ROACH-CORE!

(click on the pic to blow it up)

This strip originally appeared in the September/October 2015 edition of the "COMICS NEVER STOP" newspaper.

Guide to becoming a Successful Comic Artist

Yep, my 72-pg mini-graphic novel,"GET INTO COMIX", is finally done, all printed up and everything. And despite what the self-deprecating comic above says, I'm pretty happy with it (although calling it my "personal masterpiece" is nothing I would claim in real life). No rejection letters as of yet, either ( I'm just getting to dropping 'em off at shops and doing mail-order sales, right now), but I always planned to self-publish 'cause who knows if it would happen otherwise? MAYBE, but hubris is not my forte.

If you'd like to get a copy of this book, just PAYPAL $7 to bradagenda@yahoo.com, leave your mailing address in the comments/notes, and I'll ship that sucka out to ya ( UNITED STATES ONLY, sorry!). And if you'd like me to draw a small sketch inside, I'd be happy to do that, as well.

Also, in case you haven't heard, the "AS YOU WERE" anthology (featuring comics by Mitch Clem, Liz Prince, Ben Snakepit and a 5-pg story that I contributed to it, as well) came out, and you can buy it HERE.

"Hey Brad, how's school goin'?"

INTERLUDE: Various Art Stuffs, and more excuses

Holy crap, it's been a long time since I posted anything on here! I've just been so hard at work trying to get stories done for these anthology projects (and continuing with the "Record Heat" strip), I haven't had time to draw any "Epic Tales...". Well, regardless, I think it's about time to at least post SOMETHING on here, so here it goes:

This is an 20"x30" acrylic painting (on illustration board) of Charles Bronson that I did for my Color Theory class last semester. If I were to give it a proper title, it would be "Don't Fuck with Chuck!".

Here's another acrylic painting for Color Theory class, this one being on 15"x20" watercolor paper. I just like how the colors blended together.

NOTE: I also did a "Too Much Coffee Man" painting that I'm kinda proud for that class, but it was NOT returned to me at the end of the semester.

Prefatory Panic

I'm sure I've made other strips that are similar to this about how much stress I feel during the course of the semester, but it's no less true now.

I recently printed 50 copies of "Epic Tales..."#8 at a print shop (it's the first time I haven't done it all by myself, at Kinko's), in a slightly larger format; 7x8.5 (legal size, folded), with bristol covers. I'm not putting it up in the store because I need 'em to sell at various shows in the near future.
Here's a sketchcard I recently drew of Vaughn and Mark Bode's "Cobalt 60". I discovered this series in a friend's brother's collection of "Heavy Metal" magazines when I was in 7th grade (around the same time I found the original Ninja Turtle comics), and it's been stuck in my mind ever since.

And finally, here's a pic from my sketchbook of Crimson Cloak punching a Punk Rock Panda in the face... I've been working on a lot of autobio stuff recently, and I don't often get the opportunity to draw fisticuffs in those comics, so I thought I'd take a little break.

Longbox Diving

I decided to go ahead and just do a black & white strip for today because the real star of this post is the"John Jacobs and the Power Team" comic book! First, it should be known that the real life John Jacobs is this weird "Christian" muscleman that has a live show in which he and his team of freakishly large meatheads use their faith in Jesus (rather than steroids) to gather the strength necessary to perform such tasks as ripping apart telephone books, and snapping baseball bats in half. You can see the actual cover of this comic below:

And, here is a single page of the awesomness contained within this book:

You're welcome, reader!

Anatomy

 I almost always exaggerate Shannon's reactions because, much like anatomy, subtly isn't my strong suite. 

Marital Sacrifices

The whole hubbub with DC Comics is interesting to me, but I don't really care one way or other.

Query???

Hey there, internet-peoples!

Yep, I'm still alive, and still severly overburdened with schoolwork, but I somehow found the time to draw this comic (I even renewed the "blackmarkercomics.com" URL, so you know I'll always come back here, whenever I get a slight reprieve). I wish had the time to draw more comics, but it takes lot of time to do all weird assignments and art-shit for my classes, like this drawing I did in Illustrator for my 2D Computer Design course:

Alright, hopefully I'll get back to drawing strips regularly during the summer months, but who knows?

