Category: Blog

If Axe Cop's baby sitting methods were ever in question, today I think it is clear, he should only baby sit invulnerable cartoon babies.

If you missed RecomMonday check it out, I recommend a couple great art books.  Also, if you are looking for a new Axe Cop t-shirt PopFunk is now selling 12 new designs in glorious full color!

With that, I'll see you tomorrow with a new Ask Axe Cop where we find out about the fireman who had his perfect axe stolen on that fateful day.

Ethan

P. S.:  Have you checked out the Axe Cop Documentary page on Facebook?  Do it!

It's another RecomMonday!  I am going to recommend a couple of my favorite art books here.  I love art books/sketch books, I keep them all on a shelf right next to me so that if I am losing drive I can flip one open and get a big rush of inspiration.  It is also great to look at how other artists draw certain things that you may struggle with.  They may have found a technique you can use if you yourself are an artist.

I should mention that there is art in these books I am about to recommend that is not appropriate for children, mainly due to violent images.  I just want to be clear on that since this is an all ages web site.

My first recommendation today is Ryan Ottley's new sketch book Violence and Pinwheels:

Ryan was kind enough to give me this thing when I saw him in San Diego, but I would have gladly laid down money for it.  His art is amazingly solid and stylistic.  He does a great job of finding his own style while keeping his art in the traditional realm.  His anatomy is stellar and his lines are surgical. 

My other recommendation is Simon Bisley's the Bible.  This is a book of art from the Bible by Simon Bisely.  I have no idea what Bisley's religious views are, but judging from most of the other stuff he draws (boobs and guns) and the fact that he depicts himself as Satan in this book, I would not guess he is a devout Christian.  He is, however, and artist I have loved for a long time, but usually his art is so pornographic I'd rather not buy it.  This book is some of his most beautiful work, and it is awesome to see some of his depictions from the Old and New Testament rendered out in his chaotic yet masterful way.  He is not trying to give anyone warm fuzzy feelings here, he is drawing biblical imagery without censor or a preconceived notion of softness in all their terrifying glory.  Below is the cover and a couple images from the book… 

That's that!  See you tomorrow with the next installment of Axe Cop Baby sits Uni-Baby.

Ethan

After a recent licensing deal Axe Cop has a new set of 12 full color shirt designs now available over at PopFunk.com.  Go check them out, they are very cool!

Here's you next installment of “Axe Cop Babysits Uni-Baby”.  I think Malachai's logic on this was that if Uni-Baby is only allowed a certain amount of food, she will poop much less.  I guess that could actually work.  It makes me curious if you could eat just the right amount of the right food so that your body makes no waste… and never ever poop again.  I am guessing there is some science hippy out there who has made this their life goal.

Well, I don't much else to say at the moment except I will give you a quick reminder that we have this awesome t-shirt at Hot Topic.

Also, don't forget to check out our section on StickerYou.  You can make custom sticker sheets, picking out characters, colors and sizes.

Alright.  New page of Bearmageddon tomorrow, then the weekend!

Ethan

The truth about tody's question is two people asked it… Sean asked about the Wrestler, and some anonymous person asked about Leaf Man, so I combined the two.  Both are tragic.  Leaf Man is in the circus with a broken heart, and the Wrestler is becoming more and more evil by the moment.

Today is my first day of posting both Axe Cop and Bearmageddon on the same day.  Every Wednesday, at least through the current Axe Cop story arch, with be Axe Bear day.  It will be a day where you get a post on both web sites on the same day.  So why not go over to Bearmageddon and check it out.

Tomorrow I'll bring you the second page of the “Axe Cop Babysits Uni-Baby” story.  See you then.

Ethan

I know any parent would be fine with an Axe Wielding self-appointed cop being their child's guardian while they go to the lake, so this story isn't so absurd to start with, but I'm sure it will get weirder. 

To “write” this story, I bought a cheap baby doll and jammed a pencil wrapped in pipe cleaners into its head and Malachai and I pretended to be Axe Cop and Dinosaur soldier babysitting Uni-Baby.  Observe:

(yes, Malachai is punching the baby)

I am going to be starting a new 3-day posting schedule.  For a while I have been posting on Tuesday and Thursday, but now I will be posting Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.  That means on Wednesday you get Axe Cop AND Bearmegeddon if you choose to be a reader of both.  I will adjust things thus: Tuesday and Thursday will be story days, and Wednesday will be Ask  Axe Cop days.  So, you have that to look forward to starting tomorrow!

Also, if you didn't see it yesterday check out my new monday blog feature “RecomMonday” where I recommend stuff I love. 

See you tomorrow with a new episode of Ask Axe Cop AND a new page of Bearmageddon!

Ethan

I decided to start something new.  I call it RECOMMONDAY.  No, I will not be posting a new comic- BUT, I will be posting something I recommend.  It will generally be in the realm of comics and art, but I may branch out some too.  Some of it will be old stuff that has been around, some will be new stuff.  Some will be obscure, some will be mainstream.  The only requirement is that it is some piece of print or film media that has brought me joy and I want to pass it on.

For my first RecomMonday, I present to you the Daily Zoo!

If you are endlessly fascinated by the animal kingdom and love really good, fun art, these books are a treasure.  The story goes that Chris Ayers was diagnosed with cancer and decided to seize life and draw an animal a day.  He did two years worth.  My only gripe is that not every drawing is printed at full page size.  This art is so fun to look at that I would pay for that 365 page book.  He does print the images in small stamp-sized squares at the end, but you don't get a good look at them. 

