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Hello faithful, tireless legions of Cork readers!
I’ve got some unfortunate, hopefully short term, news for you. I have to take a sabbatical from posting new Cork strips for the near future due to some unavoidable obstacles that have popped up on my highway and forced me off the road into the bushes. As many of you may NOT know, I’m currently working with the video game company 343 Industries as a cinematic storyboard artist on their latest project HALO 4. It’s been pretty damned cool to work on this juggernaut. I’ve played every Halo game since its’ inception and to be part of creating the visuals for that universe is a huge thrill for me! Basically what I do is visualize many of the cut scene movies you see at the end of a level after finishing off gameplay that narratively propels you into the next segment. It’s basically like directing a movie, only the actors are more cooperative.
As a result I haven’t had as much time to pump out new Corks so the nice big buffer of already completed strips has dwindled down to nothing. So I’m going to start slowly building that up again and once I get enough ahead where I (hopefully) won’t have another break in the Thursday deliverables, we’ll get this whole ball of cheese rolling again. I know all six of you who read Cork are shattered by this news, but have faith! This damnable cartoon will return soon with as much stupidity as I can muster. I already have the next storyline in mind so as soon as I’m able I’ll be hitting the drawing lap and vomitting out new strips for you all. I hope I don’t lose any of you to other comics during the break. If you were to abandon me for, say, something like B.C., well… well that would just be awful. For the both of us.
I’ll keep everyone updated about the return. In the meantime, have a sandwich, clean your apartment, and try to make something of yourself. I mean come on, you have the time now!
Hello friends of Boon and the surrounding borroughs. Just thought I’d blog, it’s been awhile since I’ve been on. So let me fill you in on some upcoming CORK related tidbits! Once again I’ll be in Artist’s Alley at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con (July 20-24) selling Cork related merchandise and chatting with any misguided individuals who are mistaking me for somebody more important.
San Diego as most of you know is the largest, most pungent convention of the popular arts on the planet so it’s easy to get lost in the sea of marketing morass. For those attending you can find the carefully hidden Artist’s Alley ALL THE WAY TO THE LEFT of the convention floor. Apparently the powers that be didn’t want us to be bothered by any unwanted annoyances such as fans or attendees. You can find me at table DD-06! Look for the tall Cork banner and the pitiful specimen of an artist sitting beneath! It should be a hoot.
Also, this year I actually have some real Cork merchandise! I’ll be selling t-shirts and mugs this time around with your favorite or least appreciated characters emblazoned RIGHT ON THEM!
The t-shirt’s image will be that of Sam and Vlad on a pre-shrunk 100% cotton black shirt and will come Medium, Large, and Extra-large sizes! I’ll be selling them at $20 a piece.
The mug will have an image of Cork sitting while watching you drink too much of a beverage you really shouldn’t be drinking with the Cork logo floating above her. You can pick up one of these bad girls for $15 each. It too is made of 100% cotton. (I kid. I’m hilarious.) Quantites of both are limited!
I also have a few Cork books left and will be selling those as well at $10 each!
I hope you can come down and see me, even say hello if you like. I’ll be there all four days. If you can’t make the Con this year and want some new Cork swag I’ll see about making it available through this website soon. If you know anyone headed down to San Diego for this soiree, send ’em by my booth and introduce them to my stupid webcomic. They may even like the damn thing.
I know, silly wishful thinking.
Hey everybody,
Hope you enjoy this week’s overly-saturated, quasi-humorous addition of Cork! I just thought I’d pass along this news: Dark Horse has finally collected the two-issue limited series Ghost/Hellboy I drew way back when into a nice graphic novel called Hellboy: Masks and Monsters! It also includes Mike Mignola’s written and drawn Hellboy/Batman/Starman mini series as well! Dark Horse has always put together nice Hellboy collections and finally my series has joined the ranks. Mike told me at a convention awhile ago that he was hoping they would re-release the story so maybe he pushed and shoved and cajoled the powers that be to add it to the list. The book also includes some Mignola sketches and thoughts about Ghost/Hellboy which includes a humorous apology for his treatment of me early in the process. I had the distinct honor of being the first artist to draw Hellboy besides him in comics and he was quite protective of the big red beast.
It was one of my favorite projects with two of my favorite characters at that time. All I know is that it’s really cool to see my name next to Mignola’s so prominently on the cover of the book! So check it out if you can. You can find it at comic book outlets as well as places like Barnes & Noble book sellers. As you can tell by the accompanying photo, it is quite the scintillating read!
Excellent inks by my pal Jasen Rodriguez as well!
Since many webcomic sites are a labor of love between the artist and those deliciously twitchy fans who have the remarkable misfortune of sharing a similar sense of humor, there usually isn’t a large press syndicate behind the successful push of an individual web strip. Web creators have to firstly rely on their talent to reach out and touch an appreciative audience and then in turn have that audience help spread the word to the rest of the populace. If you’re lucky you start to gain a following, but still it’s not like you’re earning an actual paycheck for simply being popular. To make any sort of money you have to either sell your original IP to a production house and they turn it into a hugely successful animated series earning you millions of mucho dinero, or you can create a limited amount of your own merchandise and sell it to the hungry consumers a piece at a time, the latter of which being infinitely more likely.
That being said, I wanted to pose a question to you sixteen people who have read Cork. If I were to create merchandise based on my strip, what products would you be inclined to actually purchase? T-shirts? Mugs? Books? Fuzzy thermoses in the shape of Sam where you screw off his head to drink hot beverages from his neck? I’d like to know. This doesn’t mean I’m going to have merchandise to sell right away, I just wanted to do research so when I’m in a position to develop some cool swag I’ll know what will entice you to empty out your wallet and/or purse of all that chewy disposable income.
Who knows, with enough interest maybe I’ll have that all-in-one Vlad-shaped coffee machine/printer/hookah ready for you by this year’s Comic-Con. That would be awesome.
“Gaaaaah, what happened?!” That’s probably the thought that’s running through your head right now if you’ve been to this site before. Either that or, “I’d really enjoy some lemon frosted pound cake with a Caramel Macchiato” if your interest lies elsewhere. Yes, there has been a big change to the look and structure of the Cork webpage thanks to the machinations of my lovely girlfriend who figured out the mysteries of ComicPress when I couldn’t. I hope you enjoy the change. I do! The site is now MUCH easier to manage, more streamlined, and less cumbersome to navigate. I can also update the blog and news much more often now, so I can tell you in a heartbeat when I’m watching a particularly enjoyable episode of Dexter or when I’ve had an extremely average sandwich or whatnot. I may even talk about the strip, who knows?
Another change, if you didn’t already know, is that I’ll be COLORING every new strip of Cork from this point on. I initially started coloring from the beginning, but with about thirty strips already posted I realized I’d be playing a game of catch up I couldn’t win. I did manage to finish off the first six so PLEASE check those out in the Archives when you can. I’ll slowly try to add color to the rest of those early offerings as soon as I’m able, in the meantime I’ll be concentrating on drawing, inking, and digitally painting more bright, shiny, and fresh strips for your consumption.
I also have a VERY limited number of Cork books I made for the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con for purchase on the site! It collects the first thirty-three cartoons as well as a few other bonus bits. So give yourself a late or extremely early Christmas present and get yours before they disappear.
So that’s it, welcome to the improved page. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy a rousing debate over whether or not it’s humane to make monkeys wear hats. See you next time.
