Calgary Comic Expo

Oh my goodness, the Calgary Comic Expo is only a day away! Attendees can find me at booth #601, which is a part of an entire island of webcomic exhibitors. I am bringing a truly ridiculous quantity of shirts, books and original art, and as always, I'll be doing free sketches and slightly-less-free polished drawings. I'll even have a few of the precious "Bat Fuzzy" limited prints that I saved for the show! So come visit. Good times will be had!

Sam and Fuzzy Q & A: Belated Monday Edition
Got a question you want answered? Just drop me an email with "Q & A" in the subject line!

"I'm a long time Sam and Fuzzy fan, and I've always wondered how you go about uploading comics to the site? Do you have a page template that you place each new comic into, then upload that as a new page to the site? Or is there a magical mysterious method that mortals cannot comprehend?" -Louis

Most webcomics folks use some sort of management script that automatically generates their archive and comic pages for them. I use a slightly modified version of a php-based system my friend Ashton coded, called Comikaze. Once you have it set up -- a job that admittedly requires either fair degree of coding knowledge or a willingness to learn -- you can just plug your comics and newsposts into a simple visual interface and let the script take care of the rest.

Another archive script a number of people use ComicPress, a system that rejiggers the Wordpress blogging system into a webcomic archive tool. But there are a lot of different archive scripts out there! And trust me... all of them are good alternatives to the madness that is manually plugging each comic into a page template. I used to do that myself back in year one, and... uuuughhhr. Thank God for Ashton!

"While I was reading the earlier comics, I saw the lyrics to the song I Will Eat Your Family by Noosehead. I then came up with a guitar line for the song. Would it be possible to finish the lyrics to that song please? You only had a few lines before. Stereotypical metal songs are fun to play." -Jacob

You know, back in the day, I actually wrote out a whole two minute song to go with those lyrics myself! I threw together a guitar riff part that Jeph was going to record for me, but he never really had time to learn it and we kind of abandoned the idea.

But believe it or not, those few words -- which you can find in the newspost way back here -- filled the pretty much the entire thing.

Anyhow, I heartily encourage you to craft your own song out of them, but trust me... those are all the lyrics you need. I think you underestimate how much time can be filled with incoherent screaming!

"I was just looking at the "Bat Fuzzy" print again, and it occurred to me: You've got Two-Face as a blankface ninja. But he's half white and half black! So we don't know which one! Is he Mr Blank or Mr Black?! I must know!" -Alon

The answer is simple, my friend! Clearly, in the Bat Fuzzy universe, Two-Face is both Mr. Blank and Mr. Black. It's like Fight Club, only with ninjas. (Which, upon consideration, would have been pretty awesome.)

"Bat Fuzzy" Limited Prints... Now on Sale!

Con Prep

Whew! I have thoroughly looted my supply closet and finished packing up all the swag I'll be bringing to the Calgary Comic Expo! Thanks to the Canadian airline industry's surprisingly generous free checked-baggage allowances, Shannon and I will be bringing three gigantic suitcases full of Sam and Fuzzy stuff... including many of the older t-shirt designs that seldom make it out to cons! I'll also have the usual assortment of books, buttons and original art. In other words, we will be nothing if not well equipped.

"Bat Fuzzy" Limited Prints... Now on Sale!


-Sam Logan

Calgary Comic Expo this Weekend!

In just a few days, Shannon and I will be flying out to the Calgary Comic Expo! We'll be in the webcomic island, sharing a booth with Alina, and completely surrounded by Ryan North and the dudes from Halfpixel and Least I Could Do. It's my first time exhibiting there -- or anywhere in Alberta, for that matter -- so if you can make it, come swing by!

Sam and Fuzzy Q & A: Belated Monday Edition
Got a question you want answered? Just drop me an email with "Q & A" in the subject line!

"Do you have any tattoos? If not, what kind of tattoo would you get?
ALTERNATIVELY
What is/are your favorite band(s)?" -Patrick

I am going to answer both of your questions, Patrick. Don't say I never did anything for you!

Body art is one of those things that I think looks really, really cool... on other people. I am a big fan of good, interesting tattoos, but I don't think you'll ever see me with one.

My favourite band that is still performing is probably Spoon! Sloan, Gorillaz, Ben Folds Five, Queens of the Stone Age, The New Pornographers and Reel Big Fish are some other groups I like... from the last decade or two, anyway. (The further back you allow yourself to dip, the harder it becomes to pick favourites!)

"What kind of music do you listen to when you're writing/drawing? Is it consistently one genre/group or does it vary depending on what you're doing?" -Brad

When I'm drawing, I can (and do) listen to pretty much anything. But when I'm writing dialogue, I need complete silence. I'm not sure why. I used to write whole term papers while listening to heavy metal, but these days even instrumental music completely shuts down my ability to put words together. I am getting feeble in my old age, I think.

"Where abouts did you grow up, Sam? I'm an Esquimalt kid." -James

Not far from you, really! I lived near Prospect Lake until I was five, then moved to the area around the University of Victoria, where I stayed (in various different places) until I moved to Vancouver with Shannon last year.

Victoria is a beautiful city, but the geographic isolation of living on an island can be very frustrating and -- when you need to travel as much as I do -- expensive. Living a couple of hours from the Seattle airport has been a huge help to my convention budget!

That's a wrap for today! Come back on Wednesday for the next part of our story.

-Sam Logan