I’ll be manning the Cool Jerk table at WonderCon once again, Friday-Sunday (April 2-4) at Moscone Center South, San Francisco. It’s the fourth year in a row that I’ve been there, and I’m looking forward to seeing a bunch of you subscribers (Duncan — I owe you a buck) as well as corrupting the minds of unwitting new readers! I imagine the weather will be awesome, so if you live in a 600-mile radius of the Bay Area, hop in the car and come on down! I’ll have all my books, plus lovely new T-shirts (in mens’ and womens’ fits) and other stuff you can’t possibly live without!

Just for grins, I decided to scan in a recent strip in its various stages of completion, just to show you what goes into a typical Cool Jerk comic.

Sketchbook sketch

I wish I used my Cool Jerk sketchbooks more like other artists and cartoonists, filling pages with character studies, still life studies, reference drawings, etc. Instead, I usually cram 2-4 strip roughs per page. I’ve been doing this since the first Like, For Shore! strips in 1987. Ninety-five percent of the time I just jot down basic dialogue and crude shapes to help me envision who is saying what and where (the other five percent gets more fleshed out).

Sharpie scribbles

At this point I jump to the Mac. In this example, I went to a FreeHand three-panel template with panels 2 and 3 merged into one. I type up the dialogue in Hornopolis and arrange the composition. After printing out the panels with the dialogue, I take it AND a sheet of thick, coated paper and head to the lightbox. There, I use a purple ultra-fine-point Sharpie and scribble out basic composition onto the coated stock, using the panels printout as a guide. (In the image above, I merged the panels and the scribbles, showing you a close representation of what I see on the lightbox) This stage is where I determine if I need to make adjustments to the panels and dialogue. For example, you’ll see little arrows here and there, noting where text or artwork needs to move.

Pencils

Back to the Mac: I make final compositional and text edits (notice the changes I made to the first panel). Next I print out the FINAL strip on special paper that prevents ink from wicking. I take it and the Sharpie scribbles to the lightbox and reverse the order, this time penciling the artwork onto the latest print while using the Sharpie scribbles as a guide.

Inks

The most time-consuming stage is the inking, which I do with a 000 Robert Simmons watercolor brush and a special cocktail of Koh-i-noor India inks. India ink is permanent and every line counts. If I’m sloppy or jittery from caffeine, I introduce errors to the artwork. That means I have to spend more time afterward cleaning up the art with Pelikan Graphic White (a special opaque white paste that — once watered down — I apply via brush to correct mistakes or add “white effects”). I also use Sakura Pigma Micron pens for fine line work (like backgrounds) and my signature, which I always save for last.

Post-production

I scan in my original as a 600dpi grayscale TIFF. From there, I rotate the image to an exact 180° axis (sometimes no more than 0.02° rotation — yes, I’m that anal) and crop. I convert the 12.4MB grayscale file to a 1.55MB bitmap file, which knocks the comic into stark black-and-white. This allows for easy Photoshop corrections with the Paintbrush tool and Wacom pressure-sensitive tablet. Sometimes I need to add graphic elements on top of the artwork, like CENSORED or text boxes (see above), so I create those in FreeHand and pull them into Photoshop. Once it’s 100% finalized, I save the “master” file AND make a 72dpi .gif copy for the website. So what you see online is nowhere near as detailed and crisp as the version that makes it into the book.

For more information on the process, go here!

…was awesome. Next year it’s a three-day event, which will guarantee it to be 50% MORE AWESOMER!

I really like Emerald City. It’s feels like a true “comic convention…” like San Diego was in the 1980s and early 1990s. When you walk through the convention doors, you can smell the paper. Mmm… comics…! This was my second time tabling at ECCC, and the first with the Doc Splatter Ominous Omnibus, new t-shirts and a new table display.

