Lesson Learned!

by admin on May 1, 2012 at 9:33 pm
Posted In: Convention Recaps!, Updates!

No more anime cons! Well, unless we have friends that strongly recommend them to us and we know they will be worth it. After our weekend at PariahCon 2012, we’ve learned that we need to choose our cons more wisely. In general, cons that are more focused on anime/manga/weebo/wuhamajibbija seem to be far less organized, and don’t make us very much money. I think we ended up breaking even when you factor in the hotel cost and gas and such, so it doesn’t make much sense to keep doing this to ourselves. In addition to that, some disrespectful things happened to Kate as the guest artist and the con was LARGELY unorganized. Like, seriously. I don’t want to get too far into the details because I hate to be negative, and there’s no other way to give the details, unfortunately. Negativity won’t do anything to make the situation any better, other than to tell our friends and fellow artists not to get a table at PariahCon. I mean, I can do that without the details… HEY FRIENDS AND FELLOW ARTISTS! DON’T GET A TABLE AT PARIAHCON. On the other hand, I don’t want to tell people not to go to the con at all, because I’m sure it was more enjoyable to attendees. So if anime is your thing, or if you like one-day cons being spread across three days, or if you like seeing underage kids get drunk, maybe this is the con for you. I think I’ll just leave it at that…

Now let’s talk about some recent developments in Naughty Bicycle World…

The Hall Monitors!

First off, my new webcomic, THE HALL MONITORS, has launched! It went up last Friday, April 27th, actually. For those of you not in-the-know, The Hall Monitors is a new webcomic about a group of friends who start a band. After being in a band for a number of years, I saw the potential in making a webcomic out of the experience. I’ve got tons of ideas for this comic, as well as lots of input from friends and fellow musicians.

I posted four pages to start off with. Why four? Think of it as a mini story arc in which we discover how the band comes up with their band name. I’m currently finishing the next page, but I hope to create some sort of buffer of pages so I don’t have to worry about falling behind if something comes up. Anyway, the comic is up so be sure to tell all your friends about it. I’m really excited to see where I can take this!

As far as our next book, Facebeast issue 2, it’s still in progress! Our ultimate goal here is to have it done by Dragon*Con. It’s going to take some serious comic booking, but I think it can be done. I don’t think we’ll be launching a Kickstarter for this book, unless we get a bunch of people that think we should. I’d rather just order a small batch to start off with, and see where it goes from there. We met a lot of people at PariahCon who loved the first book, and one dude was actually disappointed we didn’t have issue 2 printed yet. That surprised the fuck out of me. Someone actually read my comic and liked it? Whodathunkit? So yeah, issue 2 is well underway and we’re shooting for an August release date!

And the last thing going on is Dragon*Con. It’s our next convention, and the biggest one yet! We’re taking the summer off to prepare for this bad boy, and in addition to Facebeast #2 we hope to have a slew of new prints and artwork for sale. This is going to be quite a busy summer for us, and I can’t wait for the payoff. OH GOD WHY ISN’T IT AUGUST YET?!?!

That’s it for now! Below is a bunch of Kate’s artwork from the con this past weekend. Most of the commissions we got were obscure anime characters that are completely lost on me. Maybe you can figure out who the hell they are. If you can, let me know. However, she managed to get a few other commissions done over the weekend. Take a look!

Thanks for reading!

- Josh

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They Can’t All Be Zingers…

by admin on April 8, 2012 at 10:55 pm
Posted In: Convention Recaps!

Welp, we just got done with Freecon 8 in Tallahassee. I’m usually pretty upbeat about these con recaps, but this time I may sound a little displeased. This weekend had a lot of disappointments, but we still managed to get a few great moments in there. So here we go…

Let’s start with the GOOD. I have a feeling most of you won’t read this whole article, and I don’t want to lose you with all the bitching that will come later. So we’ll start off with some positives. Financially, we ended up walking away with some profit. We managed to hit our goal, even though our goals for anime cons are usually pretty low. So that’s pretty awesome. I’m glad this weekend wasn’t a total bust.

Also, we met some cool people, most awesome of which was Lee from Adventuring Company. That dude rules. Go to his website and check out all the awesome comics and prints. I bought a copy of Very Near Mint online after I saw it at Megacon a couple months ago. I was a little sad when I found out the guy who actually wrote and drew the comic wasn’t there, but it’s all good. Lee is a super nice dude, and his comics and art were equally awesome. After the con on Saturday we all went out to Decent Pizza, which was more than decent. It was AMAZING!

