The Hap Hap Happy Happenstance of Fanny Punongtiti in book form

Or, if you prefer, or if your browser can't handle Youtube, you can also enjoy the first several pages of my next book in this format.  Just read one page at a time at your leisure.  Thank you and enjoy.

The Hap Hap Happy Happenstance of Fanny Punongtiti

Those are the first 14 pages of my next book.  Tell me what you think so far.

Fanny Punongtiti

That's her name.  I'm thinking that she'll make an appearance in my next book.  We'll see.

DCAF

I will be selling my book Jesus Needs Help at DCAF this weekend.  If you live in the HRM, you can come down to Alderney Landing in Dartmouth on Sunday, August 19 anytime between 11:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.  Here's the address if you need it:

2 Ochterloney St. Dartmouth, Nova Scotia B2Y 3Z3

The event is hosted by the comic book store Strange Adventures so you know it's going to be chock full of artistic goodness.  Go to DCAF's official website for details.

Oh, alright.  I can hear you squackin'.  If you can't wait until Sunday and need to have my book NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW, then definitely feel free to order it from Amazon.com.  Sheesh!  Grow up, you guys.

I hope everyone has good clean fun.  (But, then again, some good dirty fun would be more than welcome).

The cover of my next book

Here is your first peek at the cover of my next book  that I plan on calling The Censor Monkeys Have No Class.  Please leave many many comments telling me what you think of it so far.  I hope to have the book finished before the end of this year.  I hope you'll watch for it and generously show your patronage for it then.

Inkermink

I haven't talked about my nephew on this blog for quite a while, not since he was a baby.  Well, he's 4 now.  So of course he's walking and talking and saying some amazing things.  Here's a picture of him (I think) saying one of those things now:

And, like most kids that age, he possesses a great imagination.  Recently, through his mother (my sister)  on Facebook, he sent me a drawing request.  Here it is italicized:

When it is convenient, Michael would like you to draw him a picture of an "Inkermink".  It has a BIG mouth with a zipper underneath on its belly, where it keeps its rubarb.  Under the zipper it has a BIG eye. It has no ears. The "Inkermink" is dark green and with bouncy legs as it runs very fast all over the place. It can eat the rubarb directly from his zippered belly. It can jump very high.


It loves to sing "everybody Inkermink"


Those were the directions I was given.  Therefore, without too much ado, I now present my interpretation of Michael GermainRichards creation, the "Inkermink"!

Imagine trying to hold a conversation with this creature while maintaining "eye" contact.  It would feel so wrong.  Well, anyway, here's the Inkermink.  I hope it's everything my nephew envisioned.

Really, every artist should have a 4 year old nephew or niece with a creative imagination.  It makes your job and profession so much easier and fun.  Embedded below is some video of him displaying just a snippet of his imagination.  Enjoy!


michael_spinning by Daffyduckandthedinosaur

What's this character's name?

Hint: the clue is in his hat.

David Germain Wonders Why Jesus Needs Help 06/27 by In the Authors Corner with Etienne | Blog Talk Radio

The show was a success.  Listen for yourself at the link below:

David Germain Wonders Why Jesus Needs Help 06/27 by In the Authors Corner with Etienne | Blog Talk Radio

Another Radio Broadcast

Last year, I talked about Jesus Needs Help on CKDU with Stephen Patrick Clare.  This year, I will be on Blog Talk Radio with Etienne  A. Gibbs.  There's a link to it already: click right here.  On Tuesday, June 12 at 11:00 am Central Time, Etienne and I will be streaming live right on that site.  Soon afterwards, that broadcast will be available on iTunes.  Oh, by the way, it's also a call in show.  If you want to ask me any questions about my book, you can do so by phoning this number: 347-943-0090

Here's hoping I manage to answer any questions (the collective) you or anyone else has about my book.  Please tune in to hear how well I did.

UPDATE!!!

There were technical difficulties with the show.  I have been rescheduled for June 27 at 10 : 00 a.m. Central time.  Please tune in and enjoy a lively interview.

