Chapter 3 of Family Man has begun!

…and there’s a new website!

Change your links, everybody!  Family Man now lives on one single website, and that’s http://www.lutherlevy.com.  It’ll update there every week, and all the notes and extra features you have come to love (or merely tolerate) live there with it, along with many new bells and whistles and an all-over shinyness.

And a new chapter is off and running, with yet more exciting bunny imagery.  Sorry, bunnies of the world; it’s nothing personal.

Happy Thanksgiving to all those of you in the U.S. of A!  Now go play.

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Finishing the website and putting together a book pitch have delayed me for another week.  But that’s okay, because it gives me the opportunity to make some long overdue fan-art for the best ever webcomic set in Ancient Rome: SPQR Blues by Klio!

Yessir, that’s Vesuvius in the background.  The volcano is to SPQR Blues what werewolves are to Family Man:  you never know when it’s going to kick in.

SPQR Blues, beyond being a great ensemble soap opera, is also one of those rare works of historical fiction that make the time and place it depicts feel both cozily familiar…and completely foreign.

Klio’s delicate and conservative linework can be consumed in large doses with no dangerous side effects, and the obstacles and heartbreaks of daily life in a complicated society make for very tasty reading as well.

There’s an immense archive available for your reading pleasure, so shoo!  Go read!

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Nostalgia.

Remember the 1340’s? We were doing a dance called the Catapult.
You always wore brown, the color craze of the decade,
and I was draped in one of those capes that were popular,
the ones with unicorns and pomegranates in needlework.
Everyone would pause for beer and onions in the afternoon,
and at night we would play a game called “Find the Cow.”
Everything was hand-lettered then, not like today.

Where has the summer of 1572 gone? Brocade and sonnet
marathons were the rage. We used to dress up in the flags
of rival baronies and conquer one another in cold rooms of stone.
Out on the dance floor we were all doing the Struggle
while your sister practiced the Daphne all alone in her room.
We borrowed the jargon of farriers for our slang.
These days language seems transparent, a badly broken code.

The 1790’s will never come again. Childhood was big.
People would take walks to the very tops of hills
and write down what they saw in their journals without speaking.
Our collars were high and our hats were extremely soft.
We would surprise each other with alphabets made of twigs.
It was a wonderful time to be alive, or even dead.

I am very fond of the period between 1815 and 1821.
Europe trembled while we sat still for our portraits.
And I would love to return to 1901 if only for a moment,
time enough to wind up a music box and do a few dance steps,
or shoot me back to 1922 or 1941, or at least let me
recapture the serenity of last month when we picked
berries and glided through afternoons in a canoe.

Even this morning would be an improvement over the present.
I was in the garden then, surrounded by the hum of bees
and the Latin names of flowers, watching the early light
flash off the slanted windows of the greenhouse
and silver the limbs on the rows of dark hemlocks.

As usual, I was thinking about the moments of the past,
letting my memory rush over them like water
rushing over the stones on the bottom of a stream.
I was even thinking a little about the future, that place
where people are doing a dance we cannot imagine,
a dance whose name we can only guess.

Billy Collins
photograph by (Eric)

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Soon we’ll back to regular updates and I’ll roll out the new website, but in the meantime, here’s our third week of art devoted to some of my favorite comics online.  This week we move away from longform narrative comics and head for strip land, with Arthur (duck) and Flaco (lizard) from Dave Kellett’s Sheldon.

There are many strips online that I enjoy deeply, but Sheldon is the only one that makes me feel like I’m a little kid again, pressing my nose with delight against the daily newsprint funnies while I wolf down a bowl of Rice Chex before school.  Calvin & Hobbes was a strip at the time which, even if I didn’t get every joke, was so exuberant that I loved every panel.  I think 9 year-old me would’ve felt the same way about Sheldon.

As it is, 26 year-old me happily returns to Sheldon every day, snerking at the obscure “grown-up” or pop culture jokes and quietly enjoying the sheer silliness of it all.

Dave Kellett is also a bonafide funnybook scholar and a stand-up fella.  Bless the internet for bringing him to us in this day and age!

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My maternal grandfather died a couple of years ago.

We were very fond of each other – he took me to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (a full day and a half drive) from 7th grade through my high school graduation, a gift of immeasurable impact.  He was a bright, curious, caring, and endlessly enthusiastic man. He reacted with genuine joy whenever his didactic little granddaughter held forth on erudite topics.  I still remember his delight upon hearing me tear apart the production of Romeo and Juliet that was one of the first productions we saw together at OSF.