I used these books with Malachai when we were creating Bad Guy Earth.  I was trying to make up some creatures with him, so I was trying to get him to look through books of animals and pick the cool ones.  After a couple photo books of real animals got a less than zealous response, I got out the Daily Zoo and Malachai devoured every page.  I gave him sticky notes to put on the animals he liked, then I would go back through to each page and ask him to come up with a character based on the animal.  In fact, he tried to directly rip off Chris a couple times because the ideas were so great.

Anyway, check out some sample pages here.  I guarantee this will be one of the most beautiful books on your shelf, and if you are an artist, a priceless source of inspiration and source material for amazing animal renderings.  Every time I open one up I want to hit the zoo with my sketch pad. 

Oh yeah, and from what I understand Chris's battle with cancer is either over, or it is looking good.  I don't know all the details I just know I'm glad we have this guy around and I hope he draws about a zillion more of these.

Ethan

P.S.  This week, the new Axe Cop story begins: “Axe Cop Babysits Uni-Baby” and I am going to be starting a new 3-day posting schedule.  For a while I have been posting on Tuesday and Thursday, but now I will be posting Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.  That means on Wednesday you get Axe Cop AND Bearmegeddon if you choose to be a reader of both.  I will adjust things thus: Tuesday and Thursday will be story days, and Wednesday will be Ask  Axe Cop days.  So, you have to look forward to starting tomorrow!

This episode is near and dear to my heart.  The last string of Axe Cop material has been pretty dark and psycho, so it felt good to do a charming, sweet episode where Axe Cop just sits down and meets the three people he has always wanted to meet:  his creators and his favorite singer. 

I had some people (who don't read the blog) assume I put Malachai up to the Little Lulu thing the other day, but he really loves Little Lulu and if you read Lulu, his comic proves his knowledge of the characters.  Of course, he is influenced by the adults in his life and Little Lulu was a gift from Shawna Gore.  His big brother Ethan does love Vietnamese food, and in the small town he lives in it is my favorite place to eat.  They serve those girly looking bubble tea drinks there and Malachai often go together and get our favorite flavors:  watermelon and bubblegum.  Usually when we drive Malachai requests that we listen to Johnny Cash.  He learned of Johnny Cash on the Rock Band game my brothers and I got our sisters for Christmas.  It became his favorite song, and when we are in the car he always asks to play Johnny Cash.  In fact we did it so much he learned how to get onto my iPad and look up specific Johnny Cash songs on iTunes and be the dj as we drive.  As we listen he asks me about the meanings of the songs.  He always asks “is this song true?” (especially when Johnny Cash talks about shooting people).  I usually tell him that the song is made up… except in the case of the song “I've Been Everywhere”.  That became his other favorite song simply because it is one of the only true ones.  Metaphor is not something Malachai has a lot of respect for at his age.  The observation Axe Cop makes about “Rusty Cage” and “One Piece at a Time” was an actual observation Malachai made when we were driving around listening to Johnny Cash one day.

Another piece of this episode I couldn't fit into the text is the reason Axe Cop has to make a fist and an open hand to fly.  It is because some superheroes make two fists when they fly, and others do two open hands.  Axe Cop does both.  Once again, he rises above and stands out among your average garden variety crime fighter in tights.

Apologies to those of you who went to Bearmageddon yesterday and did not see the launched website.  There was a miscommunication/mixup with my web company and the launch ended up being wonky.  The site is propagating and should ooze out to the rest of the internet within the next couple days.  If you haven't seen the first page of Bearmageddon yet, try to clear your cache or flush DNS.  If that doesn't work, just give it time.  Thanks to everyone who came over and checked out Bearmageddon yesterday.  A new page will be up tomorrow, so hopefully you'll be back.

So much to do!  Until next time…

Ethan

UPDATE:  I forgot, that Dragaroo person posted another video from Comic Con with seleced highlights from the Axe Cop panel:

My new web comic, BEARMAGEDDON has begun!  Page one is now up, so please go check it out!

I have been waiting to draw this Little Chuchu comic.  Basically, if it is not obvious, Malachai wanted to write a Little Lulu story so I told him he had to change the names, so he just added “ch” to their names.  If you haven't read Little Lulu this will still be funny, but if you have you will find it even more funny because Malachai really loves these comics and the “Lulu tells Alvin a story” epsiodes are always fun, though never this nightmarish.

Oh yeah, and I know some people will be bothered by the Indian stuff… well, if you have read Lulu which is from the early 1900's, they are a lot worse than this.  I wanted to capture the goofy portrayal of Indians from that time as well as Malachai's sympathy for them.  In his version, when you shoot an Indian, your life becomes a living hell and you are banished to the forest to ride around on a Segway with an unquenchable hunger for brains with your dead family.  I was tempted to put a scan of my Cherokee nation card into this blog post just for immunity, but I'll save that for if it's needed.

Malachai discovered Lulu when our editor Shawna Gore gave him a giant sized Little Lulu book.  It became his favorite comic, and to this day any time I visit I read him Lulu comics before bed.  So I decided to dedicate this episode to Shawna, and it happens to also be her birthday.  We love Shawna.

But wait!  Tomorrow is the big day over at www.bearmageddon.com!  The first page of Bearmageddon will post tomorrow morning.  So please join us there.  You can also follow Bearmageddon on Twitter and Facebook.

P.S. the whole “zombie indian on a Segway” thing comes from a t-shirt I got from woot with zombies on segues that says “we've upgradead”. Malachai is always asking me to explain the shirt, and he must have decided that a Segway is a good upgrade for a zombie.

P.P.S. I found this video someone posted with a small clip from our panel at Comic Con.  It comes on at 1:39 and shows Malachai and Baby Man dancing together.