I've been podcasted

My little ol' book was one of the topics of discussion on the most recent edition of The Endless Podcast.  You can listen to it here.  (Scroll down to episode 17)  They also get into a nice discussion about the offspring of Batman and the Incredible Hulk that I think is interesting.  The podcasters are:

"The Podfather" Andre Myette

Aaron "Madman" Meers

"The Amazing Mr. J" David Johnston

"The Warlord" Sean Murray

You don't have to listen long to hear what they're saying about it.  In my opinion, they absolutely got what the book is about.  They understood exactly the message I was trying to convey with this book and all without the Coles Notes too.  For that, and the free publicity this gives me, I thank them all.  I owe all 4 of them a beer.

The first 3 pages

 I should explain.  Y'see, I set up a little preview of Jesus Needs Help on Createspace.  Unfortunately, I posted the preview as a .pdf file that you need to download.  That seems to make many people uncomfortable with giving my preview a looksee.  Plus, that little sign on the bottom saying "this file has not been scanned for malicious software" doesn't exactly help matters either.

So, to make things easier for everyone, I'm posting the first three pages of my book right here on the blog for all to see.  Definitely leave some feedback in the comments section no matter how you feel about this book.

If you like what you see and want to see more, you can buy the whole book at Createspace, Amazon, or Kindle.

A SUCCESS!!!

My free Kindle book promotion of Jesus Needs Help was a most qualified success over the Easter weekend. At one point, it even reached #8 on Amazon's charts, as you can see below:

Take THAT The Book of Biff #1 Target Practice by Chris Halibeck. Thank you to all who grabbed a copy this weekend. In fact, this has put me in such a generous mood, that I would like to show my appreciation thusly. I will buy a beer for anyone who reads my book AND posts a review.

It may or may not be delivered to you by one of these fine ladies.

Yes, you read that correctly. One tall frosty cold beer is yours if you read my book and post a review of it. I'd prefer it to be on Amazon, but it also be up on your own blog, a post in some forum, on youtube, or maybe even in an old fashioned print magazine or newspaper; basically anywhere that lots of people will see it.

This offer extends to anyone who has posted a review of my book in the past as well. I definitely owe James E. Daniels a beer. I most definitely indeed owe Stephen Patrick Clare a beer, maybe 2. I might even owe Professor

Ignatief a beer if he mentioned my book in his class at the U of T at any time, but I'd need more information on that. But this offer even extends to people like Joseph Thompson and Pastor Sean Bonitto, even though their reviews were shall we say less than complimentary. They actually took the time to read the book and then give their own careful and explicite assessment of it. For actually putting forth the effort, they get a beer from me.

But NO BEER FOR RUSH LIMBAUGH!!! He both accepted and then turned around and dismissed my book WITHOUT reading it. He even said so on his show in this clip, the big fat phony jerkfaced jerk of an idiot. Sorry, Rush, baby gets nothing!!!

Of course, I should point out that short vague reviews do NOT earn you a beer. Reviews such as "It's good!" or "I like it when that guy says the things and then stuff happens" would not fly with me at all. I'd moreso appreciate reviews that show to me that you actually read the book's contents. If you can do that, you get a beer from me. If you have the misfortune of not living in the same neighborhood as me, then just remind me of the beer I owe you either when you are in my neighborhood or I am in yours. That way everybody wins.

Once again, I thank each and every person who purchased my book this past Easter weekend. It is much appreciated. Thank you for letting me be myself again.

All though April 6, 7, and 8 download your free kindle version of Jesus Needs Help here: http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Needs-Help-ebook/dp/B005HQKOLC/ref=pd_rhf_dp_p_t_2

Rush Limbaugh rejects his new sponsor

Yeah, that's right. Rush Limbaugh dropped by book as a sponsor after going into a childish rage after reading one angry letter. He even says in that clip he didn't even read the book. He only took the word of some cranky old lady. How typical of his kind of egocentric maniac. I never should have approached him for sponsorship in the first place. Oh well. Live and learn.

Rush Limbaugh has a new sponsor for his show.

What will the liberal illuminati make of this? >:P

Free book on Kindle

On April 6th, 7th, or 8th, you'll be able to download the kindle version of my book Jesus Needs Help at this link here: http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Needs-Help-ebook/dp/B005HQKOLC/ref=pd_rhf_dp_p_t_2

Or, if you like, you can right now purchase the paper version of the book here just like the distinguished gentleman below.