I didn’t ask for anything of his after he passed away; my mother knowingly brought me a few things that meant a lot, but all in all my memories were the most vivid token of our relationship.  Recently, however, his last wife sent my mother a number of his old files.  Including one entire manila folder full of every letter and picture and document I had ever sent him, or that my parents had sent him relating to me.

So I’ve rediscovered verything from short stories I wrote in second grade to novellas I wrote in middle school to graduation notices and e-mails and silly cards.  I haven’t quite had the strength to go through all of it yet, but one thing I did find:  the poem below.  I remember this odd, apocalyptic little poem quite well but had no record of it myself, so knowing that he had it all along is very touching.

And, now that he’s gone, the poem – being as its topic is a girl with a fondness for the departed – takes on a sweet poignance.

Anyway. Here it is.

Annie stayed.

Annie McSalva stood that day
but no one was there to enjoy her stay
only the ghosts had not gone away

Annie remained for the ghosts.

Annie McSalva walked down the streets
her feet tapping sidewalk to various beats
She looked in the theatres, all empty seats

Annie played Hamlet for ghosts.

Annie McSalva read all the books
out loud, in the library, and none gave sharp looks
the ghosts listened well in their crannies and nooks

Annie read on for the ghosts.

Annie McSalva swam in the pond
that led to the gutters and sewers beyond
but nobody stayed to drink that which was fond

to Annie, who swam with the ghosts.

Annie McSalva lay in the sun
and thought that the world had only begun
but the ghosts whispered back that it almost was done

Annie survived with the ghosts.

photo by Nocturnal Bob

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Hey hey hey, guess what I got sixteen boxes of in the mail today?  If you guessed it was sixteen boxes of the second printing of Bite Me!, then you win!

As an extra “thank you” to everybody who ordered while the book was reprinting, trusting all the while that I was not going to run off to Cabo with their hard-earned $15, I’m including a nifty print I whipped up just for the occasion.  I promised “Claire and Lucien bein’ silly”, and lo, hopefully this qualifies:

Oh, those crazy kids.  Two peas in a pod, really.  A dead, bloodsucking pod.

It will be a delightful 6×10.5 inches so I can slip it into your book order all handy-like.  If I have any left over, I’ll put the extras online next week for those who might be interested.

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Another week, another drawing of somebody else’s character!  Continuing with the unintentional theme of “naked green ladies”, this week it’s Angora from The Meek, by Der-shing Helmer.

Sadly I drew this sucker on Bristol, and had to use my four remaining Colerase pencils – or else I would’ve watercolored again.

I’ve been gawking at The Meek since shortly after it started up, so it was a pleasant surprise to turn up at APE and see actual print copies of the first chunk!

The Meek is one of the few comics that manages to be densely, lushly illustrated… and lively.  Too often an artist will lavish all their time on the coloring or the stylish character design…and forget to inject life through gesture and interaction or, you know, writing.  The result is eye candy that I get bored with about ten pages in.

But Der-shing has been knocking it out of the park for several dozen pages now.  I can’t wait to see where she’s going and how these delightful, elastic characters are going to smack into each other.

Also?  I adore how she draws Angora’s boobs.

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Buffalo Bill’s
defunct
who used to
ride a watersmooth-silver
stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeons justlikethat
Jesus
he was a handsome man
and what I want to know is
how do you like your blue-eyed boy
Mister Death

ee cummings
illustration by bone_doll

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Pages 159 & 160 now online.

This concludes Chapter Two of Family Man – and therefore Volume One.  Starting today I get to research potential costs for a print edition.  I’ll be shopping it to publishers as well, but since this is, after all, Volume One and therefore presents a bit of a risk, I’m anticipating the need to self-publish it until I have the structure for Volume Two mapped out in a format understandable by other human beings.

I’m expecting that Volume One will be pricey to print; the comic loses legibility when printed in fewer than four colors (even though it LOOKS like the only color is sepia-green).  So stay tuned for a possible pre-order fundraising drive.  If you’ve had a great experience getting a color project printed, please refer me to your print vendor!

BUT, THE BIG NEWS…

…I’ll be taking three weeks off of updating the comic to get a head start on the next chapter.  In the meantime I’ll be updating with drawings, a podcast, and other extras.  When I come back, Family Man will move onto a single, cohesive self-hosted website.

