Hoka-Hoka Egg-Bot!

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Hey, Larry,
I recently purchased an EggBot kit, which is a device that lets you draw on eggs and other curved surfaces with a drawing program. Naturally, I thought "what better subject for egg decorating than.. beans." I'm clearly no Larry Marder, and there are obviously issues keeping pens aligned, but I thought you might like this nevertheless...
The Naimis

Here's the Egg-Bot in action. I was up a bit late Thursday evening to have some eggs to put on display at the office. I didn't get drawings of all the main beans (no Mr. Spook, Proffy or Beanish) before I went to bed, which I will try to remedy sometime this weekend and send you a picture of the full "gallery" next week, along with the drawings themselves. I did a Beanish egg and a Mr. Spook large size last night (the egg as Mr. Spook's torso rather than a drawing of Mr. Spook on the egg, though I wasn't completely happy with the results).
The Naimis

This is very cool and exciting.

Thanks for sending this along just in time for the appropriate holiday, The.

The hacker, fab, and maker movements are proof positive that in the not-so-distant future we will all be able to let our inner Beanish and Professor Garbanzo out and make stuff that is both cool and personal

I love living in the future!

Beanworld 3.5: Tales of the Beanworld

The best place to start a long story is at the beginning.

So...

After Beanworld Book Three: Remember Here When You Are There! I started to work on the next original graphic novel in the series: Something More!

Last summer, and all conventions since, I've been handing out free little fold-up mini-preview of Book Four. Readers of the preview find out that the next book has stuff in it about the mysterious Orbulators. The last page implies, well, something more.

Those that understand Heyoka-speak understand that her answer to Proffy's whispered "what?" is the exact opposite--in other words this.

Time to flash back to another lifetime ago...

The "Asylum Story" as it was known at the time was a bit of an oddity.
(As a minor historical aside--in addition to the explanations in the link above, I also had Marvel Comics' mid-decade bully tactics used after their acquisition of Hero's World distributors on my mind. )

Rob Liefeld's Maximum Press went away and the color Beanworld story was never reprinted except for a very low print run ashcan comic that was printed from photocopies of the original art. That black & white ashcan with the green cover was titled "While We Were Eating." I'd sell them off of my table over the years and they recently sold out at last. (As I was reworking the material I noticed for the first time that pages 10 & 11 are flipped in the ashcan!)

There was actually some question between close friends of the Beanworld whether or not the Asylum Story was "in continuity" or not.

It is.

Proof positive of this is on display in "Here There" page 50.

Yep, right above the dessicated remains of Der Kveen are the artifacts from the last page of "Eating."

So as I was moving along with Something More! I recognized that I had some explaining to do to the majority of contemporary Beanworld readers who had little to no idea of these previous, almost forgotten story points.

My idea was to reprint it as a black & white stand alone comic.

I pitched it to Dark Horse when I was up there last summer.

In that meeting, brainstorming between Beanworld editor, Diana Schutz; Dark Horse VP of Marketing, Micha Hershman; VP of New Business Development, Michael Martens; and Marketing Director, Jeremy Adkins turned my single comic idea into a Yokai-style color volume.

It's called Tales of the Beanworld.

It totally makes sense.

It takes all the loose pieces of color work and puts them all together in one volume that can shelve with all the other hardcover books.

I would have never thought of that.

This volume takes all of the above material and through flashbacks twines it together into one new story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. There are 12 brand new new pages featuring just about everyone.

The "Asylum Story" has been revised and reworked and recolored.

Its new title is "While We Wuz Eatin'!" which is how Mr. Spook would have really said it.

It's a direct lead-in to Book Four.

Somewhere along the way, Diana started calling it "Book 3.5" and the name stuck.

I have to say, I 'm really liking the way it's looking.

More as I know more.

Larry

What is Beanworld 3.5?

STUMPTOWN!

8th annual Stumptown Comic Fest

Oregon Convention Center

Saturday April 16th 10-6

Sunday April 17 12-6

My Panels:

The Leguminous Life of Larry Marder

Saturday April 16 ● 12 - 12:45 ● Room A105

Beans have been part of Marder's life since the day he was born! The rich visual presentation covers the entire history of his peculiar fantasy dimension including discussion about Marder's many influences. This is your opportunity to discover why Beanworld has captivated readers from grade school to grad school since its first publication as a series of comic books in the 1980s. Now Beanworld is entertaining an entire new generation of fans. Get a glimpse into Marder's next Dark Horse Comics original Beanworld graphic novel "Something More!" And what exactly is "Beanworld 3.5" anyway?

Worldbuilding

Sunday April 17 ● 2-2:25 ● Room A106

Evan Dahm moderates a discussion featuring Carla Speed McNeil, Barry Deutsch, Jenn Manley Lee, Larry Marder, and Kel McDonald, as they share the challenges and rewards of intricate, in-depth world-building for your own fictional settings.

I'll be at table B-21

I'll have:

Series Two FLEECE Beanworld Action Figures!

Dark Horse Beanworld Hardovers

FREE Beanworld Action Figures

Cute Collectible Cards

Beanworld Orphan Drawings

Crazy Trade-Ins

and more!

And whatever you do, do not forget this!

It Came From The Beanworld Archives!

"Late 1970s ~ 20" x 11" ~ Xerography, pen, colored paper, colored markers on cheap copy paper

So I was spending part of my day today thinking about the presentation I'm giving at Stumptown Comics Fest 2011 on Saturday April 16th at noon. (Mouch more on Stumptown in posts over the weekend). I was going through the Beanworld Archives looking for something else and lo & behold, the illo above appeared.

This is from the time I was doing a lot of exploration of how-to-abuse-the-Xerox-machine-at-work. I loved investigating the boundaries of 1970s xerography (a semi-lost art due to digital copying) using photographs I found in the dead files at the ad agency I worked at. Actually at this point, in the late '70s I was in charge of the dead files and for me it was a treasure trove of cornball model photography from the 60s and photos of crops and insects. I rescued all sorts of oddities from the going in the dumpster.

In that day of (analog?) photocopy machines you could really push things in weird directions by copying copies over and over and over again and all sorts of magical things would happen. Now that I think of it, maybe that still can happen, but in this world of digital accuracy I kinda doubt it. Not like back then anyway.

In this primitive world of Magic Tape, Spra-Mount and rubber cement I cobbled together this composition--most likely just seeing-what-I-could-see as I went along. There is are pre-versions of Beanish & Mr. Spook. There is a hint of the Chowdown Pool stairs. There is a more-or-less fully fleshed out Chow Sol'jer.

I don't know why the Madmen-era advertising models people are green. Relatives of J'onn J'onzz maybe.

It doesn't seem finished at all. But I find it interesting. Thought I'd share.