The Abominable Charles Christopher

Guest Strip – Skottie Young

karl — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:00:16 +0000

I met Skottie Young years ago in Chicago when we were both working on different Marvel Comics projects. We talked a lot about doing our own work, experimenting with different art styles and formats, and creating comics we were passionate about. Now it’s several years later, and Skottie just hit the New York Times bestseller list with his stunning adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. If you haven’t seen this yet, please go and check it out. It’s a gorgeous hardcover edition and an example of Skottie at his fearless, energetic best.
He’s also got a 300-page hardcover sketchbook that you can buy here!

I was thrilled that Skottie agreed to do this guest strip for me. That first panel of Charles bounding cluelessly through the forest is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.

Happy Halloween!

karl — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:00:45 +0000

Blargh, indeed. I’m missing Halloween.
But to make up for it, I’m in Lisbon, doing a signing at Kingpin Books!
And this weekend I’ll be at the Lille Comics Festival in France!

That’s a fair trade, I think.

Evidence!

karl — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:00:37 +0000

I’m off to Europe tomorrow!
I’ll be gone for a month, but The Abominable Charles Christopher will continue each Wednesday, as scheduled, and I’ll try to blog some fun photos and sketches from abroad. If you find yourself near any of the shows or stores listed below, stop on by and say hello!

Au revoir!
-karl

TX Euro-Tour 2009

karl — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:03:43 +0000

I’ll be travelling around Europe with fellow TX pals Ramón Pérez and Cameron Stewart for the next month, appearing at various comics festivals and shops. If you’re nearby and can make it to any of the following events, I’d love to see you!
The Amadora Festival in Portugal is especially exciting because our webcomics work will be on display in the gallery. If you’d like to see the original art from our TX strips, this is the place to go!

October 23-25
Festival Internacional de Banda Desenhada na Amadora (FIBDA)
Amadora, Portugal

October 28
Kingpin Books
Lisbon, Portugal

October 31-November 1
Lille Comics Festival
Lille, France

November 2
Album Librarie
Paris, France

November 7-8
La Fete De La BD
Andennes, Belgium

November 11
Alastor Milano Fumetto
Milan, Italy

November 12
Alastor Novara
Novara, Italy

November 15
Forbidden Planet
Dublin, Ireland

November 16
Comica – ICA Nash Room 7:30pm
London, England

November 19
Orbital Comics
London, England

November 21-22
Thoughtbubble Festival
Leeds, England

More details as I get ‘em!

Smelling Assaults

karl — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 13:00:18 +0000

Thief!

karl — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:00:28 +0000

Grizzly Bear

karl — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 17:04:05 +0000

What? Another painting??
Yes! This one will be available as a print at the Andenne Comics Festival in November, where I’ll be a guest. I’m touring Europe with TX pals Cameron Stewart and Ramón Pérez throughout most of November – six countries in one month!

I’ll post dates here soon, so check back and make sure to come and see us if we’re in your neighbourhood.

Sandpiper

karl — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 15:32:26 +0000

Just thought I’d post this for fun. It’s a birthday card I made for my girlfriend’s dad (he’s renowned for his skinny sandpiper legs) and it’s a painting style I’ve been experimenting with.
I’m thinking of doing a book of animal paintings like this. Possibly a children’s book.

Possibly an Abominable Charles Christopher children’s book…

Membership Has Its Privileges

karl — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 13:00:51 +0000

Wednesday Comics Winner!

karl — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:59:24 +0000

After a gruelling twelve weeks of fierce competition, the Wednesday Comics Contest has come to an explosive end!
Actually, I just picked a random name from the email entries. But it was exciting for me!
Congratulations to young Evan Shaner of Aurora, Colorado! He’ll receive an original Abominable Charles Christopher drawing from me, which I am going to go and draw right now.
Thanks to everyone for participating. And in all sincerity, I hope you enjoyed Wednesday Comics. It was a treat for me to work on and I’m very proud of it. Hopefully there’s a nice hardcover collection in the works.

Here’s a photo of the happy winner…

And here’s Charles hiding among the flowers. Not unusual, really…

Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker

karl — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:00:08 +0000

Rumble Royale

karl — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:39:10 +0000

I actually used this gag repeatedly in Teen Titans: Year One, but I always find it funny. In fact, the tag line of this whole series could be: ‘Animals Frightened by Loud Noises’.
Perhaps that’ll be the title of my memoirs…

Reunion

karl — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 13:30:07 +0000

Wow, our first glimpse of Charles in what seems like months! I missed him. And if you still haven’t gotten your fill of the big guy, don’t worry – he’ll be back in full force next week!
Today is 09-09-09, which is extra cool because TX Comics is debuting brand new material!

