Mid-Ohio-Con, Part IV: Friendly Collaboration

October 9, 2009

Happy Friday everyone! We’re wrapping up the week with a fourth installment of super-awesome designer Wendy Dunning’s exploits at Mid-Ohio-Con:

With a Little Help from Your Friends
Comic Art Collaboratives and Groups
I found that Columbus has a couple of groups of folks that get together to share their art with each other. One of these is Sunday Comix, founded by Max Ink. Sunday Comix meets once a month (on a Sunday) so that members can share works in progress and get feedback. It’s open to artists, writers and readers. Their website is www.sundaycomix.blogspot.com. They are sponsoring Comix from the Crypt, a haunting art show of member’s works, now through the end of the month of October. A couple of members are pictured here.

Also in Columbus is a group called PANEL. This is a writers and artists collaborative that publishes anthologies with Ferret Press. The anthologies come out twice a year, with the current one being number 14, PANEL of Horror. I stopped to talk to Brent Bowman, who did the cover art for PANEL of Horror.

Q: How long have you been doing this?
A: So long, I can’t remember. But more in the last 4 years since I’ve been with PANEL.

Brent is working on a comic called Allied Powers (www.alliedpowerscomic.com). The writer is Craig Bogart, who has his own comic called The Ineffables (www.theineffables.com). I picked up a couple of issues of both. The Ineffables is kooky fun from the two issues I’ve read so far, and I have not yet broken into Allied Powers.

PANEL website: www.ferretpress.com/weblog
Ferret Press: www.ferretpress.com

The moral of the story: hook up with some of your comic buds to keep the comics dream alive.

Here’s a book by some comic artists that work together: Wreaking Havoc. Written by Jim Pavalec, Chris Seaman, Chuck Lukacs and Thomas Manning, this book shows you how to draw the characters and creatures that wreak havoc and their weapons of destruction. And if October has you in the mood for some horror, check out Jim Pavalec’s Hell Beasts or Steve Ellis’s Scream.