shufflin' off So, just a little note to the few people who might have subscribed to my RSS: I'm moving most of my web and blogging activity over to http://www.zacksoto.com/ , I'd love it if you adjusted your feed readers accordingly. I'll still be leaving this blog here for old links and whatnot, but I've transferred the whole dealio over there and will be using that site for the forseeable future. All part of having a working website that's a more effective portfolio. Since I'm awful at html, the WYSIWYG stylings of squarespace are going to work better for me overall. So yeah, check out the site and update your RSS. Thanks!  ¶ 10:02 AM 0 Comments

  frogmouth I got this sketch by one of my all time heroes, Jamie Hernandez, at the Emerald City Comic-con last week. I also had a kind of cool moment selling him some golden age boooks and cutting him a bit of a deal, as I was working the Cosmic Monkey booth there. Anyhow, he's a class act. Not sure exactly why I've avoided talking to him multiple times at various cons, but I think I was worried he'd be a dick (he was not). He asked what I wanted him to draw and I said "how about the Frogmouth being a bitch?" he smiled and said "when is she not?" and busted this little beaut out in a few minutes.

(vivian aka the Frogmouth as seen in various latter day Love and Rockets books)

oh yeah, stumptown is this weekend! come by the pony club table and say hi! I will probably not actually have new sketchbooks, but I will definitely have new prints for sale.  ¶ 1:21 AM 0 Comments

  Longhorn Rockers and Conventional Dating I did this for the mercury, it was out all this week. Soon to disappear, as new issues come out today (wed). I thought I'd posted about it already but obviously I didn't.

My first full color illo for the merc! pretty stoked (though it printed a little oddly). It was for an article on SXSW, and they asked for a more "rock poster" style, along the lines of that last tube ad. There was also art direction RE: the band and the crowd being longhorns. I went out to a show my friends in the band Reverse Dotty were playing and took pictures of them on stage to use them for the basis of the figures. Brian, Bobby and Tucker are playing music here but with cow heads, halftone filters, and line drawing on top. The people in the crowd were people in the crowd as well.
Anyhow, it ended up being a really fun assignment, and I'm hoping to have more chances to work for them.


also, I'll be at the Emerald City Comicon april 4th & 5th, but I won't be there as an artist type dude, I'll be working at the Cosmic Monkey Comics table and running around looking for cheap old comics when I get a chance.

Stumptown, however, I will be manning the table at the Pony Club Gallery table.
I have a new 6 page comic in the Sparkplug/Teenage Dinosaur/Tugboat free comic WORD HURDLER, that I think will be premiering at the convention. There's a bunch of good people in that one.
I should have copies of a new issue of GHOST ATTACK!?, as well as copies of the first one..
Hopefully I'll have some new prints and stuff too.

OK, this post was me procrastinating in between steps on a frustrating design, I'm going to take another crack at drawing these fucking caramel apples.  ¶ 3:57 AM 1 Comments

  WFH my first gig for the Portland Mercury is an illustration that hit the stands yesterday:

Pretty excited to hopefully do more for them.

and an ad I designed for tube that'll be in the Merc's Eat/Drink Supplement next week:


Also, my first comics story to reach the public in a few years will be out by stumptown comics fest, in the Sparkplug/Tugboat/Teenage Dinosaur release "WORD HURDLER", and it's FREEEEEEE  ¶ 1:54 PM 0 Comments

  PENCILS DOWN! OK! I'M READY! LET'S TAKE THIS FUCKING TEST!

we finished this shit today. A true collaboration between myself and jennifer, we both worked on the designs concurrently and she touched up my colors and I did the linework for most of both figures, I'm pretty durned happy with how it all turned out. More at the flickr set. Hopefully I'll get some better-than-iPhone pictures up of the finished product soon.

After I finished the last touch ups I went around the corner to the Someday Lounge and caught the Thrones show with my roomie Zack. It was awesome, the end!

UP NEXT- Like an inconsequential lazarus I return to comics with 6 pages for the next Free Comic Book Day book from Sparkplug/Tugboat/Teenage Dinosaur (I'm led to believe it's not called NERD BURGLAR 2)!  ¶ 2:47 AM 0 Comments

  update no hate holy shit life is insanely busy right now/always/forever and then you die.

things have been crazy, basically.
Main point of this post is: If you are waiting on a commission, sorry. I'm expecting to have them all done by the end of Feb now, instead of the end of Jan like I hoped. I got a crazy awesome freelance design client that is rad but a LOT of work, plus: regular job is crazy already and.. wait a minute! I just counted, I have 5 jobs now, why am I still struggling to pay my rent????? wtf. Um, anyhow, yeah. I shipped off a bunch of stuff monday morning, so several people should be getting their packages soon, but the bulk of people on my list are still on my list, sorry. I'm trying to go in order also.

anyhow.

