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Ogo is here. Hide your ice cream and beer. July 15, 2014 09:21

Ever since I started "Kiskaloo" I've been asked if I'll ever make a plush of the cat, Ogo.  Well, I wanted to, just like I want to get back to drawing the comic and learn deep-sea welding.  Even though I've had enough time to write more than a year's worth of strips, I'm still so swamped with other projects that I haven't been able to get enough ready to publish.  Same story with the plush.  Except you can add "I don't even know where to start" to the "I never have enough time," and, "Don't people have enough trouble in their lives already without adding a one-eyed cat with a propensity for mischief?"

Well, ready or not, Jess decided it was time.  She took point on this one, shepherding Ogo all the way from prototype to testing to labeling to shipping.  So if you let Ogo into your house and twenty minutes later you can no longer find your car keys or your car, you can blame her for it.

Seated, this Ogo is ten inches tall from his bean-ballasted bottom to the tip of his ears.  His giant head is filled with just the right amount of fluff to make him soft to squeeze yet firm and pleasing to pat on the head.  With his vaguely blank expression and unblinking stare you will forever wonder what he is thinking.  I've had him in my room for a few weeks now, and I swear he sometimes seems happy, and other times he is decidedly frowning depending on what's going on.  He looks happier near the liquor bottles and sofa, and sad when he's fallen over or when you haven't talked about him for too long.  The above picture was taken in Boulder, Colorado.  I asked him to smile but he was looking past the camera at something.  A dog, I think.  Or a pizza restaurant over my left shoulder.

If you would like to bring your very own Ogo home with you, he requests that he sit on the part of your sofa closest to the TV.  He would also like it if you stocked Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia ice cream and Bugles corn chips. He likes long car rides and movies about bad weather and/or vampires and monsters.  Submarine movies of any kind are also appreciated.  DO NOT under any circumstances let him watch "Trilogy of Terror" or any episode of "Pippi Longstocking" if you want to sleep through the night.  He prefers coffee to tea and if you serve him the latter he will likely pour it on your carpet or down a heat register and spend the next few months collecting the dead flies from your windowsills to glue to a card in letters that spell T-E-A  S-U-C-K-S for your refrigerator.  He likes the snow and also beaches.  He thinks he can do more than he can.  If he asks for kitchen knives or power tools tell him you don't have any.  Don't let him write letters or play on the computer.


Mugs ahoy! September 21, 2012 10:40

Good morning!  Well, a lot's been happening since I last posted.  Croods is zooming along (more on that later) but on the home front the interesting thing is that our mugs have been selling well, and all have been arriving at their destinations in good time.  Meanwhile, I've been scouring the country buying up as many of the Indian Red Polychromos pencils that I can, because I discovered during Dragons that I like drawing with them.  The brick color is easy on the eyes and I think it blends nicely with the colors I might wash on afterwards.  Unfortunately I ran out and after trips to three art supply stores I came up with only five pencils.  So I began searching the internet and found that they seemed to be missing from the planet in general.  There didn't seem to be a lack of green or blue pencils, leading me to wonder where Indian Red ones were coming from.  I have several theories, ranging from dried reddish lemur dung to a deep mine in Mojave run by a smallish tribe of night dwelling trolls.  The latter theory would explain the sporadic supply, as trolls are lazy and only trade their precious red minerals for bags of uncooked black beans and lengths of the manilla rope that they favor.  It must be especially harrowing for the art-supply employee, elected by the choosing of a short straw, to drive into the desert at night and sit by the entrance of an open shaft with his bags of beans and coils of rope to listen for the scrabbling and scratching of troll claws as they come out of their terrible holes, offering handfuls of red mineral by moonlight.  The skittish pencil salesman would allow his pockets to be filled with the precious red dirt and endure the occasional exploratory bite on his hands, then bid farewell to the monsters as they drag their rope and beans underground, chuckling and burping.

Thanks to the bold and adventurous men and women of the art supply industry I'm happy to report I received several boxes of the rare Indian Red pencils yesterday.  So now I'm drawing again, and will be for many months before my stock is gone.

I've been writing Kiskaloo, preparing to start drawing again in late December.  I always try to have a backlog of comics written before I draw, as my greatest anxiety is the writing.  Once that's done, the drawing and inking is fun.

Girl with coffee


Mug alert! July 17, 2012 10:31

Okay, so I tweeted about this yesterday, but I wanted to get this out on my Blog and DA as well.  There were two batches of the Ogo mugs made before the Con.  The first one had some rather large defects, and so a second run was ordered.  This was the first, defective version.