Friends With Boys

On Saturday, March 10, I had the pleasure of being in Strange Adventures in Halifax and stood in line to purchase a new graphic novel from Faith Erin Hicks. It's called Friends With Boys. She even autographed my copy and made a nice doodle in it too.

That's a character from the book. Her name is Lucy. She's the kind of girl who likes to make a bold visual statement and really doesn't care what anyone thinks about that. Although, she does feel the need to hide behind the "tree of shame" at one point.

But she's not the main focus of the book at all. The story centres around a young teenage girl named Maggie. She's the youngest of 4 children, 3 boys and 1 girl. All of them were home schooled until they were old enough to enter high school. This year, it is finally Maggie's turn. Yes, she is definitely scared almost to the point of a nervous breakdown.

Can you really blame her? High school is really alot like a war-torn third world country. Everyone is a uncivilized insecure idiot looking for a king to lead them. But not a king in the sense of appointed royalty but more-so like someone who appears all powerful. They will do anything to appease that king (or queen, or both) and anyone who fails to do so is subject to any manor of physical or psychological torture.

Oh, Kony, you're so cool.

The book certainly has a character who is exactly like that. His name is Matt.

Yeah, the asshole jock who "rules the school" is kind of a cliché in high school stories. But, it's only a cliché because it's true.

I think the book does certainly work as a whole. The story flows along at a nice pace. I stayed involved with the characters all the way through. I never once got confused about anything. All the information necessary was presented very clearly. It kind of felt like an episode of Degrassi High to me. That's probably because this book's author is Canadian. That makes the most sense.

I also like how she incorporated actual Halifax locations into the story, like this one below:

I love the Oxford Theatre on Quinpool. It's what movie houses used to be, and really how they should still be. It has very elegant decor made to look like only the best and brightest people go there, not like today's theatres where they're all streamlined to look like tacky spaceships meant to babysit your annoying kids.

Actually, that shot of the Oxford brings me to another great aspect of this book: the artwork. Normally I'm not a fan of the faux-anime style. But, that's mostly because too many young artists are drawing that way these days. After seeing it so many times, it gets rather tiresome. But, none of that matters if the artist has the basic principals of drawing and composition down. Faith Erin Hicks certainly has that.

I'm very impressed with the inking. I saw her draw that doodle in the book for me right there in the store. She is very skilled with the brush and ink. Pretty much every panel in this book is a joy to look at for that reason alone.

There are also some very good facial expressions in this book too. We really do get a sense of what or how the character is feeling. They're not just stiff entities that just lie there flat on the page. She definitely knows her stuff.

If Star Wars has taught us anything, it's that for every bright side, there is a dark side. A review with only positive things to say would be rather incomplete don't you think? So, with that in mind, I will go over a few nit-picky things about this book that I didn't like.

I have a small problem with this panel here:

I can kin of see that Faith's trying to show that the character does a small shrug. For me, this doesn't work. It looks like she had trouble rendering that and so just copped out and put the action work beside the body. Could you imagine if an entire story was like that?

Wow! That's quite an exciting scene there. I think Faith would have been much better off if she just drew Maggie in mid-shrug. That would have gotten the point across much better. In my book, I drew Jesus doing a shrug in exactly that way. I think it comes across pretty well.

Here's another part of the book I really didn't care for at all:

In the book, there's a substory about Maggie's older twin brothers always fighting. Near the end of the book, this resolution was shoehorned in just so that all the elements of this book have a happy ending. Not only is this pure cheese, it would be better if it were unresolved, at least at this point. These twins' conflict could easily have fuelled another story with these characters. There would have been more room to explore this conflict and enough time for it to come to a more satisfying resolution. Here it's just tacked on unnecessarily and does nothing to support the main story anyway.

But, that's just two little nitpicks in an otherwise delightful graphic novel. I picked it up for about $16.89 Canadian. If you haven't bought your copy of her book yet, I suggest that you do so. Besides reading a great story, you'll also help support an artists in this harsh economic climate. If you can't find it in stores, you can definitely order it on Amazon here.