Welcome To The Zone

Stuff I’ve Been Posting On Patreon

I haven’t written here for a while, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy. I’ve been posting content regularly on my Patreon page, which of course you would know about if you were one of my sponsors. My main effort has been going to instructional perspective videos created in Adobe After Effects. Since the last time I wrote about this project, I’ve posted three more:

Drawing Perspective with David Chelsea: Simple Two-Point Perspective

Drawing Perspective With David Chelsea: Simple Three-Point Perspective

Drawing Perspective with David Chelsea: Three-Point Perspective Axioms

David Chelsea is reading: Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me
by Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O’Connell
 
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WELCOME TO THE ZONE Touches Bottom!

Today is the day! The long-awaited final installment of WELCOME TO THE ZONE drops on Patreon! To briefly recapitulate the situation, Jones the banjoist/wheatpaster has finally burst out of the cocoon of flyers that he was pasted into on page 35 by the caveman band The Bedrockers, whereupon he immediately lands on the back of a giant dog chasing a mounted policeman. All of them eventually plunge off a dock into the East River, and Jones finds himself in an underwater version of The Zone:

David Chelsea is reading: The Adventures of Phoebe Zeit-Geist
by Michael O’Donoghue and Frank Springer
 
Continue reading WELCOME TO THE ZONE Touches Bottom!

David Chelsea Talks WELCOME TO THE ZONE on WORDS & PICTURES

A week ago I dropped by the alternative radio station KBOO-FM to talk comics with host S.W. Conser on the long-running comics talk show WORDS & PICTURES. On previous shows I’ve promoted my 24 Hour Comics collections SLEEPLESS and EVERYBODY GETS IT WRONG!, the documentary 24 HOUR COMIC, and my instructional books on perspective, but this time I was there to talk about the new digital version of my 1995 graphic novel WELCOME TO THE ZONE, which I have been serializing on my Patreon page. Our discussion also touched on my time illustrating for the New York Times and The New York Observer (where I cashed checks from Presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner), 24 Hour Comics, and the uselessness of clients who insist on paying artists in the Coin Of Exposure. Since my appearance was on short notice, I didn’t have time to blog about it in advance, but the audio is archived here

David Chelsea is reading: Something Wonderful: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Broadway Revolution
by Todd S. Purdum
 
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Secret Stash: The Real Zoners

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
 
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The Artcasters #126!

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
 
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WELCOME TO THE ZONE: Out And About With Oot And Aboot

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:

WELCOME TO THE ZONE Rebooted: Enter Mugg

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
 
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Welcome Back To The Zone… Again

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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RIP, Steven Abrams

I have sad news to report. My old friend Steven Abrams died late last month of a heart attack at the age of 54. I first met Steve in 1992 at the San Diego Comics Convention when he was an intern with my first publisher Eclipse, and when he moved to New York shortly afterwards he became my assistant and letterer on Welcome To The Zone. After I moved to Portland and Steve moved to LA, we kept in touch by mail, even when everyone else had switched to pixels, and actually Steve was my last regular snail mail pen pal.

David Chelsea is watching:The Little Hours
starring Kate Micucci
 
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The Secret Stash On Patreon: Looking Glass Ads!

It’s been a while since I’ve posted about my Patreon page. Last Thursday I posted a new selection of Secret Stash material– a selection of newspaper ads drawn for the Portland Scribe advertising the Looking Glass Bookstore in the years between 1976 and 1978. The Looking Glass Bookstore was run by Bill Kloster and Katie Radditz, a married couple and good friends of mine. I had been a long time customer from the time I was in high school, frequently sneaking looks at the off-limits-to-minors underground comics they had displayed on a rack.

David Chelsea is reading: Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened
by Harry N. Abrams
 
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