Ramón Pérez & Rob Coughler’s ButternutSquash joins the TX ranks!
Eric Vedder’s Aardehn officially launches today, with fifty strips in the archive!
And Eric Kim’s new series Streta is here and it’s beautiful!

Please give the new recruits a welcome over at TX Central and let us know what you think…

Toronto Wrap-Up

karl — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 17:35:28 +0000

Howdy howdy howdy.
Thanks to everyone who came out to see me in Toronto last weekend! The TX crew was well represented and it was a real pleasure to meet so many of the people who are reading and supporting The Abominable Charles Christopher.
Thought I’d post some pics from the weekend. The first is a photo of a Townsen Tattoo sent to me by Emily. She loves foxes. A lot. I was surprised and flattered that she chose Townsen to be a permanent part of her body – it’s always weird to see my drawings take on lives of their own outside of the comic.
Next is a sketch I did of Charles climbing the mountain. I liked the way it turned out, and Jonathan was kind enough to scan it and send it to me.
If you received a sketch from me or have a story to share, post it in the TX Forum. If you don’t… well, come and see me at the Montreal Comic-Con and I’ll do one for you!

Domesticity

karl — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 00:24:33 +0000

Chapter Two begins here!

Thanks to everyone who came out to see me at FanExpo Toronto! There were lots of guests there specifically to meet the TX crew, and I did a bunch of Charles Christopher sketches for people (mostly Townsen sketches, actually, but who’s counting?).
I’m on a train from Toronto to Montréal right now, but I’ll start posting sketches in the forum when I get a chance.

The Cedar Forest Players Present: The Godfather

karl — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 00:09:57 +0000

Fun Fact: I originally drew a James Caan fox in the background of panel three, but there was so much dialogue that he was getting lost behind word balloons, so I removed him.
Look how they massacred my boy…

FanExpo Toronto!

karl — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:47:44 +0000

The Transmission X creators* will be special guests at the upcoming Toronto FANEXPO being held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre on August 28-30th. Transmission X will be located in the Special Guests area.

To get things started TX Comics will be hosting the following panel on webcomics on Friday at 5PM in room 713A:

Webcomics 101
Presented by TX Comics

Ever wanted to create your own comic, but don’t know where to begin? The popularity of digital comics is exploding, and the web is destined to become a major entertainment medium. Join the creators of the critically acclaimed webcomics collective TX Comics for an informative, interactive, and lively discussion of the advantages of creating a webcomic and publishing to the world wide web for fun and profit. Topics include the benefits of self-publishing on the web, promoting your webcomic, tips and tricks, and technical advice from the pros!

Show hours are as follows:
Friday: 4PM – 9PM**
Saturday: 10AM – 7PM
Sunday: 11AM – 6PM

** Advance pass members can gain access to the show on Friday at 2pm.

* Cameron Stewart, Karl Kerschl, Ramón Pérez, Andy Belanger, Scott Hepburn, Brian McLachlan, Michael Cho, and Eric Vedder, along with two new creators joining the TX collective.

Lonelybear15

karl — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:54:02 +0000

This concludes the personal ads, at least for a while. I’ve been trying to keep the strips simple as I focus on production of the print collection (which is going smoothly so far!) and tie up some existing work-for-hire projects I have on the go.
Remember: the Wednesday Comics Contest is still underway! It’ll wrap up once all twelve issue have hit the stands (five weeks to go!) and the winner will receive an original sketch from me.
Probably of an animal.

See you next week!
-karl

Love On The Rocks

karl — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 19:45:42 +0000

These personal ads are a lot of fun, and I can do them quickly enough that I don’t need to rely on guest strips! I’ll probably do one more week of these and then get back into some meatier comics. I miss Charles.

In book news, I’m slowly getting material together for a print collection of the first ‘Abominable’ chapter, which means producing a bunch of new artwork and some supplemental stuff, as well as reviewing paper stock, figuring out distribution, etc. More about this as events unfold. If you have ideas about things you’d like to see in the book, let me know in the comments!

And lastly… the Wednesday Comics Contest is underway! Many of you have sent in your entries to win an original sketch, but there’s still time! I won’t be choosing a winner until all of the issues are on the stands. See below for the deets…

Big Girls Need Love Too

karl — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 18:04:24 +0000

More personal ads!
I chose this week’s animal after perusing the ‘Request Thread’ on the Abominable Facebook Group. Turns out that walruses ranked pretty high on the list, and rightly so.
I should mention that the titles of these posts and a lot of the text are straight out of actual personal ads I’ve found online. You can’t make some of this stuff up…