The comic itself, blog updates, notes, gallery images, cast page…all brand-new and all at Lutherlevy.com.  The site will have a complete (and extremely sexy) Comicpress overhaul courtesy my slightly unhinged design skills and the eternal patience of Comicpress guru Tyler Martin.

No ads!  No subscription fees!  Still free as always, just lots prettier and in one place.

I’d like to thank Joey Manley and the other folks who’ve pitched in at Webcomics Nation for providing a really great service.  WCN has saved me a lot of hair-tearing in the past few years.  If setting up your own webspace and installing Wordpress and Comicpress and customizing your theme and all that just feels utterly daunting to you, I totally recommend wandering over to WCN and checking out their features.

And now, back to the drawing board!

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I’ve realized lately that I haven’t been drawing much outside of comics and freelance work.  To heck with that!  If you’re going to draw for a living you need to find ways to preserve the joy, experimentation, and spontaneity inherent to the act.

At the same time, if you’re a goal-focused person like me, it’s hard to just sit down with blank paper and goof off for an hour (unless you’re on hold with tech support).

So once a week I’m going to try to doodle a character from somebody else’s work, starting with comics and maybe later branching out into prose fiction.  Perhaps this can also serve as a sort of Recommended Reading list.

This week:  Bottle Woman, from Order of Tales by Evan Dahm (of Rice Boy fame). Watercolor, oil pencil, colerase pencil.

What a wonderful character design!  That stopper head is just brilliant, and the simplicity of her features belies a complicated and moody character.  (the same could be said for Evan’s art overall!)  I don’t think she’s actually green, or that her contents are blue, but it was the palette that seemed like fun.

I picked up Order of Tales at SPX on a personal mandate to Read New Things, and I can wholeheartedly recommend it as strange and absorbing.  It’s rare to pick up a story that’s so immediately distinctive.  A lot of people doing fantasy comics can spend a million years designing political systems and special ceremonial corsetry and researching weather patterns in an attempt to create a world so dense and realistic that a reader can immerse themselves in it, but Evan manages to suck you in with just a few brush strokes.

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Family Man page 158!

Okay, those of you who scoffed at the mild semi-nudity in previous weeks of Family Man pages, this time you really DO need to be concerned for your employment.

Sorry it’s late (APE tripped me up a little), but I didn’t want to just crank this one out.  Beyond that, I won’t say much about this week’s page; sorry.  It’s up to you, kids!  And I’ll see you next week, possibly with a multiple-page spread.  (ooh la la)

Folks waiting on me for commissions and/or products, never fear, tomorrow I’m back behind the retail wheel and will be sending out pictures and grammar labels galore.

LASTLY:  After I wrap this chapter up I’ll be putting together an incredibly belated podcast; I’ve been avoiding doing one in the strange certainty that there nobody could possibly have any questions left to ask me that weren’t just Family Man plot spoilers, but who knows. So if you have a burning question, throw them my way in the coming weeks, and I’ll answer as best I can in mp3 format!

Before then I’ll also be posting about some of the other projects I’m working on right now, so maybe folks will get intrigued about those.

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Page 157 now online!

Hm, I wish I had a little more time to fidget around with this one, but a rampant cold, a sudden and violent rush on Grammar Nerd stickers, and preparing for APE got in the way.  But regardless, this page is a change of pace even from all the pace-changing that’s been happening of late.  So close to the end of the chapter, guys!  Sooooo cloooooooose.

APE! You’ve heard all this before, but just in case you missed it – I’ll be at Table 440 with Kate Beaton l’infame. Topatoco have carefully delineated where we will be on this handy map. Thanks, lads! Bless them and their ways.

I’ll be there all weekend, with the last thirty or so copies of the first printing of Bite Me! (plus special deals for those who pre-order the 2nd printing) and all kindsa merchandise and original art and also I will do sketches for a low low price until my hands fall off.  I also have work up at the Cartoon Art Museum.

This is my last convention of the year thank goodness, and it looks to be a very fun one.  I’ll see some of you there!

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Go hang yourself, you old M.D.!
You shall not sneer at me.
Pick up your hat and stethoscope,
Go wash your mouth with laundry soap;
I contemplate a joy exquisite
I’m not paying you for your visit.
I did not call you to be told
My malady is a common cold.

