Tuesday's Tantalizing Teaser: Free Comic Book Day!

This Saturday, May 2nd is Free Comic Book Day!

Every year the first Saturday in May is Free Comic Book Day.
And this year, Beanworld is in Dark Horse's all age sampler.

It's a flip book with Star Wars: Clone War on one side and the other cover is the one shown above. Yep, Beanworld is in there along with not only with Star Wars but also Yusagi Yojimbo, Emily the Strange, and a guy named Indiana Jones!

Dark Horse has given me a great opportunity to put the Beanworld characters into the hands of many, many people who don't know how much they are going to love Beanworld yet.

But some of them are going to.
In fact, if history serves as any sort of indicator, some are going to like it a whole lot!

For many years, I gave away free issues of Beanworld comics to unsuspecting attendees at comic book conventions. It's always astounding to me how many folks come up to to the table (as recently as Stumptown in Portland, OR) and say, "You gave me my first Beanworld when I was a kid and I've been a big fan ever since!"
And sometimes they have their own kids in tow nowadays.

So, what is Free Comic Book Day?

It's the one day of the year participating comic book specialty shops across North America, and around the world, give away comic books absolutely free to anyone who comes into their shops.

A lot of Beanworld fans aren't regular frequenters of comic book shops, so to find a comic shop near you, use the handy-dandy FCBD Shop Locator.
It's on the left side, down a bit.
Punch in your zip code and you'll find a shop near you.

Back at home!

Ivy Ratafia, aka Ivy McCloud, and Winter showed up totally unexpectedly (to me anyway) @ Stumptown. Scott and Sky were off adventuring in Shanghai, which absolutely everyone already seemed to know. It was a true delight to have half of Clan McCloud around for the run of the show.

Ivy came bearing the note above from Carol Pond. And, yes, one can whisper "Secret Sketch" any time, any place, even in writing by proxy.

Dark Horse sold a LOT of "Wahoolazuma!" volumes. So many that they had to go back to the warehouse to get more. Thanks to DH folks for making sure that happened, and we were never out of stock for very long!

What can I say about Stumptown? It's just a terrific show. The energy level in Portland is amped up so high that it is downright contagious. I got to spend a great deal of quality time with Jeff Smith, Jim Valentino, Diana Schutz, Charles Brownstein, Anina Bennett, and Paul Guinan. (Anina and Paul's new project Boilerplate looks absolutely astounding and I can not wait to see it!).

Plus had relatively short but excellent conversations with Bob Schreck, Matt Wagner, Scott Allie, Carla Speed McNeil, Jacq Cohen, and Brendan Wright. And so many m0re that they are just too numerous to recount.

As I said on Facebook: The folks up in Portland, OR really put on an amazing show. It’s a trek I highly recommend. Guaranteed to satisfy the wants and needs of any comics creator or connoisseur!

On Another Note:
The files for "A Gift Comes!" are all but finished and going off to the printer next week. The proofs of the rescanned artwork looks really, really sharp, as crisp as "Wahoolazuma!"

Oh, if you haven't actually seen anything about "Remember Here When You Are There!" yet....well, click and see!

Off to Portland for Stumptown Comics Fest!

It's early in the morning and I'm doing my last minute packing of things for the con. Trying hard to not to forget to include the things that I am going to forget anyway.

So, I will be at Stumptown Comic Fest this weekend--both days. I'll be at my table for the duration except for:

Signing at the Dark Horse booth
Saturday 3 -4 pm.

That will be the exclusive time and place to get a nifty free signing plate of the cover of "A Gift Comes!"

Also...on a different note:

Beanworld Review on Aint't It Cool News.

Got an e-mail from my friend and colleague, Jacq, at Dark Horse:

"I think this might be my favorite write-up yet. It really captures the Beanworld reading experience. The colloquial tone of the piece is inviting and accessible. If I had never read Beanworld I think this review would compel me to pick up a copy of the book. "

I think she is right. I really enjoyed reading this piece by Ambush Bug.
I do sometimes feel as if I'm looking through a microscope trying to get it all in focus and transcribe what I see as fast as I can!

