On certain days, when I pass by a trash can full of rotten fruit and children's vomit, I get a very strong sense memory of being inside Jambalaya Jim's

#1564; A Cold Stare From a Tall Bookshelf (Part 3)

  — April 7th, 2025

[ Tags: , , ]       Permalink: https://wondermark.com/c/1564/

This storyline started with Part 1.

Buy a Print

New book: Voyages from Wondermark Manor

Today I am very proud to offer Voyage from Wondermark Manor, the second volume in my trilogy of parody Victorian novels. This new volume is about 40% longer than Vol. I. If you liked Vol. I, you’ll love this continuation in the series…and if you hated Vol. I, then stay the heck away from this one because it’s way more of the same. Like the printed version of Vol. I, this book is revised and somewhat improved from the chapters posted online earlier this year.

Next is this wonderful poster conceived by me and designed and painted by Carly Monardo:

I printed 50 posters to take to Comic-Con and now have 25 left. Carly and I are splitting the proceeds 50/50, so please pick up one of these limited prints soon! UPDATE: All 25 have been sold! I will probably reprint the poster soon; watch this space. FURTHER UPDATE: The reprint is now available as a pre-order from the new Wondermark/TopatoCo store!

Finally, my friend and yours Francesco Marciuliano, whom you might know from his gig writing Sally Forth, has restarted his webcomic Medium Large. Ces’s strip was one of the first webcomics I followed regularly and I’m very happy to see him back in the saddle. It’s consistently laugh-out-loud funny. NO PRESSURE CES

Two new interviews

Two more interviews to report today. One’s with Tom Spurgeon, and in it I say:

“…Comic strips were far more formative than comic books. Looking at both industries today, from the perspective of an adult in their midst, I’m utterly baffled that the two media even share a common term — “comics.” I don’t think they could be more different.”

Then there’s the one with Geoff Hoppe, in which I say:

“Not many people know that behind the Dark Horse publishing empire there actually is a literal dark horse. He is a swarthy stallion named Morton.”

The Semidecennial Make-Something Contest

7/15/08 UPDATE: SCROLL DOWN FOR THE WINNERS!

“WHAT’S ALL THIS”

Around 1997, Wizard magazine ran a contest in partnership with the comics publisher Top Cow. They asked fans to create something to demonstrate their affinity for Top Cow. I remember that a “Witchblade opera” was one of the suggestions. But there were really no rules as to what it could be — just something, anything at all, that said “I love Top Cow.”

My friend Stephen and I decided to make a movie. It was called Moo: The Bovine Pursuit, and I’m sad to say that I don’t think I have a complete copy of it anymore. (I do have this version, which lacks the snazzy oscillating-fan-blowing-pages-of-a-comic-book title sequence and the overdubbed Final Fantasy III musical score.) It was the first time I tried any sort of video editing; Stephen and I spent an afternoon doing the whole record-play-pause-fastforward-unpause technique familiar to anyone creative of our generation.

And we won third prize in the contest.

A national contest, and we won third prize. The reward was a stack of signed comics and trading cards, and I remember divvying them up with Stephen. We were so excited that our goofy little thing that we worked hard on actually won a prize.

Today, I want you to have just as much fun as we did eleven years ago. If you like Wondermark, make something. Doesn’t have to be a video; doesn’t have to be anything in particular. But I want you to be creative, and to have fun. That’s the only guideline.

UPDATE: My intent was that you make something about Wondermark in some way. I did not make this clear at the beginning, so it will not be a strict rule — but things made that are about or somehow related to Wondermark or the Wondermark aesthetic will have an advantage.

To illustrate the premise, here are some non-exhaustive examples of things you could make:

– A drawing

– A song

– A robot

– A robot that does dishes

– A robot that breaks dishes

– An interpretive dance

– A story

– A life-sized pickup truck made from cast-off monocles

– A movie about the anonymous henchmen to a James Bond supervillian

– A costume

– A working, coal-burning, ambulatory version of Steamovak

You get the idea, I hope. Entries will be evaluated solely on coolness, neatness, awesomesauce, and raditude.

“WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME”

A good question. I will award the following prizes:

Honorable Mention(s) will receive a free signed, framed print of any Wondermark strip you like, and will have your creation(s) displayed on this site!
Value = approx. $40

Third Prize will receive a framed print as above, display on this site, PLUS a piece of original art by me created especially for you! (I will try to make it pretty good)
Value = approx. $90

Second Prize will receive a framed print, display on this site, a personalized piece of original art, an inscribed copy of my upcoming book Beards of our Forefathers, and a special MYSTERY BOOK as well!
Value = approx. $130

Finally, the Grand Prize will receive a framed print of any strip, display on this site, a personalized original watercolor painting made just for you, an additional set of 13 pre-selected cardstock prints of some of my favorite strips, an Expendable DVD, and the very first copy of Beards of our Forefathers to come off the press, inscribed to you. The book will also include a Certificate of Authenticity, and it will smell like win.
Value = approx. $200

“WHO FRICKIN WON”

Thank you tremendously to all the people who took the time to enter! It was a ton of fun seeing all the different things that people came up with. Without further ado, here are the prize winners.



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