What totally makes my day is when someone comes up and says “I bought Cool Jerk volume one last year… and now I’m here to get volume two.” Or when another comes up and says “Whoa… hold on a second! I remember your strip from… Reno, right?!?” Or when someone wanders over and says “My instructor Britt Nowlin told me to find you and say ‘hi.'” I also had a Cool Jerk mailer subscriber from last year convince her friend to subscribe, saying “it’s the best email I get every week. EVERY WEEK.”

Saw many familiar faces (Jacie Landeros, Boo Davis of Quiltsryche, Geoff, Marina, Tim, The Mighty Layman, Team Chris Wisnia, Team Steamcrow, Team Ben Walker, Team Lunasea Studios, Team PJ Perez, @GirlFridayK and @OracleBatgirl) and met many more (Ben Costa, Scott, former Renoites Mel & Laura, Misa the Rat City Rollergirl, Jaime, Corey, Kassandra, Jesse, Charles from Belgium, Rita and Mike, among others)! I’ve added scores more subscribers to the legion of Cool Jerk allies, so please make them feel welcome!

Next stop is San Francisco for WonderCon, April 2-4. I’ll chat a bit more about that in a few days.

After last year’s six-block riot, unauthorized pyrotechnics and public acts of indecency, I wouldn’t’ve thought the organizers at Emerald City ComiCon would invite me back. Maybe because I promised that Darlene would accompany me and keep me on a tight leash? Who can say? (And I don’t want to tempt fate anyway.)

So yes, Team Cool Jerk will be at ECCC the weekend of March 13 and 14, in the Small Press area. I whipped together a map showing the quickest route to Cool Jerk!

I’ll have stacks of Cool Jerk collections Hodabeast and Chickadoowa on hand, as well as Doc Splatter Ominous Omnibus (NEW since last year)! And speaking of new, how about T-shirts? Awhellyeah. 24-Hour Comics? You betcha. Buttons, Post-It notes & sticker sheets? But of course! And as always, I’m ready to add some original art to your sketchbooks, too!

Looking forward to seeing old friends and meeting new ones… even Sasquatches.*

*Not Sasquatches

I just shipped a book order out this weekend. Not terribly newsworthy in and of itself, and normally not worth mentioning in my blog, but this a little different. It was to Greece.

A few years ago at San Diego Comic-Con, I met a fellow named Dimitris Sakaridis. He came up to my table and checked out my comic. Either he liked what he saw or my mind-controlling brainwave emitter worked, because he bought a copy of Hodabeast. While I was signing it off to him, he signed up for my weekly e-mailer.

When Hodabeast was distributed via Diamond in 2008, I spotted an online recommendation from Greece. It was in Greek, but I used Babelfish to “translate” it:

COOL JERK VOLUME 1: HODABEAST (Hornco Press – p285) Only that I know for this comic he is that editor, Dimitris [Sakaridis] it worships him. (Unless I tangle him with some other… Hopefully not). That means that exist enough probabilities it is really good. Judge better alone you. (Editor’s Note: No, you do not tangle him. COOL JERK is his exceptionally entertainer, astute comic strip and author, Paul Horn, which I [personally] knew in San Diego, it is a horribly cool type – and by no means jerk. Buy this comic!)

So this week I got an order from Dimitris, with these strict instructions: “Please, please, please, could you make it “to Dimitris – a real cool jerk!”? Thanks!” Due to a PayPal snafu (my fault), I didn’t have an option for overseas shipping & handling (i.e. $0), so I essentially made about $2 on the sale. But no worries. I let Dimitris know his book was on its way. He replied shortly afterward:

Hey Paul!

Thanks for the heads up. I’m actually trying to promote Cool Jerk to everyone I know here, since 2007. I met you briefly that year in San Diego Comic Con. You were actually the first exhibitor/creator I met on preview night and I’ve always been sorta emotionally attached to your strip. It being really cool and well made helps a lot!

I’ll do my best to convince other people here to order your books. Fix the shipping charge thing soon.

