Friday night was the opening reception for Connected at Skeleton Key Tattoo (1729 SE Hawthorne, in case you’re in Portland and want to stop by, up all month!). I couldn’t nail into the walls, so I built these big panels to hang everything easily. I forgot to take pictures during the opening, but a bunch of people showed up, a few of them bought things, and the DJ was playing some AMAZING tunes; all in all a very fun night.

Close up of my prints and other miscellany.

Close up of Connected.

Then on Saturday, two other members of the RCC and I headed north for the Olympia Comics Festival.

It was held in a small club called The Vault, and there was a band, Google Maps, and they played early on during the show.

And then some people showed up.

And some of them were slightly blurry.

And there’s Blue at the Portland Zine Symposium table!

And hey, there’s Jeffry Brown, talking about stuff!

Alright, so it’s been over a week since Stumptown and I still haven’t gotten around to reading more than a handful of things I bought/traded for/was given, so I’ll sum up Stumptown for me and the RCC in a few general words. Saturday, hot, stuffy, packed with people who were not much in the mood to buy anything; figured out we could open the window behind us in the late afternoon, which was a highlight. Mustaches was up for “Outstanding DIY” at the Trophy Awards Saturday night. It didn’t win, but it was the only thing that sold well on Saturday, so no complaints. Sunday started slow but picked up by mid-afternoon, and people actually wanted to buy things this time through, including a lot of wholesale sales to comic shops. All in all, it was fun, as Stumptown always is, and that’s what’ll keep us coming back.

Normally, Stumptown Comics Fest would’ve been the biggest event of a given week for the RCC, but a mere 4 days after SCF2008 closed its doors we were scheduled to have a First Thursday art show at Tender Loving Empire in NW Portland. It was called “Beware The Robopocalypse” to go along with our newest anthology of the same name, and was a stellar success for everyone involved.

We showed original comic pages throughout the entire shop.

As well as these small, screenprinted, mini-posters, and of course comics were sold as well.

Oh yeah, and then the bands started playing…

And they brought an even larger crowd than was already there.

For many members, it was the first show in which they were an integral part of, but the night was still full of excitement for the veterans of the group as well. Thank you to anyone reading this who was able to make it out on Thursday night.

Just a quick reminder for any of you reading this in the Portland area: the Robopocalypse Comics Collective, my group of scrappy, young artists, will be having our first ever gallery show this Thursday, May 1st. Please come down to Tender Loving Empire (NW 18th and Lovejoy) between 6pm and 10pm on Thursday. There will be food and booze and even two bands.

We’ll be showing a ton of original comic pages as well as selling our new set of tiny screenprints, and of course, our comics.

Please come see the show of you can; support your local cartoonists!

If you need any proof of how well TLE and the RCC go together, glimpse this combo: TLE owner Jared Mees keeping it classy at Stumptown with a copy of Mustaches: For Fun and Profit.

Thursday, May 1st, better known as First Thursday, the RCC will be having a show of a bunch of our original comic pages at Tender Loving Empire at 18th and NW Lovejoy in Portland, OR. We will also be showcasing a set of eight small screenprints, portions of which can be seen on the postcard above. I’m really proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish as a group over the last year, and I really look forward to this show. I hope you can all make it, especially if you live near Portland.

Featured Artists (Spiraling clockwise from the upper-left):
Brybox
Casey Collett-Paule
Terry Blas
Matt Grigsby
BT Livermore
Kevin M. Arnold
Matt Seely
Aidan Koch

The Robopocalypse Comics Collective and I will be having an art show at the ever-friendly handmade boutique/comic publisher/music label, Tender Loving Empire, in April. As part of the show, we will be releasing a series of small, “robopocalypse” or robot-themed screenprints. Each print will be 6 inches square and will feature art from most of the RCC’s members. This is the image for mine, entitled “The Boneyard.” I went with the darker side of the robopocalypse to go along with my comic in our upcoming themed anthology, “Beware the Robopocalypse,” which will debut at Stumptown Comics Fest at the end of April.

Hello friends. I should be pretty much back to normal posting from now on, but here’s an update on why I haven’t been around for a while:

www.robopocalypse.com

I started a comics collective here in Portland. As of right now, it is mostly people from my school, PNCA, many of whom are working on what will become their first printed comic work. I’d been finding that there was a lot of interest in creating comics amongst people I know, but no sort of unity in terms of sharing the knowledge or skills that each person had, so I put a stop to it and started the Robopocalypse Comics Collective. It started as a simple idea, but due to a small quarter-life crisis about a month ago, grew into this 11 person group as we now know it. Basically, I’ve been working on putting together a website for the RCC amongst other managerial/administrative functions. I just launched the site today. There are still some things to add (like the majority of our members), but feel free to check things out. Our first show as a group will be the Olympia Comics Festival in mid-May. Big things are ahead.

One of our plans as a collective is to periodically publish a themed, group anthology book, along with our solo comics. The first one will be available in May, and is entitled “Creation.” I will be posting my story for it within the next week. We are also looking to trade links with other comic artists, comic collectives, or comic shops. If you are any of those three and you would like to trade links with the RCC, let me know.

I plan on having Volume #1 of “The Life and Times of Baby Otto Zeplin” completed before the Olympia show as well, and will be posting most of those pages as I complete them. I know there are some people who have let me know they are quite excited to see more of Otto’s life, so I’m glad I can finally get started on it again.

One last bit: Being that the RCC site is living where my old portfolio once roamed, I had to move it to the much more professional sounding (as well as easier to spell and pronounce) www.bigtimeillustration.com and I wouldn’t mind swapping a few links with other illustrators on that site as well.