Jennifer Parks and I are working on a mural for the store in the Pony Club Gallery (that we help run) check out our progress! I expect to be done with this in another day or two... (here's the gallery website, still under construction but there you go) We'll be open for 1st thursday Feb.5th, come see it in person!

I will hopefully have a second issue of my sketchbook mini, Ghost Attack!? ready for that 1st thurs. opening... OH. I missed this when it was originally posted, but Tom Spurgeon reviewed the 1st issue here and had some kind things to say.

JESUS I HAVE SUCH A COOL SECRET PROJECT TO TALK ABOUT AND IT"S SO ACTUALLY SECRET STILL I CAN'T SAY ANYTHING AND IT'S KILLING ME.

ok peace.  ¶ 11:13 PM 0 Comments

  more flyers I'm trying to revamp ALL of tubes' flyer designs in the coming months, I've posted a few new ones recently and here's a new batch.


Maxamillion's logo in this one is based on and meant to evoke the logo of Fela Kuti's incredible album "Expensive Shit", and the arm w/mic is in a sort of resistance type pose too, so it's tied together thematically a bit.



Awesome Racket is fun and I'm pretty proud of the type treatment on this one..


Just a super simple, more explicitly "METAL" handbill for bad reputation. EZ-PZ.




For these PLEASUREDOME flyers, I'm doing something a little different.. instead of all the hand drawn fonts and such, I'm trying to give their night it's own specific visual identity so going with a multitude of altered found images from yesteryear and a specific type treatment that's the same for every poster. Branding, it's not just for cows anymore!  ¶ 6:13 PM 1 Comments

  My 2008 in comics here's my personal "best of/favorite" comics of 2008.. I didn't read everything, not by a long-shot, and I missed some pretty essential stuff too (how did I miss reading Ganges 2? POPEYE 3??? LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE 1, Powr Mastrs 2?????), so. I don't know, these things are always subjective anyhow, so whatever. I guess I don't feel too bad about it.

(this is not an ordered list)

-Kramers Ergot 7- It's just plain amazing. Not everything in it hits me too hard, of course, and there were some disappointments from people I was expecting revelatory work from, or inventive usage of the space that just didn't happen.. but on the whole? man, this thing is just an explosion of comics.

-BPRD- The actual BPRD comic, not any of the weak-sauce one shots and minis that came out this year (oh wait, BPRD:1946 was actually really cool) Guy Davis (all I really need), plus: ACTUAL FORWARD MOMENTUM!
(ps, Hellboy: The Crooked Man was great, thank you Richard Corben!). Yeah, anyhow, I love this series.

-All Star Superman 10- Maybe the perfect issue of a near-perfect series? I confess to losing some excitement around the middle of the series, especially the too-long Bizarro story, but this issue is fantastic. Made me feel warm inside. No, I'm not a critic, obviously.

-Perla La Loca- Jamie Hernandez at one of his early peaks, after you thought he'd already had to have peaked, and before he kept getting better. He's like some sort of self-defying impossible to replicate curve of excellence, rising higher and higher and- What's that? I'm being a fan-boy? sorry. Basically, I'd already read all these stories over and over a hundred times before but these bigger-than-digest sized reprints continue to prove themselves to be the perfect vehicle for the saga of Maggie et al.. I keep finding new connections and resonances between events and characters I thought I'd previously mined completely.

-Gus and His Gang- Christophe Blain does it again. The level of cartooning in this book is so incredible, not just on a panel to panel level (which is of course great) but also all of the neat "comics vocabulary" stuff that he does, showing what people are thinking about while they talk with pictures, and Clem's conscience visualized as a giant cyclops with an illuminating eye... Anyhow. Impressive. I loved all the family parts at the end, and the way Blain got around to imbuing practically every character with some weight and background detail in mostly very subtle ways. Basically yet another book that deals with modern ideas about relationships in an old-world setting, and does it well.

-RASL- New Jeff smith! Sci-Fi! Titties! I'm hooked.

-Capacity- By Theo Ellsworth. Theo is a friend of mine, but this book is worth your time, even if you don't know him. It's one of the most intense documents of the mind of an artist I've ever seen, and I really love his drawing and design.

-BodyWorld & Bottomless Bellybutton- Actually, BBB is more "serious" but I think BodyWorld will end up being the better book. It's definitely the only webcomic I go out of my way to read, even with Achewood I just kind of let it accumulate and go in at random points to catch up, but BW is a must-read asap with each new installment. In both cases, Dash Shaw does shit with comics I've never seen before, and creates engaging characters and plots. I also really like his art these days, it's funny to think he used to be so Paul Pope influenced. It's interesting that he can capture some of the subtlest things in the world (dust motes in a sunbeam, etc) with fairly clunky but expressive artwork and great writing that he never would be able to when he drew more "realistically."

