Possum Press

Every year, I tell myself “I’m going to make a Christmas card this year!”, and every year I’m so busy that I look up from my drawing table and realize it’s the middle of December and I haven’t even thought of an idea, thus putting an end to that year’s Christmas card aspirations.  Well not this year!  Behold!!!! a Possum Press Christmas card!!!!!!

Hopefully this will become a tradition, now that the first one is out of the way.

Merry Christmas everyone!!

Here’s a couple more ‘in class’ animation demos I did during a couple lectures for the second year animation class I’m teaching at Seneca College. The first was done to explain the weight lift exercise to the students and try to get them to make their characters lift using the whole body, rather than just using the character’s arms.

And here’s one I did today, using good ol’ Steve Tacola, saying “Not me.” I was explaining how you can spice up your lip sync by putting in little head shakes, and showing them how to do it while keeping the character moving in a certain direction.

Both of these were done in about half an hour under a projector, on paper of course. I shot them later during the work class just for fun, and to see how they turned out. It’s kind of fun animating straight ahead and not having to go back and fix all the mistakes!

This was something I did as an in class demo for the animation class I’m teaching at Seneca College, here in Toronto. It ain’t perfect, but what do you want for a half hour or so’s work?…… (sheesh).

I thought I’d share it with you, as this is the first Possum animation I’ve gotten around to doing. Hopefully in the future there’ll be a whole lot more!

Some of you know that I’ve been teaching at Seneca College and Sheridan College this year (now you all know…..).  Well this week is reading week for both colleges, so I’ve been working on some animation for a website my church is putting together to help explain the Gospel simply, using a strategy created by Charles Haddon Spurgeon (a famous London Baptist preacher) , in a message given on January 11, 1866 to several hundred orphans regarding Psalm 51:7 “Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.^[2]“  called The Wordless Book.

3 colours sc 1 rough animation from Possum Press on Vimeo.

This is a scene for a short project I am doing, explaining the gospel using 3 colours (black, red and white), based on the Wordless book, created by the famous London Baptist preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

This is just the first scene, where the man will be turning black (the first colour of the 3 colours) and the whole short will be about a minute in length.

I’m a big fan of Axe Cop by Ethan Nicolle and his little brother Malachai, so when Ethan emailed me and asked me to do a pin up for his next Axe Cop book, I was super excited, but me being the slick promoter that I am (that’s sarcasm folks), I sheepishly asked if I could include The Possum in the pin up, fully expecting him to say “well, it should really be just Axe Cop and Axe Cop characters”, but to my delight, the Ethan’s reply back was as follows:  “Yeah go ahead! You can even. Do a one page comic if you want with axe cop and the Possum in it.”   Somehow I weaseled my way into doing a 2 page crossover, written by my kids, Avery (age 8 ) and Jacob (age 6) and drawn by yours truly!

Go to AXE COP.COM to read the full 2 page team up extraordinaire!!

If you’re not familiar with Axe Cop, I highly recommend checking it out!  Axe Cop is written by Malachai Nicolle (age 6 now, I believe) and is drawn by his older brother Ethan Nicolle (age 30 now, I believe).  Read the whole story here!

Recently I was interviewed by Hall Hilden at Comic Book Interviews.com, and you can read it here!

Well, another Toronto Fan Expo is upon us, and as is custom for the past 6 years, Mike (Spy Guy) and I (The Possum) will be exhibiting once again.  This year we will both have our brand spanking new issues of our comics (Spy Guy #2 and The Possum #5) for sale.  I’ll also have this new limited edition print for sale too:

You can find us at table A35 in the Independent / Small Press Artist Alley.

Yesterday I was in Toronto for a doctor’s appointment, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to visit 3 great comic shops that are downtown- Silver Snail – Dragon Lady Comics – The Beguiling – and deliver the latest Possum comic (issue #5).  If you live in Toronto, I encourage you to visit these shops and pick up issue #5 of The Possum and support your local comic store!  If you happen to be in one of them and notice that they are out of Possum comics, let the store know and please let me know so I can get more to them.  (It’ll make The Possum look good and help the stores too!)

At the moment, The Possum is not being distributed by anyone other than yours truly, so only the shops that order through me will have them.  If your shop doesn’t carry The Possum and you’d like them to, encourage them to contact me at blair@possumpress.com and I’d be happy to mail them some comics.  And if that doesn’t work, you can always get all The Possum goodness from the Possum Press Freak Pit online store!

You could be as happy as these kids with just a few clicks of the mouse.  The Possum #5 is now for sale at Possum Press’ Freak Pit online store.  Also recently added to the store is Indie Comics Magazine #2, which features an all new 8 page Possum story called “Monkey See, Monkey Kill!” as well as an all new 8 page Spy Guy story titled “The Case of the Annunaki Artifact”, which I’ve mentioned before on the blog here and here.