By pounding brow and swollen lip;
By fever’s hot and scaly grip;
By those two red redundant eyes
That weep like woeful April skies;
By racking snuffle, snort, and sniff;
By handkerchief after handkerchief;
This cold you wave away as naught
Is the damnedest cold man ever caught!

Give ear, you scientific fossil!
Here is the genuine Cold Colossal;
The Cold of which researchers dream,
The Perfect Cold, the Cold Supreme.
This honored system humbly holds
The Super-cold to end all colds;
The Cold Crusading for Democracy;
The Führer of the Streptococcracy.

Bacilli swarm within my portals
Such as were ne’er conceived by mortals,
But bred by scientists wise and hoary
In some Olympic laboratory;
Bacteria as large as mice,
With feet of fire and heads of ice
Who never interrupt for slumber
Their stamping elephantine rumba.

A common cold, gadzooks, forsooth!
Ah, yes. And Lincoln was jostled by Booth;
Don Juan was a budding gallant,
And Shakespeare’s plays show signs of talent;
The Arctic winter is fairly coolish,
And your diagnosis is fairly foolish.
Oh what a derision history holds
For the man who belittled the Cold of Colds!

Ogden Nash
Photo by petrichor

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Page 156 of Family Man now online!

Ariana’s mysterious doings continue in their mysteriousness.  Let me tell you, the research I did for panel four was one of the more stomach-addling things I’ve researched yet for this comic.  There will be others!

Appearances:  unless this incipient cold takes me down, I’ll be at the Wordstock Festival here in Portland this weekend with Erika Moen.  I won’t have books to sell (I’m reserving my stock for APE, so that California folks get a shot at the last of the first edition), but I’ll have prints and minis and buttons and stickers, and if you order the book from me I’ll send it to you with free shipping as well as a limited edition  print.

Then I’ll be at the Alternative Press Expo (APE) in San Francisco on October 17-18, gossiping about dead people with fellow history cartoonist Kate Beaton at Table 440.

I’ll see y’all there!

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oh my poor little creature
poor creature
you are too blithe
for your own misery,
you would let pus run rivers
from your fox’s ears so long as they heard
the faintest mumbles
of good,
boy.

you do not have sense
to whimper when I tug green scabs
from your belly.
You kiss me through
broken teeth.

We return you to your
home and through a screen
we see the frail
decrepitude that is your
(euphemism) mother
and while we
burn with indignation on your
behalf you
run blissly to her
lap

oh would that we all were so
sweet in our suffering
that we might feel relief of
pain as only a
multiplying of the
sufficient love
which we received even in our most broken
state
and that the
Bad People
proved to be only
elderly and
careless

we might all then slip
at our time through the back
gate and into the
arms of a
loving god who will
wash our wounds and say

oh my poor little creature
poor creature

photograph by Pete Millis

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This past weekend I was at the Small Press Expo (SPX) in Maryland, frolicking with my fellow cartoonists and other assorted comics industry folk and their associated people.

It was a dang good time, which I needed very sorely since it has been, shall we say, a challenging six months.  I sold out of books on the afternoon of the first day – and in fact I only have 30-some books left in this printing.

So it’s back at the printers for another round, and I’m keeping those 30 in reserve for APE, where I will be splittin’ my table with Ms. Kate Beaton (history nerds unite).  If you order a book online before Halloween – which is when I’ll start shipping the second printing – I will throw in a snazzy extra Bite Me! print that I am devising this week.

Anyway.  Next week will see a new page of Family Man, but in the meantime, here is my brief and fragmentary convention report for SPX, in cartoon form, drawn 30,000 feet in the air on only three hours of sleep and a cup of airplane tea.  DOES IT SHOW.

Seriously, the Miss Teen Maryland USA pageant orientation, right next door.  Hundreds of long-limbed, insectile lasses with no visible pores and heels higher than the Empire State Building.  The contrast between the pageant girls and the females of SPX was enough to suggest that the human species is actually sexual trimorphic.

I am sure that Kate appreciated my help a whole lot, especially that bit where I frightened all her customers.  Seriously though, she is a classy lady.  Once or twice she was convinced that she had been horrible to somebody when really she had said “thank you” in a gentle voice and then politely excused herself to attend a panel.

We’ll be shackin’ up together at APE, so be sure to come witness the amazing power of the Goofus and Gallant history show. (hint: I am Goofus)

Apparently next door at the beauty pageant they were introducing themselves under hot lights, and the AC had to be cranked up to guarantee that no make-up would run or sweat stains would appear.  The result was several thousand shivering nerds.  I myself resorted to wrapping a pashmina around my head to save my frontal lobe from icing over completely.

