The Long Assingment

You can read my newest mini-comic here if you didn't get a chance to pick up a copy.

Let me know what you think!

Great Con!

Appleseed Comic Con is over and it was a great time for me! Got to hang out with my brother, talk comics with people.

 

Talk shop with cool creators like Nate Utesch, Andy Jewett, Paul Hornschemeier, Tim Baron and a whole bunch of others!


It was my most successful con to date. With very little overhead this year I did pretty well with the mini comics I took, did about 15 commissions and sold some backstock! All in all it was pretty Awesome!

Zack Kruse, the organizer is a righteous man! He works tirelessly for others and for the love of comics and it makes you want to work hard for others too. His enthusiasm is contagious, he's super smart, he's a good comic writer and a good bud!

Hope you all had a good Mother's Day and a great weekend!

Hey! This is where I'll be at this weekend's Appleseed Comic Con! Stop by and say Hi! Pick up a $5 doodle and one of my limited mini comics! Hope to see you! Kids under 12 get in free!

Free Comic Book Day!

Hey! I'll be over at Clem's Collectibles in Jefferson Pointe from 10-2 on Saturday for Free Comics Day! I'll be there to help celebrate the art of comics and get people excited about them!

I'll be doing sketch commissions for $5 and kids under 10 can get a free doodle!

I'll have 15 preview copies of my new Mini comic The Long Assignment, a few Lunchbox Doodles and a couple The Cauldron in the Back Cabinet. Come on by and check it out!

There's usually a little something for everyone in the free stuff! And you get the added bonus of saying "Hi!" to me!

New Books!

Hey kids! New books! Actually, these books are geared more towards adults, but Red Rocket has some new stuff to offer for this year's comic con! They will be available starting at The Appleseed Comic Con! If you pre-order it now you can get a free sketch and be guaranteed a copy. You can swing by my table at Appleseed, say "Hi!" and pick up your copy. 

Click the PayPal buttons on the banner to the right to order.

I call these micro-mini comics. Short stories, 12 pgs each. I want them to be exercises in restraint, genre and contained, specific story telling.

 

The Long Assignment is a slow boiler genre about neighborhood people who aren't quite what you think they are. This book builds a short burst of a story from a few of my obsessions: The extraordinary hiding in the ordinary, building fictions around the people I see everyday but don't really know, and Cold War era spies....

 Hummingbird is another micro-mini comic exploring another genre I love: Space. A man finds himself reflecting on his life before space and the things that matter as he grapples with an unpleasant reality. The story is as much about the comfort of love as the emptiness of deep space.

(17+ for some adult themes)

If you live in the Fort Wayne area, I'll drop one by your house and save you shipping. If not, sorry, but I think you'll be glad you ordered it anyway!

I will be signing books at Clem's Collectibles in Jefferson Pointe for Free Comic Day on May 4th and will have a limited quantity of the book then, too. Hope to see you out!

Comic Page Commissions

Sometimes I do these commissions for people: like, put my sons, kids, boyfriend, etc. in a comic. Here's my newest one. Just sent it off today! I had some fun with this one! Drawn on a Canson Comic Artboard and inked with my best art friend and trusty companion the Pentel Pocket Brush!

Summit City Comic con 2012

 

Alright! Here we go again! This weekend come out and see me at Summit City Comic Con! I'll be selling my new book Lunchbox Doodles and some old ones. Lots of good stuff, lots of cool people. And me! Come on! You know you want to!

The General Strike

 My great buddy Frank Noca, a pretty super powered designer, and I are insanely proud of our newest collaboration on the band Anti-Flag's new release, The General Strike. Frank came up with the concept and after pitching a couple failed attempts -- good ideas, good start, just not firing bulls-eyes - - I did this illo:

 

Frank liked it. The band liked it. And we came up with some pretty punchy stuff, if I say so myself! You should check it out if you get a chance. If you like what you hear, tell some friends. If you like what you see, tell even more!

A New Coat For My New Phone

Went over to case-mate.com and made myself a new cover for my new phone! Now everyone will know whose phone it is! I guess until they take the cover off.....

Sketched it out on grid paper, and built it in Adobe Illustrator. I like what I get but remember why I like brush and ink better when I'm drawing!

Certified Classics - The McFarren Edition

Over at the One Lucky Guitar site Matt and the likely lads got a little something going called the Certified Classics. It's fun reading and gets you thinking about your own classics. I love music and really love the music I love, so I got to thinking, then I got to writing.

Honorable Mentions

10. The Ramones – The Ramones

9. The Cure – Disintegration

8. The Clash – London Calling

7. Social Distortion – Social Distortion

6. Rancid – And Out Come the Wolves

5. Led Zeppelin - Houses Of The Holy

My parents were big into music, like a lot of people, and I remember most times in my house (through all the moves) some kind of music going on. My parents had records. I remember being about five when they taught me how to gently set the needle down and listen for the smooth, crackling of the right placement.

