Hey guys, just a quick heads up here to let you know that I'm still selling original art for $100 a pop! Pending availability, you can purchase any strip in the archives. Original art is 5" x 15", drawn with Micron pens on heavy stock Bristol board, and mailed in an awesome tube. The original art is without color or text, so that's why each piece of art sold comes with a high-quality glossy print of the final colored strip that appeared on the website. All you have to do is email me with a link to the strip you want to buy, and I'll let you know if it's still available. You can pay securely with a credit card through Google Checkout (faster), or you can pay by check or money order (slower).
If you have a favorite strip you'd like to own, better get on that! It's first come, first serve.
P.S. I'm really proud of the last panel in today's strip. I really had to break free of my deeply-ingrained habits to draw it, and I think it came out pretty okay!
Good Monday News! I can't believe I'm actually saying this, but it looks like a member of Blank Label Comics has been nominated for an Eisner Award! That's right, Brad Guigar's feature "Phables" has been nominated for the cartooning industry's highest honor, and we couldn't be happier for him. Brad's been nominated for "Best Digital Comic", so make sure to get the word out. This is one small step in Brad, and one giant leap for webcomicskind. Heck, it's a giant leap for Brad, too. Giant leaps all around, I'm feeling generous!
Regarding the strip, which I haven't talked about in a while, I just wanted to let you guys know that we're just about ready to wrap up this storyline we've been following for the past few months. I tried to break it up into manageable 2-3 week chunks, so I hope it wasn't too arduous for you guys. I remember back at the end of last December I said that I had the next six months or so of Ugly Hill planned out, and it looks like I was right on the money for once. "The Price of Success" saga should wrap up around the end of May, beginning of June if everything goes as planned. Then it's back to business as usual... or is it? You never know! Somebody could die! I haven't killed a major character in a long time, and the second anniversary of the strip is coming up on May 23rd. Maybe it's time to shake things up again?
I wasn't even planning on posting anything here today, but I wanted to get that stuff about Virginia Tech off the screen. We've all been inundated with it for the last week, and you don't need to be assaulted with it when you come here, too. This should be a happy place, full of glittering rainbows and free Egg McMuffins when you buy one at regular price. So I thought I'd talk about something I got in the mail yesterday that made me happy; Volume 1 of "The Complete Peanuts".
For those who don't know, "The Complete Peanuts" is an effort by Fantagraphics books to collect every single Peanuts strip ever created into a series of 25 books, with two years worth of strips per volume, over a 12 year period. I didn't really become a Peanuts fan until I was in my 20s, but since then I've read just about everything I can get my hands on about Charles Schulz. He was a soft-spoken, talented man who essentially created the template on which all modern comic strips are based, and the chance to own every single strip he ever drew was too great. I finally broke down and bought the first one, and I plan on collecting them all over the next decade or so. I've got some catching up to do, but when my son or daughter is old enough, I want to be able to pass along this entire set to them, then make them sit at the kitchen table and read every strip, all 18,000 of them, until they hate me.
So, uh... hey. What's, uh... what's new? Pretty uneventful day yesterday. I mean, it's not like the worst shooting rampage in American history went down or anything, right? It's not like some crazy dude put on a bullet-proof vest and murdered over thirty people in a locked classroom at Virginia Tech, right? I mean, that would have been pretty eventful, and if that had happened, I'll bet that's all we'd hear about for weeks to come! Both political parties would jump on it and try to use it as leverage for their own personal ambitions, Fred Phelps and his army of hateful bigots would protest the victims' funerals, and Jack Thompson would blame Q-Bert for poisoning the minds of America's youth. The networks and 24-hour news channels would play some cell phone footage taken by a student at the scene where you can hear gunshots and somebody screaming in agony over and over again until we could all recite it by heart, and eventually they'd make a movie about it starring some young up-and-coming actors, because nobody will believe Brad Pitt as a 20-something college student anymore. Oliver Stone would direct.
So, if you're like me, you sat down and loaded up the site this morning, read the comic, then looked back at the last two panels in amazement. Is Paul Southworth really that out of touch? Does he actually think people still dress like that? Is he using a photo reference from a 1991 MC Hammer concert? To answer your question; yes, apparently I really am that out of touch, because throughout the entire process of first penciling, then inking, then coloring this comic, I never once questioned my choices. Red backwards hat? Yeah! Over-sized golden medallion? Of course! Six-inch-high flat top haircut? That's what all the cool kids are wearing! Only now when I see it in the cruel, cold light of day do I realize how hopelessly lame I really am. Evidently, when I think "cool, urban youth", I think Kid n' Play. Tune in tomorrow, when we'll feature a young man who performs spoken rhymes in time to rhythmic music or, as I like to call it, "rap". I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
I mentioned it Friday, but if you missed it we have an RSS feed. So like, if feeds is your thing, we... uh, we have one. Funky fresh!
