David Malki !

Stumptown Comics Fest & BEARD LINK ROUNDUP

This weekend I’ll be in Portland, Oregon for the Stumptown Comics Fest! Portland is the Beard Capital of the USA, so it’s only fair that I use this post for a BEARD LINK ROUNDUP:

BEARD HEAD. So many people have sent me this link! It is a very windy day in Los Angeles today so I could certainly use one of my own. Beardhead.com

Amazing video from the World Beard & Moustache Championships (2003)! My favorite quote: “Well, I don’t normally wear it like this, it’s a bit impractical actually.” This year’s championships are coming up next month in Anchorage, Alaska.

Beard Song. Quite a lovely song really.

The astonishing charity fundraiser, Things My Beard Can Lift.

The Australian band “The Beards“. They proclaim themselves to be “a bearded band”, which is great — but wait! “We only play songs about beards and having beards.” Phenomenal.

This lovely poster is by Michael Buchino of beardrevue.com, which should have a home in the “Beards” tab of your bookmarks folder or RSS list.

Finally, here is a drawing that I made in 2006, the very first year that I went to the Stumptown show:

See you in Portland!

Two new Wondermark books!

LOOK THERE ARE THREE OF THEM

Now available for pre-order: Clever Tricks to Stave Off Death, the newest Wondermark collection from Dark Horse Books! In the vein of last year’s Beards of our Forefathers (which has been nominated for an Eisner Award), this beautiful hardbound volume collects over 100 individual Wondermark comics, as well as a long-form graphic-novel-style story and tons of extra material around the edges and stuffed into the corners.

Clever Tricks will officially be released next month, but between now and May 13, you can pre-order a copy (or all three of my collections) and have me create a unique sketch in each book!

Why is this significant, when I’ve been offering Artist Editions for years? Because this will be your only chance. For reasons that will become clear in a few months, I am discontinuing all Artist Editions after May 13.

So! If you would like an Artist Edition copy of the new book (or any of the old ones), please place your order now! And please keep future gift-giving, etc. in mind as well, because Artist Editions will (in all likelihood) not be available for Christmas later this year.

Also available for pre-order: Return to Wondermark Manor, the third and final volume of my parody Victorian novel series! The longest of the three books at 208 pages, Return is available by itself or in a combo pack with the other two volumes. Only a few hundred will be printed — your pre-order will ensure that you get a new, clean, fresh-smelling copy right off the press.

AND THREE OF THESE AS WELL

Here’s a bigger picture of Clever Tricks and here’s one of Return to Wondermark Manor. All pre-ordered books will begin shipping on May 13!

Sketches from Seattle

Since returning from the Emerald City ComiCon, I’ve been busy moving into a new office! The Twitter throngs and I workshopped a number of excellent names for the new space before I settled on “The Assault Factory.” Runners-up “Champion Cave” and “The Murder Hut” were top contenders as well, but the Assault Factory makes me think of forging boldly ahead, getting stuff done, and blazing new trails. Stand back — I’m headed to the Assault Factory. Let’s make some power.

I considered designing a logo for the Assault Factory, maybe something incorporating an AK-47 and a top hat, but then I realized I already did! (P.S. it looks like there are still a few discounted Smalls and Mediums from the misprinted solid-black-shirt run.)

There remains a fair bit of moving in to do — er, to assault — and I’ll post pictures of the new space when that’s all spiffy and done. In the meantime, here are some sketches I did in Seattle last weekend! The first three were drawn at the airport but the last one, thankfully, was not.

Clever Tricks and Dispatches Vol. III pre-orders will go up on Tuesday.

truck

boat

lawn mower

awwww

Emerald City ComiCon: April 4-5

whoooosh

This coming weekend I’ll be in Seattle for the Emerald City ComiCon! I’ll have books, posters, a few T-shirts and a pad of paper for sketches. This is one of my favorite shows of the year, so I really hope you’ll come out to say hello.

Later this week or early next week: I’ll be launching a pre-order for my new hardcover strip collection, Clever Tricks to Stave off Death, as well as Return to Wondermark Manor: Dispatches from Wondermark Manor Volume III.
Both books will begin shipping in about a month, but you can secure your copies ahead of time with the pre-order — that’ll ensure you get the very first copies that I receive!

This week I will also be closing the window for Unique Sketch Cards and ludicrous phone calls — if you’d like to take advantage of those offers, you have through Friday! There will probably be a slim Venn-diagram of time when both the new books and the Sketch Cards will be available simultaneously, but don’t make it hard on yourself. Just order them separately. I really don’t mind.

See you in Seattle!

Send in Harvey Award nominations by Friday

haaaarvey

The Harvey Awards are one of the comics industry’s three or four major annual awards. Anyone who’s a comics professional can nominate any work they like that was published in the previous year — and what I’m told is that it only takes a relatively small number of nominations to push a title to the top of the list (above the hundreds of books with one vote each).

I don’t really know how to say this any other way — I would like Beards of our Forefathers to be on that list. I’m incredibly proud of the work I put into it, and if you’re a comics professional who feels the same way, I hope you’ll consider sending in a nomination for me.

The deadline for ballots is this Friday, 3/27. I’m not sure what the threshold is for “comics professional,” but if you’ve ever done work for a professional publisher, or have done okay as an indie and have some credits you can list, I say go for it! In addition, this is a great chance to nominate any other comics you’ve read this year that you really enjoyed — you can make up to 5 nominations in each category.

There’s a text ballot at harveyawards.org — I think you can just copy & paste it into an email and send it to harveyballots@hotmail.com by midnight Eastern time on Friday.

You don’t have to fill out nominations for every single category, but DO be sure to fill out the “Brief list of work in comics” section (for the verification of your “professional” status). The votes I would love your support for are:

Special Award for Humor in Comics: David Malki !, for Wondermark: Beards of our Forefathers
Special Award for Excellence in Presentation: Wondermark: Beards of our Forefathers (Dark Horse)

I know Wondermark isn’t necessarily the Best Online Comic of the year, nor was my book the Best Graphic Album, nor am I the Best Writer in all of comics — but nonetheless I will personally be nominating myself in those categories, as well as some of my colleagues. If you’re moved to nominate Wondermark or Beards in those categories, bless you.

Finally, I’ll also be nominating How to Make Webcomics (Image) in the Best Biographical, Historical, or Journalistic Presentation category.

Again, the deadline is in just a few days, so if you qualify to help out (or can lobby a friend or loved one who does), please do so right away. Thank you very much for your support!