Interview @ Jazma

Richard Vasseur of Jazma Online just wrote to let me know that an interview with me just went up.

It contains such goodies as:

Richard: How would you describe Beanworld's world?
Larry: Thin.

Meanwhile...I'm having a typical, pre-convention jumble of a week trying to get my things and thoughts organized and collected so I don't forget to bring the stuff I want to bring to Stumptown this weekend.

(You'd think that somehow, this would get easier over time but it sure doesn't seem to.)

Can it be? A Teaser actually on Tuesday?

Uh huh.
It most certainly is.

A few panels from
"Remember Here When You Are There!"
Page 80.

HEYOKA sketch up for auction on ebay for CBLDF

Got a note from Jill @ CBLDF letting me know that this Drink & Draw sketch from last year's Comic-Con is up on ebay.

It's drawn with black marker on A4 Manga Board (8 1/4" x 11 3/4" ).

Probably because I don't drink, I tend to do a lot of drawings on e after the other at a Drink & Draw. When I put the first mark down on a sheet of paper, I generally have no idea what I'm about to draw. I just let the drawing sorta create itself.

Heyoka I understood...the other critter?
Just came outa my head.

Let me remind you that the funds raised in this auction help support the First Amendment legal work the CBLDF performs on behalf of the comics community. As I've said before, I know times are tough, and money is tight, but the good work that CBLDF does is just as important as it ever has been--if not more.

Proffy!

Larry,

This week is Spring Break for the local schools, so my 5 year old daughter was hanging out in the store this morning with us as we put out the weekly comics.

On a previous time that she’d hung out with me at the store “just the two of us”, she got the idea to draw pictures and hand them out to the customers as they came in. She’s done this each time since, and this morning was no exception.

She drew a small stack of 4-color masterpieces, using a black sharpie and yellow, orange and blue highlighters. Most of her drawings are stick animals or people, with occasional near-abstract nature scenes.

She handed a few out to the early customers, and then left the rest to me to hand out the rest of the day. I didn’t look at them until after she and my wife had left. There was the usual assortment of animals and trees and such, much better than her most recent batch of drawings at home.

Most of her animals look similar. They have a head, neck, four legs, and a tail often the same length as the legs. Most of her people look similar as well. A head with arms and legs attached directly to it with a smile, two eyes, and sometimes a nose. We usually have to ask her who or what each one is.

And then, this morning, there was Proffy.

Her drawing this morning of Professor Garbanzo is the only time I’ve seen her draw a specific fictional character. Proffy was immediately recognizable, and had more attention to detail than I’ve seen my daughter put into a single person before. When I saw it, I cried happy tears. I think she may love Beanworld as much as I do!

She has all of the original issues of TotB, and she loves looking at all of the fan art in the letters pages. While I don’t expect you to put any in Here/There, it would be cool if you had a spot on your MySpace or blog for stuff like that, or some new Do-It-Yourself Beanworlds.

Thank you for Beanworld. You keep making them, and I’ll keep pushing them onto unsuspecting customers!

Brian Jacoby
Secret Headquarters
Comics and Games for Everyone!
Tallahassee, Florida

ps--Her name is Fiona Grace, and she wrote some of her name on the picture, in different places. (She’s still working on learning the whole reading and writing thing.)

Sometimes I feel like I'm still working on that too!
Thank Fiona Grace for me!
Getting this really lit up my day.
Thank you for sending this along, Brian.

In the old days, when Beanworld was a comic book with the traditional lettercol and such, getting fan drawings was the best part of the job.
Now that we live in a more interconnected, immediate world, that sort of slow, private communication has blossomed into fast, public broadcasting of sorts. And lettercols have pretty much faded away.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again; as soon as Here There is out the door, one of my Beanworld priorities for this summer is to get a proper website up and running.
I plan to archive all the old stuff and relaunch DIY Beanworld in some form.

And I encourage anyone who wants to send in any sort of fan sketch of Beanworld characters or situations--your stuff will be welcome here.

Larry