I’ll be having a book signing at Sundance Bookstore in Reno, Saturday, April 16! Christine Kelly has been a friend of Cool Jerk since my first book and Sundance was the perfect venue for my first Northern Nevada signing. And speaking of friends…

Nancy Horn — owner of DISH Cafe — agreed to partner with me for the signing. And by “agreed” I mean “succumbed to blackmail.” See, Nancy and I go WAY back. Back in the college days, we both worked for the UNR Sagebrush (she was the variety editor and wrote a food column, and I was production director, page designer and staff cartoonist). In fact, SHE’S responsible for the “death” of Doc Splatter, back in 1990. Well, we’ve both pursued our dreams, and over the past several years she’s become a foodie luminary in Northern Nevada. You might’ve eaten at DISH, read about her in various regional and national publications or even seen her on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. Well, she’ll be there with Cool Jerk-related desserts that’s still under wraps at this writing. But I guarantee it’ll be fun and flavorful.

Here’s how I’m folding the comics-and-cuisine thing together into a riot-inducing, must-not-miss event: For every Cool Jerk book you purchase, you get a DISH coupon for FREE EATS! I’ll only have a couple/few dozen coupons so it’s first come/first served, and there’s a limit of four tickets per person.

I’ll have all four Cool Jerk and Doc Splatter books on hand, ready to personalize to you with a sketch. Also, I’ll be bringing buttons, stickers, t-shirts, original art sketches and canvas panels. It’ll be like a micro comic-con, but with free admission and free food!

The signing is only two hours (1pm to 3pm) so be sure to schedule your appetite accordingly!

ps Nancy Horn is no relation, actually, but my for-realz sister will be there!

Inking Cool Jerk is a two-step process — black ink and white ink. It’s true, people. I make mistakes. Sometimes a line goes wrong, sometimes the brush is flawed, sometimes I need to edit out part of a drawing, sometimes I need to break through a panel border, and sometimes I need to overhaul a drawing from scratch. Also, white ink can be used for effects, especially when you want to add white lines to a black object. That’s when I turn to my correction ink of choice: Pelikan Graphic White.

When I first started using India ink (high school and early college), I made many, many mistakes. It was a learning process. And the first means of correction I had was Liquid Paper. Kids, let me tell you a secret. Liquid Paper is awesome for typewriters, but horrible for cartoonists. It’s a toxic, clumpy mess that junks up your original and makes it almost impossible to re-ink over the correction. My first year of Like, For Shore! strips are all battle-damaged with Liquid Paper corrections, and it’s regrettable. (The strips were regrettable, too… but that’s beside the point.)

Well, I knew the pros at Marvel and DC Comics — as well as syndicated cartoonists — had to use something else. Somewhere I heard about Pelikan Graphic White. I looked for it in Reno and couldn’t find it anywhere, so I ended up buying a jar from Taylor’s art supply store in Sacramento (long-since gone). That was 1988, and I’ve been brand-loyal ever since.

What makes Pelikan Graphic White so good? Well, let me start by saying MY experiences are unique to MY cartooning process, and Pelikan may not work for everyone. In fact, veteran comics inker Klaus Janson says it’s the worst correction ink on the market, and he swears by another brand.

The first thing you’ll notice is the price. It’s pretty expensive at about $11 a jar. But don’t worry about that, because one jar might be all you’ll ever need. The paint (it’s technically not an ink, but a gouache) is a heavy, goopy paste about as thick as peanut butter. But it’s water-soluble, so I need to do is dole out a pea-sized blob onto a palette and add a couple drops of water to thin it. Soon, you can easily load a watercolor brush with it and start correcting. Its opacity varies with the water content, and when it dries, it matches the texture of the paper. This means I can draw over it with a ink brush or Micron pen and the line won’t wick, spread or bleed. And more importantly, the India ink won’t smear or lift after a subsequent erasing. (That being said, you should erase all your pencil before doing any correcting. It’s just cleaner and safer that way.)

You’d think that being water-soluble, Pelikan Graphic White would mix with the black ink beneath it, making it a gray mess. Nope… so long as you let the ink dry first. And to keep your gouache pristine white, ALWAYS use a dedicated white-ink brush AND dedicated white-ink water jar. Cross-contamination is dangerous in cooking AND cartooning!

One of the best aspects of Pelikan Graphic White is that a jar will last forever. That pea-sized dollop on your palette will dry out in a few minutes, but all you need is a couple drops of water to reactivate it. For me, that dollop might last 6-8 months before I need to get another small scoop from the jar.

Pelikan Graphic White isn’t without a weakness, however: it has problems covering up laser printer toner (the toner tries to repel the gouache because of its water content, so it sometimes takes 3-4 coats). So if I know I’m going to break a panel with a word balloon, I try to take care of that on the Macintosh.

I’ve amassed something of a white-out museum over the years, collecting and trying many varieties of inks and gouaches. Some have many of the same properties as Pelikan, but fail the re-inking or eraser tests.

I just took a look in my Pelikan Graphic White jar and it’s all dried up. No worries— all I need to do is slice out a chunk, put it on the palette, add some water and I’ll be good til 2012.

I’m gobsmacked! Long-time Cool Jerk reader and comics journalist Sean Kleefeld wrote an article about yours truly on one of his comics blogs — Kleefeld on Webcomics — for MTV Geek. It took me 100% by surprise! Sean did a terrific job in his research and I couldn’t find a single inaccuracy anywhere (not a slight on Sean, but rather that there are oft-times inaccuracies on the Internet).

Sean and I kinda go way back. He used to curate the premier Fantastic Four online database and information repository, and may be the one person (not employed by Marvel) who knows more about the FF than me. He’s one of the architects behind the Marvel Chronology Project — a dizzying, online guide to Marvel characters and their myriad appearances in Marvel Comics. He’s also a frequent contributor to the Jack Kirby Collector (we worked together on a Big Barda piece in 2007) and has a book you should purchase. He was the first to order Hodabeast and in 2009 he even wrote about Darlene’s and my wedding!

Go check out the article— it talks a lot about webcomics and economics i.e. how cartoonists turn a buck while offering their content online for free.

Thanks again, Sean, and MTV!

The above strip above was going to be today’s Cool Jerk, but I had a change of heart. Here’s the backstory:

First, I saw a Garfield comic last year and thought “Holy crap — what the hell happened to his proportions? It doesn’t even look like a CAT anymore!” Over time, Garfield’s eyes had grown so ridiculously huge that I figured at some point they’d sag out of his head like the giant breasts of a 70-year-old stripper.

Then I thought, “Hey, that’s a Cool Jerk.” And I jotted the idea down in my phone. There it sat for months, until last week when I put pencil to paper.

I was pretty happy with it, all the way through the inks. Then it dawned on me, “this is kind of a one-note sight gag, at the expense of Puppy’s… um… physique.” In other words, plain ol’ boob joke. While there’s a time and a place for everything, I grew unhappy with it. I challenged myself to find a better solution that allowed for a sight gag comparing Puppy to that cat’s over-endowed eyeballs without having to recreate the whole strip from scratch.

Thank God I gave Puppy earrings back in 1987.