Yikes!

The second batch was perfect, and it promptly sold out in San Diego.

I was surprised then, when an Ebay seller suddenly had more than ten Ogo mugs for sale.  On closer examination of the sellers photo we saw that it was in fact, a mug from that bad batch.  Note the similarity.  The easiest way to tell is that the eye patch is solid black.

I had considered destroying that batch, and now, in retrospect, I really should have spent an afternoon in my driveway with a beer hat and a hammer.  But now those defective mugs are out there.  About a hundred of them.  Curiously, in the description, this seller decided these mugs were originally sold at the 2007 Con.  Why they chose that one is a mystery, as I would have to have been so bumbling that I would sell badly made mugs of my own character, but I would also have to be so clever that I could build a time machine and instead of going back to Dallas so I could wait at Dealey Plaza and yell to JFK that his shoe was untied, causing him to lean over and thus saving his life, I instead opted to travel back to San Diego to distribute coffee mugs.

Anyway, I Tweeted about the bad mugs, and magically the Ebay picture updated itself with this one -

Now, I guess it's possible this seller got busy last night and fixed the mugs with White-Out and a really small brush and then went to my kitchen and shot a new picture.   But I think if you buy this mug you're still gonna get the other one.   I'm not mentioning the seller or their location because, you know, finders keepers.  They can sell the mugs if they want to, and anyone can buy them.  Especially people who like cats with solid eye patches and black tails.

So this whole thing has prompted us to order another run of the correct mugs, and get them up on the net as soon as possible.  The run will take about two to four weeks, and as soon as they arrive I'll offer them for sale.  Until then, beware the Ogo mug - there may be good ones for sale that came from the San Diego Con, but batches of over ten are unlikely as we sold no more than three to any one person.  So, note the picture on this Ebay page - it's the same one I shot and posted on this blog.  If someone is selling the genuine article it's likely they'll shoot a picture of their own mug sitting on their own desk.

Enough about that.  On to other things - have a great day!


Booth 5534 continued... July 10, 2012 10:32

More merchandise pictures!

I've always wanted to bring mugs to the Con, and this year that dream comes true!  These are heavy, so I'll not bring a lot.  But I'll bring about a hundred and see what happens.

That's the Morgan mug on the left.  Morgan is a character I'll add to Kiskaloo this year.  And yes, he runs a diner.

Ogo buttons.  They glow in the dark.  As all buttons should.

See?  I always have the urge to hold them against the end of my nose.  But that's just me.

Dream Catcher print, color by Christina Strain.

Party Witches print, color by Christina as well!

Finally, all the free buttons available at my booth.  I'll have some free Ogo tattoos as well, and I'll post them tonight.  One button is offered every day.  The little square one is for preview night.


Today's the day... January 28, 2010 18:34

Okay, so I always said I'd get the word out if I sold any original art.  Today's the day.  I'm currently selling two of my favorite drawings.  Ones that I swore I'd never let go of.

But this is an exceptionally good reason to change that rule.

The first drawing is the first Kiskaloo thing I ever did.  I wanted to see if I could draw that cat and ink him successfully.   I tried for a couple of weeks.  Then I got it right.

This is actually a good size for hanging on your wall.  Or as a placemat.

The second drawing is a pencil sketch I did for my Sketchbook 2.  I liked the way this came out, and since I don't get that much time to draw, any art from me is relatively rare.  Again, this is pretty good-sized.  At least one person in America has this tattooed on their calf.  Their lower leg that is, not a young bovine friend.

And...(and this is the important part) you should know that if for some reason these aren't your thing, go to the links anyway, and click the 'see other items' button.  Because there are some once-in-a-lifetime drawings and paintings being offered for sale.  And if you aren't interested in any of them, you should know that someone out there is, and will thank you for spreading the word about this auction.

Links -

http://cgi.ebay.com/Tattoo-Girl-Original-Drawing-by-CHRIS-SANDERS_W0QQitemZ250569849839QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item3a57207bef

and

http://cgi.ebay.com/Original-KISKALOO-Comic-Art-by-CHRIS-SANDERS_W0QQitemZ250569846648QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item3a57206f78

There's a Charles Schultz drawing offered, for goodness sake.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Original-Peanuts-Charlie-Brown-Art-by-CHARLES-SCHULZ_W0QQitemZ250566071183QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item3a56e6d38f