The party outside of the Ignatz awards was very enjoyable.  Towards the end of a very strong hotel martini I wound up spending some quality time with Jim Ottaviani.  A few years ago, Jim O saved me from the purgatory of temping at the local hospital by having me draw Wire Mothers for him.

I rewarded him by failing to realize that 9 by 12 inches is not the same proportion as 6 by 9 inches, but luckily he is a forgiving guy.  The conversation then segued into a discussion about how much we like secular humanism.

Pastries:  the Comics Bakery table was overflowing with delicious homemade treats, and still further veggie pastries were fetched from the pastry shop a few blocks from the convention.  Also I stayed at Carla Speed McNeil’s house, and her fabulous husband Mike kept doing things like making biscuits, chocolate cookies (”to go with the sorbet I made”), scones, etc.   The result was that I probably took in a whole stick of butter over the course of the weekend.

Before she took me to the Metro to catch my flight, Carla left me unattended in her studio.  The result is that I now know more about her upcoming projects (Finder and otherwise!) than any of you sorry fools, and she has some inexplicable stains on her penciled pages.  Also I got to see her Eisner award.  You could use it to kill a man no problem.

And that is all I had the energy to draw on the flight home.  It was a really great time – I will be back again next year if it’s up to me.  Thanks to everybody who stopped by or who shared my company over the weekend.  I’ll see some of you in San Francisco in a few weeks!  (with the last copies of the first edition…)

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And I'm off! Those of you who'll be at SPX this weekend, I'll see you there, along with tablemates Colleen AF Venable and Carol "Klio" Burrell!

I have no idea where the table is, except that it is, and I quote Carol here, "against a wall", which is generally a good sign. Just look for the blood-spattered banner reading "Bite Me!", there's a love.

I'll be there with books (only one box, so move quickly!), minis, prints prints prints, buttons, stickers, and a charming smile, all for sale at breathtaking prices.

I've also decided to actually have fun and enjoy myself at this convention - so if I speak to you in a fake French accent or start laughing hysterically or you spy me across the floor shooting rubberbands at Aaron Diaz, just nod your head and think "bless the poor dear, she's had a time of it this year".

Page 155 of Family Man now online!

WARNING:  NOT SAFE FOR WORK.  Unless you live in one of those European countries where you regularly see ads on the sides of pharmacies that are more explicit than this.

No page next week because I will be at the Small Press Expo this weekend!  I’ll be hunkering down at the table of Carol “Klio” Burrell of SPQR Blues excellence.  Look for her in the program and come sample our exciting historical fiction wares.

Among the wares I’ll be selling is this new 7×10 print, which you can click to see at full size:

Other than the page prints, this is the first bit of genuine Family Man merchandise I’ve created.   I hope to have more such things this year while (my agent and) I determine how I’ll be making Volume One, aka Chapters 1 & 2, available in print.

I’ll see some of you in Maryland!  And the rest of you, in the virtual funny papers.

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Page 154 of Family Man now online!

And here’s a new setting for you, my dears.  Bit different from the library, eh?

Also of note: you can now buy a giclee print of any Bite Me! page.  Perhaps obvious considering that I already do this for Family Man, but it honestly didn’t occur to me to offer this until now.  Enjoy the possibilities of displaying a beautiful print of Claire’s thigh above your desk at work.

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Lord: it is time. The huge summer has gone by.
Now overlap the sundials with your shadows,
and on the meadows let the wind go free.

Command the fruits to swell on tree and vine;
grant them a few more warm transparent days,
urge them on to fulfillment then, and press
the final sweetness into the heavy wine.

Whoever has no house now, will never have one.
Whoever is alone will stay alone,
Will sit, read, write long letters through the evening,
and wander on the boulevards, up and down,

restlessly, while the dry leaves are blowing.

Rainer Maria Rilke, trans. Stephen Mitchell.
Illustration by 3amfromkyoto

Posting this poem whenever I first start to feel the onset of autumn has become a sort of tradition for me. The leaves here are turning; the light has changed. Pumpkins are shedding their umbilical vines. School has started again.

I’m not looking forward to the greyness and the dark of the Pacific winter; but autumn offers some fine consolations. It’s a magnificent last meal.  I always thought that Rilke (and Mitchell) did a fine job a catching that thin, golden membrane between their fingers.

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