Asbury Park Comic Con is this Saturday

Curls Studio has had such a great time at the past two Asbury Park Comic Con events, that we decided to exhibit for the third edition. This time around the event is taking place at the much larger Convention Hall, directly on the boardwalk on the Jersey shore. The organizers have also added a cosplay contest and panel discussions to the festivities. Each event gets bigger and better!

There are some really great guests including Bob Camp (co-creator of The Ren & Stimpy Show), Al Jaffee (MAD magazine), Dean Haspiel (HBO's Bored to Death), Stephanie Buscema (My Little Pony cover artist), Michael Uslan (executive producer of many Batman films), Brian O'Halloran (Dante Hicks from Kevin Smith's Clerks films), Evan Dorkin (Beasts of Burden), the guys from AMC's Comic Book Men, and many more!

Tickets are available online thru March 29 for $12, but if you pay at the door they will be $15. Also I just found out that parking fees do not go in effect until April, so hooray for free parking in the entire town of Asbury Park!

We hope to see you this Saturday, March 29, 2013 from 10AM to 6PM.

Recap: Asbury Park Comic Con 2

On September 29, 2012, Curls Studio journeyed north to Asbury Park, New Jersey for the lovely second edition of Asbury Park Comic Con. The first show was this past May (read that recap here), and with a bit over two months left in the year, it is safe to say that Asbury is the show that is fresh with attitude we enjoy. The attendees are eager to try new material, which is always a plus. Many of them were attending their first comic show.

If you haven't been to this event yet, you must make plans to attend the next one. First of all, it's in a kitschy throwback bowling alley, Asbury Lanes. I love the environment. The organizers may be expanding to the Asbury Park Convention Hall directly on the boardwalk for future shows. Hopefully this will allow for more exhibitors and more breathing room, but at the same time I will miss the bowling alley for old times sake. The convention hall space looks like it will be a lot of fun in it's own right.

I like to visit the town of Asbury Park because I see something new every time and artistic character is incorporated into the landscape. We also enjoyed hanging out with our pals Lauren Jaslow, Dre Grigoropol, Rafer Roberts, Reilly Brown, Dean Haspiel, Dave Ryan, and everyone else we met at the show. Big ups to Cliff Galbraith who runs the show. We really appreciate the fact that shows like this exist with people starting something fun for all.

The following day, we ate at Frank's Deli Restaurant for breakfast, walked around Asbury for a couple hours, then drove to Red Bank to visit Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash, the comic book shop owned by filmmaker Kevin Smith. There is a lot of movie memorabilia inside from Clerks, Zack & Miri Make a Porno, and more. There is original art on the wall and we spotted some inks by Jimmy Palmiotti. The joint is vibrant and best described as well-decorated pop culture clutter. We saw the area where they record podcasts and AMC's Comic Book Men show. Toast even came with us and got to meet Buddy Christ from Dogma. Kevin Smith is a big influence to Joe and I and it was a worthwhile trip to make since we were in the area and have been wanting to visit for awhile. Take a listen to Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes talking about Curls Studio here.

You can check out more photos of Asbury Park Comic Con 2 on the Curls Studio Facebook page. Give us a "Like" and let's be friends.

Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith Talk about Curls Studio

Curls Studio is a sponsor of S.I.R. (SModcast Internet Radio). Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith talked about Curls Studio in the Monday, May 23, 2011 episode of Jay and Silent Bob Get Jobs.

Have a listen to a very cool part of Jay and Silent Bob Get Jobs. The audio is hosted with Astray Productions at: http://goastray.tumblr.com/post/5791791475/jason-mewes-and-kevin-smith-talk-about-curls


This is not our first interaction with Kevin Smith. We got to meet him on my birthday in 2010. Above is a photo of that moment. Kevin is holding a script of the latest feature film from Astray Productions, The Incident In Tesla.

Your Schedules - Curls: Days of the Week

Last week, I invited everyone to submit their schedules to the Curls Webcomic - and now here are the results! I am really impressed with how creative the schedules are... in addition, it is so interesting to me what everyone is up to! A huge thank you goes out to everyone who participated. Please go visit the following sites:

Carolyn Belefski (my sample schedule) - Curls


Ali Thompson - Best Available Productions


Jose Capetillo - @realchicofiesta


Joe Carabeo - Astray Productions


Jim Coon - Last Dollar Comics


Troy-Jeffrey Allen - Typographic Era


Rafer Roberts - Plastic Farm


Susan Page - More than Just Super Friends

Curls: Days of the Week

I don't post each strip to the Curls Studio Production Blog, so in case you didn't know, I have a webcomic called Curls which updates every Monday and Thursday at http://www.curls-studio.com/curls.


Here's a handy weekly schedule to remind you to read the Curls Webcomic every Monday and Thursday. In addition I've filled out my upcoming week for you and in return I ask you to do the same. Maybe you have an improv class scheduled? Or you are taking your child to soccer practice? Either way, Curls wants to know what is going on in your life! Send me your upcoming week and I'll post it on the blog and link to your site. You can use a tablet, like I've done or you can print out the blank one above fill it out by hand and take a photo or scan it. Email your schedule to info@curls-studio.com by 10 PM EST Monday, March 14th to be included in the blog post.

Feel free to post the schedule on your blog or website to let people know about the Curls Webcomic. Thank you!

Hourly Comic Day 2011

Less than 24 hours ago I did not know about Hourly Comic Day, but when I arrived at work and logged on to Twitter, many people were tweeting about it (hashtag: #hourlycomicday). Apparently every February 1st is Hourly Comic Day. From what I gather, participants are encouraged to do a comic every hour they are awake. I figured why not try it? Above are the 15 panels I did in 15 hours.

Note: The Hourly Comic is broken up into three parts. Please click on each to read and click on the image if you need to zoom in more.

In addition, today made me wonder - why do cartoonists do this to themselves? Cartooning can be very painful, yet people keep coming up with these challenges. Don't get me wrong, I actually enjoy them. I participated in 24 Hour Comics Day in 2008, which we did a full page every hour for 24 hours straight. If you didn't know this by now, cartoonists are crazy!

In all seriousness, this challenge was good because it got me to draw faster and just put it out there. It's not perfect and sometimes that makes my style more loose, which can be interesting. Also I don't even know if I did the challenge correctly. I did one panel every hour as opposed to a full three-panel comic. I don't know if there were any rules to this and I also saw a few online with one panel. Either way I did something today.

Let me know if you have a specific panel you like. I like 1PM and the way I drew my hat at 5PM. What do you like about my Hourly Comic?