blog: reader participation

Coloring Contest Redux!

use these seven colors only

Last year I held a contest for folks to color individual comic strips for my book Clever Tricks to Stave Off Death. It was so much fun to see everyone’s interpretations of my comics that I’ve decided to do it again!

The terms are almost exactly the same as last time, so get ready for some familiar-sounding description:

I’m inviting you to color one, two, three…up to six of my comic strips. The best entries will be printed in my next collection, Dapper Caps & Pedal-Copters (scheduled for release by Dark Horse Books in April 2010), and will be credited to you and, if you like, your website. The best colorists will also receive payment for their work — I’m not looking for free labor here.

You have just under two weeks to participate! I’ll be accepting entries only through Sunday, September 13 (11:59 PM Pacific time) Update: The deadline has passed. Thanks to all who submitted!

Details are below the jump! Good luck to all.

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Harvey Awards voting deadline is Friday

lookit that guy

This Friday, August 28th, is the deadline for comics professionals to vote in the final round of the Harvey Awards. Thanks, no doubt, to your earlier voting effort, I am very flattered to be nominated in two categories: “Special Award for Humor in Comics” and “Special Award for Excellence in Presentation” (for my book Beards of our Forefathers). This round of voting is to choose the final winners from among the nominees.

Any professional in the comics industry — publishing, web, or retail — is eligible to vote, and if you feel so moved to do so, the info’s all at harveyawards.org. Again, the deadline’s in just a few days. Thanks!

The Annotated Wondermark in bookstores

Two of my comic strip collections, Beards of our Forefathers and Clever Tricks to Stave Off Death, are widely available via whatever venue you like to buy books — Amazon, your local independent bookstore, wherever. But my first collection, The Annotated Wondermark, isn’t in major bookstores and it isn’t on Amazon. I’m pleased if you’d like to buy it from me, of course (as many of you have recently), but I’d also like to extend a special thank-you to the independent bookstores and comic shops who’ve decided to stock it. If you’re local to any of these shops, please patronize them, knowing that they’re supporting li’l folks like me. And, of course, help move their stock so they’ve got to re-order!

Bergen Street Comics
470 Bergen St.
Brooklyn, NY

The Book Table
1045 Lake Street
Oak Park, IL

Comic Relief
2026 Shattuck Ave.
Berkeley, CA

Comix Revolution
606 Davis Street
Evanston, IL

Domy Houston
1709 Westheimer
Houston, TX

Forbidden Planet
840 Broadway
New York City

House of Secrets
1930 W. Olive Ave
Burbank, CA

Jim Hanley’s Universe
4 W 33rd St
New York City

I’m going to append and refer back to this post as the book is stocked in more and more stores. If you’re a buyer for an indie store and would like to stock my books, contact my sales rep Tony Shenton (if you know him) or contact me directly. Thanks!

Vote Commissioner Gordon for Cutest Dog

AWWWWWW

My friends Chris and Carly are saving for their wedding. The entire household’s getting into the act: Chris is selling books; Carly’s drawing commissions; and the third member of their home, Commissioner James “Jim” Gordon Hastings, is running for public office.

No dog-slash-chief-Gotham-law-enforcement-officer deserves your daily vote more than the Commissioner! And no couple deserves to be married in something somewhat more elegant than a cardboard box than Chris and Carly. Won’t you spare a vote for the poor pup? UPDATE: Thanks very much for all the votes! It looks like we’ve broken the site with the traffic. The Commissioner’s probably a shoo-in for the semifinals now, and I’ll post again when the finals (and another voting opportunity) roll around. Thanks everyone!

ALSO: REMINDER: This Friday, August 14, is the last day to get signed comic prints and/or signed books from me (probably not forever, but for quite a while at least)!

VOTE EARLY VOTE OFTEN

Postal Experiment Follow-Up

Some great comments and emailed feedback from my recent Postmark Experiment. Here are some of my favorites:

Before his retirement after 40+ years at the USPS, my father was a postmaster for several post offices in Puerto Rico (where they currently have only 1 APC on the whole island! – a travesty to be sure), so I was taught at a young age all of the official state abbreviations, got to climb into the very first long-life vehicle (the now-common mail trucks that replaced the Jeeps), and was required to use the APC to send just about anything to my dad. So, that fact that someone else not only uses and enjoys the machine, but also experiments with the machine makes me feel like I am not the only post office nerd in the world. (From Sara)

Maybe things have changed since I was a youngster, but in the good old days, I’ve sent letters with S&H Green Stamps, stamps from book clubs and so on. ( There may have been the odd stamp from the Columbia Record Club in the mix). IIRC, they all arrived just fine. (From Mister Zip)

And in the same vein:

There are some guys here in Chicago that make “art stamps” that are most interesting when sent through the postal service and canceled. Some with guns, drugs, boobs, odd things to run through the post office. And they’ve had some nasty nasty nasty dealings with “the man”. http://www.badpressbooks.com/mhdl.html (From smonkey)

Finally, a LiveJournal reader reminded me about my all-time favorite postal experiment, and one of my favorite things on the internet period:

Having long been genuine admirers of the United States Postal Service (USPS), which gives amazingly reliable service especially compared with many other countries, our team of investigators decided to test the delivery limits of this immense system. We knew that an item, say, a saucepan, normally would be in a package because of USPS concerns of entanglement in their automated machinery. But what if the item were not wrapped? How patient are postal employees? How honest? How sentimental? In short, how eccentric a behavior on the part of the sender would still result in successful mail delivery?

Well worth a read.