

One of the other neat things in the new book is a Piranhamoose children’s story. Reader Sharon Bryan, a librarian at an Australian university, wrote me several years ago to say:

I was particularly impressed by the latest appearance of the Piranhamoose — so much so that I was oddly inspired to create some sort of fan fiction.

I may have been strongly influenced by the number of children’s books I have been reading lately… Anyway, the following nonsense came to me whilst riding my bike to work today, and I thought it was only fitting to send it to you to put in whatever “stalkers” file you may have for such things.

Attached was a delightful short poem about children who visit a quite dangerous zoo. I was so taken with the story that I got Sharon’s permission to include it in this book, and had my friend Phil McAndrew create a series of original watercolor illustrations to round out the whole package! It’s a cute little story and I hope you like it too.

Grab the book today! UPDATE: Artist Editions are done for now, thanks everyone!

On Friday I drew a guest comic for my friend Dave Kellett’s comic strip “Sheldon”! If you’re not familiar with Sheldon, all you really need to know is that the titular Sheldon is a child gazillionaire and that he likes geeky stuff. Hope you enjoy!

(I did one a few years ago too!)

Inspired by Anthony Clark, whose Tumblr is always full of fun little sketches and animations, I tried making some li’l animations of my own!

This one I call “PARTY ALL NIGHT”

That was just to get me into the swing of things. With a little more confidence I then attempted another one, which I call “FIGHT TO THE FINISH”

Feeling positively BRAVE I then spent most of a morning on this one, which I call “STOP TOUCHING THE BUTTON”

And finally, this image wouldn’t leave my head until I made it a reality — “DO A BAAA-RREL ROLL”

For the last several days I have been checking back in on them (on my Tumblr) and have been pleased to find that they’re still truckin’ away! GIF ANIMATIONS: The true perpetual motion machine??

I’m at Comic-Con right now, and I’ve been doing a fun new thing I call “Roll-a-Sketch.” Simply put: I wrote down a list of adjectives and nouns (such as “underwater”, “ninja”, “backhoe”, “jam jar”, etc.) in columns. Then, a person chooses a column and rolls a die to randomly select one of the words — then does it again, to select a second word.

Then the fun part: I draw the combination, like this vampire helicopter:

For a few extra bucks the person can even roll FOUR times to generate a SUPER-COMBO like this Victorian submarine helicopter bulldozer:

But my favorite so far has to be the boxing rhino space tank:

And the best part is, the result is a fun sketch that the person gets to take home and keep!

So if you’re at Comic-Con, come by booth 1229 to roll for your own sketch! I’ll likely also be bringing this to other conventions later in the year as well — heck, I’d do this at the dentist’s office, if they let me. AND WHO’S TO SAY THEY WON’T??

Greetings from Vaasa! I’m intermittently drawing and posting journal comics about my (ongoing) trip to Finland. Here are the ones I’ve posted so far! (New ones are announced on my Twitter as well.)

A while ago I reviewed Richard Thompson’s wonderful comic “Cul de Sac.” It’s a charming, hilarious strip I think everyone should be reading. (Read it online here, or follow Richard’s blog here.)

The image up there is the cover to a book called Team Cul de Sac: Cartoonists Draw the Line at Parkinson’s. In what has to be one of the supremest ironies ever visited upon the arts, Richard Thompson was recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

So his friend Chris Sparks organized a project called Team Cul de Sac, in which artists created original “Cul de Sac” fan art to be auctioned off to benefit The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research.

The series of auctions is going on now — only through Sunday evening, in fact! — and features original art from literally hundreds of amazing cartoonists. As well as from me! I snuck in there somehow too, with this piece:

(Click through to the auction site for a closer look.)

Many of the pieces (including mine) are also collected in the Team Cul de Sac book above, the proceeds of which also benefit the cause. Signed editions are available here, or you can buy it on Amazon or Indiebound right now.

Finally, if you’re in the Arlington, VA area, this Sunday night there will be a group signing featuring many of the contributors!

And DOUBLE-FINALLY, if you are creepily interested in Richard Thompson himself and the background behind the strip, here is an extensive feature about him in the Washington Post:

A 2007 offering is the prototypical “Cul de Sac.” Alice — “who’s not afraid of anything” — is momentarily cowed by winged cicadas. Petey, typically squeamish out of doors, advises: “Do what I do. Construct a distancing fantasy as a coping mechanism.” Next thing we know, Alice is costuming the cicadas in napkin dresses and naming them. By the last panel, with precise elliptical wit, the Otterloop parents are reading headlines about intelligent “superbugs” wearing paper clothes. “Don’t tell the kids,” Mom says. “It’ll just scare them.”

Read the whole article here.

GO TEAM

Heritage Auctions: “Petey and Alice in Wonderland” Original Art by David Malki !