I’ll be at the Fan Expo with a big stack of issue #5s and ICM #2s as well, August 25th – 28th (table A35 in Artist Alley).  Mike and I are listed under Ultraist Studios / PP in the program guide.

For those of you who live in the Burlington, Ontario area you can find a copy of The Possum #5 at Conspiracy Comics‘ south store (2388 Fairview St. )  I’ll be working on getting the book in more stores over the next few weeks and I’ll update you as I do.

I always come back from Comic Con so determined to make comics.  Being surrounded for 5 days by all sorts of amazing talented and determined creators can’t help but give you a kick in the pants, so after a couple of brain dead days, I figure it’s best to just jump into penciling issue #6 and see if I can ride some of this motivation and see how far it gets me.  Here’s last night’s work:

Pencils for issue #6, page 1

Tonight I’m going to plot out pages 2 and 3 and see where the night goes from there.  And for anyone waiting to get their hands on issue #5 (which is fresh off the printing presses) I’ll have it up on my store for purchase some time next week.  Stay tuned!

Well, I’m back from San Diego Comic Con 2011 and I’m still alive.  I feel as though I just went head to head with a bull and barely made it out alive, but just making out alive is a win in my books.  After every convention I’m left feeling a little different about where I’m headed as a self publisher and what my next course of action should be.  One of the great things about conventions like San Diego is the amount of like minded artists and self publishers you get to meet and share strategies and opinions with, and this year was no exception.  Sales weren’t the greatest over all, but I heard that from a lot of people (I’m guessing it’s due to over programming of Hollywood panels which require attendies to wait in line for 3+ hours a pop, on Friday and Saturday, which are supposed to be the busiest days of the week), and the doubling and tripling of hotel rates leave everyone financially rung dry, including us exhibitors.  With that said, it always takes a day or two to weigh whether the pros of conventions like San Diego outweigh the cons….. (and this year certainly had it’s fair share of pros).

Javier Hernandez behind the Possum Press/Ultraist Studios/ Los Comex table

My brother, Mike who is usually sharing a table with me at conventions couldn’t make it to San Diego this year, so I had the pleasure of sharing a table with Javier Hernandez of El Muerto fame for Friday, Saturday and the better part of Sunday, which was a lot of fun.  If you haven’t checked out Javier’s work, make sure you do!!!

He even made me an original Possum/El Muerto sketchdoll (TM Javier Hernandez!)

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves…….  I arrived in San Diego late Tuesday night, and seeing as the convention didn’t start until Wednesday at 5pm, I had the morning to myself (which wasn’t a luxury last year as Mike and I arrived Wednesday night), so I took the Coronado Ferry over to Coronado and hit the beach.  It was a great way to start the week.

Debuting from Possum Press this year was my newest issue of The Possum, issue #5, which arrived a day before I had to leave for the convention (talk about cutting it close).

I had a really good response from people who picked up some Possum comics at last year’s show and who came back to get the entire set which was really nice.  As always, I drew sketches for people who picked up a comic book (free of charge).  Here’s a few of them:

The Possum vs. Zombie Jesus.... How am I supposed to draw this tastefully???? (this is what I came up with)

Since Mike wasn't with me, I got to draw SPY GUY!! (with El Muerto by Javier Hernandez)

The Possum on a train request.... She had me stumped for a minute there

The Possum (by Blair Kitchen) vs. a Midget Muerto wrestler (by Javier Hernandez)

But like I said earlier in this post, the best part about any convention is the people you meet (including the fans).  Some highlights for me were talking to Sergio Aragones and Stan Sakai, who are always an absolute pleasure to meet and a fountain of knowledge.  I said hello to Doug TenNaple who I’ve been wanting to meet for a while now and I got to hang out all day with Javier Hernandez too!  Also, I reconnected with Shane and Chris Houghton who have taken their previously self published book “Reed Gunther” over to Image and were signing at the Image booth all weekend.  Throw in a dinner in Old Town with some old and new cartoonist friends and I guess you’ve got a pretty good Comicon in my books.  (In part two, I’ll post more of my thoughts on Comicon and what I feel a self publisher like myself needs to do moving forward….)

Blair Kitchen (The Possum) and Rob Wuest (Monsters Among Us)

Update:  Javier Hernandez has a great Comic Con review up on his blog, Javzilla.

A few months ago, I did an interview with Brian John Mitchell over at QRD.  You can read the interview by clicking on the link below

http://www.silbermedia.com/qrd/archives/51bkitch.html

Be sure to check out some of the other interviews from other indie comic artists, such as my bro, Mike Kitchen, Troy Little, Garry Scott Beatty and Dave Sim, to name a few.

See them all, here.

The Possum will be there…… Will you?

Yesterday I sent all 40 pages (plus front, back and inside covers) to the printer!  It’s out of my hands now…….

Issue #5 will be debuting at the San Diego Comicon in July and should be available to order off my website as soon as I get back.  I’ll keep you posted on the details!