Kate was able to get some cool commissions done, as well as some random art in between commissions. Here are a few of the things she made this past weekend:

So that’s about as much positive I can remember at this point. Now for the negatives…

Where to begin? Well, given the name FREECON 8, you would think that they’ve been doing this for eight years and they’ve got things pretty under control with their years of experience, right? You WOULD think that but you’d be dead wrong. I’ve seen conventions in their FIRST year that were more organized than this one. Every staff member I saw was running around like a chicken with its head cut off as they frantically tried to organize things at the last minute. As soon as we got there on Friday we walked to the artist alley, which was being held in a room not much bigger than our hotel room. Which isn’t that big of a problem if you only have 10 or so artists at your convention. But no, they tried to cram like 20 artists in this tiny room.

When we got there they confirmed with us that we had table #1, which was a great table. It was right next to the entrance, at the end of the row, easily accessible, etc. So then we went back to our car to grab our stuff. But when we got back someone was sitting at our table, like it was theirs all along. WTF? We soon learned that in the 10 minutes it took us to grab our stuff, they decided to switch to a first come first serve policy for the tables. Now, Kate and I are somewhat new to this con game (this is our 2nd year) but I can tell you right now that cons should NEVER resort to a first come first serve policy. Especially when the con’s website specifically lists every artist and where their table is. With a map and everything. It took a bit of bitching on Kate’s part, but we were finally able to get the table they originally said was ours in the first place.

I could keep going with the negatives, but I don’t want to totally bum myself out. I’ll just walk away happy knowing we didn’t lose any money here and we got to meet some cool people.

If I haven’t lost you yet by this point, there’s one more thing I’d like to talk about before I head out. That thing is not comic related, but music related. My band, The Long Johns, just launched a Kickstarter to help fund our debut album. If you haven’t checked it out yet, you can do so HERE! Anything helps, and if you aren’t able to pledge anything, you can still help by sharing with your friends! Thanks, we appreciate any help we can get!

Our next con is PariahCon in Lakeland, which goes on from April 27th-29th. After that we’re taking the summer off to prepare for Dragon*Con in August. I added a schedule for all our convention appearances to the right side of the screen. So be sure to check us out at those places!

Thanks for reading!

- Josh

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OH GOD.

by admin on March 30, 2012 at 9:42 pm
Posted In: News!

I apologize to everyone who comes to this website multiple times a week, looking for updates (so like, none of you). We’ve been super busy here at Naughty Bicycle Headquarters (our apartment), and it’s been very hard to find the time to do an update these past couple weeks. I am just a terrible person. Forgive me?

Okay, now that I got all the empty apologies out of the way, we can continue!

Contrary to what you might think, not a lot has been going on around here lately, except for initial work on Facebeast #2 and preparations for conventions we have coming up in April. So let’s talk about those two things!

The script for Facebeast #2 is DONE… kind of. Actually it’s been done for a while, but we’ve recently suffered a minor setback. My macbook had a glass of water spilled on it and it’s pretty much done. And like an idiot, I didn’t back up ALL of my files. This includes the script for Facebeast #2 among many other important things. So I’ve been kicking myself in the face (boy, I must be flexible!) for the last few weeks. Despite this inconvenience we’ve started to get back to work. Luckily, most of the script has been tattooed to my brain, and I can remember about 90% of what happens in the issue. So given that, I’ve been rewriting it a couple pages at a time. Kate just finished penciling the first two pages, and I’m very happy with it so far! I can already tell we have come a looooong way in the comic-making process. This looks like it’s going to be a good one! But of course, I say that with every book we make.

For those of you who don’t know anything about this upcoming issue, I’ll give a little insight. This issue picks up right where the last one left off. Facebeast begins to tell his story: who he is, where he came from, and how he came to be the way he is. So it’s really an origin story. I also plan to develop the setting in which the comic takes place: Tampa, FL. This is where I live, people, and I plan on making the setting as much of a character as Facebeast himself. Trust me, some interesting/cool/weird things happen here. So yeah, that’s what you can expect from this next issue.

And for those of you who don’t know anything about the comic AT ALL, I suggest you go HERE to preview a few pages from issue #1, and go HERE to buy it!