Best wishes
Dimitris

P.S.: Seriously, I feel bad about the no shipping thing. If I don’t manage to get more people to order your books, I’ll order a few more myself and start giving them away to those I love as gifts.

Nice guy, that Dimitris. People like him make the world a smaller place. And to all of you readers from outside the U.S., I fixed that shipping glitch so YOU’LL HAVE TO PONY UP SOME EUROS LIKE EVERYONE ELSE!

EPILOGUE: I’ve learned Dimitris is a reviewer and one of the head honchos at Comicdom, Greece’s premier comics news site. Also, he’s spearheading Greece’s only comic convention, ComicdomCon. If your travels take you to the birthplace of Heracles, Pythagoras and the Olympics, do what you can to help support the industry, won’t you?

Since my checks evidently didn’t bounce, I can now share the official schedule of Cool Jerk comic-con appearances in 2010 (so far; Cool Jerk may attend a ‘con or two later in the year. Any suggestions?):

Emerald City ComiCon • Seattle
March 13 & 14
Cool Jerk’s second ‘con appearance in the land of Twin Peaks, coffee conglomerates and sasquatches.

WonderCon • San Francisco
April 2-4
Fourth year in a row! Look for Team Cool Jerk in the same spot as always (Artists Alley, across from the Furries yiff pile)!

Phoenix Comicon • Phoenix
May 27-30
Delighted to be back for the first time since 2006!

Comic-Con International • San Diego
July 21-25
Eight years in a row, in the same spot as always (Small Press K10, next to the restrooms and vomitorium)!

So mark your calendars, put in vacation time, book those flights and bring your wallets!

Wednesday’s Cool Jerk signing at Burbank’s House of Secrets was terrific. Erik and Paul (the owners of HoS) are übermensch and their shop flat-out kicks ass. Patton Oswalt stopped in twice, but alas, no Cool Jerk for him. Was kinda hoping the cast from The Big Bang Theory would wander in (Darlene and I were part of the live-studio audience the night before).

It was grueling, having to hang out IN A COMICS SHOP FOR 9 AND A HALF HOURS! And even though the weather was frightful (torrential flooding, lightning, waterspouts, locusts), I’d estimate close to 300 people stopped in to get their weekly four-color hook-ups. A testament to how awesome House of Secrets is.

Special thanks to all the people that stopped by my display and/or picked up a book or two: Jenn (and for bringing in her cupcakes), Sarah, Jodi, Ed, Todd, Dan, Jared, Drew, Rob, Art, Chris, Daniel and Amy (House of Secrets’ ambassador of good will — see photo)!

Take out your Sharpie and mark your calendars, Los Angelenos!

I’ll be signing at House of Secrets on Wednesday, January 20 from 11 am until the store closes at 8:30 pm. Owners Erik and Paul were gracious enough to give me the green light to stink up their store for a day, allowing me to sell my full library of Cool Jerk and Doc Splatter books IN PERSON. What better way to meet a comic creator than to drop some folding money and get a book (or three) personalized to you with a signature and sketch?

House of Secrets is located at 1930 Olive Ave. in beautiful Burbank (home of Bob Hope and the potato ball). See you there!

You’re looking at the first significant redesign of Cool Jerk’s online HQ in a decade. It isn’t the official launch, as there are still plenty of links that dead-end and I still need to upload a few more years’ worth of strips into the archive. But it’s close enough for my comfort level.

Among the new features: Below each strip you’ll see Tags (a work in progress), Comments, access to archived strips without leaving the home page, the ability to follow Cool Jerk via RSS subscription and the ability to share a particular strip via Facebook, Twitter, Digg, etc. Now I can add commentary to each individual strip, too. Plus, you can click on a Sunday-sized strip and BOOM! It blows up to actual size!

Hope you enjoy what you see. More to come! Stay ‘tooned!

Happy New Year from Team Cool Jerk!