Kellett Interviewed on “Art & Story”

Dave talks about how he creates a “Sheldon” strip, why the strip is family-friendly, why he “chose” comic strips in the first place, and even about the “How To Make Webcomics” book during a 1-hour interview at “Art & Story”. (Note: Interview starts at the 10-minute point in the audio file.)

Indie Comic is now chainsawsuit

Remember Indie Comic from the old Halfpixel? It’s got its own site now and a new name! Chainsawsuit.com. Go check it out, it updates MWF.

From a How To Make Webcomics perspective, it’ll be interesting to see how a new strip develops and what popularity it attains.

From a me perspective, I don’t care about that. They’re ideas I have nowhere else to put, so in the spirit of webcomics, you get to read them!

Dave Kellett @ Wizard World LA (March 14-16)

Come on out to the Wizard World show, running this Friday through Sunday at the huge LA Convention Center: Dave Kellett of “Sheldon” will be appearing all three days at table 2820.

Dave will be signin’ and sellin’ and chattin’ and high-fivin’. There will be free, awesome sketches in your Sheldon book purchase, and all Sheldon Original Strip Art is $25 off the normal price!

Don’t forget to ask for your 2008 Commemorative Wizard World High-Five: we’re only bringing 98!

logo_sheldon_large_300_costco.jpg

Daily Drunkfirmation

Scott came up to the house and we messed around for a while — but most importantly, we updated the Halfpixel.com layout to the new sweetness it is now.

Welcome to the new Halfpixel.com

Kris, Dave, Brad and myself would like to welcome you to the brand new Halfpixel.com.

For the longest time, Kris and I have failed in our duty to update this site to better reflect what the four of us are up to. This is a new direction for Halfpixel as a hub for all things “How to Make Webcomics.”

It’s our greatest desire to turn Halfpixel.com into the premiere stop for people interested in making their own comic strips and publishing them to the web. We hope to expand the site even further with guest columns, shop talk, and errata for the How to Make Webcomics book.

So add us to your bookmarks if you haven’t already and prepare to have your creative balls smashed.

Scott Kurtz
Cartoonist
Kris’ house in White Rock
(A little drunk)

Dr. Straub

Halfpixel is proud to congratulate Kris Straub for his staring appearance in Marvel’s new direct-to-video movie: Dr. Strange!

(This is Kris’ second appearance in a Marvel direct-to-video movie. He was previously seen playing Jean Grey in 1998’s “X-Men 4: Now With More Acting.”)

Jinxlet Pre-Order!

It’s all Mr. Jinx’s fault. The Ganymede Zoological Station is flooded with adorable Jinxlets! They can’t take care of them all! So a lot of these cuddly Cirbozoids need new homes. Click here for video!

These Jinxlet plushes stand about 10 inches tall and soft all the way through. The eyes are plush and sewn too — there’s no hard plastic on the outside anywhere.

The plushes are currently in pre-order, and are due for arrival mid-March 2008 and will be shipped immediately thereafter. But if you order the Jinxlet Adoption Kit, you (or your Valentine!) will receive an Adoption Kit in the mail by this February 14th containing:

• An adoption certificate from the Ganymede Zoological Station with your Jinxlet’s unique name on it
• A care and feeding guide for your Jinxlet
• A note from Memnon Vanderbeam about the “dire importance of your charge”

Give an Adoption Kit for Valentine’s Day this year or take one home for yourself!

Daily Vidfirmation #Who Knows - The College Strip Throwdown

The Expectation of Humor

This is something that I’ve thought about in the past, and something brought it up again for me today. I’ve been on a number of panels at comic conventions, and occasionally it will be at a smaller con with a “fan favorite” cartoonist sitting in.

At these panels, I’m nobody, brought on board for regional flavor. Most of the audience hasn’t heard of my work or my partnership with Scott, and they may only be vaguely aware of PvP. However, they’re completely head-over-heels for one of the other artists on the panel, whom they’re here to see.

We say funny things on panels. This is typical. But it’s in these scenarios where I will say something that gets a laugh with my readers, and it barely gets a pfft from that audience. Meanwhile, anything said by the other artist is guffawed at, declared a gem and hoisted onto the crowd’s shoulders.

I’m not talking about making a reference to something in Starslip — of course no one would get that. I mean a broad-spectrum gag, something you might hear on a podcast or Affirmation. You don’t have to know my work to laugh at that stuff. You just have to know I’m kidding.

There is something beyond just being funny that is required to actually be funny, and that’s familiarity, acceptance. Just like you can’t run up and tell dirty jokes to the boss on your first day of work, there is a handshake process that has to take place. What kind of person is the person trying to make you laugh right now? Would I like their work? Do they seem like they’re trying too hard to get a laugh or applause? (That is an instant mood-killer on a panel, one of those “Is everybody happy?!” kind of lines.)

I also think this enforcement of expectation is the reason why, largely, women comedians aren’t viewed as funny as men. I’m talking about stand-up in particular — accepting stand-up comedy, or any comedy, from someone you may have pigeonholed socially or culturally is tough.

Provided that I haven’t just offended you, consider the following: a guy walks into a room and his pants drop. Funny. (Not really, but kind of.) A woman walks into a room and her pants drop. There is an instant undercurrent of sexuality that has to be hurdled to accept this event as only funny — it doesn’t exist nearly as strongly in the scenario with the man. It’s kind of the way male newscasters can look like anything — from leading-man types to those with “interesting” faces to downright unattractive — while the women newscasters, young or old, have this standard of appearance they have to adhere to to get hired in the first place. We expect that, as a society. (Sadly.)

Granted I’m writing from a male viewpoint, and maybe, since our hypothetical pants-drop scene was probably filmed by a man, it was shot in service to that viewpoint (Google “the male gaze” in cinematography), but I think there’s a similar process of acceptance there for everyone. I had a friend in high school who would alienate new people he met very quickly because he poured on the jokes from the first second he met them. He would always tell me, “oh, they know I was kidding.” But they didn’t, and they avoided him, so the jokes were off-putting rather than familiarity-building. We end up questioning why the joke is being made. Am I supposed to think it’s funny the girl’s skirt ripped off, or am I supposed to ogle her legs? Am I supposed to laugh at this new guy’s jokes, or am I interpreting it as desperation for acceptance?

Keep that in mind for when I drop my pants at San Diego Comic-Con.

See ya later.

Halfpixel Babies 1

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