Author Archives: Jonathan Hill

Americus is a Junior Library Guild Selection!

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I just got a package and a little certificate today letting me and MK know that Americus was a Junior Library Guild Selection for Fall 2011. There was a letter that basically said, ‘We’re wicked sorry that we didn’t send this to you like 6 months ago’ and a little pin to go along with the certificate.

It’s cool to get more recognition for the book, even if it’s late. I have forgotten that we could probably be doing a little more to promote it, although it seems the fall season and Banned Book Week will be a good reminder, as well as the upcoming ALA conference in Anaheim this June.

Also: I’ll be at Stumptown this weekend, sharing a table again with the totally rad Breena Wiederhoeft at A-23! Come by and say hi and buy a copy of the Junior Library Guild Selection book Americus or Breena’s Xeric Grant winning Picket Line!

Crafting Comics Recap

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So this is a little late, but I wanted to write a post about how my Crafting Comics class went at OCAC this last term.

A short recap: The class went well. I got a little overambitious with a small amount of time and I should have assigned a little more work to implement the ideas we were discussing in class. The plus side is that I learned a lot and it will help me prepare for the next time I teach the class. My students were great and had a lot of really good ideas, I just forgot how long it can take to do things, and a lot of people didn’t get enough time to finish things.

For a more detailed overview, keep reading.

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Tiiiiight! Emerald City Comicon Recap!

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Above image after Clay Mann, who was across the aisle from us with a giant banner with this image behind him. I mean no disrespect. Well, maybe.

Emerald City Comicon was a pretty good time. If one wanted to use modern vernacular, you could describe it with words like, ‘Sweeet!’ and ‘Tiiight!’

Last fall, SPX was the first convention in a long time, and it had been an even longer time that I had been to a con like ECCC. By that I mean a stereotypical comic book convention with costumes and dudes selling sexy fan art of superheroines, etc. Not since maybe San Diego in 2004? Wow. That was a long, long time ago. I think the fondest memory of that con was Dark Horse giving out free Hellboy movie posters and my friend Tony wanting to take a bunch, with me scolding him saying. ‘Dude! Only take one so that everyone gets a chance to have one.’ only to find out that people grabbed them in troves and then sold them on ebay for like $75 bucks a pop the next day.

Anyhow, the highlight of the show was getting to spend time with the totally radical Breena Wiederhoeft and talk shop, commiserate, comment on the cosplayers walking by, and just generally hang out. Despite tepid sales, and it not really being maybe the best audience for a book like Americus, it was pretty great to just see so many people so excited and enthusiastic. It’s so contagious! All weekend I was thinking about how I couldn’t wait to get home and get the ball rolling.

There were also a handful of people that had read Americus either online or in print and wanted to come by and say hi, or just people that wanted to come by and talk shop or ask questions. Connecting with people like that is the plus side of being stuck at a table for 8 hours having people walk by and judge you and your work.

Another highlight: Greg of Tugboat Press is pretty much the most awesome dude on the planet for many, many reasons. One of the tangible ones are his Free Comic Book Day book, Runner Runner. I’ll post my one pager I did for it soon, but it’s got a really awesome cast of creators: Drew Weing, MK Reed, Jesse Reklaw, Joey Alison Sayers, Nate Beaty, Alec Longstreth, Kazimir Strzepek, Lilli Carre and many, many more. If you’re at a convention this season you can probably pick one up, and if not, get it May 5th at your local Portland comic shops for Free Comic Book Day!

Other major bonus: MK was also in town for a last minute West Coast appearance! Great to see her and also good news: She got accepted in PNCA’s lo-residency MFA program, which means she’ll be around in the summer! Yay!

On Sunday the sun was out, and two days of convention tabling is about all I can handle, so I skipped out to spend some time around the city with Jen. It was a nice break from the hustle and bustle of the weekend, and a perfect endcap to the weekend in Seattle.

Stumptown’s up next, but I have some family issues that might prevent me from showing up. Keep your fingers crossed to every reason for things to be okay.

Anyhow, I’m back and motivated. Let’s see if I can keep this rolling. I know it’s like two weeks later, but I promise I will post a recap of my class at OCAC this week.