In other news, we’re getting ready for a couple of conventions in April: FREECON 8 (April 6-8) and PARIAHCON 2012 (April 27-29). In addition to comics and commissions, Kate has been working like a madwoman on crack to create some more prints to sell. Here are a few of the ones we’ll have ready for these next few conventions…

After Pariahcon, we’re taking the summer off to save up for the BIG ONE. No, not San Diego Comic Con. DRAGON*CON 2012! It’s taking it’s toll on our wallets, but we’re so excited to be a part of this huge opportunity. If nothing else, I hope we’re able to break even financially, and get our name out there to a whole new group of people in the process. It’s still about five months away, so all we can do now is wait and see how it goes.

I want to talk about one more thing on here before I go, and that’s about my new webcomic. It’s called The Hall Monitors, and it will be about the adventures of a ska/punk band called……. The Hall Monitors. Those of you who know me personally know that I’m in a band called The Long Johns. And after being in that band for a little over four years now, along with being in a slew of other bands, I’ve developed a concept for a new webcomic. My last stab at a webcomic did not go too well. Big Dumb Dog was cool for about seven or eight installments, then I just got lazy and uncreative. I couldn’t think of any other dumb things for the dog to do, so I gave up. Making a webcomic on a weekly basis has been hard for me because you need something new and fresh EVERY week. And in order to come up with that kind of material, you need a good concept. I think I may have that with this comic, The Hall Monitors. There’s all kinds of crazy stuff that happens when you’re in a band. From “crack whores” to “asshole sound guys” to “thirty-something year old drummers suffering from Peter Pan syndrome,” I feel I’ve got enough to write a whole novel. But we’ll just leave it as a webcomic.

I’ve decided to launch this webcomic on April 20th (HUUURRRRRRR 4/20). It will be updated every Friday by me. That’s right, I’m writing AND drawing this one, kids. So you all get to see my shitty artwork! Lucky you! So yeah, keep an eye out for that..

Welp, that’s about all I can say for now! Thanks for reading my pointless drivel, and stay tuned for more news!
- Josh

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RECAP: Tampa Bay Comic Con!

by admin on March 5, 2012 at 9:44 pm
Posted In: Convention Recaps!

This past weekend we hit up Tampa Bay Comic Con for another romp stompin’, knee slappin’, good ol’ time. We always set up a table at this con, mainly because it’s about 5 minutes away from our apartment. This was the first time, however, the show was more than one day. Traditionally, TBCC has always been held on a Sunday, three or four times a year. But not this time! We did pretty well overall, and we managed to get a few more fans! While at the convention we ran into a few of our friends, including Mike Wagganer, Stephen Wittmaak, Michael Banks, and Michael Duron. Those guys rock, so check out their stuff!

We decided to bring a video camera to record some of our experience. We took all of that obnoxiousness and put it in one neat little two minute and twenty-six second video. Check out the video to the right!

So yeah, that’s our video. I’m glad we’re starting to actually make use of our YouTube account. That thing was kind of just sitting there for a while, unused. Anyway, we took lots of pictures of the convention as well, so check out those photos in the gallery below.

At this time, we would like to thank everyone who saw us at TBCC. To anyone who came by our table, said hello, or bought something from us.. THANK YOU! It really means a lot, and you are what keeps us motivated!

The last thing I would like to talk about on this update is our most recent interview with WhyNotIndie.com! Last week were asked to be a part of an interview for the website, under their indie spotlight. Needless to say, we were ore than willing to answer their questions! They asked some pretty good questions, so hopefully our answers are equally good. To read the interview, go here or click on the link below!

That’s about it for now. Thanks for reading!

- Josh

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WELL LOOK AT US!

by admin on February 29, 2012 at 10:33 pm
Posted In: News!

Just a short update today. We’d like to share with you guys 2 videos of us that were posted recently on YouTube. The first one is our “Thank You” video for all of our Kickstarter backers who donated $8 or more to our campaign. I think I mentioned this in an earlier post, but I’ll reiterate: Kate and I are pretty awkward in front of a camera, so we decided to have a few drinks before recording to loosen up a bit. Hopefully we don’t come off as alcoholics. But maybe we do… whichever is cooler I guess. Click below to see the video on YouTube!

The second video is an interview we did at MegaCon 2012. A group of guys from Web Studio D came by our table and asked us a bunch of questions about Naughty Bicycle, and our webcomic Big Dumb Dog. Can you tell that we’re nervous? If not, then good.. cause we’re totally not. Anyway, after Kate declared she was a pirate, and Josh was a ninja, they went on their merry way and interviewed some more great artists at MegaCon. Check out their website! And click on the image below to check out our interview!


- Josh

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