I’ve been continuing to post two pages a week from my revamped version of WELCOME TO THE ZONE on Patreon. I’m now up to part 15, including this particularly grisly death scene:
David Chelsea is reading: Winter: Five Windows on the Season (CBC Massey Lecture)
by Adam Gopnik
Continue reading Secret Stash: The Real Zoners
If you missed it last night, catch it on archive! The Artcasters #126, A live show featuring art talk from artists Scott Serkland, Joshua Kemble and a rotating third guest chair. This week’s special guest is me, Eisner nominated David Chelsea, showing image files of current comics work for a scintillating hour and a half while chatting with Joshua and Scott about comics, perspective, and why the scalloped edges of a sharpened pencil are hyperbolas. Highlight: me begging for storyboard work!
David Chelsea is reading: Overweight Sensation: The Life and Comedy of Allan Sherman (Brandeis Series in American Jewish History, Culture, and Life)
by Mark Cohen
Continue reading The Artcasters #126!
In this week’s installment of Welcome To The Zone, my 1995 graphic novel revised and revamped for a new century and serialized on Patreon, we are introduced to Oot and Aboot, two homeless aliens from the Planet Borgon. Their nameless species graces the cover of the original edition:
David Chelsea is reading: Overweight Sensation: The Life and Comedy of Allan Sherman (Brandeis Series in American Jewish History, Culture, and Life)
by Mark Cohen
Continue reading WELCOME TO THE ZONE: Out And About With Oot And Aboot
I’ve been continuing to put up episodes of the rebooted version of my 1995 graphic novel Welcome To The Zone on Patreon at a rate of two pages a week. This week’s installment introduces three new characters, Invert, Shroom, and Mugg. The three of them run a mobile soup kitchen which feeds the homeless, whether they want to be fed or not:
David Chelsea loves his: Victor M241 No Touch, No See Upgraded Electronic Rat Trap
Continue reading WELCOME TO THE ZONE Rebooted: Enter Mugg
Longtime readers will remember that I began to post revised pages of my 1995 graphic novel Welcome To The Zone on my Patreon page during the election campaign of 2016. This 21-year-old story was newly relevant because of the character Ronald Duck, a thinly-disguised waterfowl caricature of real estate developer Donald Trump, who had become a presidential candidate that year. I set aside the reboot to work on other things for a while, but now I have come back to it, with Ronald Duck more relevant than ever in the age of President Trump. Apart from minor details I have not altered the story or dialogue in the slightest, but the art is getting a major overhaul. My friend and sometime assistant Jacob Mercy likens this to George Lucas going back in and inserting CG effects in the original Star Wars trilogy– fortunately for me, there does not seem to be a contingent of diehard Welcome To The Zone fans to object.
David Chelsea is listening to: 3:47 Est
by Klaatu
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Continue reading Welcome Back To The Zone… Again
For anyone who wants to read my latest 24 Hour Comic straight through, I’ve posted a new, navigable version of ROUND BLACK GLASSES on Tumblr.
David Chelsea is reading: Conversations with Mary McCarthy
Continue reading Round Black Glasses On Tumblr!
The recent death of BEETLE BAILEY and HI & LOIS cartoonist Mort Walker brought back memories of my first job for The Portland Monthly in 2004. The trigger event was The Oregonian‘s controversial decision to drop Hi and Lois from its comics page after 50 years (it was displaced by Berkeley Breathed’s brief revival of Opus; Cathy was dropped at the same time). Think about this for a moment. Imagine that in 2004, Frank Sinatra’s Swing Easy (released in 1954) had just dropped off the charts, The Pajama Game was finishing a 50 year run on Broadway, and a local television affiliate was catching flack for dropping Father Knows Best, which first appeared the same month as Hi And Lois, from its lineup (Cathy, a relative stripling, made its debut in 1976, the same year as Frampton Comes Alive! the musical Annie and Charlie’s Angels.). On the other hand, The Tonight Show and Face The Nation started that same year and are still going strong, so network television is hardly a paragon of dynamic change.
David Chelsea is reading:Conversations with Mary McCarthy
Continue reading RIP, Mort Walker: Canned Funnies
The latest issue of AMERICAN BYSTANDER, America’s freshest humor magazine, is out, by which I mean I’ve finally gotten my contributor’s copies in the mail. Issue #6 has a cover by the legendary Arnold Roth, as well as some choice humor, illustrations, and comics from a stellar stable of regulars: MK Brown, Rick Geary, Ron Barrett, Randall Enos, Mimi Pond, John Cuneo, Peter Kuper, etc.
David Chelsea is reading: Night of Camp David
by Fletcher Knebel, Co-Author of Seven Days in May
Continue reading Palindromes In Print! American Bystander #6
I blogged a few months ago about reaching #100 in a series of “End Strips” on my Patreon page– these being short, vertically-formatted comics drawn on random strips of paper trimmed from larger sheets for various reasons, usually some project my daughter Rebecca is doing for school. These have cycled through a number of themes, including portraits of friends on Facebook, nude figure studies drawn from models posing on YouTube, short comics featuring my characters Sandy & Mandy, travel sketches, and so on. At the time, I was just beginning a series illustrating palindromes written by my son Ben; the first of these was #100 (Palindrome definition: a word, phrase, or sequence that reads the same backward as forward, e.g., madam or nurses run.):
David Chelsea is watching: The Room
starring Tommy Wiseau
Continue reading End Strips: Plenty O’ Palindromes!
This week on Patreon, I wind up the serialization of my most recent 24 Hour Comic, ROUND BACK GLASSES, with the 17th and final page. In it, I come face to face with a neighbor whose glasses are even cooler than mine:
David Chelsea is reading: Who Is Rich?: A Novel
by Matthew Klam
Continue reading ROUND BLACK GLASSES: The Reboot