I hope everybody wore the appropriate attire today; bloodstained hockey mask with a rusty meat cleaver and unwashed coveralls. No? How could you not be prepared for St. Voorhees' Day, the High Holy Day of Dismemberment? You could have at least pretended to drown at the bottom of a lake and opened your eyes menacingly seconds before the movie ends. Didn't you even think to schedule a knock down, drag out fight to the death with other child-murdering psychopaths with weird finger-knives and bad complexions? Where's your Friday the 13th spirit?
Two things: as of right this minute, there is approximately two days left on the Ugly Hill original figure auction. Ben worked hard on these, and the money is going to a good cause! Our pocketbooks! That's right, we carry pocketbooks. Nice ones. Also, if you'll notice, I've added several little buttons below the comic that will help you to read Ugly Hill more easily in the future, as well as share it with friends, family members, and your fellow child-murdering psychopaths.
Have a godo weekend, everybody. Haha, "godo". I'm going to leave that typo in there, because it tickles me.
CLEARWATER, FL, April 11, 2007- Popular post pop-artist, Todd Goldman who has made a career of making fun of the world with his sarcastic commentary and cartoon icons, has mistakenly used the design of an another artist in two of his recent paintings. Todd’s painting, “Dear God, Please Make Everyone Die”, was inspired from a drawing he received unbeknownst to him belonging to an underground web comic artist David “Shmorky” Kelly.
In addition to painting, Todd designs t-shirts for his clothing company, David & Goliath. Todd and his design team create and receive thousands of design ideas every month. It’s no secret that Goldman creates a lot of his painting ideas from his t-shirt designs. Goldman says “I made a judgment error and didn’t research the background of this particular submission. “My intention was not to copy Mr. Kelly. I have never seen his work before and would never intentionally knock-off someone else’s idea.”
Goldman has issued a formal apology to Mr. Kelly and has stated that he will not be using his design again in the future. As a gesture of good faith, Goldman has pledged not profit from his mistake. He will instead donate his proceeds from the painting directly to Mr. Kelly or his charity of choice.
So basically, Todd Goldman solicits t-shirt designs from the public and doesn't check their sources? Good idea! It's like Threadless, with a missing chromosome. What a jerk. Well, at least he copped to being an uncreative dope, and God willing, maybe this will make his next buyer pause before purchasing his next "work of art" for thousands of dollars.
Also, special thanks go out to Scott Kurtz for helping me come up with the offensive language in today's comic. Inventing a derogatory term for a race of fake one-eyed thing that kind of looks like a muppet is harder than it sounds! Hmmm... looks like another comic is exploring the issue of racial slurs today. Jeffrey, I strongly suggest you get yourself lawyered up. I smell a frivolous lawsuit that will tax us both mentally and financially until one of us is found in contempt of court for urinating on a juror.
Ugh. Holidays suck the life right out of me. I left my house at 8:30am yesterday morning and didn't get home until 7pm. It's like a work-day! I fully expect to see this reflected in my paycheck next week. Grr... But hey, it's Monday, and that means new comics, so that's good I guess, right? Something I forgot to mention last Friday was that avid Ugly Hill reader and globe-trotting platypus biologist/adventurer Benjamin Hayden is auctioning off his entire set of hand-made Ugly Hill figures on Ebay! We're splitting the profits on this one; I came up with the ideas, and he did all the work. I could get used to this! The auction ends soon, so if you want'em, make sure to put in your bid. Hey here comes a bunch of links! T-shirts, Viper Comics, Message Board, email. I'm going to assume you know what to do with those. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got two pieces of pumpkin pie, one piece of chocolate cake, and three brownies to digest. Yeah, that's right. Three.
Hello new readers, and welcome to Ugly Hill! It's a comic strip about life in a small town, family, work, school, and everything in between. Did I mention the people are monsters? I should probably mention that. If you're new to the strip, I encourage you to visit the About page, and also to troll through the Archive. There's about two and a half years worth of full-color monstrosities in there, so I hope you packed one of those inflatable butt-donuts; you're in for a long haul. See the links in the side bar to the right for supplemental Ugly Hill materials, as well as contact information and links to other quality webcomics.
Speaking of quality comics, I would like to take this opportunity to say I'm proud to be joining the Viper Comics family and publishing alongside such webcomic professionals as Wes Molebash, Frank Page, Worth Gowell, Bryan Chojnowski, and Pat Bussey, as well as all the other print artists currently publishing with Viper. I look forward to working with the these guys to bring Ugly Hill to a wider audience, and basically just put out a good strip.
So welcome! If you're new here, let me know what you think by dropping me an email, or leaving a message at the Blank Label or Viper Comics forum, and look to this space for more Ugly Hill stuff in the weeks and months to come!