When I was in 7^th grade I rediscovered my parent’s record collection as I, along with pubescent youth all over America got heavily into the 1960’s, realized the absolute GOLD MINE that was in the cabinet under the stereo. I couldn’t care less about trove of alcohol there, but the other side, snuggled up next to each other was record after record to make my friends jealous. Sly and the Stones and Jimi and, you got it, Zeppelin. Three classic records. Led Zeppelin III, IV and Houses Of The Holy. Of course my parents loved that I suddenly was ravenous for these vinyl gems and told me stories that went along with each record. My dad told about seeing them in Germany, and how they kinda limped along, not really doing much until four songs in when they got to Stairway To Heaven. “That,” he said, “Is when they REALLY kicked it in!” dropping down into an awkward I’ve-Never-Played-An-Actual-Guitar Air Guitar Solo.

I discovered the joy of music. Of sharing passion and love and the stories about and around music then, at that weird time when you shouldn’t be having such moments between your parents and your middle school self.

And though, my mother kind of dismissed HotH, saying it just wasn’t as good as IV, that’s the one I connected with. That’s one of the ones in my house now that I play, loud and rowdy in the summer while we grill and my own kids get down to it.

4. Dead Milkmen – Big Lizard In My Backyard

Dead Kennedys – Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death.

Suicidal Tendencies – Possessed to Skate

These have to be rated to together for me. A veritable trifecta of musical power, revealed to great effect and awe, as young sixth-grade McFarren rolls down a hill, falls on already skinned knees and decides to call it a day a read the new “magazine” he has at home on his new favorite past time. It was on newsprint, still black and white then, and named Thrasher and it’s pages revealed the true glory of the Southern Californian lifestyle of skateboarding and the underground culture that came with it: graffiti, indie art, and punk rock.

So when my Grandma took me out for my annual birthday shopping spree, I, for the first time, decided to forego the toy stores and instead drug her around the record stores until I found tapes of some of the bands I had read about and knew I needed to be truly like my heroes. I came home with those three tapes and, truly, they blew me away. I only knew radio pop and classic rock and this was so much different! This was another world. It was angry and political and raw. And, yeah, I didn’t understand much of it for a long time but it hit me in my core and never let me go. My parents were so cool about it, too. They didn’t try to keep it out of my hands, while obscenities screamed out of the speaker, they just told me to keep it in my room. It opened so many doors to great music and art and still does. It helped me to be who I was, who I needed to be and helped shape me into the man I am.

3. Jane’s Addiction – Ritual de lo Habitual

Probably not the Jane’s album that makes most people’s lists because it was so all over the place and out there, right at their most commercial friendly time. But, to me, it was art. Art with a capital A. It was rockin’ and raucous and rebellious. It was rebellious in the chances it took, the stories it told, the visions it cast. It blew me away. I brought it home, loaned to me by my art bud, Brian Frieburger and went to my room and turned it up until my parents came home. I emerged from my room, not quite knowing what had happened but that it was good. The rest of high school had this record as it’s soundtrack and “Classic Girl” is still one of my all time favorite love songs.

2. Jawbreaker – 24-Hour Revenge Therapy

So there was this girl. This girl was amazing. I mean, we “met” (we actually knew each before that) at a Tilt show at Club 13 when it was on Wells right before the bridge. She was up on stage, standing against the wall because her and her friend had gotten to know Cinder Block before hand. And, dang!, if she wasn’t the cutest thing. And, then, dang!, if she didn’t put the perfect disc into my hands. Raw, tortured, angry, and romantic. The love songs for everything unrequited; for extremely late art school nights; for passionate make out sessions behind the couch and stolen kisses in the Sci-Fi section; for screaming along to in your car while dreaming of the bigger world.

Matt wanted lyrics to break his heart, well, brother, give a listen.

1. Pearl Jam – 10

Stop me if heard this one: A Matt Kelley walks into an art room and yells across the room: “Hey, Jeremy! I got this new band who has a song about you!” Then he walks over to out art teacher and, in the way that Matt can, convinces him to put on the stereo so we can listen while we work. And, when, that song comes on, the one I share a name with, and the chorus rides in, I look and Matt and he gives me that nod and that smile. You know the one.

Matt’s probably moved on form Pearl Jam, chasing down Bob and Bruce, but I haven’t. I mean, I’ve had affairs along the way, dallying with punk and hardcore, short flirtings with early Emo and Krishna-core, and the live-in mistresses that are punk and reggae, but I always come back to PJ.

It was the sound of my first true heartbreak. It was the sound of the end of high school, gathered a fire with my best friends. It was sound of Freshman year art school and digging though bootleg bins to find the best of the discs. It was the sound of letting go of a hellacious semester of work, shared live with my wife. It’s powerful, anthemic rock-n roll for the ages. I mean, Alive, seriously, doesn’t have all the trappings of one of the greatest Rock songs of all time, you truly haven’t given in and listened to it live. It’s got it all: a hook, a chorus, a slow build with face melting guitars that keeps going until it all crashes to the end celebrating the fact that we’re all still alive.

I’m sure there’s a lot of great thinkers about rock-n-roll who will malign my ramblings, but they would be missing the point. Sometimes you just need to stop thinking and feel.