The Return of Stickman #1198

What makes this strip so funny is my friend Adam the Alien just got electrocuted. I mean, I drew this strip last week based on a true event and he gets zapped this week. Well, I made up the gum bit. Oh, and it gets even funnier. Adam was plugging in a battery to work on his laptop, to complete a project, for me. Now my friend Stowe, a fellow member of The CLAW, is saying that I'm trying to murder him. Please! It's not me! It is the curse of the Princess Leia Bobblehead! Which he won from me when he placed second in a Chalk Off. Of course Adam claims Princess Leia should have been his from a previous chalk off, but for a technicality in the Chalk Off's highly convoluted voting system had me walking home with the prize. But it just creeped the hell out of me, so I put it back in the prize hopper. Now Adam has it, and just looked what happened to him. It's a curse I tell you.

B-Movie Poster from The CLAW's Open Swim

Once a month The CLAW gets together for an Open Swim were we sit down and draw based on a theme. The theme this month was B-Movies you wish existed. You had just over an hour to draw a poster and then do a one minute movie pitch. Here was my contribution.

She was a Latin Major with a classic 50s look visiting the aquarium in search of the meaning Achteuthis Dux, he was an alien invader assigned to probe and invade Earth, but when their eyes met through the 3 inch reinforced plexiglass they knew that their love was… a queasy internet fetish made possible by a loophole in Japanese pornography laws about an ancient freaky myth.

The Comic Critic Reviews "Despicable Me"

I’ve always enjoyed movies geared towards children. I love them when they are done right. And for me, right means a bit of carefree fun with no agenda attached to it, an overarching moral delivered with a light, purposeful touch, and maybe even the word “poop” tossed in. Despicable Me covers those bases and will be a fine addition to your shelf, but see it in 3D if you can. They do a nice job with it in 3D, too.

The Return of Stickman #1187

As much as I know you have all been enjoying the guest strips, my vacation ended a week ago. Thanks to my friends I have been able to get caught up on my back log of projects, finish some immediate "I so need it today!" stuff, and go out on assignment for one of my largest clients. Many thanks to my guest cartoonists for lending a hand. Next week I will be at the drawing board again and you can look forward to, well, pretty much what you have been getting.

The Return of Stickman #1186

Connor Bagdonavic's guest strip inspired John Schmelzer to send in a responding guest strip that was good enough to cut into the queue. Fair warning to others, all other guest strips will be sent to the back of the queue. I only put in John's strip here because he is, um, a long time contributor to the strip.

The Return of Stickman #1185 and Roller Derby Poster

One of my projects this week was finishing up on a Roller Derby Poster for a big match up between two leagues. My good friend James Stowe has been drawing posters for the Dockyard Derby Dames for a while and got me curious about doing one. The only direction I received for this poster was, "Just make sure it has a rollerskate on it and we'll be happy. So I knew I was going to be drawing a lot of rollerskates. As I was doing research I saw a referee in the background of a photo. I thought to myself, "The poor refs, they get overlooked so often." Thus inspired I knew just what I wanted to draw.

Here is how it looks with the text and logos.

I did put the logos on their own layers and they might get moved, re-sized or deleted altogether before it goes to press. Anyway, I'm very happy with how it turned out.

The Return of Stickman #1184

I want to thank Connor Bogdanovic for providing me with a few guest strips for Stickman. I've several projects that have landed while I was on vacation last week and I'm working hard to finish them off. Below is a quickie I did for The CLAW this month.

The Comic Critic Reviews "Predators"

I wish I could remember who I saw the first Predator movie with. I do know that I watched the other ones either on cable, VHR, or DVD, mostly by myself. I think the reason why I can’t remember who it was is that I’ve seen it repeatedly over the years with friends and family. It’s one of those quality movies that does more than hold up well. Watching it over again with others renews the shared enjoyment that’s always going to be there and each viewing adds another layer of fondness for the film. I’m not sure if that will be true of “Predators.” But I can confidently state that my movie-going experience for “Predators” was memorable and I’ll have just as much fun in the telling of our excursion as I will about the movie.

The Return of Stickman #1183

This is a continuations of The Return of Stickman #1166. My thanks to John Schmelzer for making my vacation easier.

The Comic Critic Review "Otto; Or, Up with Dead People"

It is only because I consider myself a true Zombie Film aficionado that I decided to watch it. I did not postpone seeing this movie because it involved gay zombie sex. I postponed watching this movie because I was worried that it might go a little further than some x-rated gay zombie sex. I was horrified when my fears were confirmed and this film went to a dark, grisly, unmentionable place beyond x-rated gay zombie sex. My eyes feel like they have been violated. That said, Otto; Or, Up with Dead People is a pretty good Zombie Movie. You know the filmmaker is doing something right when you start questioning your long held perceptions about flesh-eating zombies. It took me back to the early days of Zombie Films, when the audience questioned whether the zombie they were seeing on the screen was living, dead, or worse. But I do have to warn that both homophobes and homosexuals might find a few of the scenes more than just a little disturbing.

The Return of Stickman #1182 Guest Cartoonists John Schmelzer

I want to thank John Schmelzer for sending me in this guest strip. I'll be spending the next week on vacation and John is launching a week's worth of guest strips. Thanks guys!

The Return of Stickman #1181

If white represents purity, what the hell does camouflage represent?

The Return of Stickman #1180

I wish I could still find the footage that was originally posted with the related news article, but all I can find is the article. The little otter was so damn cute, anyone would let out an involuntary "Awww!"

The Comic Critic Reviews "Happy Endings"

I’m a big fan of stories with multiple characters that are woven together as the plot develops. If this type of story has a distinctive name that I don’t know about, I would love it if some other film buff would enlighten me. Meanwhile, I will go with “Tapestry.” I’m also a big fan of drawing reviews with arrows pointing from one character to another. This one had so many characters that I thought it would be fun to feature just those I considered part of the secondary plot lines. And I know I’m going to get some folks arguing that these are not secondary characters, that they are all part of the whole complex structure of the story. They might be right. But doing it sure made drawing this comic a lot easier.

The Return of Stickman #1178

The last straight trades to be featured this week.


“The Mice Templar, Volume II” by Bryan J.L. Glass
A comic book fantasy about feuding medieval mice who have axes to grind and a wide variety of foes, both supernatural and not, to deal with as feuding medieval mice will.

The Return of Stickman #1177

Another straight trades that has entered my life...


“Zombocalypse Now” by Matt Youngmark
The book starts with a stuffed bunny going out on a blind Internet date, only to step right into the muck of a zombie apocalypse. This book gets odder and odder because every few pages you have to make a choice, the results of which allow for 122 possible endings.