-CRIMINAL: Bad Night- I keep wondering how much longer these guys can keep up the quality level with Criminal, and I like this one more than the last. As usual, since I'm pretty visually minded you've got to know that a lot of my affection for this series comes from the amazing work Sean Phillips does, but Ed Brubaker is an engaging writer, easily one of my favorite mainstream dudes, and his love of the noir genre makes this bigger than the sum of it's parts. PLUS, it's about a two-fisted cartoonist! How can you go wrong? It's kind of like a sleazy smoky version of Derby Dugan.

-CRICKETS 2- Sammy Harkham just keeps plugging away at his golem story, mainly. I'm more than happy to just see where the hell he goes with it, and absorb his drawings along the way. I'm especially interested in his flashbacks and digressions and use of visual symbolism. Plus some raw-dog shit where he makes fun of other cartoonists is kind of fun to read in that same way as when someone rips into an acquaintance at a party and it's kind of funny and wrong at the same time and you know, you shouldn't really smile about it but you do before you realize you shouldn't?

-Dungeon Monstres 2: The Dark Lord- only for the Blanquet chapter, but it is interesting how the other included volume intersects with this one. Anyhow, Blanquet in color drawing weird ass monsters and buxom cat-ducks. The insect dudes wearing the skin of the lizard dudes trips me out every time I see it.

-Love & Rockets: New Stories 1- I don't have a lot to say about the Gilbert stuff, though it was pretty good.. I don't know how to talk about someone who's been so influential to my comics but I have a hard time reading their new work. In any case, the only flaw in Jamie's new story is that it's "to be continued". Updates the status of the characters, broadens the world back out into sci-fi territory, it's funny, it's got pathos, it's got great fight scenes, and the drawings are 100% perfect. WTF DUDE.



Man, my taste is kind of all over the place.. Also, I missed a lot of rad shit due to being insanely broke 90% of the year, so that explains the exclusion of What it is, Ordinary Victories2, Popeye 3, Acme 19, and a bunch of other stuff that probably would have made it...  ¶ 10:18 PM 2 Comments

  HAPPY REUNION!
So I got Dooey back today, thanks to the power of the internet.* Thank you everyone from the bottom of my heart. I also want to say that I really appreciate the people at the vet's office for taking such good care of Dooey and for not just putting him to sleep when I couldn't pay the bill right away. Their policy of not making payment plans isn't the best but they kept him alive long enough for me to pull this crazy internet-saving-throw out of my ass. Additionally, they genuinely wanted me to be able to have him and made it easy for me to get him back- honoring their initial quote of 900$, when the bill had apparently gone even higher than they thought it would be.

This is seriously the greatest christmas present ever. I have no words to properly express how it feels to be touched like this. I will be working my ass off on your commissions, and thanks to those who bought one, picked up some previously completed artwork, donated and spread the word, it all means a lot to both Dooey and myself.

I also wanted to pass on this note of thanks from my ex-girlfriend Carly, who was similarly touched:
"as a former co-owner of dooey, and as someone who always misses and loves him and has terribly fond memories of scratches and bite marks up and down my arms and legs, i thank everyone who helped zack keep him. i have first hand experience of just how much zack is the love of dooey's life. he wouldn't have been the same without zack, just as zack wouldn't have been the same without him. the quickness with which you people responded is amazing, i didn't even have time to read the post, let alone donate myself (though I will be sending dooey a present, to be sure). thank you thank you thank you!!!"


So yeah, again and always thank you for this second chance.

Zack and Dooey



* I will never say anything bad about twitter again!   ¶ 6:55 PM 1 Comments

  WOW! Ok, I will never doubt the power of the internet again. In just a couple hours I have made enough to get Dooey back. I am overflowing with happiness right now. This week has been a rollercoaster of emotion, from the worst, most hopeless day of my life to the best. I went away from the computer for a couple hours and was amazed and touched when I came back.

Thank you to everyone who bought art and donated. Please do not donate any more, but you are more than welcome to keep buying art and commissions. I will be happy to make you a drawing or ship you a painting if you would still like one anyway.

Purchased paintings that are already done, I'll start shipping next week (I have to go out of town for the weekend and will be back monday night). I will also start working on the commissions this weekend and hopefully start shipping the first of them this coming week as well, depending on how fast the work goes (I want them all to be awesome!).


From the bottom of my heart, thank you all. Seriously, I have never felt quite so much good will towards man.

(I'll post an update on Dooey's return tuesday)

EDIT: Just to clarify, I definitely asked them to set up a payment plan or take partial payment, but they said it wasn't something they did. I also thought about trying to sneak around it all and get a friend to adopt him back for me but I didn't want to take the chance that that wouldn't work out. Also, I've had several people asking where this happened, but until I get Dooey back I'm not going to release the name of the vet, since I don't want to chance anything weird going down before I get him back. (I will say that other than this they've been nice enough, though)  ¶ 3:51 PM 1 Comments