BLAST FROM THE PAST: "Techno Funk", from 8/28/07

I look at this strip now, years later, and all I can I think is , "I can't believe we still have the same computer. This thing is ancient, now!" Hopefully, once I get my student aid for this semester of school, we'll be able to get a new tower, and leap into 2011, technologically speaking. Besides, it's sort of necessary when you consider that I'm trying to get a degree in Digital Illustration.

Working on Stuff

I've been trying to finish up the last few pages of the 50 pg "Get into Comix!" story (that I've been working on forever) before I go back to school on the 17th, so I haven't had a chance to draw any strips; It sucks that I haven't been able to keep up, but I really wanna finish this damn comic!

Here's a panel from a page in the story that I recently drew, in which a slightly younger, unmarried and childless version of myself daydreams about having sex with a waitress at Denny's:

Fourth World

I used a brush pen in my attempt to approximate a 'Jack Kirby' drawing in this strip; It worked much better than I expected, but it's still a shoddy impersonation of the King's style.

Christmas went very well this year, and I don't know if I've ever before received as many thoughtful gifts as I did this time around. It was pretty awesome, and I can't wait for next year, but mostly because my daughter will be almost 2 years old, and able to get really excited for all things Christmas. This year, she enjoyed the boxes and wrapping paper just as much as the toys (I would've posted some pics chewing on ribbons and bows, but my computer tower is screwed up, and can't read my camera's SD card).

All that being said, I did miss spending time with my Mom, stepdad, and siblings, but at least we were able to visit them at Thanksgiving this year. Still, it wasn't hard to enjoy myself with the In-laws, being as they're all kind, generous people, with good senses of humor.

Anyways, Merry Christmas, or whatever, and Happy New Years, peeps!

Living within the Panels

This strip is also a project about 'identity' for my digital arts class, which I have to turn in tomorrow. Hopefully, I do okay, even though the cartoony wedding picture looks kinda creepy.

Out with the Old

HAHA! Reality is inconvenient.

Alpha-Nerd-Tizing

I told Shannon that I was embarrassed to be such a nerd, but the truth of the matter is that I was much more embarrassed by some of the terrible comics I own; I still have a huge amount of early 90's comics throughout my longboxes.

Meanwhile, I can't really afford to buy very many new comics nowadays, but the public libraries have a LOT of trades and graphic novels. I've read 5 or 6 "Usagi Yojimbo" collections in the past 2 or so weeks, so I thought I'd draw a sketchcard of the samurai rabbit.

Doing my Best

I usually think that I don't draw often enough, but sometimes it seems that I'm spending too much time doing it, and possibly neglecting other portions or my life. It's hard to find a balance, but as of right now, I feel like I'm doing okay. Of course, I'm still on paternity leave from work, so I'll probably be strapped for time again, soon enough.

In other news, here's a couple pics of my daughter, Kennedy, pretty soon after her birth (which was almost 2 weeks ago, now), that were snapped by my mother-in-law.

No news is good news

No new strip today, but I did add a 5 new pages to my "Get into Comix!" origin story, so please go read 'em! I'm at a point in the story that is a stark contrast to where I'm at in my life now, as illustrated by this photo of me and my wife, Shannon (and Kennedy Mae, in utero).

Pitching Jokes

I'm not very happy with the way this came out, art-wise. I feel like I rushed through drawing this strip a little too much... dammit.

The Rent in Fantasy Land is Steep

Yeah, I know, it seems kinda far fetched when you consider the fact that I have very little real art training, but its my dream, so back off!

"Get into Comix!", the first 30 pages

I've uploaded the first 30-pages of my origin story, "Get into Comix!" to the interwebz. It's far from completed, but I just couldn't wait to have you people take a gander at it. I've posted small portions of the story on this blog previously, and the first 8 pages or so appeared in the "Epic Tales..."#6 mini-comic, but this is the first 3 chapters (well, minus the last page of chap.3, but I'm almost done with it!), altogether.

Pick your Poison

Outside of work, I haven't really been hanging out with anyone (aside from Shannon, of course). I'd like to rectify that, however, since this strip kinda sucks when I don't do anything or see anyone.

Boy, if that's the best reason I can come up with to participate with the rest of humanity, I am a sad little man.