metro monster

They say you shouldn’t count your chickens before they hatch, but that’s actually part of the job description! I hear they don’t pay too well though, just chicken feed. Too bad, that guy could use really the buck bucks. So, I guess the yolk’s on him. Ok, that’s enough. These jokes are getting really fowl. I guess I really laid an egg. Ok, seriously that’s enough. This strip is also on the Rhymes with Orange website and in newspapers across the country.

Oh, Steve. He just doesn’t know. Some silly wordplay in my third Rhymes with Orange strip. Find it on the Rhymes with Orange website and in newspapers across the country.

Here’s my second Rhymes With Orange strip which focuses on dog costumes. In our litigious society, even dogs need representation and who better than Lloyd Crimple, Dog Attorney? I drew my two dogs as the dogs in the costumes, Mischa is the larger one and the little one is Bucket. I apologize to anyone actually named Lloyd Crimple. You can also find the strip on the Rhymes with Orange website and in newspapers across the country!

This is the color version that’s on the Rhymes With Orange website, the black and white version is in the newspapers. Man, that table was hard to draw. The hardest thing for me to draw is a straight line. My mother-in-law laughed so this strip is officially funny. Also if Ikea wants to send me some free stuff, I won’t turn it away.

Hey everyone, I have some really exciting news!! This Monday, November 14, I will be taking over Hilary Price’s hilarious daily newspaper strip, Rhymes with Orange for one whole week including a color strip on Sunday! I’ve never had my work in the newspaper before and I am really excited/nervous. I’d like to thank Hilary for this great opportunity for my work to be seen by a bajillion people and Brendan Burford, my editor at King Features for giving me really good feedback and solid advice.

As far as the writing part went, I enjoyed coming up with jokes in the playful, off-beat style that Rhymes with Orange does so well. I have a similar playful/wacky side and it was nice to be able to stretch that comedic muscle.

One interesting challenge I ran into when drawing the strips is that I’m very used to organizing a gag more vertically than horizontally. The way I usually draw gags is with all the action taking place in the middle of the page, and either a word bubble on top or a caption at the bottom. Although Rhymes with Orange is mostly gags, it’s the same size as a regular newspaper strip, a rectangle longer than it is wide. I hadn’t ever really thought of gags spaced out that way so, I had to do a lot of rethinking as to where things went and did a lot of erasing and moving around. I even printed out one of Hilary’s strips at the same size as my original to make sure my text wasn’t too small, a concern of mine considering how tiny they get shrunk down.

I normally use a pen to ink my comics but this time I used a brush which took me FOREVER as I get all crazy and obsessive with making the line “perfect”. I’m kind of a slow cartoonist anyway so I have to thank my editor, Brendan Burford for being patient with me and also I’d like to express my awe that Hilary is able not only to keep up with the deadlines of a daily newspaper strip but also to be consistently funny every time.

Anyway, I hope people like my comics and they find their way on to refrigerators and bulletin boards across America, and thanks again Hilary!

Hey guys I’m at MIX this weekend, AKA the Minneapolis Indie Xpo. If you’re in the neighborhood, look for me at booth 84! I’ll be hanging out and goofing around! In this photo right to left Dan Wieken, Tom Kaczynski, me and my husband Jon Lewis. Photo by Neza S.G..

Here’s two non consecutive sample pages from my upcoming graphic novelette “Monster Mixtape”, which is being published sometime this winter by Robyn Chapman’s Paper Rocket Press. The comic stars Mreh- the same monster from the popular comic “The Many Strange Desires of Mreh”. Mreh is a normal monster living a normal monster life until she discovers the 80’s pop music of humans. It’s going to be pretty amazing and hopefully funny.

Oops! I forgot to post that I had another cartoon in the New Yorker. Here’s the link on cartoon bank. Fun fact: My husband’s name is Jon.

Did a reading tonight at Brooklyn Fireproof from my upcoming comic, Monster Mixtape which hopefully (haha) (help) will be done in the next few weeks in time for MoCCA!! (MESSAGE FROM THE FUTURE: this did not happen.) I had a great time reading with the talented ladies of Pizza Island and got to do fun monster noises.

My cartoon is in The New Yorker this week! Find it at the cartoonbank to get it on t-shirts, mugs, holiday cards, etc.