Emerald City!

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So I’m heading to Seattle for the Emerald City Comic Con tomorrow! Honestly, I don’t really know what to expect. Tyler and I went to the first year we moved here, and it was kind of lame. Mainly just mainstream comics and large vendors. I did get a portfolio review by some big hot-shot at DC at the time. Bob Shrek maybe? I can’t remember. Anyhow, it was a long time ago, and most of the people I talk to now talk about how great of a con it is. We’ll see.

I won’t really have anything new, but I have something old that is kind of new – I reprinted the Lorian Gendarme Guidebook for Adventuring Standards, but took the time to put some love into the reprints. And by love, I mean gold silkscreened covers!

They really helped sell copies of Americus at SPX, which I will also have on hand, along with some mini-comics, and an assortment of prints and original art. I’ll try to have some new posters or prints for Stumptown at the end of April.

I’ll be in Artist Alley with the totally rad Breena Wiederhoeft at table E-16. If you’re in Seattle, come by the show and say hi!

Oh, yeah – my class finished last week. I have been getting ready for ECCC, but I would like to write a recap of the class and how it went sometime next week.

Year of the Dragon Marriage

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Here’s a drawing I did for a friend to give to her friends as a wedding gift. She thought it would be nice to have a dragon illustration since they were getting married in the Year of the Dragon.

I have another wedding illustration I have to do for another friend. Once that gets out of the way, and my class gets over, I need to buckle down and start doing some art for myself!

Art dump 2/20

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Here’s some miscellaneous artstuff that I’ve worked on the last week.

I don’t normally share them here, because they’re a little rough around the edges, and also because they’re not my strongest suit, but I wanted to share my Asian Reporter cartoon from this week because I totally have the bug:

This is actually an unrevised edition of the cartoon. For the final, I ended up removing the ‘Yellow Mamba’ Lin-ism because the editors always want to tread on the path of ‘make-sure-no-one-is-offended’, which I totally understand. Though part of me wanted to joke and say, ‘Well, if anyone can get away with it, we can! We’re an Asian newspaper.’ But I didn’t because I know better!

And here’s a quick illustration I did for the Willamette Week a couple of weeks ago for this article. I busted this mother out in like two and a half hours! I made not be the best illustrator, but I’m fast! For that, I am super-proud.

That’s it for now. Besides prepping for my class, I have some free time to work on some commission projects for some friends. I will do a little update about my class and teaching sometime tomorrow or Wednesday [if prepping for class doesn’t take up all my time!].

Out of the funk and into the fire

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As you have probably noticed, it’s been a bit of a deserted wastleland here so far this year. I was still in that creative funk I mentioned in my 2011 review post for most of January, and kind of depressed because of it, and instead of busting my ass and getting out of it, I was drowning myself in Skyrim.

At the beginning of February I was able to snap out of it. Things went from ‘eh’ to wicked-busy real fast, which is just what I needed – I am always better and more focused the more I have going on. The two most pressing things were a big illustration project with a deadline on the horizon and then my class at OCAC that started the beginning of the month, which has been really amazing and so much fun, but a monster to prep for.

Anyhow, since I’m back to actually being productive, I thought I’d go ahead and share some process. Here’s some of the stages for the back side of the map:

It’s a map of the city of San Jose, Costa Rica [duh. I guess it says it right on there] for the next ICANN conference that’s coming up. They saw the map I did at Powell’s, and wanted something similar, but with functional maps of the venue space on one side and the downtown area map for people attending the conference to use on the other side.

It was a pretty challenging project because of all the parts to think of and layout and actually drawing a concise map of a city. But in the end, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. Something that was interesting for me was that I ended up turning my handwriting into a font, a process that has mixed results. In the end, I don’t like it all, and would prefer to always hand letter things, and there is still a good amount of hand lettering mixed into the project. But I won’t deny the amount of time having my own font saved when typing up the street, restaurant, and location names and having to fix and rewrite them.

That’s it for now! I just wanted to share finishing up that big project. I’ll try to update more things that have been going on over the course of this coming week.