This week we return to the action at New Crown City’s town square. Big changes are afoot as the Drago-saurus Mech is resurrected in another deadly form! Click the banner above or the links below for the latest updates!
To read this week’s update, click here:
http://act-i-vate.com/56-2-20.comic
To read last week’s update, click here:
http://act-i-vate.com/56-2-19.comic
To read from the beginning of Chapter 2, click here:
http://act-i-vate.com/56-2-1.comic
To read from the very beginning, click here:
http://act-i-vate.com/56.comic
Thanks for reading!
My Act-i-vate webcomic, The Transmigration of ULTRA-lad! has just been dealt a significant honor by being named Comic Critique’s Best Webcomic of 2008! Thank you so much, Adam McGovern and thank you Comic Critique! This is not something I expected seeing how this project is still very young but it’s a welcome affirmation of my hard work.
Here’s what Adam has to say,
2008 Eisner nominee Infurnari is standing at a celestial height from which the award’s namesake, the architects of early MAD, C.C. Beck, Chris Ware and Honoré Daumier can be seen clearly and their unlikely connections traced. ULTRA-Lad is faux-antiqued on simulated decomposing yellow paper in the most elegant of high-tech media, but “retro” doesn’t begin to describe this multi-directional ricochet from print-pop prehistory to the horizons of storytelling and up and down through the many layers of what it could be and never was. This is happy-warrior hero fiction better than what you remember, and dark Manichean meta-adventure with more indomitable charm than anyone else has realized is possible. Infurnari weaves a hallucinatory spell and enfolds the reader in immersive atmospheres with the lushest of stark ink and the most sparing of edible color. ULTRA-Lad is stream-of-consciousness storytelling from deep fairytale forests and the basements of mad geniuses far below utopian skyscraper kingdoms that never came. It seems random because the ideas fire so fast and assuredly that there’s no time for the artist to need overthinking or the reader to second-guess the cortical level at which the agile wordplay, dizzying humor, turbulent emotional shadings and acrobatic line enter present consciousness and comic history. It’s coming through to our continuum one page a week, completely free and pricelessly promising.
Thanks, everybody! I sincerely appreciate your loyalty, support and readership.
This Monday December 8th, I’ll have a story up at Smith Magazine as part of their online anthology of Next-Door Neighbor Stories edited by Dean Haspiel. Titled, Vs, this story was written by Alexis Sottile and I back in the day and it is a harrowing tale of my cryptozoological New York rental history! See! My terrible run-ins with vociferous fowls! Frankensteinian pooches! Tentacled jam bands! Drunken cro-magnons! Pill-pushing werewolves and many many more! IT’S ALL 100% TRUE MEMOIR COMICS AT THEIR FINEST! See you there!
So right off the top, I didn’t win the Eisner, folks. The award for Best Digital Comic went to Joss Whedon and Fabio Moon. I’m totally fine with this because, as many have already told me, it’s still an honor to have been nominated. It sure has been a great ride since the nominations were announced and I am pleased with how well things have developed.
San Diego Comic-con 2008 was largely about networking for me. I met a ton of people and had a great time socializing and taking in the sights. One major highlight would have to be meeting Shannon Wheeler of Too Much Coffee Man fame. Shannon joined “The Transmigration of ULTRA-lad!” group on Facebook and when I passed by his booth, I thought it would be nice to give him a postcard and thank him for his support. Little did I know how well we would hit it off! Shannon was so generous in offering his advice and assistance with publishers. Thanks to him, I will be pursuing other avenues I might not have otherwise considered. He even gave me a free Too Much Coffee Man T-shirt! WOW! This is but one of many great experiences this weekend.
While visiting my good friend, Scott Shaw!, I met Hugh Brown. It turns out that Hugh Brown was the art director for Rhino Records’ brilliant box set, “Weird Tales of the Ramones”. We spent some time talking about the many cool comics contained within this package before he told me about another project. Hugh is compiling a book of spoofs of famous paintings, sculptures and photographs united by their inclusion of a chainsaw! I was so glad to have pointed him to a Neil Jenney painting titled, “Sawn and Saw”. Who knows, maybe I have helped with this fun book idea in some way? Wouldn’t that be cool!?
I’d also like to thank some other friends who I was able to see again: Chris, Elizabeth and Oscar Wisnia, Chip Mosher and the Boom! gang, Scott Shaw!, Captain Asskick and Ducky, Gina Gagliano, Randy, Cory, James and Joe and the rest of the Oni crew, Scott Chantler, Brian Hurtt, Jeff Lemire, Johnny Ryan, Dan Bigelow, Cecil Castelluci, Matt Silady, Antony Johnston, and Christopher Mitten. Thanks everybody!
This year, I’ll be going to San Diego Comic-con solo. Normally, I travel there under the illustrious auspices of Caveman Robot but this year Team Cavey is taking a break from the insanity. In my case, the Eisner Nomination has me going down to ‘represent’. One of the new things I’ll try and ‘pimp’ out this year is my Act-i-vate webcomic, The Transmigration of ULTRA-lad!. One thing that will help me get the word out is this new postcard:
I’ll have more news as we get closer to the big event. In the meantime, thanks for reading!
I recently received a commission for a color sketch depicting Ultra-Lad, y’know that non sequitur character from page 20 of the Process? Well, here he is again in all his glory!
This is a fine example of the kind of color sketches I can do for YOU when you make a donation of at least $50. Have a favorite character or situation you would like to see me illustrate? Well, hit that there ‘donate’ button, add the appropriate dollar amount with your sketch request and click ‘send’! Very soon you’ll be receiving a little piece of wonder like this in the mail.
What, you say, “you’re still hyping!?” YES, cuz this sketch request was very well timed as I am planning on developing this character further. Keep your eyes peeled because you’ll never guess where he’ll turn up next!
